§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE MARQUESS OF ZETLAND)My Lords, I beg to move that the Draft Order be approved. The Report of the India and Burma Orders Committee was communicated to the House by my noble friend the Leader of the House at the conclusion of business yesterday, and in those circumstances I am grateful to your Lordships for agreeing to my moving this Motion so soon after the Report of the Committee. But having said so much, it is perhaps permissible for me to add that the text of these Draft Orders was laid upon the Table of your Lordships' House on January 20 last, and it has been lying there ever since. So that your Lordships have had something more than three weeks to study the text if you desired to do so. I say that because there appears to be an impression in some quarters of the House that the text of the Orders was not available to your Lordships until the Committee had dealt with them. That of course, as I have explained, is not so, and had it been so I should certainly not have been so inconsiderate as to ask your Lordships to deal with what is certainly an important matter at such short notice.
These Orders are the first which have come before your Lordships' House under the new practice laid down by the Government of India Act, 1933, and it will therefore perhaps be for the convenience 581 of your Lordships if I explain briefly the procedure which it is proposed should be followed. The text of Orders of this kind will be considered in the first instance in another place, and in point of fact the text of these particular Orders was considered and was approved in another place last week, on a Motion for the adjournment of a debate on the proposal that an humble Address should be submited to His Majesty, praying that the Orders should be made in accordance with the, drafts approved. The Motion for the adjournment of the debate was made in order that your Lordships might have an opportunity, should you so desire, of making modifications of the Orders before another place again considers them. The procedure in this House is that, after that preliminary investigation has been made in another place, the Orders shall be taken into consideration by the India and Burma Orders Committee which your Lordships have established; thereafter the report of that Committee shall be taken into consideration by your Lordships and the text of the Orders examined.
That is the stage which we have now reached. This is a stage on which it will be appropriate that your Lordships should express your opinions upon the merits of the Orders themselves. Assuming that the text of the Orders is agreed to by your Lordships, a Message will be communicated to another place, where upon they will conclude their debate upon their original Motion. When that is done we shall receive information to that effect, and I shall ask your Lordships to pass a similar Motion asking that an humble Address be presented to His Majesty praying that the Order shall be made in accordance with the text agreed upon. I would point out to your Lordships that that further stage will be a purely formal one, since the consideration of the Orders on their merits will have taken place and the proceedings in another place will have terminated. I hope that with these brief observations I have made the procedure which it is proposed to follow tolerably clear.
May I turn for a few moments to the subject matter of the particular Orders now before the House? The purpose of these Orders is to give effect to Section 289 of the Government of 582 India Act, 1935, under which Parliament has agreed to establish two new Provinces in British India, to be known respectively as the Province of Sind and the Province of Orissa. As your Lordships will be aware, this is by no means the first time that new Provinces have been established in British India. In 1901, for example, the North-West Frontier Province was carved out of the existing Province of the Punjab. In 1905 the then existing Province of Bengal was partitioned, and two new Provinces were created—namely, the Province of Bengal on the one hand and the Province of Eastern Bengal and Assam on the other. Again, in 1911 these two Provinces were further divided, and three new Provinces were established—on the west the Province of Bihar and Orissa, in the centre the Province of Bengal, and on the east the Province of Assam, from which Eastern Bengal had once more been detached.
It must be admitted that the reasons underlying these previous re-orderings of the map have usually been those of administrative convenience and possibly of political consideration, and it must be further admitted that in the case of Bengal, at any rate, they have given rise to violent controversy and to vehement and prolonged agitation. But the reasons for the establishment of the two Provinces which are now under consideration are very different. The creation of these two new Provinces is based upon racial and geographical considerations. They are being established not only with the acquiescence, but at the insistent demand, of the majority of the people who are affected, and in that respect therefore they rest upon a different basis to the previous re-orderings of the map to which I have referred.
