THE INDIAN LEGISLATURES. T HE Bill for improving the Indian Legislative
Councils will, of course, pass the Lords ; but when it reaches the Commons, the representatives of the India Office will have to be very careful, and to speak out a little more plainly than they are accustomed to do, or they may find the British Government landed in the dilemma which harassed it under Lord Dalhousie's great measure of the same kind. They have made the mistake of applying the same principle to the Supreme Legislative Council, as it ought to be called, and the Provincial Legislative Councils, and may find that an error with very far-reaching consequences. It has always been held hitherto that the Secretary of State, who is responsible to Parliament for India, and who on his responsibility can order any executive act to be done or left undone, should also have the power to order any legislative Act to be passed. That is, we fully admit, the most extreme of his powers, and one only to be used with the greatest circumspection and with the full consent of the whole Cabinet; but still, it exists, it has been found necessary, and it was to preserve it that Sir Charles Wood swept away the best Legislative Council which had yet existed in Asia. Is it now considered expedient to surrender that power, and rely in case of emergency on the omnipotence of Parliament ? Because, if it is not, the India Office people are making a serious blunder. Their new Supreme Legislative Council, when reinforced by so many non-official members as is now proposed, will have the power to refuse to obey the Secretary of State, and in certain contingencies is ex- ceedingly likely, or indeed certain, to use it. It would, for example, to a moral certainty have refused to sweep away the Protective duties on Indian textile manu- factures, a measure which was unpopular throughout India, and which was universally believed to have been practically ordered from home in the interest of Lancashire. It is true the majority, though non-official, will be nominated ; but not being dependent on the Executive, they cannot suffer from opposition, while they can on certain occasions—Income-tax debates, for example—by opposition gain exceeding popularity with Europeans as well as natives. Moreover, as the previous dilemma fully showed, a Council so great as this one, with legislative authority over a fifth of the human race, has an intense corporate pride of its own, takes orders of any sort with infinite reluctance, and is likely, on any serious provocation, to assume the attitude of Sir Barnes Peacock, who, being the most temperate and " legal " of mankind, found himself all at once, and avowed him- self, as member of the Legislature, in full moral rebellion against the Secretary of State. The reinforced Council will imitate him some day, it may be on a question of vital importance ; and then the Government of India will be as paralysed as if it were faced by a representative body. It may be, of course, that this is intended, the Cabinet relying on the telegraph to inform it, and on the loyalty of Parliament to override all opposition ; and if it is so, we have nothing to say except that it takes time for Parliament to act. But we think this is not the case ; and if we are right, our caution should be regarded as a very serious one. There might be occa- sions, during an insurrection or a financial collapse, or a quarrel with Britain about Protection, on which the recalcitrancy of the Supreme Legislative Council would be of enormous and most disastrous importance. Be it remembered that the vetoing power, which of course remains in full plenitude, does not meet the case at all, as no description of veto on Acts once passed can compel a Council to pass a Bill which it has made up its mind should never become law.
The easiest way to evade this difficulty, perhaps, would be to insert in the Bill words making it perfectly clear that the Viceroy could remove any non-official Councillor whose presence had become a public danger; but we do not see why the Supreme Council and the Provincial Councils should be placed all at once on the same footing. Why should we not try our experiments in safe places, though on the grand scale ? The idea of the present Bill is to allow the Government of India to liberalise the Legislative Councils without exactly turning them into little Parliaments. The Viceroy is not to establish an elective system, but he is to make rules for nominating un- official members, under which he may, if he pleases, accept as his nominees members chosen by some sort of election. He may, for example—we give this not as a suggestion, but an illustration—accept from each Presidency one member chosen by all landowners of a certain rank, and one mem- ber chosen by all graduates. Well, that liberalisation may be good or bad—we do not ourselves believe that in a land like India representative government is either possible or desirable—but why should it not be tried in the Provinces first ? They are not in the least alike, nor is there any reason for nominating their members all in the same way. Let chiefs sit in the Punjab, and great traders in Bom- bay, and graduates and zemindars in Bengal, and graduates and leading peasants in Madras ? Why not? We may hit, while working over so large and varied an area, either upon a very good system of drawing out native statesmanship, which is, of course, a true ideal ; or of attracting great confi- dence from the people, which is also an ideal ; or of enabling ourselves really to know native feeling, which is in our judgment the best ideal of all. We need not be timid in trying, for the Government of India, unlike most Govern- ments, can retrace its steps, and has repeatedly done so— as, for example, in legislating about contracts and the mortgaging of land—and the Provincial Legislatures, great and honourable as their position is, cannot all in a moment do any irreparable mischief. The veto on their pro- ceedings is too effective, and is held in too strong hands. We would let them try, if within their range of action they can improve upon the legislative ideas of the Governors and Lieutenant-Governors, and if they can, in particular, generate a great body of coherent opinion the absence of which is often severely felt. We would call to them for a short annual Session, even larger bodies than are now suggested, say, twenty picked civilians and thirty natives of importance, and encourage them within cer- tain limits to the greatest freedom of speech. Our business in India is to vivify, and if statesmen sin- cerely believe that more public discussion on legisla- tion will help to vivify the vast populations under our charge, let us have such discussion by all means. It has not injured Ceylon, which is on the whole the most advanced of our tropical Dependencies, and there is plenty of discussion there, not always by any means devoid of an acrimonious pungency. But we would try these large ex- periments on a limited though still great scale, before we meddled much with the central machine the success of which has always been something of a miracle. The Supreme Government of India, of which the Supreme Legislative Council is a constituent part, has actually secured order and justice, and habitual obedience to law, among two hundred and fifty millions of Asiatics, a feat which no Emperor has in a thousand years been able to perform. Inffia, is as safe, till the soldiers rise, as Trafalgar Square. The machine can be improved, doubtless, and should be improved ; but as we have reached the stage of experiment, and as the opportunity of safe but large experiment lies ready t ) our hands, why should the trial not be made in the Provinces first ? Liberalise the Pro- vincial Councils, each of which legislates within its limits of power for tens of millions of people, do it frankly and with a certain fearlessness—appointing, for example, some demagogues—and wait to see results.
It should not be forgotten by those Members of Par- liament who take an interest in these questions, that upon one point of immense social and administrative im- portance. India resembles France rather than Great Britain. The framework of her legal system, criminal and civil, may be said to be finished past readjustment, without the most urgent necessity. India, happily for herself, is governed, not by precedents, but by written Codes, which are, so to speak, in their main provisions beyond legislation ; which correct the great evil of our occupation, the incessant change in the governing class ; and which are slowly generating in the people, as their own religious Codes once did, immutable ideas on all subjects connected with justice and social law. The Provincial Councils cannot alter that grand framework, any more than the London County Council can alter English Commercial Law. This colossal benefit is secure, whatever happens, short of the overthrow of British ascendency ; and its security is a bulwark for society, the strength of which—as Englishmen may see in France—it is difficult to overrate. So long as the Codes are un- touched, it is difficult for any Council to pass realty dangerous or iniquitous laws, and we may popularise their constitution without any risk even of a Provincial overturn. Election, no doubt, is impossible, because the masses are as yet below it, and a representation of a mere class, not by any means as yet strong in character, would be unjust to the people ; but we can liberalise the Legislatures, the Supreme one excepted, without much apprehension. At all events, as the Bill is sure to be cut about in Committee in the House of Commons, we trust the India Office will see its way to separate the improvement of the Provincial Legisla- tures from that of the Legislature to which the responsible Secretary of State may one day have orders to send.
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