The Press. — London, England, 1858-02-20 00:00:00

Irottebings in artiaincut. HOUSE OF LORDS-MOND tY. EXECUTIONS IN INDIA. The Earl of ELLENDOROUG n called attention to the announcement, received by the last telegram, that 149 se poy mutineers bad been executed in a single day. Since the taking of Delhi it was computed that similar executions had taken place, on the average, at a rate of five or six per diem. He inquired whether any instructions on this point had been sent out by the Home Government; and suggested that some penalty short of death might be enacted equally effectual to suppress or punish the mutiny in Bengal. Earl GRANVILLE stated that no instructions on this point had been transmitted from this country, the entire discretion being left to Lord Canning and the Council of Calcutta. GENERAL WINDHAM. The Duke of CAMBRIDGE intimated that a letter bad been received from Sir Colin Campbell exoner ating Goneral Windham from all blame on account of the late disasters at Cawnpore. So satisfied in deed was the commander-in chief with that officer's conduct on the occasion, that he proposed to recom mend him for some higher command. Lord BROUGHAM, in moving for some returns in connection with the Bankruptcy Commissioners, de scribed the course of business procedure in the Bank ruptcy Court. The returns were ordered, and their lordships adjourned at twenty minutes to six o'clock. HOUSE OF COMMONS-MONDAY. NEW MEMBER. Mr. EWING took the oaths an,l his seat as msmber for Paisley. THE EAST INDIA. COMPANY-ADJOURNED DEBATE. Upon the motion of Lord PALMERSTON for leave to bring in hill for the better government of India, Mr. ROEBUCK remarked that there were three courses before the house,—that of maintaining the present double Government ; 'or handing back the entire authority to the Court of Directors of the East India Com pany; or adopting the bill of Lord Palmerston. 'With respect to the first course, the double Govern ment destroyed all responsibility. As to the second, there had never been a worse Government known to the world than that of the Court of Directors, as testified by Lord Macaulay, a great defender of the Company; they were not, therefore, the persons he -would trust with the government of India. There remained only the bill in question, the great mistake of which was the Council of Eight, which it proposed. The very principle which made the present Govern ment mischievous—viz., divided responsibility—told against this council. Moreover, Lord Palmerston proposed that the council should be composed of "Old Indians." That circumstance greatly strengthened his objection to it, because in England at the present moment were to be found men far more capable of governing India than any " Old Indian " whatever The beat Homo Government for India would be a Secretary td' State, who should choose his own advisers, and in villein all responsibility should centre. Such a Secretary of state would be selected by the Prime Minister, who was practically chosen by that home, which was elected by the people; therefore, in the last resort, the Secretary of State for India won't' be appointed by the people of this country. Now, if there was any virtue in ;representative government that was just the thing for 'which it was useful; not that the people should govern themselves, but that they should choose their governors ; not that they should do the duties'of the of of Prime Minister, but that they should choose a man who could do that duty, and should force hi:n to do it. Such a man would be responsible to that house, and would in the moat effective manner bring to bear upon the Government of India the feelings and wishes of the people of England. Mr. DUFF supported the bill, which he thought substituted a reasonable and simple plan of govern rent fur a complicated machine, though there were, 111 his opinion, matters of detail in the measure susceptible of improvement. Mr. WHITESIDE said his difficulty had been to find out what was the principle, not of the bill, but of Lord Palmerston's speech. It might have been .expected that the East India Company would have , been shown to be indolent, apathetic, incompetent, yr corrupt ; but no blame was imputed to the Com pany, who were complimented by Lord Palmerston, its they had been eulogised by fir Charles Wood in ]853; they were to be abolished simply because they existed. Sir Charles Wood, as the organ of the Ministry, explained to this house in 1853 the reasons why the charter should be renewed. The right hon. bbro tet, at that period, established an imposing air ly of facts upon policy, revenue, trade, and justice, Icc., in favour of the Company, with the full assent of the noble lord, who sat beside him, and heard and applauded every word he spoke, and in doing so he was also accompanied by the hearty cheers of the Secretary to the Treasury, who the THE PRESS, FEBRUARY 20, 1858. other night cheered as heartily the noble lord whe contradicting every opinion of the right hon. baronet, and supported by an eloquent speech from the righ hon. member for Kidierminster, who on that occa sion was determined to brook no delay in reestab lishing the Goverumont of the Company, and in making it, as he said, strong, powerful, and re spected : Well, let us see what the right hon. baronet the First Lord of the Admiralty said in P 453 in discussing one or two of the points submitted to the consideration of the house in this debate. I admit that the noble lord at the head of the Government most delicately anil judiciously said, wishing to kill the East India Company without giving them much pain, that he had no charge to bring against the Company. That was a very judicious observa tion, for he knows that his colleague made the same observation twenty times over in The right hon. baronet the President of the Boarl of Control, after touching on some of the great questions affecting said : When I read these things I am at a loss to account for the assertion so