Let me for a moment turn to the proposed new Province of Sind. The proposed new Province will be essentially a Moslem Province. The population of Sind, as to something like 73 per cent., is a Moslem population. Indeed, Sind was the scene of the earliest of all the incursions of the Moslems into India. Your Lordships will no doubt remember that the grand incursion of the Moslems into India took place about the time that the Norman Conquest of this country was taking place in the eleventh century, 583 when Mahmud of Ghazni swept down from Afghanistan with his Moslem hordes and conquered and occupied large parts of the Northern territories of India. But some three hundred years before that date there had been another and more peaceful penetration of the Moslems into India. Followers of the Prophet of Arabia had made their way from Persia into Sind, and had settled there, so that from the earliest days Sind has been a Moslem territory. Then I come to the conquest of Sind by this country, which took place in the year 1843. Your Lordships will perhaps remember that the authorities of Whitehall at that time were very loath to increase their territorial acquisitions in India and the responsibilities which inevitably followed upon such acquisitions, and if we may judge by the announcement made by Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of Sind, to the Governor-General of that date, he was perfectly well aware that that was the case.
The story of his report of the conquest of Sind to the Governor-General is that it consisted of a single word in Latin, the word "Peccavi"—"I have sinned" —and he left it to the Governor-General to spell it with one "n" or two "n's" as he considered most appropriate to the circumstances of the time. It is a good story, which will be found in more than one history of repute, and it is always against one's inclination to spoil a good story; but I am bound to say, in the interests of historical accuracy, that my investigations of the matter seem to show that no foundation in fact for the story exists. To begin with, I am told by men of an older generation that it is very unlikely that Sir Charles Napier had as much Latin as would enable him to send a Despatch even in one word in that language; but my researches have shown that the origin of the story, so far as I have been able to make out, is a witty paragraph in an issue of Punch which appeared on May 18, 1845. I have traced the story back as far as that day, but I am unable to trace it any further. Be that as it may, Sir Charles Napier conquered Sind, and provision had to be made for its administration.
For a brief period Sind was administered as a separate entity. Subsequently, on grounds of administrative convenience it was absorbed in the Presidency of 584 Bombay. It was always realised, however, that on racial and geographical grounds it was inappropriate that Sind should be administered as a division of the Bombay Presidency, and many proposals were made from time to time for making changes. It was suggested on more than one occasion that it should be incorporated in the Punjab. Then there was the grandiose scheme of Lord Lytton—not my noble friend who adorns these Benches, but my noble friend's distinguished father—who proposed the creation of a vast frontier Province stretching almost from the highlands of Kashmir in the North to the India Ocean in the South, and embracing the territory of Sind. But none of those large projects came to maturity. During recent years the people of Sind have pressed with ever greater insistence for the creation of a separate Province of their own, and the proposal which was definitely put forward by a special Committee of the First Round-Table Conference that Sind should be established as a separate Province was accepted by Parliament and embodied in the Act of 1935.
Then, to turn for a moment to Orissa. Orissa is essentially a Hindu territory. For many centuries, and before the invasions of Orissa by the Moslems in the sixteenth century, the Kings of Orissa ruled happily over the Oriya people in what was known as the holy land of Orissa, and now once more Orissa has become essentially Hindu territory. Practically the whole of the population is Hindu, but there is a small smattering of Moslems, amounting, I think, to not more than 1½ per cent. of the total population of Orissa. Thoughout the present century the people, of Orissa have pressed from time to time that their claims to be regarded as a homogeneous entity should be recognised. I am bound to say it is a claim that has my fullest sympathy, and, personally, I was gratified when I found that, as in the case of Sind, Parliament was willing to recognise the reasonableness of the claim and to provide for the establishment of a new Province of Orissa.
I think there are only three main points of importance on which I need say anything so far as the actual text of the Orders is concerned. The first main point concerns the date of the inauguration 585 of the new Provinces; the second deals with the nature of the Government which is to be set up in the new Provinces during the interim period before Provincial Autonomy comes into operation; and the third is concerned with the financial adjustments between the territories which are being divided up (which will be found dealt with in the Schedules of the Orders) and the financial assistance which in the case of both these Provinces will be required from the Central Government.
