There is one point of extreme importance which, no doubt, though it may not be over diplomatic for me to say so at this stage, will create some controversy. I mean the matter of the official majority. The House knows what an official majority is. It is a device by which the Governor-General, or the Governor of Bombay or Madras, may secure a majority in his Legislative Council by means of officials and nominees. And the officials, of course, for very good reasons, just like a Cabinet Minister or an Under-Secretary, whatever the man's private opinion may be, would still vote, for the best of reasons, and I am bound to think with perfect wisdom, with the Government. But anybody can see how directly, how palpably, how injuriously, an arrangement of this kind tends to weaken, and I think I may say even to deaden, the sense both of trust and responsibility in the non-official members of these councils. Anybody can see how the system tends to throw the non-official member into an attitude of peevish, sulky, permanent opposition, and, therefore, has an injurious effect on the minds and characters of members of these Legislative Councils.

I know it will be said—I will not weary the House by arguing it, but I only desire to meet at once the objection that will be taken—that these councils will, if you take away the safeguard of the official majority, pass any number of wild-cat Bills. The answer to that is that the head of the Government can veto the wild-cat Bills. The Governor-General can withhold his assent, and the withholding of the assent of the Governor-General is no defunct power. Only the other day, since I have been at the India Office, the Governor-General disallowed a Bill passed by a Local Government which I need not name, with the most advantageous effect. I am quite convinced that if that Local Government had had an unofficial majority the Bill would never have been passed, and the Governor-General would not have had to refuse his assent. But so he did, and so he would if these gentlemen, whose numbers we propose to increase and whose powers we propose to widen, chose to pass wild-cat Bills. And it must be remembered that the range of subjects within the sphere of Provincial Legislative Councils is rigorously limited by statutory exclusions. I will not labour the point now. Anybody who cares, in a short compass, can grasp the argument, of which we shall hear a great deal, in Paragraphs 17 to 20 of my reply to the Government of India, in the Papers that will speedily be in your Lordships' hands.

There is one proviso in this matter of the official majority, in which your Lordships may, perhaps, find a surprise. We are not prepared to divest the Governor-General in his Council of an official majority. In the Provincial Councils we propose to dispense with it, but in the Viceroy's Legislative Council we propose to adhere to it. Only let me say that here we may seem to lag a stage behind the Government of India themselves—so little violent are we—because that Government say, in their despatch—"On all ordinary occasions we are ready to dispense with an official majority in the Imperial Legislative Council, and to rely on the public spirit of non-official members to enable us to carry on the ordinary work of legislation." My Lords, that is what we propose to do in the Provincial Councils. But in the Imperial Council we consider an official majority essential. It may be said that this is a most flagrant logical inconsistency. So it would be, on one condition. If I were attempting to set up a Parliamentary system in India, or if it could be said that this chapter of reforms led directly or necessarily up to the establishment of a Parliamentary system in India, I, for one, would have nothing at all to do with it. I do not believe—it is not of very great consequence what I believe, because the fulfilment of my vaticinations could not come off very soon—in spite of the attempts in Oriental countries at this moment, interesting attempts to which we all wish well, to set up some sort of Parliamentary system—it is no ambition of mine, at all events, to have any share in beginning that operation in India. If my existence, either officially or corporeally, were prolonged twenty times longer than either of them is likely to be, a Parliamentary system in India is not at all the goal to which I would for one moment aspire.

