GOVERNMENT OF INDIA BILL. (Hansard, 11 December 1919)

§ THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD SINHA)

My Lords, the position I have held for the last few months in your Lordships' House is one of which I have been naturally and gratefully but I hope not unbecomingly proud, though I have felt oppressed with a deep sense of personal insufficiency. My Lords, these feelings reach their culminating point to-day when it involves the high privilege of asking your Lordships to give this Bill a Second Reading. If any arts of eloquence or persuasion, were necessary for the purpose of inducing your Lordships' House to accept the general principles underlying this Bill, I would despair of the task before me, but I feel convinced that the great experiment which this Bill will inaugurate is likely to prove successful and beneficial, not only to India, but to the Empire at large. It is because I am convinced that this Bill is wisely framed to place the feet of India on a level road leading to that goal to which she has long aspired, the 941 goal of self-government within the Empire, and to a real partnership in that great Empire which is bound together by unswerving allegiance and enthusiastic homage to our august Sovereign, in whose person is embodied all that Empire means and connotes, I repeat that it is with feelings of humble and grateful pride that I rise to make this Motion.

This Bill is the immediate outcome of the memorable declaration of policy made by His Majesty's Government on August 20, 1917. The whole of that declaration is embodied in the Preamble of the Bill; it has been read to your Lordships several times already, and I will not weary your patience by reading it again. It is the first step forward that Parliament is asked to take in fulfilment of that pledge, and I confidently hope that your Lordships will agree that in taking this step you will be taking a generous and perhaps a bold step, and yet one which is neither rash nor hasty, nor unnecessary or ill-considered.

My Lords, let me invite your attention for a few moments to the immense amount of care and critical examination from every possible standpoint which have gone to the elaboration of this measure. The matter was first broached when Mr. Austen Chamberlain was still. Secretary of State for India, and Lord Hardinge, after full consultation with the heads of the various Local Governments, put forward certain proposals for post-war reforms. Soon after Lord Chelmsford assumed office, in 1916, the need for a public declaration of policy as to the future of India was recognised by the Secretary of State and His Majesty's Government. The Government of India invited Mr. Chamberlain to visit India and confer with them as to the practical steps to be taken in pursuance of this policy. The policy was declared in August, 1917, and Mr. Montagu, to whom on his acceptance of office the Government of India had transferred their invitation, went to India in the autumn of that year. Before he left he had already been furnished with the results of prolonged and thorough investigation by his advisers of the India Office as to the possible lines of advance.

The Secretary of State and the Viceroy spent the cold weather of 1917–18 in a detailed inquiry in India, in the course of which they visited all the larger centres in the provinces and had the benefit of the fullest consultation with the heads of 942 Local Governments and the members of the Government of India and of non-official opinion of all shades. The result of this inquiry was the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, published in July, 1918, and this was further supplemented by the minute and careful investigations carried on throughout India by the two Committees presided over by the noble Lord, Lord Southborough. These investigations resulted in two further Reports—the Franchise Report and the Functions Report. And may I pause here for one moment to pay a humble tribute to Lord Southborough and the members of his Committee for the valuable work done by them, without which it would have been impossible to proceed with, and indeed to frame, this Bill.

These three Reports, the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, the Franchise Report, and the Functions Report, have been subjected to exhaustive examination by the Government of India, the results of which you have before you in three of their published despatches. You have also two other published despatches of the Government of India dealing with various special aspects of the problem. Yet another Committee, presided over by the noble Marquess, Lord Crewe, closely examined the question of the changes to be made in the system of home administration of Indian affairs, and you have the Report of that Committee before you. Finally the whole matter has been investigated and all the available material re-examined by a Select Committee of both Houses, who, after many weeks of hearing of all the evidence available in this country, both official and non-official, Indian and British, and after patient scrutiny of all the documentary evidence, have given you their mature conclusions in the shape of this amended Bill and of their Report upon it.

This last Report is, I venture to think, of almost equal importance as the Bill itself, and will be looked upon in India quite as much as the Bill as the charter of our progressive liberties. And here again I must ask your Lordships' leave to be allowed to voice the general appreciation of the uniform courtesy the patient industry, and the ripe experience which the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, as President of that Committee, brought to bear upon its investigations. Surely, my Lords, no one in view of all these facts can contend with any show of reason that the Bill which you are 943 now asked to read a second time has been insufficiently explored. This Bill is the natural and inevitable sequel to the long chapter of previous legislation for the better government of India. And for that purpose I will confine myself briefly to the Statutes of 1861, 1892, and 1909.

