ord Minto testified that on large questions of policy they rarely
Efered, though he thought that at times the Secretary of State nterfered unnecessarily with the Indian Government in matters
actual administration, and reduced its authority to that of a aere agent. Lord Morley, undoubtedly, held and acted on the that the executive in India is a derivative government,
sponsible not only as to policy but as to administrative acts to Parliament, said, as such subordinate in all respects to the Secre- ary of State. The doctrine was beyond dispute, but may be ap- lied too rigidly. Lord Minto, however, frankly acknowledged his Government had the unfailing and effective support of the minister whenever its measures were challenged.
Political "Unrest." Lord Minto went to India believing bat what the country most needed was a respite from reforms, [ proposed, as he expressed it, " to give the horse a rest in his
Hop." But it was soon patent to him that the state of India i beyond an anodyne of the kind. He 'found widespread " un- est " among the educated classes, which took various forms. )f open organized disaffection there was little except in the dismembered province of Bengal and the newly created province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, where a very bitter agitation, accompanied by the boycott of British goods and frequent disturbances of the peace in which Mahommedans were mostly the sufferers, had been started by Hindu politicians with the object of obtaining a reversal of the partition. The movement kindled the flame of Bengal nationality and became invested with the religious sanctions of Hinduism. The " motherland " of Bengal, it was said, had been desecrated by foreign hands and Kali, its tutelary goddess, cried for vengeance. Among an excitable and impressionable people crude notions of self-rule and political freedom easily " yoked themselves," as Lord Morley wrote to Lord Minto, " to deep invisible roots of alien race, creed and inviolable caste." The movement caught up students and teachers in schools and colleges and the poorer members of the professional classes. As it gathered strength and was fed by a rancorous press, among the publications of which the Yugantar (New Era) newspaper was the most notorious until its suppression in 1908, it led not a few of its misguided proselytes into the downward path of anarchical crime. Within two years of Lord Minto's arrival in India secret societies, radiating from Calcutta and Dacca and composed chiefly of young men belong- ing to respectable families, sprang up in many districts of the two provinces, having for their object the deliverance of India from the foreign yoke. This they sought to compass by assassina- tion and terrorism. The art of bomb-making was imported from Europe. Revolutionary literature and the use of pistols and explosives were sedulously studied. Funds were obtained by gang robberies, usually committed at night and accompanied by murder and violence. In Oct. 1907 an attempt was made to blow up the train in which the lieutenant-governor of Bengal was travelling, in Dec. the district magistrate of Dacca was shot, in April 1908 two English ladies were killed in their carriage by a bomb intended for the district magistrate of Muzaffarpur. Police discoveries followed which made it clear that the Government was faced with a formidable revolutionary conspiracy, organized by obscure fanatics but directed by subtler brains, challenging the very existence of British rule and unamenable to political concessions. An anarchical movement of this kind was really alien to the Indian character. But the mass of the population was inert and terrified, and the moderate section of the politically minded classes was overborne by extremists, who, while dis- sociating themselves from the " physical force " party, extenu- ated their acts and laid the blame on the " partition " policy.
But the course which disaffection was to run in the two Bengals and its reactions elsewhere were unsuspected when Lord Minto examined the situation in 1906. The "unrest" which he found existing in other parts of India was of a kind which, notwithstanding disquieting features, was in the main not revolutionary or unconstitutional, and might yield to sympathet- ic treatment. English books and newspapers had familiarized the educated classes with the political ideas of advanced Western communities. They had become conscious of their strength and
the power of the press and platform. The annual meetings of the National Congress, now in its twenty-first year, voiced the advanced views of the more ardent politicians. With increasing boldness the Congress leaders inveighed against the Government as a jealous bureaucracy, oppressive in policy, deaf to outside opinion and bent on excluding Indians from high administrative office. They dwelt on the poverty and stagnation of India and contrasted it with the brilliant progress made by Japan. What the National Congress said once a year, extremist Indian newspapers said daily. In the partition of Bengal, in the Uni- versities Act and in other measures of Lord Curzon's administra- tion they saw so many insidious attempts to crush their ambi- tions. Discontent and distrust were in the air. England, it was said, had come to the end of her liberating mission and India had nothing to hope for. Lord Minto took the view that novel forces and aspirations were at work that were natural and just, which the ruling power should not only meet but assist. " A change," he said, " is passing over the land and we cannot afford to dally." In the summer of 1906 he invited his executive council in a Minute to consider the question of political reform or, as he described it, " the possibility of the development of adminis- trative machinery in accordance with new conditions." A tenta- tive project of reform was drawn up in 1907, and with the ap- proval of the Secretary of State in Council was published in England and India. In 1908 the Government of India reviewed it in the light of opinions received from various sources and submitted revised proposals to the Secretary of State. A bill, embodying them as finally settled, so far as they required parliamentary authority, was presented to Parliament by Lord Morley in Feb. 1909 and, after debates in both Houses, was passed with little amendment in May of that year and became law as the Indian Councils Act 1909.
The Morley-Minto Constitution.- The main object of the Act was to enlarge the Legislative Councils and make them more fully representative, introduce the elective principle, give greater powers of discussion and of obtaining information from the execu- tive. Its provisions were wide and general, all details and some important matters of principle being left to rules to be made by the authorities in India. The Act fixed for each Council the maximum number of " additional " members {i.e. those other than the members of the executive councils), the number varying from 60 in the Imperial Legislative Council to 30 in the smaller provinces. The proportion of elected and nominated members in each Council, the formation of the electoral bodies, the qualifications of the electors and of persons eligible for election, the procedure of the Councils as regards debate, the moving and effect of resolutions and the asking of questions were left to rules. The actual constitution and powers of the Councils must there- fore be sought in the rules. In each Council the nominated members comprised: (i) a substantial bloc of officials, the bloc in the Imperial Legislative Council being large enough to secure, together with the members of the executive council, an absolute majority; (2) non-officials nominated to represent classes or interests which would otherwise be unrepresented or inadequately represented. In all the Councils, with the exception of that of Bengal, the nominated members exceeded in number the elected members. The number of the latter in any province was too few to admit of any system of territorial constituencies and direct voting. Special constituencies therefore were formed, such as universities, chambers of commerce, groups of municipalities and district boards, the object being to obtain as far as possible a fair representation of the different classes and interests in the country. Special arrangements were also made for the represen- tation of Mahommedans as a separate class or community. The Councils were empowered to discuss and move resolutions on the annual budget and in like manner to raise discussions by resolution on matters of general public interest. But they did not vote the budget and resolutions operated only as recommenda- tions which were not binding on the Government. The Councils had no direct control over the executive, though they could in- form and influence it. Lord Morley emphatically said that India was not ripe for parliamentary institutions and that he would be
