The Press. — London, England, 1858-05-15 00:00:00

472 bited their strength, to temper justice with generosity, to proclaim an amnesty, disarm the people, and wherever the amnesty was proclaimed to establish the ordinary ad- ministration of the law. I apprehended obstruction to the Government in the execution of these orders from subor- dinate officers, maddened, as I expressed it, by the scenes they had witnessed. I desired the Government to perse- vere in doing what they thought right, and I told them that in acting in that spirit they would have the unqualified support of her Majesty's Government. (Cheers.) Soon afterwards, my lords, I received this proclamation, of which the only very important point was that inflicting con . fiscation. [Lord Granville here made a n o b serva ti on across the table, which was inaudible in the gallery.] How was it possible (Lord Ellenborough continued) to com municate by electric telegraph? I said that soon after the letter to which I have referred was published here I re ceived this proclamation, which is in direct contradiction to the principles laid down in the letter of which the noble earl opposite approved. ( Cheers.) The principle of con fiscation of the whole proprietary rights of the landowuere of Oude was not clemency; it was inconsistent with am. nests , ; it was persecution after defeat; it was contrary to the principle laid down in the first letter, to the feelings of the Government, and to the principles upon which they had determined to act. When I read that proclamation I felt it was my duty at once to express my own sentiments on the subject, which were adopted by my noble friends. I should have been unworthy of a seat in this house if I had acted otherwise ; but I felt at the same time that if that proclamation were really published as it stood before me, it was quite impossible that my letter with respect to it should be withheld from the public. I knew that the mo ment the proclamation was published in this country questions would be asked iu Parliament, and that neither in this house nor in the other house could the answers be satisfactory without the publication of this letter, which we could not resist. My lords, I did desire its publication—(cheers)--and I will tell you upon what grounds. Having informed the Government of India that I would remove all obstructions raised against them by subordinate officers, and that 1 was determined they should be assisted and supported in doing what they thought right in the prosecution of principles of clemency, I was determined they should know—the governors as well as the governed—that the Cabinet were resolved to enforce that system of clemency, be the person who he might who acted iu opposition to the principles thus laid down. I felt and I still feel that letter is a message of peace to the people of India ; I hold that it lays down principles which, if not so lard down, never would have been generally adopted throughout that country; I know that it will offer conciliation to those who dread retribution—that it will compel all in office to act in the spirit of the Government by which that letter was sent out, and, therefore, for the public' peace, I desired thvt that letter should go forth. (Hear.) Hut I take to myself the whole responsibility of having given publicity to the letter. I know it was right to do so, and I did it at once. I might very properly, no doubt, have taken the letter to the Cabinet, and in the Cabinet have asked the opinions of my colleagues before deciding to make it public. That might have been the rightcourse, but that course I did not adopt; and, therefore, to &CM'S my colleagues of any misconduct with respect to the publi cation of that letter is to raise a constitutional fiction. I am responsible, and let me alone bear whatever censure may be attributed to the act of publication. I thought this explanation to be due to my noble colleagues in this House, and to my right hon. friends in the other House of Parliament; but now I have to consider, under these cie cumstances, what is my duty not only to my colleagues, bat to the people of India. I have served the people of India as much out of office as in office for nearly thirty years. The most earnest endeavours of my public life have been used with a view to their benefit, and I will not do any act towards the close of that public life which by possibility might injure their interest. This question will be dif- ferently construed in this country and in India. Here it is a question between one party and another. (Cheers.) Here it is more a question whether my noble friend near me should remain in office, or whether we should submit to that to which we have an intuitive dislike—the restora tion. (Hear, hear.) This is the real practical question to be brought under the consideration of this and the other House of Parliament. (Cheers.) The question in India is a very different question. The question there will be understood to be the conflicting principles of confiscation and clemency—(Hear, hear)—and I feel satisfied that, according as the decision of this and the other House of Parliament may appear to incline to one or the other of these principles, there will be broadcast throughout India the seeds of perpetual war, or hopes will be given to the people of India and of England—the hopes of permanent reconciliation and peace. (Hear, hear.) I know well that, be the public importance of a question what it may, and no matter how great may be the interests involved in it, personal considerations but too much sway the decisions of both Houses of Parliament. I have determined, there fore, to remove those personal considerations. lam re solved that this question shall be considered on its merits; and, determining to do everything I can to the last moment of my life for the benefit and peace of India, I have tendered to her Majesty my resignation, and it has been accepted. Earl GREY said : The question whether it was proper or not to publish the despatch which the noble earl sent out to India will come regularly before the house on a subsequent day, and it would be inconvenient fin• me now to anticipate the discus sion which will then arise ; but I must protest against the fairness of discussing at this morrent the question whether the proclamation of Lord Cantiing was right or wrong. and I protest