methods and the democratic spirit which the Government of India Act of 1919 has quickened in British India. There are many other thorny points. Obviously there could be no room for all the seven or eight hundred ruling chiefs, great and small, in any assembly reasonably constituted to represent the Native States. Nor have they ever enjoyed any uniform status or received any uniform treatment. Some of them, the most important, have maintained direct relations with the Government of India; the majority only indirect relations through the Provincial Governments within whose sphere their territories are situated. The creation of the Chamber of Princes has necessitated a new classification of major and minor States, the former entitled to direct, the latter only to indirect representation, which has naturally caused a vast amount of jealousy and heartburning. Another consequence still under discussion is the substitution in most cases of direct relations with the Government of India for those in which the smaller Native States now stand to provincial governments. Such transfer must involve innumerable difficulties and complications, especially in a Presidency like Bombay, within whose boundaries there are over 300 Native States inextricably bound up with it by common interests and even by common administrative needs. Many of them are at first sight inclined to welcome such a transfer as enhancing their prestige; some of them, remembering the old saying that "Delhi is a long way off," hope that it will lessen the prospect of outside interference in their own administration, however bad it may be or become. But these are hardly arguments to justify a transfer which can only import a new element of confusion into an already sufficiently confused situation. The Chamber of Princes was opened with all the glitter of oriental pomp and magnificence, but it only held a few meetings and the proceedings were veiled in secrecy. Only enough transpired to show that personal jealousies and clan rivalries were rife even at that early stage. Its very constitution denies it the assistance for which the Indian Councils and the Indian Ministers have been wise enough to look from the co-operation with them of British elements, whose authority in government and administration is still maintained by statute and so far undisputed. To the Chamber of Princes the Viceroy alone is in a position to give guidance, and to shape that illustrious assembly to useful purposes is one of the many difficult tasks in front of Lord Reading. FOOTNOTES: [3] At the "stabilised" rate of exchange a crore, or ten million rupees = one million gold pounds sterling. One hundred lacs make a crore. CHAPTER XIII ECONOMIC FACTORS