First as to the date of their establishment. The date proposed is the 1st of April of this year, and the reason for the choice of that date is a simple one. It is almost essential, I think, that the new Provinces should come into existence at the beginning of a financial year. Considerable confusion would be caused if they were to be established in the middle of a financial year when the Budgets which concern them would not concern them as entities but would concern the larger Province as a whole from which they have been detached. There is one other reason why the Government are anxious to see these new Provinces established at an early date. So far as I have been able to judge by the progress which is being made with the work that has to be carried through before Parliament can be asked to agree to time establishment of Provincial Autonomy, I see no reason at the present time why the Government should not be in a position to ask Parliament to consider the establishment of Provincial Autonomy in about a year's time, the spring of 1937; and if it indeed be the desire of Parliament that Provincial Autonomy should be brought into force in the spring of 1937, it is very desirable that these two new Provinces should have a period of a year in which to establish their administrative machinery before they have to operate a full self-governing Constitution.
So much for the date. Now with regard to the nature of the Government in the new Provinces during that interim period. We have desired to make the form of Government as simple as possible and, in effect, the executive authority will be the Governor of the Province. There will be no Legislative Councils in the ordinary sense during the interim period, but the Governor will be furnished with Advisory Councils, consisting 586 of twenty-five representatives in the case of Sind and twenty representatives in the case of Orissa, who will be consulted by him on all matters of major importance. He will further be given the power of making such use either of individual members of his Advisory Council or of Committees of his Advisory Council, in assisting him to bring the new administrative machinery into operation, as he thinks fit. It was thought very desirable that during this period in which the administrative work is being built up major questions of political interest should be left in abeyance, and that being so the only legislative power during that time will be the power of the Governor and Governor-General in Council under the provisions of the existing Government of India Act.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYHow long will the interim period be?
§ THE MARQUESS OF ZETLANDThe period will last from the 1st of April, if the Provinces are set up on the 1st of April next, until the establishment of Provincial Autonomy. The legislative power, as I said, will vest in the Governor under the provisions of the existing Act—not the Act of 1935 but the existing Government of India Act, which gives power to make rules and regulations; but it is not likely that he will use this power for any other purpose than the adjustment of existing enactments to the new state of affairs: that is to say, to the new Provinces.
Finally, I come to the question of the financial adjustments. If any of your Lordships have studied the provisions of the Schedules dealing with the apportionment of assets and liabilities you will no doubt have found that they are somewhat complicated in their details, but broadly speaking the effect of these proposals will be to impose upon the new Provinces liabilities proportionate to the assets they will take over. Perhaps the simplest example in the Schedules of the way in which that will work is to be found in the provision with regard to the Bombay reclamation scheme. It is laid down that the liabilities in respect of that scheme shall be exclusively the liabilities of Bombay since of course Sind in no way benefits from it. With regard to the assistance from the Central Government which will be required by these two new Provinces, they are both what is 587 known as deficit Provinces—that is to say, neither of them possesses a revenue which is sufficiently great to meet its necessary expenditure. I am not in a position, of course, to indicate to your Lordships what the financial assistance will be that will be granted by the Government of India to the new Provinces after Provincial Autonomy has been established. That will depend upon the Report of Sir Otto Niemeyer, who is undertaking his investigations in India at the present time and who will issue a Report which will be submitted for the consideration of Parliament in clue course.
All that I am in a position to do to-day is to inform your Lordships of the financial arrangements which have been made for the interim period, which, so far as can be foreseen, will be the financial year 1936–37, the next forthcoming financial year. In the case of Sind it is estimated that during that year the deficit of the revenue of the Province will be approximately 102 lakhs of rupees. Of that amount it is estimated that between seven and eight lakhs of rupees is due to the additional expenditure involved in the creation of the new Province. The remainder is really the deficit of the Province at the present time, which is not found by the Government of India, but which, of course, since the Province is part of the Presidency of Bombay, falls upon that Presidency. Some ninety lakhs of rupees or more is the cost of Sind to Bombay in a year. The Government of India are prepared to find the above amount for the year 1936–37, and in addition to make a non-recurring grant of six lakhs of rupees to set the Province on its legs, to provide it with an opening balance and to meet one or two charges for equipment.
