Another obvious drawback of the present arrangements is the inconvenience to which members of Council from the provinces were subjected by the irregular intervals at which the Council held its actual sittings.  Either they had to waste their time at Calcutta during the intervals, to the detriment of their interests at home, or they had to spend days in railway carriages rushing backwards and forwards from their homes to the capital, for in a country of such magnificent distances there are few journeys that take less than 24 hours, and from Calcutta, for instance, either to Madras or to Bombay takes the best part of 48 hours.  Unless arrangements are remodelled so as to enable the Council to transact its business, whether in pleno or in committee, either in one session or in two short sessions, but in any case continuously, many of its most valuable members, who have important business, of their own which they cannot afford to neglect, will cease to attend, and the Council will not only lose much of the representative character, which is one of its best features at present, but will fall inevitably under the preponderating influence of the professional politician.  In his closing speech Lord Minto outlined a scheme which would in some measure meet this difficulty, but it is doubtful whether it will prove by any means adequate.  Another point which requires consideration is whether it is desirable for the Viceroy to preside himself over the deliberations of the Council.  Even if he could properly afford the time for it, it seems hardly expedient that the immediate representative of the King-Emperor should be drawn into the arena of public controversies.  Proceedings are bound to grow more and more contentious, and delicate questions of procedure will arise and have to be settled from the chair.  These are all matters in which the Viceroy should not be committed to the premature exercise, on the spur of the moment, of his supreme authority.

One of the chief purposes which the creation of the new Councils is intended to achieve is that of enlightening Indian opinion throughout the country by means of the enlarged opportunities given for the discussion of public affairs.  But that purpose will be defeated unless the discussions receive adequate publicity.  They certainly did not do so this winter.  Not only is the art of gallery reporting still in its infancy, but many of the Indian newspapers have still to learn that “it is not cricket” to report only the speeches of their political friends and to omit or compress into a few lines the speeches of their adversaries.  A glaring instance of this shortcoming was afforded by the Bengalee.  The Nationalist organ published Mr. Bupendra Nath Bose’s speech on the partition of Bengal in extenso, as he had intended to deliver it, without taking the slightest notice of the fact that he was repeatedly called to order by the Viceroy and had in consequence to drop out whole passages of his oration, and it published