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Viceroy's attention was prominently called to the need of reconsti- tuting and reforming the Provincial Legislative Councils. This address, which, I may add, was drafted by me, was presented on December 24, 1884, a year before the birth of the Indian National Congress. The passage in the address that refers to this subject is worth reproducing. After referring to the recently-conferred boon of local self-government, the address went on to say:

'In this connexion it would not be out of place to observe that the reconstitution of the Provincial Legislative Councils is one of those reforms which public opinion seems to demand with increasing urgency. This is not the time or the place to enter upon the consideration of so vast a subject. But this may safely be asserted, that the Provincial Legislative Assemblies, as at present constituted, without the right of interpellation or any share in financial management, with their official majorities, for the most part, and the non-official members owing their appointment entirely to nomination, admit of little room for the successful expression of popular opinion, and fail to command that degree of confidence which is so need- ful for their efficient working. Even in the neighbouring Crown Colony of Ceylon, the Legislative Council is based upon a more popular model.'

As I am on this question of the reform and enlargement of the Councils, I may refer to some of the early efforts that led to the inauguration of this great reform. The year 1887 was the year of the Queen's Jubilee, and it was celebrated in a befitting manner in India and in all parts of the Empire. Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Harrison was at that time Chairman of the Calcutta Corporation. He was placed in charge of the arrangements in Calcutta, and he very kindly asked me to assist him in organizing the function to be held on the Maidan, and to look after the delegates who were invited from the different mofussil municipalities.

Here I may pause for one moment to pay my tribute of respect and affection to the honoured memory of a friend who was one of the ablest, as he was one of the most sympathetic, of English officials that I have met. In my mind the memories of Sir Henry Harrison and Sir Henry Cotton are indissolubly linked together. They were twins in their political views as regards India. Both were men of high intellectual eminence. Sir William Turner, late Chief Justice of Madras, said of Sir Henry Harrison that he had mistaken his vocation, and that if, instead of becoming a member of the Indian Civil Service, he had joined the English Bar, he would have become Attorney-General. He was the very Rupert of debate.