In the case of Orissa, the estimated deficit is in round figures something like forty lakhs of rupees. That again is largely part of the existing deficit of the area and would have to be found in any case, even if the new Province was not created, except to the extent, of course, to which the deficit is due to additional expenditure resulting from the establishment of the new Province. In this case the Government of India are prepared to find the forty lakhs of rupees for 1936–37, and to make a 588 non-recurring grant of between nine and ten lakhs of rupees to the Province, to make good certain capital requirements such as the famine relief fund and to provide an opening balance and the necessary equipment. That in brief is a description of what these Orders in Council propose to do. I am happy to say, as I indicated before, that whereas on previous occasions the creation of new Provinces in India has usually been accompanied by violent controversies, in this case the proposals meet with general acceptance and indeed with the good will of the vast majority of those who are affected by them. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Draft Order as presented to Parliament on 20th January. 1936, and reported from the India and Burma Orders Committee yesterday, be approved.—(The Marquess of Zetland.)
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMy Lords, I am sure your Lordships will feel very grateful to my noble friend the Secretary of State for a very interesting speech on this subject. I will not pretend for a moment that I am in any sense a master of the topic under discussion, because in the vastness of the Indian question as we were compelled to discuss it before the Joint Select Committee the fate of Orissa and Sind figured as only small crumbs in the diet which we were compelled to consume. I do not know that there was any real controversy so far as the Joint Select Committee was concerned. If I remember aright there was a Sub-Committee which sat upon the subject of Orissa and Sind, and as far as I know there was no difference amongst us—my noble friend opposite confirms that—as to the propriety of this change.
May I just say one word as to the procedure in your Lordships' House this afternoon? My noble friend has explained that though there is an appearance of hurry in bringing this matter forward for decision, that is mitigated by the fact that the Orders have in fact been laid before Parliament, for three weeks. I admit that we ought to have become familiar with the Orders during those three weeks, but I would venture to call attention to the fact that the mere establishment of the India and Burma Orders Committee does necessarily postpone the consideration of any Orders in Council by the House at large until the Report of the Committee is in our hands 589 That is naturally the case because, if one knows that a Committee is going to sit upon a particular topic, one thinks it would be better to spare one's pains in considering it until one knows what the Committee has to say. Therefore I do think—and I am sure my noble friend will agree in general—that it ought to be understood that the necessary interval for consideration, or at any rate a necessary interval for consideration, should take place not merely after the Paper is laid but after the Committee has pronounced upon it.
When look at the Report of the Committee as it has been rendered to us I find that the Committee say that this matter does require the special consideration of your Lordships' House. It is natural that noble Lords would not undertake that consideration until they knew that the Committee had sat, because that is what toe Committee is there for. Therefore, although I quite agree that the fact of the Paper having been laid three weeks makes a great difference, it does not make the whole difference. I hope my noble friend will not think it at all disagreeable of me if I say that I hope that in future cases we may have a little more time.
As regards the substance of these Orders in Council I am very grateful for the account which the Secretary of State has given to your Lordships. Though I sat for I do not know how many months on the Joint Select Committee, a good deal of it was entirely new to me. That shows how little it was possible for us to grasp of the full significance of what we were doing; but at any rate we are agreed in the main. There is, however, one element in the change to which I would like to call the attention of the Government, and that is the position of the civil servants who are affected. I do not for a moment wish to say to your Lordships that the interests of the civil servants are the most important consideration which we have to bear in mind. That is not so. No doubt the welfare of the people of India and their interests come first. But the interests of the civil servants do deserve consideration, not only for their own sakes but also because, unless they are satisfied and are able to work with good will in their charges, the interests of the people of India will undoubtedly suffer.
