John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

100 DOUBLE GOVERNMENT NO EVIL. 1849-1873.
whether it is agreeable to him or not ; and unless the minister,
when he overrules their opinion, is bound to record his reasons,
their existence will only serve to weaken his responsibility, and
to give the colourable sanction of prudence and experience to
measures in the framing of which those qualities have had no
share."
The following is an interesting exposition of the functions
exercised by the Home Government, that is to say by the Court
of Directors, and their staff of officials; subject to the Board of
Control. It is also contains a home thrust by way of meeting
the stock objection to the Company s position.
"That your Petitioners are aware that the present Home
Government
Government ;
of India is reproached with being a double
and that any arrangement by which an indepen
dent check is provided to the discretion of the Minister will be
liable to a similar reproach. But they conceive that this
accusation originates in an entire misconception of the functions
devolving on the Home Government of India, and in the
application to it of the principles applicable to purely executive
departments. The Executive Government of India is, and
must be, seated in India itself. The Court of Directors is not
so much an executive, as a deliberative body. Its principal
function, and that of the Home Government generally, is not
to direct the details of administration, but to scrutinise and
revise the past acts of the Indian Governments ; to lay down
principles, and issue general instructions for their future
guidance, and to give or refuse sanction to great political
measures, which are referred home for approval. These duties
are more analogous to the functions of Parliament, than to
those of an Executive Board : and it might almost as well be
said that Parliament, as that the Government of India, should
be constituted on the principles applicable to Executive Boards.
It is considered an excellence, not a defect, in the constitution
of Parliament, to be not merely a double but a triple Govern
ment. An executive authority, your Petitioners submit, may