Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1

From Hansard.

[The ministerial measure for the government of India was introduced by Sir Charles Wood on June 3, 1853. The particulars of the Bill were as follows: The Government proposed that for the future the relations between the Directors and the Board of Control should be unchanged, but that the constitution of the former should be altered and its patronage curtailed. It reduced the number of the Members of the Court from twenty-four to eighteen, of whom twelve were to be elected as before, and six nominated by the Crown from Indian servants who had been ten years in the service of the Crown or the Company. One-third of this number was to go out every second year, but to be re-eligible. Nominations by favour were to be abolished. The governorship of Bengal was to be separated from the office of Governor-General. The legislative council was to be improved and enlarged, the number to be twelve. The Bill passed the House of Lords on June 13.]

I feel a considerable disadvantage in rising to address the House after having listened for upwards of five hours to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. But the question is one, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, of first-rate importance; and as I happen from a variety of circumstances to have paid some attention to it, and to have formed some strong opinions in regard to it, I am unwilling even that the Bill should be brought in, or that this opportunity should pass, without saying something, which will be partly in reply to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and partly by way of comment on the plan which he has submitted to the House. There is, as it appears to me, great inconsistency between the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and that which he proposes should be done; because, really, if we take his speech as a true and faithful statement of the condition of India, and of the past proceedings of the Government in that country, our conviction must be that the right hon. Gentleman will be greatly to be blamed in making any alteration in that Government. At the same time, if it be not a faithful portraiture of the Government, and of its transactions in India, then what the right hon. Gentleman proposes to do in regard to the home administration of that country is altogether insufficient for the occasion. I cannot on the present occasion go into many of the details on which the right hon. Gentleman has touched; but the observations which I have to make will refer to matters of government, and those will be confined chiefly to the organisation of the home administration. I am not much surprised that the Government should have taken what I will call a very unsatisfactory course with regard to the measure they have propounded, because they evidently did not seem exactly to know what they ought to do from the very first moment that this question was brought before them. I do not allude to the whole of the Treasury bench, but I refer particularly to the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell), because he was at the head of the Government when this question was first brought before them. Lord Broughton, then Sir John Hobhouse, was at that time the President of the Board of Control, and he was not in favour of a Committee to inquire into the past government and present condition of India. Shortly afterwards, however, it was considered by the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) that it would be desirable to have such a Committee appointed. A Committee was appointed, and it sat.

But at the commencement of the present Session the noble Lord intimated very distinctly, in answer to a question which I put to him, and which seemed to make the noble Lord unnecessarily angry, that it was the intention of the Government to legislate, and in such a way as to leave the Indian Government almost entirely the same as it had hitherto been. ['No, no!'] Well, I thought that the noble Lord said so, and in corroboration of that I may mention that the noble Lord quoted-and I believe that it was the noble Lord's only authority-the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stamford (Mr. Herries), who considered that no material change was required in the constitution of the home Indian Government. Well, when the noble Lord made that announcement, considerable dissatisfaction was manifested on both sides of the House, some hon. Members speaking in favour of a delay of one, two, or three years, or declaring themselves strongly against the present constitution of the Indian Government. However, from that time to this, various rumours were afloat, and everybody was confident one week that there would be no legislation, or only a postponement; in another week it was thought that there was to be a very sweeping measure (which last report, I must say, I never believed); and the week after that people were again led to the conclusion that there would be a measure introduced such as the one this night submitted to the House. Again, it was understood so lately as last Saturday that there would be no legislation on the subject, excepting a mere temporary measure for a postponement. I confess that I was myself taken in by that announcement. On Monday the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Danby Seymour) gave notice of a question on the same subject, and he was requested not to ask it till Tuesday. On Tuesday there was a Cabinet Council, and whether there was a change of opinion then I know not, but I presume that there was. The opinion that was confidently expressed on Saturday gave way to a new opinion, and the noble Lord announced that legislation would be proceeded with immediately. All this indicates that there was a good deal of vacillation on the part of the Government. At last, however, has come the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control. There were some good things in it, no doubt. I do not suppose that any man could stand up, and go on speaking for five hours, without saying something that was useful. But as to the main question on which this matter rests, I do not believe that the plan which the Government proposes to substitute will be one particle better than that which exists at the present moment.

With regard to the question of patronage, I admit, so far as that goes, that the plan proposed by the right hon. Gentleman will be an improvement on the present system. But I do not understand that the particular arrangement of the covenanted service is to be broken up at all. That is a very important matter, because, although he might throw open the nominations to the Indian service to the free competition of all persons in this country, yet if, when these persons get out to India, they are to become a covenanted service, as that service now is constituted, and are to go on from beginning to end in a system of promotion by seniority-and they are to be under pretty much the same arrangement as at present-a great deal of the evil now existing will remain; and the continuance of such a body as that will form a great bar to what I am very anxious to see, namely, a very much wider employment of the most intelligent and able men amongst the native population.

The right hon. Gentleman has, in fact, made a long speech wholly in defence of the Indian Government; and I cannot avoid making some remarks upon what he has stated because I wholly dissent from a large portion of the observations which he has made. But the right hon. Gentleman, above all things, dreads that this matter should be delayed. Now I will just touch upon that point. The right hon. Gentleman has said that he has not met any one who does not consider it highly desirable that the House should legislate upon the subject of the Government of India this year; and that it will be a great evil if such legislation is postponed. In support of this view he produces a private letter from Lord Dalhousie upon the subject. Now I do not consider such evidence as by any means conclusive, because the House knows that Lord Dalhousie has been connected with the system that now exists. That noble Earl is also surrounded by persons who are themselves interested in maintaining the present system. From his elevated position also in India-I do not mean his location at Simlah-but from his being by his station removed from the mass of the European population, and still more removed from the native population, I do not think it at all likely that Lord Dalhousie will be able to form a sounder opinion upon this question than persons who have never been in India. In my opinion, no evil can possibly arise from creating in the minds of the population of India a feeling that the question of Indian Government is considered by the House of Commons to be a grave and solemn question; and I solemnly believe that if the decision on the question be delayed for two years, so as to enable Parliament to make due inquiries as to the means of establishing a better form of government in India, it will create in the minds of all the intelligent natives of India a feeling of confidence and hope, and that whatever may be done by them in the way of agitation will be rather for the purpose of offering information in the most friendly and generous spirit, than of creating opposition to any Government legislation. However, the question of delay is one which the House in all probability will be called upon to decide on another occasion.

But passing from that subject, I now come to the principle upon which the right hon. Gentleman founded his Motion. The speech of I he right hon. Gentleman was throughout that of an advocate of the Indian Government, as at present constituted; and, if Mr. Melville had said everything that could possibly be dragged into the case, he could not have made it more clearly appear than the right hon. Gentleman has done that the Government of India has been uniformly worthy of the confidence of the country. My view of this matter, after a good deal of observation, is, that the Indian Government, composed of two branches, which the right hon. Gentleman does not propose to amalgamate into one, is a Government of secrecy and irresponsibility to a degree that should not be tolerated in a country like this, where we have a constitutional and Parliamentary Government, I have not the least idea in any observations which I may make either in this House or elsewhere of bringing a charge against the East India Company-that is to say, against any individual member of the Board of Directors, as if they were anxious to misgovern India. I never had any such suspicion. I believe that the twenty-four gentlemen who constitute the Board of Directors would act just about as well as any other twenty-four persons elected by the same process, acting under the same influences, and surrounded by the same difficulties-having to act with another and independent body- the Board of Control. Neither am I hostile to the Board of Control, because I think that the duty imposed upon it is greater than any such body can properly perform. The right hon. Gentleman, the enormous labours of whose office could not be accomplished by any one man, coming into office in December, and having to propose a new Government for India in the month of May or June, must have found it extremely difficult to make himself master of the question. But beyond this the House should bear in mind, that during the last thirty years there has been a new President of the Board of Control every two years. Nay, in the course of last year there were no less than three Presidents of the Board of Control. Thus that Board seems framed in such a manner as to make it altogether impossible that any one man should be able to conduct it in the way which it ought to be conducted. Beyond this, the President of that Board has to act in conjunction with the Court of Directors. Without saying anything which would impute blame to any party, it must be obvious that two such bodies combined can never carry on the government of India wisely, and in accordance with those principles which have been found necessary in the government of this country. The right hon. Gentleman has been obliged to admit that the theory of the old Government of India was one which could not be defended, and that everybody considers it ridiculous and childish. I am not at all certain that the one that is going to be established is in any degree better. It was in 1784 that this form of government was established, amid the fight of factions. In 1813 it was continued for twenty-years longer, during a time when the country was involved in desperate hostilities with France. In 1833 another Bill, continuing that form of government, passed through Parliament immediately after the hurricane which carried the Reform Bill. All these circumstances rendered it difficult for the Government, however honestly disposed, to pass the best measure for the government of India. But all the difficulties which then existed appear to me wholly to have vanished. Never has any question come before Parliament more entirely free from a complication of that nature, or one which the House has the opportunity of more quietly and calmly considering, than the question now before them.

I should have been pleased if the right hon. Gentleman had given the House the testimony of some two or three persons on his own side of the question. But, as he has not done so, I will trouble the House by referring to some authorities in support of my own views. I will first refer to the work of Mr. Campbell, which has already been quoted by the right hon. Gentleman. It is a very interesting book, and gives a great deal of information. That writer says-

'The division of authority between the Board of Control and the Court of Directors, the large number of directors, and the peculiar system by which measures are originated in the Court, sent for approval to the Board, then back again to the Court, and so on, render all deliverances very slow and difficult; and when a measure is discussed in India, the announcement that it has been referred to the Court of Directors is often regarded as an indefinite postponement. In fact, it is evident that (able and experienced as are many of the individual directors) twenty-four directors in one place, and a Board of Control in another, are not likely very speedily to unite in one opinion upon any doubtful point.'

That, I think, is likely to be the opinion of any man on the Government of India. There is another authority to which I will refer, Mr. Kaye, who has also written a very good book. It was actually distributed by the Court of Directors; I have therefore a right to consider it a fair representation of their views of what was done, especially as the Chairman of the Court has given me a copy of the book. Mr. Kaye, in referring to the double Government which existed in Bengal in 1772, makes use of these expressions. When I first read them, I thought they were a quotation from my own speeches:-

'But enlightened as were the instructions thus issued to the supervisors, the supervision was wholly inadequate to the requirements of the case. The double Government, as I have shown, did not work well. It was altogether a sham and an imposture. It was soon to be demolished at a blow.... The double Government had, by this time, fulfilled its mission. It had introduced an incredible amount of disorder and corruption into the State, and of poverty and wretchedness among the people; it had embarrassed our finances, and soiled our character, and was now to be openly recognised as a failure.'

This is only as to Bengal. The following are the words he uses in respect to the double Government at home:-

'In respect of all transactions with foreign Powers-all matters bearing upon questions of peace and war-the President of the Board of Control has authority to originate such measures as he and his colleagues in the Ministry may consider expedient. In such cases he acts presumedly in concert with the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors-a body composed of the chairman, deputy-chairman, and senior member of the Court. The Secret Committee sign the despatches which emanate from the Board, but they have no power to withhold or to alter them. They have not even the power to record their dissent. In fact, the functions of the Committee are only those which, to use the words of a distinguished member of the Court (the late Mr. Tucker), who deplored the mystery and the mockery of a system which obscures responsibility and deludes public opinion, could as well be performed "by a secretary and a seal."'

Further on he says-

'In judging of responsibility, we should remember that the whole foreign policy of the East India Company is regulated by the Board of Control; that in the solution of the most vital questions-questions of peace and war-affecting the finances of the country, and, therefore, the means of internal improvement, the Court of Directors have no more power than the mayor and aldermen of any corporate town. India depends less on the will of the twenty-four than on one man's caprice-here to-day and gone to-morrow-knocked over by a gust of Parliamentary uncertainty- the mistaken tactics of a leader, or negligence of a whipper-in. The past history of India is a history of revenue wasted and domestic improvement obstructed by war.'

This is very much what I complain of. I admit the right of the East India Company to complain of many things done by the Board of Control; and I am of opinion, that if the House left the two bodies to combat one another, they would at last come to an accurate perception of what they both are. The East India Company accused the Board of Control of making wars and squandering the revenue which the Company collected. But Mr. Kaye said that Mr. Tucker deplored the mystery and the mockery of a system which obscured responsibility and deluded public opinion. It is because of this concealment, of this delusion practised upon public opinion, of this evasion of public responsibility and Parliamentary control, that you have a state of things in India which the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles) has described, when he says that the Company manages the revenues, collects the taxes, and gets from 20,000,000_l_. to 30,000,000_l_. a-year, and nobody knows how much more. But, whatever it is, such is the system of foreign policy pursued by the Board of Control-that is to say, by the gentlemen who drop down there for six or eight or twelve months, never beyond two years-that, whatever revenues are collected, they are squandered on unnecessary and ruinous wars, till the country is brought to a state of embarrassment and threatened bankruptcy. That is the real point which the House will have to consider.

With regard to some of the details of the Government plan, we should no doubt all agree: but this question of divided responsibility, of concealed responsibility, and of no responsibility whatever, that is the real pith of the matter. The House should take care not to be diverted from that question. [Mr. Mangles: 'Produce your own plan.'] An hon. Gentleman has asked me to produce my plan. I will not comply with that request, but will follow the example of a right hon. Gentleman, a great authority in this House, who once said, when similarly challenged, that he should produce his plan when he was called in. I believe that the plan before the House to-night was concocted by the Board of Control and the hon. Member for Guildford and his Colleagues I shall, therefore, confine myself at present to the discussion of that plan. Some persons are disposed very much (at least I am afraid so) to undervalue the particular point which I am endeavouring to bring before the House; and they seem to fancy that it does not much matter what shall be the form of government in India, since the population of that country will always be in a condition of great impoverishment and much suffering; and that whatever is done must be done there, and that after all-after having conquered 100,000,000 of people-it is not in our power to interfere for the improvement of their condition. Mr. Kaye, in his book, commences the first chapters with a very depreciating account of the character of the Mogul Princes, with a view to show that the condition of the people of India was at least as unfavourable under them as under British rule. I will cite one or two cases from witnesses for whose testimony the right hon. Gentleman (Sir C. Wood) must have respect. Mr. Marshman is a gentleman who is well known as possessing a considerable amount of information on Indian affairs, and has, I presume, come over on purpose to give his evidence on the subject. He was editor of a newspaper which was generally considered throughout India to be the organ of the Government; in that newspaper, the Friend of India, bearing the date 1st April, 1852, the following statement appears:-

'No one has ever attempted to contradict the fact that the condition of the Bengal peasantry is almost as wretched and degraded as it is possible to conceive-living in the most miserable hovels, scarcely fit for a dog-kennel, covered with tattered rags, and unable, in too many instances, to procure more than a single meal a-day for himself and family. The Bengal ryot knows nothing of the most ordinary comforts of life. We speak without exaggeration when we affirm, that if the real condition of those who raise the harvest, which yields between 3,000,000_l_. and 4,000,000_l_. a-year, was fully known, it would make the ears of one who heard thereof tingle.'

