have the effect, not so much of transferring power, as of paralysing it, and rendering government uncertain and ineffective.

Keeping these conditions in view let us begin our examination from the top. Membership of the Executive Council is the highest position below the Governor; for the last five years there has been an Indian member in all of the Executive Councils. One demand is for the increase of such members. To put them in a majority would practically be revolution; but, short of that, the addition of one member would still leave the Governor with an official majority, even if one of the two Civilian members were retrenched. The strongest objection to this, one which will certainly not escape any one experienced in Indian Government, is that to put the Indian members in a majority of one over, or even on an equality of number with, the official members (leaving the Governor out of the count) will place the Governor in a position so strained and delicate as to be intolerable. Put briefly he can at present avoid taking sides, except when he sees that the Indian has too strong a case to be ignored; in the other possible conditions he would have to form an opinion and take sides on every small question which was brought up, and that is too much to expect of a man without local experience. For a Lieutenant-Governor it would be less difficult, but he too would have the odious position of being constantly in opposition to his Indian colleagues. The position is impossible until the Indian members can be given such a degree of responsibility as will keep their demands within bounds. tendency of the existing system being already towards the undue development of the critical faculty without concomitant responsibility, it is undesirable to make a change of which the main effect would be to intensify that tendency. If increase of numbers is barred for the present can anything be done to make the existing membership more representative and acceptable? Election has been suggested, and it has been objected, reasonably perhaps, that the Governor should not have a colleague forced upon him.

The

Perhaps it would be a real advance if, while selection were left to the Governor, it were understood that he would ordinarily and whenever possible select from amongst the elected members, and would do so in a way to represent average opinion. This proposal is not without its difficulties. In the United Kingdom certainly there is generally one outstanding leader who must be summoned to form a

ministry, but in countries with a less clearly defined party system it is frequently a question which of several leaders will be best able to undertake the duty. The member so selected could hardly be placed in any position of direct dependence on his continuing to represent a majority of opinion, e. g. he could hardly be turned out on a vote of 'No Confidence'. One reason is that the principle of secrecy as to Executive Council decisions would prevent its being known how far he was responsible for decisions unpalatable to the majority, while he could hardly be expected to resign each time that he came into conflict with the official majority of the Executive Council. With all its drawbacks, however, this step may be recommended for consideration. The tendency at present is to look for safe men, or men of proved ability in administration. Something would be gained if the selection had to be whenever possible amongst the representatives of popular opinion, and it would be a good thing also that practical experience in administration should be acquired by some of these. So far as Bengal is concerned there is no reason to think that with the condition contemplated the men obtainable would be at all inferior to those hitherto appointed.

§ 2. Taking next the Legislative Council: Its composition. has been analysed above. There is now an elected majority which is likely before long to be further increased when constituencies can be devised for two interests which are at present represented by nomination. It is true that this majority is only effective if the whole of it acts together, or if as many nominated members act with it as elected members secede from it. In Bengal the Indian nominated members do commonly act with it. On the other hand it can usually be neutralized if all the European members side with the officials. This may be galling to the Indians, but in the conditions of Bengal it is not unreasonable. The great bulk of the enormous trade and industry is in the hands of Europeans. There is no artificial bar to the progress of the Indian in these fields, as his success in Bombay sufficiently establishes; but the genius of the Bengalis has not yet run in this direction, and, as a consequence perhaps, the popular leaders are by no means sound on economic subjects according to Western ideas, and if the Europeans were not in Council to protect their own interests they might conceivably sometimes fare badly. Fuller representation might be obtained by increasing the number of the Council, but this cannot be done until power is made over unreservedly

to the majority, for the official numbers can hardly be further increased. It is doubtful indeed whether for the moment any considerable increase of numbers is desirable. The intellectuals' are already very fully represented by lawyers and editors very much of one type and cast of opinion; and, before any considerable increase is arranged, it would be well to see whether any modification of the elective system would produce at least some members more truly representative of the smaller landowners and well-to-do traders who are numerous in Bengal.

