Recommendations in Montagu-Chelmsford report Chamber of Princes. Its importance Codification of political practice and attitude of Paramount Power Railways Strategic railways and important non-strategic railways Other railways Financial questions Mints and coinage Loans and relations with capitalists and financial agents Salt Posts Telegraphs, wireless and telephones Financial claims in regard to posts and telegraphs : Questionnaire issued by the Indian States Committee APPENDIX II. ... Letter from the Viceroy and Governor-General of India to His Exalted Highness the Nizam of Hyderabad, dated Delhi, the 27th March, 1926 ... ... APPENDIX III. Joint opinion of counsel for the Princes The cost of printing and publishing this Report is estimated by H.M. Stationery Office at £85; and the total cost of the Committee is estimated at about £16,000. INTRODUCTORY LETTER. To The Right Honourable Viscount Peel, PC, G.B.E., Secretary of State for India. MY LORD, Appointment of our Committee and terms of reference." We were appointed by Your Lordship's predecessor, the Right Honourable the Earl of Birkenhead, P.C., G.C.S.I., on the 16th December, 1927, our terms of reference being— (1) to report upon the relationship between the Paramount Power and the Indian States with particular reference to the rights and obligations arising from : (a) treaties, engagements and sanads, and (b) usage, sufferance and other causes; and (2) to inquire into the financial and economic relations between British India and the states, and to make any recommendations that the committee may consider desirable or necessary for their more satisfactory adjustment. Part (1) refers only to the existing relationship between the Paramount Power and the states. Part (2) refers not only to the existing financial and economic relations between British India and the states but also invites us to make recommendations for the future. Origin of enquiry. 2. The request for an enquiry originated at a conference convened by His Excellency the Viceroy at Simla in May, 1927, when a representative group of Princes asked for the appointment of a special committee to examine the relationship existing between themselves and the Paramount Power and to suggest means for securing effective consultation and co-operation between British India and the Indian States, and for the settlement of differences. The Princes also asked for adequate investigation of certain disabilities under which they felt that they laboured. 68495 A 3 Preliminary arrangements. 3. When our committee assembled at Delhi on the 14th January, 1928, we found that the Princes had no case ready. The Standing Committee of the Chamber of Princes had no permanent office or secretariat; many of the states had no properly arranged archives; and without prolonged search, the Princes said, they could not formulate their claims. Eventually it was agreed between our committee and the Standing Committee of the Chamber of Princes. that we should visit the states during the winter months and then adjourn to England where their case would be presented before us. Eminent counsel, the Right Honourable Sir Leslie Scott, K.C., M.P., was retained by the Standing Committee of the Chamber and a number of Princes to represent them before us. A questionnaire was issued on the 1st March, 1928, to all members of the Chamber of Princes and to the Ruling Chiefs entitled to representation therein and to the Local Governments in India. The questionnaire, which defines and explains the scope of our enquiry, forms Appendix I to our report. Tours and assistance given. 4. We visited fifteen states: Rampur, Patiala, Bikaner, Udaipur, Alwar, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Palanpur, Jamnagar, Baroda, Hyderabad, Mysore, Bhopal, Gwalior, and Kashmir. At each of these states we discussed locally and informally such questions as were brought before us. We also paid a flying visit to Dholpur. Altogether we travelled some 8,000 miles in India and examined informally 48 witnesses. We returned to England early in May, 1928. Their Highnesses the Rulers of Kashmir, Bhopal, Patiala, Cutch and Nawanagar, members of the Standing Committee of the Chamber of Princes, also arrived in England during the course of the summer and were present when Sir Leslie Scott in October and November formally put forward the case on behalf of the states which he represented. We desire to express our deep obligations to the Princes whose states we visited for their great, a traditional, hospitality, to express our regret to those whose invitations to visit their states we were unable to accept, and to acknowledge the unfailing courtesy and assistance which we have everywhere received from the Standing Committee, from the Princes individually, from the ministers and governments of the several states, and from their counsel, Sir Leslie Scott, assisted by others, and especially by Colonel Haksar, C.I.E. We desire also to acknowledge the ready assistance that has been given us throughout by His Excellency Lord Irwin and the Political and other Departments of the Government of India. |