It has been said that in the Bengal Presidency the natives are in a better condition than in the other Presidencies; and I recollect that when I served on the Cotton Committee the evidence taken before it being confined to the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, it was then said that if evidence had been taken about the Bengal Presidency it would have appeared that the condition of the natives was better. But I believe that it is very much the same in all the Presidencies. I must say that it is my belief that if a country be found possessing a most fertile soil, and capable of bearing every variety of production, and that, notwithstanding, the people are in a state of extreme destitution and suffering, the chances are that there is some fundamental error in the government of that country. The people of India have been subjected by us, and how to govern them in an efficient and beneficial manner is one of the most important points for the consideration of the House. From the Report of the Indian Cotton Committee it appears that nearly every witness-and the witnesses were nearly all servants of the Company-gave evidence as to the state of destitution in which the cultivators of the soil lived. They were in such an abject condition that they were obliged to give 40 or 50 per cent, to borrow money to enable them to put seed into the ground. I can, if it were necessary, bring any amount of evidence to prove the miserable condition of the cultivators, and that in many places they have been compelled to part with their personal ornaments. Gentlemen who have written upon their condition have drawn a frightful picture, and have represented the persons employed to collect the revenue as coming upon the unhappy cultivators like locusts, and devouring everything. With regard to the consumption of salt, looking at the Friend of India, of April 14, 1853, it appears that it is on the decline. In the year 1849-50, the consumption was 205,517 tons; in 1850-51, 186,410 tons; and in 1851-2, 146,069 tons. Thus, in the short period of three years, there has been a decrease in the consumption amounting to 59,448 tons, which will involve a loss to the revenue of 416,136_l_. [Footnote: The Friend of India was incorrect in this statement the real decline in the consumption of salt was about 12,000 tons.] Salt is one of those articles that people in India will use as much of as they can afford, and the diminution in the consumption appears to me to be a decided proof of the declining condition of the population, and that must affect adversely the revenue of the Indian Government. Now there is another point to which the right hon. Gentleman has slightly alluded; it is connected with the administration of justice, and I will read from the Friend of India a case illustrative of the efficiency of the police. The statement is so extraordinary that it would be incredible but for the circumstance of its having appeared in such a respectable journal:-

'The affair itself is sufficiently uninteresting. A native Zemindar had, or fancied he had, some paper rights over certain lands occupied by a European planter, and, as a necessary consequence, sent a body of armed retainers to attack his factory. The European resisted in the same fashion by calling out his retainers. There was a pitched battle, and several persons were wounded, if not slain; while the Darogah, the appointed guardian of the peace, sat on the roof of a neighbouring hut and looked on with an interest, the keenness of which was probably not diminished by the fact of his own immunity from the pains and perils of the conflict. There has been a judicial investigation, and somebody will probably be punished, if not by actual sentence, by the necessary disbursement of fees and douceurs, but the evil will not be thereby suppressed or even abated. The incident, trifling as it may appear-and the fact that it is trifling is no slight evidence of a disorganised state of society-is an epitome in small type of our Bengal police history. On all sides, and in every instance, we have the same picture-great offences, the police indifferent or inefficient, judicial investigations protracted till the sufferers regret that they did not patiently endure the injury, and somebody punished, but no visible abatement of the crime. The fact is, and it is beginning at last to be acknowledged everywhere, except perhaps at home, that Bengal does not need so much a "reform" or reorganisation of the police, as a police, a body of some kind, specially organised for the preservation of order. Why the change is so long postponed, no one, not familiar with the arcana of Leadenhall-street and Cannon-row, can readily explain.'

Mr. Marshman uses the expression, 'the incident, trifling as it may appear;' but I will ask the House if they can conceive a state of society in a country under the Government of England where a scene of violence such as has been described could be considered trifling?

The right hon. Gentleman has, while admitting that the want of roads in some districts of India is a great evil, endeavoured to show that a great deal has been done to remedy the deficiency, and that on some roads the mails travel as fast as ten miles an hour. Now, I believe that if the speed were taken at five miles an hour, it would be nearer the truth; and I will beg the House to excuse me if I read another extract from the Friend of India of April 14, 1853:-

'The Grand Trunk, however, is the only road upon which a good speed has been attained, remarks being attached to all of the remainder strongly indicative of the want of improved means of communication. From Shergotty to Gyah, and Gyah to Patna, for instance, the pace is four miles and a half an hour; but then "the road is cutcha, and the slightest shower of rain renders it puddly and impracticable for speedy transit." From Patna to Benares the official account is the same, but the rate increases at one stage to five miles and a half. The southern roads are, however, in the worst condition, the mails travelling to Jelazore at three miles an hour, or less than a groom can walk; and even between Calcutta and Baraset the rate rises to only four miles and a half an hour, while everywhere we have such notices as "road intersected by numerous unbridged rivers and nullahs," "road has not been repaired for these many years," "road not repaired for years," the "road in so bad a state, and so much intersected by rivers and nullahs, that no great improvement in the speed of the mails can be effected." And yet the surplus Ferry Funds might, one would think, if economically administered, be sufficient to pay at least for the maintenance of the roads already in existence. New roads, we fear, are hopeless until Parliament fixes a minimum, which must be expended on them; and even then it may be allowed to accumulate, as the Parliamentary grant for education has done at Madras.'

The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the subject of irrigation; and I hold in my hand an extract from the Report of the Commission which inquired into the subject. The Report states that-

'The loss of revenue by the famine of 1832-33 is estimated at least at 1,000,000_l_. sterling; the loss of property at a far greater amount; of life, at 200,000 or 300,000; and of cattle, at 200,000 at the lowest, in Guntore alone, besides the ruin of 70,000 houses. The famine of the Northern Circars in 1833, and that of the north-western provinces of India at a later period, prove with irresistible force that irrigation in this country is properly a question, not of profit, but of existence.'

The right hon. Gentleman has also quoted from a Report by Colonel Cotton on the subject of the embankment of the Kistna. Now, the embankment of the Kistna has been recommended as far back as the year 1792, and from that time has been repeatedly brought forward. The whole estimate for it is but 155,000_l_., and it was not until September, 1852, that the preliminary operations were commenced. I find this officer stating with respect to the district of Rajamundry, that if a particular improvement that had been recommended above twenty years ago had been carried out, it would have saved the lives of upwards of 100,000 persons who perished in the famine of 1837. I say that such facts as these are a justification of stronger language than any in which I have indulged in reference to the neglect of the Indian Government whether in this House or out of it. The right hon. gentleman candidly informs us that this very embankment has been recently stopped by order of the Madras Government, because the money was wanted for other purposes-the Burmese war, no doubt. In the year 1849 it was reported that Colonel Cotton wrote a despatch to the Madras Government, in which, after mentioning facts connected with the famines, he insisted, in strong and indignant language, that the improvements should go on. I believe that there was an allusion in the letter to the awkward look these things would have, pending the discussions on the Government of India, and I understand that it was agreed that the original letter, which countermanded the improvements, should be withdrawn, and that then the remonstrance from Colonel Cotton should also be withdrawn. A gentleman who has been in the Company's service, and who has for some time been engaged in improvements, chiefly in irrigation, writes in a private letter as follows:-

'From my late investigations on this subject, I feel convinced that the state of our communications is the most important subject which calls for consideration. I reckon that India now pays, for want of cheap transit, a sum equal to the whole of the taxes; so that by reducing its cost to a tenth, which might easily be done, we should as good as abolish all taxes. I trust the Committees in England are going on well, in spite of the unbecoming efforts which have been made to circumscribe and quash their proceedings. Woe be to India, indeed, if this opportunity is lost! Much will depend upon you-

(the letter was not addressed to myself)-

and others now in England, who know India, and have a single eye to its welfare. It behoves you to do your utmost to improve this most critical time, and may God in his mercy overrule all the efforts of man for its good! What abominations, villanies, and idiotcies there still are in our system! Is there no hope, no possibility, of infusing a little fresh blood from some purer source into these bodies?

(the ruling authorities).

It is quite clear that no radical improvement can take place till some influences can be applied to stimulate our rulers to more healthy, wholesome action; health can never be looked for in a body constituted as the Court of Directors now is; nothing but torpid disease can be expected as matters now stand.

With respect to the administration of justice, I shall not go at any length into that subject, because I hope it will be taken up by some other Gentleman much more competent than myself, and I trust that a sufficient answer will be given to what has been stated by the right hon. Gentleman. However, as far as I am able to understand, there appears to be throughout the whole of India, on the part of the European population, an absolute terror of coming under the Company's Courts for any object whatever. Within the last fortnight I have had a conversation with a gentleman who has seen a long period of service in India, and he declared it was hopeless to expect that Englishmen would ever invest their property in India under any circumstances which placed their interests at the disposal of those courts of justice. That is one reason why there appears no increase in the number of Europeans or Englishmen who settle in the interior of India for the purpose of investing their capital there. The right hon. Gentleman endeavoured to make an excuse on the ground that the Law Commission had done nothing. I was not in the House when the right hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay) brought forward the Bill of 1833, but I understand it was stated that the Law Commission was to do wonders; yet now we have the evidence of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control, that the Report of the Law Commission has ever since been going backwards and forwards, like an unsettled spirit, between this country and India. Mr. Cameron, in his evidence, said (I suppose it is slumbering somewhere on the shelves in the East India House) that the Court of Directors actually sneered at the propositions of their officers for enactments of any kind, and that it was evidently their object to gradually extinguish the Commission altogether. Yet the evidence of Mr. Cameron went to show the extraordinary complication and confusion of the law and law administration over all the British dominions in India. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control also referred to the statistics laid before the public; but I want to know why Colonel Sykes' statistical tables are not before the House. They are at the India House; but a journey to Leadenhall-street seems to be as long as one to India, and one can as soon get a communication by the overland mail as any information from the India House. What did Colonel Sykes say, with respect to a subject referred to by the right hon. Gentleman, who had given the House to suppose that a great deal had been done in respect to improvements in India? Colonel Sykes stated that in fifteen years, from 1838 to 1852, the average expenditure throughout the whole of India on public works, including roads, bridges, tanks, and canals, was 299,732_l_. The north-west appeared to be the pet district; and in 1851 the total expenditure was 334,000_l_., of which the north-west district had 240,000_l_. In 1852 the estimate was 693,000_l_., of which the north-west district was to have 492,000_l_., leaving only 94,000_l_. in 1851, and 201,000_l_. in 1852, for public works of all kinds in the three Presidencies of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, with a population of 70,000,000 souls. The right hon. Gentleman then referred to the exports from this country, and the increase of trade with India; and a kindred subject to that was the mode in which Englishmen settle in India. What I want to show is, that the reason why so little is done with India by Englishmen is, that there does not exist in that country the same security for their investments as in almost every other country in the world. I recollect receiving from Mr. Mackay, who was sent out by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, a letter expressing his amazement on finding that in the interior of India an Englishman was hardly known, unless he now and then made his appearance as a tax collector. The following Return shows in what small numbers Europeans resort to India:-

'British-born subjects in India not in the service of the Queen

or the Company:-

Bengal 6,749

Madras 1,661

Bombay 1,596

---

10,006

'In the interior of the country, engaged in agriculture or

manufactures-

Bengal 273

Madras 37

Bombay 7

---

317'

I cannot believe, if the United States had been the possessors of India, but that where there are tens of Europeans now in that country there would have been, not hundreds, but thousands of the people of America. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the exports to India, and wanted to show how large they were. Certainly they have increased very much, because they started from nothing at all. Before the opening of the trade, the Court of Proprietors, by resolution, declared that it was quite a delusion to suppose it possible to increase the trade with India. In 1850 the total exports to India from Great Britain and Ireland were 8,024,000_l_., of which cotton goods alone amounted to 5,220,000_l_., leaving 2,804,000_l_. for the total exports from Great Britain and Ireland upon all other branches of industry other than cotton. Now, let the House make a comparison with another country, one with which a moderately fair comparison might be made. Brazil has a population of 7,500,000 souls, half of whom are reckoned to be slaves, yet the consumption of British goods is greater in Brazil, in proportion to the population, than in India-the former country, with a population of 7,500,000, taking British goods to the amount of 2,500,000_l_. If India took but half the quantity of our exports that Brazil did in proportion to her population, she would take more than five times what she now takes. Yet Brazil is a country upon which we have imposed the payment of exorbitant duties, which we have almost debarred from trading with us by an absurd monopoly in sugar, while India is a country entirely under our own government, and which, we are told, is enjoying the greatest possible blessings under the present administration, compared with what it enjoyed under its former rulers. Our exports to India in 1814 were 826,000_l_.; in 1832 they were 3,600,000_l_.; in 1843 they were 6,500,000_l_.; and in 1850 they were 8,000,000_l_. India consumes our exports at the rate of 1_s_. 3 d. per head; whilst in South America, including the whole of the slave population, the consumption per head is 8 s. 8_d_. These are facts which the right hon. Baronet is bound to pay serious attention to. For myself, representing, as I do, one of our great seats of manufacturing industry, I feel myself doubly called upon to lose no opportunity of bringing such facts before the House, satisfied as I am that there is no Member of this House so obtuse as not to comprehend how materially the great manufacturing interests of this country are concerned in the question-what shall be the future Government of India?

Another subject requiring close attention on the part of Parliament is the employment of the natives of India in the service of the Government. The right hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay), in proposing the Indian Bill of 1833, had dwelt on one of its clauses, which provided that neither colour, nor caste, nor religion, nor place of birth, should be a bar to the employment of persons by the Government; whereas, as matter of fact, from that time to this, no person in India has been so employed, who might not have been equally employed before that clause was enacted; and, from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control, that it is proposed to keep up the covenanted service system, it is clear that this most objectionable and most offensive state of things is to continue. Mr. Cameron, a gentleman thoroughly versed in the subject, as fourth member of Council in India, President of the Indian Law Commission, and of the Council of Education for Bengal-what does he say on this point? He says-

'The statute of 1833 made the natives of India eligible to all offices under the Company. But during the twenty years that have since elapsed, not one of the natives has been appointed to any office except such as they were eligible to before the statute. It is not, however, of this omission that I should feel justified in complaining, if the Company had shown any disposition to make the natives fit, by the highest European education, for admission to their covenanted service. Their disposition, as far as it can be devised, is of the opposite kind.

