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External Affairs and Communications should be included in the agenda of the proposed Conference.

Special Meeting of Princes on 25th July, 1947

78. The task of conducting negotiations with the Princes was entrusted by the Government of India to Lord Mountbatten, who was then the Crown Representative. Lord Mountbatten called a special full meeting of the Chamber of Princes on 25th July, 1947. (Appendix VI). In the course of his address His Excellency advised the Rulers to accede to the appropriate Dominion in regard to the three subjects of Defence, External Affairs and Communications, and assured them that their accession on these subjects would involve no financial liability and that in other matters there would be no encroachment on their internal sovereignty. At the end of the meeting His Excellency announced the personnel of the Negotiating Committee which was set up to negotiate on behalf of the States the terms of their accession to the Dominion of India.

Successful Conclusion of Negotiations

79. When one looked back upon the barren course of the protracted infructuous negotiations in connection with the scheme embodied in the Act of 1935 it seemed an impossible task to finalise the accession of the States within a reasonable period, particularly when there was no sanction of paramountcy behind the negotiations. It is worth quoting the Sapru Committee in this connection:

"The experience of the negotiations which Lord Linlithgow inaugurated and conducted between 1936 and 1939 do not encourage the hope that these consultations and investigations can be successfully concluded except with the exercise of infinite patience and after the lapse of several years. To hang up the federal Union of such units as are willing to federate until some State, or a minimum number of States, or the last hesitant State has agreed to accede would be a policy which is calculated to postpone indefinitely the elimination of foreign rule and the achievement of full self-government."

80. The impending transfer of full power to a National Government having the will and the sanction of the Indian people behind it, the personal contact between the leaders of public opinion in India and the Rulers of States, rendered possible by the withdrawal of the Paramount Power's previous policy of political isolation of States and the patriotic lead given by some of the leading Princes enabled the Rulers of States to appreciate