ABSTRACT
This chapter establishes precisely why the princes rejected federation in June 1939 and whether there ever had been a serious possibility of the required number agreeing to accede. By 1939 the princes had conspicuously failed in their role as imperial allies. Their refusal to embrace federation meant that the British had been denied the means of transplanting a conservative element into the Indian constitution which would support the maintenance of British rule in India. Similarly, as Linlithgow’s comparison of Maxwell with Glancy and Latimer, and Glancy’s own comment about Wilberforce-Bell indicate, the inability of most political officers to deal with novel situations, caused by the repercussions of British Indian politics within the states, was due to the fact that the noninterference policy had either allowed or obliged them to lead an equally sheltered existence.