against it going out to the country that it is a question between coufitseation and clemency. I deny that that is an ai curate vt rbiun of Lord Canning's pro clamation; bu: 1 hill put be dr,e,;ged into a course THE PRESS, MAY 15, 1858. so unfair towards Lord Canning as to discuss the grounds on which he issued the proclamation and the policy and justice of it, when we are still totally ignorant of the reasons which he himself is prepared to assign for the issue of the proclamation. It is this, and this only, I wish to impress on your lordships, namely, that we are bound to reserve our judgment altogether on the question of the proclamation. As far as I can at present judge, I might be inclined to disapprove the pro clamation, but I know that men, far more intimately ac quainted than I am with the state of India, believe the proclamation, even with the present information they pos sess respecting it, to be right. That being the case, it is fair for us, on the commonest principles of justice, to suspend our judgment till we know Lord Can ning's reasons for it. I only wish to add one word more. I cannot help thinking that a great deal more is made of the non communication by Mr. V. Smith of a private letter than it deserves. Because, what really is the fact? My right hon. friend received a letter announcing that the Governor-General had not had time to write an explanation on the subject of his proclamation. Mr.V. Smith did not know that proclamation or its impor tance; and, though it is greatly to be regretted that he did not communicate the letter to the Government, yet it was quite natural that he should not have done so, and in point of fact the Government would have learned nothing from its communication but what they ought to have known without. The Government received the draught of an intended proclamation, but they bad not re ceived the proclamation as issued. Now, we know that the most important State papers frequently undergo alter ation between the time of their preparation and issue. We also know that the proper occasion for sending a fall explanation of the views of the Indian Govern ment in issuing so important a document is when they transmitted to England the proclamation as issued and informed the Home Government that it had been issued. Until the Home Government received a despatch informing them that the proclamation had been actually issued, I say that, in the absenae of any private letter, we are bound to presume that in due time some explanation will arrive. Therefore, in point of fact, the non-communi cation of the private letter which had been referred to left the Government in ignorance of nothing which they were not bound to know without seeing that private letter. The Earl of DEBBY : I will not enter into any discussion of the merits of the proclamation as drawn up in the first instance, or as sub sequently published ; but I must say, in answer to the statement that the Government were hound, after receiving the proclamation as intended to be issued, to wait before making any explanation of their opinions until it was actually received as published, that I altogether dissent from that doctrine. Earl GREY : I never male any stateraent that Government might not express their opinions, but I uid that they had a right to anticipate that an explanation of the circumstances under which the proclamation was published was on its way and would in due time be received by them. The Earl of DERBY : The fault which, I apprehend, is found with the Govern. ment is that, on receiving the proclamation intended to be published, they expressed in a seoret letter to the Govenor- General their disapproval of it; and, without intending to discuss the proclamation, I must say rat the Government were undoubtedly of opinion that the issue of a proclama• Lion in which confiscation was made the general rule would produce the most dangerous consequences, driving many to despair and inducing others to combine. Earl GRANVILLE rose to order:— When the noble earl rose, after the important declaration made by his noble colleague, I thought he was going to give some explanation of a personal character, which I am sure your lordships would have listened to with attention ; but when the noble earl proceeds to discuss a matter which we have already said we do not intend to argue at this time, and to make a speech applicable to a motion which is to come on towards the end of the week, I have a right to say that the noble earl is not is order, especially as he has already spoken. The Marquis of SALISBURY rose to move the ad journment of the house, in order to allow the Earl of DERBY to address their lordships. The Earl of ELLENBOROUGH said, he would save the necessity for a motion of adjournment by moving that the order of the day for the second reading of the Chief Justice of Bombay Bill be discharged. The Earl of DERBY then proceeded. He said : I certainly was anxious, after the statement made by my noble friend, to take an opportunity of expressing the co incidence of my concurrence, as far as I could concur with him, in the course he has adopted, and of explaining that point on which I am unable wholly to agree with him. I wish also to bear testimony to the manly and generous manner in which my noble friend—if he has committed any indiscretion—has more than atoned for that indiscre tion, and done himself infinite honour. (Cheers.) I was proceeding to answer some observations which had been made on the other side I thought it was made a matter of complaint against us that, without waiting for explana tions from the Governor-General, we hastened to express our disapproval of the proclamation about to be issued. I say that if we did disapprove, as was certainly the case, the tenor of that proclamation, and feared the effect it would have upon the population of India, it was our bounden duty not to lose a single mail in expressing to ' the Governor-General our apprehensions as to the conse quences which might ensue. ( Hear, hear.) Such was the object of the despatch sent out by my noble friend the President of the Council on the 2tith of April, and I still think it is deeply to be regretted that between the 19th and out oudt on the the 26th my noble friend was not i n f ormed that lions of the intended proclamation might arrive by an early mad. (Hear, hut expectedyour lord. ships