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the Corporation, and it is felt that they are utilizing their predomi- nance for party purposes. Such a policy is natural, there are illus- trations of it all over the world, but it is not equitable, and it is right and justice that prevail in the government of human affairs; and any departure therefrom is fatal to the public interests, and in the end recoils upon the party itself. Power is given to the righteous; and is held by the righteous so long as they do not deviate from the golden track of right dealing. That is the lesson of all history. It is the writing on the wall, which those in authority may not in the intoxication of power care to read. But it is there, as inexorable in its operation as the great and fundamental physical laws.

The first crowning blunder of the new regime has been the appointment of Mr. C. R. Das as Mayor. For Mr. Das's ability, tact and judgment I have great respect; and therefore it seems to me all the more inexplicable that he should have been led to com- mit this mistake. To the unbiassed spectator it would point to the deleterious effects of the intoxication of power. The Mayor is an officer of some responsibility and of great dignity. The office is usually held by venerable citizens who have grown grey in the service of the Corporation. It was never bestowed on a Gladstone, on a Paimerston or a Disraeli, but is the tribute to fame and dis- tinction for civic service. Mr. C. R. Das has not during the whole of his public career been within miles of a municipal office. But all at once, because his party is in power and he is their leader, he is installed in the position of Mayor without a trace of municipal experience. Could any selection have been more unsuitable, more unfair to the numerous citizens of Calcutta far worthier of this office than Mr. Das? Is justice or partisan spirit to be the deter- mining factor for high appointments in an institution from which, as Mr. Das has declared, politics should be divorced?

There is no principle to which the general public and the framers of the Bill attached greater importance than the total separation of what I may call the legislative and executive functions in the ad- ministration of the Corporation. But it was left to Mr. Das and the Swarajist majority to revert to a system that had been deliberately abandoned. Under the Municipal Act the office of the President of the Corporation had been separated from that of the Chief Execu- tive Officer, but Mr. Das in actual practice combines both. By his office, he is the Speaker of the House, but he is also, to all intents and purposes, the real head of the executive. And the practice that he inaugurated was during his absence followed by the Deputy