India We write on the eve of Mr. Gandhi's arrival
at Simla. It marks the beginning of an important stage in the preparations for the second session of the Round Table Conference. If. the Federal Structure Committee is to meet in London in August—and we sincerely hope that it will not be postponed—there is much delicate preliminary work to be done in India. The meeting, summoned with unexpected but not unwelcome haste to Simla is fully attended, but official emphasis is laid on its informal nature. Even if it accomplishes nothing more than its ostensible objects of drafting a time-table and a programme, it will do much to fix in the public mind the conception of the second session as a reality of the immediate future. At home, we observed with the greatest satisfaction that Lord Irwin attended last Tuesday's discussion of Indian affairs with the Prime Minister and other representatives of the Government. There is no man in England whose advice is worth so much to those who are paving the way for the Round Table Conference. We only wish that those who are doing the reverse would pay some heed to it. Lord Irwin's remarks in a speech last week on the dangers of irresponsible comment on India in certain sections of the Press were as lamentably true as they were admirably restrained. * * * *
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