with Lord Irwin with whom he discussed matters relating to AngloIndians.

The Deputation returned to India at the end of 1925 and Colonel Gidney continued his vigorous propaganda on behalf of his community. Briefly, he is working first to secure one closely united All-India Anglo-Indian Association, and secondly, he is impressing on Anglo-Indians the necessity for regarding themselves as an Indian community with exactly the same rights, status and privileges as any other Indian community.

This discussion of political developments during the Autumn Recess would not be complete without a mention of the elections to the Council of State which, it will be remembered, completed its first term of existence in September. The elections, of course, did not cause anything like the same excitement as elections for the Legislative Assembly, but they were given more than a spice of interest by the avowed determination of the die-hard Swarajists to capture as many seats as possible in the Council. In the event, while they scored one or two unexpected successes, they were only able to return 9 members out of a total of 33 elected members.

The long drawn-out Cotton strike in Bombay came to an end at the beginning of December. On December 1st "The Gazette of India Extraordinary" published an ordinance suspending the levy and collection of the Cotton Excise Duty. The ordinance further stated that unless the financial position, as disclosed in the Budget Estimates for the next year, substantially failed to confirm the present anticipations, proposals for the complete abolition of the duty would be placed before the Legislature at the time of the Budget Debate. On receipt of this news, a special meeting of the Committee of the Bombay Mill-owners' Association was held when it was decided that wages should be restored to their old level as from December 1st. With this decision the strike virtually ended.

Mention has already been made of the inchoate state of the trade union movement in India. It must not be supposed, however, that Indian labour lacks protection. It has its spokesmen in the different legislatures, and much has been done by legislation and other means, particularly within the last few years, to ameliorate labour conditions in this country. Its representatives take part, as we have seen, in the International Labour Conference,

and India was again represented in the conference to be held at Geneva during the summer of 1926. Few, if any, countries have done so much to comply with the provisions of the Conventions and Recommendations adopted at International Labour Conferences. Indeed in some quarters in India the opinion is held that the Indian Government has proceeded in this matter at too great a pace. For example, at a meeting between Sir B. N. Mitra, Member of the Governor General's Executive Council, and the Ahmedabad Mill-owners' Association in April 1926, the President of the Association said that though the Government of India had in recent years passed a number of measures intended for the benefit of the working classes, there were obvious limits to the pace at which they should proceed in such legislation. Conditions. in India differed so widely from those in Western countries that legislation in advance of the times was likely to do more harm than good. For this reason his association did not approve of the policy adopted by the Government of India in giving effect to the various decisions of the International Labour Conference. Sir B. N. Mitra in his reply gave a full and complete explanation of the position of the Government of India.

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"I notice " he said, that you are somewhat apprehensive in regard to the pace at which the Government of India are proceeding in the matter of Labour legislation in India, and you take the view that all legislation in advance of the times is likely to do more harm than good. In my opinion the Central Government have so far undertaken no legislation in advance of the times. In the absence of specific instances, it is difficult for me to make out how far your remarks apply to any enactments passed in the last three or four

Continuing, Sir Bhupendranath said that it was not a fact that the Government of India had so far taken indiscriminate action on the conventions and recommendations of the International Labour Conference. It was only when they were satisfied that the conditions in the country made legislation in a particular direction desirable that they had taken action on them. They had hitherto proposed to take legislative action on only one out of the four conventions adopted at Geneva last year. In regard to two others,

relating to Workmen's Compensation for accidents and night work in Bakeries, they had definitely decided not to take any action at present. The Indian Workmen's Compensation Act came into force about two years ago, and until they had fuller experience of the working of that Act they did not propose to take any further action on the subject.

Sir B. N. Mitra's meeting with the Ahmedabad Mill-owners is an interesting example of the way in which the members of the Viceroy's Executive Council, that is the Indian Cabinet, now-adays maintain touch between the Indian Government and the Indian financial, commercial, industrial and other interests. During the recesses the members of the Executive Council tour between the most important places in India and hold conferences and meetings with representatives of the different interests included in their portfolios. The alleged aloofness and inaccessibility of the Indian Government, whatever may have been the case in the past, now no longer exist, and members of the Indian Cabinet are regularly in direct touch with the public and public opinion in India.