It has already been remarked that the system of election by the non-official members of District Boards and Municipalities does not give satisfaction to advanced opinion. These bodies certainly formed convenient ready-made constituencies, and, probably, they contained the men who would have been elected under any system which required that the representative should have a local connexion, but from the point of view of giving any real measure of popular representation they are altogether too indirect. The elected members of the various boards, perhaps two-thirds of the whole, may have been elected years before the Council election. It is highly improbable that in connexion with their own candidature any question of Council politics has ever been raised, nor would it be desirable that municipal elections should turn on Council politics; municipal affairs would suffer, and the franchise is absurdly low even for municipal purposes. It would probably be an advantage if, instead of, perhaps, 20,000 people in a district being represented in so indirect a manner that they have no practical voice in the matter, 1,000 or 2,000 were represented directly. The franchise would be based on payment of cesses in the country and rates in towns, and should be fixed at a level which experience would suggest as giving a fair proportion of literacy and intelligence. There might be alternative professional or educational qualifications. Such direct representation is possible because it already exists for Mohammedans who are entitled to vote for their representatives upon a small but not insignificant property franchise. That the Mohammedan should have a direct vote for a member of Council while he has not, is already a loudly proclaimed grievance of the Hindu. With an increase of direct representation the elective system would at once obtain a more respectable character since the actual voters would be multiplied enormously. If it be decided to make any further increase in the numbers of the Legislative

Councils, it certainly seems that the most reasonable and also the safest course would be to give most of it to persons directly elected by voters with a property qualification. The constituencies and the persons chosen by them would speak for a class which comprises the largest and possibly the most conservative interests in the country. The objection which might be raised that the smaller municipal and district board voters would be disfranchised would be purely academic, since this class has as yet acquired no scintilla of interest in the matter. The arguments for reform in the election of two of the largest classes in the Council apply equally in the case of the representation of the Calcutta Corporation and University, which is organized on the same indirect system without any increase of strength to Government, but which causes considerable popular discontent.

It should be clearly understood that any standard of enfranchisement which can reasonably be contemplated will give but a small number of voters in proportion to total population. Comparatively few can exercise any real political influence, and the result will probably only give one voter amongst several hundred people.

§ 3. Supposing that we have obtained a Council as representative as existing conditions will allow, the next question is what additional share in the Government we can give it. So far as the legislative function goes we have already been liberal. We have now to consider what functions of an administrative character can be given. Here we shall find ourselves closely hedged in by limitations of two classes. The first consists in the fact that there are important branches of the administration with which at present no Indian administrator would agree to the Legislative Council meddling, the second in the exceeding difficulty of finding fresh revenue for new enterprises. The most dangerous examples of the first class, the Army and the Railways, are protected by being under the direct control of the Government of India, but there are others of which it will suffice to instance the police. This department is excessively unpopular, and even those who might be expected to speak with a sense of responsibility will produce hare-brained schemes for dispensing with its most important functions or performing them by amateur effort. It would be necessary to protect this and probably many other departments from dangerous experiments by the Legislative Council.

The prestige of the British connexion depends more than

anything else on the maintenance of public order and security, and it is impossible that any branch of Government, the efficiency of which is considered vital to this object, should become the subject of rash or amateur experiment. It is because of the need of the strong hand in some parts of the field of Government that the autocratic system continues, although over wide ranges a much more liberal system might be both safe and desirable.

Where it is necessary to protect departments from rash interference the only apparent means of doing so is to withhold control of supply. The least safeguard that could possibly suffice would be for Government to retain the power of continuing the supply for such departments from one year to succeeding years. To this course, however, there are the gravest possible objections. The saving merit of our present system in India is efficiency. Law, at any rate, is enforced and order maintained. But the efficiency of a Government which cannot revise its estimates and bring them up to date in harmony with contemporary needs will rapidly be undermined. To enable elected members to refuse a revision of estimates year after year would mean giving them the power to deprive the existing system of its saving quality of thoroughness. It would enable them slowly but surely to ruin the character of the executive they were criticizing in order to bring pressure to bear on it. On the other hand it would make them in no way more responsible than at present for the proper conduct of public affairs. One method by which the Legislative Council might be brought into closer touch with the realities of administration might be a system of Committees, comparable to those of the French Chamber of Deputies. The essential parts of that system are that the whole of the Chamber is divided into bureaux, the members being chosen by lot. Each bureau elects one member to each Committee which deals with projects of law, and three to the Budget Committee. So far as concerns legislation, the system of select committees, elected by the Council and generally representative of all the interests involved, is probably as suitable to present Indian conditions as anything that could be borrowed from the French. In the system of the Budget Committee, however, with its separate commission for each department of the administration and with a reporter for each commission it is possible that fruitful suggestions could be found, although there are also snares to be avoided. The French system appears to be intolerably slow, resulting in a great