प्रकरण 5 — दुसरे सभागृह

say, “Well, we feel the force of the objections to principle of the communal system fully. But we cannot help as India has deliberately chosen her road to responsible government.” For the Commission will realise that its duty to point out the right road and lead India on to it arises not merely out of a conscientious regard for what is right but also out of the moral obligation of the British authorities who are primarily responsible for pointing out in 1909 this wrong road.

CHAPTER 5 SECOND CHAMBER

94. My colleagues have recommended the institution of a second chamber as a part of the Provincial Legislature of this Presidency and have suggested a framework for its constitution. I am afraid my colleagues have not devoted sufficient thought to the difficulties pertaining to its construction. In the matter of its composition, a second chamber, if there is to be one, must be different than the first. In the matter of its powers, they must be such that a second chamber can work without impediment to the first chamber. It seems to me to be very difficult to constitute a second chamber which will satisfy both these conditions. A nominated second chamber is out of question. The Canadian Senate is a standing warning against the introduction of a nominated second chamber. It cannot have the moral authority of a popularly elected chamber to command respect for its decisions. Nor can it have the independence possessed by a popularly elected chamber to sit in judgment, as a revising chamber must, over the very executive which brings it into being. If the second chamber is an elective chamber then its working smoothly with the first will depend upon their respective franchise, times of election and their powers. If the second chamber is elected on the basis of a restricted franchise, it is sure to end in the raising of a small group from amongst the aristocracy into a governing class having a special degree of control over the destiny of the masses. Such a second chamber, far from being a revising chamber acting as a check upon the supposed rashness of the lower chamber, will be a chamber which, instead of putting a premium upon improvement in general, will put a premium upon the upkeep of vested interests. It would be dormant under a conservative administration and would be vigilant only under a radical one. When it ought to revise it will refuse, and when it ought to refuse to revise it will revise and may perhaps obstruct. If the two are elected on a uniform franchise, then the second will only be a replica of the first and will be quite superfluous. The same would be the result if the second chamber was elected simultaneously with the first. On the other hand, if the second chamber is elected at a different time than the first, then it is bound to unfeeble the executive and diminish its efficiency. For it would work as a hindrance to adequate policy making and may cause such a violent break in the policy of the executive as to lead to constant general elections.

If the two chambers are coequal in powers there are bound to be deadlocks, and the inevitable result of all deadlocks is an unhappy compromise, if not a total abandonment of the principle in dispute. On the other hand, if the powers of the second chamber are inferior to those of the first, it will not be able to control the supposed rashness of the first chamber and will thus fail to perform the purpose of its life.

95. In framing the constitution of a second chamber my colleagues have ignored all these difficulties. In doing so they have created a second chamber which, if I may say so, has all the faults and none of the virtues which a second chamber should have. In supporting the idea of a second chamber it seems to me that my colleagues have more or less followed the crowd psychology. A widespread existence of second chambers in historical times has given rise to the dogma of political science that a second chamber is a necessary accompaniment of a popular government. But it is forgotten that a two-chamber system which had its origin in England was a purely historical accident. That it found a place in the constitution of other countries was the result of the imitation of the superior by the inferior, and the virtue ascribed to it of serving as a brake on the rashness of the popular chamber is a subsequent invention of the human mind to justify the existence of what had become a universal fact. But it must be noted that this faith in the second chamber has been dwindling of late and that pre-war constitutions like Canada and South Africa and many post-war constitutions like those of Latvia, Lithuania, Esthonia and Yugoslavia have dispensed with the second chamber. This reaction has come about by the growing conviction that a government must be judged not by the symmetry of its structure, but by its practical achievement, by the content of actual service that it renders to the community and by the amount of well-being that it brings to the nation as a whole.

96. Looking at the institution of a second chamber from the utilitarian point of view, I refuse to accept that it can perform the function of a revising chamber. If to revise means to interpret the will of the electorates, I fail to understand how the second chamber is more likely than the first to be correct in its judgment as to what the electoral will is. My view is that the electorate and not the second chamber will be the best judge when such a question arises, unless we suppose that the members of the second chamber by virtue of their position have a greater presence than the members of the lower chamber. I deny that the second chamber possesses any such virtue. Indeed, a second chamber is not only as much likely to fail in correctly gauging the popular will, but its own interests in the matter are likely to give it such a personal bias one way or the other as to make it quite incapable of coming to an independent and rational judgment It is therefore better, safer and more reasonable to have a single chamber and to throw the responsibility of decision, when doubt arises, upon the electorate which chooses the chamber. Besides, if the idea underlying the second chamber is to delay the decision of the first chamber,