From 1837 to 1861 the Governor-General in Council was the sole administrative as well as the legislative authority for British India. The Indian Councils Act of 1861 for the first time associated with the Governor-General's Executive Council and the Executive Councils of the two Presidency Governors a small number of additional members, half of them being non-officials, for the purpose of making laws. But these Legislative Councils were no more than advisory committees for that purpose only, and had none of the other attributes of legislatures. Similar provisions were subsequently made for the province of Bengal and the North-West Provinces. A further step was taken by the Act of 1892 which increased the numbers of the Legislative Council slightly, but what is more, enabled rules to be made regulating the course of nomination of non-official members in a manner which contained the first faint beginnings of the representative principle. Further it gave liberty to ask questions and to discuss, but only to discuss, and not to vote or to move resolutions upon the financial statement.

Then came Lord Morley's Act of 1909, which still further enlarged the Legislative Councils both of the Governor-General and of the provinces. But it did more. It introduced for the first time the principle of election, though not yet direct election, as the means of constituting a portion of the non-official members. Further it gave the Councils power to move resolutions upon matters of general public interest, and also upon the Budget and to ask supplementary questions. The resolutions, however, were to be only advisory in character, which the Executive might adopt or reject at its discretion. We see, therefore, that for a period of nearly sixty years there has been a steady increase in the number of members for the Legislative Councils, the introduction of the principle of representation by election, and a progressive increase of the functions assigned to these Legislatures, steadily tending to make these Councils more and more parliamentary in nature, character, and influence.

944 The Bill before your Lordships' House intends to make these Councils even more parliamentary in character by a further increase in numbers with the object of making them as completely representative of the whole population as is possible and by increasing their functions to the largest possible extent that existing circumstances will allow. Since Lord Morley's reforms were inaugurated ten years have passed—ten fruitful years of experience and rapid development—within which fall the four crowded years of the great struggle in which India has, like other parts of the Empire whose existence was at stake, borne her share. Of the part played by India in the war I do not propose to speak to-day. Her record is known to your Lordships and I will venture only to say that no words of mine are needed to give lustre to that record. Moreover, I should be creating an absolutely false impression if any remarks of mine gave colour to the impression that India desires or demands this measure as a reward for her war services. In my view this Bill must stand upon its own merits—upon the question whether or not the great experiment which it seeks to initiate is an experiment on right and proper lines.

There is no doubt that as a result of the war there has been a great advance in the status of India. She has been privileged through her own representatives to take an equal part with the British Dominions Overseas in the Imperial War Conference, and also in the Peace Conference in Paris, and she has been admitted as an original member of the League of Nations. These experiences have further quickened her sense of national unity and development, a sense which has been steadily fostered for many years by common allegiance to the same beloved Sovereign, by being amenable to one code of laws, by being taxed by one authority, by being influenced for weal or woe by one system of administration, and by being urged by like impulse to secure like rights and to be relieved of like burdens. My Lords, it is no longer possible to doubt this rapidly growing sense of nationality, any more than it is possible for India to stand aside unchanged from the turmoil of development and growth and reconstruction which has been shaking the world for the last five years.

My Lords, you have been deluged with a mass of Blue-books and Reports on this subject, and I do not deny that in its details the subject is one of great complexity, 945 but I would submit to your Lordships that the real issue is a simple one. It is this. Do you intend to keep India in leading strings, or do you believe the time has come when Indians themselves should be given some control of policy and should be in a position to make a start at least on the path of self-government?

The present system of Government in India is in essentials identical with that which obtained sixty years ago, and indeed earlier. It is a purely official government, centred in the India Office, able and entitled to impose its will in every detail on the people, the administration of whose affairs has been entrusted to it by Parliament. I am deeply conscious of the debt which we owe to the Government of India, to the Local Governments, and to the untiring and devoted efforts of the great services which they employ, and which have been directed with an energy and singleness of purpose, probably unequalled in history, to the welfare and advancement of the people committed to their charge, and with a success in securing that advancement which certainly no premature attempt at self-government could possibly have achieved.

But, my Lords, during these sixty years you have had Legislatures set up in the provinces, and, including the Central Government, now no fewer than ten in number, gradually increasing in size, gradually acquiring more power to criticise the action and policy of the Executive, and gradually becoming more and more representative of public opinion. But their functions are confined, broadly speaking, to criticism. I do not deny that the influence which they have exercised during the last ten years has been great, nor do I assert that official Governments have pursued systematically, or even frequently, a policy of flouting the wishes of the non-official members. They have done nothing of the kind. I believe that, so far as has been consistent with the discharge of their responsibilities to Parliament, the Government in India and the Secretary of State in this country have been studiously careful to pay increasing deference to the wishes of the representatives of the people in the Councils. But, my Lords, what these Councils do not possess, and what the representatives of the people ask for, is some guarantee that the Executive will conform to their wishes when they represent the real desire of the majority; in other 946 words, they want to advance from the stage of influence to that of control, while steadfastly maintaining their loyalty to the King-Emperor as an integral portion of the British Empire.

