z:\ ambedkar\vol-02\vol2-10.indd MK SJ+YS 21-9-2013/YS-8-11-2013 779
EVIDENCE : RIGHT HON. SIR SAMUEL HOARE AND OTHERS 779
expression “religion and religious usages”, because that is a thing in which I am so vitally concerned. I am just making the suggestion whether it would not be sufficient to use the expression “articles of faith” rather than the phrase “religion and religious usages” ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: I would have thought that articles of faith would have occasioned almost the same kind of controversy.
12,032. Sir Hari Singh Gour: More so ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: And the trouble of a new phrase of that sort, I would have thought, would have concentrated upon it more varieties of interpretation even than the old phrase.
12,033. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I suggest that as far as possible the word “usage” ought to be avoided ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: I will take note of what Dr. Ambedkar has said.
†12,751. Lord Rankeillour: Secretary of State, on that would not it be possible for the Central Government to carry out the contemplated orders arising out of Federal legislation and to charge the Province with the cost ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: There is no machinery for getting the money.
12,752. Lord Rankeillour: But the money for the Provinces comes through the Central Exchequer, does it not ?
Sir Samuel Hoare: Income Tax would.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: I think the answer to Sir Austen Chamberlain’s question may be given somewhat in this form. So far as the concurrent legislation is concerned, it is, I think, laid down in one of the paragraphs of the White Paper that any law in the concurrent field passed by the Federal Legislature will override a similar law passed by the Provincial Government. Consequently, if there was a conflict of law passed in the concurrent field between a law passed by the Centre and one passed by the Province, ipso facto, by the provisions of the White Paper itself the Federal Law will have an overriding force as against the Provincial Law.
Sir Austen Chamberlain: That is so. That is the point that I put earlier to the Secretary of State.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: That is I think the position so far as the legislation is concerned.
Sir Austen Chamberlain: So I understand.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: So far as administration is concerned, I think the position will be that the Federal Executive will have the authority to issue directions and instructions to the Provincial Government through the Provincial Governors with regard to the administration of a concurrent law passed by the Federal Legislature, and the Governors, I think, would be bound to obey them.
Marquess of Reading: That is exactly the point upon which the Secretary of State has given an answer in the negative.
†Minutes of Evidence, Vol. II-B, 10th October 1933, p. 1130.