Nor were the different interests and classes, with two important exceptions, less adequately represented than the different races and creeds. Besides the great territorial magnates, of whom I have already mentioned two or three by name, there were not a few other well-known representatives of the landed interests which, in a country like India where agriculture is still the greatest of all national industries, have a special claim to respectful hearing, even though they have hitherto for the most part held aloof from the fashionable methods of political agitation. There was indeed a good deal of disappointment among the urban professional classes, in whose eyes a Western education--or rather education on what are, often quite erroneously, conceived to be Western lines--should apparently constitute the one indispensable qualification for public life. But they too had secured no inconsiderable number of seats, and if the voice of the Indian National Congress did not predominate it had certainly not been reduced to silence.
Doubts were freely expressed among Englishmen before the meetings of the new Councils as to the competence of the Anglo-Indian officials for the novel duties allotted to them in these assemblies. It was argued, not unreasonably, that men who had never been trained or accustomed to take part in public discussions might find themselves at a disadvantage in controversial encounters with the quick-witted Hindu politician. It is generally admitted now that the first Session at any rate of the Imperial Council by no means justified any such apprehensions. Not a few official members, it is true, were inclined at first to rely exclusively upon their written notes, and there was indeed, from beginning to end, but little room for the rapid thrust and skilled parry of debate to which we are accustomed at Westminster. Most of the Indian members themselves had carefully prepared their speeches beforehand, and read them out from typed or even printed drafts before them. In many cases the speeches had been communicated two or three days ahead to the Press, and sometimes a speech was printed and commented upon in the favoured organ of some honourable member, though he had ultimately changed his mind and preserved silence, without, however, informing the editor of the fact. In other cases a speech was published without the interruptions and calls to order which had compelled the orator to drop out some of his most cherished periods. As it was the custom for Indian members to communicate also to the departments immediately concerned the gist of the remarks which they proposed to make, the official members were tempted at first to frame their replies on similar lines and to read out elaborate statements bristling with figures, which would have been much more suitable for circulation as printed minutes. But gradually many of them took courage and showed that they could speak easily and simply, and quite as effectively as most of the Indian members.