'When four students (added Mr. Cameron) were sent to London from the Medical College of Calcutta, under the sanction of Lord Hardinge, in Council, to complete their professional education, the Court of Directors expressed their dissatisfaction; and when a plan for establishing a University at Calcutta, which had been prepared by the Council of Education, was recommended to their adoption by Lord Hardinge, in Council, they answered that the project was premature. As to the Law Commission, I am afraid that the Court of Directors have been accustomed to think of it only with the intention of procuring its abolition.'

Under the Act of 1833 the natives of India were declared to be eligible to any office under the Company. No native has, in the twenty years which have since elapsed, been appointed to any office in pursuance of that clause which he might not have held before the Bill passed, or had it never passed at all. There might not, perhaps, have been so much reason to complain of this circumstance, had the Government of India meanwhile shown a disposition to qualify the natives for the covenanted service; but the fact is that the Government has, on the contrary, manifested a disposition of a totally opposite character. The House must be very cautious not to adopt the glossed and burnished statement of the right hon. Gentleman as exhibiting the real state of things in India; for it is essential, in the highest degree, that in the present critical juncture of things the whole truth should be known. The right hon. Baronet, towards the close of his speech, has gone into the subject of education, and not so much into that of ecclesiastical establishments in India, but somewhat into that of religion. Now, with reference to education, so far as can be gathered from the Returns before the House- I have sought to obtain Returns of a more specific character, but to no purpose, having received the usual answer in these matters, that there was no time for preparing them-but from the Returns we have before us I find that while the Government has overthrown almost entirely that native education which had subsisted throughout the country so universally that a schoolmaster was as regular a feature in every village as the 'potail' or head man, it has done next to nothing to supply the deficiency which has been created, or to substitute a better system. Out of a population of 100,000,000 natives we instruct but 25,000 children; out of a gross revenue of 29,000,000_l_. sterling, extracted from that population, we spend but 66,000_l_. in their education. In India, let it be borne in mind, the people are not in the position with regard to providing for their own education which the people of this country enjoy, and the education which they have provided themselves with, the Government has taken from them, supplying no adequate system in its place. The people of India are in a state of poverty, and of decay, unexampled in the annals of the country under their native rulers. From their poverty the Government wrings a gross revenue of more than 29,000,000_l_. sterling, and out of that 29,000,000_l_., return to them 66,000_l_. per annum for the purposes of education!

What is our ecclesiastical establishment in India? Three bishops and a proportionate number of clergy, costing no less than 101,000_l_. a- year for the sole use of between 50,000 and 60,000 Europeans, nearly one-half of whom, moreover-taking the army-are Roman Catholics. I might add, that in India, the Government showed the same discrimination of which the noble Member for the City of London (Lord J. Russell) seemed to approve so much the other night, for, although they give to one Protestant bishop 4,000_l_. a-year, with 1,2OO_l_. a-year more for expenses and a ship at his disposal, and to two other Protestant bishops between 2,000_l_. and 3,000_l_. a-year, they give to the Roman Catholic bishop a paltry sum of about 250_l_. a-year. The East India Company are not, perhaps, herein so much to blame, seeing that they do but follow the example of what is going on in this country.

There is another question-perhaps the most important of all-the question of Indian finance, which, somehow or other, the right hon. Baronet has got over in so very lame a manner, in so particularly confused a style, that had I not known something of the matter previously, I should have learnt very little from the right hon. Baronet's statement. A former Director of the East India Company has, on this subject, issued a book-of course, in defence of the Company. Here are two or three facts extracted from this book:-From 1835 to 1851- sixteen years-the entire net taxation of India has produced 340,756,000_l_.; the expenditure on the Government in the same period having been 341,676,000_l_.-an amount somewhat in excess of the revenue. During these sixteen years there has been also expended on public works of all kinds 5,000,000_l_., and there has been paid, in dividends, to the proprietors of East India stock, 10,080,000_l_.; making a total expenditure of 356,756,000_l_. In the same period the Company has contracted loans to the extent of 16,000,000_l_.; every farthing of which has gone to improvements, the stated extent of which I believe to have been greatly magnified, and to pay the amiable ladies and gentlemen whose votes return to Leadenhall-street those immaculate Directors whom the Government seems so desirous of cherishing. All expenditure for improvements of every kind, and all dividends to stockholders, have been paid from loans contracted during the last sixteen years; so that the whole revenue has been expended, leaving nothing for improvements and nothing for the Company's dividends. This seems to me a formidable, an alarming state of things.

The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the Indian debt coming upon the people of this country, expressing the opinion that if the Government of India were transferred to the Crown-which assuredly it ought to be-the debt ought so to be transferred. The debt is not in the present Budget, indeed, but it will certainly come before the House. I have already referred to a memorable speech of the late Sir Robert Peel on this subject, in 1842, just after he had come into office, and when, finding the country left by the Whigs with an Exchequer peculiarly discouraging to a Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was about to propose that temporary income-tax which has since become permanent. He said, after referring to the affairs of Canada and China-

'For the purpose of bringing before the House a full and complete view of our financial position, as I promised to do, I feel it to be my duty to refer to a subject which has of late occupied little attention in the House, but which I think might, with advantage to the public, have attracted more of their regard-I refer to the state of Indian finance, a subject which formerly used to be thought not unworthy of the consideration of this House. I am quite aware that there may appear to be no direct and immediate connexion between the finances of India and those of this country; but that would be a superficial view of our relations with India which should omit the consideration of this subject. Depend upon it, if the credit of India should become disordered, if some great exertion should become necessary, then the credit of England must be brought forward to its support, and the collateral and indirect effect of disorders in Indian finances would be felt extensively in this country. Sir, I am sorry to say that Indian finance offers no consolation for the state of finance in this country. I hold in my hand an account of the finances of India, which I have every reason to believe is a correct one. It is made up one month later than our own accounts- to the 5th of May. It states the gross revenue of India, with the charges on it; the interest of the debt; the surplus revenue, and the charges paid on it in England; and there are two columns which contain the net surplus and the net deficit. In the year ending May, 1836, there was a surplus of 1,520,000_l_. from the Indian revenue. In the year ending the 5th of May, 1837, there was a surplus of 1,100,000_l_., which was reduced rapidly in the year ending May, 1838, to one of 620,000_l_. In the year ending the 5th of May, 1839, the surplus fell to 29,000_l_.; in the year ending the 5th of May, 1840, the balance of the account changed, and so far from there being any surplus, the deficit on the Indian revenue was 2,414,000_l_. I am afraid I cannot calculate the deficit for the year ending May, 1841, though it depends at present partly on estimate, at much less than 2,334,000_l_. The House, then, will bear in mind, that in fulfilment of the duty I have undertaken, I present to them the deficit in this country for the current year to the amount of 2,350,000_l_., with a certain prospect of a deficit for the next year to the amount of at least 2,470,000_l_., independently of the increase to be expected on account of China and Affghanistan, and that in India, that great portion of our Empire, I show a deficit on the two last years which will probably not be less than 4,700,000_l_.'- [3 Hansard, lxi. 428-9.]

Now, this deficit has in the period since 1842 been growing every year, with the exception of two years, when, from accidental and precarious circumstances, a surplus of between 300,000_l_. and 400,000_l_. was made out. The course of deficit has now, however, been resumed, and there is probably no one in this House or in the country but the right hon. President of the Board of Control, who does not perceive that the Burmese war will materially aggravate the amount of that deficit. Where is this to end? When the Board of Control was first established, the debt was 8,000,000_l_.; in 1825 it was 25,000,000_l_.; in 1829 it was 34,000,000_l_.; in 1836, 37,000,000_l_.; in 1843, 36,000,000_l_.; in 1849, 44,000,000_l_.; in 1853, 47,000,000_l_.; and now, including the bond debt at home and the debt in India, it is about 51,000,000_l_. The military expenditure of India has increased since the last Charter Act from 8,000,000_l_. a-year to more than 12,000,000_l_. a-year, and now forms no less than 56 per cent. of the whole expenditure. I believe that if the Indian Government would endeavour to improve the condition of the people by attending to economic principles, by establishing better means of communication, by promoting irrigation, and by affording facilities for education, the Indian population would at once be convinced that there was a feeling of sympathy entertained towards them on the part of their rulers and conquerors, and the idea-which I believe prevails very extensively- that we held India more with the object of extorting taxation than of benefiting the people, would speedily be removed.

When I come to consider the amount of the revenue, and its pressure upon the population, I think I can show a state of things existing in India which cannot be paralleled in any other country in the world. The evidence of Mr. Davies and Mr. Stewart, collectors in Guzerat, shows that in that district the actual taxation varies from 60 to 90 per cent. upon the gross produce of the soil. Mr. Campbell calculates the gross revenue of India at about 27,000,000_l_.; and Mr. Kaye, a recent authority, who, I presume, wrote his book at the India House, states that the gross revenue was 29,000,000_l_. The land revenue is 12,000,000_l_. or 13,000,000_l_.; and although the Government took, or intended to take, all the rent, it is not half enough for them, and they are obliged to take as much more from other sources in order to enable them to maintain their establishments. I mention this fact to show the enormous expense of the Indian Government, and the impossibility of avoiding a great and dangerous financial crisis unless some alteration is made in the present system. Mr. Campbell, speaking of the Indian revenues under the Mogul Princes, says-

'The value of food, labour, &c., seems to have been much the same as now-that is, infinitely cheaper than in Europe; and, certainly, in comparison to the price of labour and all articles of consumption, the revenue of the Moguls must have been more effective than that of any modern State-I mean that it enabled them to command more men and luxuries, and to have a greater surplus.'

I would ask the House to imagine that all steam engines, and all applications of mechanical power, were banished from this country; that we were utterly dependent upon mere manual labour. What would you think if the Chancellor of the Exchequer, under such circumstances, endeavoured to levy the same taxation which is now borne by the country? From one end of India to the other, with very trifling exceptions, there is no such thing as a steam engine; but this poor population, without a steam engine, without anything like first-rate tools, are called upon to bear, I will venture to say, the very heaviest taxation under which any people ever suffered with the same means of paying it. Yet the whole of this money, raised from so poor a population, which would in India buy four times as much labour, and four times as much of the productions of the country, as it would obtain in England, is not enough to keep up the establishments of the Government; for during the last sixteen years the Indian Government has borrowed 16,000,000_l_. to pay the dividends to the proprietors in England.

The opium question has been alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir C. Wood). I must say I do not know any one connected with China, or at all acquainted with the subject, who is not of opinion that the opium revenue is very near its termination. Even the favourite authority of the President of the Board of Control, Mr. Marshman, declared his opinion that India was on the verge of a great financial crisis. Whether the present Chinese Government retains its power, or the insurgents be successful and a new dynasty be established, the scruple against the importation of opium into China from India having once been removed, the transition to the growth of the drug in China is very easy, and there can scarcely be a doubt that opium will soon be as extensively cultivated in that country as ever it was in India. This might very soon produce a loss of 3,000,000_l_. of revenue to the East India Company. There has already been an annual deficit in the revenues of the East India Company for the last fifteen years; they have to bear the cost of a Burmese war; and the annexation of new territory will only bring upon them an increased charge, for Pegu will probably never repay its expenses, and yet they have the prospect of losing 3,000,000_l_. of their revenue within a very few years. Now, what would the Chancellor of the Exchequer say if the President of the Board of Control came to that House and proposed to raise a loan upon the credit of this country for the purpose of maintaining our territory in India? Would it not be better at once to ascertain whether the principles and policy on which we have hitherto proceeded have not been faulty? Should we not rather endeavour to reduce our expenditure, to employ cheaper labour, to increase the means of communication in India, which would enable us to dispense with a portion of our troops, and to make it a rule that the Governor-General should have more honour when he came home, for not having extended by an acre the territory of our Indian possessions, than if he had added a province or a kingdom to them?

The plan proposed by the President of the Board of Control appears to me very closely to resemble that which exists at present. The result, so far as regards the real question, about which the public are most interested, is this, that the twenty-four gentlemen who are directors of the East India Company are, by a process of self-immolation, to be reduced to fifteen. I think this reduction will be one of the most affecting scenes in the history of the Government of India. As the East India Company keep a writer to record their history, I hope they also keep an artist to give us an historical painting of this great event. There we shall see the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles), the hon. Member for Honiton (Sir J. W. Hogg), one of the hon. Members for the City of London, and the other directors, meeting together, and looking much like shipwrecked men in a boat casting lots who should be thrown overboard. To the fifteen directors who are to remain, three others are to be added, and the result will be that, instead of having twenty-four gentlemen sitting in Leadenhall-street, to manage the affairs in India, there will be eighteen. The present constituency is so bad that nothing the President of the Board of Control can do can make it worse; but as that right hon. Gentleman finds it impossible to make it better, he lets the constituency remain as it was. The right hon. Baronet proposes that the Crown should appoint six members of the Board who have been at least ten years in India, so that there may at all events be that number of gentlemen at the Board lit for the responsible office in which they are placed. But this is an admission that the remaining twelve members of the Board are not fit for their office. They have two ingredients-the one wholesome, the other poisonous; but there are two drops of poison to one of wholesome nutriment. The right hon. Gentleman mixes them together, and then wants Parliament and the country to believe that he has proposed a great measure.

As regards the right hon. Gentleman's speech, I must say that I have never heard so great a one-I mean as to length-where the result, so far as the real thing about which people wish to know, was so little. The twelve gentlemen appointed by the present constituency are degraded already by the right hon. Gentleman's declaration, that they are not elected in a satisfactory manner, and that they are not fit persons for the government of India. They are, in fact, bankers and brewers, and men of all sorts, in the City of London, who find it their interest to get into the Court of Directors-no matter by what channel-because it adds to the business of their bank, or whatever else may be the undertaking in which they are engaged; but who have no special qualification for the government of India. If the Government thinks it right to have six good directors, let them abolish the twelve bad ones. Then it appears that the Secret Department is to be retained. Speaking of this, Mr. Kaye, quoting the authority of Mr. Tucker, a distinguished director, said it was no more than a secretary and a seal. Next comes a most extraordinary proposition. Hitherto the directors have undergone all the hardship of governing India for 300_l_. a-year; but the right hon. Gentleman now proposes to raise their wages by 4_l_. per week each. I must say, that if this body is to be salaried at all, and is not to have the profit of the patronage enjoyed by the present Government, nothing can be worse economy than this, with a view to obtaining a body which shall command the respect, and have the amount of influence, requisite for conducting the Government of India. Sixteen of the directors, receiving 500_l_. a-year each-why, they would have to pay their clerks much more!-and the chairman and the deputy-chairman 1,000_l_. a-year each. The whole of the right hon. Gentleman's scheme seems to bear the marks of-I am almost afraid to say what; but he seems to have tried to please every one in framing his great proposition, and at last has landed the House in a sort of half measure, which neither the East India Company nor India wants. If I had made a speech such as the right hon. Gentleman has delivered, and believed what he said, I would leave the Indian Government as it is; but if I thought it necessary to alter the Government, I would do so on principle essentially. The right hon. Gentleman is afraid of bringing the Government of India under the authority of the Crown. What, I should like to know, would have been done if India had been conquered by the troops of the Crown? We should then never have sent some thirty men into a bye-street of London to distribute patronage and govern a great country. The Government of India would then have been made a department of the Government, with a Council and a Minister of State. But it appears that the old system of hocus- pocus is still to be carried on.

