Meanwhile Colonel Durand was transferred from the Foreign Office to the executive council, with charge of the military department. As a member of the council he had a seat in the legislative chamber, and on one occasion he voted against the other ministers. This raised a question as to the right of a member of the cabinet to vote against the majority of his colleagues in the legislative chamber. It was argued on one side that in England a cabinet minister must vote with his colleagues in parliament; in other words, he must either sacrifice his conscience for the sake of party or resign his post in the executive. On the other side it was urged that an Indian cabinet had nothing whatever to do with party, and that any cabinet minister might vote in the legislative chamber as he deemed best for the public service, without thereby losing his position as member of the executive council. [Sidenote: Sir John Lawrence leaves India, 1869.] §10. Sir John Lawrence retired from the post of Viceroy in 1869. With the exception of an expedition into Bhotan, a barbarous state in the Himalayas next door to Nipal, there was peace in India throughout the whole of his five years' administration. He returned to England and was raised to the peerage. He had strong attachments, but the outer world only knew him as a strong, stern man, with a gnarled countenance and an iron will. He lived for ten years longer in his native country, doing good work as the chairman of the London School Board, and taking an active part in every movement that would contribute to the welfare of his generation, until, in 1879, the saviour of British India found a final resting-place in Westminster Abbey. [Sidenote: Lord Mayo Viceroy, 1869-72.] §11. Lord Mayo succeeded as Viceroy and Governor-General. To him is due the greatest reform in the constitutional government of India since the mutiny. He delivered the local governments from the financial fetters of the Viceroy in Council, and left them more responsibility as regards providing local funds for local wants, and devoting local savings to local expenditure. Hitherto every presidency and province got as much as it could out of the imperial treasury, and spent as much as it could during the current financial year, for any balance that remained was lost for ever by being credited to imperial funds. Henceforth every presidency and province was interested in improving its income and cutting down its expenditure, since it was entrusted with some discretion as regards the disposal of the surplus money. [Sidenote: Tragic death.]