was allowed in the direction of asking questions and criticising the actions of the Executive, of which the new members took full advantage, with the result that these privileges were curtailed by the Act of 1861. A selection of the more important clauses of the Act of 1853 are given below.

The Charter Act of 1853

15. Presidency of Agra Revoked. A Lieutenant-Governorship for the North-Western Provinces. The provisions of the said Act of the third and fourth years of King William the Fourth, relating to the division of the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal into two presidencies . . . shall remain suspended until the Court of Directors, under the direction and control of the Board of Commissioners for the affairs of India, shall otherwise direct; and during the suspension of such provisions of such last-named act, authorising the appointment of a Lieutenant-Governor for the North-Western Provinces, then under the Government of the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal, and the appointments and arrangements made thereunder, shall remain in force.

16. Appointment of a Governor or Lieutenant-Governor for Bengal.-It shall be lawful for the said Court of Directors under such direction and control as aforesaid, if and when they think fit, at any time after the passing of this Act, to declare that the Governor-General of India shall not be the Governor of the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal, but that a separate governor shall be appointed for such presidency, and in such case a separate Governor shall be from time to time appointed for such presidency accordingly; ... and from and after the appointment of such Governor, the power by the said Act vested in the Governor-General of India of appointing a deputy governor of the said presidency of Fort William in Bengal shall cease; and unless and until a separate Governor of such presidency shall be constituted as aforesaid, it shall be lawful for the Court of Directors ... to authorise and direct the GovernorGeneral of India in Council to appoint from time to time any servant of the said Company who shall have been ten years in their service in India to the office of Lieutenant-Governor of such part of the territories under the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal as for the time being may not be under the LieutenantGovernor of the said North-Western Provinces, and to declare and limit the extent of the authority of the Lieutenant-Governor to be so appointed.

18. Power to alter the geographical limits of Local Governments. It shall be lawful for the said Court of Directors under such direction and control as aforesaid, from time to time to declare and appoint what part or parts of the territories for the time being subject to the Government of the said Company shall be or continue subject to each of the Presidencies and Lieutenant-Governorships for the time being subsisting in such territories, and to make such distribution and arrangement or new distribution and arrangement of such territories with or among such Presidencies and Lieutenant-Governorships as to the said Court of Directors may seem convenient.

20. Memberships of Council to be Approved by Her Majesty.--Every appointment by the Court of Directors of any ordinary Members of the Council of India, or of any Member of the Council of any Presidency in India, shall be subject to the approbation of Her Majesty, to be signified under Her Royal Sign Manual, countersigned by the President of the Board of Commissioners for the affairs of India.

21. The Law Member allowed to sit and vote in Council. So much of the said Act of the third and fourth years of King William the Fourth as provides that the fourth ordinary Member of the Council of India shall not be entitled to sit or vote in the said Council, except at meetings thereof for making Laws and Regulations, shall be repealed.

22. Provision for Legislation. For the better exercise of the powers of making laws and regulations, now vested in the Governor-General of India in Council, the several persons hereinafter mentioned shall, in addition to and together with the Governor-General and the Members of the said Council, under the said Act of the third and fourth years of King William the Fourth, be Members of the said Council of India for and in relation to the exercise of all such powers of making laws and regulations as aforesaid, and shall be distinguished as Legislative Councillors thereof ; (that is to say),

One member for each Presidency and Lieutenant-Governorship for the time being established in the said territories, to be appointed from time to time by the Governor of each Presidency and the Lieutenant-Governor of such Lieutenant-Governorship respectively, from among the persons having been or being at the time of their appointment in the Civil Service of such Company within such Presidency or Lieutenant-Governorship, and who shall have been ten years the service of the said Company :

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, or the Chief Justice or Chief Judge of any Court of judicature hereafter to be constituted in the said territories to or in which the powers of such Supreme Court may be transferred or vested :

One of the other judges of such Supreme Court, or one of the judges appointed by Her Majesty of any such future Court as aforesaid, to be named by the said Governor-General.

And it shall be lawful for the Court of Directors, if they think it expedient, under the direction and control of the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India, to authorise and direct the Governor-General of India to appoint from time to time, in addition to such Legislative Councillors as aforesaid, two persons, to be selected by the said Governor-General, having been ten years in the service of the Company, to be Legislative Councillors of the said Council under this Act : provided always that the Legislative Councillors added to the Council of India by or under this Act shall not be entitled to sit and vote in the said Council, except at meetings thereof for making laws and regulations.

