alpable
anomaly.

How was this new situation to be dealt with? Some of the ruling Princes
and Chiefs whose views appear to have prevailed with the Secretary of
State and the Government of India, came to the conclusion that they
should combine together and try to secure as a body a recognised
position from which their collective influence might be brought more
effectively to bear upon the Government of India, whatever its new
orientation may ultimately be under the influence of popular assemblies
in British India. Some, doubtless, believed that once in such a position
they would be able to oppose a more effective because more united front
to interference from whatever quarter in the internal affairs of their
States. Circumstances favoured their scheme for the loyalty displayed by
all the Native States, and the distinguished services rendered in person
by not a few Chiefs inclined Government to meet their wishes without
probing them too closely, and in the first place to relax the control
hitherto exercised by its political officers on the spot--often, it must
be confessed, on rather petty and irritating lines. The leading Princes
were encouraged to come to Delhi during the winter season, and those who
favoured a policy of closer combination amongst themselves were those
who responded most freely to these official promptings. Conversations
soon assumed the shape of informal conferences, and, later on, of formal
conferences convened and presided over by the Viceroy. The hidden value
of these conferences must have been far greater than would appear from
the somewhat trivial record of the subjects under discussion, for it is
out of these conferences that the new Chamber of Princes has been
evolved as a permanent consultative body for the consideration of
questions affecting the Native States generally, or of common concern to
them and to British India and to the Empire generally.

The conception is in itself by no means novel and appeals to many upon
whom the picturesqueness and conservative stability of the Native States
exercise a strong attraction. It can be traced back at least as far as
Lord Lytton's Viceroyalty over forty years ago, and the steadily growing
recognition of the important part which the Native States play in the
Indian Empire culminated during the war in the appointment of an Indian
Prince to represent them specially at the Imperial War Conferences held
in London during the war, and again, after the war