s TOPICS OF THE DAY.
1.kIA AS A CABINET QUESTION. Ir ifellegeli8114 to legislate on the subject of Indian Government this *don ; and the necessity is not only distinct on the face of the facts, but is recognized by her Majesty's Ministers as abso- lutely imperative upon them.
But certain grand conditions of that legislation have become not less obviously imperative. The period of twenty years al- lowed for the reconsideration of "the Charter," as it is called, has been so little improved, that we are on the very eve of its ex- piry without any understanding between Ministers and the public as to the nature of the form in which it is to be renewed. At the eleventh hour, the most important questions—as to its working in the past, its essential form, and its unavoidable necessities in the future—are raised in a hurry, and unavoidably deferred until after the equally unavoidable act of legislation for the present session. Hitherto Ministers have kept the plan with which they are pre- pared to themselves. The Committee of the Commons reported, in phraseology so selected as to imply that the first head of the in- quiry, on the government of India, had been closed. But it appears that two very intelligent members of the Committee moved an amendment, recorded in the Proceedings, to imply no more than that " progress " had been made, and not that the section had been concluded : and this view is confirmed by the pouring in of peti- tions and other documentary evidence from India, in support of the allegation that there is more to be said even on that first point—the constitution and operation of the Central Government. Ministers, however, have announced that they are prepared with a measure of legislation on that head. But they have not divulged it. Secrecy until the moment of proposing a measure in Parlia- ment is not unusual ; but the ordinary reason is a supposition that a foreknowledge might cause a disturbance in trade or finance. With a measure limited to a rearrangement of an official bureau such reasons could scarcely avail ; and hence the fact that a variety of conflicting propositions have been current in the legis- lative circles of this country, and that the official countenance has shown no sign of favour towards the more popular of these propo- sitions, has perhaps contributed to an assumption that the Minis- terial proposition is to be anti-popular, and, to some extent, what may be called anti-Indian. We are, of course, by the very nature of the circumstances, prevented from knowing whether that sup- position is accurate, wholly or in part, or wholly inaccurate. The plan contemplated by Ministers is known only to themselves, and at present they alone can judge of it. Whatever that may tarn out, there appear to us to be, as respects
India itself, two paramount necessities. Many of the abuses that have been alleged for a long series of years are confessed by Minis- ters; and reforms must be commenced, without much further delay, as they also confess. While therefore it is necessary to renew a me- tropolitan machinery, for the imperial government of India, it is not less necessary that the reconstruction of that machinery should be of a kind not to obstruct the progress of reform in India. With the present partial evidence on the subject before us, we say no- thing here of the essentially obstructive character imputed to the present form of the Central Government : we only insist that what is done now must not prevent what ought to be done in future. If the present settlement of the Central Government is the most urgent duty, it is not the most important, but a vast amount that has to be done in India far more extensively affects the welfare of that great country and its connexion with the em- pire. The central machinery may be so arranged as to facilitate that further and more important work. On the other hand, it might be so arranged as to obstruct : it might reestablish a body not only able to obstruct, but having a direct interest in doing so ; and thus the first act of Indian reform might be so accomplished as to prevent all the rest. If such were the Ministerial plan, the results, not remote, would be calamitous.
The suspicion that the plan contemplated by Government is of a kind to obstruct reforms, is a fact not to be disguised ; and it has given rise to an opposition, in and out of Parliament, divested of the factious or cliqueish character which most oppositions have shared of late years. The fact suggests to us some further condi- tions of the greatest importance, yet turning not upon the ques- tion of India, but upon the question of the Government itself. Nothing can be plainer than the fact that the opposition is of a kind which Ministers cannot safely defy or slight. On the other hand, it is possible that the measure of which they still reserve all knowledge to themselves, may be so excellent, and so self-evident in its excellence, that it will at once disarm this opposition, and re- establish unqualified confidence in Ministers ; and if so, all cautions an the subject may be considered as supererogatory. On the op- posite suppositien, however, that Ministers may intend to advance a plan which will not command that confidence, it may be very necessary for them to consider whether they intend to stake the existence of their Ministry on the question of India. It is, no doubt, a subject so important that a Ministry can scarcely incur grave failure and defeat upon it without their own existence being at stake. It then becomes a further question for the consideration of Ministers, whether the plan, whatever it may be, is in itself so exclusively meritorious, that obstinate fidelity to it would be more incumbent on them than fidelity to the object with which their own body was constructed.
We can hardly conceive such a case. The present Ministry was constructed in order "to carry on the Queen's Government," when
the comminutions of factions had rendered the formation of an efficient Ministry almost impossible. Our system of administration, based as it is upon usage and understood etiquettes, is not of a kind to be roughly treated by departure from those etiquette& At the downfall of the last Ministry, it was felt that the whole system had incurred some risk through neglect of usage, and even through so nnmaterial an influence as the violation of the spirit of our constitutional custom. It was to retrieve the constitution, not less than to carry on the routine of public affairs, that the present Ministers very creditably entered into the combination which pro- moted their own existence. Above all things therefore, con- sistently with personal honour, they are bound tC, labour for their own success. Success is amongst their duties.
Amongst their duties also is this one—to do their utmost that any particular function which may fall to their lot during their occu- pation of office shall be performed in the best manner, and so as to engage the public confidence. It happens, without any inten- tion of theirs that the reconstruction of the Indian Government falls within the scope of their necessary action. They are bound to perform that particular function as well as they can ; and they are bound, if they possibly can so to execute that particular function as not to let it imperil the existence of the Ministry.
We are quite alive to the amount of conflicting evidence and conflicting claims that must assail them from every quarter ; we are quite awake to the fact that they cannot satisfy everybody; and we also believe it to be quite possible that they may devise a plan so simple, so accordant with common sense, so moderate and so unobstructive for the future, that all moderate and sensible men will be inclined to accept it. There is therefore no insuperable difficulty in fulfilling the essential conditions of their action in the matter. On the other hand, failure would not only be disastrous to the Ministers as Ministers in the ordinary official sense of a Ministerial failure, but it would be fatal to the very objects with which their Administration was formed, and would be gravely in- jurious to their country. If the failure of the last Ministry was hazardous to our system of administration, I fortiori the failure of the present Ministry would constitute a risk a hundredfold greater. That risk, above all others' Ministers are bound to avert. If the arguments which we have touched upon have any force, Ministers will perceive, that while they cannot avoid snaking India a Cabinet question, they are bound BO far to conciliate the rational claims of their own best friends, as to conduct this Cabinet question to an issue of certain success.
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