In previous remarks about the International Labour Conference we have seen India in one aspect of her international status. She is, of course, an active member of the League of Nations and is always strongly represented at the sessions of the League where her representatives have striven with great success to establish friendly relations with representatives of the many counties which are brought into contact with India in trade or otherwise. The interim report of the Indian delegation of the 6th session of the Assembly of the League of Nations in 1925 was issued at Delhi on December 8th. The Report which was signed by Lord Willingdon, the Maharaja of Patiala and Sir A. C. Chatterji, gave much attention to this question of relations with foreign delegates and concluded by saying:-" In the course of the debates we tried to turn the general activities of the League into ways of benefit to India. Our observations on health organisation, the proposed International Relief Union, the work of the League is social matters and our suggestion that a Bureau of Information should be established in India, are instances of this endeavour. It remains for us to add that we ourselves have derived the utmost benefit from our inter

course with many prominent statesmen and experienced

administrators who represent their countries on this Assembly. Our relations with them in conference and in social intercourse have been most cordial."

So the interval between the end of the Simla Session of the Legislature and its meeting on the 20th of January 1926 in Delhi saw a stir in Indian life in several directions. We have seen that the main interest of these months lies in the developments in Indian politics which have been briefly outlined. The session of the Legislature which we are now about to study thus promised to be of surpassing interest. We have witnessed the Swaraj Party gradually approaching the point of helping to work the Reformed Constitution, and we have seen how some of its most active and influential members desired to acknowledge explicitly that the party was prepared to take its part in Parliamentary politics in India. Also we have seen the extreme section of the party headed by the Party Leader, Pandit Motilal Nehru, resisting this movement towards Responsive Co-operation, and binding itself, by the Cawnpore Resolution, to abandon the legislatures altogether, unless demands were met by the Government of India, which, it must have known, could not be met. Thus the session opened in circumstances of quite extraordinary interest. Would Pandit Motilal Nehru obey the Cawnpore Resolution? If he did, would the members of his party in the Legislative Assembly, in the Council of State, and in the Provincial Legislatures follow him? These were the questions which were being asked when the Central Legislature opened at Delhi on January 20th, 1926.

CHAPTER IV.

The Delhi Session-1926.

The Delhi session is, of course, by far the more important of the two sessions of the Legislature. It is longer than the other and it includes discussion of the annual Budget and Finance Bill, and the consequent review of the whole policy of the Government. We have already seen how previous events had invested the coming session with high anticipatory interest, which is considerably heightened by its actual business. This includes a series of most important resolutions, such as that relating to the extension of the Reforms to the North-West Frontier Province, a second on the release of "Political" prisoners, another on the Burma Expulsion of Offenders' Act, another proposing to raise very substantially the pay of the two members, with Indian experience, of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and two others on unemployment in the middle classes in India and beggary and vagrancy. The Legislative business included Bills relating to the repeal of Bengal Regulation III of 1818 which re-inforces the ordinary Criminal Law in dealing with certain types of revolutionary crimes, Trades Unions, Factories, weekly payments of wages, an amendment to one of the security sections of the Criminal Procedure Code, amendment of the Income-Tax Act, Contempt of Court, and the like. During the session a warning was issued by the Chair to a leading Anglo-Indian newspaper, and, finally, in the middle of the session a motion for adjournment was moved on a subject which excited the widest interest all over India. The business of the session, in fact, made it one of the most important so far held.

The session was opened by Lord Reading on January the 20th. His inaugural speech was of far more than ordinary interest, for, in addition to a survey of Indian internal affairs, it contained an announcement of the highest interest, namely, the decision of His Majesty's Government to appoint a Royal Commission on Indian Agriculture, and also a discussion of the burning question of Indians in South Africa.