Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 590 pages of information about Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore.

Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 590 pages of information about Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore.
in the creation of representative institutions to his Report, No. 6 (1883), and to the Report on Egypt, No. 3 (1892), by Sir Evelyn Baring (now Lord Cromer), both being Blue Books presented to the Houses of Parliament.  It is interesting to note here that whereas Lord Dufferin took the first step in the direction of representative institutions by uniting, in the same assembly, Government officials, and members elected on the broad basis of manhood suffrage, the native statesman began by carefully excluding the officials, and allowing only the middle and upper classes to have anything to do with the Assembly.

The first meeting of the Mysore Representative Assembly took place on October 7th, 1881, when 144 members attended.  The Dewan first of all read the annual report on the administration of the province, and after that the members were called up in succession and asked to state their grievances and wants.  At the end of the session the Dewan’s annual statement, or report, and an account of the proceedings of the Assembly, are printed in English and in Kanarese.

The Assembly, as we have seen, consisted of members partly appointed by the Local Fund Boards, and partly of members nominated through the agency of Government officials, but at the conclusion of the Dewan’s address of October 28th, 1890, an important change in the constitution of the Assembly was announced, and a new body of rules was issued.  By these all members were in future to be elected, and the qualifications entitling a man to vote for, or be elected a member for a county (talook), were (1) the payment of land revenues, a house and shop tax to the amount specified in the schedule[11] for each county; (2) the ownership of land to the value of 500 rupees a year, accompanied with residence in the county; and (3) any resident in a county who is a graduate of any Indian university is declared to be a duly qualified person.  Those so qualified were to meet on a certain day, of which a month’s notice was to be given, and elect members from amongst themselves. 212 members from the counties were to be thus elected.  The cities of Bangalore and Mysore return four members each, and these must either pay a house or shop tax of twenty-four rupees, or be a graduate of any Indian university; the nine Local Fund Boards return two members each; the eighty-nine municipalities one for each municipality, and associations representing approved public interests, and of not less than 100 members, and also associations of smaller numbers, but recognized by Government—­as for instance the Planters’ Associations—­may depute one member each, and the total of all the members is estimated at 351.  By Rule 6 it is declared that “As the object of the Assembly is to elicit non-official public opinion, no person holding a salaried appointment under Government shall vote for, or be returned as, a member of the Assembly.”  By Rule 7, each member is to prepare and forward to the deputy commissioner a memo describing seriatim

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.