members present may be deemed sufficient to carry a measure through the Council. Furthermore, as pointed out by Sir Sankaran Nair, the safeguard of the Imperial Legislative Council for all affirmative legislation and the powers of veto possessed by the Governor and the Viceroy to negative any act which is passed by the local Legislative Council and the power of Ordinance for urgent occasions would be amply sufficient.

THE PUBLIC SERVICES.

We feel bound to take exception to the proposal in the Bill that the main rights and duties of the services in India should be reduced to statutory form. The proper course would be to leave the Governments in India, acting with their legislatures to regulate their own services. And as a well-informed Indian publicist has pointed out in the columns of india it is an anamoly that a great Government should be compelled to conduct its administration with the aid of services regulated and recruited and safe guarded by outside authority. Such a position is incompatible with the very idea of authority." The correct view of the position has been thus stated by Prof. A. B. Keith in his able Memorandum affixed to the Report of the Committee on the Home Administration of Indian affairs::

As regards the public services of India, I am strongly of opinion that there are grave constitutional objections to regulating their conditions of service by an Imperial Act or by regulations made under it, thus withdrawing frem the legislatures of India the control of legislation regarding these services. Moreover it is essential in the interest of decentralisation that, as far as possible, the Secretary of State should abandon detailed control of the conditions of service of officers in India, and that changes in the existing conditions should be subjected to the criticism of the legislatures under safeguards against unjust treatment of members already in the services. The proposal to compel the Secretary of State in Council to create a Public Service Commission, and to assign to it such functions as he thinks fit regarding the public services in India, appears to me to be wholly incompatible with the fundamental principles of the reform scheme, and the proposal to provide by Imperial Act that no office may be added to, or may be withdrawn from, the public service, and that the emoluments of any post may not be varied without the concurrence of a finance authority designated by rules made by the Secretary of State in Council is, I think, an injudicious attempt to establish by legislation which cannot be varied by local legislation a principle of undoubted value, but one which cannot properly be given a place in an Imperial Act.

SPECIAL INTERESTS.

We must also strike a note of warning against any attempt to make any provisions in the Bill

on the "theory of divided interest." As Mr. Gandhi pointed out :

One cannot help noticing an unfortunate suspicion of our intentions regarding the purely British as distinguished from the purely Indian interests. Hence, there is to be seen in the scheme elaborate reservations on behalf of these interests. I think that more than anything else it is necessary to have an honest, frank and straightforward understanding about these interests and for me personally this is of much greater importance than any legislative feat that British talent alone or a combination of British and Indian talent may be capable of performing. I would certainly, in as courteous terms as possible, but equally emphatic, say that these interests will be held subservient to those of India as a whole and that therefore they are certainly in jeopardy in so far as they may be inconsistent with the general advance of India.

interests of India and

Indians very rightly I claim that where the England conflict the interests of India should not be subordinated to those of England; and Britishers should not forget what John Bright was never tired of repeating that the good of England must come through the channels of the good of India.

In the past it has been our melancholy experience that many a great scheme nobly planned has been shorn of its beneficence at the hands of the bureaucracy by the narrow and petti-fogging spirit in which they have been interpreted and worked; Parliament cannot be too careful in providing safeguards against "the hazards of bureaucratic jealousy." The Pronouncement of August 20 has justly been regarded by the educated classes in India as a pledge binding the Imperial Government in regard to its future relations with India. Mr. Curtis rightly warned the British public when he said, "Our danger lies in pledges being so framed that mere delay and failure to take the necessary steps forth with will expose us to a charge of breach of faith."

Hence the insistence by politicians of all classes and creeds that adequate assurance should be given that full responsible government shall be established in India within a reasonable period.

Indian Reforms: The Govt. of India Bill, 1919.— With the full text of the Bill, the Memorandum, Mr. Montagu's Speech and Sir Sankaran Nair's Minutes; Summaries of Southborough Committee's Reports, Government of India's despatches and connected papers: First Edition. Price Re. 1.

To Subscribers of the I.R., As. 12.

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H. H. The Maharaja of Bikaner. With respect to the proposed constitutional reforms it would be superfluous for me to speak of the wellknown and whole-hearted sympathy of Mr. Montagu and Lord Sinha with whom it was a very great pleasure to be once again associated and whose devotion to duty and loyalty and patriotism for India require no testimony from me. I, however, had several opportunities of discussing these reforms with Mr. Lloyd George and I had the pleasure of listening to Mr. Montagu's fine speech in the House of Commons during the second reading of the Bill. Although we shall probably encounter a certain amount of opposition to the reforms in certain quarters in England, it is my confident belief that the Bill will go through under the able leadership of Mr. Montagu and with the support of His Majesty's Government. (From an interview published in the 'Times of India').

