Item 205 - Carbon copy of a letter from L. S. Amery to Sir George Schuster

1 single sheet

India Office.—The Viceroy (Linlithgow) does not think this the time for the kind of good-will mission suggested. Explains why he agrees with this view, and points out other methods which might be used to ease the deadlock.

(Carbon copy of a typed transcript.)

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Transcript

COPY

India Office, | Whitehall.
21st. November, 1941.

My dear Schuster,

I have just heard from the Viceroy that he does not think that this is really the time for the kind of good will mission suggested. He does not think it could do any good in the present situation and might even do harm. I am afraid I must agree with his conclusion. I fear that there might be every danger of the leaders of the main parties, short of a Government decision to accord Dominion status now, giving a public rebuff to the visit. As you will remember, your very friendly and helpful open letter last year met with a cool reception and Miss Rathbone’s earnest and sincere appeal only provoked the most violent criticism.

I imagine that both Gandhi and Jinnah might not only ignore the mission, but order their followers to do so.

On top of all this there is the terrific difficulty about securing priority for air passages.

Isn’t the best chance under present conditions of easing the deadlock to give Indians themselves the opportunity of creating credit for any constructive move—assisting them entirely sub-rosa, which might be done to some extent by people like Wint or Hodson or Coupland, and by reading your book {1}, but not by a Parliamentary mission which could not but attract attention, and might very well be suspected of being really a disguised official mission?

I don’t think you should assume that because the major deadlock is unsolved, and likely to be unsolved for some time to come, we are pursuing a purely negative policy. On the contrary, I cannot but hope that in actual working the new Executive and the National Defence Council will begin to exercise a very real influence on the outlook of India, and be increasingly contrasted with the purely negative attitude both of Gandhi and of Jinnah. In all these things one has, after all, to take time into one’s counsels. Incidentally time, in the shape of a German advance in the Caucasus or a Japanese invasion of Burma, may help the process of reflection.

I have telegraphed to Wint saying that we both think he had better go on with his investigations into Pakistan.

Yours sincerely,
(Sgd) L. S. AMERY

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{1} George Schuster and Guy Wint, India and Democracy: A Summary (1941).

Sent with 3/204.

This description was created by A. C. Green in 2020.