The Administration of Bengal under the Earl of Ronaldshay G.C.I.E. 1917-22

This scheme was initiated by the statement of policy made on the 20th August 1917 in Parliament which amounted to a pledge to secure the progressive realisation of regponsible Government in British India as an integral part of the -Empire.- The stages of the development of the details of the scheme were marked by the visit in 1917-18 of the Secretary of State to India ; the Joint Report on Indian [...] Reforms--Financial.—on the financial side the salient feature of the reforms scheme was the attempt to secure financial autonomy for the different provinces and for the Government of India by allotting to them so far as practicable the receipts accruing in respect of the subjects they administer subject to the payment of certain contributions by each provincto the central Government. [...] My personal experience of the high devotion to duty and the broad and sympathetic vision of the officials with whom I am proud' to have been as"sociatei in the Government of"Bengal during the past foar year. ; of the intellectual ability the courtesy and the warm-hearted generosity of spirit of the people of Bengal; and of the disinterested advice and the assistance which I have invariably recei [...] Other manifestations of the movement were 4he agitation blgainst Village self-government in the district of Midnapore the iicketing of drink shops (this was done ostensibly in the name of temperance' bn really with the object of dipa inishing the revenue of Govermalt); the opposition to the beginning of settlement operations An.„ the districts of Bogra and Birbhuya and early in November 1921 [...] Amongst the chief incidents of the movement werthe attempt to boycott the visit of His Royal Highness the Duke of18 Connaught at the end of Januar1921 an attempt which was only partially successful as therwere a fair number of spectators on the day of his arrival ; the har-tal of the Jith November 1921 Which from the point of view of iton-co-operation was very 'successful as the pub