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Corporation. Possibly it was felt that my interests as a public man were wider, and that I had in part contributed to the reform and expansion of the Legislative Councils. I felt it a great honour that I should be the first representative of Calcutta, the city of my birth, in the new reformed Council, for the creation of which I had done what little I could. I applied myself to my legislative work with all the zeal that I could muster. Of that work it is not for me to speak. Good or bad, it is there in the records of the Bengal Legislative Council. All that I claim is that I did my best with the opportunities that lay before me.

After my first term of office, the Corporation again honoured me by electing me as their member. For the third and fourth terms I was returned a member of the Bengal Legislative Council, through the Presidency Division in Bengal, first by the municipalities and then by the district boards, so that I was a member of the Bengal Legislative Council for eight consecutive years, from 1893 to 1901, a period which for length of service is unique in the records of the reformed Legislative Council of Bengal.

In 1897 I was elected by the District Boards of the Presidency Division when I was away in England as a witness before the Welby Commission. It was my esteemed friend, the late Babu Ashutosh Biswas, whose tragic death we all mourned, who was mainly instru- mental in securing my return on that occasion.

In 1899, the Government intervened to find a constituency for me. Under the Regulations of 1893, the number of seats open to election being few, the constituencies (the district boards and municipalities) took part in the elections by rotation. There was no constituency by which I could be returned in 1897. The Calcutta Municipal Bill was then under discussion. I had taken a prominent part in it, in pressing for a modification of the Bill upon more liberal lines. Both the Government and the public were of opinion that my presence in the Council, while the Bill was being considered, was absolutely necessary. Sir John Woodburn, the then Lieutenant- Governor, expressed the same view. He had, under the regulations, the power of changing the order of rotation. It was now the turn of the Dacca Division to return a member. The Lieutenant- Governor, in virtue of the discretion vested in him, transferred the privilege to the Municipalities of the Presidency Division for the elections of 1897. I stood as a candidate; there was no contest, and was unanimously returned.