590 Unless the civil servants and the Police think they are well treated, everybody who has been accustomed to administration will admit that you are not likely to get the very best work out of them. Therefore it is important, and I shall not apologise to your Lordships for dwelling upon it for a moment or two. The principal characteristic of these new Provinces is, above all, their very small size. Sind is minute, but both are very small. The interests of the civil servants are therefore immediately affected. Mind you, they have no choice. When a civil servant in the Province of Bihar or in one of the other Provinces affected is ordered to take over work in the new Province, he cannot say he would rather not. He has no choice. And when he has once taken over that work, he finds, of course, that his prospects of promotion and his career are immediately affected. Although Orissa, for example, will have become a Province, it will have exactly the same area and exactly the same population—with certain small additions—as it had before, and therefore a large number of opportunities which would have been open to the civil servants had the change not taken place will be barred to them. There will be no Commissioners of Divisions, because there will be only the one Division, and I believe there will be no Secretary to the Government. Indeed, the whole Government will be the Governor; he will be the Government.
That applies so far as the principal people are concerned; I do not mean, of course, that it applies in every respect. I quite admit that I may be in error, and the Secretary of State will have abundant opportunity of putting it right; I apologise if I have made any mistake, but that is what I am informed. Putting it at its lowest, the civil servant has not anything like the same opportunities, unless some other arrangement can be made, as he would have had if he had not been called upon, without any power of refusing, to do his service in the new Provinces. I will just call attention to the fact that judicial personages are not in that position. Although Orissa is cut off from Bihar, yet the Judge may still look to his career in the larger area. I suggest, therefore—I do not pretend that this is my own knowledge, but it has been submitted to me—that the suggestion ought to be made that the civil 591 servants who are posted in these new Provinces should be lent by the old Provinces and not definitely posted; so that, supposing hereafter, either of their own motion or by the orders of their superiors, they are moved from the new Provinces, their career will be carried on just as if the change had not taken place. They will be only lent for purposes of administration to the new Provinces, and in all other respects they will be as they were before. I do not know whether that is a possible arrangement, but if it is made, of course none of the difficulties to which I have called attention will arise.
Where I have spoken of the civil servants, I have, of course, meant the civil servants appointed by the Secretary of State in Council now or, after the new Act is in operation, by the Secretary of State himself. I was confining my remarks to that class of civil servant. I am advised that the same difficulty will not arise with regard to the Provincial civil servants. There I am not quite sure, but, at any rate, so far as the Indian Civil Service are concerned, I should like in respect of them to make this suggestion. There is a subsidiary point which I hope the Secretary of State will bear in mind. He reserves under the Order power to control the financial arrangements which will affect those civil servants, but there are other precautions which it may be in the interests of these civil servants to extend to them, and I suggest that he should reserve powers, not merely in respect of finance but in other respects as well, to provide what is necessary for the protection of civil servants transferred as these will be. I have applied all I have said to Orissa, but mutatis mutandis I believe that it applies equally to Sind. I do not mean to say that the two cases are absolutely on all fours, but so far as the observations that I have ventured to make are concerned, what is true of Orissa will be true of Sind as well.
I hope my noble friend will be able to reassure your Lordships on this point, and—what is, if I may respectfully say so, even more important—to reassure the civil servants concerned. The House will forgive me for reminding them that, in the very far-reaching change for which Parliament has been responsible in India and with which we were all too familiar last year, the interests of the civil 592 servants were profoundly affected and they were consequently in great apprehension as to the future. The Secretary of State showed himself very aware and conscious of that, and we were extremely grateful to him for making important concessions in respect of the civil servants while the Bill was going through. That is my excuse, if I need an excuse, for adverting to it on the present occasion, not with any view, I need not say, of obstructing the passage of these Orders, but in the hope that something may fall from the Secretary of State which may have a reassuring effect.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF ONSLOW)My Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I come between the House and my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition just for one moment. I happen to be Chairman of the India and Burma Orders Committee. Arising out of what my noble friend Lord Salisbury said just DOW, I may perhaps make a few observations on the procedure which I think may be for your Lordships' convenience. My noble friend said it would be a convenience to your Lordships if a certain interval were to take place between the meeting of the India and Burma Orders Committee and the moving of the Orders in this House. I have suggested to Lord Zetland, and also to Lord Goschen, the only two members of the Committee whom I have had an opportunity of consulting, that we should regularly meet, when these Orders come forward, on Thursdays. That will give your Lordships always a week-end in which to consider them and prepare ammunition to deal with them. We are meeting again, as a matter of fact, next Tuesday, when I will bring the matter before my colleagues on the Committee, and probably we shall be able to arrange a system which will be for the convenience of your Lordships.
