Shrewd Offer

A suite of efficiently equipped business offices at New Delhi, the capital of British India, was occupied for the first time last week by the Seven Wise Britons who had come from London to report on the possibility of granting greater self-government to India (TIME, Feb. 13).

Straightway Sir John Simon, chairman of the Commission, famed Liberal barrister, sat briskly down at his desk, last week, and drew up an offer designed to conciliate 318,940,000 Indians, some thousands of whom rioted in Madras, Calcutta & Bombay last fortnight, in protest against the Commission and notably against the fact that no Indian sits upon it.

To still this latter protest Sir John Simon offered, last week, to take Seven Wise Indians into his company of Seven Wise Britons. The Indians, he proposed, could be elected by the Indian Legislative Assembly; and he pledged that they would receive in the Commission "equal status throughout the investigation."

Ensued, last week, furious dissensions among Indian politicians as to whether this offer should be accepted. Significant loomed a recent statement by the great Indian barrister Pundit Molital Nehru, executive leader of the Swaraj (NonCooperation Party). Wrote he: "I should prefer forced slavery to being a party to forging the chains to bind me. In this Commission there is nothing but a machine to forge the chains."

Until Indian opinion should crystallize the Seven Wise Britons sat in their offices figuratively twiddling their thumbs.