In so far as these demands postulate complete self-government for India at once, or even a material weakening of the connection which ensures for India the responsibility of the British Parliament for the maintenance of peace and order and for its immunity from external aggression, I, for one, emphatically repudiate them; and I am convinced that in so doing I am voicing the sentiments of the vast majority of my countrymen. India is not yet fully equipped for complete self-government, and I will not be so rash as to attempt to predict when she will be. But of this I am certain, that so long as the present system continues she never will be fit for self-government. It is only with experience of actual responsibility that the fitness to exercise it grows. I am also certain that India is fit and ready today to embark, and to embark with every hope of success, on the experiment which this Bill proposes, and that this Bill is the only logical and necessary means for carrying out the pledge given by the announcement of August 20, 1917, as the Joint Committee has reported to your Lordships.

This Bill will not and is not intended to set up a final and permanent constitution for India. It provides for a period of transition. How long that period will last, as I have already said, I make no attempt to forecast, but while it lasts we have to provide a bridge whereby India may pass from an autocratic and bureaucratic form of Government, which guides her destinies ab extra, to a form of Government whereby she will control her own destinies. We have to give the people in India at once some measure of control over the policy which dictates their laws and imposes their taxes, and this we have to do by a system which will enable a sure judgment to be passed on the use or misuse to which that control is put, and an orderly and justifiable advance to be made.

Let me try and explain very briefly the means proposed in this Bill, with these objects in view. We start by dividing revenues and demarcating the spheres of government as between the Central Government and the provinces. We assign to the Central Government unquestioned authority 947 over certain administrative heads, such as the defence of the country, its railways, tariffs, and other activities which cannot be localised; for these it legislates, for these it provides funds, for these it supplies and controls (either directly or through the intervention of provincial governments) its executive agency. Certain other administrative heads are handed over to the Provincial Governments, which assume within their own areas full and complete responsibility for financing and administering them. There are limitations of course—there must be limitations—on the authority of Provincial Governments in so far as they remain agents of Parliament, but I need not now confuse the broad outlines with these.

Of these matters which thus become, in the language of the Bill, "Provincial subjects," a further division is made, and while for one portion of them the official side of the Government retains responsibility, the other portion is handed over to the administration of the Governor acting with Ministers chosen from the elected members of the Legislature. Over the matter compressed within this latter portion of the field the Legislature will be given a very real control; legislation for them will be governed by the wishes of the elected majorities, and it will vote the supplies for them. For the administration of these subjects the Ministers will be directly responsible to the Legislature, and though they are liable to be overruled by the Governor if he considers that his endorsement of the policy proposed is inconsistent with the discharge of his responsibilities for the administration of the "reserved" subjects or for the peace and tranquility of his province, they can only remain in office if they are prepared to support and defend in the Legislature any action relative to the subjects in their charge, with the full knowledge that such support or defence, if the Legislature calls their acts in question, may lead to an adverse vote and possibly to resignation or dismissal.

So much for the immediate effects of the Bill as planned. But as I have said, the Bill attempts—and I submit successfully attempts—to provide for progress. It legislates for a transition from bureaucratic to self-government. And the progress is to be effected by the simple means of gradually enlarging the field made over to the administration of Ministers by the 948 gradual transfer of more and more subjects to their administration until at length the time arrives when there are no subjects remaining "reserved." I have said more than once that I make no attempt to predict the date when that consummation will be reached. Obviously it cannot arrive until you have throughout India a widely diffused and trained electorate capable of formulating clear and wise conceptions of policy and of selecting representatives who will be capable of guiding and voicing the view of the population at large. But here, again, it is by actual experience and by no other method that such training can be given.

If it is necessary, in order to train administrators, to give the Legislatures real work to do and real responsibilities to shoulder, it is no less necessary, in order to train the electorates and to teach the value and the proper use of a vote, to give the representatives selected as the result of that vote the opportunity of controlling the course of the administration in a way which will be clear in its results, be they good or bad, to the electors. I say "be they good or bad" advisedly, for it is human experience that success is achieved by means of failures, and that mistakes, if I not irretrievable, are the best of lessons, and it would be idle to suppose that Indian administrators will spring into being full fledged and infallible. If this were to be expected there would be no justification for this half-way house with all its complications of structure. We expect mistakes, but we claim that we have provided in this Bill every reasonable safeguard and every device possible to minimise the chance of their occurrence or the seriousness of their results when they do occur. In the first place, we reserve in the charge of an agency still responsible to Parliament those services or heads of administration upon which the safety and peace of the country depend, and we provide means by which that agency, despite a large non-official majority in the Legislatures, shall be enabled unfailingly to secure the legislation and the supply which it regards as essential to the discharge of its responsibility. In the second place, we ensure, by the association of the new Ministers with an official element in the Executive, that the experience and knowledge acquired by long traditions and practice of a great and successful Service shall be at the disposal of the Ministers when they formulate their own policy. And, lastly, we ensure by the 949 relations which are to subsist between Ministers on the one hand and the Executive Council on the other, that the latter will have in their deliberations the advantage of friendly counsel and a knowledge of the wishes and susceptibilities of the people.

