proposed giving the Indians at least some say in the ruling of India, a policy that Baldwin was prepared to support with reservations. Much to Rothermere's glee, the proposal for Dominion status for India fell through largely because the Indians could not agree on terms for Dominion status. Muhammad Ali Jinnah of the Muslim League demanded that Indian Muslims have the special status of a "state-within-the-state" together with a certain number of seats reserved for Indian Muslims in the projected Indian Parliament in the proposed Dominion to protect them against the perceived threat of Hindu domination, a demand that Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi of the Congress Party rejected. At the Round Table talks, a consensus emerged that the Raj would hence forward control defense, foreign policy, high finance, internal security, and the civil service along with the ultimate supremacy of London over India with other responsibilities such as health, transportion and education to be assigned to Indians. Through this was far short of independence, it was widely believed at the time that this was the first step towards Indian independence and generated much opposition from the "die-hards" opposed to the Indians having any role in ruling India. In 1930, Rothermere wrote a series of leaders under the title "If We Lose India!", claiming that granting India independence would be the end of Britain as a great power. In addition, Rothermere predicted that Indian independence would end worldwide white supremacy as inevitably, the peoples of the other British colonies in Asia, Africa, and the Americas would also demand independence. The decision of MacDonald to open the Round Table Talks in 1930 was greeted by The Daily Mail as the beginning of the end of Britain as a great power. As part of its crusade against Indian independence, The Daily Mail published a series of articles portraying the peoples of India as ignorant, barbarous, filthy and fanatical, arguing that the Raj was necessary to save India from the Indians, whom The Daily Mail argued were not capable of handling independence. Rothermere took a "no surrender" line in regards to India, using his newspapers and the United Empire Party to advocate no concessions to the Indians. Besides for his support for the Raj, Rothermere believed that the issue of India was Baldwin's "Achilles heel" that would bring him down as Conservative leader. By contrast, Beaverbrook was more interested in promoting a protectionist