This is no question of Manchester against Essex-of town against country-of Church against Nonconformity. It is a question in which we all have an interest, and in which our children may be more deeply interested than we are ourselves. Should anything go wrong with the finances, we must bear the burden; or should the people of India by our treatment be goaded into insurrection, we must reconquer the country, or be ignominiously driven out of it. I will not be a party to a state of things which might lead to the writing of a narrative like this on the history of our relations with that empire. Let the House utterly disregard the predictions of mischief likely to result from such a change in the Government of India as that which I advocate. When the trade was thrown open, and the Company was deprived of the monopoly of carrying, they said the Chinese would poison the tea. There is nothing too outrageous or ridiculous for the Company to say in order to prevent the Legislature from placing affairs on a more honest footing. I object to the Bill, because-as the right hon. Gentleman admitted-it maintains a double Government. In the unstatesmanlike course which the right hon. Gentleman is pursuing, he will, no doubt, be especially backed by the noble Lord the Member for London. I only wish that some of the younger blood in the Cabinet might have had their way upon this question. Nothing can induce me to believe, after the evidence which is before the public, that this measure has the approbation of an united Cabinet. It is not possible that thirteen sensible gentlemen, who have any pretensions to form a Cabinet, could agree to a measure of this nature. I am more anxious than I can express that Parliament should legislate rightly in this matter. Let us act so at this juncture that it may be said of us hereafter-that whatever crimes England originally committed in conquering India, she at least made the best of her position by governing the country as wisely as possible, and left the records and traces of a humane and liberal sway.

I recollect having heard the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston) deliver in this House one of the best speeches I ever listened to. On that occasion the noble Lord gloried in the proud name of England, and, pointing to the security with which an Englishman might travel abroad, he triumphed in the idea that his countrymen might exclaim, in the spirit of the ancient Roman, Civis Romanus sum. Let us not resemble the Romans merely in our national privileges and personal security. The Romans were great conquerors, but where they conquered, they governed wisely. The nations they conquered were impressed so indelibly with the intellectual character of their masters, that, after fourteen centuries of decadence, the traces of civilisation are still distinguishable. Why should not we act a similar part in India? There never was a more docile people, never a more tractable nation. The opportunity is present, and the power is not wanting. Let us abandon the policy of aggression, and confine ourselves to a territory ten times the size of France, with a population four times as numerous as that of the United Kingdom. Surely that is enough to satisfy the most gluttonous appetite for glory and supremacy. Educate the people of India, govern them wisely, and gradually the distinctions of caste will disappear, and they will look upon us rather as benefactors than as conquerors. And if we desire to see Christianity, in some form, professed in that country, we shall sooner attain our object by setting the example of a high-toned Christian morality, than by any other means we can employ.

* * * * *

INDIA

From Hansard. [After the suppression of the Indian mutiny, Lord Palmerston's Government determined to introduce a Bill the object of which was to place the possessions of the East India Company under the direct authority of the Crown. This Bill was introduced by Lord Palmerston on February 12. But the Government fell a few days afterwards, on the Conspiracy Bill, and Lord Palmerston's Bill was withdrawn. On March 26 the new Government introduced their own Bill, which was known as the India Bill No. 2.

The chief peculiarity of this Bill was that five members in the proposed council of eighteen should be chosen by the constituencies of the following cities:-London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Belfast. The scheme was unpopular, and Lord Russell proposed that it should be withdrawn, and that resolutions should be passed in a Committee of the whole House, the acceptance of which might prove a guide to the proceedings of the Government. The suggestion was accepted by Mr. Disraeli, and in consequence India Bill No. 3 was brought in, and read a second time on June 24.]

I do not rise for the purpose of opposing the second reading of this Bill-on the contrary, if any hon. Member thinks proper to divide the House upon it, I shall vote with the noble Lord. I must say, however, that there are many clauses in the Bill to which I entertain serious objections. Some of them will, I hope, be amended as the Bill passes through Committee; but if that is not the case, I can only hope that, as the Bill of 1853 is abandoned in 1858, within the next five years the House of Commons will take some further steps with regard to this question, with the view of simplifying the Government of India as carried on in England. I wish to take this opportunity of making some observations upon the general question of Indian government, which it might have been out of place to have made during the discussion of the various Resolutions which have been agreed to by the House.

I think it must have struck every hon. Member that, while two Governments have proposed great changes with regard to the government of India, no good case has really been made out for such changes in the speeches of the noble Lord and the right hon. Gentleman by whom the two India Bills have been introduced. That opinion, I know, will meet with a response from two or three hon. Gentlemen on this (the Opposition) side of the House. It occurred to me when the noble Lord at the head of the late Government (Viscount Palmerston) introduced his Bill-and I made the observation when the present Chancellor of the Exchequer brought forward his measure-that if the House knew no more of the question than they learned from the speeches of the Ministers, they could not form any clear notion why it was proposed to overthrow the East India Company. The hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles) has expressed a similar opinion several times during the progress of these discussions. The right hon. Member for Carlisle (Sir James Graham) has also said that the East India Company was being dealt with in a manner in which animals intended for sacrifice were treated in Eastern countries and in ancient times,-they were decked with garlands when they were led out for immolation. That is true; but it does not therefore follow that the House is not quite right in the course it is taking. It must be clear that the moment the House of Commons met this Session there was only one course which the then Government could adopt with reference to this question. A feeling existed throughout the country-I believe I may say it was universal-that for a long time past the government of India had not been a good government; that grave errors-if not grievous crimes- had been committed in that country. I think the conscience of the nation had been touched on this question, and they came by a leap, as it were- by an irrepressible instinct-to the conclusion that the East India Company must be abolished, and that another and, as the nation hoped, a better government should be established for that country. There was a general impression, arising from past discussion in Parliament, that the industry of the people of India had been grievously neglected; that there was great reason for complaint with respect to the administration of justice; and that with regard to the wars entered into by the Indian Government, there was much of which the people of England had reason to be ashamed.

It has been said by some that these faults are to be attributed to the Board of Control; but I have never defended the Board of Control. I believe everything the East India Company has said of the Board of Control-to its discredit; and I believe that everything the Board of Control has said to the discredit of the East India Company to be perfectly true. There was also a general impression that the expenditure of the East India Government was excessive; and that it had been proved before more than one Committee that the taxes imposed upon the people of India were onerous to the last degree. These subjects were discussed in 1853, at which time, in my opinion, the change now proposed ought to have been effected. Subsequently the calamitous events of 1857 and 1858 occurred; and the nation came at once to the conclusion-a conclusion which I think no disinterested person could resist-that it was impossible that India and its vast population could any longer be retained under the form of government which has existed up to this period. If, then, a change was inevitable, the question was how it should be accomplished and what should be done. I think it is quite clear that the course the noble Lord has pursued is right-namely, that of insisting that during this present Session, and without delay, the foundation of all reform in the government of India should be commenced at home, because we cannot take a single step in the direction of any real and permanent improvement in the Indian Government until we have reformed what I may call the basis of that Government by changes to be effected in this country.

What, then, is the change which is proposed, and which ought to be made? For my own part, in considering these questions, I cannot altogether approve the Bill now before the House. What we want with regard to the government of India is that which in common conversation is called 'a little more daylight.' We want more simplicity and more responsibility. I objected to the scheme originally proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer because it did not provide these requisites; that scheme so closely resembled the system we were about to overthrow that I could not bring myself to regard it favourably. In considering the subject before Parliament met, I asked myself this question:-'Suppose there had never been an East India Company or any such corporation,-suppose India had been conquered by the forces of the Crown, commanded by generals acting under the authority of the Crown,-how should we then have proposed to govern distant dominions of vast extent, and with a population that could scarcely be counted?' I believe such a system of government as has hitherto existed would never have been established; and if such a system had not existed I am convinced that no Minister would have proposed the plan now submitted to the House.

I think the government would have been placed in the hands of a Secretary of State, with his secretaries, clerks, and staffs of officers, or of a small Board, so small as to prevent responsibility from being diffused and divided, if not actually destroyed. I suspect that the only reason why the Country or Parliament can be disposed to approve the large Council now proposed is, that they have seen something like a Council heretofore, formerly of twenty-four, and subsequently of eighteen members, and I believe there is something like timidity on the part of the House, and probably on the part of the Government, which hinders them from making so great a change as I have suggested to the simple plan which would probably have existed had no such body as the East India Company ever been established. I am willing to admit candidly that if the government of India at home should be so greatly simplified it will be necessary that very important changes should be made in the government in India. I agree with the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) that the representatives of the Crown in India must have power as well as responsibility; that they should be enabled to deal with emergencies, and to settle the hundred or the thousand questions that must arise among 100,000,000 of people, without sending 10,000 miles to this country to ask questions which ought to be settled at once by some competent authority on the spot.

There are two modes of governing India, and the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Willoughby), who has been a very distinguished servant of the East India Company, has publicly expressed his views upon this question. I have been very much struck with a note attached to the published report of his speech, referring to the multifarious duties discharged by the Directors of the East India Company. That note states that-

'A despatch may be received, containing 60, or 100, or 200 cases; and the despatch, in itself voluminous, is rendered more so by collections attached to it, containing copies of all former correspondence on the subject or subjects, and of all letters written thereon by various local officers, and all papers relating thereto. There has not long since been in the Revenue Department a despatch with 16,263 pages of collections. In 1845 there was one in the same Department with 46,000 pages, and it was stated that Mr. Canning, some years since in the House of Commons, mentioned a military despatch to which were attached 13,511 pages of collections.'

The hon. Gentleman did not say in his speech that anybody at the India House ever read all these things. It was quite dear that if the Directors were to pretend to go through a waggon-load of documents coming to Leadenhall-street every year it must be only a pretence, and if they want to persuade the House that they give attention to only one- tenth part of these papers they must think the House more credulous than it is in matters of this kind. That is one mode of governing India. It is the mode which has been adopted and the mode which has failed. If we are to have the details settled here, I am perfectly certain we can have no good government in India. I have alluded on a former occasion to a matter which occurred in a Committee upstairs. A gentleman who was examined stated that he had undertaken to brew a wholesome beer, and quite as good as that exported for the supply of the troops, somewhere in the Presidency of Madras, for one-sixth of the price paid by Government for that exported to India from England; that the experiment was completely successful; that the memorandum or record with regard to it was sent home, no doubt forming part of the thousands of pages to which reference has been made; and that it was buried in the heap in which it came, because for years nothing was heard of a proposition which would have saved the Government a very large amount annually and opened a new industry to the population and capital of India. I believe this system of government is one of delay and disappointment-one, actually, of impossibility-one which can by no means form a complete theory of government as held by any persons in the House; and that the other, the simpler system, which I wish the House to undertake, would be one of action, progress, and results, with regard to India, such as we have never yet seen and never can see until there is a complete simplification of the Indian Government in this country.

I come now to the question-and it is for this question that I have wished principally to address the House-if at any time we obtain the simplicity which I contend for with regard to the government at home, what changes will it be desirable to make in the government in India? And I would make one observation at this point, that in all the statements and arguments which I hope to use, I beg the House to believe that I use them with the greatest possible deference, with the feeling that this is a question upon which no man is at all entitled to dogmatize, that it is a vast question which we all look at as one we are scarcely capable of handling and determining. I submit my views to the House because I have considered the subject more or less for many years, and I believe I am actuated by the simple and honest desire of contributing something to the information and knowledge of Parliament with regard to its duty upon this great question.

What is it we have to complain of in India? What is it that the people of India, if they spoke by my mouth, have to complain of? They would tell the House that, as a rule, throughout almost all the Presidencies, and throughout those Presidencies most which have been longest under British rule, the cultivators of the soil, the great body of the population of India, are in a condition of great impoverishment, of great dejection, and of great suffering. I have, on former occasions, quoted to the House the report of a Committee which I obtained ten years ago, upon which sat several members of the Court of Directors; and they all agreed to report as much as I have now stated to the House-the Report being confined chiefly to the Presidencies of Bombay and Madras. If I were now submitting the case of the population of India I would say that the taxes of India are more onerous and oppressive than the taxes of any other country in the world. I think I could demonstrate that proposition to the House. I would show that industry is neglected by the Government to a greater extent probably than is the case in any other country in the world which has been for any length of time under what is termed a civilized and Christian government. I should be able to show from the notes and memoranda of eminent men in India, of the Governor of Bengal, Mr. Halliday, for example, that there is not and never has been in any country pretending to be civilized, a condition of things to be compared with that which exists under the police administration of the province of Bengal. With regard to the courts of justice I may say the same thing. I could quote passages from books written in favour of the Company with all the bias which the strongest friends of the Company can have, in which the writers declare that, precisely in proportion as English courts of justice have extended, have perjury and all the evils which perjury introduces into the administration of justice prevailed throughout the Presidencies of India. With regard to public works, if I were speaking for the Natives of India, I would state this fact, that in a single English county there are more roads-more travelable roads- than are to be found in the whole of India; and I would say also that the single city of Manchester, in the supply of its inhabitants with the single article of water, has spent a larger sum of money than the East India Company has spent in the fourteen years from 1834 to 1848 in public works of every kind throughout the whole of its vast dominions. I would say that the real activity of the Indian Government has been an activity of conquest and annexation-of conquest and annexation which after a time has led to a fearful catastrophe which has enforced on the House an attention to the question of India, which but for that catastrophe I fear the House would not have given it.

