46 LIFE OP MR, WOOMES CHUNDER BONNEBJEE. from the District officials. However clever, however able, however well-meaning, however inclined to do justice 'the Viceroy may be, he is more or less in the hands of those who have to administer the country in the Districts, in the places where the people congregate, where the people lead their daily lives, and it is the officials who are entrusted with the charge of these Districts who have the weal or woe of the country in their hands, and when you appeal against any action of theirs to the Viceroy, you do not get any reply for months and and months, and as a matter of fact, the only reply vouchsafed is that the Viceroy sees no reason to interfere. (Cries of "shame.") To- a certain extent this state of things must be so, but it need not be so in the hard and fast way in which it is being carried out, and if we had some voice in the government of our country, there is no doubt we should be able to put questions of administrative details to the officers responsible in the Council for the Government, and we should be able to stir the members of the Government up to do, what I have no doubt they conscientiously try to do— namely, good to the peo- ple of India. (Cheers.) Now, I will give you two instances to show how the present system of Government has, . INSTEAD OF ADVANCING THE COUNTRY, done very much to retard it to a certain time. The Legisla- tive Councils, as my friend Mr. Nowroji, has told you, pass l awg — the local Councils for the provinces represented by them, the Supreme Council for the whole of India. Now these Councils, particularly the Viceroy's Council, seem to be a sort of hothouse for English gentlemen going out there to carry out their own views. They try their theories in this country, v and absolutely fail, but somehow they manage to get seats in the Indian Council in Calcutta, and the things that have been scouted in this country are carried out there, notwith- standing the opposition and clamour and protest of the people. ("Shame.") . From 1861 to ■ 1872 we had in India
