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Updated: June 23, 2025
Non-Official Anglo-Indians. The problem becomes more complicated by the existence in India of a small but powerful body of the same race as the higher officials; there are only 122,919 English-born persons in this country, while there are 245,000,000 in the British Raj and another 70,000,000 in the Indian States, more or less affected by British influence.
Anybody can see how the system tends to throw the non-official member into an attitude of peevish, sulky, permanent opposition, and, therefore, has an injurious effect on the minds and characters of members of these Legislative Councils.
"The appointment of Indians to the highest offices charged with the responsibility of government; the increased representation given the people on the legislative and executive councils; the recognition of the right of the people to elect instead of merely to nominate members; and the surrender of majority-control to the non-official element all these are very substantial gains, but the spirit back of them is worth more than the reforms themselves.
Their circular was sent about to obtain an expression of Indian opinion, official and non-official. Plenty of time has been given, and is to be given, for an examination and discussion of these proposals. We shall not be called upon to give an official decision until spring next year, and I shall not personally be called upon for a decision before the middle of next Session.
Afterwards, at Simla and elsewhere, these two kindred spirits in many ways met frequently, and learnt to understand each other thoroughly well. They also had several common friends, civil, military, and non-official; and their literary pursuits in historical directions were also much in sympathy.
These occasional conferences, whether official, like those of the Hague, or non-official like those which occasionally meet in London or in Berlin, will not be of great avail in this matter unless a better public opinion renders them effective. They are of some use and no one would desire to see them dropped, but they will not of themselves stem or turn the drift of opinion.
Either the climate hindered operations or the materials used were of the kind which prevents official edifices from ever rising higher than the basement. But, meanwhile, OTHER quarters of the town saw arise, for each member of the Commission, a handsome house of the NON-official style of architecture.
Only let me say that here we may seem to lag a stage behind the Government of India themselves so little violent are we because that Government say, in their despatch "On all ordinary occasions we are ready to dispense with an official majority in the Imperial Legislative Council, and to rely on the public spirit of non-official members to enable us to carry on the ordinary work of legislation."
The other day I asked a gentleman holding an office in the Government, and who had lived some years in Ceylon, what was the state of the Council? He said it was composed of sixteen members, of whom six were non-official and independent, and the Governor had always a majority.
In many cases the influence of the non-official members was successfully exerted to secure modifications in the legislative measures of Government, though from a mistaken desire to "save its face" Government too often preferred to make concessions at private conferences with the Indian leaders rather than as the outcome of public discussion, and lost thereby a good deal of the credit which it might have secured by a more open display of its desire to meet Indian objections.
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