Madras, and Bombay, and new Legislative Councils set up in the United
Provinces and the Punjab. To the Council for all India, the Viceroy's
Council, also have been added five virtually elected members, out of a
council now numbering about twenty-two members in all. Four of the new
members represent the chief provinces, and the fifth the Chamber of
Commerce, Calcutta. Other five the Viceroy nominates to represent other
provinces or other interests. Looking at the representation of Indians,
it is noteworthy that in 1880 only two Indians had seats in the
Viceroy's Council, whereas in 1905 there were no fewer than six. The
Provincial Legislative Council of Bombay will suffice as illustration of
the stage which Representative Government has now reached. Eight of the
twenty-two members are virtually elected. That is to say, certain bodies
nominate representatives, and only in most exceptional circumstances
would the Governor refuse to accept the nominees. And who make the
nominations? Who are the electors enjoying the new political citizenship
of India? We shall not expect that the electors are "the people" in the
British or American sense: no Congress yet asks for political rights for
them. The idea regarding citizenship still is that it is a royal
concession, as it were to royal burghs, not that it is one of the rights
of men. The University elects a member to the Governor's Council, for it
has intelligence and can make its voice heard; the Corporation of Bombay
elects a representative, for in the capital are concentrated the
enlightenment and the wealth of the province; the importance of the
British merchants must be recognised, and so the Chambers of Commerce of
Bombay and Karachi send each a representative. Other groups of
municipalities elect one; the boards of certain country districts elect
one; and finally two groups of landlords elect one representative each.
It comes to this, that the men of learning, the burgesses of the chief
towns, the British traders, and the landowners and country gentlemen,
have now a measure of citizenship in the modern sense of the word.