This is the plan which has been given the somewhat terrifying name of dyarchy. For myself I should have preferred to call it a system of specific devolution. Your Lordships will not have failed to observe that the Joint Committee, after many weeks of patient examination of the matter from every point of view, has reported that the plan proposed by the Bill interprets with scrupulous accuracy the policy announced on August 20, 1917, and that it is the best means of carrying out that policy. By the scheme of the Bill they meant in that connection primarily its basic principle of division of functions and consequent demarcation of the source of authority which is to lie behind the provincial executives. But it would be foolish to attempt to disguise from myself or from your Lordships' House the fact that this principle is regarded with misgivings by many persons who are in full accord with the general policy which the Bill seeks to carry out. The objections to this principle are obvious. But is there really any practicable alternative?

Various alternative schemes have been put forward with greater or less authority. The first in point of time was the scheme of the Congress and the Moslem League which was published before the conception of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report. More than one alternative was suggested by the official reports of the various Local Governments on that Report; another scheme was formulated by five heads of provinces after the Local Governments had discussed the proposals officially; and, finally, the Joint Committee had yet another alternative scheme laid before them by representatives of the Indo-British Association. But apart from variations of detail, all these alternative schemes are in essence the same. They purport to provide an united or unified Executive, and to proceed on the basis (as one authority has put it) of giving some responsibility to the Legislatures for all matters of government rather than full responsibility for some They postulate a Council or executive body consisting in part of officials and in part of members of the Legislatures, 950 and all holding office for a fixed period. They reject the device of dividing functions and subjects, and they propose that the members of this Government should preserve joint responsibility for all the actions and decisions of the Government in the ordinary and usual manner of Cabinet government. They postulate that the non-official members of the Government will be selected as representing the views of the majority of the Council, and will in practice "necessarily be influenced by the opinions of the Legislative Council" (those words I quote from the Memorandum of the five heads of provinces). This fact they urge will secure that the Government as a whole in its decisions on all matters will to some extent be responsible to the Legislatures, whose wishes will necessarily strongly influence if not shape those decisions. Lastly, progress towards fuller and more real responsible government is to be achieved on the one hand by gradually increasing the number of members of the executive taken from the elected members of the Councils, and by gradually therefore handing over to such members a larger and larger range of portfolios, and on the other hand by a gradual increase in the deference paid by the executive to the wishes of the Legislatures. I believe that is a fair description of the essential features of all the various alternative schemes which have been put forward.

The problem can be simply stated—it is to give a measure of control to representative Assemblies in India over the policy and actions of the Government, and to give it in such a way that the control can be gradually increased as and when those to whom it is entrusted exhibit their fitness for an increase, but in such a way that each increase comes by an ordered and controllable process, and not per saltum, so that throughout the process may be one of evolution, and neither in its first stage nor at any subsequent stage one of revolution.

That is the problem. Now, are you going to solve it by giving to Parliamentary institutions in India full control—or practically full control—over a certain defined field, or by giving at once some control over the whole field. I am confident that reflection will show that the latter alternative is not only not a good method of achieving the object in view, but that it is not a practicable alternative, and, if it were introduced, it could have only one of two 951 results—either a complete failure to establish any real responsibility to Parliamentary institutions or Councils in India, or to a paralysis of Government which would lead, and lead rapidly and inevitably, to complete control by Legislatures in India and a complete ouster of the authority of this Parliament.

For what is the underlying hypothesis in all these schemes for a unified Government? It is nothing more nor less than a divided allegiance to Parliament on the one hand and the Provincial Legislature on the other, and a division of allegiance which affects or may affect every single issue which comes before the Government. The official members of the Government will be responsible to Parliament, under whose authority and in whose name they hold their office; the non-official members of the Government will, as members of a United Government, be similarly in theory responsible to Parliament. But they will, remember, be "necessarily influenced by the opinions of the Legislative Council" from whose ranks they are elected. If the official members of the Executive Government, in deference to orders received from Whitehall or Simla, or in fulfilment of what they conceive to be their responsibility to Whitehall and Simla for the good administration of the Province, adopt a policy of which the majority of the Legislative Council (whether rightly or wrongly) disapprove, what is to be the attitude of their non-official colleagues? Assuming that their view coincides with the majority of the Legislature, are they to sink their difference and support their official colleagues? If they do, what has become of the element of responsibility to the Legislature? Or are they to oppose their colleagues and withhold their support? If so, where is the unity of the Government? If on the other hand, the official members of the Government adopt a course which they honestly believe to be inconsistent with the discharge of their responsibility to Parliament in deference to their non-official colleagues and the majority of the Legislature, they would no doubt pro tando be establishing a system of Government by popular control and rendering the Executive amenable to the popular will, but would Parliament for a moment tolerate such government by abdication, and would it not rightly call to account a Secretary of State who by acquiescence in such a course might endanger the peace and good government of the country?

