THE NATURE OF THE CHANGE 253
keep the Provincial Governments subordinate to [1] the Government of India and also to make them responsible to popular Legislature would have been inconsistent in theory and vicious in practice. It is quite conceivable that under such a double government the wishes of the Provincial Legislature on certain matters may not coincide with those of the Government of India. On such occasions a Provincial Government may not know whom to obey. If it deferred to the wishes of the Legislature it would be failing in its duty towards the Government of India. Indeed there is on record a case of such a conflict. [2] There was an occasion during the currency of the Morley-Minto Reforms when the Government of Bombay were unsuccessful in their endeavours to persuade the Government of India to sanction certain charges affecting the educational staff. The proposals were locally popular and were again put forward for adoption in a resolution moved in the Bombay Legislature by an elected member. The Bombay Government thereupon accepted the resolution which was carried unanimously, and once more put forward their proposals to the Government of India on the ground that they had the Legislature’s entire support. But the Government of India and the Secretary of State held that these tactics were out of order and that it was
“the duty of the Local Government in dealing with the resolutions to uphold with all their authority the decision of the Government of India,”
i.e. to have opposed the resolution even if it agreed with the Legislature in the principle thereof.
The strong ties of subordination which bound the Provinces to the Central Government were therefore the chief obstacles in the path of Provincial autonomy. In order that the Provincial Government be made subject to Provincial Legislatures, the first thing to do was to curtail the powers which the Government of India possessed of interference in provincial finance, provincial legislation, and provincial administration. As was well observed by the authors of the Report [3] on Constitutional Reforms :
“We have to demolish the existing structure, at least in part, before we can build the new. Our business is one of devolution, of drawing lines of demarcation, of
1 The degree of subordination it should be noted varied with the status of the Provinces, for which see Joint Report, pp. 37-45.
2 Joint Report, pp. 75-6.
3 Joint Report, p. 101.