Sir Prafulla Chandra Ray.

It is difficult to form an adequate idea of the Bill from the skeleton supplied by the Government of India. It is a matter for congratulation however, that some of the retrograde and reactionary proposals of the Government of India have not been accepted by Mr. Montagu. The most unsatisfactory feature of the Bill is that the Governor has been given almost unlimited power of certification even in matters of transferred subjects, as this is likely to curtail the power and responsibility of the Legislative Assembly. I welcome, however, the provision that not less than 70 per cent. of members will be elected and this I believe, will afford an excellent ground for the training of the electoral colleges. The ring of earnestness and sincerity in Mr. Montagu's speech in introducing the Bill in the House of Commons prompts me to hope that some at any rate of the objectionable features of the Bill will be eliminated when it becomes law. From the 'Bengalee.' The Hon. Mr. Surendranath Bannerjea

We are anxious that the Reform Bill should not be delayed in its passage through Parliament. The educated community of India desire that their views should be placed in the fullest possible manner before the joint committee which will probably be constituted in a few days.

There are two or three points to which I desire to call special attention. In the first place, there should not be any deviation in a reactionary direction from the joint scheme as formulated by Lord Chelmsford and Mr. Montagu; and, secondly, there should be some measure of responsibility in the Central Government. The message of August 20, 1917, makes responsible government the end and aim of British rule in India, to be attained by progressive stages of realisation. The scheme provides for such realisation in the provincial governments, but not at all in the Central Government, which will continue to be entirely bureaucratic as at present.

The Government of India in their last despatch make recommendations which amount to a whittling

down of the scheme in some essential matters. For instance, with regard to the Budget control by the Legislative Council in the provinces, the recommendations of the Legislative Councils will not be binding, as proposed under the joint report. This report made them obligatory upon the Government, except when the Governor in the interests of public peace and tranquillity considers it necessary to modify a resolution.

The control of the Budget is the crux of the matter, and educated India will deeply regret any depar ture from this important recommendation in the joint report, which was in 1918 supported by the entire Executive Council of the Government of India and the Council of the Secretary of State for India.

A good deal has been said about the impracticability of diarchy, which has been recommended in the joint report and finds a place in the Bill. Five provincial Governments are against it. Many things in practical politics seem at first to be impracticable, which, however, when put to the actual test are quite good in practice. For instance, the South African Union was considered to be an impracticability. It is, on the whole, working satisfactorily enough. How can there be the gradual introduction of responsible Government in the provinces without diarchy, without certain branches of administration being made over to popular Ministers who, though appointed by the Governor, would be responsible to the Legislative Council? Being placed in charge of distinct departments of the administration, with responsibility to the Legislative Council, they would acquire a training, and the diarchy is only a transitional arrangement which is to be replaced by full measure of provincial autonomy when the Commission to be appointed has pronounced it to be a success.

In truth we have a disguised form of diarchy even now under the present unified administrative system. There are members in charge of distinct departments which sometimes overlap one another, and there is no friction of any kind, and there will be none in the dual system, because the Governor will be the head of the whole administration and he will be in a position to co-ordinate the different sections of the administration and he will be at the head of the whole administration under the dual control system.

A great deal has been said in England against reform on the ground of our caste differences. The whole theory is grotesquely magnified. Caste differences you have in England also, although perhaps in a less stereotyped form. These differences are rapidly disappearing and, as Mr. Montagu said in his speech, democratic customs are engendered and stimulated by

democratic institutions.

They say the great body of our people are illiterate, but in the words of the late Sir George Birdwood, than whom there has not been

a greater

authority on Indian matters, the Indian peasant is the inheritor of the cultured traditions of his race,

extending over thousands of years, and he is,

generally speaking, as capable as any other peasantry in the world. [From an interview published in " The

Observer"].

Sir P. S. Sivaswami Aiyar.

Diarchy.

In view of the fact that the dualism of the executive is the basic principle of the Joint Report and the Bill and the difficulty of framing any scheme which will provide for real responsibility, short of complete provincial autonomy, there is nothing to be gained by pointing out the defects inherent in the principle of a dual executive, which are admitted by the authors of the Joint Report themselves. Public attention must, therefore, be devoted to the improvement of the scheme in other respects without attacking the very foundation of the whole scheme.