952 Again, even were such a unified system workable at the outset, is the road to progress in the grant of responsibility which it opens a satisfactory road? As I have stated, its supporters urge that development lies in the line of increasing the number of non-official Councillors, with a consequent increase in the number and scope of the portfolios committed to them, of increasing acquiescence in the wishes of the Legislature and a rarer resort to the veto. With the two latter of these suggestions I have just dealt. As regards the two former processes, since a unified Executive must as such be answerable for its actions to Parliament and subject in the last resort in all matters of administration to Parliament's control, I fail to see how any increase in the number of non-official members of such an Executive or any enlargement of the sphere of their administrative activities can alter the character or lessen the reality of that control. This particular point has been dealt with much more clearly and more cogently than I have been able to do by the Government of India in their Dispatch of March 5 of this year, and I would only refer to Paragraphs 18 to 24 in that Dispatch, which is published as Command Paper 123. For these considerations I submit that your Lordships will accept without hesitation the opinion of the Joint Committee on this the fundamental point of the whole Bill.

Before coming to the provisions of the Bill itself, I venture to draw atttention to two particular points as regards the form of the Bill. In the first place, your Lordships will have seen that the main provisions for constitutional changes are set out in the body of the Bill itself, and by means of a Schedule—the Second Schedule to the Act—these changes are to find their proper place in the main Act (the Act of 1915–16), so that automatically consolidation will follow. That is the plan of the Bill, and it has commended itself to the Joint Committee, and I trust will commend itself to your Lordships also. The second point in connection with the frame of the Bill is this. The Bill itself outlines the main features of the constitutional changes. It leaves these changes to be worked out in detail in the form of rules. Some objection has been taken to this latter feature, but here again I would refer to the White Paper which gives in full the reasons for this form of legislation in this particular case.

953 Firstly, it is in accordance with all previous precedents. The matter was debated on the last occasion when Lord Morley's Act came before your Lordships' House, and, as I read the debates, it was generally accepted that that was the proper way of framing the Bill, leaving the details of the constitutional changes to be worked out by the authorities in India, subject, however, to the control of Parliament. Secondly, it secures reasonable dimensions for the Bill, and makes elasticity possible. Thirdly, it is the only method possible for the introduction of new constitutional forms expressly devised for the conditions of a transitional stage. Fourthly, it enables different provisions to be made for different provinces; and, fifthly (and this is the feature to which I desire to draw special attention), the control of Parliament is fully secured for the exercise of the rule-making power by Clauses 33 and 44 of the Bill to which I crave your Lordships' particular attention.

Clause 33 deals with the Rules to be made by the Secretary of State himself for the purpose of relaxing his powers of superintendence, direction and control. That clause enacts that Rules with regard to subjects other than transferred subjects shall be laid in draft before both Houses of Parliament, and therefore shall not come into operation until they have been approved by both Houses of Parliament. All other Rules shall be subjected to the negative process of being laid on the Table of the House, Parliament of course to be at liberty to petition His Majesty to annul the Rules, on which the Rules may be annulled. Clause 44 deals with by far the large majority of Rules which are to be made under this Act, namely, Rules by the Governor-General in Council. These Rules again, are divided into two categories—first, Rules which are only to be subjected to the negative process of being laid before Parliament after they come into operation, but being liable to be set aside or annulled by petition to His Majesty in Council by Parliament. It is also provided that the Secretary of State may direct that any Rules to which the section applies shall be laid in draft, and that they shall not come into operation, before Parliament had approved them by positive resolution; and the Secretary of State in exercising that discretion will undoubtedly be advised by the Standing Committee of both Houses that 954 the Joint Committee recommends, or by the Joint Committee itself if Parliament chooses to re-appoint it, for the purpose of going through these Rules. I submit, therefore, that the criticism that it is either dangerous or inexpedient to leave so much to be done by Rules is neither just nor fair.

