are in our opinion of a very secondary importance. A renowned statesman in Europe gave at the utmost a life of a dozen years to the most solemn treaty between two countries, for in that period circumstances alter and the solid foundation for the treaty cracks. Is it not high time that the treaties with the chiefs should be revised after over a hundred years? It would indeed redound to their credit if the chiefs themselves come forward to submit to such readjustment. Perhaps their autocratic and irresponsible power may have to suffer some diminution. But if they consent to that diminution so as to give it to their subjects in the modern democratic spirit, the real power and influence of the Native States will increase incalculably. It is in this direction we wish to see a solution of the problem of the Native States which are nowadays working as a brake on our national progress."

X

THE PROPOSALS

There are epochs in the history of the world when in a few raging years the character, the destiny, of the whole race is determined for unknown ages. This is one. DAVID LLOYD GEORGE

"Sowing the Winter Wheat." Speech delivered at Carnarvon, to a meeting of constituents, after becoming Prime Minister, February 3, 1917.

PART II of the Report contains the scheme which Mr. Montagu and Lord Chelmsford propose for the solution of the problem which they had set themselves to solve in Part I. In giving their reasons for a new policy they observe:

"No further development (on old lines) is possible unless we are going to give the people of India some responsibility for their own government. But no one can imagine that no further development is necessary. It is evident that the present machinery of government no longer meets the needs of the time; it works slowly and it produces irritation; there is a widespread demand on the part of educated Indian opinion for its alteration; and the need for advance is recognised by official opinion also." [Italics are ours.]

The new policy sketched by them is, in their judgment, "the logical outcome of the past. Indians

must be enabled, in so far as they attain responsibility, to determine for themselves what they want done

“... such limitations on powers as we are now proposing are due only to the obvious fact that time is necessary in order to train both representatives and electorates for the work which we desire them to undertake; and that we offer Indians opportunities at short intervals to prove the progress they are making and to make good their claim, not by the method of agitation but by positive demonstration, to the further stages in self-government which we have just indicated."

That is the only basis on which they maintain they can hope to see in India "the growth of a conscious feeling of organic unity with the Empire as a whole." With these and a few more prefatory remarks about the educational problem and the attitude of the ryot and the enunciation of the general principles on which their proposals are based they proceed to formulate their scheme, starting first with the provinces.

I

The proposals relating to Provincial Government may be noticed under the following heads:

(a) Financial devolution: It is proposed that henceforth there should be a complete separation of the provincial finances from those of the Government of India; that, reserving certain sources of revenue for the Government of India, all others should be made over to the Provincial Governments with the proviso that the first charge on all Provincial revenues will be a contribution towards the maintenance of the Government of India, considered necessary and demanded

by the latter. A certain amount of power to impose fresh taxes and to raise loans is also conceded to the provincial Governments subject to the veto of the Government of India.

(b) Legislative devolution: "It is our intention," say the authors of the report, "to reserve to the Government of India a general overriding power of legislation for the discharge of all functions which it will have to perform. It should be enabled under this power to intervene in any province for the protection and enforcement of the interests for which it is responsible; to legislate on any provincial matter in respect of which uniformity of legislation is desirable, either for the whole of India or for any two or more provinces; and to pass legislation which may be adopted either simpliciter or with modifications by any province which may wish to make use of it. We think that the Government of India must be the sole judge of the propriety of any legislation which it may undertake under any one of these categories, and that its competence so to legislate should not be open to challenge in the courts. Subject to these reservations we intend that within the field which may be marked off for provincial legislative control the sole legislative power shall rest with the provincial legislatures." It is not proposed to put a statutory limitation on the power of the Government of India to legislate for the provinces, but it is hoped that "constitutional practice" will prevent the central Government interfering in provincial matters unless the interests for which the latter is responsible are directly affected.

(c) Provincial Executive: Article 220 gives the Governor the power to appoint "one or two additional

members of his Government as members without portfolio for purposes of consultation and advice."

These, in substance, are the proposals of the Secretary of State and the Government of India for the future government of the provinces into which India. is divided. Some of these latter and some other tracts are expressly excluded from the operation of these recommendations. It will be at once observed that this is neither autonomy nor home rule. It is a kind of hybrid system with final powers of veto and control vested in the Government of India. The provision as to Provincial Legislatures make it still more complicated.

"Let us now explain how we contemplate in future that the executive Governments of the provinces shall be constituted. As we have seen, three provinces are now governed by a Governor and an Executive Council of three members, of whom one is in practice an Indian and two are usually appointed from the Indian Civil Service, although the law says only that they must be qualified by twelve years' service under the Crown in India. One province, Bihar and Orissa, is administered by a Lieutenant-Governor with a council of three constituted in the same way. The remaining five provinces, that is to say, the three Lieutenant-Governorships of the United Provinces, the Punjab and Burma and the Chief Commissionerships of the Central Provinces and Assam are under the administration of a single official Head. We find throughout India a very general desire for the extension of Council government. . . . Our first proposition, therefore, is that in all these provinces singleheaded administration must cease and be replaced by collective administration.

"In determining the structure of the Executive we have to bear in mind the duties with which it will