A Vast Problem.

I would only add one thing. We have so many responsibilities in this House, so many important questions needing consideration, that perhaps India looms quite smally to many Members; but this problem to 315,000,000 of people eagerly awaiting, so far as they are politically educated, the decision of this House-to India this subject is all-important. Let no man join in this Debate, let no man accept the incalculably responsible task of helping-and we want help, it is a difficult enough problem to require helpof helping on the Committee unless he is prepared to go there constructively, and not destructively, to help on as perfect a plan as can be devised, and not with the intention to delay or thwart legislation, which, in my mind, and in the minds of the House, I hope, it is absolutely essential to carry out.

An Impatient India.

The second reason why I would urge the assistance of the House in the passage of the Second Reading to-day is the impatience-I think the legitimate impatience with which India is waiting a start upon the policy enuniciated now two years ago. That policy was announced, and this Bill was drawn up with a view to meeting existing conditions in India. Believe me, my experience of India, my experience of the Government of India now extending over something like six years' of office, make me confident that there is no more fallacious platitude, no more obvious fallacy than that which is on the lips of so many critics of Indian affairs,-that it is a country which never changes, a country which undergoes none of the emotions which other countries experience. old Indian friend of mine, who has been engaged upon public affairs in this country, who has been absent from his own fourteen months only, and who returned to it the other day, told me when last I saw him that he thought politically it was a different place to fourteen months ago. The War, the causes of the War, the objects of the War, the speeches of those who conducted the political aspects of the War have had their effect from one end of India to the other, and have even reached, as the documents which I published themselves show the Government of Madras.

The Pronouncement of August 20tb.

One

The pronouncement of the 20th August promised that substantial steps in the direction of responsible Government should be taken as soon as possible. There is no use for pronouncements that are not fulfilled; there is no use for pronouncements which take Doubts are already geological epochs to fulfil. It is suggested already-unworbeginning to appear. thily suggested, wickedly suggested, but still suggested-that we made the announcement and declared the intention of His Majesty's Government in order to secure loyalty from the Indian peoples during the War, and that now we have achieved victory we are not going on with our purpose. I only mention that to show that, in my opinion, as in the opinion of the Governor of Bombay, delay, inexcusable delay, unnecessary delay, would be fatal to our purpose. For that reason after two years' consideration of this problem I venture to suggest to the House that I have shown no undue haste in bringing this Bill before the House of Commons. First it used to be said, "Oh,

[JULY 1919

you must not introduce the Bill until the opinions of the local Governments have been published and we have had an opportunity of reading them." I promised the opinions of the local Governments, and the opinions of the local Governments have been published in accordance with that promise. To a very large extent they are irrelevant, because, despite the letters which have been published and the arguments they have used in them, they have produced, at a subsequent date, an alternative plan, about which I shall have something to say later on. But they are published. Now, when they are published, comes the new argument, "You are hurrying on the Second Reading of the Bill, when we have not had time to read the papers." So, first you say, "Do not take the Bill because we want the papers." Then, when the papers do appear, you say, “Give us time to read the papers." In other words, for the man who does not want to do something, the day on which you ask him to do something is always the wrong day.

Two White Papers.

