The Indian National Congress meets to-day [August 29] in the Special Session in Bombay in circumstances of exceptional gravity. It has been convened by the Congress executive, the All-India Congress Committee, to consider the proposals of Indian constitutional reform made by Mr. Montagu, and Lord Chelmsford, and to express the collective opinion of educated India on the Report which has been published. It was the Congress that more than a year-and-a-half ago put forward, in conjunction with the premier national organisation of the Moslem community, a scheme of reforms which has captured the imagination of the people and forced the Government to bestow serious and earnest attention to the problem of political advance in this country. The joint scheme was justly claimed to be the minimum that was essential to render the government in India answerable to the people and place them on the road to self-government. It is right and proper, therefore, that the Congress should examine how far the alternative plan suggested by the Secretary of State and the Viceroy corresponds to its own scheme and to what extent it would, if carried out, remedy the existing administrative evils and facilitate the march towards the goal.
