Talk:Arthur Creech Jones

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A fact from Arthur Creech Jones appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 23 April 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that as British Colonial Secretary, Arthur Creech Jones oversaw dominion status in 1948 for Ceylon?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/April.

Wikipedia

"First colony..."[edit]

Hi, I have been drawn here by the link under "Did You Know" on the front page today, which I think contains an error, which comes from this sentence in this article:

Ceylon was the first colony with a non-European majority to obtain its political independence.

I'm assuming that by "colony" this article means "British colony," but there's still a problem with it, which is that it isn't true: India and Pakistan became politically independent the previous year. No doubt it's true that Ceylon was the first non-white jurisdiction under the jurisdiction of the Colonial Office (which was Jones' department, after all) to get its independence, and you could make a semantic argument that the Empire of India wasn't a colony in the sense of being under the Colonial Office, but still: I think most people would consider pre-1947 India to be a colony (and to have a non-European majority to boot). --Jfruh (talk) 01:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

India was always under a distinct form of governance within the British Empire, while in legal terms never a 'Colony'. The way India was secured under British rule was complex but somewhat different to the way African and West Indian territories were colonised, and its administration was different. So I would say it is both a semantic and legal argument. While India was in wider terms "a colony", the limited space in a DYK? entry does not give an opportunity to mention it. Sam Blacketer 08:54, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All that is neither here nor there, surely. Ceylon was the first colony with the letter "y" in its name to achieve Dominion status, but that fact isn't interesting enough to merit inclusion in the article nor to be a DYK hook. Doops | talk 09:56, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I think that's a rather unhelpful contribution. Firstly, DYK? is a fast-moving template and the entry has gone, so arguing about that now is academic. Distinguishing between Ceylon and India/Pakistan is no mere semantics; India was always regarded as a special case within the British Empire. Ceylon was a Colony just like about 50 other territories across the world. It is clear from the research I did for this article that Arthur Creech Jones felt that it was an achievement to get dominion status for Ceylon because it did not have a majority European population, because he supported independence for all Colonies in the Empire. Sam Blacketer 10:07, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the point is that the vast majority of readers would consider pre-1947 India a colony; it fits the general defintion thereof, even if not the some strict legalistic definition that pertains only to the British Empire. The DYK item as written was very misleading. --Jfruh (talk) 12:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I think we're on the road to better wording now. The really crucial point isn't just clarity; it's relevance — we have to motivate for the reader why he/she should care that ACJ presided over the first non-white non-India independence; and the answer has to be something to do with the internal culture of the Colonial Office or something like that. Doops | talk 15:15, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Request for Comments[edit]

There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox on this and other similar pages.

The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion.

Please help us determine consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:03, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

1922 LCC election[edit]

"At the 1922 London County Council election, Creech Jones was one of the Labour candidates for Dulwich;.."

The article London County Council election, 1922 refers to ACJ as a candidate in Peckham, not Dulwich, so I have changed this article to correspond with that. The source of the information, London Municipal Notes, seems not to be readily accessible, so if anyone can find an opportunity to check with it, that'd be great. Harfarhs (talk) 16:08, 23 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]