The statutory powers of the Provincial Councils are more
definite and can be brought more directly to bear upon Government, but
they are not likely to be exercised in any extravagant fashion until
time has shown how Indian Ministers discharge their responsibilities to
the Councils and how the two wings of the new Provincial Governments
work together. In fact, the policy, wisely adopted by Provincial
Governors, of treating the two wings of their Government as equally
associated with them in a common task of governance, has robbed the
distinction between "reserved" and "transferred" subjects, if not of all
reality, at any rate of the invidious appearance of discrimination which
might otherwise have attached to the word "dyarchy." As one Provincial
Governor remarked to me, "We are in reality skipping the dyarchy stage."
Indian Ministers, kept fully informed and drawn into consultation on all
subjects, are learning to understand the difficulties of government and
administration of which, as outside critics, they had little notion, and
to value the experience and knowledge which their European colleagues
and subordinates freely place at their disposal, whilst the latter
benefit both from hearing the Indian point of view and from having to
explain and justify their own. Economic depression and financial
stringency cannot, however, but react unfavourably upon the new system
in the Provinces as well as at Delhi, for all the more practical reforms
in which the ordinary Indian elector, whether politically minded or
otherwise, is most closely interested, and for which he has been looking
to the new Provincial Councils, require money, and a great deal of
money. There is a universal demand for more elementary schools, more
road-making, more sanitation, a more strenuous fight against malaria, a
greater extension of local government and village councils' activities,
and the demand cannot be met except by more expenditure. The Indian
Ministers and Indian members of the Provincial Councils have to face
unpopularity whether by postponing much-needed reforms or by imposing
new taxation in order to carry them out. A great many of the best men
have naturally been attracted to Delhi, but though the proceedings in
the Provincial Councils have more frequently betrayed impatience and
inexperience, and sometimes required the monitory intervention of the
Governor, they have played on the whole creditably the important part
allotted to them in this