must bear io mi n d th at t h e despatch sent 26th was intended to b e , an d was, a secret ( Hear, hear.) It commu n i ca t e d our appreh • "Patch ' Goveruor-General, and we hop e d it would e be risi in ots to the alter the determination t o w hi c h he badcometb time to all, it did not contain a disti nc t i n j unct i on to Lord Canning after',! to recal or revoke his proclam a ti on. Far fromj t simply expressed our anxious hope, that in owil4 into effect the doctrines put forth in his proclamation "liki findit necessary and proper to mitig a t e their strictness rigour. (Hear, hear.) Althou g h t h e proclamation as sad we have since received it does not go the length which I might desire in that sense, yet undoubtedly one paragraph, which has been inserted since th e rece i pt of the co py which the despatch of my noble f r i en d t h e President of to the Council applied, does materially modify the terms of the original proclamation. The Earl of ELLNNBOBOUGH Not with respect to the principle of confiscation. The Earl of DERBY : My noble friend says not with regard to confiscation but I hope and believe it must be th e i ntent i on of the ' Governor-General, although unfortunately he lays down confiscation as a rule, to make large exceptions, for the purpose not wily of freeing from further p eus l t i es, b ut of restoring lands and property to those who m a y h ave f or . felted them by their recent conduct. (Hear, hear.) The despatch sent out on the 28th of April, as I said before, Was a secret despatch. When the p roc l amat i on fi na ll y came home and was made known by the publi c j ourna l s i t excited considerable attention and animadversion. My right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer arrived late in the house that day. A question of which no notic e had been given was immediately asked as to whether the proclamation had been received, whether any despatch had been written in answer to it, and whether we were pre pared to lay that despatch upon the table of the house. Without any communication with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or with any other person in either House of Parliament, unfortunately, as I think, the Secretary to the Board of Control rose and at once stated that a despatch had been sent out, and would be laid on the table. Now, I concur with my noble friend the President of the Board of Control in thinking that sooner or later it was india pensable that that despatch should be published. Qw3e• tions must have been asked as to whether such a de. spatch was sent and whether we approved the policy in dicated in the proclamation ; and if the subject had given rise to discussions we should have been expected to show the terms in which we had written to the Governor-General. But I regret that that premature announcement should have been made. (Hear, hear.) I expressed my regret on the following day, and I recollect that upon that occa sion a noble earl opposite drew attention to the fact that, instead of defending the publication of the despatch, I confined my observations to the policy expressed in it. ( Hear, hear.) That is perfectly true. 1 felt then, as I feel now, that that hasty and immediate announcement that the Government were prepared to publish the despatch —an announcement made without communication with any member of the Government—was an act of impru dence, and that the results of the publication of the de svatadi would be unfortunate. I was of that opinion then ; am of that opinion now ; and my noble friend near me, with that candour, frankness, and honesty which so eminently upon all occasions charsoterize his conduct, *owes forward and states that that act was his and his alone, and that he and he only ought to be responsible for the consequences. (Hear, hear.) There is nothing, my lords, so painful to my feeliugs as the possibility of being suspected for any purposes of sacrificing a colleague, and I know not that I have ever in my life felt deeper pain than. when I received from my noble friend, not a tender of his resignation, but a copy of a letter in which he bad already submitted his resignation to her Majesty. I was bound to consider not private and personal feelings only, but what was due to the great interests of the country. I was bound to consider whether it was de sirable that the Government should stake their e 1 istence as a Government upon their liability fur an act of which they were not in the slightest degree cognizant — whether they should take upon themselves the defence of that which they felt they could not wholly defend, or whether they should accept the noble self-sacrifice of my noble friend, and thereby through his generosity allow his colleagues to have justice done to them. The conclu sion to which I carne,—and I never felt greater psi° than when arrived at that determination,—was that, in justice to the public interests, it was my bounden duty to accept the self• sacrifice of my noble friend; and, painful as I felt it to be to sepaiate from one for whom personally I entertain the highest respect, whose knowledge of Indian subjects, whose lone experience, whose devotedness to the osuse of India, and whose entire abnegation of all selfish feelings for the promotion of the public welfare render him AA invaluable councillor on Indian affeirs—( cheers ) — an d whose withdrawal could not but be regarded as a great loss to the Cabinet of her Majesty, I yet feel bou nd by stito stronger considerations, though with the deepest pillar. concur iu the suggestion of my noble friend that his resig nation should be received. (Hear, hear.) I have n ow all the observations which I think it necessary to address to your lordships upon the present occasion. f will admit to the noble earl opposite that this i s not the time to discuss the policy of the proclamation of Lord_ Canning, either as it was intended to be issued, wor as it i . l may hereafter be proved to have been issued. reffref., him the premature publication of a docume nt w think, ought not to have been so soon laid before b public, though sooner or later it must have bee n se eiitted to Parliament. Still, feeling myself unable to defend the hasty promulgation of that despatch, I have been, wit h the greatest reluctance, compelled to accept the resignation I feel it du e of my noble friend near me ; but in doing so