I have published also, in order to avoid discussion to day, two White Papers. One White paper explains, as clearly and as concisely as I could do it, the actual effect of the Clauses of the Bill. The other White Paper shows what the existing Government of India Act, passed in 1915, will look like if these Amendments are made in it, for this Bill has been drafted with a view to automatic consolidation and the Government of India Act, 1915, embraces a very large number of Statutes. It is suggested that when this Bill has been passed by the Houses of Parliament it shall be automatically included in the existing Act, and will itself disappear as a separate Act. In order to see the effect of that process-the best form of legislation, I venture to think, when you have a previous Statute-I have published and circulated a copy. That, I hope, will avoid the necessity at this stage of going into details. A few more words I must say as to the form of the Bill. In the first place, it may be said-it has been said-that we propose to rely so much on rules and regulations under the Bill that the Bill itself is only a skeleton. I need not remind the House that there are many precedents for that procedure, in fact, in almost every Statute referring to the Government of India, I think that procedure has been adopted. But I would also remind the House that deliberately, of intention, in accordance with the terms of the pronouncement of the 20th August, this Bill does not pretend to give to India a Constitution that will endure. It is transitional; it is a bridge between Government by the agents of Parliament and Government by the representatives of the peoples of India. It must be in such a form that it shall be not static, but fluid-that alterations can be made in it from time to time, and that you should not form a rigid Constitution by Statute which could not be altered except by trespassing at intervals upon the over -burdened and over-mortgaged time of this House. Therefore we have resorted to the plan of precedent, of asking that details shall be accomplished by rules. Let me hasten to add that this is one of the points upon which I approach this problem with an open mind. If there is anything in which it is suggested should be done by rule which the House would prefer to be done by Statute, let us by all means, in the Com mittee stage, incorporate it in the Statute, althoughi

let us try at the same time to avoid rigidity, which I believe, would be fatal to our purpose. I would add also that it is not our intention to prevent the control by Parliament of these rules and regulations. The Bill provides that they shall be submitted to both Houses. The principle which it is intended to embody in these rules it is intended should be submitted to the Joint Committee which it is proposed to be set up, and the policy of the rules, if not the actual wording of the rules, will therefore be carefully considered at the same time as the Bill itself. I regard that as essential. It has always been said that the Morley-Minto Report was largely by the rules made under it. I am not at the moment prepared to argue whether or not that is so, but I want on this occasion to avoid any possibility of that charge being levelled. Therefore I hope that Parliament will not lose control of the Bill until the policy which is to be embodied in the rules has also been laid down by Parliament.

The Bill

I come now to the Bill itself. What I would like to do, if I may, is to start afresh and try to take the House with me, if I can and if it is not too ambitious a project, in realising that if you start from the place where the authors of this Bill started, the form of the Bill and the recommendations of the Bill are inevitable. Where did we start? We started with the pronouncement of the 20th August, 1917. I propose to ask: Is there any body who questions to-day the policy of that pronouncement? It is no use accepting it unless you mean it; it is no use meaning it unless you act upon it; and it is no use acting upon it unless your actions are in conformity with it. Therefore I take it that Parliament, or at any rate this House, will agree that the policy of the pronouncement of the 20th August must be the basis of our discussion-the progressive realisation of responsible government, progressive realisation by degress, by stages, by stepsand those steps must at the outset be substantial. That pronouncement was made in order to achieve what I believe is the only logical, the only possible, the only acceptable meaning of Empire and Democracy, namely, an opportunity to all nations flying the Imperial flag to control their own destinies. [An Hon. Member: Nations!"] I will come to nations in a moment. I will beg no question. The Hon. Member raises the question of nations. Whether it be a nation or not, we have promised to India the progressive realisation of responsible government. We have promised to India and given to India a representation like that of the Dominions on our Imperial Conference. India is to be an original member of the League of Nations. Therefore I say, whatever difficulties there may be in your path your Imperial task is to overcome those difficulties and to help India on the path, of nationality, however much you may recognise and I propose to ask the House to consider them-the difficulties which lie in the path.

Supposing for a moment there are those who consider that Empire has justified itself when you give to a country satisfactory law and order, adequate peace, decent institutions, and a certain measure of prosperity under the defence that you have provided; supposing, in other words, there are people who believe that you have fulfilled your mission when you have run the country as an estate, and not as a country at all; even then, approaching it from the other point, there

