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Rh casion, in 1853, a third of the Directors had been made nominees of the Crown. The Mutiny, though not attributable to the existing system, showed how clumsily it worked and what delays it involved. The present arrangements merely threw obscurity on the seat of power. Parliament, by which all improvements had been effected, was becoming daily more conscious of its responsibilities in the matter; and it was expedient that, with the responsibility, should go the outward semblance of authority. Mr. Baring's amendment was negatived; but the Bill had still to encounter some rough weather in the passage through Parliament.

Lord Palmerston's defeat on the Conspiracy to Murder Bill imposed upon his successor the task of elaborating the measure by which the transfer was to be effected and the administrative arrangements which it would involve. Lord Derby's position was embarrassing. The vote on the introduction of the Bill had pledged the House to the principle of the transfer, and the Minister had now to construct a measure embodying that principle and to carry it against a hostile majority. Some of the provisions of the new Bill were, with good reason, criticised as designed rather with a view to Parliamentary support than in the interests of the better government of India. Such, for instance, was the proposal to vest the election of one-half of the eighteen members of Council in five of the great trading centres of England. To Her Majesty's objection to this proposal Lord Ellenborough