Page:The Earl of Mayo.djvu/99

Rh the sanction of a legislative enactment for many purposes for which an order of the Governor-General in his Executive Council would have sufficed under the Company. Indeed, almost every great question of policy, not directly connected with foreign affairs or military operations, sooner or later emerges before the legislative body. If all the official Members hold together, the Viceroy has an official majority in the Legislative Council. And as no measure comes before it except after previous discussion and sanction by the Governor-General in his Executive Council, this represents the normal state of votes in the Legislature.

Lord Mayo was a rigid economist of time. Each day had its own set of duties, and each hour of it brought some appointment or piece of work mapped out beforehand. He rose at daybreak, but could seldom allow himself the Indian luxury of an early ride, and worked alone at his 'boxes' till breakfast at 9.30. At 10, his Private Secretary came to him with a new accumulation of boxes, and with the general work of the day carefully laid out. Thereafter his Military Secretary (an officer of his personal staff, and distinct alike from the Military Secretary to the Government of India, and from the great Departments of the Adjutant-General and Quartermaster-General under the Commander-in-Chief) placed before him in the same manner special questions connected with the army. By 11 Lord Mayo had settled down to his boxes for the day, worked at them till luncheon