The Maharajah of Bikanir, Lord Pentland and a number of Indians were present in the Gallery to-day [of the House of Commons in London on May 4] when [Secretary of State for India Mr. Edwin] Montagu moved the second reading of the Government of India Bill. Mr. Montagu said: In discharging the highly important task of which he fully realised the responsibility, he desired to avoid entering into details of, the necessarily complicated and technical measure the series of elaborate documents, with which he had provided the House and which he would assume the House had mastered, would obviate much technical disquisition. Recalling the origin of the Bill, Mr. Montagu remarked that it was suggested in some quarters that the Bill arose spontaneously in the minds of the Viceroy and himself, without previous enquiry or consideration under the influence of Mr. Lionel Curtis.