Transferred Subjects.

If there is any subject which satisfies the tests for transfer proposed in paragraph 238 of the Joint Report, it is Education. There is no ground for the assumption of the Government of India that the development and improvement of education would be too heavy a burden for ministers alone to bear. In view of the admitted failure of the policy of Government in the past and in the interests of a well-ordered and symmetrical development of education in all spheres, it is absolutely necessary to transfer the whole of education to popular control. The proposal of the Government of India to transfer primary education alone and to treat secondary, collegiate and technical education as a reserved subject is likely to lead to a conflict of interests between these branches of education and to a lopsided development of one branch or the other at the expense of the other. Education is far more likely to advance under the impetus of popular control than under official guidance.

The development of industries is another subject which has been cut out of the transferred list by the Government of India. The total inadequacy of the existing departments of industries, the lack of expert staff and definite lines of work, the scanty progress achieved by the departments of industries under official guidance and the indifference of the Government till the war to the necessity for making India a self-contained country as far as possible in industrial matters are all reasons in favour of transferring the subject to popular control. The argument based on absence of industrial experience can be used just as much against official control as against ministerial. Whatever expert advice it will be possible for the official part of Government to secure can and will be also utilised by the ministry.

There is no sufficient reason for not including the subject of land revenues among the transferred subjects. The assumption that the masses would suffer, if questions of land revenue were left to be handled by the ministry, is totally baseless. Notwithstanding the defects in the existing system of representation in the provincial legislative councils, the interest of the masses and the backward classes have been zealously looked after by the elected members of the legislative councils.

Separate Purse Condemned.

The allocation of provincial funds between the reserved and transferred subjects is left, under the

Bill, to be determined in accordance with rules to be made under the Act, The Joint Report contemplated a single coffer for the entire Government and a single Budget to be framed by the Executive Government as a whole. The amounts to be allocated to the two halves of the Government would be the subject of annual settlement by the Executive Government and the question of new taxation was to be decided by the Governor and the ministers. These proposals have been severely criticised by the Government of India in their Despatch of the 5th March and they recommend a system of separate purse for the reserved and transferred departments. It is unfortunate that the Bill should have left this question open instead of rejecting the proposal of the Government of India and adhering to the scheme outlined in the Joint Report. The proposals of the Government of India have been condemned by the public in no uncertain voice throughout the country. .

The separate purse system proposed by the Government of India will have the pernicious effect of dividing the house into two hostile camps each unmindful of the just claims of the other and anxious to aggrandise and benefit itself by extravagant expenditure. While the joint discussion and settlement of the budget by the entire government will have an educative effect in promoting a better understanding of the needs of all subjects by the different members of the Government and a spirit of compromise, the system proposed by the Government of India will have the deplorable effect of creating a feeling of antagonism between the interests of the reserved and transferred departments and will imperil the success of the Reform Scheme. The official half of the Government will be under a constant temptation to work up their expenditure to the full limits of their available resources even though the needs of their subjects do not expand at anything like the same rate as those of the transferred subjects. Far from being an evil the annual settlement of the allocation will have the advantage of apportioning the supply of funds to the precise needs of the year instead of allowing funds to be provided for a series of years either in excess of or below the actual wants. If the funds provided are in excess there will be a temptation to dissipate them to avoid their falling into the hands of the other half of the government. If the funds are deficient, either the needs of the departments affected must be starved or recourse must be had for fresh taxation. The advantage claimed on behalf of the separate purse system that it offers an incentive to either half of the government to develop its own resources, carries its own condemnation. It is obvious that the development contemplated is mainly by means of taxation. The proposal simply means that the people will be liable to be fleeced by two rival sets of tax gatherers each anxious to swell its own coffers. The proposal will defeat the third principle enunciated by the Government of India that during the transitional period the people must be protected from unjustifiable finance burdens. As observed by the Government of India themselves the success of any scheme of reform must depend upon the spirit in which it is worked by the persons who participate in the work of government. We have no right to assume that they will be unreasonable and introduce safeguards for all conceivable dead-locks on this assumption.

on the annual vote of the Legislature, for the salaries of high officers appointed directly by the Crown. These would be the head of the Government, the Auditor-General, the Executive Councillors, and the High Court Judges. We trust the list will not be allowed to go further in the rules that may be made for the purpose under this Bill.

Governor's Power to block Bills.

