I am as much for efficiency as the noble Lord, but I do not believe—­and this is the difference between him and myself—­that you can now have true, solid, endurable efficiency without what are called political concessions.  I know the risks.  The late Lord Salisbury, speaking on the last Indian Councils Bill, spoke of the risk of applying occidental machinery in India.  Well, we ought to have thought of that before we applied occidental education; we applied that, and a measure of occidental machinery must follow.  Legislative Councils once called into existence, then it was inevitable that you would have gradually, in Lord Salisbury’s own phrase, to popularise them, so as to bring them into harmony with the dominant sentiments of the people in India.  The Bill of 1892 admittedly contained the elective principle, and our Bill to-day extends that principle.  The noble Lord (Viscount Cross) will remember the Bill of 1892, of which he had charge in the House of Commons.  I want the House to be good enough to follow the line taken by Mr. Gladstone, because I base myself on that.  There was an amendment moved and it was going to a division, but Mr. Gladstone begged his friends not to divide, because, he said, it was very important that we should present a substantial unity to India.  This is upon the question of either House considering a Bill like the Bill that is now on the Table—­a mere skeleton of a Bill if you like.  I see it has been called vague and sketchy.  It cannot be anything else, on the broad principle set out by Mr. Gladstone—­

“It is the intention of the Government [that is, the Conservative Government] that a serious effort shall be made to consider carefully those elements which India in its present condition may furnish, for the introduction into the Councils of India of the elective principle.  If that effort is seriously to be made, by whom is it to be made?  I do not think it can be made by this House, except through the medium of empowering provisions.  The best course we could take would be to commend to the authorities of India what is a clear indication of the principles on which we desire them to proceed.  It is not our business to devise machinery for the purpose of Indian Government.  It is our business to give to those who represent Her Majesty in India ample information as to what we believe to be sound principles of Government:  and it is, of course, the function of this House to comment upon any case in which we may think they have failed to give due effect to those principles.”

I only allude to Mr. Gladstone’s words, in order to let the House know that I am taking no unusual course in leaving the bulk of the work, the details of the work, to the Government of India.  Discussion, therefore, in Parliament will necessarily not, and cannot, turn substantially upon details.  But no doubt it is desirable that the main heads of the regulations, rules, and proclamations to be made by the Government of India under sanction of the India