within limits of price. Later on the same system of control over ex- port and prices was applied to the Burma rice crop. Control over exports generally was also exercised to prevent goods from going to the enemy. (4) Internal Security. The statutory power which the governor-general has to legislate in an emergency by Ordinance was freely exercised to secure the safety of the realm. Of these Ordinances the more important were the Indian Naval and Military News Ordinance; the Foreigners Ordinance; the Ingress into India Ordinance; the Commercial Intercourse with Enemies Ordinance; the Articles of Commerce Ordinance. The duration of an Ordinance is limited by statute to a period of six months, but the Indian Legislature passed an Act in 1915 to keep these and other specified Ordinances in force during the continuance of the war and for six months after. The Indian Legislature in March 1915 also enacted the Defence of India Act, giving the Government very wide rule- making powers for the purpose of securing the public safety and the defence of British India. It also enabled the Government to provide in any notified districts for the trial of certain classes of heinous crime by a special tribunal of three commissioners. It may be mentioned that many of its provisions were reenacted in a modified form by the Rowlatt Act of 1919 (the Anarchical and Revolutionary Crimes Act 1919).
Retirement of Lord Hardinge. In Nov. 1915 Lord Hardinge completed his fifth year as Viceroy, but at the request of the home Government remained in office until the following April. In a farewell speech to his Legislative Council he said that, with a reservation as to Bengal, " the internal situation of India could hardly be more favourable." Heads of provinces had informed him that never in their experience " had the relations between the Government and the people been closer or of greater con- fidence." He expressed his wish to see " the early realization of the just and legitimate aspirations of India," but, with an obvious reference to the Home Rule movement which Mrs. Annie Besant (the head of the Theosophical Society in India) had started in Madras, and to the advocacy of " self-government on colonial lines " .by Indian nationalists, he besought his hearers not to be led astray by impracticable ideals, but to look facts squarely in the face and to realize that in the Dominions self-government had been the slow product of steady and patient evolution.
Lord Chelmsjord's Administration. Lord Chelmsford, the new Viceroy, assumed office on April 4 1916. Lord Hardinge, in referring to his successor, had characterized him as a man of " noble ideals and generous sympathy." He was in his forty- eighth year. He had been an active member of the London School Board and the London County Council, and had made .acquaintance with constitutional problems as governor of Queensland and then of New South Wales. At the time of his selection he was serving with his territorial battalion in India. His administration covered one of the most difficult and momen- tous periods of British-Indian history, whether as regards the pressure of world events, the complexity of the forces acting in and upon India, the difficult and dangerous situations that arose, the number and magnitude of the problems demanding solution and the gravity of the issue they have raised. With the pro- longation of the war India had lost its first enthusiasm and its first alarm. Its remoteness induced a sense of security and obscured the vital issues that were still in balance. High prices, scarcity of imported commodities and unaccustomed restrictions on trading and travel fretted the masses. Among the educated classes national aspirations were quickened by the increasing share taken by India in the war, by the generous recognition of its services and admiration of its resources accorded by other members of the Empire, by the association of representatives of India on terms of equality with the ministers of Dominion Governments in the Imperial War Conference, and by the knowl- edge that the constitutional relations of the component parts of the Empire would be readjusted after the war. Politicians became apprehensive lest the claims of India might go by default unless asserted promptly.
" Home Rule " Movement. In the first year of Lord Chelms- ford's administration the political peace enjoyed by his pred- ecessor came to an end. In the early part of the year Mrs. Besant succeeded in getting her scheme of Home Rule considered by leading members of the National Congress and the Moslem League. She continued to advocate it with great energy among
students and schoolboys in Madras, established a Home Rule League, celebrated a " Home Rule " day, and declaimed in her paper New India against the Government. Mr. Tilak, who had been released from prison in 1914, was equally active in Bombay. In Oct., 19 elected Indian members of the Imperial Legisla- tive Council submitted a memorandum on proposed reforms to the Government of India. They described the Morley-Minto reforms as having created Legislative Councils which were mere advisory bodies without any effective control over the Govern- ment, Imperial or provincial. They propounded a scheme which, while retaining irremovable executives responsible to Parliament and the Secretary of State, would have subjected them in legislation, finance and administration to the orders of a legislative body, in which elected members would be pre- dominant. These proposals were adopted in substance a few months later by the National Congress and the Moslem League. In the Montagu-Chelmsford report they were subjected to close examination and pronounced impracticable and wrong in theory. A legislature and an executive deriving their authority from and responsible to different authorities must come to a deadlock which could not be resolved, as it would be under a genuine parliamentary system, by a change of Government. From this adverse judgment the authors of the Montagu-Chelmsford Re- port advanced to their own solution of the problem the division of the administration into two halves, one an official executive responsible to the British Parliament and the Secretary of State, and the other an executive of ministers responsible to the Legis- lature. The Congress-League scheme has from its very defects an historical value in the evolution of the present Indian constitution.
To return to the course of events. At meetings held at Luck- now in Dec. 1916 the National Congress and the Moslem League, as the result of lengthy negotiations, agreed upon a scheme of reforms based on the proposals of the 19 members, and resolved to put it before the public, through the agency of the Home Rule League, as the irreducible minimum with which the national party would be content. The scheme became known as the Congress-League scheme. By this time the nationalist party led by Mrs. Besant and Mr. Tilak had become dominant in the Congress. The Moslem League, originally founded for the protection of Moslem interests against Hindu ascendency, had similarly fallen under the influence of the " young " Mahom- medans, who made Home Rule their objective and joined forces with the Congress on the condition that in certain provinces in which the Mahommedans were in a minority they were guaran- teed a proportion of seats in the future Legislative Councils in excess of the number they could hope otherwise to win. Effect was given to this compact, henceforth known as the " Lucknow Compact," in the Congress-League scheme. Following the Lucknow conferences an energetic Home Rule campaign was opened in all provinces. Mrs. Besant's activities in Madras caused the Madras Government in June 1917 to require her and her lieutenants to abstain from attending public meetings and making speeches, to leave Madras city and to take up their residence in one of several specified areas. This order made a great sensation throughout India. Protest meetings were held to procure its withdrawal. It was thought to be the forerunner of a general policy of repression, and added fuel to the agitation for Home Rule. The stir in the nationalist camp was quickened by the knowledge that the views of Lord Chelmsford's Govern- ment on political reforms had for some time past been before the home authorities. Other incidents deepened the feeling of un- easiness among Indian politicians. The belated publication of the report of the Royal Commission which, with Lord Islington as president, had since 1913 been inquiring into the Indian public services with a view to the admission of Indians in larger numbers, did not mend matters. Its recommendations were pronounced unsatisfactory and inadequate. A frank declaration of policy by the British Government as to the future political development of India became increasingly necessary.
The fault of delay did not rest with the Indian Government. From the moment of his assumption of office Lord Chelmsford