are large proposals in this Bill which command assent from them. There are the proposals for devolution, the proposals for decentralisation. I have heard no critic in these two years who has not told me that it is absolutely essential to get greater freedom for the Government of India from the India Office. I have hardly met a critic who has not told me that it is absolutely essential for the local Governments to get more freedom from the Government of India. I think that is agreed. I do not think that anybody questions that, from the point of view of administrative convenience, if on no higher grounds, Government by dispatch, with all its cumbrous machinery, all its necessarily delaying methods, all the difficulties attending, upon considering and reconsidering plans and projects over thousands of miles of land and thousands of miles of sea, all that ought to be got rid of. I ask Parliament to assent to this proposition, that you cannot get rid of it unless you substitute something else for it. Now and to-day you cannot have a government more bureaucratic and less dependent upon Parliament, without being dependent upon, anything else, than you have at present. The only possible substitute for government by dispatch is government by vote. The only possible way of really achieving devolution and making the unit, when you have chosen the unit, responsible for the management of its own affairs, is to make the Government of that unit responsible to the representatives of the people. If you simply say, "Let us have an irresponsible Government in a province, and let the Government of India not interfere and the Secretary of State not interfere, and Parliament not interfere, you have a policy which is merely the enthronement of bureaucracy and the very negation of the progressive realisation of responsible government.

Unit of Government

Therefore, I go a step further. In order to realise responsible government, and in order to get devolution, upon which there is general agreement, you must gradually get rid of Government by the agents of Parliament and replace it by Government by the agents of the representatives of the peoples of India. In other words, you have to choose your unit of Government, and you have got in that unit to create an electorate which will control the Government. What is the unit that you are chosing to be? Some people would say, let us be content with the unit of the local Government area-the Parish Council (I am not using terms of art, but terms which have significance for this country), the county council, the rural district council, the municipalities-in other words, that you should give responsible Self-Government in the area of local Government. That is already being done under the terms of the Joint Report, but that is not enough, for two reasons. The first is this: The policy of complete local Self-Government was adopted by Lord Ripon in 1883, and we are now proceeding to carry it out, after a delay of something like thirty-five years. It is not enough to answer the new conditions arising out of the world War by fulfilling a promise made thirty-five years ago, and therefore that is one reason why you must give something more than local Self-Government. But there is another reason. You are not writing on a clear, clean slate. You are writing, and rightly, in continuation of chapters which have been written before. You are building on foundations that already

Committee proposes to do. That is what the India Office Committee, and that is what the Government of India and ourselves in discussion in India came to the conclusion was inevitable-to separate the functions of government, to transfer some, to reserve others, and to proceed by gradually taking the functions that are at present reserved and transferring them. Having decided that certain functions are to be transferred and that other functions are to be reserved, the question next to be decided is, What is the form of Ministry that you will set up to conduct them? Is it to be one or is it to be two? I submit with great confidence to the House that immediately you try and preserve one Ministry, always acting together and sharing responsibility for all acts, you obscure the lesson of responsibility. Let us take a particular reserved function-say police—and a particular transferred function-say education. You say, "It is our intention that the people shall have their way at once in education. It is our intention that, as far as police is concerned, for the moment those who administer it shall carry out the wishes of the Houses of Parliament as the trustees of the Indian people." If the man in charge of education and the man in charge of Police are both equally members of the same Government, each sharing responsibility for the acts of the other, both equally responsible for police and education, the one or the other may at any moment have to carry out a policy of which he does not approve. The man responsible for this House may have to carry out an educational policy of which he does not approve. The man responsible to the Indian electorate may have to carry out a police policy of which he does not approve. If you separate the two functions, if you separate the Government into two parts, when a man who is responsible for education goes to his constituency, he says "It is quite true that I have carried out a certain education policy. That is quite right. I am answerable for that, and I am prepared to defend it. With regard to police policy I am not responsible. I am there only in a consultative capacity, with no direct responsibility at all. Your only way of modifying the police policy is so to show the House of Commons the excellence of the way in which you have used your educational policy, so that in ten years' time they will transfer to you the police policy too, but at present my responsibility ceases with the transferred subject." By that means, it seems to me, you can make clear, both to the electorate and to the individual who exercises power on behalf of the electorate, the extent of his responsibility, and in no other way. The logical sequence to that form of argument would be that you would have two Governments completely separate in the same area, with separate funds, separate finances, separate Legislatures, separate executive staffs. I would suggest most respectfully to the House that that is impossible, and for this reason. I cannot reiterate too often that the basis of this whole policy is its transitional nature. You want to lead on to something else at the earliest possible moment. If you have two Houses, with two staffs, two purses, the net result would be that the people concerning themselves with transferred subjects would never have anything to say on reserved subjects. But if reserved subjects are to become transferred subjects one day, it is absolutely essential that, during the transitional period, although there is no direct responsibility for them, there should