Having dealt with the fundamental principle involved in the Bill, I will not detain your Lordships long with the other features as contained in the separate clauses, especially as the Report of the Joint Committee has dealt with them clause by clause and given the reasons not only for the clauses themselves but also for such changes as they have introduced. The Bill, following the general plan of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, starts with Provincial Governments, since it is in that sphere chiefly that the scheme is to be developed. Clause 3 sets up in the eight major provinces of India a Governor in Council—a form of Government which has long been in force in the three Presidencies. But the new Local Governments are not merely to be Governors in Council—they will consist of the Governor in Council (whose functions and constitution will remain unchanged) and of the Governor acting with Ministers, appointed from the elected members of the Legislative Council and holding office during the Governor's pleasure. To the Governor in Council will be entrusted the responsibility for reserved subjects, and the Governor and Ministers will be responsible for the transferred subjects. All matters which in a Council Government would normally come before the Council—that is, everything which is not of purely departmental or minor importance—will as a general rule come for discussion before the Governor, his Councillors, and his Ministers sitting in conclave. But the decision on reserved subjects and the responsibility for that decision will rest with the Governor in Council, while the decision and the responsibility for the decision on all transferred matters will rest with Ministers, subject to the Governor's intervention and control if he feels it incumbent upon him to reject their advice. This is the Provincial Executive.

The Legislative Councils in all their eight Provinces are to be considerably increased in size and will acquire for the first time a substantial (70 per cent.) elected majority. The Governor will not be a member of the Legislature; each body 955 will have a non-official President and Deputy President, to be elected by itself subject to the Governor's approval; but for the first four years the office of President is to be filled by a nominee of the Governor. Each Council will normally have a life of three years, though the Governor may at any time dissolve the Legislative Council. The powers of Provincial Legislatures will as regards legislation be much as they are at present, but in view of the fact that the scheme contemplates an almost complete abrogation of the existing executive orders which require every Bill (save those of purely formal or minor importance) to be submitted to the Government of India and the Secretary of State for previous approval before introduction—a system which has naturally not conduced to initiative and independence in provincial legislation—the necessity arises for somewhat expanding the scope of the existing statutory provisions which require the previous sanction of the Governor-General to certain classes of provincial Bills, so as to ensure that the Provincial Legislatures shall not infringe on the sphere which is reserved for the Central Government.

Outside matters of legislation, the powers of the Councils are to be enlarged—or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the Bill reverses the position which these bodies have hitherto held. Hitherto Legislative Councils in India have been presumed by the law to have no functions except those which the law has specifically allowed them. As I pointed out a short time ago, Legislative Councils in India were at the time of their creation strictly confined in their duties and powers to the business of discussing and passing legislative measures. Little by little the scope of their activities has been increased by the grant of further specified powers. Under this Bill they will be assumed to possess all the normal attributes and powers of a legislative body except those which are definitely withheld, or the use of which is restricted.

The most important change which results from this position is that for the first time the provincial budget will be voted by the Legislative Council—they will now actually vote and sanction the appropriations proposed by the Executive. All they can do at present is to vote about the budget; that is to say, they can move and vote upon resolutions recommending changes in the Government's financial proposals in the year; but the Government has usually 956 been in a position with its nominated majority to defeat any such resolution if it wished to do so, and in any case was in no way bound to accept it if carried; and hitherto the annual appropriations of expenditure have required no other sanction than the fiat of the Executive Government. That will now be changed, and the Legislatures will have a real voice in the disposal of provincial finances. It would be impossible, of course, to give them at the present stage a final and decisive voice over the whole field. A portion of the Government will not be responsible to or removable by the Legislature, and that portion of the Government must be in a position to secure the legislation and supplies it needs for the discharge of its responsibilities. It has not the natural means of an assured majority in the House, and it must therefore be given an artificial means. Thus in "reserved" finance, the Governor is empowered to neglect an adverse vote on a budget head if he certifies that the proposed expenditure is essential to the discharge of his responsibility for the subject, while in times of crisis, when perhaps a recalcitrant Legislature may decline to vote any supplies, he is empowered to authorise such expenditure as is required for the maintenance of safety and tranquillity or to avoid administrative starvation.

There is a further safeguard against irresponsible action by the Legislature in the matter of supply—that certain heads of expenditure are not to require an annual vote—in much the same way as the Consolidated Fund in this country. For example, contributions payable by the Local Government to the Governor-General in Council; interest and sinking fund charges on loans; expenditure of which the amount is prescribed by or under any law; salaries and pensions of persons appointed by or with the approval of His Majesty or by the Secretary of State in Council; and salaries of Judges of the High Court of the Province, and of the Advocate-General.

In legislation the position of the official Government is safeguarded by the provisions of Clause 13 and Clause 11 (5) of the Bill, which give the Governor power to secure the passage or rejection of Bills in certain circumstances. I do not wish to weary your Lordships with detail, but I invite particular attention to these provisions and to the remarks in the Joint 957 Committee's Report in explanation of them. They take the place of the original plan suggested in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report of Grand Committees of the Council, and I am confident that your Lordships will agree that the change made by the Joint Committee is a great improvement, and that nothing will be lost and much gained by their more straightforward plan.