If there were another charge to be made against the past Government of India, it would be with regard to the state of its finances. Where was there a bad Government whose finances were in good order? Where was there a really good Government whose finances were in bad order? Is there a better test in the long run of the condition of a people and the merits of a Government than the state of the finances? And yet not in our own time, but going back through all the pages of Mill or of any other History of India we find the normal condition of the finances of India has been that of deficit and bankruptcy. I maintain that if that be so, the Government is a bad Government. It has cost more to govern India than the Government has been able to extract from the population of India. The Government has not been scrupulous as to the amount of taxes or the mode in which they have been levied; but still, to carry on the government of India according to the system which has heretofore prevailed, more has been required than the Government has been able to extract by any system of taxation known to them from the population over which they have ruled. It has cost more than 30,000,000_l_. a-year to govern India, and the gross revenue being somewhere about 30,000,000_l_., and there being a deficit, the deficit has had to be made up by loans. The Government has obtained all they could from the population; it is not enough, and they have had to borrow from the population and from Europeans at a high rate of interest to make up the sum which has been found to be necessary. They have a debt of 60,000,000_l_.; and it is continually increasing; they always have a loan open; and while their debt is increasing their credit has been falling, because they have not treated their creditors very honourably on one or two occasions, and chiefly, of course, on account of the calamities which have recently happened in India. There is one point with regard to taxation which I wish to explain to the House, and I hope that, in the reforms to which the noble Lord is looking forward, it will not be overlooked. I have said that the gross revenue is 30,000,000_l_. Exclusive of the opium revenue, which is not, strictly speaking, and hardly at all, a tax upon the people, I set down the taxation of the country at something like 25,000,000_l_. Hon. Gentlemen must not compare 25,000,000_l_. of taxation in India with 60,000,000_l_. of taxation in England. They must bear in mind that in India they could have twelve days' labour of a man for the same sum in silver or gold which they have to pay for one day's labour of a man in England; that if, for example, this l.25,000,000 were expended in purchasing labour, that sum would purchase twelve times as much in India as in England-that is to say, that the 25,000,000_l_. would purchase as many days' labour in India as 300,000,000_l_. would purchase in England. [An Hon. Member: 'How much is the labour worth?'] That is precisely what I am coming to. If the labour of a man is only worth 2_d_. a-day, they could not expect as much revenue from him as if it were 2_s_. a-day. That is just the point to which I wish the hon. Gentleman would turn his attention. We have in England a population which, for the sake of argument, I will call 30,000,000. We have in India a population of 150,000,000. Therefore, the population of India is five times as great as the population of England. We raise in India, reckoning by the value of labour, taxation equivalent to 300,000,000_l_., which is five times the English revenue. Some one may probably say, therefore, that the taxation in India and in England appears to be about the same, and no great injury is done. But it must be borne in mind that in England we have an incalculable power of steam, of machinery, of modes of transit, roads, canals, railways, and everything which capital and human invention can bring to help the industry of the people; while in India there is nothing of the kind. In India there is scarcely a decent road, the rivers are not bridged, there are comparatively no steam engines, and none of those aids to industry that meet us at every step in Great Britain and Ireland. Suppose steam- engines, machinery, and modes of transit abolished in England, how much revenue would the Chancellor of the Exchequer obtain from the people of England? Instead of 60,000,000_l_. a-year, would he get 10,000,000_l_.? I doubt it very much. If the House will follow out the argument, they will come to the conclusion that the taxes of the people of India are oppressive to the last degree, and that the Government which has thus taxed them can be tolerated no longer, and must be put an end to at once and for ever. I wish to say something about the manner in which these great expenses are incurred. The extravagance of the East India Government is notorious to all. I believe there never was any other service under the sun paid at so high a rate as the exclusive Civil Service of the East India Company. Clergymen and missionaries can be got to go out to India for a moderate sum-private soldiers and officers of the army go out for a moderate remuneration- merchants are content to live in the cities of India for a percentage or profit not greatly exceeding the ordinary profits of commerce. But the Civil Service, because it is bound up with those who were raised by it and who dispense the patronage of India, receive a rate of payment which would be incredible if we did not know it to be true, and which, knowing it to be true, we must admit to be monstrous. The East India Government scatters salaries about at Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Agra, Lahore, and half a dozen other cities, which are up to the mark of those of the Prime Minister and Secretaries of State in this country. These salaries are framed upon the theory that India is a mine of inexhaustible wealth, although no one has found it to be so but the members of the Civil Service of the East India Company. The policy of the Government is at the bottom of the constant deficit. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has twice recently declared that expenditure depends upon policy. That is as true in India as in England, and it is the policy that has been pursued there which renders the revenue liable to this constantly recurring deficit.

I have come to the conclusion, which many hon. Members probably share with me, that the edifice we have reared in India is too vast. There are few men now, and least of all those connected with the East India Company, who, looking back to the policy that has been pursued, will not be willing to admit that it has not been judicious but hazardous-that territories have been annexed that had better have been left independent, and that wars have been undertaken which were as needless as they were altogether unjustifiable. The immense empire that has been conquered is too vast for management, its base is in decay, and during the last twelve months it has appeared to be tottering to its fall. Who or what is the instrument-the Cabinet, the Government, or the person- by whom this evil policy is carried on?

The greatest officer in India is the Governor-General. He is the ruler of about one-fifth-certainly more than one-sixth-of the human race. The Emperors of France and Russia are but the governors of provinces compared with the power, the dignity, and the high estate of the Governor-General of India. Now, over this officer, almost no real control is exercised. If I were to appeal to the two hon. Gentlemen who have frequently addressed the House during these debates (Colonel Sykes and Mr. Willoughby), they would probably admit that the Governor-General of India is an officer of such high position that scarcely any control can be exercised over him either in India or in England. Take the case of the Marquess of Dalhousie for example. I am not about to make an attack upon him, for the occasion is too solemn for personal controversies. But the annexation of Sattara, of the Punjab, of Nagpore, and of Oude occurred under his rule. I will not go into the case of Sattara; but one of its Princes, and one of the most magnanimous Princes that India ever produced, suffered and died most unjustly in exile, either through the mistakes or the crimes of the Government of India. This, however, was not done under the Government of Lord Dalhousie. As to the annexation of Nagpore, the House has never heard anything about it to this hour. There has been no message from the Crown or statement of the Government relative to that annexation. Hon. Members have indeed heard from India that the dresses and wardrobes of the ladies of its Court have been exposed to sale, like a bankrupt's stock, in the haberdashers' shops of Calcutta-a thing likely to incense and horrify the people of India who witnessed it.

Take, again, the case of the Burmese war. The Governor-General entered into it, and annexed the province of Pegu, and to this day there has been no treaty with the King of Burmah. If that case had been brought before the House, it is impossible that the war with Burmah could have been entered upon. I do not believe that there is one man in England who, knowing the facts, would say that this war was just or necessary in any sense. The Governor-General has an army of 300,000 men under his command; he is a long way from home; he is highly connected with the governing classes at home; there are certain reasons that make war palatable to large classes in India; and he is so powerful that he enters into these great military operations almost uncontrolled by the opinion of the Parliament and people of England. He may commit any amount of blunders or crimes against the moral law, and he will still come home loaded with dignities and in the enjoyment of pensions. Does it not become the power and character of this House to examine narrowly the origin of the misfortunes and disgraces of the grave catastrophe which has just occurred? The place of the Governor-General is too high- his power is too great-and I believe that this particular office and officer are very much responsible-of course under the Government at home-for the disasters that have taken place.

Only think of a Governor-General of India writing to an Indian Prince, the ruler over many millions of men in the heart of India, 'Remember you are but as the dust under my feet' Passages like these are left out of despatches, when laid on the table of the House of Commons:-it would not do for the Parliament or the Crown, or the people of England to know that their officer addressed language like this to a Native Prince. The fact is that a Governor-General of India, unless he be such a man as is not found more than once in a century, is very liable to have his head turned, and to form ambitious views, which are mainly to be gratified by successful wars and the annexation of province after province during the period of his rule. The 'Services' are always ready to help him in these plans. I am not sure that the President of the Board of Control could not give evidence on this subject, for I have heard something of what happened when the noble Lord was in India. When the Burmese war broke out, the noble Lord could no doubt tell the House that, without inquiring into the quarrel or its causes, the press of India, which was devoted to the 'Services', and the 'Services' themselves, united in universal approbation of the course taken by the Governor-General. Justice to Pegu and Burmah and the taxes to be raised for the support of the war were forgotten, and nothing but visions of more territory and more patronage floated before the eyes of the official English in India. I contend that the power of the Governor-General is too great and the office too high to be held by the subject of any power whatsoever, and especially by any subject of the Queen of England.

I should propose, if I were in a position to offer a scheme in the shape of a Bill to the House, as an indispensable preliminary to the wise government of India in future, such as would be creditable to Parliament and advantageous to the people of India, that the office of Governor- General should be abolished. Perhaps some hon. Gentlemen may think this a very unreasonable proposition. Many people thought it unreasonable in 1853 when it was proposed to abolish the East India Company; but now Parliament and the country believe it to be highly reasonable and proper; and I am not sure that I could not bring before the House reasons to convince them that the abolition of the office of Governor- General is one of the most sensible and one of the most Conservative proposals ever brought forward in connection with the Government of India. I believe the duties of the Governor-General are far greater than any human being can adequately fulfil. He has a power omnipotent to crush anything that is good. If he so wishes, he can overbear and overrule whatever is proposed for the welfare of India, while, as to doing anything that is good, I could show that with regard to the vast countries over which he rules, he is really almost powerless to effect anything that those countries require. The hon. Gentleman behind me (Colonel Sykes) has told us there are twenty nations in India, and that there are twenty languages. Has it ever happened before that any one man governed twenty nations, speaking twenty different languages, and bound them together in one great and compact empire? [An hon. Member here made an observation.] My hon. Friend mentions a great Parthian monarch. No doubt there have been men strong in arm and in head, and of stern resolution, who have kept great empires together during their lives; but as soon as they went the way of all flesh, and descended, like the meanest of their subjects, to the tomb, the provinces they had ruled were divided into several States, and their great empires vanished. I might ask the noble Lord below me (Lord John Russell) and the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn has not as yet experience on this point), whether, when they came to appoint a Governor-General of India, they did not find it one of the most serious and difficult duties they could be called on to perform? I do not know at this moment, and I never have known, a man competent to govern India; and if any man says he is competent, he sets himself up at a much higher value than those who are acquainted with him are likely to set him. Let the House look at the making of the laws for twenty nations speaking twenty languages. Look at the regulations of the police for twenty nations speaking twenty languages. Look at the question of public works as it affects twenty nations speaking twenty languages; where there is no municipal power and no combinations of any kind, such as facilitate the construction of public works in this country. Inevitably all those duties that devolve on every good government must be neglected by the Governor-General of India, however wise, capable, and honest he may be in the performance of his duties, because the duties laid upon him are such as no man now living or who ever lived can or could properly sustain.

It may be asked what I would substitute for the Governor-Generalship of India. Now, I do not propose to abolish the office of Governor-General of India this Session. I am not proposing any clause in the Bill, and if I were to propose one to carry out the idea I have expressed, I might be answered by the argument, that a great part of the population of India is in a state of anarchy, and that it would be most inconvenient, if not dangerous, to abolish the office of Governor-General at such a time. I do not mean to propose such a thing now; but I take this opportunity of stating my views, in the hope that when we come to 1863, we may perhaps be able to consider the question more in the light in which I am endeavouring to present it to the House. I would propose that, instead of having a Governor-General and an Indian empire, we should have neither the one nor the other. I would propose that we should have Presidencies, and not an Empire. If I were a Minister-which the House will admit is a bold figure of speech-and if the House were to agree with me-which is also an essential point-I would propose to have at least five Presidencies in India, and I would have the governments of those Presidencies perfectly equal in rank and in salary. The capitals of those Presidencies would probably be Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Agra, and Lahore. I will take the Presidency of Madras as an illustration. Madras has a population of some 20,000,000. We all know its position on the map, and that it has the advantage of being more compact, geographically speaking, than the other Presidencies. It has a Governor and a Council. I would give to it a Governor and a Council still, but would confine all their duties to the Presidency of Madras, and I would treat it just as if Madras was the only portion of India connected with this country. I would have its finance, its taxation, its justice, and its police departments, as well as its public works and military departments, precisely the same as if it were a State having no connection with any other part of India, and recognized only as a dependency of this country. I would propose that the Government of every Presidency should correspond with the Secretary for India in England, and that there should be telegraphic communications between all the Presidencies in India, as I hope before long to see a telegraphic communication between the office of the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) and every Presidency over which he presides. I shall no doubt be told that there are insuperable difficulties in the way of such an arrangement, and I shall be sure to hear of the military difficulty. Now, I do not profess to be an authority on military affairs, but I know that military men often make great mistakes. I would have the army divided, each Presidency having its own army, just as now, care being taken to have them kept distinct; and I see no danger of any confusion or misunderstanding, when an emergency arose, in having them all brought together to carry out the views of the Government. There is one question which it is important to bear in mind, and that is with regard to the Councils in India. I think every Governor of a Presidency should have an assistant Council, but differently constituted from what they now are. I would have an open Council. The noble Lord the Member for London used some expressions the other night which I interpreted to mean that it was necessary to maintain in all its exclusiveness the system of the Civil Service in India. In that I entirely differ from the noble Lord. [Lord J. Russell here indicated dissent.] The noble Lord corrects me in that statement, and therefore I must have been mistaken. What we want is to make the Governments of the Presidencies governments for the people of the Presidencies; not governments for the civil servants of the Crown, but for the non-official mercantile classes from England who settle there, and for the 20,000,000 or 30,000,000 of Natives in each Presidency.

I should propose to do that which has been done with great advantage in Ceylon. I have received a letter from an officer who has been in the service of the East India Company, and who told me a fact which has gratified me very much. He says-

'At a public dinner at Colombo, in 1835, to the Governor, Sir Wilmot Horton, at which I was present, the best speech of the evening was made by a native nobleman of Candy, and a member of Council. It was remarkable for its appropriate expression, its sound sense, and the deliberation and ease that marked the utterance of his feelings. There was no repetition or useless phraseology or flattery, and it was admitted by all who heard him to be the soundest and neatest speech of the night.'

This was in Ceylon. It is not, of course, always the best man who can make the best speech; but if what I have read could be said of a native of Ceylon, it could be said of thousands in India. We need not go beyond the walls of this House to find a head bronzed by an Indian sun equal to the ablest heads of those who adorn its benches. And in every part of India we all know that it would be an insult to the people of India to say that it is not the same. There are thousands of persons in India who are competent to take any position to which the Government may choose to advance them. If the Governor of each Presidency were to have in his Council some of the officials of his Government, some of the non- official Europeans resident in the Presidency, and two or three at least of the intelligent Natives of the Presidency in whom the people would have some confidence, you would have begun that which will be of inestimable value hereafter-you would have begun to unite the government with the governed; and unless you do that, no government will be safe, and any hurricane may overturn it or throw it into confusion.