be opportunities of influence and consultation. Therefore, although it seems necessary to separate the responsibility, there ought to be every room that you can possibly have for consultation and joint deliberation on the same policy, and for acting together for the purposes of consultation and deliberation, as the Bill provides, in one Government.

Colonel Wedgwood:-And criticism?

Mr. Montagu:-And criticism. This procedure would be absolutely indefensible if it were not for the fact that it was transitional, and if it were not for the fact that at stated periods it is proposed to hold a Parliamentary inquiry into its working, with a view to further stages. By that means there is a certain method of progress. By that means everything that happens will come under review, and the attitude adopted by each part of the Government to the affairs of the other part will be one of the prime factors in the decision of the Commission that reviews.

I have dealt now with the local governments and the way in which the scheme is evolved. I know it is a very hard thing. I know that it is more than difficult to explain so complicated a procedure, particularly for one who has been saturated for two years past with this sort of argument and discussion. But I have endeavoured as shortly as I possibly could to portray the arguments once again. They are portrayed in the memorandum which I have issued, and the Government of India's dispatch, which have led up to this Bill. I do not think the time has yet come for a similar movement in the Government of India. I think that there we must take the step of one stage only, namely, to make the Legislative Assembly more representative, to give it greater power of influencing and criticising, but not, at this moment, of responsibility; and we must make the Government of India itself more elastic in its composition, less stereotyped, by altering certain of the statutory provisions which govern its executive formation. We must also add to its power of dealing with its own work, because we relieve it of the necessity of controlling a large number of provincial functions. In so far as the Provincial Government has got to defer to its Legislature by Statute, that is to say in transferred subjects, you have a Government which is responsible to the electorate. Therefore there is no necessity to control it by the Government of India, and you get the devolution which the men who want to perfect administration desire. Therefore the Government of India will not be concerned, generally speaking, with transferred subjects, and the Secretary of State will not be concerned with transferred subjects. Therefore, this House will not be concerned with transferred subjects. Therefore, so far as transferred subjects are concerned, we shall have parted with our trusteeship and surrendered it to the representatives of the people of India. There is much more to be done with the Government of India. We have to release it from unnecessary administrative control by the India Office, and for that purpose, incidentally to this Bill, I am awaiting the details of Lord Crewe's Committee's Report, but so far as that is concerned, most of its recommendations, except as regards the composition of the Council, will be administrative and not statutory. At the same time, as was mentioned in the Joint Report, there is very much reason to believe that the secretariat system wants reconsideration and overhauling. I think it is understaffed, and I do not think it is modelled for

the transaction of the complicated business which falls to the office at the present moment. The House will be glad to learn that Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith, one of the most experienced British Civil Servants, has been good enough to accept my invitation, given to him on behalf of the Government of India, to visit India to consider the secretariat arrangements in the Government of India, and Sir George Lloyd has also invited him to consider those of Bombay.

Colonel Wedgwood: Does that include the staffs of Ministers who deal with transferred subjects, or will they arrange their own staffs?

Mr. Montagu: Ultimately, of course, the Ministers will arrange their own staffs, but I want them at the moment to take over their Departments as going concerns. The question of the secretariat, however, is for the Government of India primarily, and nothing else.

Alternative Schemes.

