All governments require constitutional checks; but the constitutional checks applicable to a case of this peculiar kind must be found within the governing body itself.
Though England, as a whole, while desiring nothing but to govern India well, is necessarily ignorant of India, and feels, under ordinary circumstances, no particular interest in its concerns, there are in England a certain number of persons who possess knowledge of India, and feel an interest in its affairs. It seems, therefore, very desirable, for the sake of India, that England should govern it through, and by means of, these persons. This would be the case if the organ of government principally consisted of persons who have passed a considerable portion of their lives in India, or who feel that habitual interest in its affairs which is naturally acquired by having aided in administering them; and if this body, or a majority of it, were periodically elected by a constituency composed of persons in England who have served the government for a certain length of time in India, or whose interests are connected with that country by some permanent tie. It would be an additional advantage if this constituency had the power of requiring information, and compelling a public discussion of Indian questions. These are conditions which, to a considerable extent, the existing constitution of the East India Company fulfils.
The other great constitutional security for the good government of India lies in the forms of business. This is a point to which sufficient importance is not generally attached. The forms of business are the real constitution of India.
From the necessity of the case, recognised in both the proposed measures, the administration must be shared, in some proportion, between a minister and a council. The council may consist of persons possessing knowledge of India. The minister, except in very rare cases, can possess little or none. He is placed in office by the action of political party, which is governed by considerations totally unconnected with India; and, in the common course of politics, he is removed from office by the time he has been able to learn his duty. Even in the unusual case, of which present circumstances are an example, when the minister has made himself acquainted with India through the discharge of high functions in India itself, his knowledge is but the knowledge of one man; and one man’s knowledge of a subject like India, until corrected and completed by that of other men, is, it may safely be affirmed, wholly insufficient, and if implicitly trusted, even dangerous. The good government, therefore, of India, by a minister and a council, depends upon the amount of influence possessed by the council; and their influence depends upon the forms of business.
However experienced may be the council, and however inexperienced the minister, he will have the deciding voice. The power will rest with one who may know less of the subject than any member of the council, and is sure to know less than the council collectively, if they are selected with ordinary judgment. The council will have no substantive power, but only moral influence. It is, therefore, all-important that this influence should be upheld. Unless the forms of business are such as to insure that the council shall exercise its judgment on all questions; that all matters requiring decision shall be considered by them, and their views recorded in the initiatory stage, before the minister has committed himself to an opinion—they will possess no more weight or influence than the same number of clerks in his office, whom also he can consult if he pleases; and the power of the minister will be practically uncontrolled.
In both the bills these considerations are entirely disregarded. The first bill does not establish any forms of business, but leaves them to be determined by the minister and his council; in other words, by the minister. Even, therefore, if the minister first appointed should be willing to establish forms which would be any restraint upon himself, a subsequent minister would have it in his power to alter the forms in any manner he pleased.
The second bill, unlike the first, does establish forms of business; but such alone as would effectually prevent the council from being a reality, and would render it a useless pageant.
To make the council a merely consultative body, without initiative, before whom subjects are only brought after the minister has made up his mind, is already a fatal inroad upon its usefulness. But by the second bill the council are not even a consultative body. The minister is under no obligation to consult them. They are not empowered to hold any regular meetings. They are to meet only when the minister convenes them, or on a special requisition by six members. He may send orders to India without their knowledge when the case is urgent, of which urgency he is the sole judge. When it is not urgent, his orders must be placed in the council-room for the perusal of the members for seven days, during which they are not required, but permitted, to give their opinion, not collectively, but individually. Their only power, therefore, is that of recording dissent from a resolution not only taken, but embodied in a dispatch. And as if this was not enough, provision is made that an office, always invidious, shall be incapable of being fulfilled in any but the most invidious manner. The members of council must come forward individually in declared opposition to the minister, by volunteering a protest against his announced intentions, or signing a requisition for a meeting of council to oppose them. Such a council is fitted to serve as a shield for the minister’s responsibility when it may suit him to seek, and them to accord, their adhesion; rather than as a restraint on his power to administer India according to his individual pleasure.
The Directors are bound to admit, that the first of the bills contains several provisions indicative of a wish to assure to the council a certain, though small, amount of influence. The administration is to be carried on in the name of the president in council, and not, as by the second bill, in that of the Secretary of State alone. The council, as well as the president, has a voice in the appointment of the home establishment; while in the second bill all promotions and all appointments to the principal offices under the council, rest with the Secretary of State, exclusively; a provision which divests the council of all control or authority over their own establishment. Again, by Section XII. of the first bill, no grant involving increase of expenditure, and no appointment to office or admission to service, can be made without the concurrence of half the council. This, as far as it goes, is a real power; but its value is much diminished by the consideration that those by whom it is to be exercised are the nominees of the minister, dependent on him for their continuance in office after a few years.
In some other points the provisions of the second bill seem to have the advantage. Its council is more numerous; to which, however, little importance can be attached, if the council has no substantial power. It also recognises that the whole of the council ought not to be nominated by the minister, and that some part of it should be elected by a constituency specially qualified by a knowledge of India. But even in these, the best points of the bill, it is, in the opinion of the Directors, very far from unexceptionable. The nomination of even half the council by the minister, takes away all security for an independent majority. It may, indeed, be doubted whether there is any sufficient reason for the minister’s nominating any portion, except the supposed reluctance of some eligible persons to encounter a canvass. The proportion of one-third, whom the minister now nominates to the Court of Directors, seems the largest which, consistently with full security for independence, can be so appointed.