Aussie in Bengal

In Bengal, racked with post-famine epidemics, the Raj replaced the late Provincial Governor Sir John Herbert with handsome, able Australian Richard Gardiner Casey. The appointment of a Governor of war cabinet rank is a step in Viceroy Lord Wavell's attempt to make the British Government more effective and efficient.

The Pyramid.

The governors of Bengal, like those of other Indian provinces, are links between the Indian people and the British Central Government at New Delhi. The eleven major Provinces, through the 1935 Government of India Act, were granted popularly elected legislatures; the governors are usually British (only two since 1920 have been Indians) and are appointed by the Crown. In time of emergency, a provincial governor may overrule his legislature, answer for his acts to the British Viceroy. And the Viceroy can in turn overrule the governor.

For many reasons--some having to do with the complacent, ruling Indian clique, some with the procrastination of the British overlords--these successive steps were long delayed in Bengal. When the famine made Raj intervention an inescapable necessity, Lord Wavell first took a compromise course, persuaded Bengal to invite the Army's help in food distribution, care of the needy. But the military and political security of Bengal demanded a more permanent solution. Minister Casey's skill and prestige may be it. It is at least a recognition that the ultimate responsibility for India still rests with the British Government.

Man and Job.

Richard Casey is confronted by huge problems: the diminished but still acute famine, inflation, rationing and price control for Bengal's 60,000,000 Indians, a bad farm year, the immediate necessity of making Bengal a sound military base in the midst of frightful want.

Casey has had tough jobs, been in tough spots before. He was the first Dominion statesman to join a United Kingdom War Cabinet, had earlier been Australia's first Minister to the U.S. In 1942, Winston Churchill's invitation to Casey to join the War Cabinet raised a storm. Bluff Prime Minister John Curtin of Australia roared that Churchill had no right to loot Australia of its ablest foreign representative. Casey waited in Washington until the storm blew over, then shipped to Cairo as Churchill's Minister of State in the Middle East.

In Cairo, Casey's task was to weld the politically fermenting Middle East into a solid base for Allied troops. He did not attempt to solve racial problems. He did handle huge problems of economics and supply, thus had something to do with the success of the Allied North African and Mediterranean campaigns.

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