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sill CHARLES BEUCE, G.C.M.G., ON" 



administrative posts generally associated with a seat in the 

 executive Council and, as in the case of Ministers at home or in 

 the self-governing Colonies, their vote in support of the Govern- 

 ment is inseparable from their tenure of office. The nominated 

 members include two groups — an official and a non-official group. 

 The official nominees, as thev are styled, are appointed by the 

 Crown as experts in departmental administration as, for instance, 

 the Heads of the Customs, Public Works, and Survey Depart- 

 ments. They are bound when called upon to support the 

 Government by their vote, at the risk of being called on to 

 resign their seat in Council, though not necessarily their depart- 

 mental office. The non-official nominees are appointed by the 

 Crown, on the recommendation of the Governor, as representa- 

 tives of communities oi" interests. They may be said to owe a 

 dual allegiance to the Government and the communities or 

 interests they represent. The members of the third element of 

 the Chamber are independent of the Crown and responsible 

 only to tlieir electors. When the number of tx officio and 

 official nominee members combined is in excess of the number 

 of non-official nominees and elected members combined, there is 

 constituted a permanent official majority. In Colonial practice 

 the Government can and does allow the system to work without 

 an official majority, reserving the power to create such a 

 majority in matters of supreme local importance, such as the 

 passing of the estimates, or to comply with an Imperial mandate. 

 This arrangement is carried out generally in one or two ways ; 

 -either vacancies are left in the number of official nominees, or 

 the Council may be dissolved and reconstituted with an official 

 majority. 



In colonies where this type of Legislative Council exists, it 

 has usually been found advisable to strengthen the Executive 

 Council by adding to the official members two or more unofficial 

 members holding no portfolio as advisory representatives of the 

 principal dividing or conflicting elements of the population. 



If any excuse is necessary for an analysis of this type of 

 colonial constitution in my address, I plead the importance of 

 bearing in mind that the introduction of this type, with various 

 modifications, not all in a democratic sense, is a principal factor 

 in recent reforms in India, and marks a stage in the assimilation 

 -of the constitutional status of the Crown Colonies and India. 



Whether the aspirations of those in the Crown Colonies and 

 in India who look forward to a tmie when the barriers which 

 .oppose the assimilation of this status to that of the Dominions 

 •by a further process of constitutional development may be 