24. Governor-General's Consent to Legislation Necessary.-Provided always that no law or regulation made by the said Council shall have force or be promulgated until the same has been assented to by the said Governor-General, whether he shall or shall not have been present in Council at the making thereof.

35. Salaries.-There shall be paid to the several officers hereinafter named the several annual salaries set against the names of such officers respectively, subject to such reduction as the Court of Directors, with the sanction of the said Board, may from time to time think fit; (that is to say),

To the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in India, one hundred thousand Company's rupees, in lieu of all other pay and allowances :

To each Lieutenant-Governor, hundred thousand Company's rupees :

To each ordinary Member of the Council of India, eighty thousand Company's rupees :

To each Legislative Councillor of the Council of India (not holding any other office), fifty thousand Company's rupees :

The several salaries aforesaid to be subject to the provisions and regulations of the said Act of the third and fourth years of King William the Fourth, concerning the salaries thereby appointed; provided always that the salary of any such officer appointed before the passing of this Act shall not under this enactment be reduced,

one

For some years the leaders of both political parties, and especially Disraeli, had begun to realise that the time had come to bring the administration of Indian affairs more directly under the control of the Crown and Parliament. The rule of the Company and the system of double government were matters of hot dispute. We have therefore included in full the petition of the Company which was presented to the House of Lords by Earl Grey, a speech by Lord Palmerston in which he referred to the evils of the system of double government, and a defence of the Company's government by Mr. Mill.

Justification of the System of Double Government Source.-Petition of the East India Company. (Hansard.) To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and

the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled,

HUMBLY SHEWETH That your petitioners at their own expense, and by the agency of their own civil and military servants, originally acquired for this country its magnificent Empire in the East.

That the foundations of this Empire were laid by your Peti tioners, at that time neither aided nor controlled by Parliament, at the same period at which a succession of administrations under the control of Parliament were losing to the Crown of Great Britain another great empire on the opposite side of the Atlantic.

That during the period of about a century which has since elapsed, the Indian possessions of this country have been governed and defended from the resources of those possessions, without the smallest cost to the British Exchequer, which, to the best of your Petitioners' knowledge and belief, cannot be said of any other of the numerous foreign dependencies of the Crown.

That it being manifestly improper that the administration of

any British possession should be independent of the general Government of the Empire, Parliament provided in 1783 that a department of the Imperial Government should have full cognizance of, and power of control over, the acts of your Petitioners in the administration of India, since which time the home branch of the Indian Government has been conducted by the joint counsels, and on the joint responsibility of your Petitioners and of a Minister of the Crown.

That this arrangement has at subsequent periods undergone reconsideration from the Legislature and various comprehensive and careful parliamentary inquiries have been made into its practical operation; the result of which has been on each occasion a renewed grant to your Petitioners of the powers exercised by them in the administration of India.

That the last of these occasions was so recent as 1853, in which year the arrangements which had existed for nearly three-quarters of a century, were, with certain modifications, re-enacted, and still subsist.

That, notwithstanding, your Petitioners have received an intimation from Her Majesty's Ministers of their intention to propose to Parliament a Bill for the purpose of placing the Government of Her Majesty's East Indian dominions under the direct authority of the Crown-a change necessarily involving the abolition of the East India Company as an instrument of government. That

your Petitioners have not been informed of the reasons which have induced Her Majesty's Ministers, without any previous inquiry, to come to the resolution of putting an end to a system of administration, which Parliament after inquiry deliberately confirmed and sanctioned less than five years ago, and which in its modified form has not been in operation quite four

years and cannot be considered to have undergone a sufficient trial during that period.

That your Petitioners do not understand that Her Majesty's Ministers impute any failure to those arrangements or bring any charge, either great or small, against your Petitioners. But the time at which our proposal is made compels your Petitioners to regard it as arising from the calamitous events which have recently occurred in India.

That your Petitioners challenge the most searching investigation into the mutiny of the Bengal army, and the causes, whether remote or immediate, which produced that mutiny. They have instructed the Government of India to appoint a commission to conduct such an inquiry on the spot. And it is their most anxious wish that a similar inquiry may be instituted in this country by your [Lordships'] Honourable House, in order to ascertain whether anything either in the constitution of the Home Government of India or in the conduct of those by whom it has been administered, has had any share in producing the mutiny or has in any way impeded the measures for its suppression; and whether the mutiny itself, or any circumstance connected with it, affords any evidence of the failure of the arrangements under which India is at present administered.

That, were it even true that these arrangements had failed, the failure could constitute no reason for divesting the East