The changes made by the Bill in the Government of India are much less extensive. The Indian Legislature is considerably enlarged and is now to consist of two Chambers—an Upper Chamber or Council of State of sixty members and an Assembly of 140 members, the latter with a substantial elected majority. The statutory limit on the number of the Governor-General's Executive Council is a minimum of five and a maximum of six (or six and seven if the Commander-in-Chief is included). The Bill does away with the Extraordinary Member, and assumes, as will doubtless be the case, that the Commander-in-Chief will always continue to be appointed a member of the Council. Each member of the Executive Council will be a nominated member of one or other Chamber of the Legislature, but not of both, though they will be entitled to speak in both Chambers. Like the Provincial Legislatures, the Indian Legislature is to have power for the first time to vote on certain portions of the Budget. That is to say, there will be the same provisions for a Consolidated Fund upon which they will not be able to vote; and, further, the Governor-General will always be entitled, if he thinks necessary, to reject every vote on every item of the Budget of the Legislature.

It may be urged that this change is inconsistent with the policy which has taken no step towards introducing at this stage the principle of responsible government in the Central Government in the sense of making the Central Executive legally dependent upon or subject to the control of the Legislature. I am confident your Lordships will agree that whatever technical inconsistency there may be, the change is sound and necessary. What is the position? In the first place, there can be no question of taking away any power which the Central Legislature at present enjoys. One of the powers which it has enjoyed for the last ten years is power to propose and vote resolutions suggesting 958 changes in the Budget statement, and this power it must retain. Hitherto the Government has been able by means of its official majority to defeat any such resolution (though even if it had failed to defeat it, the resolution would have no binding effect). But in future the Government will not command a majority in the Legislature.

Now, my Lords, which is the sounder constitutional position—the position which augurs best for a sound judgment by the proposed Statutory Commission which is to inquire into progress ten years hence and for amicable relations meanwhile, that the Indian Legislature should be able year after year, with no sense of responsibility flowing from a knowledge of practical consequences of its vote, to vote by an overwhelming majority resolution after resolution recommending specific alterations in the Budget, which the Government is forced to ignore; or that the Legislature should be legally responsible for passing the Estimates and legally accountable for the results of any modifications they may vote? I admit that the practical difference between the two positions is not great, for if you will look at the clause—it is Clause 25—you will see that the Government is necessarily given the fullest powers to reject adverse votes, since its responsibility is not to the Indian Legislature but to this Parliament for the proper administration of its charge. The change is really one of form, but I do not seek to disguise its importance on that ground. It is an important change, but one which I am convinced is the logical and necessary result of constituting a representative Central Legislature.

I have been a member of the Governor-General's Legislative Council, it is true in an official capacity, but none the less closely associated with all the non-official members. I can assure your Lordships that the cleavage which has, unfortunately, shown itself so often of late between the non-official and the official members of that body is largely due to the non-officials' sense of aloofness from the real difficulties and decisions of the Government which the present position has engendered. They feel—they can hardly help feeling—that they are outside the machine and are not a real part of its working. I am confident that all that is required to obliterate that cleavage is an admission, with whatever safeguards and checks that may be found 959 necessary, that the Legislature and all its members are an essential and working part of the machinery of Government, that the action or inaction of every member influences the working of the whole.

Allow me to draw your Lordships' attention, so far as the Government of India is concerned, to one more clause, and that is Clause 26, because there also a new feature is introduced in place of the old device of the official bloc, for the purposes of enabling the Governor-General to obtain the legislation which he considers necessary for his purpose. The Governor-General is able to pass any law which he thinks necessary for the safety and tranquillity of India, provided that the ordinance will require the sanction of His Majesty before it becomes law. Of course, the power of this ordinance, in cases of emergencies, already exists, and it remains as it is, so that for emergency purposes the Governor-General will be able to pass such laws as he thinks necessary, provided that they will be liable, as they are now, to be vetoed by His Majesty in Council.

With regard to the provisions of the Bill relating to the Secretary of State, I need say little. They make no constitutional changes, but are designed to modernise and make more elastic the statutory provisions—many of which are relics of the days of the Court of Directors—relating to the working of the India Council. Power is taken to adopt the recommendation of Lord Crewe's Committee to appoint a High Commissioner for India, and no time will be lost in working out with the Government of India the details of this purpose if it receive the sanction of Parliament.

There is one further matter with regard to the Council—namely, that the number has been reduced. The minimum was ten and the maximum fourteen. These are now reduced to eight as a minimum and twelve as a maximum. There are to be at least three Indian members of the Council. The salaries are to be £1,200 a year, with £600 extra for the Indian members, and the Committee remark that this salary was calculated on a prewar basis, so that the Secretary is not precluded from granting to these members of the Council what other permanent officials are getting here—namely, a war bonus.

