hich 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 Cou