Sub-clause (5) invests the Governor with power to block the progress of a Bill, clause, or amendment after certifying that it affects the interests of a specified reserved subject. Now the power to block legislation is new to the Indian constitution. The non-official majority may, under existing rules, refuse leave to introduce a Bill; but if that majority is agreeable and lets a Bill go through, the head of the Government can only refuse his assent to it at the end. Why is it necessary to invent this extraordinary power to interfere with the Legislature? Let it be noted that this power is not applicable where the legislation proposed concerns exclusively a reserved subject or a transferred subject; it is to be exercised only in the case of "mixed" subjects. The anomaly cannot be justified except on ingenious grounds.

Salary and Status of the Minister.

Exception has been taken by every section of Indian opinion to the suggestion that the salary of the Minister should be determined in future by the Governor or other authority. In fact Indians are extremely sensitive on the question of the comparative status of the Executive Councillor and the Minister. If anything, the advantage and precedence should belong, in their judgment, to the latter. It is almost unpardonable ignorance or disregard of the feeling of those directly concerned to persist in the discrimination, see 3 (1). We fail to see any object in the provision. Indians will watch with the utmost jealousy any inequalities or disparities that may lie in the instrument of instructions to Governors. Let us hope that the draftsman of the instrument will remember this fact when drawing it up.

The Central Government.

In the forefront of our observations on the Government of India part of the Bill must be placed the view that some of its functions must be "transferred" to the legislature and entrusted to a Minister responsible to it. On this point all the deputations from India are agreed. They are convinced that it does not violate the Declaration of August, 1917, in the letter or in the spirit, but goes against one of the limitations laid down by the authors of the Joint Report without adequate grounds. We have not the space required for a full treatment of the subject; it has been argued at length in the Indian Press. It is complained that the whole matter of the popularisation of the Central Government is not only put off indefinitely but evaded even in the statement of the scope of the periodical commission for recommending further steps. The Bill does not meet this complaint at all, see 28 (2). The language used here and in 28 (2) is by no means satisfactory: responsible government is spoken of only in connexion with the provinces, not in connexion with the Centra Government. The point must be cleared up beyond doubt or controversy,

Indians in the Executive Council.

There is something in the argument that racial distinctions should not be made, if they could be avoided, in the terms of a statute. The one-half proportion. unanimously desired by the progressive Indian opinion, in the Executive Council of the Viceroy, will therefore have to be pressed when the rules come to be considered.

Governor-General's Power of Certification.

Strong exception must be taken to the very wide language of clause 20 (a). It deals with the power of Governor-General-in-Council to take away certain clauses of legislation from the scope of the Legislative Assembly and by certificate bring them within the sole jurisdiction of the Council of State. A law required for the safety and tranquillity of the country or any part thereof is fit matter for such treatment. But why should the same treatment be allowed to every law which may be essential "for the interests of British India or any part thereof"? We can hardly conceive of a law which will not come within the description. The Legislative Assembly could be made to die of inanition, if the Governor-General were so minded. The Joint Report used the words " good government," and people in India criticised even these as too comprehensive. What could have induced the draftsman to adopt the indefensibly wide language of the Bill? As regards emergency legislation, for which the same certification procedure is provided in 20 (a), let it be remembered that the Governor-General now has power to make ordinances which are valid for six months. The proposed Council of State legislation is therefore superfluous. If it be thought that the interests of the people would be better safeguarded by having emergency legislation discussed in the Council of State, which includes a certain number of elected representatives, than by having it passed as an ordinance by the Governor-General-a position which certainly is correct-then the ordinance power must be abolished. Where the emergency is of a nature that touches peace and tranquillity, the case is covered by the earlier part of the clause. Where the matter involved is public_money or a taxation proposal, it is proper to let the Executive take action first and then seek the ratification, in due course, of the Legislature, We are unable for this reason to support the provision in question for emergency legislation. On the whole, then, it seems sufficient to restrict the GovernorGeneral's power of certification to cases where the peace and tranquillity of British India or of any part thereof are involved.

The Services.

The next point is the question of the Indian Civil Service and other Imperial services. The rule-making power, it is proposed in 24 (2), may be transferred to the Governments in India by the Secretary of State within prescribed limits. This is satisfactory, so far as it goes. We trust, however, the aim will be to leave the Governments in India, acting with their legislatures, to regulate their own services. It is an anomaly that a great Government should be com. pelled to conduct its administration with the aid of services regulated and recruited and safeguarded by outside authority. Such a position is incompatible with the very idea of authority. The inheritance of the early days of the Company, however, cannot be