§ LORD SNELLMy Lords, it has always been the wish, and in general the practice, of my noble friends and myself to give all the help we can to His Majesty's Government in passing a measure of self-government for India. We do not retract any of the obvious but unrewarded wisdom that we expressed during those discussions, but that is not the question before us to-day. I understand that the purpose of these Orders is to establish an interim form 593 of government in these two new areas, in preparation for the Provincial Autonomy which is to come. I understand, next year.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMuch more than that.
§ LORD SNELLI think it is unnecessary, in any case I do not propose, to discuss details respecting these Orders to-day. It seems to me quite reasonable, if Provincial Autonomy is to be established in the spring of next year, that these two areas should have at least a year in which to prepare themselves for the great task that they must then assume. They will have very complex problems to discuss, and it is right for them to take account of them as soon as possible. I venture to hope that full Provincial Autonomy will not be delayed beyond the period which has been indicated by the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India.
I feel that any experience which is gained during this interim period should be of the utmost value to the two Provinces when they are started. But there is one point about which I am slightly anxious, and about which I think the noble Marquess has not informed your Lordships. It is whether there will be any continuity about the two separate efforts of government. Will the personnel, for example, of those undertaking this preliminary responsibility be in any way associated with the areas when Provincial Autonomy is set up? It would seem, looking at it from my point of view, that those who are going to be responsible for the problems of these areas during the next twelve months will have accumulated a good deal of experience which will be valuable, and I should like to know whether it is in the mind of the Secretary of State that that experience should be available for the Provinces when they are set up. With these few observations, and with the recognition that these Orders are for a merely interim term, I raise no objection whatever to them, and my noble friends will not resist their being passed.
§ THE MARQUESS OF ZETLANDMy Lords, perhaps I might just reply to the observations of the noble Lord who has just sat down and of the noble Marquess who spoke before him. With regard to the noble Lord's question as to whether the personnel which will be engaged in 594 establishing the administrative machinery in the new Provinces is likely to continue to be available when the interim period comes to an end, my answer is "Most certainly." It is certainly my expectation that the majority, at any rate, of the officials who are engaged in the task of setting the administrative machinery in motion will be available for assisting in working it after the interim period conies to an end. With regard to the opening remark of the noble Lord, as to the extent to which the wisdom which they had contributed to the solution of this vast problem had gone unrewarded, I am bound to confess that from their point of view it has, to an extent, gone unrewarded, but I hope that so far as I am concerned he will not think it has gone unrecognised. I appreciate very greatly the contributions which were made in the debates last summer by the noble Lord and his friends.
With regard to the question put to me by the noble Marquess, I can assure him, in the first place, that I am very grateful to him for his courtesy in intimating to me that he did propose to raise the question of the position of the Civil Service under these Orders. I can also assure him that I am as anxious as he is to be assured that their interests are fully safeguarded. I am happy to be able to say that am so satisfied. I quite agree that the two new Provinces will be small, but they are not the smallest Provinces in India. Both of them will be larger, and Sind considerably larger, than the North-West Frontier Provinces, and it is of course the fact that a member of the All-India Services accepts it as part of his conditions of service that he shall serve in any part of India to which he may be called upon to go. I quite agree with the noble Marquess that there may be apprehensions in the minds of some persons, though not in the minds of civil servants themselves—
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYOh, yes.
