government. As Mr Curtis says, the image of oligarchy is stamped on that travesty of an electoral system; and it would be deplorable if the same image were stamped on the electoral system that will make or mar the future advancement of India.

The Report rightly considers that the system of indirect elections should be swept away,' for under it there can be no genuine relation between the representative ultimately elected and the original voter. It recognises the need for a careful electoral survey of the whole country before any final decision as to the new system can be reached.

'We must measure the number of persons who can in the different parts of the country be reasonably entrusted with the duties of citizenship. We must ascertain what sort of franchise will be suited to local conditions, and how interests that may be unable to find adequate representation in such constituencies are to be represented.'

The problem is admirably stated; and doubtless the terms of reference for the Committee which is about to explore it during next winter in India will be drawn up on these broad lines. It will not be in any way bound by the pious opinions to which the authors of the Report have somewhat prematurely committed themselves on such an important point as 'communal representation,' i.e. the creation of separate constituencies for various communities, which, however important or however much entitled to make their voices heard, might be submerged in constituencies based solely on territorial representation. Communal representation' was conceded to so powerful a minority as the Mahommedans under the Indian Councils Act of 1909; and the MontaguChelmsford Report admits that it cannot now be withdrawn from them, and that it may have to be conceded to other communities, such as the Sikhs. At the same time it develops at great length all the theoretical arguments against the principle, viz. that it is opposed to history, that it perpetuates class division, that it stereotypes existing relations based on traditions and prejudices which we should do everything to discourage. But theories cannot dispose of the facts set forth by another contributor to this issue of the Quarterly

Review' in an article entitled Is India a Nation?' The 'politically-minded' classes are strongly opposed to communal representation. But it lies very largely with them to shorten the period during which it may be a necessary expedient, by endeavouring much more earnestly than they have hitherto done to remove the deep lines of ancient social and religious cleavage which still constitute the gravest obstacle to genuine democratic progress and national unity.

Even the limited measure of provincial self-government which the Report contemplates, merely as a first instalment, must inevitably carry with it some relaxation of the very close administrative, legislative and financial control-especially rigid in the matter of finance-hitherto exercised by the Government of India over the Provincial Governments. Few will quarrel with recommendations already to some extent anticipated by those of the Decentralisation Commission and by the Government of India Resolution of 1915. Many will think they might with advantage go further. They still leave large opportunities of interference to the Government of India.

More questionable are some of the changes which it is proposed to make at one and the same time in the Viceroy's Executive and Legislative Councils. The Report recommends the substitution for the existing Legislative Council-in which Lord Morley decided to retain a permanent official majority-of two chambers, a lower one, largely elective, to consist of about 100 members, and to be called the Indian Legislative Assembly, and a higher one with only 50 members, to be known as the Council of State, in which alone the official element is to retain a bare majority. The qualifications for election to the Council of State are to be settled later by the Governor-General-in-Council; and the Report merely expresses the hope that, inasmuch as the Council of State will be the supreme legislative authority for India on all crucial questions and also the revising authority for all Indian legislation,' it will 'attract the services of the best men available,' and 'develop something of the experience and dignity of a body of Elder Statesmen '-an expression presumably borrowed, but not very aptly, from Japan, where the

Elder Statesmen have had no doubt great influence, but never any constitutional status.

It would be even more futile to speculate on the character of the Indian Legislative Assembly, as the question of the franchise for it is left over to the same Committee which is to deal with the franchise for the Provincial Councils. The Report, however, itself anticipates the possibility of serious conflicts of opinion between the Assembly and the Governor-General-inCouncil, for it deems it necessary to arm him with the 'affirmative power of legislation' necessary to place on the Statute Book, after full publicity and discussion, 'measures essential to the discharge of his supreme responsibilities to which the majority of members in the Legislative Assembly are unwilling to assent.' That is one of the safeguards to be provided in accordance with the fundamental principle laid down in the Report that in all essentials the authority of the Government of India must remain beyond dispute, until India is ripe for complete self-government. But why couple it with the irritating farce of an official majority voting to order? The Report itself subjects the official 'block' to merciless but not undeserved criticism, as one of the worst features of the Morley-Minto Reforms, and rejects it both for the Provincial Councils and for the Indian Lower House. Yet it maintains it in the Council of State. Is that the way to develop in it 'something of the dignity of a body of Elder Statesmen'? or is the prestige of Government-to say nothing of its officialslikely to be upheld by seeking to disguise behind such a transparent fiction responsibilities which, whenever it is its duty to assume them, it should assume openly and unreservedly?