recklessly made even by some who, from their acquaintance with the country, I , hould have thought had been in poases‘don of better information on the subject, that we are disgracefully neglecting our duty in India. The right hon. baronet then proceeded to make this very candid admission : I fully admit that it does not follow, therefore, that because all these improvements have taken place that the government of India either ever was or is the belt that can be d.,vised ; but I say this, that if we are to te,t the Government by the results of that administration in the condition of India there is no ground whereupon to condemn it as being negligent and in. efficient. To that statement ho pledged the whole character of the Administration. Now, I trust I shall be pardoned by those gentlemen who are familiar with this subject if I state, according to the speech of the right hon. baronet, the character and tone of which speech I admire, the mode in which he descrihes the business of the Company to have been discharged, in reference, always be it observed, to the question of Ministerial responsibility : The home business of the governors of India may be divided into two different parts. One comprises the political relations of the governors of India with other States, and questions of peace and war. Those questions are decided, not by the C nut of Directors, but by the Government of this country, and their orders are sent through the. Secret Committee of the In ila house. and for these decisions not the Court of Directors but the Government of this country is entirely and altogether re. sponsible. Upon that point, therefore, there can be no question as to divided responsibility, or anything of the kind. The hon. and learned member for Sheffield has said that there is a difficulty in finding where the responsibility lies, but the right hon. baronet declared there could be no ques tion on that point. The right hon. baronet then proceeded as follows : The Secret Committee merely acts as an organ to convey to India the directions sent from the Board of Control, and the President of the Board of Control is in that respect only the organ of the general Government. A good deal of unnecessary importance appears to me to have been attached to a declaration made by Lord Broughton that ho alone was responsible for giving an order to the Indian Government es to crossing the Indus by the army for the Affghan war. But that order must have been signed, not by Lord Broughton alone, but by two Cabinet Ministers, and he was no more responsible for the order than the Secretary of State at the time for the order directing the Duke of Wellington to cross the Pyrenees. 'the act is not the act of the President of the Board of Control alone. It must be in pursuance of the theermination of the Government. There is no mistake, no concealment about the matter, and it is non sense to talk of the irresponsible power of the President of the Board of Control, because the Government of this country is as responsible fot war in India asitis responsible fur war in Europe, Africa, or America. There is the sound doctrine laid down by the then President of the Board of Control, speaking for the whole Administration, and therefore it will be surprising to find any gentleman on the Treasury bench standing up and taking advantage of the absurd cry of divided responsibility. The right hon. baronet proceeded:— What, then, are the functions of the Directors? Every de spatch is addressed to them, all questions are considered by them, and in the first instance they have the initiative on every question • grants of money cannot originate in any way with the Board of Control, and in the exercise of patronage. except in some of the higher appointments, they are entirely uncoil 'trolled. In the greater p:u•t of their business, 'lowa 'er, they are liable to the check and supervision of the Board of Control. He then describes how the despatches are framed, and adds:— It is only just to the Directors that T should say, as far as my experience goes, I have reason to know that the most careful attention has been given by them to every important despatch. It is q rite true that the President of the Board of Control has the power of oveauling in the last resort the Court of Directors. I therefore fully admit that I am responsible to this house for any acts in the Administration of India, just as the Secretary of State for the Colonies is responsible for the acts of the Adtpiuis• tration connected with his department. The right hon. baronet first speaks of the responsibility of the Alinister in matters of peace and war; he then speaks of his responsibility with reference to the internal administration of India; and he says that there is not in substance, though there may be in form, any difference between himself and an ordinary Secretary of State. The simple state of the matter is that the President of the Board of Control is responsible to Parliament for the go vernment of India. The right hon. baronet next referred to the mode in which despatches are dealt with. The house has heard the serious argument of the noble lord the First Minister of the Crown on th's subject. The noble lord stated that despatches were carried about London in cabs for days together—at least, so I understood him ; and then he asked the house to conceive the inconvenience of a system under which ten Directors sit at the east end of London, and ten at the west end, constant differences of opinion occurring among these gentlemen. The noble lord spoke of the Directors as he might, perhaps, be entitled to speak of the Cabinet in which be sits, but he forgot that 173 the Directors are men of conscience, of business, and of sense, and it does not appear that they differ and squabble when they meet, and that they transact no business before they separate. The noble lord having given that descrip tion, and adduced so happy an illustration, he will allow me to tell him, in the language