Now, suppose the Governor-General gone, the Presidencies established, the Governors equal in rank and dignity, and their Councils constituted in the manner I have indicated, is it not reasonable to suppose that the delay which has hitherto been one of the greatest curses of your Indian Government would be almost altogether avoided? Instead of a Governor- General living in Calcutta, or at Simla, never travelling over the whole of the country, and knowing very little about it, and that little only through other official eyes, is it not reasonable to suppose that the action of the Government would be more direct in all its duties and in every department of its service than has been the case under the system which has existed until now? Your administration of the law, marked by so much disgrace, could never have lasted so long as it has done if the Governors of your Presidencies had been independent Governors. So with regard to matters of police, education, public works, and everything that can stimulate industry, and so with regard to your system of taxation. You would have in every Presidency a constant rivalry for good. The Governor of Madras, when his term of office expired, would be delighted to show that the people of that Presidency were contented, that the whole Presidency was advancing in civilization, that roads and all manner of useful public works were extending, that industry was becoming more and more a habit of the people, and that the exports and imports were constantly increasing. The Governors of Bombay and the rest of the Presidencies would be animated by the same spirit, and so you would have all over India, as I have said, a rivalry for good; you would have placed a check on that malignant spirit of ambition which has worked so much evil-you would have no Governor so great that you could not control him, none who might make war when he pleased; war and annexation would be greatly checked, if not entirely prevented; and I do in my conscience believe you would have laid the foundation for a better and more permanent form of government for India than has ever obtained since it came under the rule of England.

But how long does England propose to govern India? Nobody answers that question, and nobody can answer it. Be it 50, or 100, or 500 years, does any man with the smallest glimmering of common sense believe that so great a country, with its twenty different nations and its twenty languages, can ever be bound up and consolidated into one compact and enduring empire? I believe such a thing to be utterly impossible. We must fail in the attempt if ever we make it, and we are bound to look into the future with reference to that point. The Presidency of Madras, for instance, having its own Government, would in fifty years become one compact State, and every part of the Presidency would look to the city of Madras as its capital, and to the Government of Madras as its ruling power. If that were to go on for a century or more, there would be five or six Presidencies of India built up into so many compact States; and if at any future period the sovereignty of England should be withdrawn, we should leave so many Presidencies built up and firmly compacted together, each able to support its own independence and its own Government; and we should be able to say we had not left the country a prey to that anarchy and discord which I believe to be inevitable if we insist on holding those vast territories with the idea of building them up into one great empire. But I am obliged to admit that mere machinery is not sufficient in this case, either with respect to my own scheme or to that of the noble lord (Lord Stanley). We want something else than mere clerks, stationery, despatches, and so forth. We want what I shall designate as a new feeling in England, and an entirely new policy in India. We must in future have India governed, not for a handful of Englishmen, not for that Civil Service whose praises are so constantly sounded in this House. You may govern India, if you like, for the good of England, but the good of England must come through the channels of the good of India. There are but two modes of gaining anything by our connection with India. The one is by plundering the people of India, and the other by trading with them. I prefer to do it by trading with them. But in order that England may become rich by trading with India, India itself must become rich, and India can only become rich through the honest administration of justice and through entire security of life and property.

Now, as to this new policy, I will tell the House what I think the Prime Minister should do. He ought, I think, always to choose for his President of the Board of Control or his Secretary of State for India, a man who cannot be excelled by any other man in his Cabinet, or in his party, for capacity, for honesty, for attention to his duties, and for knowledge adapted to the particular office to which he is appointed. If any Prime Minister appoint an inefficient man to such an office, he will be a traitor to the Throne of England. That officer, appointed for the qualities I have just indicated, should, with equal scrupulousness and conscientiousness, make the appointments, whether of the Governor- General, or (should that office be abolished) of the Governors of the Presidencies of India. Those appointments should not be rewards for old men simply because such men have done good service when in their prime, nor should they be rewards for mere party service, but they should be appointments given under a feeling that interests of the very highest moment, connected with this country, depend on those great offices in India being properly filled. The same principles should run throughout the whole system of government; for, unless there be a very high degree of virtue in all these appointments, and unless our great object be to govern India well and to exalt the name of England in the eyes of the whole Native population, all that we have recourse to in the way of machinery will be of very little use indeed.

I admit that this is a great work; I admit, also, that the further I go into the consideration of this question, the more I feel that it is too large for me to grapple with, and that every step we take in it should be taken as if we were men walking in the dark. We have, however, certain great principles to guide us, and by their light we may make steps in advance, if not fast, at any rate sure. But we start from an unfortunate position. We start from a platform of conquest by force of arms extending over a hundred years. There is nothing in the world worse than the sort of foundation from which we start. The greatest genius who has shed lustre on the literature of this country has said, 'There is no sure foundation set on blood;' and it may be our unhappy fate, in regard to India, to demonstrate the truth of that saying. We are always subjugators, and we must be viewed with hatred and suspicion. I say we must look at the thing as it is, if we are to see our exact position, what our duty is, and what chance there is of our retaining India and of governing it for the advantage of its people. Our difficulties have been enormously increased by the revolt. The people of India have only seen England in its worst form in that country. They have seen it in its military power, its exclusive Civil Service, and in the supremacy of a handful of foreigners. When Natives of India come to this country, they are delighted with England and with Englishmen. They find themselves treated with a kindness, a consideration, a respect, to which they were wholly strangers in their own country; and they cannot understand how it is that men who are so just, so attentive to them here, sometimes, indeed too often, appear to them in a different character in India. I remember that the Hon. Frederic Shaw, who wrote some thirty years since, stated, in his able and instructive book, that even in his time the conduct of the English in India towards the Natives was less agreeable, less kindly, less just than it had been in former years; and in 1853, before the Committee presided over by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. T. Baring), evidence was given that the feeling between the rulers and the ruled in India was becoming every year less like what could be desired. It was only the other day there appeared in a letter of The Times' correspondent an anecdote which illustrates what I am saying, and which I feel it necessary to read to the House. Mr. Russell, of The Times, says:-

'I went off to breakfast in a small mosque, which has been turned into a salle à manger by some officers stationed here, and I confess I should have eaten with more satisfaction had I not seen, as I entered the enclosure of the mosque, a native badly wounded on a charpoy, by which was sitting a woman in deep affliction. The explanation given of this scene was, that "-- [the name of the Englishman was left blank] had been licking two of his bearers (or servants), and had nearly murdered them." This was one of the servants, and, without knowing or caring to know the causes of such chastisement, I cannot but express my disgust at the severity-to call it by no harsher name-of some of our fellow-countrymen towards their domestics.'

The reading of that paragraph gave me extreme pain. People may fancy that this does not matter much; but I say it matters very much. Under any system of government you will have Englishmen scattered all over India, and conduct like that I have just described, in any district, must create ill feeling towards England, to your rule, to your supremacy; and when that feeling has become sufficiently extensive, any little accident may give fire to the train, and you may have calamities more or less serious, such as we have had during the last twelve months. You must change all this if you mean to keep India. I do not now make any comment upon the mode in which this country has been put into possession of India. I accept that possession as a fact. There we are; we do not know how to leave it, and therefore let us see if we know how to govern it. It is a problem such as, perhaps, no other nation has had to solve. Let us see whether there is enough of intelligence and virtue in England to solve the difficulty. In the first place, then, I say, let us abandon all that system of calumny against the Natives of India which has lately prevailed. Had that people not been docile, the most governable race in the world, how could you have maintained your power for 100 years? Are they not industrious, are they not intelligent, are they not-upon the evidence of the most distinguished men the Indian Service ever produced-endowed with many qualities which make them respected by all Englishmen who mix with them? I have heard that from many men of the widest experience, and have read the same in the works of some of the best writers upon India. Then let us not have these constant calumnies against such a people. Even now there are men who go about the country speaking as if such things had never been contradicted, and talking of mutilations and atrocities committed in India. The less we say about atrocities the better. Great political tumults are, I fear, never brought about or carried on without grievous acts on both sides deeply to be regretted. At least, we are in the position of invaders and conquerors-they are in the position of the invaded and the conquered. Whether I were a native of India, or of England, or of any other country, I would not the less assert the great distinction between their position and ours in that country, and I would not permit any man in my presence, without rebuke, to indulge in the calumnies and expressions of contempt which I have recently heard poured forth without measure upon the whole population of India.

There is one other point to which I wish to address myself before I sit down, and in touching upon it I address myself especially to the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) and his colleagues in the Government. If I had the responsibility of administering the affairs of India, there are certain things I would do. I would, immediately after this Bill passes, issue a Proclamation in India which should reach every subject of the British Crown in that country, and be heard of in the territories of every Indian Prince or Rajah. I would offer a general amnesty. It is all very well to talk of issuing an amnesty to all who have done nothing; but who is there that has done nothing in such a state of affairs as has prevailed during the past twelve months? If you pursue your vengeance until you have rooted out and destroyed every one of those soldiers who have revolted, when will your labour cease? If you are to punish every non-military Native of India who has given a piece of bread or a cup of water to a revolted trooper, how many Natives will escape your punishment and your vengeance? I would have a general amnesty, which should be put forth as the first great act done directly by the Queen of England in the exercise of Sovereign power over the territories of India. In this Proclamation 1 would promise to the Natives of India a security for their property as complete as we have here at home; and I would put an end to all those mischievous and irritating inquiries which have been going on for years in many parts of India as to the title to landed estates, by which you tell the people of that country that unless each man can show an unimpeachable title to his property for ninety years you will dispossess him. What would be the state of things here if such a regulation were adopted?

I would also proclaim to the people of India that we would hold sacred that right of adoption which has prevailed for centuries in that country. It was only the other day that I had laid before me the case of a Native Prince who has been most faithful to England during these latter trials. When he came to the throne at ten years of age he was made to sign a document, by which he agreed that if he had no children his territories should be at the disposal of the British Government, or what was called the paramount power. He has been married; he has had one son and two or three daughters; but within the last few weeks his only son has died. There is grief in the palace, and there is consternation among the people, for the fact of this agreement entered into by the boy of ten years old is well known to all the inhabitants of the country. Representations have already been made to this country in the hope that the Government will cancel that agreement, and allow the people of that State to know that the right of adoption would not be taken from their Prince in case he should have no other son. Let the Government do that, and there is not a corner of India into which that intelligence would not penetrate with the rapidity of lightning. And would not that calm the anxieties of many of those independent Princes and Rajahs who are only afraid that when these troubles are over, the English Government will recommence that system of annexation out of which I believe all these troubles have arisen?

I would tell them also in that Proclamation, that while the people of England hold that their own, the Christian religion, is true and the best for mankind, yet that it is consistent with that religion that they who profess it should hold inviolable the rights of conscience and the rights of religion in others. I would show, that whatever violent, over- zealous, and fanatical men may have said in this country, the Parliament of England, the Ministers of the Queen, and the Queen herself are resolved that upon this point no kind of wrong should be done to the millions who profess the religions held to be true in India. I would do another thing. I would establish a Court of Appeal, the Judges of which should be Judges of the highest character in India, for the settlement of those many disputes which have arisen between the Government of India and its subjects, some Native and some European. I would not suffer these questions to come upon the floor of this House. I would not forbid them by statute, but I would establish a Court which should render it unnecessary for any man in India to cross the ocean to seek for that justice which he would then be able to get in his own country without corruption or secret bargain. Then I would carry out the proposition which the noble Lord has made to-night, and which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer made when he introduced his Bill, that a Commission should be issued to inquire into the question of finance. I would have other commissions, one for each Presidency, and I would tell the people of India that there should be a searching inquiry into their grievances, and that it was the interest and the will of the Queen of England that those grievances should be redressed.

Now, perhaps I may be told that I am proposing strange things, quite out of the ordinary routine of government. I admit it. We are in a position that necessitates something out of the ordinary routine. There are positions and times in the history of every country, as in the lives of individuals, when courage and action are absolute salvation; and now the Crown of England, acting by the advice of the responsible Ministers, must, in my opinion, have recourse to a great and unusual measure in order to allay the anxieties which prevail throughout the whole of India. The people of India do not like us, but they scarcely know where to turn if we left them. They are sheep literally without a shepherd. They are people whom you have subdued, and who have the highest and strongest claims upon you-claims which you cannot forget-claims which, if you do not act upon, you may rely upon it that, if there be a judgment for nations-as I believe there is-as for individuals, our children in no distant generation must pay the penalty which we have purchased by neglecting our duty to the populations of India.

I have now stated my views and opinions on this question, not at all in a manner, I feel, equal to the question itself. I have felt the difficulty in thinking of it; I feel the difficulty in speaking of it- for there is far more in it and about it than any man, however much he may be accustomed to think upon political questions, and to discuss them, can comprise at all within the compass of a speech of ordinary length. I have described the measures which I would at once adopt for the purpose of soothing the agitation which now disturbs and menaces every part of India, and of inviting the submission of those who are now in arms against you. Now I believe-I speak in the most perfect honesty- I believe that the announcement of these measures would avail more in restoring tranquillity than the presence of an additional army, and I believe that their full and honest adoption would enable you to retain your power in India. I have sketched the form of government which I would establish in India and at home, with the view of securing perfect responsibility and an enlightened administration. I admit that these things can only be obtained in degree, but I am convinced that a Government such as that which I have sketched would be free from most of the errors and the vices that have marked and marred your past career in India. I have given much study to this great and solemn question. I entreat the House to study it not only now, during the passing of this Bill, but after the Session is over, and till we meet again next year, when in all probability there must be further legislation upon this great subject; for I believe that upon this question depends very much, for good or for evil, the future of this country of which we are citizens, and which we all regard and love so much. You have had enough of military reputation on Eastern fields; you have gathered large harvests of that commodity, be it valuable or be it worthless. I invite you to something better, and higher, and holier than that; I invite you to a glory not 'fanned by conquest's crimson wing,' but based upon the solid and lasting benefits which I believe the Parliament of England can, if it will, confer upon the countless populations of India.

* * * * *

INDIA.

From Hansard.

[A despatch of Lord Ellenborough, the President of the Board of Control, to Lord Canning, the Governor-General of India, had been laid before the two Houses. This document severely censured the Governor-General's policy in dealing with the talookdars of Oude. Immediate advantage was taken of this document by the Opposition, and on the 10th of May Mr. Cardwell gave notice in the Commons of a motion condemnatory of Lord Ellenborough's despatch. Lord Ellenborough retired from the Government. On May 14, however, Mr. Cardwell brought forward his motion in the House of Commons, but, after a lengthened debate, consented to withdraw it, at the earnest entreaty of many from his own side of the House.]