§ THE MARQUESS OF ZETLAND—because I think if they had had apprehensions I should have had representations made to me, and I have not received a single representation from the Civil Services or the Indian Police or the Civil Service 595 Associations, or any individual members of them. I assume, therefore, that their apprehensions, if they exist, are not very great.
I will explain to the noble Marquess that he is surely mistaken in one observation which he made. He said that in Orissa there would be no Secretaries to Government. I cannot imagine how a full-blown system of responsible Parliamentary government can be established in a Province without having a headquarters secretariat. I think it will be essential that there should be Secretaries to Government. They will have immense duties to perform, and I can assure him he is mistaken in thinking there will be no headquarters secretariat in the Provinces. Indeed if he will look at it in this way he will see that the prospects of the Indian Civil Service, from the point of view of the higher appointments, are really increased by the creation of the new Provinces. In the area which is at present served by one Governor, Bihar and Orissa, there will be two Governors. There is straight away an enormously-important new post created. And not only will there be two Governors, but where there is one headquarters secretariat there will in future be two headquarters secretariats, with all the posts connected with them. So that to that extent the prospects of the Indian civilians will be improved.
But then the noble Marquess has perhaps in mind the case of a district officer who sees no chance in a small Province like Orissa of securing a selection post. I agree that there is a possibility that to that extent the prospects of some officers might be thought to be less than they are at present, but we are quite prepared to meet that case. The noble Marquess suggested that the civil servants of Bihar should be lent to the Province of Orissa. I am prepared to agree to a proposal which comes to the same thing I think, though it is not put quite in that way—a proposal under which there shall be a joint cadre for the two Provinces, which I think would be even better than the noble Marquess's proposal. And not only in the case of Bihar and Orissa but also in the case of Sind and of Bombay.
Then, as the noble Marquess observes, we have specifically put into the Orders themselves the provisions dealing with 596 the case of those officers who, to begin with at any rate, are obliged to serve in the new Provinces even if they do not wish to do so. Under Section 23 (2) of the Orissa Order the power of the Government to require these officers to serve in a new Province is subject to this proviso
The power conferred by this paragraph to require a person to serve in, or in connection with the affairs of, Orissa shall be exercised subject to any conditions for the protection of the persons concerned prescribed by the Governor-General in Council, either generally or in relation to particular persons or classes of persons.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMay I interrupt? It is only to make it quite clear. These arrangements are prescribed by the Governor-General in Council. How will that be after the new Constitution of India is in full working?
§ THE MARQUESS OF ZETLANDThe conditions will, of course, be prescribed before the new Constitution comes into operation.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYI see.
§ THE MARQUESS OF ZETLANDAnd they will of course remain after it comes into operation. And supposing that a new Government tried to interfere with these conditions, to the detriment of any member of the Services, the special responsibility of the Governor will at Once come in. He will act under that special responsibility in his discretion and, acting in his discretion, he will be subject to the control of the Secretary of State, who in his turn will be subject to the control of Parliament. So that the chain of control is quite complete, and if an officer felt himself aggrieved in a matter of that kind, of course it could always be brought to the notice of Parliament, and Parliament would have complete control over it. I mention that in order to show the noble Marquess that so far as the Secretary of State's Services are concerned, I think that they are fully safeguarded.
The noble Marquess said that he did not think the question arose in the case of the Provincial Services. There I am bound to say I differ a little from the noble Marquess. I think it is possible that in the case of Orissa a member of the Provincial Service who is at present serving in Madras might rather dislike having in future to serve in Orissa; but we are prepared to do what lies within 597 our power to meet the case of those men also, and to arrange, so far as circumstances will permit, that if there are any cases of that kind the Madras Provincial Service officer shall revert to his own Province, and his place shall be taken by a member of the new Orissa Provincial Service. So that as far as it is possible to do it, the interests of those officers will be safeguarded as well. I hope that, I have been able to satisfy the noble Marquess that we have had the interests of those officers very much in our minds, and that we have considered every possible safeguard which may be necessary to prevent any injustice being done to them.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.