CHAPTER XV.
THE NATIVE STATES.
One of the chief features of the original scheme of constitutional reforms submitted to the Secretary of State by the Government of India was the creation of an Imperial Advisory Council composed of ruling chiefs and territorial magnates.

The proposal gave rise to a variety of objections, the most serious one being the difficulty of adjusting the relations to the Government of India of a Council in which the most conspicuous members could have had no definite _locus standi_ in regard to the internal affairs of British India--i.e., of the larger part of our Indian dependency under direct British administration.

The difficulty was evaded by dropping the proposal.

But to evade a difficulty is only to postpone it.

Though the constitutional reforms are confined, in their immediate application, to British India, measures of such far-reaching importance must react more or less directly upon the whole of our Indian Empire.