Needless to say that amongst the Indian members it was the politician, and especially the more “advanced” politician, who figured most prominently in the discussions.  The more conservative Indians were usually content to listen, with more or less visible signs of weariness, to the facile and sometimes painfully long-winded eloquence of their colleagues.  When they did intervene, however, their speeches were usually short and none the less effective.  In most of the divisions that were taken they supported the Government, and in no single instance was the Government majority hard pressed.  The minority in support of any resolution resisted by Government never reached 20, and generally fluctuated somewhere between 16 and 20.  The only resolution which would have certainly combined all the native members in support of it was Mr. Gokhale’s resolution with regard to the position of British Indians in South Africa, but, as it was accepted by Government, it was passed nem. con. without a division.

That in these circumstances the official members who are at the same time heads of the most important administrative and executive departments should be kept in constant attendance during debates in which many of them, are not in any way directly concerned, and that they should thus be detained in Calcutta at a season when their presence would be far more useful elsewhere, constitutes one of the most serious of the many practical drawbacks of the new system for which a remedy will have to be found.  It is as if not only the Parliamentary representatives but the permanent officials of our own great public departments were expected to sit through the debates in the House of Commons, without even the facilities which the private rooms of Ministers, the library, and the smoking rooms at Westminster afford for quiet intervals of work between the division bells.  Nor is that all.  The Council sat during the very months of the short “cold weather,” when it is customary and alone practicable for heads of departments to undertake their annual tours of inspection.  The reductio ad absurdum is surely reached in the case of the Commander-in-Chief and the Chief of the Staff.  Though the Imperial Council is itself debarred from dealing with Army questions, they could be seen any day sitting through the debates merely because their votes might conceivably be required to maintain the official majority, and, except for one or two short excursions in the intervals between the meetings of Council, they were tied to Calcutta when they ought to have been travelling about the country and inspecting the troops.  Yet, it is generally admitted that at no period since the Mutiny has it been more important for the Commander-in-Chief to maintain the closest possible contact with the native army—­especially when the Commander-in-Chief is as popular with the Indian soldier as Sir O’Moore Creagh.