The appointment of another Indian member to the Viceroy's Executive Council is less likely to arouse opposition than the abolition of the 'statutory' restrictions by which the presence on that Council of three members drawn from the Indian Civil Service has been hitherto assured. It is scarcely conceivable that any Viceroy will consent to deprive himself altogether of the only advisers who have personal knowledge and practical experience of the working of the administrative machine. But, if this recommendation means anything more than

an ostensible and quite unjustifiable concession to the Extremists who have made the extrusion of the Civil Service one of the chief features of their rabid campaign against the 'bureaucracy,' it is in direct conflict with the whole spirit of the chapter in which the Report deals with the public services and upholds the retention of a strong European element 'so far in the future as any man can foresee.'

Subject to the above criticisms, the desire expressed in the Report to secure 'greater elasticity in respect both of the size of the Government and the distribution of the work' is no less reasonable than the desire to bring the Government into closer touch with Indian opinion by placing the Indian Legislative Assembly on a broader basis, while providing at the same time a counterpoise in a Council of State representing presumably more conservative elements, which will be still further strengthened by the institution of a Council of Princes as a permanent consultative body. Here the authors of the Report break new ground. They have wisely recognised that the effects of great constitutional reforms which can be enacted only for that part of India that is under direct British administration must necessarily react upon that other smaller but still very considerable part of India which enjoys more or less complete internal autonomy under its own hereditary rulers. A growing number of questions, and especially economic questions, must arise in future, which will affect the interests of the Native States as directly as those of the rest of India; and their rulers may legitimately claim, as the Report plainly admits, to have constitutional opportunities of expressing their views and wishes and of conferring with one another and with the Government of India. The Report even suggests that, on matters of common interest, the Council of Princes may be drawn into joint deliberation with the Council of State. These far-reaching proposals are and must be subject to the spontaneous and willing assent of the Princes, who are naturally very jealous of their own treaty rights; but they are conceived in a broad and statesmanlike spirit.

It is all the more remarkable that the Report, while admitting that the control of the Government of India

over the Provincial Governments, and also the detailed control of the India Office over the Government of India within the sphere to be set apart for the beginnings of Indian responsible Government, must be relaxed, appears almost to ignore the larger issues arising out of the exercise by the British Government of its control over Indian policy. It mentions, it is true, certain cases in which the interference of the British Government has been attributed in India to 'political exigencies at home.' But it scarcely realises how damaging to the authority of government in India is the impression produced when instructions from Whitehall compel the Government of India to defend and to carry out a policy which it may be generally known to have deprecated and opposed. When that policy appears, moreover, to be dictated by a narrow conception of home interests, not only the authority of the Government of India but the confidence of Indians in the good faith of the British Government is seriously shaken.

In his Future Government of India,' which is the most notable contribution from any Indian writer to a constructive study of the problem, Mr K. Vyasa Rao devotes a whole chapter to this aspect of the question. He points out, with concrete instances to reinforce his argument, how anomalous is the position of a Viceroy who is the personal representative of the King-Emperor and the responsible trustee for the interests of India, but who at the same time may be compelled to defend, without even being allowed to disclaim his own responsibility, a policy imposed upon him from Whitehall which he and his Government entirely disapprove. Mr Vyasa Rao urges, in fact, as the first preliminary even to provincial autonomy, some readjustment of these relations which shall secure a reasonable measure of autonomy to the Government of India. He disclaims any desire to see the essential supremacy of the British Parliament impaired, but there lies the rub; and that is doubtless the reason why the Secretary of State and the Viceroy have shrunk from propounding any radical solution of so real and serious a difficulty.

A practical remedy might be at any rate to give the Government of India a greater latitude in the initiation and public advocacy of the measures it deems necessary