The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 56
56 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN the war when he was Prime Minister, I called on him and he was extremely kind to me. On each occasion he gave me the latest volume of his speeches as Prime Minister and inscribed it for me. This association of ours with the Joint Select Committee went on during the spring and early summer of 1933. It was interrupted by the usual English summer recess, during August and September, and we got together again in the autumn. During the interval, instead of going back to India, I accepted the invitation of the Royal Institute of International Affairs to be a member of the Indian delegation to the Commonwealth Relations Conference which was being held at Hart House, University of Toronto, Canada. That again was a valuable experience. These Commonwealth Relations conferences were initiated by Chatham House, the home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, located in St. James's Square in London, and a whole series of them have been held in various parts of the Commonwealth. This was my first experience of them. It was also my first visit to America. We crossed the Atlantic from Liverpool to Montreal in one of the Duchesses. They were such unsteady boats that they used to be called "the drunken Duchesses. " Our voyage was uneventful, and I particularly enjoyed the run between Quebec and Montreal, the greater part of which was through French Canada. The view of Quebec itself was very lovely and impressive and something quite new for us. The air seemed different in that part of the world. I found the Canadians a very kindly, hospitable and gracious people, both French and those of British origin. The Indian delegation was composed of Mr. (later Sir) Ramaswami Mudaliar, the late Mir Maqbool Mahmud, and myself. We had a young secretary, Mr. Yudhishtar Raj Wadheva. He was then studying for the bar in London, and I thought it would be a good experience for him to come along with us and work as secretary of the Indian Delegation. He did very well in that capacity. I took advantage of the few days that were still available before the conference to pay brief visits to New York, and to Chicago, where I had an engagement to address the World Fellowship of Faiths in the Morrison Hotel. This was my first experience of the United States, which was struggling to emerge from the Depression with the help of President Roosevelt's New Deal and it left me somewhat confused and bewildered. I conceived an extremely good impression of the people