tions. Though the cases in which the Secretary of
State cannot act without the concurrence of the Council of India, who
sit with him at the India Office, are limited to matters involving the
grant or appropriation of revenues, and in other matters he is not
absolutely bound to consult them and still less to accept their
recommendations, the Act of Parliament quoted by Mr. Montagu clearly
implies that, in the exercise of all the functions which it assigns to
him, he is expected to act generally in consultation and in concert with
his Council, since those functions are assigned to him specifically as
Secretary of State in Council.

Now, as to the nature of the relations between the Governor-General in
Council and the Secretary of State in Council as above defined by
statute. The ultimate responsibility for Indian government, as Mr.
Montagu intimated, rests unquestionably with the Imperial Government
represented by the Secretary of State for India, and therefore, in the
last resort, with the people of the United Kingdom represented by
Parliament. The question is, What is in theory and practice the proper
mode of discharging this, "ultimate responsibility" for Indian
government? It is not a question which can be authoritatively answered,
but, if we may infer an answer from the spirit of legislative enactments
and from the usage that has hitherto prevailed, it may still be summed
up in the same language in which John Stuart Mill described the function
of the Home Government in the days of the old East India Company--"The
principal function of the Home Government is not to direct the details
of administration, but to scrutinize and revise the past acts of the
Indian Governments; to lay down principles and to issue general
instructions for their future guidance, and to give or refuse sanction
to great political measures which are referred home for approval." This
seems undoubtedly to be the view of the relations, inherited from the
East India Company, between the Secretary of State and the Government of
India which has been accepted and acted upon on both sides until
recently. Nor is any other view compatible with the Charter Act of 1833,
or with the Government of India Act of 1858, which, in all matters
pertinent to this issue, was based upon, and confirmed the principles of
the earlier statute. The Secretary of State exercises general guidance
and control, but, as Mill laid it down no less forcibly, "the Executive
Government