SECTION II
PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE
CHAPTER 1
DUAL VERSUS UNIFIED GOVERNMENT
My colleagues have recommended that the subject of Law and Order should be continued as a reserved subject for five years after the new regime has come into operation. I would not have cared to differ from my colleagues if their recommendation had involved nothing more than a short period of waiting to allow the Council an opportunity of settling down to its work. But unfortunately their recommendation involves more than this and is accompanied by a proviso that “after that period it should be left to the decision of the Legislative Council with the concurrence of the Upper House and of the Governor to decide that the subject should be transferred.” I am unable to agree to this recommendation which means the continuance of dyarchy for an indefinite period. Such a recommendation cannot be supported except on the assumption that dyarchy is a workable system of Government and that as it has been successfully worked in the past it can be expected to work in future. This assumption is in my opinion quite untenable.
Many things have been pointed out as being responsible for the unsatisfactory working of dyarchy as a form of Government. It is true that the Transferred side of the Government was hampered by certain checks which were introduced by way of safeguards. The subjects transferred to the control of the ministers all related to the well-being of the people, as distinguished from subjects relating to the maintenance of law and order. Indeed the subjects were transferred largely because they were of that character. As a matter of policy, therefore, the finances of the Presidency should have been in the hands of a minister. For it is obvious that no policy has any chance of reaching fruition unless the Finance Department found the ways and means required for the same. This could be expected of the Finance Department only if it belonged to the Ministerial side of the Government. But it did not. Section 45A( 3 ) provided for the constitution by rules under the Act of Finance Department and for the regulation of the functions of that department. The department as constituted is neither a Transferred nor a Reserved one but was common to both sides