of one of his moat eminent colleagues, how despatches are really dealt with by the Board of Directors, and I sin sure he will take an early opp munity of withdrawing the statement which he inad vertently made to the house, or that he will direct some of his officials to do so Before any despatches are sanctioned by the Board cf Control they must have been carefully sifted and investigated by a body of independent gentlemen, many of them intimately acquainted with the people of India, and most zealous and unremitting in the transaction of business, and so there is greater security for the good government of India than of our colonial possessions. Yet we have a leading member of the Cabinet bringing in a bill to destroy this system which, we are told on such high authority, secures to India a better government than is enjoyed by any of our colonial possessions. Other testimonies, including those of Lord Macaulay and the late Duke of Wellington, were cited by Mr. Whiteside against the transfer of the government of India to the Crown. The hon. member then applied himself to the argument of Lord Palmerston : The Crimean war, he said, drew the attention of the Go vernment to the complicated arrangements arising from the distinction between the War-office and the office of the Secretary of State for War. And so he argued by analogy that in consequence of the late disturbance in India we ought to change the iisstem of government for that country. Now, I appeal to the house to say whether there is any fair analogy between the two cases. Shades of Pitt and Fox, was this the best argument the First Minister of the Crown could give for deciding on a new form of govern ment for India? Does a union effected between two de partments resembling one another in principle apply to a change of system in a government? Does such an altera tion apply to what Lord Macaulay described as " taking away the foundations of the Indian Government "? A more frivolous or superficial argument I never heard, and if that be the beat which the noble lord can produce the case of the Government is gone. But the noble lord instituted a comparison, and 1 avail myself of it. He appealed to the management of the Crimean w Ir. I simply ask y to compare the conduct of that war with what has of late been done in India, and I think a sufficient answer will be sup plied to the suggestive argument of the noble lord. A few gallant men placed in positions of authority in India were, it is true, surprised, hut not dismayed. They proved them selves prompt in action, fertile in resource, heroic in forti tude. (Cheers.) By the exercise of those high qualities they have preserved to you an empire. Yet the return which the noble lord would make to the laxly which established the system under the operation of which none but men of ability, capacity, and energy—such as the men to whom I have been referring—are raised to important situations would be to overthrow its power by force of an analogy drawn between its administration and the manage ment under the auspices of her Majesty's Ministers of the Crimean vier. (Cheers.) Yes, that is the course which the noble lord asks you to take, as if he thought nobody was entitled to respect except those who starved an army, who ignored merit, who sheltered incapacity, who screened high offenders, and who stifled truth. (Laud and con tinued cheers.) He could understand why the measure was brought forward at this particular period : Inquiry into recent events in India must sooner or later take place. We must find out whether the East India Company ought to be made the scapegoat in this instance, or whether, in accordance with the constitutional argument of Lord Macaulay, the occupants of the Treasury bencto and among them the First Lord of the Treasury himself, should not be regarded as the principal offenders. We must examine into the legislation of the last three or fear years, so far as India is concerned. We must see whether it has been in conformity with the customs, the manners, and the usages of the people of that country, or whether it was nut in direct antagonlsm to their prejudices and their feelings. We must ascertain whose was the policy which left Delhi unprotected, notwithstanding the repeated representations of Sir C. Napier as to the number of men which would be necessary to man the guns in that fortress and to guard its treasures. We ought, I think, to know why it was that Oude was invadM—( Hear, hear ),—aod to learn, it' possible, what were those measures which led to the occurrence of that terrible calamity which so lately fell upon us. All these are questions which it behoves the House of Commons carefully to examine. Are the blood, the life, the bone, and sinews of the country to be reck lessly squandered by incompetent men, and yet no redress demanded? Are we to express our concurrence with the noble lord at the head of the Government when he says, I will change the system of Indian administration—l will throw the blame of those unhappy events, by inference and implication, upon the Court of Directors. Her Majesty's Ministers are nut open to censure. In fact, nobody is in fault. The mutiny is now a matter of history. The sub ject is disagreeable. Everything connected with it is in a state of the utmost obscurity. 1 therefore think it expo client to take a jump in the dark." (Cheers and laughter.) It is for the House of Commons to say whether that line of argument be in its opinion either just or conclusive, (Loud cheers.) Mr. Whiteside then applied himself to the arguments of the Chancellor of the Exchequer founded on the condition of India before 1784, and on its happy transformation when parliamentary authority Iwas exercised over it, declaring that Sir Cornewall Lewis had assailed the memory of the illustrious dead, and contrasting the policy of Clive and Hastings with that of Lord Dalhousie. So far from the interference of ...Parliament in 1784 having purified the Indian ad-