I am afraid I shall hardly be able to take part in this discussion in a manner becoming the magnitude of the question before us, and in any degree in accordance with the long anxiety which I have felt in regard to Indian affairs, but I happen to have been unfortunately and accidentally a good deal mixed up with these matters, and my name has frequently been mentioned in the course of debate, not only in this but in the other House of Parliament, and I am unwilling, therefore, to vote without expressing my opinion upon the matter under discussion. First, I may be allowed to explain that I think almost everything that has been said and imagined with regard to the part that I have had in bringing on this discussion has been altogether erroneous, and has no foundation whatever. There was no arrangement between the hon. Gentleman the Secretary of the Board of Control and myself with regard to the question that I thought it my duty to put to him on the subject of Lord Canning's Proclamation. I had spoken two or three weeks before the date of that question to the hon. Gentleman, because I had been informed by a respected friend of mine, Mr. Dickinson, the hon. secretary of the India Reform Society, who has very great information on Indian affairs, that he had received communications to the effect that some Proclamation of this character was in preparation and was about to be issued. I spoke to the hon. Member with regard to that report; and he told me that he had received no communication which enabled him to give me any information on the subject. I then intimated to him that in case there was anything of the kind I should certainly put a question to the Government respecting it. This was three weeks before the date of my question. Well, I read the Proclamation in The Times newspaper, the same day that every one else read it; and I came down to the House, not having seen the hon. Gentleman in the meantime. I met my hon. friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. J. B. Smith) in Westminster Hall, and he told me that having read the despatch, and knowing my intention with regard to it, he, having met the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Baillie) that evening, said to him he had no doubt that when I came down to the House I should put a question respecting it. When I came down I put a question and received an answer; both question and answer are before the House and the country. But I confess I did not anticipate that we should lose a week from the discussion of the Indian Resolutions on account of the question which I then asked the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Board of Control.

Now, Sir, with respect to the question before the House, I should have been content to let it end when the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General sat down. I think, Sir, the House might have come to a vote when the Solicitor-General finished his speech. I could not but compare that speech with the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Resolution now before the House. I thought the right hon. Gentleman raked together a great many small things to make up a great case. It appeared to me that he spoke as if his manner indicated that he was not perfectly satisfied with the course he was pursuing. I think he failed to stimulate himself with the idea that he was performing a great public duty; for if he had been impressed with that idea I think his subject would have enabled him to deliver a more lively and impressive speech than that which he has made. But, Sir, I believe that every one will admit that the speech of the Solicitor-General was characterised by the closest logic and the most complete and exhaustive argument. There is scarcely a Gentleman with whom I have spoken with regard to that speech who does not admit that the hon. and learned Gentleman has seemed to have taken up the whole question, and to have given a complete answer to all serious charges brought against the Government.

This Motion is an important one in two aspects. First of all as respects the interests of parties at home-which some people, probably, think the more important of the interests concerned; and, secondly, as respects the effect which will be produced in India when this discussion, with the vote at which we arrive, reaches that country and is read there. The princes, the rajahs, and intelligent landholders, whether under the English Government or independent, will know very little about what we understand by party; and any cabal or political conspiracy here will have no influence on them. They know little of the persons who conduct and take a part in the debate in this House; and the 'loud cheers' which they will read of in our discussions Will be almost nothing to them. The question to them will be, What is the opinion of the Parliament of England as to the policy announced to India in the Proclamation?

Now, Sir, I complain of the right hon. Gentleman, and I think the House has reason to complain, that in his Resolution he endeavours to evade the real point of discussion. The noble Lord who has just sat down (Viscount Goderich) says he will not meet this matter in any such indirect manner as that proposed by the Amendment of the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn); but what can be less direct than the issue offered by the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford? This is proved by the fact that, throughout the course of this discussion, every serious argument and every serious expression has had reference to the character of the Proclamation, and not to those little matters which are mixed up in this Resolution. Nobody, I believe, defends the Proclamation in the light in which it is viewed by the Government, and censured by the Government. All that has been done is an endeavour to show that it is not rightly understood by those who censure it as announcing a policy of confiscation. In fact, in endeavouring to defend it, hon. Members insist that it does not mean something which it says it does mean, and which if any of us understand the English language it assuredly does mean. The right hon. Gentleman asks us to do that which I think is an absolute impossibility. He wants us to condemn the censure, and wishes at the same time-and I give him credit for this-that we should pronounce no approval of the thing censured. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman, though unfortunately he has been led into this movement, wishes the House to pronounce an opinion in favour of confiscation. I do not believe that any Member of this House asks us to come to a conclusion in such a way as that our decision shall be an approval of that which the Government has condemned in the despatch. But if we affirm the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman, how is it possible for the people of India to understand our decision in any other sense than as an approval of the policy of Lord Canning's Proclamation? With regard to the publication of the Government despatch, it is not a little remarkable how men turn round and object to what they formerly were so loud in demanding. On this side of the House it has been the commonest thing to hear hon. Gentlemen say that all this secrecy on the part of the Foreign Office and the Board of Control is a cause of the greatest mischief. Assume for a moment that the publication of this despatch was injudicious-after all, it was no high crime and misdemeanour. We on this side of the House, and hon. Gentlemen below the gangway, ought to look with kindness on this failing, which, if a failing, leans to virtue's side. Then, Sir, with regard to the language of the despatch, I do not know of any Government or Minister who would not be open to censure if we chose to take up every word in a despatch. A man of firmer texture, of stronger impulse, and more indignant feelings will, on certain occasions, write in stronger terms than other men-and I confess I like those men best who write and speak so that you can really understand them. Now I say that the proposition before the House is a disingenuous one. It attempts to lead the House into a very unfortunate dilemma. I think that no judicial mind-seeing that the result of a decision in favour of this Resolution will be the establishment of the policy of the Proclamation-will fail to be convinced that we ought not to arrive at such a decision without great hesitation, and that we cannot do so without producing a very injurious effect on the minds of the people of India.

We now come to what all parties admit to be the real question-the Proclamation and the policy of confiscation announced in it. There are certain matters which I understand all sides of the House to be agreed on. They agree with the Government and the East India Company that the people of Oude are enemies but that they are not rebels [Cries of 'Yes, yes!'-'No, no!'] I thought the supporters of the Resolution of the right lion. Gentleman the Member for Oxford told us that if the Government had written a judicious despatch like that of the East India Company, they would have applauded and not censured it. Well, the East India Directors-and they are likely to know, for they were connected with the commission of the Act that brought this disturbance in Oude upon us-say that the people of Oude are not rebels; that they are not to be treated as rebels; but as enemies. If so, the Government have a right to treat them according to those rules which are observed by nations which are at war with each other. Will the House accept that proposition? ['No, no!'-'Yes, yes!'] Well, if hon. Gentlemen on this side will not accept it, I hope the noble Lord the Member for the West Riding (Viscount Goderich) will not include them amongst those who are in favour of clemency. I am quite sure the people of England will accept that definition-that civilised Europe will accept it; and that history- history which will record our proceedings this night, and our vote on this Resolution-will accept it. Sir, I do not see how any one claiming to be an Englishman or a Christian can by any possibility escape from condemning the policy of this Proclamation.

I now come-and on that point I will be as brief as possible-to the question. What is the meaning of confiscating the proprietary rights in the soil? We have heard from a noble Lord in 'another place' and it has been stated in the course of the debate here, that this sentence of confiscation refers only to certain unpleasant persons who are called talookdars, who are barons and robber chiefs and oppressors of the people. This is by no means the first time that, after a great wrong has been committed, the wrongdoer has attempted to injure by calumny those upon whom the wrong has been inflicted. Lord Shaftesbury, who is a sort of leader in this great war, has told the world that this Proclamation refers only to 600 persons in the kingdom of Oude.

The kingdom of Onde has about five millions of people, or one-sixth of the population of the United Kingdom. Applied to the United Kingdom in the same rate of the population it would apply to 3,600 persons. Now, in both Houses of Parliament there are probably 700 landed proprietors. It would, therefore, be an edict of confiscation to the landed proprietors of the United Kingdom equal to five times all the landed proprietors in both Houses of Parliament. An hon. Gentleman says I am all wrong in my figures. I shall be glad to hear his figures afterwards. But that is not the fact; but if it were the fact, it would amount not to a political, but to an entire social revolution in this country. And surely, when you live in a country where you have, as in Scotland, a great province under one Member of the House of Lords, and seventy or eighty miles of territory under another, and where you have Dukes of Bedford and Dukes of Devonshire, as in England-surely, I say, we ought to be a little careful, at any rate, that we do not overturn, without just cause, the proprietary rights of the great talookdars and landowners in India. It is a known fact, which anybody may ascertain by referring to books which have been written, and to witnesses who cannot be mistaken, that this edict would apply to more than 40,000 landowners in the kingdom of Oude. And what is it that is meant by these proprietary rights? We must see what is the general course of the policy of our government in India. If you sweep away all proprietary rights in the kingdom of Oude you will have this result-that there will be nobody connected with the land but the Government of India and the humble cultivator who tills the soil. And you will have this further result, that the whole produce of the land of Oude and of the industry of its people will be divided into two most unequal portions; the larger share will go to the Government in the shape of tax, and the smaller share, which will be a handful of rice per day, will go to the cultivator of the soil. Now, this is the Indian system. It is the grand theory of the civilians, under whose advice, I very much fear, Lord Canning has unfortunately acted; and you will find in many parts of India, especially in the Presidency of Madras, that the population consists entirely of the class of cultivators, and that the Government stands over them with a screw which is perpetually turned, leaving the handful of rice per day to the ryot or the cultivator, and pouring all the rest of the produce of the soil into the Exchequer of the East India Company. Now, I believe that this Proclamation sanctions this policy; and I believe further that the Resolution which the right hon. Gentleman asks the House to adopt, sanctions this Proclamation; that it will be so read in India, and that whatever may be the influence, unfortunate as I believe it will be, of the Proclamation itself, when it is known throughout India that this-the highest court of appeal-has pronounced in favour of Lord Canning's policy, it will be one of the most unfortunate declarations that ever went forth from the Parliament of this country to the people of that empire.

Let me then for one minute-and it shall be but for one minute-ask the attention of the House to our pecuniary dealings with Oude. A friend of mine has extracted from a book on this subject two or three facts which I should like to state to the House, as we are now considering the policy of England towards that afflicted country. It is stated that, under the government of Warren Hastings, to the arrival of Lord Cornwallis in 1786, the East India Company obtained from the kingdom of Oude, and therefore from the Exchequer of the people of Oude, the sum of 9,252,000_l_.; under Lord Cornwallis, 4,290,000_l_.; under Lord Teignmouth, 1,280,000_l_.; under Lord Wellesley, 10,358,000_l_. This includes, I ought to observe, the Doab, taken in 1801 in lieu of subsidy, the annual revenue of that district being 1,352,000_l_. Coming down to the year 1814, there was a loan of a million; in 1815 a loan of a million; in 1825 a loan of a million; in 1826 a loan of a million; in 1829 a loan of 625,000_l_.; and in 1838 a loan of 1,700,000_l_. Some of these sums, the House will observe, are loans, and in one case the loan was repaid by a portion of territory which the Company, in a very few years, under an excuse which I should not like to justify, re-annexed to themselves, and therefore the debt was virtually never repaid. The whole of these sums comes to 31,500,000_l_.; in addition to which Oude has paid vast sums in salaries, pensions, and emoluments of every kind to servants of the Company engaged in the service of the Government of Oude.

I am not going further into detail with regard to that matter; but I say that the history of our connection with the country, whose interests we are now discussing, is of a nature that ought to make us pause before we consent to any measure that shall fill up the cup of injury which we have offered to the lips of that people. After this, two years ago, we deposed the Sovereign of Oude. Everything that he had was seized-much of it was sold. Indignities were offered to his family. Their ruin was accomplished, though they were the governors of that kingdom. Some hon. Gentleman, speaking on this side of the House, has tried to persuade the House that this confiscation policy only intends that we should receive the taxes of Oude. But that is altogether a delusion. That is a statement so absurd that I am astonished that any one, even of those who support the Resolution, should offer it to the House. In 1856, when you dethroned the King of Oude, you stepped into his place, and became the recipients of all the legitimate national taxes of the kingdom of Oude; and now, having seized the 500,000_l_. a year, the revenue of that country, after a solemn treaty which contained a clause that if there were a surplus of revenue it should be paid to the credit of the kingdom of Oude; after having applied that surplus, contrary to that clause of the treaty, to the general purposes of India; you now step in and you descend below the King, to every talookdar, to every landowner, large or small, to every man who has proprietary rights in the soil, to every man, the smallest and humblest capitalist who cultivates the soil-to every one of these you say in language that cannot be mistaken-'Come down from the independence and dignity you have held. As we have done in other provinces of India we shall do here. Two-thirds of you have not been mixed up in this war; but in this general confiscation the innocent must suffer with the guilty, for such is the misfortune of war, and such is the penalty which we shall inflict upon you.' Sir, if this Proclamation be not a Proclamation of unheard-of severity, how comes it that so many persons have protested against it? Does any man believe that the noble Lord the Member for the West Riding (Viscount Goderich) understands this Proclamation better than the high military authorities who have so long known India? Does he suppose that the House of Commons will take his authority upon a matter of this kind in preference to the authority of the whole united press of India? ['Oh! oh!'] Well, I dare say that hon. Members who cry 'Oh!' have not read the newspapers of India upon the subject. Some of them uphold it because they say that at one fell swoop it has done that which it took us twenty years to do in other districts of India, and destroys every man who could influence the people against the British Government. Others say that it is a Proclamation of such a character that it must cause 'war to the knife' against the English, and that the Governor-General who issued such a Proclamation should have been prepared with a new army at his back that he might have power to enforce it.

The learned Gentleman the Attorney-General for Ireland referred in his speech the other night to what had been said by the hon. and learned Member for Devonport (Sir E. Perry) on the occasion of a question that I had put some two or three weeks ago. Now I call the House to witness whether when I put the question which brought out this despatch, and when the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer rose in his place and gave the answer that with respect to the policy of confiscation-for that is the only thing there is any dispute about in the Proclamation-the Government disavowed it in every sense-I call the House to witness whether every Gentleman present in this part of the House did not cheer that sentiment. Of course, every man cheered it. They would not have been men; they would not have been Englishmen; they would not have been legislators; they would have been men who had never heard of what was just and right, if every instinct within them, at the instant they heard the declaration of the Government, did not compel them to an enthusiastic assent. And it was only when the fatal influence of party, and the arts which party knows how to employ, were put in motion, that hon. Gentlemen began to discover that there was something serious and something dangerous in this memorable despatch. Now, I would ask the House this question-are we prepared to sanction the policy of that despatch?

