Member in charge. After the presentation of the report of the Select Committee, the member in charge or other member may move, (a) that the Bill as reported by the Select Committee be read a second time either at once or at some future date to be then stated, or that (b) the Bill, as reported, be recommitted to the Select Committee either. (1) without limitation or (2) with respect to particular clauses or amendment only or (3) with instructions to the Select Committee to make some particular or additional provision in the Bill. Second Reading-when a motion has been agreed to by the Council that a Bill be read a second time, the President submits the Bill to the Council clause by clause. Amendments, for which seven clear days' notice is given, may be moved at this stage. If no amendments are made when a Bill is submitted clause by clause the Bill may at once be read a third time! But if an objection is made when the Bill is being read clause by clause, the Bill can not be read the third time at the same meeting, but must be brought in again on some subsequent day. At this stage only verbal amendments could be moved; and if the motion for the third reading is carried, the Bill is deemed to have been passed and is accordingly signed and certified by the President, and submitted to the Governor by the Secretary, Legislative Department. Motion for Adjournment. 130. We proceed next to the deliberative functions and first to the motion for adjournment. This is a new feature of the Councils. In Parliamentary countries this is a means of raising a debate upon a question of urgent public interest, which though important, might otherwise have never been brought to the notice of the Council. The Standing Orders require that leave to make a motion for adjournment for the purpose of discussing a resolution on a definite matter of urgent public importance must be asked after questions, and before the business of the day is entered upon; a written statement of the resolution must be submitted to the President before the Council sits, and his consent obtained. The leave will be given if more than thirty members are for it. The debate on the resolution must terminate at six o'clock. The President can not refuse leave except for reasons which would justify the disallowance of a resolution. This right is subject to the following restrictions: (i) Not more than one such motion shall be made at the same sitting. (ii) Not more than one matter can be discussed on the same motion, and the motion must be restricted to a specific matter of recent Occurrence. (iii) The motion must not revive discussion on a matter which has been discussed in the same session. (iv) The motion must not anticipate matter which has been previously appointed for consideration, or with reference to which a notice for motion has been previously given; and (v) The motion must not deal with a matter on which a resolution could not be moved. 131. The right of moving Resolutions was regarded as a valuable means of making the policy of Government conform with popular views. Its utility Resolutions. in the old Councils, however, was 'seriously compromised by the opposition of the official bloc and of the Governor who often brought pressure to bear upon the mover. The Standing Orders require fifteen days' notice. A Resolution must be clearly and precisely expressed and raise one definite issue. Amendments to a resolution under discussion (for which a day's notice has been given) may be moved with the consent of the President, who might put either the original resolution or the amendment to the vote of the Council. Every resolution is in the form of a specific recommendation addressed to the Government and the same restrictions which apply to the subject matter of questions also apply to the resolutions. A copy of every Resolution which has been passed by the Council is to be forwarded to the Government, but every resolution will be purely recommendatory. This is a point on which there has been a keen difference of opinion. The Congress-League Scheme, for instance, required the Resolution to be obligatoty on the Government. But the Report has pointed out grave difficulties in the adoption of this plan. (1) Obligatory resolutions try to control the executive in points of detail by direct orders. This is wrong in principle. A large deliberative body like the Council is incompetent to deal with often complicated questions of Administration. Resolutions should merely lay down the policy, the details of which ought to be left to the executive. (2) Again, even in Parliament there is no provision to force the executive to carry out a particular resolution, apart from the general powers of control enjoyed be the House. A resolution-if pressed too far is a challenge to the Government, which if defeated, must make room for another Government. The House of Commons, however, controls the Government by other ways-by the debate on the address, by interpellations, by motions to adjourn, by the budget debate, and as a last weapon, by motion of no confidence. (3) Mo reover, mere pressure of work would preclude the Councils from exacting compliance by the executive with every resolution. (4) There is another difficulty. In England, if the Government is defeated on a resolution of sufficient importance, there is, at once, a change in the personnel of Government. In India, this device is out of question so long as the executive is irremovable by the popular assembly. (5) Further, if we compel the executive to carry out instructions from the legislature, we bring Government to an end by destroying its right of action. (6) The suggestion that the Governor may veto the resolution for a time, say one year, and thus postpone action by that period, is impracticable. If the veto is applied too frequently, it will embitter the relations between the legislature and the executive; and if rarely, it will be ineffective. For these reasons, therefore, the traditions of Parliamentary Government require that the resolutions should be of a recommendatory character only. Pre-Reform Procedure. 132. Lastly we come to the Budget. Between 1861 and 1892, the Councils were confined strictly to legislation. The Act of 1892 allowed a discussion of the annual budget, but no motion or vote was to be moved on it. The rules under the Act of 1909 introduced one improvement; the discussion of the financial statement was to extend over several days, it was to take place before the statement became the budget, and members had the right of proposing resolutions and of dividing the Councils on them. But this power was more apparent than real. In the first place what may be called the essential part of the budget was already settled before its introduction in the council; a fraction of the whole-which was of the nature of voluntary expenditure was capable of being changed. But the resolutions proposing such changes were almost sure to be defeated and even supposing that they passed, they were of a purely recommendatory nature. 133 The procedure of the Budget has been importantly modified in the new Councils. Of course we are not concerned now with the way in which the The new prin revenues of the province have been allot- ciple. ted to the two halves of Government. The controversy as to Joint versus Separate Purse with the ruling of the Joint Committee has been already fully dealt with. Here we are concerned with the procedure which the financial Statement-provisionally settled by the exe. cutive-has to follow in the Council for its final ratification as the Budget. That is laid down in subsections 2 and 3 of section II of the Act. In the first place certain chargesthose enumerated in sub-section 3-like the provincial contribution, interest and sinking fund charges, salaries of certain officials, are exempted from submission to the vote of the Council. They are a necessary expenditure which the Council is incompetent to alter. The other proposals of the Government have a reference either to the reserved departments or to the transferred departments. But in both cases they are to be submitted to the vote of the Council as demands for grants. The Council may assent, or refuse to assent to a demand or may reduce the amount therein referred to either by reduction of the whole grant only or by the omission or reduction of any of the items of expenditure of which the grant is composed. The action of Government under these circumstances is thus laid down by the Joint Committee. "In cases where the Council alter the provision for a transferred subject, the Committee consider that the Governor would be justified, if so advised by the Ministers, in resubmitting the provision to the Council for a review of their former decision. But they do not apprehend that |