Page:A Nation in Making.djvu/288

interview I had with Lord Hardinge after my election, he said to me, 'Mr. Banerjea, you owe your position in my Council to me.' I thanked His Excellency, but did not go deeper into the matter, as it might look like an attempt to ferret out official secrets.

I became a member of the Imperial Legislative Council in February, 1913, and in the following month I moved a Resolution recommending the separation of the judicial and executive func- tions in the administration of criminal justice. There was nothing original in the Resolution. The subject had for a long time been before the public. The most prominent Indian public worker, who took a special interest in it, and with whose name the genesis of the public agitation on this subject will be associated, was the late Mr. Monomohan Ghose. The most distinguished criminal lawyer of his generation in India, he was deeply impressed with the evils arising from this combination of judicial and executive functions. Mr. Monomohan Ghose got up a representation, which was sub- mitted to the Secretary of State for India, signed by Lord Hobhouse, Sir Richard Garthi, late Chief Justice of Bengal, Sir Raymond West, late Judge of the Bombay High Court, Mr. Herbert Reynolds, late Member of the Board of Revenue, Bengal, and others, pointing out the evils of the system and calling for its reform. The late Mr. Romesh Chunder Dutt formulated a scheme for the introduction of the reform in Bengal.

In 1908, Sir Harvey Adamson, then Home Member, had declared from his place in the Imperial Legislative Council that the Govern- ment of India had definitely decided to introduce the reform in a cautious and tentative way. Five years had elapsed since this declaration, but nothing had been done. My Resolution therefore was clearly opportune. It is worthy of remark that every non-official Indian member supported it. It was negatived by the vote of the official majority. But it was obvious that there were officials who favoured my motion; and after the debate was over, Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson, who presided in the absence of the Viceroy, came up to where I sat, and said, 'Mr. Banerjea, if I had had two votes, an official and a personal one, I should have given the personal vote in your favour.'

The Resolution, I understand, though negatived, formed the subject of a despatch to the Secretary of State by the Government of India, who, according to my information, supported the proposal. But as it involved considerations of finance it had to run the gauntlet