is responsible for the internal peace and order of the district, for the detection and suppression of crimes, and for the prosecution of criminals. For the internal management of the Police affairs, he is however, responsible only to his immediate superior at the headquarters.

In consequence of the formation of special departments, such as those of publie works, sanitation and education, the functions of the District Officers are now-a-days less important than before. But even in these special departments the active co-operation and the advice of the District Officer are always needed. So also in the new self-governing institutions, such as the municipalities within his districts, which are all guided and controlled in their working by the District Officer. He used to be also generally the chairman of the District Board which, with the aid of subsidiary Boards, maintains roads, schools and dispensaries and carries out sanitary improvements in rural areas.

In fine the District Officer rules and guides the people, informs the Government of every thing that takes place in his district, suggests improvements, and protests against innovations which he considers detrimental to the interests of the people within his jurisdiction, and maintains peace and order and good feeling among the various races in his charge.

The District is divided into a number of small units each in the charge of a responsible officer. In general the districts are split up into sub-divisions under the charge of officers of the Imperial Civil Service, or the members of the provincial service; and these sub-divisions are in their turn further divided into minor charges each under officers of the subordinate service. Each sub-divisional officer usually resides at the headquarters of his jurisdiction and has a court house, office, sub-treasury, and sub-jail at his headquarters. In Bombay and in the United Provinces the sub-divisional officers generally live at the head office of the district when not on tour. In these two provinces, as well as in Madras, sub-district units.

are styled Talukas or Tahsils, and are administered by Tahasildars, or Mamlatdars as they are called in Bombay. These officers belong to the subordinate service. The area of an ordinary Tahsil is from 400 to 600 square miles. The Tahsildar is assisted by his subordinate officers, styled revenue inspectors, or Kanungos and the village officers. The latter are mostly hereditary. The most important of them are the Patel or the head man, who collects the revenue, and, in Madras, also acts as a petty Magistrate land Civil Judge; the Kulkarni or Patvari who keeps the village accounts, register of holdings, and in general all records connected with the land revenue; and the Chokidar or village watchman who is the rural policeman. The Indian village organization is very ancient and endures even now, though with modifications. required by the peculiar character of the present system of government.

For Judicial purposes, there are High Courts of justice in Bengal, Madras, Bombay, Bihar and 'Orissa, the United Provinces and the Punjab. Burma has a Chief Court, while Assam and the Central Provinces have courts of Judicial Commissioner.

XII. Relations between the Government of India
and the Heads of Provinces.

It would be as interesting to know as it is difficult to say, what exactly are the relations between the supreme Government and its various subordinate chiefs. On paper, of course, everything seems to be so well ordered as to leave hardly any room for friction. But in reality there is not always found that smooth and noiseless working of the wheels of government as an uninitiated outsider would be inclined to believe in. We know for a fact that Sir Bartle Frere, as the Governor of Bombay, in the days when Sir John Lawrence was the Viceroy of India,

cansed more than one sleepless night to the Viceroy on the question of the failure of the Bank of Bombay as well as on questions of Frontier policy. It is also recorded that the Duke of Buckingham, as Governor of Madras under Lord Lytton, caused a serious obstruction to that Viceroy's famine policy;; so much so that the Home Government had to interfere, and to recall, almost peremptorily, the refractory Duke. Perhaps it was to such cases as these that Lord Curzon alluded in one of his farewell speeches: "In old volumes of our proceedings which it has been my duty to study at midnight hours, I have sometimes come across peppery letters or indignant remonstrances, and have seen the spectacle of infuriated proconsuls strutting up and down the stage." For himself, he added, notwithstanding the fact that during his seven years' tenure of the Viceroyalty nearly thirty Governors, Lieutenant-Governors and Chief Commissioners had come and gone, there never had been a time when the relations between the Supreme Government and the heads of the local Governments had been so free from friction or so harmonious. No one except those intimately connected with the Government of India can say how often such friction arises even to-day. It would seem, however, that the prevalance of the more liberal views as regards the extent of the authority of local Governments, the great expansion of their Legislative Councils and the greater harmony between the rulers and the ruled resulting therefrom, the large concessions in matters of finance, the definite demarcation of the other spheres of public activity, the growth of precedent, the improved means of rapid communications, and above all the characters of the men chosen for such posts have all combined to minimise, if not entirely to destroy all causes of friction. The right to be obeyed is so firmly established in the Government of India, that the privilege of subordinate proconsuls to tender their resignation by way of a protest against the undue encroachments or interference of the supreme authority has ceased to be a censure upon the Viceregal powers, and is rather a means of affording a speedy solution of unpleasant problem. The resignation of Sir Bamfylde

Fuller afforded the last instance of this nature, vindicating the right of the Supreme Government to be obeyed, as well as the right of its lieutenant to be relieved of an untenable situation. With the devolution of authority to the new elements of popular responsibility in the provinces, occasions of friction between the central and provincial authorities must further diminish, though it is even now conceivable that in problems of first class importance, like the arrest and trial of a Gandhi, there may be difference of opinion between the supreme and the local government.

XIII. The Structure of Indian Government.

The question of provincial autonomy, which has been exercising the minds of the public for some time past, and which is discussed more in detail hereafter, will best be solved by trying to understand whether our present constitution is unitary or federal in form. In a Unitary Government, like that of England or France, all sovereign power is concentrated in the hands of the Central Government. There may, indeed, be a division of functions between the central and local governing bodies. But the division in no case amounts to a distribution of sovereign powers. The local governing bodies are the creatures, the delegates and the dependents of the central power, which is the sole, supreme, sovereign authority in the state; and between which and the local bodies no other sovereign or semi-sovereign authority is interposed. On the other hand the chief characteristic of a Federal Government is the distribution of sovereignty between the Federal power and its constituent states. A federation is a combination of several independent states into one single state. The combining states may have desired, or been compelled, to unite in order to promote their economic development, or to secure their political integrity or safety. But even when combined they do not lose all trace of

their original independence. Hence the new central state, made by the union of the old independent states, is entrusted only with such sovereign powers as the combining states might decide, to vest in a central authority. Consequently even in cases where the necessity of unification is enforced by the considerations of self-preservation, the central authority, though allowed a liberal share of sovereign powers, is never quite the undisputed sovereign which the similar authority in a unitary state is. There is always a difference between powers allotted to the central authority and those reserved for individual states.

The Government of India resembles, as well as differs from, both these kinds of states. The dominant position of the Supreme Government in India, and its unquestioned powers of control, and even of creation, suggest a great affinity to a unitary state. But the presence of Provincial Governments,-which are an intermediary between the Supreme Government and the local governing bodies, and which are essentially deputies of the Supreme Government-serves to distinguish the Government of India from a unitary state. Nor can we quite describe it as a federal state. The mere presence of a number of provinces, each with its own separate Government, is not enough to constitute a federation. With the exception of the three Presidencies, all the other provinces in India have been created by the central authority in order to relieve the latter of some portion of its heavy administrative work. In stead, therefore, of the provinces combining to create a united -central Government, as is the case in federations, it was rather the central Government which deputed its minor functions of government in order to strengthen its main hold. Even the originally independent Presidencies were forced to submit to the central authority. Besides, the supremacy of the central Government once established, it is unquestioned in every pro-" vince. In so far as the Government of India can themselves be called a sovereign power, there is really no distribution of sovereignty between them and the various provincial Governments.