Baldwin won a brilliant victory yesterday. A conference of the Council of the Conservative Party (attended by 1,500 to 1,600 members) was convened specially to discuss the Indian reform.

The reference is to Baldwin’s hope of helping India attain ‘dominion status’. Support came from Halifax and from Geoffrey Dawson, editor of The Times, but he faced fierce opposition from a militant section of Conservatives, led by Churchill and Croft and supported by the press magnates Rothermere and Beaverbrook. The joint select committee finally adopted a resolution stipulating the establishment of an All-India Federation with a central government, whose authority, however, did not extend to the vital spheres of defence and foreign policy. See L.S. Amery, My Political Life (London, 1955).

Baldwin defended the Joint Select Committee Report that guarantees a degree of self-rule to the provinces and establishes a limited central government on the basis of a federation of provinces and princes. The opposition, headed by Churchill, Lord Salisbury,

James Edward Hubert Gascoyne-Cecil (4th marquess of Salisbury), Conservative undersecretary of state for foreign affairs, 1900–03; lord privy seal, 1903–14 and 1924–29.

Page Croft

Henry Page Croft (1st Baron Croft), Conservative MP, 1910–40; undersecretary of state for war, 1940–45.

and others, argued that the new constitution meant abandoning the fundamental positions of British imperialism in India and agreed only to an acknowledgement of the self-government of the provinces. Once, the opposition was very strong and many believed that Baldwin’s position as party leader was teetering. Yesterday, Baldwin’s authority was strengthened as never before. The result of the vote was 1,102 for the government and 390 against, with a few abstentions.