Sir, our Constitution is really an amalgam of the American and English Constitutions, with Canada in between. From the American Constitution we have the authority in the President, that he can have the executive to himself, and can appoint his own men to administer the Government. But there is a defect in it as well. And we have the English Constitution in which the leader of the majority party only will be called upon. In the American Constitution the Ministers have nothing to do with the congress. The Ministers are responsible to the President only, and not to the House. But we have it in our Constitution that our Prime Minister must be responsible to the House. There is also a little defect in that. He can nominate about twelve members. He can also choose his cabinet from among them, there is nothing to prevent him from doing that, from choosing the members from nominated members having special knowledge in science, art and literature and social service. The premier can do that. But in these days we need not have such an anachronism as “nominated members”. We could have had the different societies representing the arts, literature etc. to elect members from among them. But if you allow the President to thus select his Prime Minister and the Cabinet, then we can have an almost entirely nominated set of Ministers. Of course, with the present leaders, there is no such danger. But we have to make a Constitution which is not only fool-proof, but also knave-proof. Some time latter, there may be some people who may be knaves, and we should see that our Constitution is knave-proof also. We may have to change this within the next ten years. At present there is no such danger and the President, so far as we can see for the next twenty years, will be such that he will not misuse his powers. Therefore we should keep guard and see that the Constitution is not worked in such a way that the Cabinet contains only nominated members.
