hands were thus strengthened for the final debates in the House of Commons in which the opposition proved sterile in argument and weak in numbers, and the Bill was passed through both Houses of Parliament in time for the constitutional assent of the Crown to be given to it and for the King-Emperor to address a solemn proclamation to the Viceroy, Princes, and people of India on the eminently appropriate date of Christmas Eve 1920.  This Royal message of peace and goodwill set forth in simple language both the purposes and the genesis of the Act: 

I have watched with understanding and sympathy the growing desire of my Indian people for representative institutions.  Starting from small beginnings, this ambition has steadily strengthened its hold upon the intelligence of the country.  It has pursued its course along constitutional channels with sincerity and courage.  It has survived the discredit which at times and in places lawless men sought to cast upon it by acts of violence committed under the guise of patriotism.  It has been stirred to more vigorous life by the ideals for which the British Commonwealth fought in the Great War, and it claims support in the part which India has taken in our common struggles, anxieties, and victories.

In truth, the desire after political responsibility has its source at the root of the British connection with India.  It has sprung inevitably from the deeper and wider studies of human thought and history which that connection has opened to the Indian people.  Without it the work of the British in India would have been incomplete.  It was, therefore, with a wise judgment that the beginnings of representative institutions were laid many years ago.  Their scope has been extended stage by stage until there now lies before us a definite step on the road to responsible government.

The Act, which implemented all the principal recommendations of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report, superseded within little more than fifty years the Government of India Act of 1858, under which the Crown first assumed direct responsibility for the government and administration of India.  The Royal message certainly did not exaggerate its significance.  Its actual provisions are indeed of less moment than its larger implications and the spirit in which it will be interpreted and carried into effect.  For the right spirit to crown the new Constitution with success we must look to Indians and British alike, not forgetting that the changes introduced into the structure of Indian government and administration are themselves only ancillary to the still more important changes which must result from the recognition of Indian public opinion as a powerful and ultimately paramount influence in the shaping of policy.  Such recognition must follow not only from the creation of Indian representative Assemblies with a large majority of Indian elected members but from the appointment of Indians, three