nd in some cases is never able to
acquire during his whole tenure of office, that his Executive Council is
so constituted, in theory and as far as possible in practice, that it
combines with administrative experience in the several Departments over
which members respectively preside such a knowledge collectively of the
whole of India that the Viceroy can rely upon expert advice and
assistance in the transaction of public business and, not least, in
applying with due regard for Indian conditions the principles of policy
laid down for his guidance by the Home Government. These were the
grounds upon which Lord Morley justified the appointment to the
Viceroy's Executive Council of an Indian member who, besides being
thoroughly qualified to take charge of the special portfolio entrusted
to him, would bring into Council a special and intimate knowledge of
native opinion and sentiment. These are the grounds upon which, by the
way, Lord Morley cannot possibly justify the appointment of Mr. Clark as
Member for Commerce and Industry, for a young subordinate official,
however brilliant, of an English public Department cannot bring into the
Viceroy's Executive Council either special or general knowledge of
Indian affairs. Such an appointment must to that extent weaken rather
than strengthen the Government of India.

The same arguments which apply in India to the conjunction of the
Governor-General with his Council apply, _mutatis mutandis_, with
scarcely less force to the importance of the part assigned to the
Council of India as advisers of the Secretary of State at the India
Office.

If we look at the Morley-Minto _regime_ from another point of view, it
is passing strange that the tendency to concentrate the direction of
affairs in India in the hands of the Viceroy and to subject the Viceroy
in turn to the closer and more immediate control of the Secretary of
State, whilst simultaneously diminishing _pro tanto_ the influence of
their respective Councils, should have manifested itself just at this
time, when it is Lord Morley who presides over the India Office. For no
statesman has ever proclaimed a more ardent belief in the virtues of
decentralization than Lord Morley, and Lord Morley himself is largely
responsible for legislative reforms which will not only strengthen the
hands of the provincial Governments in their dealings with the
Government of India, but will enable and, indeed, force the Government
of India to assume on m