hundred and twenty-eight thousand rupees, per annum; those of the Governors of the Punjab and Bihar and Orissa one hundred thousand rupees, per annum; that of the Central Provinces Rs. 72,000, per annum, and of Asam Rs. 66000 per annum.

(c) Status.-The old Governors have the privilege of direct communication with the Secretary of State. Whether a similar privilege of direct access to the Secretary of State should be conferred upon the new Governors was decided by the Joint Committee in, the negative. The Joint Committee does not wish to restrict or extend this privilege, and has left this question tothe discretion of the Secretary of State.

The Executive Council.

25. To turn now to the two halves of the Executive: the Executive Council and the Ministers. First Executive Council. It will be in charge of the reserved subjects. As it is to continue to remain a chip of the old block, the Reforms affect its strength only. There was a statutory maximum of four for the old Councils. And the Joint Committee originally thought that "in view of a large part of the administration being transferred to ministers, the normal strength of an Executive Council especially in the smaller provinces, need not exceed two members, of whom only one need have been in the service of the Crown in India for at least twelve years, the other being, by convention, an Indian; but if in any case the Council includes two members with service qualifications, neither of whom is by birth an Indian, it should also include two unofficial Indian Members." The value of the presence of an Indian Member in the Executive Council, is now universally admitted. Lord Carmichael said, that it showed itself in two ways (1) The Administration had the benefit of the criticism by an Indian of Indian Administration; (2) it made it surer

than it otherwise might have been that the Non-Indian Members would consider the matter they dealt with from an Indian point of view and would take care to meet the possible criticism of their Indian colleague by giving their reasons for action in the way most likely to convince him that their proposed course was the best under the circumstances. But, on the other hand, in the old Councils he was in a hopeless minority as against the European element and being generally a nominee of the Governor, was probably chosen as a 'safe' man, and could hardly have represented the most advanced section of the provincial Council. In the new Councils, however, there will be as many Indians as there are Europeans, and in joint deliberation of the two halves of the executive, their influence will be further increased by the presence of the ministers, who will be generally Indians.

The ministers.

26. The number of ministers is to depend upon the volume of work in the transferred departments. They are to be nominated by the Governor from among the elected members of the Provincial Council, and to hold Office during his pleasure. Their salary is to be the same as that of the members of the Executive Council, unless a smaller salary is provided for by vote of the Provincial Legislature. In other respects they are to stand on the same level with the members of the Executive Council.

Normal streng

th of the execu

27. The Joint Committee contemplated a uniform executive of four members for all provinces, two Councillors and two Ministers. Should the executive council in a province contain two officials then there were to be two non-official tive. Indians in it to counterbalance them. The Government of India had their own apprehensions with regard to this recommendation on two grounds (a) out of

the four members of the Executive, three would be Indians and only one a European; the Indians-Councillors and Ministers--would be generally devoid of administrative experience. To commit the administration of a province to a Council with a single experienced Official as against three inexperienced non-officials is to run great risk, which is intensified if the Governor of the province is himself a fresh man from England. It was to guard against this administrative weakening of the Council that the Government of India pressed for a Council of four Councillorstwo European officials and two Indian non-officials, and the Joint Committee yielded to this pressure.

(b) The Government of India also feared that the European element in the provincial Executive (one Governor and one Councillor) might not be able to hold its own against the Indian element (one Councillor and two Ministers). This is almost sure to be the case if the Governor himself is an Indian as in the case of Bihar and Orissa.

There the Executive Council consists of three memberstwo Europeans (Officials) and one Indian` (Non-official). This is against the recommendations of the Joint Committee. The excuse put forward to explain this departure was that if the Council had only two members one of whom was an Indian, the result would have been that in a Government consisting of five members there would have been only one European official and it was not considered desirable that the European official element should form so small a proportion of the Government; on the other hand an Executive Council of 4 members, two of whom were Indians, would have been larger than necessary.

But this explanation was not reassuring. The constitution of the Executive Council offended both against the letter and spirit of the Joint Committee's Report. Was it to mean that whenever there was an Indian Governor to a province,

he was to be saddled with two European Councillors and only one Indian Councillor? Was not this a reflection upon the capacity and impartiality of Indian Governors? The Hon. Mr. Vincent removed these suspicions by saying that Lord Sinha had approved of the arrangement, that he (Lord Sinha) did not want, in the beginning of his term of office, to change the existing arrangements, always with this proviso that this was understood to be a temporary arrangement.

But coming to the larger question of the normal strength of the provincial Executive Council, it must be admitted that there are disadvantages in having a numerons executive. It is expensive; it might not get enough work; it interferes with despatch and efficiency. Moderate Indian opinion, therefore, was generally in favour of an Executive Council of two Members one of whom was an Indian. Its grounds were these (1) it has never been found necessary under the old regime in any Province to appoint four members which is the statutory limit. (2) After the appointment of Minister or Ministers three members of the Executive Council will be too many. (3) As more subjects are transferred the need for more members will be even less. (4) The retention of the provision for the appointment of four members of the Executive Council may be urged as a serious ground for resisting the transfer of subjects in the future and increasing the number of Ministers.

The Government of India, however, for reasons already given, pressed the Joint Committee to reconsider their first recommendation, and to allow only one nonofficial Indian as against two official Europeans. The Committee gave their best consideration to the arguments upon which this request was based, but saw no reason to change their first opinion that there should be equality of European and Indian members in the Executive Council.

They said "they recognise that this decision may involve a slightly greater man power in the Government than present statistics would strictly justify; but they have little doubt that the increase of work arising out of the new legislative bodies will be such as to render past experience a doubtful guide as to the volume of business likely to fall on the Executive, and in any case they think it of more importance that as many Indian gentlemen as possible should obtain experience inside the Government, than that the salaries of a few of them should be economised."

And most provinces have decided to teach administrative experience to as many Indians as possible at the cost of the tax-payer. They have appointed an Executive Council of two Englishmen and two Indians. The larger provinces have appointed three Ministers. And thus the administration has become top-heavy and expensive.

Pre-Reforms

conditions.

CHAPTER III.

Provincial Devolution.

28. The functions of the Government of India under the old regime were divisible into two classes. Some of them were administered through departments directly controlled from Delhi and Simla, while others were administered through departments controlled by provincial governments. To the former category belonged the departments which controlled-Foreign Affairs, the Relations with the more important Native States, the Army, Indian Finance, Audit, Currency, Mint and Assay, Posts, Telegraphs, Railway, Geographical, Topographical and Archaeological Surveys, Mines, the Northern Indian Salt Revenue Department which includes not merely the revenue, but the ad