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his administration, namely, the Bengal Municipal Bill and the Jury Notification.

As I have observed, an amendment of the Bengal Municipal Act was pending before the Government when the Council was reconsti- tuted under the Statute of 1892. The measure was reactionary, prompted by the official distrust of municipal institutions. Once a municipality was invested with the right of electing its own chairman, the right, under the law in force, could not be withdrawn. It was now proposed under the amending Bill to vest in the Government the power of depriving a municipality of this right. Again, under the present Municipal Act, there can be no sub- division of a municipality without the consent of the Commissioners. They are the final authority in this matter. It was now proposed under the Bill to deprive them of this power and make Government the judge and arbiter in regard to these questions.

Outside the Council I had done my best to get these provisions condemned. I had protested in the Press, I had organized public meetings against them, I had personally interviewed some of the Indian members of the Council; but all in vain. At last the idea of an appeal to England occurred to me. I wrote a long letter to Mr. Allen Hume, urging my reasons and requesting him to see Lord Ripon, who was then a member of the Cabinet. Mr. Hume forwarded my letter to him. Lord Ripon wrote back to say that each member of the Cabinet was supreme in his department, but that he had sent my letter to Lord Kimberley, who was then Secretary of State for India. I heard no more about it; but it had the desired effect. Sir Charles Elliott came to the Council one morning and before opening the proceedings declared that he had received a communication from the Secretary of State on the subject of the Bengal Municipal Bill, and that what he had decided, as the result of a careful reconsideration, was in entire agreement with the views of the Secretary of State. He and the Secretary of State had agreed that the provisions to which exception had been taken should be dropped. All is well that ends well. I was in the Council listening to these obscrvations, and my feelings may well be imagined. The diplomatic conversion of the Local Government to our views was welcomed by the public; and we did not care to examine whether the Lieutenant-Governor had carried out a mandate from the Secretary of State, or had come to the same decision as the result of his own independent review of the situation.