asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he will consider the amendment of the present composition of the Legislative Councils, which is limited to the few English-speaking members of the population, by adopting the proposal of Sir Prabashankar Pattani to recast the provincial distribution on a linguistic basis, the guiding principle as far as possible being one language one province?

I invite the attention of the hon. and gallant Member to the observations on a proposal of this nature in paragraph 246 of the Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms. My Noble Friend does not propose to initiate a redistribution of provincial areas.

Considering that the Indian Continent is, practically speaking, of the same size as Europe without Russia, with an equal population and similar divergencies of races and languages, does not the hon. Gentleman think that these races and languages should have a chance of working out their own self-government, instead of being all mixed up together as at the present moment?