Expected outcome

IF the virtually unanimous Indian and non-official vote in favour of the joint amendment to the official resolution on the Muddiman report in the Legislative Assembly was a foregone conclusion, so was the rejection of that amendment in the Council of State. That is why we said that Sir Deva Prasad Sarbadhikari would not take long to discover that he had rendered no service to the country by insisting upon the Council being afforded an opportunity of discussing the report. This is not to say, of course, that but for Sir Deva Prasad’s insistence, the Council would have been ignored. The bureaucracy knew its business and its interests far too well to do any such thing. It knew that it had everything to gain and nothing to lose by bringing the matter up before this utterly unrepresentative body, that the rejection by this body of the joint amendment, even if it did nothing else, would, at any rate, enable it to pretend in England that the two Houses of the Central Legislature were divided on this matter, that if one was against the Government, the other was for it. Happily, Englishmen are already familiar with this sort of thing in their own country. How often had the House of Lords, before its wings were successfully clipped, played this game of obstruction in regard to matters of outstanding, far-reaching importance? Nor, so far as mere resolutions as distinguished from Bills are concerned, and particularly resolutions affecting the cause of freedom in other countries, has even the clipping of its wings prevented the House from exhibiting its incurable antipathy to freedom and progress.