Part IV of the Bill relates to the Civil Services in India, and its provisions are intended generally, while enabling a new 960 classification of these Services to be made, to safeguard the pay and position and rights to pension of existing members of those Services, and to pave as smooth a road as possible for future members. The Services, my Lords, need no tribute from me. Their work is plain for the world to see, and it is their work in the main, and its great results developing through the years, that have made India fit for this great experiment. But the passage of this Bill does not close the chapter of their ungrudging toil. India still needs, and will long need, men of the type which Great Britain has so long given her, and I refuse to believe that she will not continue to receive from the sons of Great Britain the same loyal and devoted service as she has received, to her lasting benefit, in the past. I also cordially echo the hope and conviction, expressed in the Report of the Joint Select Committee, that these Civil Services will accept the changing conditions and the inevitable alterations in their own position, and devote themselves in all loyalty to making a success, so far as in them lies, of the new Constitution.

Finally, the Bill gives power to appoint a Commission of Inquiry to report to Parliament on past progress, with a view to enabling Parliament to judge what further advances can be made. The Bill provides for one such Commission after ten years' trial. This does not imply the belief that in ten years the process of training will be complete. It is perhaps unusual to legislate for an event ten years ahead; it would be clearly inappropriate to legislate for a longer period. But periodical inquiries are of the essence of the scheme, and the Bill would obviously be incomplete without some provision of this kind.

So far as Part VI of the Bill is concerned, there is only one clause to which I need draw your Lordships' attention—namely, Clause 42, which modifies Section 124 of the principal Act with regard to persons engaged in any trade or business becoming members of the Executive Council or Ministers, provided they do not, during their term of office, take part in the direction or management of that trade or business. The changing conditions of the country absolutely require that there should be some such provision made, because, if it is not, the Government will lose the benefit of the services of people who are best calculated as commercial 961 or mercantile people to take part in the actual work of Government.

I fear that I have made a large draft upon the patience of your Lordships' House. But even if there are those amongst your Lordships whose position in this House would lead them to view my presentment of this matter critically and with caution as coming from a representative of His Majesty's Government, I am confident that the position which it is also my privilege to hold, of a representative of my countrymen, will have ensured me an indulgent and sympathetic hearing. Above all, I am confident that there is no member of this House who will be deterred by individual opinions or by my personal shortcomings from approaching the examination of this Bill in that traditional spirit of British fairness and impartiality. and with that earnest desire for the advancement of India's welfare, which has done so much for the betterment of India in the past.

There may be those amongst your Lordships who think that the passage of this Bill will not advance India's welfare, who think that the system of government which has, with little essential change and with so many beneficial results, endured through the changes of the nineteenth century, should be continued, unchanged in essentials, through the twentieth century, and that the time has not arrived to sever the leading strings. Believe my, my Lords, that is a view which, if you wish to secure a sense of gratitude and contentment amongst the populations of India, can no longer be maintained. The whole course of your administration of India, the whole of its fruitful results, culminating in the recognition which you have accorded during the past five years to India as a real partner in the Empire, have produced expectations (and I say justified expectations) that you will now agree to treat her as having outgrown her political infancy. I do not claim, and reasonable Indians do not claim, that her people as a whole have to day reached, politically, man's estate. If I claimed this, I could not consistently support this Bill. But I do claim on behalf of my countrymen that they have reached the age of adolescence. The stage of growth is notoriously a difficult age. It is surely human experience that the guardian best serves his ward's interests, and best conserves a relationship of mutual trust and affection, who so orders his 962 control at this period that the aspirations for freedom and self-expression which inevitably accompany healthy adolescence should receive his wise and reasonable indulgence, and that active control should be exercised only to prevent irretrievable errors and to correct undesirable developments.

I believe that this Bill will enable the British Parliament to adopt that attitude towards India, and I have sufficient faith in the character of my countrymen, and in the essential wisdom and justice of the Mother of Parliaments, to believe that the results of this measure will be to inaugurate a relationship between them which will enable India in due time to reach the full stature of a prosperous, loyal, and grateful partner in the privileges and duties which belong to the great world-family of the British Empire.

Lastly, I ask your Lordships' leave to address a few words to those of my fellow-countrymen who may still be inclined to dispute the substantial nature of the advance proposed. Of course, I do not agree with them; but even if there was any substance in their doubts and suspicions, let me tell them in the words of the great Book, if I may do so without irreverence, that what is being given to India is like the grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field, which now is the least of all seeds, but when it was grown it was the greatest amongst the herbs and became a tree so that the birds of the air came and lodged in the branches thereof.