Until education and public spirit are much further advanced, there is no public opinion save that which is manufactured by the professional politicians to suit their own ends, and there can be no true representation. With an apathetic and uneducated electorate it is always the most advanced politician who becomes elected, for it is he who is the keenest and takes the most trouble to get votes. And this is especially the case with communal representation, which has unfortunately been introduced into this country. The man who is elected as the Mohammedan representative is he who maintains most loudly that he has in the past fought for the rights of Mohammedans against Hindus and against Government, and protests most strongly that he will do so in future. The Muslim League is at present disapproved of by the vast majority of Mohammedans of good status, but it continues to masquerade as representing the Mohammedans of India because the latter have not sufficient moral courage to get up and denounce it.

7. So much for the electorate. As for the members of the assembly there are no men of leisure and culture available except a few retired officers. In the assembly there would be very few country gentlemen and men of business, two classes of humanity who are constantly in touch with and drawing strength from our mother earth of hard fact' (Ordeal by Battle)—all would be left to the lawyer, the journalist, and the professional politician.

8. For the above reasons I consider that this province at least is not fit for representative Government at present, and when we come to responsible Government and the paraphernalia of party government the venue seems still more unsuited. Elections are fought on personal rather than on political grounds at present, and this will continue to be the case so long as only one class of the community is represented, as I have shown will be the case in your provincial Parliament.

9. Turning now to details of the scheme, I see the following objections to the attempt to administer the departments scheduled in class 1 by a system of responsible Government :

(1) These are highly technical departments which provide at present little scope for criticism, and would provide little scope for original thought and work to the minister put in charge of them. The departments that come in for most criticism are: Education, which is in the third class, and Excise; Assessment and collection of Land Revenue, Civil and Criminal Justice and Police, all of which come under the fourth class to be handed over only when autonomy is complete; also Finance, the allocation of expenditure to different heads of the Budget, which is perhaps as important as any. The making over of the minor scientific departments of Government would be regarded in my opinion as a mockery and would arouse little enthusiasm even as a means to an end, and if it were actually done would be of little value as an index to the success of a real experiment in responsible Government. Has any ministry in any

N

country ever gone out of office on a non-essential question such as agriculture or public works?

(2) Dyarchy as explained in the letter presents no difficulties so long as the two governments concerned are controlled by the same class of men. We have it already not only in the Imperial Departments, Post Office, Salt, &c., working side by side with Provincial Departments such as Excise and Agriculture, but also in Provincial Departments such as Irrigation and Prisons working side by side. with Land Revenue or Criminal Justice which are controlled by the District Officer. It is not correct to say (as in your para. 18) that the Commissioner and Collector supervise and report on forests and irrigation and so represent the Government of India in the Provinces. They are, it is true, generally consulted as regards forest and irrigation questions in the same way as they are consulted in nearly all cases of proposed legislation, and the reason is that they are in closer touch with the people than other officials and have through their subordinates and non-official friends better means of ascertaining public opinion. It is true that they control the police in the same way as the chief constable of a county does in England, and primary education in the same way as the county council does at home: but this only means that they combine in their own person several local offices which might under another system be filled by several officers. The present system works with little friction. If, however, as under the proposed scheme, the policy of certain departments is controlled by men who look on a subject such as education from a purely political point of view, or a subject such as indentured emigration or assessment of land revenue or the coinage of a special gold coin for India 1 from a purely sentimental point of view, there is bound to be constant friction with officials taught to look on public questions from a practical and economic standpoint. I look to the gradually increasing number of Indian officials in high places imbued with British standards and methods of work to gradually leaven non-official opinion in these matters, and I think we must wait for any scheme of this sort till the number of Indian high officials is largely increased.

(3) I do not understand how under the proposed scheme the responsibility for raising funds by taxation can be shared between the Finance minister who controls the grants to scientific departments and the Government Financial Secretary who controls all receipts and the expenditure on the main departments of Government. The real responsibility must rest on the latter, and this negatives the adoption of the principle, on which you lay stress, that a really responsible Government can afford to impose taxes which a despotic Government cannot. Besides, there is no indication that a national Government in India would find new vsources of

1 On all these four questions there was a unanimous vote against the Government by all Indians whether elected or nominated either on the Imperial or Local Legislative Councils.

taxation. None such, so far as I can remember, has ever been suggested in the nationalist Press unless it be the further taxation of imports. On the contrary there is a constant pressure to reduce the rates and objects of internal taxation.

10. This criticism has so far been wholly destructive and I will now shortly indicate the paths by which I think we ought to travel towards the objective to which I agree the government of India by the Indians.

11. In the first place I consider it essential to any real advance as stated in (2) above that a far larger proportion of high places in the government be held by Indians. I hold that the recommendations of the Public Services Commission are quite inadequate in this respect. In particular the claims of the Provincial Executive service to a fair proportion of Collectorships should be allowed and the Police service should not be kept as a close preserve for Europeans. Also the present system of nomination for Deputy Collectorships and similar posts should be either abolished in favour of competition or very largely modified.