Before I sit down, there are some very important matters with which I must deal. The first is that of the alternative schemes which have been presented and which have been rejected in this Bill. There is the Congress and Muslim League scheme. I will not detain the House with the details of that. It was prepared before the pronouncement of the 20th August, 1917. It does not attempt to realise responsible government, but it leaves an irremovable executive at the mercy of a legislature which can paralyse it but not direct it. I do not believe that this House will ever agree to set up a constitution in India which will leave an executive, that is not removable, at the mercy of a legislature which cannot control it. Much more formidable is another alternative proposal, which comes from the heads of the Although I majority of the local governments. cordially agree with the Government of India in rejecting this proposal, I hope the House will believe that I do not under-estimate its importance. It is the work of no arm-chair crities. It is the work of the most experienced administrators in India. It is the work of men who are entitled above all others to have their opinions carefully weighed, and, although I believe them to be wrong, and desire to show why I believe them to be wrong, and that we shall have to argue this in Committee, yet it is with no sense of disrespect to them that I challenge their conclusions. It is a powerful array. The Government of Madras had no part or share in the elaboration of this alternative proposal. Yet the Governor of Bengal, Lord Ronaldshay, and the Lieutenant-Governor of Bihar and Orissa, Sir Edward Gait, preferred the scheme of the Bill and the Joint Report. That is the position. But although I do not want to discredit them, I want to suggest that really their views are accidental in this sense, that it must not be assumed that whatever the composition of those Governments and whoever had been their heads, the same results would have ensured. For instance, the Chief Commissioner of Assam prefers the scheme of the majority of local governments. But the late Chief Commissioner of Assam, who left only a few months previously-he came home about a year ago—would have preferred, I know, the scheme of the Joint Report and the Bill. The present Lieutenant-Governor of the United Provinces prefers the alternative scheme of the local governments, but his predecessor would have preferred the

scheme of the Joint Report. A great deal depends upon personality.

But although these gentlemen are entitled to give a very weighty opinion, they are not unprejudiced. Where men have grown up under a system they do not like to see it altered. Their proposal is the existing system with another man added to the Executive Council. Nothing much worse than the Morley-Minto scheme-an alleged unity of Government, because onehalf of the Government is in their own words "necessarily influenced by the opinions of the Legislative Council," and the other half not. And there is no certainty of control by the legislature because on all subjects, if the Governor certifies it is in the interests of his province, he can override it. It is the same system with just another Indian member added to the Executive Council.

The Place of the Civil Servant,

Let me put it to this House. After all, the Civil Servant in India is not very different from the Civil Servant in this country. Whoever heard of a political reform in any office in this country coming out of the Civil Service. This House is the place for political reform. You will never get it carried out by the Civil Service. As time goes on, that service must carry out the wishes of those who dictate the policy. It must be first in this House, and ultimately in India, that that policy with the Civil Service is to carry out must be dictated to it.

Colonel Yate: Why did you send Sir Llewellyn Smith to make reforms in India? Is he not a Civil Servant?

Mr. Montagu: I am very much obliged to my Hon. and Gallant Friend. His intervention in Debate is always valuable. He has given me the opportunity of pointing my argument. I am using a Civil Servant to advise me on administrative changes as to how the Secretariat can carry out most efficiently the orders and wishes of its political superiors. That is exactly the function of a Civil Servant. And this is what ultimately, when India is a self-governing country, I hope to see the position of the Civil Service. It is quite true that in what I have said about the local governments' alternative plan I have included Lord Willingdon, because, although he is not a Civil Servant, and although he has a plan of his own, he would, I am certain, have preferred the plan of the majority of local governments to the plan of the Bill. But then Lord Willingdon prefers to rely upon those qualities which he possesses, which made him an astonishing success in the Government of Bombay. He brings all the qualities that ensure for him great popularity and all the qualities which made him in this House a successful Whip. He says, in effect, under a Governor such as Lord Willingdon a more elastic arrangement would be far preferable to the arrangement of dyarchy, of the Bill.

Under the scheme as we propose it to this House, if in any province a governor can so influence his advisers and there are governors and governors, and lieutenant-governors and lieutenant-governors-if the circumstances of a particular province make it pos sible, there is nothing in the Bill which would prevent a governor trying to discharge all the reserved functions as if they were transferred. He can call his Government together and say, "I do not believe much in this dual form of Government. Let us see if we