no party to creating them. The Act also increased the number of members of the executive councils of Madras and Bombay from two to a maximum of four, thereby providing a seat for an Indian or two Indian members; it also authorized the creation of an executive council in any province having a lieutenant-govern- or. The policy of associating Indians with the executive govern- ment, thus affirmed as regards the provinces, had already been given effect to as regards the Government of India by the appoint- ment of Mr. (afterwards Lord) Sinha to the Governor-General's executive council. Lord Morley had also placed two Indians on his own council. Of these reforms as a whole it may be said that they gave to India the beginnings of representative institutions and opened to Indians the highest offices of the State.
While the reforms were slowly maturing, increasing disorders in Bengal and the spread of disaffection in other parts of India gave cause for anxiety and made the prospect of an early appease- ment doubtful. In the spring of 1907 the enactment of an un- popular law led to a violent anti-British movement in the Punjab. There were seditious meetings in the large cities, serious riots took place, endangering the lives of Europeans, in Lahore and Rawalpindi and attempts were made to tamper with the native army. In Bombay the irreconcilable extremist, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a Brahmin of the notoriously disaffected Chitpavan sect, passionately advocated swaraj, or complete political independence, and in his newspapers, the Kesari and the Mahratta, denounced the foreigner and foreign rule. When the Muzaffarpur murders took place, the Kesari, in a casuistical argument, apologized for and condoned the use of the bomb in Bengal as the latest effective remedy against tyranny. For these articles Tilak was prosecuted and sentenced by the Bombay High Court to six years' imprisonment. Meanwhile another Chitpavan Brahmin established in London a hostel for Indians under the name of the India House, which became the centre of revolution- ary plots in the Bombay Presidency. The extent of its machina- tions became known in the course of the proceedings pursuant to the assassination of Sir W. Curzon Wyllie at the Imperial Institute in London in June 1909 and of Mr. Jackson, the district magistrate of Nasik, in the Bombay Presidency. Dur- ing this period the extremists sought to commit the National Congress to a rejection of the proposed reforms and to a pro- gramme of complete Home Rule, and might possibly have succeeded but for Tilak's conviction and imprisonment. Not- withstanding these unpropitious signs the Indian Government did not waver in their resolve to proceed with the reforms. " I am determined," said Lord Minto in his Legislative Council, " that no anarchical crimes will for an instant deter me from endeavouring to meet as best I can the political aspirations of honest reformers." In giving this assurance to the moderates his Government . asked for and obtained increased powers to combat seditious incentives in the press and at public meetings and anarchical crime. In 1907 and 1908 laws were passed for prohibiting in proclaimed areas public meetings of a seditious character, for preventing the publication by the press of matter inciting to murder and other offences, for penalizing the manu- facture and use of explosives and conspiracies connected with them, for establishing a special procedure and special tribunals for the trial of crimes of an anarchical nature and for making associations for certain objects unlawful (the Prevention of Seditious Meetings Act, 1907; the Newspapers' Incitement to Offences Act, 1908; the Explosive Substances Act, 1908; the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1908).
Tranquillizing Effect of the Reforms. These measures, together with the better appreciation by the educated classes of the substantial nature of the proposed reforms, sensibly improved the situation. Mr. Gokhale, the leader of the moderate section of the nationalist party, a Brahmin of great intellectual capacity, high ideals and selfless devotion, effectively appealed to his countrymen to accept the reforms and, by making the best of them, to prove their fitness for larger political liberties. The King-Emperor's message to the princes and people of India, delivered on Nov. 2 1908, the jubilee of the late Queen Victoria's proclamation, had also a tranquillizing effect. The elections to
the new Legislative Councils were conducted in a spirit of good- will, and the discussions in the opening sessions in Jan. 1910 were marked by moderation and good sense. Though murders of public servants, gang robberies and other acts of terrorism still continued in Bengal and Eastern Bengal, Lord Minto in leaving India in Oct. 1910 was able to declare that the reforms had greatly cleared the air and that a happier feeling was abroad. Except for a serious failure of the monsoon in the autumn of 1908 and consequent losses of crops and cattle over a large area, the country generally was prosperous in Lord Minto's viceroyalty. Irrigation advanced rapidly in the arid tracts of the south- western Punjab and the wealth of the colonists attracted there from the populous districts of the province became proverbial. The ravages of plague continued unabated and in 1907 the re- corded deaths (1,315,000) from the disease reached a maximum. An advisory committee constituted from the Royal Society and the Lister Institute explored the causation of plague and in the light of their researches the Government of India revised the administrative methods of dealing with it. The problem of plague was a part of the larger problem raised by the insanitary conditions of India, especially of the towns. To this increasing attention began to be directed, and steps were taken in Lord Minto's administration to establish a service of medical officers of health in the municipalities and to assist those bodies to carry out sanitary improvements. Among the cities so assisted may be mentioned Rangoon. An important Act establishing an Improvement Trust, to deal with the insanitary and congested areas of Calcutta, was enacted by the Bengal Legislature.
Political Policy of Lord Minto. A new direction to the rela- tions of the British Indian Government with the native states of India was given by Lord Minto. For some time past there had been signs that some of the ruling chiefs resented the control exercised over them and their states by the suzerain power and suspected it of a wish to increase that control. How far the dis- content was justifiable is a matter of opinion. What is clear is that the growth of political ideas, increased contact with Europe and greater consciousness of their privileged position, had tended to make the princes discontented with a relationship which they had formerly accepted without hesitation. Lord Minto took occasion of a state visit to the Maharana of Udaipur to make a declaration of policy (Nov. 8 1909). Taking as his text the guarantee given to the feudatory princes and ruling chiefs in Queen Victoria's proclamation of 1858 and of King Edward VII. 's message of Nov. i 1908, Lord Minto said that his Government proposed to follow a policy of greater sympathy and elasticity. They would not aim at enforcing uniformity or administrative efficiency and would not press British methods of administration upon the states, but preferred that reforms should emanate from the durbars and be in harmony with the traditions of the states. " The foundation-stone," he said, " of the whole system is the recognition of identity of interests between the Imperial Government and the durbars and the minimum of interference with the latter in their own affairs." The declaration and the spirit in which it was acted upon were very welcome to the ruling princes. Zealous political officers, when faced as they sometimes are with wrongdoing and oppres- sion, may at times be inclined to regret the emphasis laid on non- interference. But it was an essential part of the policy of mutual trust and cooperation. The war vindicated its soundness.
Relations with Afghanistan continued good during Lord Minto's administration. The Amir maintained silence about the provisions of the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 affecting Afghanistan, and it was decided not to press him on the matter. He showed his confidence in Lord Minto by accepting the latter's invitation to pay him a friendly visit. He was received in state at Agra on Jan. 9 1908, and afterwards visited some of the principal cities of India. The Viceroy considerately abstained from discussing matters of business during the Amir's sojourn in India. The Amir was delighted with the kindness shown him and let it be known that his friendship with the British Govern- ment had been immensely strengthened. As regards the inde- pendent tribes on the N.W. frontier the only important event