I am very sorry that I have not done what only occurred to me after this debate commenced, and after the Amendment was proposed, or I should have proposed another Amendment to the House that went expressly upon that point, because-and I speak it without the smallest reference to the influence which it may have on any party in this House-I think it of the very highest consequence that, whatever decision we come to, it should be liable to no misinterpretation when it arrives in India. Then, Sir, we have been treated to a good deal of eloquence upon the manner of the despatch; and with regard to that I must say a word or two. The noble Lord the Member for London, who sits below me, has, I think, fallen into the error of most of the speakers in favour of the Resolution; that is, of treating some of the outside circumstances of the case as if they were the case itself. I do not think, however, that he stated there was a word in the despatch which was not true, although he did express what I thought was rather an immoral sentiment for so eminent a statesman. The noble Lord told us that after a crime had been committed, men in office were never to let it be known or suspected that they thought it was a crime. [Lord John Russell: 'The hon. Gentleman is mistaken; I never said anything of the kind.'] I did not hear it myself, but I read it, and many of my friends came to the same conclusion. ['Oh! oh!'] Well, I understand, then, that he did not say it; but what he did say was, that there was a great deal of sarcasm and invective in the despatch, and he read a passage to show that such was the case. But the fact is that a great deal depends upon the reading. I could take a despatch of the noble Lord himself and read it in a manner that would perfectly astonish him. He said, if I am not mistaken, that if the House were to approve of that despatch as a proper despatch, then Lord Canning was not fit to occupy the meanest political or official situation. Indian despatches have, to my mind, never been very gentle. I recollect having read in Mill's History of British India, and in other histories also, despatches that have been sent from the President of the Board of Control, the Secret Committee, and the Court of Directors, over and over again; and I have thought that they were written in a tone rather more authoritative and rather more dictatorial than I should have been disposed to write, or than I should have been pleased to receive. It arose from this-that in old times the magnates sitting in Leadenhall-street were writing, not to Lord Canning and men of that altitude, but to merchants and agents whom they had sent out, who were entirely dependent upon them, and to whom they could say just what they liked; and for 100 years past, as far as I have seen, their despatches have had a character for severity, and that which men call 'dictatorial,' which I think might be very well dispensed with. But that is a matter which should certainly be taken into consideration, when a large portion of this House are disposed not only to censure Lord Ellenborough, but to overturn the Government, because a despatch is not written precisely in those gentle terms which some hon. Gentlemen think to be right when inditing a letter to a Governor-General of India.

There is one other point which I must notice, and that is the supposed effect of this despatch upon the feelings of Lord Canning. I am not so intimate with Lord Canning as many Members of this House, but I have had the pleasure of his acquaintance, and have always believed that he was one of the last men who would knowingly do anything that was inhuman or unjust, and that is my opinion now. I think he is to be commiserated, as any other man would have been who happened to be in India at such a time as this; and I think we are bound also to take a lenient view even of such errors as we may think he has committed. If I had gone to India, or into any service under the State, I should expect that there would be a general disposition to give me fair play in the exercise of my office, and that no strained construction to my injury would be put upon anything which I did. Well, that is the view which I entertain with regard to Lord Canning. I have never uttered a syllable against him in public, although I think that some of his acts have been open to great objection; and I am not about to say anything against him now. I would not support a Resolution which was intended to damage Lord Canning; and I think the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) has not done wrong in offering to the House the Amendment he has placed before us. But it is just possible that Lord Canning is in the midst of circumstances which have rendered it very difficult, perhaps impossible, for him to exercise his own calm judgment on the great question which forms the subject of this Proclamation, I see in that Proclamation not so much an emanation from the humane and just mind of Lord Canning, as the offspring of that mixture of red tape and ancient tradition which is the foundation of the policy of the old civilian Council of Calcutta. But, Sir, if it were a question of hurting Lord Canning's feelings and denouncing this Proclamation, I could have no hesitation as to the choice which I should make. A man's private and personal feelings are not a matter of importance for the House when compared with the vast and permanent interests involved in the dangerous policy which we are now discussing. And I do not think the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell), the noble Lord the Member for the West Riding (Viscount Goderich), and the noble Lord the Member for London, have any right to throw themselves into something like a contortion of agony with regard to the manner of this despatch; because, as was stated to the House the other night by the learned Attorney-General for Ireland, they did not tell us much about the feelings of another public servant, acting on behalf of the Crown at a still greater distance from England, when last year they gave a vote on the China question which pronounced a most emphatic condemnation on the conduct of Sir John Bowring. Now, I like fair play. I would treat Lord Canning as I would treat Sir John Bowring; and I would treat Sir John Bowring as I would treat Lord Canning. Do not let us have in the service of the State low-caste men who may be trampled upon at pleasure, and high-caste men whom nobody dare criticise.

I said, when I began, that this Resolution is important in reference to something else besides India; that it is important with reference to the position of parties in this House. I would ask the attention of the House for a few moments to that branch of the subject. I am afraid-and I hope I am not slandering anybody in saying it-that there is quite as much zeal for what is called 'place' as there is for the good of India in the proposition brought before us. If that despatch had been published three months ago, when we were all sitting on that side of the House, it is very probable that many Gentlemen who now speak against it would have thought it a noble despatch, containing noble sentiments, expressed in noble language. But now, Sir, there has been for the last two months a growing irritation observable, particularly in this part of the House. There has been a feeling which no ingenuity has been able to disguise-a fear that if the present Government should, by some means or other, remain in office over the Session, no small difficulty would be found in displacing it-lest, like the tree, which, when first planted, may be easily pulled up, it should by and bye strike its roots downwards and its branches outwards, and after a year or two no man would be able to get it out of the ground. Hon. Gentlemen opposite know that I differ very widely from them on many public questions, and probably at some not distant day they may find it out in some act of severe hostility; but I put it to the House, whether, out of doors, the reputation of the present Government is not, in many respects, better than the last? Take, for instance, the Gentlemen who come up from the country on various deputations to the Ministers-the judgment of these deputations, without an exception, is in favour of the manner in which they have been received by the present Ministers, and of the way in which their suggestions and requests have been treated. Now, this may be no great matter, and I do not say that it is; but I make the observation for the benefit of the Gentlemen who sit on these benches, because it is just possible that they may some time have to receive deputations again. Then take their conduct in this House. 'Oh, yes.' hon. Gentlemen may say, 'but they are a weak Government; they have not a majority, and they are obliged to be very civil.' But what I maintain is, that every Ministry ought to be very civil, and what I am prepared to assert is-and I ask every man on this side of the House if he does not agree with me, for I have heard dozens of them say it out of the House-that when the late Government were in office civility was a thing unknown.

Take another point-for it is worthy of consideration by Gentlemen on this side of the House, and I ask hon. Gentlemen who sit below the gangway especially to consider it-look at the heritage of trouble with regard to our foreign policy which the existing Government found on their accession to office. Three months of what was going on upon the Conspiracy Bill would have landed you on the very verge of a war, if not in a war, with France, and that danger has been avoided certainly by no concession which is injurious to the honour of England. Take the question which has agitated the public mind with regard to Naples. I am not going into any details; but so far as a Government could act, this Government appears to have acted with judgment. I think the noble Lord below me (Lord J. Russell) admitted that himself. I did not say that the noble Lord said anything against them. On the contrary, I rejoice to have him with me as a witness to what I am stating. With regard, then, to these questions, seeing the dilemma into which the foreign affairs of the country were brought under the last Administration, I think it is but fair, just, and generous that Members on this side of the House, at least, should take no course which wears the colour of faction, for the purpose of throwing the present Government out of office. Whenever I join in a vote to put Gentlemen opposite out of office, it shall be for something that the country will clearly understand-something that shall offer a chance of good to some portion of the British empire-something that shall offer a chance of advancing distinctly the great principles for which we-if we are a party at all on this side of the House- profess to care.

But there is another reason. Not only is it feared that hon. Gentlemen opposite will get firm in their seats, but it is also feared that some hon. Gentlemen near me will get less firm in their alliance with the right hon. Gentlemen on this side. I have heard of mutinous meetings and discussions, and of language of the most unpardonable character uttered, as Gentlemen now say, in the heat of debate. But there was something more going on, which was traced to a meeting of independent Members recently held in Committee-room No. 11; and if a stop were not put to it, the powerful ranks on these benches might be broken up, which, if united, it was believed, would storm the Treasury benches and replace the late Government in office. I believe it was intended that a desperate effort should be made to change the state of things here before Whitsuntide. That was a resolution which had been come to long before any one knew anything about Lord Ellenborough's despatch. And the present seems to be a convenient opportunity, inasmuch as it has this in its favour, that it appears to be defending an absent servant of the Crown; that it appears to be teaching a lesson to the Government who have acted injudiciously in publishing a despatch; altogether it has that about it which makes it an excellent pretext on which hon. Gentlemen may ride into office. Now, I do not speak to Whigs in office or to those Gentlemen who have been in office and expect to be in office again; but I should like to say what I believe to be true to those Gentlemen who call themselves independent Members, who come here with no personal object to serve, not seeking place, patronage, or favour, but with an honest desire, as far as they are able, to serve their country as Members of the House of Commons. If this Resolution be carried, it is supposed that the old Government, or something very like it, will come back again. Now, there was great discontent with that old Government before it went out; yet no pledge whatever has been given that its conduct will be better or different; no new measures have been promised, no new policy has been avowed, no new men, that I have seen, have been held forth to the public very distinctly as likely to take high office in the State. There have been some things which I should think Members of this House must have felt pain at witnessing. There are newspapers in the interest of this ex-Treasury bench which have, in the most unblushing manner, published articles emanating from the pen of somebody who knew exactly what was wanted to be done. In the case of a gentleman, for example, who was engaged in Committee-room No. 11-a gentleman whom I need not mention because the House knows all the circumstances of this case, but a gentleman who took a most prominent part in the proceedings in that Committee-room-and no one is probably more indignant at what has been done than himself-those newspapers have positively fixed upon and designated him for a certain office, if the present Government go out and another comes in; another gentleman who seconded a Resolution on that occasion is also held up for an office; but they do not state exactly what his precise position is to be; and the glittering bauble of some place in the incoming Government is hung up before many hon. Gentlemen who sit around me. It is not said, 'It is for you' and 'It is for you;' but it is hung up dangling before them all, and every man is expected to covet that glittering bauble.

But this is not all. These are not the only arts which are employed. Members of this House sitting below the gangway, who have been here for years-Gentlemen of the most independent character-receive flattering and beautifully engraved cards to great parties at splendid mansions; and not later than Friday last, of all times, those invitations were scattered, if not with a more liberal, no doubt with a much more discriminating hand than they ever were before. [An hon. Member: 'Absurd!'] Of course it is very absurd; there is no doubt about that, and that is precisely why I am explaining it to the House. Why, Sir, if those cards of invitation contained a note with them, giving the exact history of what was really meant, it would say to hon. Gentlemen, 'Sir, we have measured your head, and we have gauged your soul, and we know or believe'-for I believe they do not know-'we believe that your principles which you came into Parliament to support-your character in the House-your self-respect will go for nothing if you have a miserable temptation like this held up before you.' Sir, if we could see them taking a course which is said to be taken by the celebrated horse-tamer, who appeals, as I am told, to the nobler and more intelligent instincts of the animal which he tames, then I should not complain. But they appeal to instincts which every honourable mind repudiates, and to aspirations which no hon. Gentleman on this side of the House can for a moment admit.

Well, then, if they succeed, what sort of a Government shall we have? I am as anxious for a Liberal Government as any man in this House, but I cannot believe that, in the present position of things on this side of the House, a Liberal and solid Government can be formed. We are told, and the whole country has been in a state of expectation and wonder upon it, that two eminent statesmen have actually dined together; and I am very glad to hear that men engaged in the strife of politics can dine together without personal hostility. I say nothing of the viands that were eaten. I say nothing of the beverage that was in the 'loving cup' that went round. One of our oldest and greatest poets has told us that-

'Nepenthe is a drink of soverayne grace.'

He says that it was devised by the gods to subdue contention, and subject the passions; but that it was given only to the aged and the wise, who were prepared by it to take their places with ancient heroes in a higher sphere. But that could not have been the contents of the 'loving cup' in this instance, for these aged statesmen are still determined to cling to this world, and to mix, as heretofore, with all the vigour and the fire of youth in the turmoil and contention of public life. But does the fact of this dinner point to reconciliation, and to a firm and liberal administration? I believe that any such Government would be the worst of all coalitions. I believe that it would be built upon insincerity, and I suspect it would be of no advantage to the country. Therefore I am not anxious to see such a Government attempted.

I ask the House, then, are they prepared to overthrow the existing Government on the question which the right hon. Gentleman has brought before us-a question which he has put in such ambiguous terms? Are they willing in overthrowing that Government to avow the policy of this Proclamation for India? Are they willing to throw the country into all the turmoil of a general election-a general election at a moment when the people are but just slowly recovering from the effects of the most tremendous commercial panic that this country ever passed through? Are they willing to delay all legislation for India till next year, and all legislation on the subject of Parliamentary reform till the year after that? Are they willing, above all, to take the responsibility which will attach to them if they avow the policy contained in this Proclamation?

I confess, Sir, I am terrified for the future of India when I look at the indiscriminate slaughter which is now going on there. I have seen a letter, written, I believe, by a missionary, lately inserted in a most respectable weekly newspaper published in London, in which the writer estimates that 10,000 men have been put to death by hanging alone. I ask you, whether you approve of having in India such expressions as these, which I have taken this day from a Calcutta newspaper, and which undoubtedly you will be held to approve if you do anything which can be charged with a confirmation of the tenor of this Proclamation. Here is an extract from The Englishman, which, speaking of the men of the disarmed regiments, who amount to some 20,000 or 30,000, or even 40,000 men, says:-

'There is no necessity to bring every Sepoy to a court-martial, and convict him of mutinous intentions before putting him down as guilty. We do not advocate extreme or harsh measures, nor are we of those who would drench the land with blood; but we have no hesitation in saying, that, were the Government to order the execution of all these Sepoys, they would be legally and morally justified in doing so. There would be no injustice done.'

No injustice would be done! I ask the House to consider that these men have committed no offence; their military functions were suspended because it was thought they were likely to be tempted to commit an offence, and therefore their arms were taken from them; and now an Englishman-one of your own countrymen-writing in a newspaper published in Calcutta, utters sentiments so atrocious as those which I have just read to the House. I believe the whole of India is now trembling under the action of volcanic fires; and we shall be guilty of the greatest recklessness, and I will say of great crime against the Monarchy of England, if we do anything by which we shall own this Proclamation. I am asked on this question to overturn Her Majesty's Government. The policy adopted by the Government on this subject is the policy that was cheered by hon. Members on this side when it was first announced. It is a policy of mercy and conciliation. False-may I not say?-or blundering leaders of this party would induce us, contrary to all our associations and all our principles, to support an opposite policy. I am willing to avow that I am in favour of justice and conciliation-of the law of justice and of kindness. Justice and mercy are the supreme attributes of the perfection which we call Deity, but all men everywhere comprehend them; there is no speech nor language in which their voice is not heard, and they cannot be vainly exercised with regard to the docile and intelligent millions of India. Yon have had the choice. You have tried the sword. It has broken; it now rests broken in your grasp; and you stand humbled and rebuked. You stand humbled and rebuked before the eyes of civilized Europe. You may have another chance. You may, by possibility, have another opportunity of governing India. If you have, I beseech you to make the best use of it. Do not let us pursue such a policy as many men in India, and some in England, have advocated, but which hereafter you will have to regret, which can end only, as I believe, in something approaching to the ruin of this country, and which must, if it be persisted in, involve our name and nation in everlasting disgrace.

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INDIA.