12. Secondly I consider that the laudable desire of nationalist politicians and others to take their share in the administration of the country can be met to a very considerable extent by the extension of the number of departmental Boards and the enlargement of their functions. We already have a Board of Industries and a Sanitary Board which have considerable executive powers. There is also a sub-committee on the Budget and a Board of Education having very small powers which are capable of expansion. Boards of Agriculture and Excise should certainly be formed and the system should be gradually extended to other departments of Government. The members of such Boards might be partly elected by the legislative council from among themselves and partly nominated by the Government from officials and non-officials outside the council. Their functions would at first be mainly advisory, but as time goes on and experience is gained they might be given larger and larger executive powers. They would in my opinion form the most effective agency for bridging over the long interval which must elapse till the wider extension of education provides a more representative electorate, and the Indianization of the higher grades of the public service provides suitable machinery for administering government by the Indians themselves.

13. Your last para. Personally I see no objection to the affairs of India being controlled by an Imperial Parliament on which India and the Dominions are represented, provided the objections so strongly voiced by Indian nationalists can be overcome. On the other hand the proposed development is not only theoretically preferable to the present system but should in practice prove most beneficial to India.

No. 14

Your letter is the first serious attempt I have seen to suggest a means by which the elective principle can be introduced without revolutionizing the entire system of Government. For this reason I am much more disposed to admire than to criticize the more so as I have myself sought in vain for a solution. I entirely agree in your thesis that we must commence with the Provincial Governments and not with the Government of India. I can only attempt to indicate one or two points that seem to me most open to objection. The first is the exclusion of the official vote (pp. 7 and 8). If this is confined to meetings devoted exclusively to discussion of the transferred heads, I have no quarrel with it. In that case I would exclude officials from speaking also. They would be consulted in other ways. But if you propose to exclude them altogether I see two very serious objections, one affecting the officials themselves and the other the effect on legislation.

(1) In a legislative assembly the position of an officer who can speak but not vote-unless indeed he is an officer of outstanding rank and authority and intervenes only on special occasions-is an unpleasant and undignified one. He will be regarded as an intruder and his words will be listened to with impatience. The position is one which has been avoided in the British constitution and usually in the Dominions also.

(2) Their exclusion would deprive the Provincial Government of all power of legislating on reserved topics. It could not be certain of carrying any Government measure whatever.

I quite agree that the spectacle of official members invariably yoting together and on one side like a machine, and the bulk of the non-official members invariably voting together on the other is unedifying, and tends to promote racial distinctions and to emphasize the attitude of opposition which is natural to the nonofficial members. The remedy, it seems to me, is to restore to the official members the right they once enjoyed of voting according to their convictions except on questions which the Government regards as vital. As recently as 1911 an official member voted against the Government on an important detail of a Government measure.

Whether we are yet ready for the trial of your scheme throughout India is a point upon which I am perhaps too near the fray to pronounce. You would hardly, for instance, advocate introducing it into the Frontier Province. Some forward step seems to have been virtually promised after the war, and the only alternative to your scheme that I can think of for these provinces is an executive council with an Indian non-official member (probably the council would consist of two members). The suggestion of making the Indian membership elective naturally occurs to one, but I fear the difficulties in the way of having an elected member of an official Government would be insuperable. He would be trying to serve two masters, and naturally his allegiance would be to the electors rather than to his colleagues.

No. 15

I have read your memorandum, dated April 6, with much interest. As I think you know, there is a great deal in your views with which I am in agreement. The impossibility of making any real progress on existing lines is apparent, and the necessity of continuing the effort to make progress is equally clear. As far as I am in a position to judge, the line which you contemplate of separation of the functions of Government into certain groups is the only practicable solution of the difficulty. To hand over the whole machine to a responsible Government, as the fanatics of Home Rule desire, would result in a catastrophe. A mere increase in the strength of the elective element without the grant of any corresponding increase in real power would satisfy no one, and the only alternative to complete immobility seems to be to separate those functions which might be made over to a responsible Government from those which must still be retained in the hands of the Central Power. For the present, in this province the most obvious direction in which responsibility to popular control could be conceded is in the direction of those branches of Government which have already been transferred to local bodies but in regard to which far too much centralized control has hitherto been maintained. Some movement is already being made in this direction, and it would hardly be suitable for me to go into detailed discussion of the possible extensions of the principle. I can only say that I am generally in favour of the idea underlying your proposals. As to the exact date at which such a change could be introduced it is unnecessary to speculate.

No. 16

I have read these papers very hurriedly and will only jot down a few rough notes on the suggested system of dyarchy for Provincial Government.

I think it is quite unsuitable to Indian conditions, because

(a) It conflicts with all Indian traditions and ideas of Government -as centred in a single body or individual—and would be unintelligible to the Indian mind.

(b) It also conflicts with the axiomatic principle that the advance towards Self-government in India must be in accordance with India's special circumstances and traditions.

(c) It seems to me to be a rash and dangerous experiment which would subordinate the end for which Government exists to the theory of a possible means for altering the form of that Government.

(d) I do not think it would conciliate Indian Political opinion, which does not demand an alteration in the form of Government which is accepted and understood by all classes; but does demand that Indians should have more voice in determining the policy of Government, and be more closely associated with the system by which that policy is given effect to.