were ordinarily decided by the majority, the GovernorGeneral having a casting vote if the votes were equal. If the Governor-General determined to overrule the majority, it was provided that he and the members of Council should mutually exchange with and communicate in writing to each other the grounds and reasons of their respective opinions.' They were then to meet a second time, and if both parties retained their first opinions, their minutes were to be entered on the consultations, and the orders of the Governor-General were to be carried out.

In his Essay on Representative Government,' published in 1861, when the procedure which I have described was still legally in force, Mr. J. S. Mill described the manner in which he considered that Ministers in charge of the great departments of an Executive Government ought to be assisted by Councils.

"The Councils should be consultative merely, in this sense, that the ultimate decision should rest undividedly with the Minister himself; but neither ought they to be looked upon, or to look upon themselves as ciphers, or as capable of being reduced to such at his pleasure. The advisers attached to a powerful and perhaps self-willed man ought to be placed under conditions which make it impossible for them, without discredit, not to express an opinion, and impossible for him not to listen to and consider their recommendations, whether he adopts them or not. The relation which ought to exist between a chief and this description of advisers is very accurately hit by the constitution of the Governor-General and those of the different presidencies in India. These Councils are composed of persons who have professional knowledge of Indian affairs, which the GovernorGeneral and Governors usually lack, and which it would not be desirable to require of them. As a rule, every member or Council is expected to give an opinion, which is, of course, very often a simple acquiescence; but if there is a difference of sentiment, it is at the option of every member, and is the invariable

practice, to record the reasons of his opinion; the GovernorGeneral or Governor doing the same. In ordinary cases the decision is according to the sense of the majority; the Council, therefore, has a substantial part in the Government, but if the Governor-General or Governor thinks fit, he may set aside even their unanimous opinion, recording his reasons. The result is that the chief is, individually and effectively, responsible for every act of the Government. The members of Council have only the responsibility of advisers; but it is always known, from documents capable of being produced, and which, if called for by Parliament or public opinion, always are produced, what each has advised, and what reasons he gave for his advice; while from their dignified position and ostensible participation in all acts of government, they have nearly as strong motives to apply themselves to the public business, and to form and express a well-considered opinion on every part of it, as if the whole responsibility rested with themselves.'

I must continue my quotation, for Mr. Mill's commentary on the system thus described is remarkable :

"This mode of conducting the highest class of administrative business is one of the most successful instances of the adaptation of means to ends which political history, not hitherto very prolific in works of skill and contrivance, has yet to show. It is one of the acquisitions with which the art of politics has been enriched by the experience of the East India Company's rule; and like most of the other wise contrivances by which India has been preserved to this country, and an amount of good government produced which is truly wonderful considering the circumstances and the materials, it is probably destined to perish in the general holocaust which the traditions of Indian government seem fated to undergo, since they have been placed at the mercy of public ignorance and the presumptuous vanity of political men.'

Mr. Mill's anticipations have been to some extent verified. The manner of transacting business which existed under the East India Company has perished, but, I venture to say, not for the reasons which he pre

dicted, but because it was not the wise contrivance which he supposed. The principle which he laid down was undoubtedly true, that while a man in the position of Governor-General of India ought to possess, in the last resort, power to act upon his own judgment, he ought also to be obliged to hear the opinions of experienced councillors, and that those councillors should have the right of making their opinions known, whether they were followed or not. This principle has not been infringed. If Mr. Mill had himself seen in operation the system which he described, he would, I am sure, have given it a different character. The truth is that a more cumbrous, I might say a more impossible, system of administration for a great empire could hardly have been invented than that which prevailed under the government of the East India Company, when every case was supposed to be laid before the GovernorGeneral and the whole Council, and to be decided by them collectively. The only reason that enabled such a system to last so long was that in matters requiring prompt and vigorous action it was not really acted upon.

In the latter years of the East India Company, and for a few years after the transfer of the government to the Crown, the Governor-General was frequently separated from his Council. His presence was often required in Northern India by reasons of political necessity. He was authorised to exercise, while absent from the Council, all the powers of the Governor-General in Council, except the power of legislation. The Council remained in Calcutta under the presidency of the senior member, who exercised, during the Governor-General's absence, all the powers of the Governor-General in Council, except the power of giving assent to laws. There was a double Government, with a division of

authority and responsibility fatal to good administration. Sir Henry Maine has described, from his own observation as a member of Council, the manner in which the system actually worked :

'A division of business was made between the Governor-General in the Upper provinces and the President in Council at Calcutta. Everything which was of importance was referred directly to the Governor-General, and there was either a rule or an understanding that if any matter which came before the President in Council assumed, contrary to expectation, the least importance, it should be sent on to the Governor-General. . . Except in regard to matters belonging to the Foreign department, of which it was usual for the Governor-General himself to undertake the primary management, the severance of the Governor-General from the Council dislocated the whole machinery of Government. I was myself in Calcutta, as a member of Council during the absence of Lord Elgin in the Upper provinces, in the summer of 1863. I believe it to be impossible for any human arrangement to have worked more perversely. Lord Elgin was distinguished by remarkable caution-though I doubt whether his caution was practically greater than that which any man comparatively fresh from England would display under similarly vast responsibilities-and all or most important matters were transferred by him over a distance of 1,500 miles for the opinions of his Council. The result was that a great deal of work was done twice over, and a great deal not done at all.'1

In earlier times, when there were no railways or telegraphs, and hardly any roads, the duties of the Government were very different from what they are now. Kingdoms were annexed and conquered, and stirring events were constantly going on, but the ordinary business of the Central Government was comparatively small. But in the years immediately preceding the mutinies of 1857 rapid changes had begun

1 Memorandum on the Administration of Bengal, December, 2, 1867.

in all branches of the administration, and when the great reign of Lord Dalhousie was over he declared it to be morally and physically impossible that the Governor-General should efficiently discharge all the duties imposed upon him.

The events of 1857 made the burden still heavier. The insertion by Parliament of a few words in the Indian Councils Act of 1861 gave to Lord Canning and his successors the means of reforming a system of government which had become intolerable. It empowered the Governor-General to make from time to time rules and orders for the more convenient transaction of business in his Council, and provided that any order made or act done in accordance with such rules and orders should be deemed to be the order or act of the GovernorGeneral in Council. These provisions made it possible to bring legally to an end the system under which the whole Council was supposed to take part collectively in the disposal of all the business of the Government.

Rules were made by Lord Canning, assigning to each member of the Council the charge of a separate department of the administration, and the Council was virtually converted into a Cabinet, of which the GovernorGeneral was the head. When this change was made it became obvious that the separation, for long periods of time, of the Governor-General from his Council was incompatible with efficient administration. The reform of procedure was completed by Lord Lawrence. Since his time the old plan of double government, under which the Governor-General was frequently absent from the Council, with a President in Council in Calcutta, has been abandoned. It is now never adopted except as an occasional measure of merely temporary conve

nience.