THE NECESSITY FOR A CHANGE 227
system of parliamentary Government is to be found in the position of the Irish Parliament which existed from 1782 to
- The peculiarity of the case lay mainly in the fact that while this Irish Parliament, commonly known as Grattan’s Parliament, was during the period it lasted admittedly a sovereign Legislature, the Irish Executive of the time was as regards the Irish Parliament in no sense a Parliamentary Executive. The Irish Executive, instead of being appointed and dismissed by the Irish Legislature, was in reality appointed and dismissed by the Crown on the advice of the English Ministry. In the same manner the Indian Executive was appointed and dismissed by the Crown on the advice of the Secretary of State for India who is a member of the English Ministry and was in no way responsible to the Indian Legislature.
It is true that the Executive in India was ultimately responsible to the Secretary of State for India and through him to the British Parliament. But it must not be forgotten, said Mr. Fisher, [1] that
“the affairs of India are in the hands of the Government of India.... Proposals may come from the Indian Government to London and be vetoed by the Imperial Government. The large lines of Indian policy may be shaped by a Secretary of State in the India Office, and a powerful Secretary of State may make his influence felt strongly on the direction of Indian affairs if he encounters no serious opposition from the Government of India. But in reality the last word lies with the Indian official opinion (i.e. the Executive in India), that a measure would not be forced upon India against the united opposition of the Indian bureaucracy.”
As a matter of fact neither was the Secretary, though all-powerful in Indian affairs, inclined to restrain the Executive in India from doing what the people regarded as evil nor to constrain it to do what he thought to be for the good of the people. [2] Hardly can it be said that the British Parliament, wherein every member
1 Fisher, H. A. L., on Imperial Administration in his The Empire and the Future, 1916, p. 58.
2 The only two cases in which the Secretary of State is known to have run counter to the wishes of the Executive in India were those concerning the Punjab Drainage and Canal Act and the Indian Tariff Act of 1875. The latter was obviously detrimental to the interests of India.