One point more. It is the question of an Indian member on the Viceroy's Executive Council. The absence of an Indian member from the Viceroy's Executive Council can no longer, I think, be defended. There is no legal obstacle or statutory exclusion. The Secretary of State can, to-morrow, if he likes, if there be a vacancy on the Viceroy's Council, recommend His Majesty to appoint an Indian member. All I want to say is that, if, during my tenure of office, there should be a vacancy on the Viceroy's Executive Council, I should feel it a duty to tender my advice to the King that an Indian member should be appointed. If it were on my own authority only, I might hesitate to take that step, because I am not very fond of innovations in dark and obscure ground, but here I have the absolute and the zealous approval and concurrence of Lord Minto himself. It was at Lord Minto's special instigation that I began to think seriously of this step. Anyhow, this is how it stands, that you have at this moment a Secretary of State and a Viceroy who both concur in such a recommendation. I suppose—if I may be allowed to give a personal turn to these matters—that Lord Minto and I have had as different experience of life and the world as possible, and we belong I daresay to different schools of national politics, because Lord Minto was appointed by the party opposite. It is a rather remarkable thing that two men, differing in this way in political antecedents, should agree in this proposal. We need not discuss what particular portfolio should be assigned to an Indian member. That will be settled by the Viceroy on the merits of the individual. The great object, the main object, is that the merits of individuals are to be considered and to be decisive, irrespective and independent of race and colour.

We are not altogether without experience, because a year ago, or somewhat more, it was my good fortune to be able to appoint two Indian gentlemen to the Council of India sitting at the Indian Office. Many apprehensions reached me as to what might happen. So far, at all events, those apprehensions have been utterly dissipated. The concord between the two Indian members of the Council and their colleagues has been unbroken, their work has been excellent, and you will readily believe me when I say that the advantage to me of being able to ask one of these two gentlemen to come and tell me something about an Indian question from an Indian point of view, is enormous. I find in it a chance of getting the Indian angle of vision, and I feel sometimes as if I were actually in the streets of Calcutta.

I do not say there are not some arguments on the other side. But this, at all events, must be common sense—for the Governor-General and the European members of his Council to have at their side a man who knows the country well, who belongs to the country and who can give him the point of view of an Indian. Surely, my Lords, that cannot but prove an enormous advantage.

Let me say further, on the Judicial Bench in India everybody recognises the enormous service that it is to have Indian members of abundant learning, and who add to that abundant learning a complete knowledge of the conditions and life of the country. I propose at once, if Parliament agrees, to acquire powers to double the Executive Council in Bombay and Madras, and to appoint at least one Indian member in each of those cases, as well as in the Governor-General's Council. Nor, as the Papers will show, shall I be backward in advancing towards a similar step, as occasion may require, in respect of at least four of the major provinces.

I wish that this chapter had been opened at a more fortunate moment: but as I said when I rose, I repeat—do not let us for a moment take too gloomy a view. There is not the slightest occasion. None of those who are responsible take gloomy views. They know the difficulties, they are prepared to grapple with them. They will do their best to keep down mutinous opposition. They hope to attract that good will which must, after all, be the real foundation of our prosperity and strength in India. We believe that this admission of the Indians to a larger and more direct share in the government of their country and in all the affairs of their country, without for a moment taking from the central power its authority, will fortify the foundations of our position. It will require great steadiness, constant pursuit of the same objects, and the maintenance of our authority, which will be all the more effective if we have, along with our authority, the aid and assistance, in responsible circumstances, of the Indians themselves.

Military strength, material strength, we have in abundance. What we still want to acquire is moral strength—moral strength in guiding and controlling the people of India in the course on which time is launching them. I should like to read a few lines from a great orator about India. It was a speech delivered by Mr. Bright in 1858, when the Government of India Bill was in another place. Mr. Bright said—

"We do not know how to leave India, and therefore let us see if we know how to govern it. Let us abandon all that system of calumny against natives of India which has lately prevailed. Had that people not been docile, the most governable race in the world, how could you have maintained your power there for 100 years? Are they not industrious, are they not intelligent, are they not, upon the evidence of the most distinguished men the Indian service ever produced, endowed with many qualities which make them respected by all Englishmen who mix with them?… I would not permit any man in my presence without rebuke to indulge in the calumnies and expressions of contempt which I have recently heard poured forth without measure upon the whole population of India…. The people of India do not like us, but they would scarcely know where to turn if we left them. They are sheep, literally without a shepherd."