five aspects of every Government worth the name: (a) The right of external and internal defence and all measures for that purpose; (b) The right to control our external relations; (c) The right to control our currency and exchange; (d) The right to control our fiscal policy; (e) the day-to-day administration of the land…. (Under the Act) You shall have nothing to do with external affairs. You shall have nothing to do with defence. You shall have nothing to do, or, for all practical purposes in future, you shall have nothing to do with your currency and exchange, for indeed the Reserve Bank Bill just passed has a further reservation in the Constitution that no legislation may be undertaken with a view to substantially alter the provisions of that Act except with the consent of the Governor-General…. there is no real power conferred in the Centre.' (Speech by Mr Bhulabhai DESAI on the Report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform, 4 February 1935). However, the Liberals and even elements in the Congress were tepidly willing to give it a go: "Linlithgow asked Sapru whether he thought there was a satisfactory alternative to the scheme of the 1935 Act. Sapru replied that they should stand fast on the Act and the federal plan embodied in it. It was not ideal but at this stage, it was the only thing…. A few days after Sapru's visit Birla came to see the Viceroy. He thought that Congress was moving towards the acceptance of the Federation. Gandhi was not over-worried, said Birla, by the reservation of defence and external affairs to the centre, but was concentrating on the method of choosing the States' representatives. Birla wanted the Viceroy to help Gandhi by persuading several Princes to move towards the democratic election of representatives. …Birla then said that the only chance for Federation lay in the agreement between Government and Congress and the best hope of this lay in discussion between the Viceroy and Gandhi".GANGULEE, The making of federal India, p. 165. Receptions Nehru called it "a machine with strong brakes but no engine". He also called it a "Charter of Slavery" Jinnah called it, "thoroughly rotten, fundamentally bad and totally unacceptable." Winston Churchill conducted a campaign against Indian self-government from 1929 onwards. When the bill passed, he denounced it in the House of Commons as "a gigantic quilt of jumbled crochet