More recent attempts to make civil marriage lawful have failed hopelessly.  Dr. Gour has had the courage to appeal to the more liberal spirit for which the new reforms stand, and he defended his Bill, which is only a permissive Bill, on the grounds that any measure calculated to break down the ancient barriers between races and creeds and communities must tend to strengthen the sense of national solidarity of which the new Indian Legislature is the expression.  It remains yet to be seen what will be the fate of his Bill, but its introduction is in itself not one of the least hopeful signs of the times.

If one turns from the Government of India to the new Provincial Governments and Councils the outlook is, on the whole, not less encouraging.  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 great constitutional experiment.