growing needs of populations of diverse nationality, language, and creed."
And then, added to all this, is the further tendency of government "to override" in Lord Morley's words, "local authority, and to force administration to run in official grooves." The Commissioners say the same. They declare, in their roundabout circumspect way, that government has hitherto been too much dominated by considerations of administrative efficiency, has paid too little regard to developing responsibility among subordinate agents, and to giving weight to local sentiment and tradition. All this "results, in large measure, in administrative authority in India having to do over again work already accomplished at a stage below. Future policy should be directed to steadily enlarging the spheres of detailed administration entrusted to provincial governments."
Larger principles thus begin to appear above the mass of details, and to dominate the outlook into the future. If, on the one hand, in the old words of Bright, "what you want is to decentralise your government," perhaps to federalise it, on the other, it is desirable to bring native rulers towards the sphere and circle of responsibility. As it is, we are in danger of creating a central government too busy in detail, too close to business, too anxious for what has been done already, too dusty with archives and precedents, too much engrossed with the anise and cummin of public affairs.
