Ripon's "Pro-Indian" Viceroyalty; for it fulfilled many of the demands
which Indian Liberals, and notably Pherozeshah Mehta, had urged for
years past for a more effective share in municipal administration. Still
greater was the satisfaction when, under Lord Lansdowne's Viceroyalty,
the British Parliament passed in 1892 an Indian Councils Act, for which
Lord Dufferin himself had paved the way by admitting that Government
could and should rely more largely upon the experience and advice of
responsible Indians. The functions and the constitution of both the
Viceroy's and the Provincial Legislative Councils, though their powers
remained purely consultative, were substantially enlarged by the
addition of a considerable number of unofficial members representing, at
least in theory, all classes and interests, who were given the right to
put questions to the Executive on matters of administration and, in the
case of the Viceroy's Council, to discuss the financial policy of
Government if and when the budget to be laid before it involved fresh
taxation. The Act of 1892 did not, however, admit "the living forces of
the elective principle" on which the Congress leaders had laid their
chief stress, and they went on pressing "not for Consultative Councils,
but for representative institutions." Their hopes never perhaps rose so
high as when one of their own veterans, Dadabhai Naoroji--though Lord
Salisbury could not resist a jibe at the expense of the "black
man"--entered the House of Commons as Liberal member for Central
Finsbury. It must be conceded that, had Government at that time taken
the Congress by the hand instead of treating it with disdain and
suspicion, it might have played loyally and usefully a part analogous to
that of "Her Majesty's Opposition" at home--a part which Lord Dufferin
had been shrewd enough in the beginning not to dismiss as altogether
impossible or undesirable. Its claim to represent Indian opinion, as,
within certain limits, it unquestionably did, was ignored, and it was
left to drift without any attempt at official guidance into waters none
the less dangerous because they seemed shallow. It quickly attracted a
large following among the urban middle classes all over India. But as
the number of those who attended its annual sessions, held in turn in
every province, grew larger, it became less amenable to the guiding and
restraining influence of those who had created it, and especially of
those who had hoped