320

INDIAN CONSTITUTIONAL DOCUMENTS

been held and exercised by the Government of the
Crown.

" The Imperial Government cannot indeed insist
on all the members of the Governor-General's Council,
when assembled for legislative purposes, voting for any
measure which may be proposed, because on such
occasions some members are present who are not
members of the Government and not official servants
of the Crown. But the Act which added these members
to the Council for a particular purpose made no change

reiations which subsist between the Imperial

c
That

Governor-
General
must
introduce
and

Executive
Councillors
must vote for Government and its own executive officers.

n

measures Government must hold in its hands the ultimate
wanted by power of requiring the Governor-General to introduce
the 'Home7 F j ? • - i n u ur

Government, a measure, and or requiring also all the members 01

his Government to vote for it.

"I must add that the principle I have now
asserted is the recognized principle -of the British
Government in relation to other parts of the Queen's
dominions where the authority of the legislative body
is derived from the Crown and is not founded on the
principle of popular representation. The vastness and
importance of Her Majesty's Indian dominions, how-
ever .they may add to the dignity of those who are
called upon to administer its affairs on the spot, in no
degree exempt them from the necessary tie of subjec-
tion, but rather render it more incumbent on Her
Majesty's advisers and councillors at Home to maintain
the more carefully the existing order of things as
defined by constitutional usage, and by what I may
term the fundamental axioms of the connexion between
this country and India ".

Again when Lord Northbrook's Government
attempted to assert the independence of his Govern-
ment in fiscal matters Mr. Disraeli's Government were
equally decided in affirming their constitutional rights :

"It is not open to question that Her Majesty's
Government are as much responsible to Parliament for
the government of. India as they are for any of the
Crown Colonies oŁ the Empire. It may even be said
that the responsibility is more definite, in that the

Vastness
and im-
' portance of
India
cannot
exempt its
adminis-
trators
from sub-
ordination
to Home'
Government.

Lord
Northbrook's
claim for
fiscal in-
dependence
repudiated
by Disraeli's
Government