'Mesopotamia Commission. Report of the Commission Appointed by Act of Parliament to Enquire into the Operations of War in Mesopotamia, together with a Special Report by Commander J Wedgwood, DSO, MP, and Appendices. London: HMSO, 1917.' [‎52r] (103/248)

PART XL—CAUSES CONTRIBUTING TO THE ERRORS OF JUDGMENT 101
AND SHORTCOMINGS OF RESPONSIBLE AUTHORITIES.
B. Faulty Organization of Indian Military Administration.
at last succeeded.in convincing the military authorities that the medical arrangements
up the Tigris are as bad as can be.” A severer comment could not have been made upon
the isolation and ignorance of those primarily responsible for the treatment of the wounded.
Bombay, Calcutta, London, the Houses of Parliament, and private individuals, both in
India and England, were all cognisant of what was going on. Simla and Delhi alone were
unmoved. Simla has so long been the established summer quarters of the Government of j
India that it has almost become a tradition ; but its inconvenience as the Army Head
quarters in time of war and in the management of oversea expeditions can be well illus
trated by imagining Thurso or Wick to be the headquarters of the British Army
Departments during this war. The idea in its nakedness is grotesque, yet something like
it was attempted in India for the first sixteen months of the Mesopotamia Expedition. {
C. Relations between the Secretary of State and the Governor-General
AND THEIR RESPECTIVE COUNCILS.—PRIVATE TELEGRAMS.
18. Almost concurrently with the adoption of the principle of centralisation in
military administration, a gradual process of change in the methods of communication
between the Secretary of State for India and the Governor-General of India has taken place
which had an important bearing upon the management and conduct of • the Mesopotamia
Expedition.
19. The Government and Administration of India are vested in the Secretary of State
for India in Council and in the Governor-General of India in Council, and the former body
dominates the latter. The powers of the Secretary of State for India in Council are im
mense, greatly exceeding those exercised by an ordinary Secretary of State. So far as
finance and expenditure are concerned, the Council stands to the Secretary of State for
India much in the same relation as that in which Parliament stands to the other Secretaries
of State. It may reasonably be assumed that Parliament would not have given these
immense powers to any individual official if, in the exercise of such powers, he was
dissociated from his Council.
20. The Governor-General in Council is subordinate to the Secretary of State for India
in Council and rules are laid down in the Act of Parliament as to the procedure through
which the Secretary of State’s orders and communications to the Governor-General should
be made. Those means of communication, according to the Statute, come under three
heads :—
(а) “ Public,” or, as we prefer to designate them, official communications which
pass through the Council.
(б) “ Urgent” communications, which need not necessarily go to the Council and
which the Secretary of State has the power of sending on his own authority, though
he is subsequently under the obligation of explaining the causes for his so acting.
(c) “ Secret ” communications, on which the Secretary of State has the power of
acting on his own authority, nor need he explain to his Council the reasons why he
dispenses with their advice. But these “ secret ” communications are limited to
certain subjects.
21. In India the power of the Governor-General to dispense with his Council is much
more circumscribed. The Government of India is throughout the Statute invariably
designated as the Governor-General in Council. If the Governor-General is away from his
Council on tour he has all the powers which he could exercise if he was with his Council,
and moreover he has the power, when with the Council, of over-ruling them on certain
questions, if the majority of them differ from him. Bat the Members of the Secretary of
State's Council and of the Governor-General’s Council have a statutory right of protesting
in writing against any action of which they disapprove. The protest must be in accordance
with their expressed objections in Council, and such written protest can be called for and
laid before Parliament.
22. The intention of Parliament in setting up the Government of India upon this
basis seems to have been a wish to associate the Secretary of State and the Governor-
General (who under the conditions existing in this country would probably be politicians),
with Councils of trained Indian administrators ; and the power of protest was doubtless
given so that each Council might be a check upon the Secretary of State, or the Governor-
General, against taking impulsive, or. in the view of the Council, improper action.