The Press. — London, England, 1857-12-05 00:00:00

1174 THE PEE S S, DECEMBER 5, 1857. may not reasonably distrust the vigour, the intelligence, and the energies of those by whom the efforts of her gal lant army in the East are directed? (Hear, hear.) Now, wy lords, if the advice of my noble friend (Lord Ellenburough) had been adopted, the offers of the Pasha of Egypt accepted, and troops sent through Egypt in the beginning of June, they might have arrived in Calcutta towards the middle of August; while, as it was, the tirst reinforcement which did arrive in India, with the excep tion of the troops detached from China and a small num ber of men from the Mauritius, was part of a regiment which was sent out in the Gulden Fleece, a remarkably quick ship, which made the passage in the extraordinary short space of sixty days, but which did lint arrive until the latter end of October. Now, my lords, look to the cir cumetances of that garrison upon which the interest of all is painfully fixed ; look at the position of Lucknow and the position of the relieving force, and tell me what would have been the effect if those troops which arrived in Octo ber had arrived at the beginning, the middle, or even the latter end of September. If they had so arrived the move ments of Sir H. Havelock would hive been perfectly safe and secure, and not the slightest risk would have been run by the garrison of Lucknow, with all its helpless women and children, of falling into the hands of their brutal and barbarous enemies ; but if, from the delays of the Govern ment in sending out troops that town should fall, upon them will rest. the guilt and the shame of such a fearful calamity. (Hear, hear;. Lord Derby then passed a most glowing eulogy on the conduct of the officers in India, who, alone, out numbered, and believing themselves abandoned, nevertheless made head against the savage hordes by which they were surrounded, and with their own good swords had saved the Indian empire. He con sidered also the meed of punishment to be awarded to all taken in arms against us should be " death ;" but for those inhuman torturers and murderers of women and children, he would condemn them, not to death, but to a life of hopeless slavery, with the brand of Cain upon their brows. After deprecating any stimulus given to the troops for univeral ven geance against the natives, and pointing out the danger of the interference by the Indian Government in matters of religion with the natives, Lord Derby prodetded to that paragraph of the Royal Speech which referred to a measure of reform, and to which measure, he said, he was prepared to give his most anxious and serious consideration : The new measure of reform is, according to my noble friend, merely to correct some trifling defects or blemishes in the Reform Act, to which that, like all other human laws, is subject. If the new measure is to do anything more than that, my noble friend knows nothing of it and is not answerable for it ; but, as an old parliamentary tactician, he had been asked to make this explanation. Be the proposed alterations of the Reform Act large or small, I say for myself, and for those with whom I have the honour of acting, we are ready, if in the judgment of the Government this is a convenient and suitable time for introducing a measure of reform, to give it the most deliberate, impartial, and dispassionate consideration. ( Hear, hear). If it will remove blemishes so much the better—we are far from maintaining that the Reform Act is free from blemishes ; and if it should contain improv. - ments, we by all means are prepared to consider those im provements. But what I wish to impress upon the Government is the advisability of introducing their bill at the earliest possible period. A bill was announced two or three years ago, and but for extraordinary circumstances it would have been brought forward last session. I have not the least doubt, therefore, that the Government are pre pared at once to redeem the promise held out in the Speech from the Throne. None of your lordships can imagine for a moment that the Government have been dealing so unfairly with Parliament and the country as for two years to have been dangling before our eyes the prospect of a bill which is not in existence. lam sure the bill is ready, and when it comes before us we shall have to deal with it as the calm and deliberate expression of the opinion of Ministers. Being the work of a united Cabinet, and, as I have said, ready to be laid before Parliament, do hope the Government will lose no time in producing it. (Hear, hear.) Independently of the particular business for which we have been called together at the present time, some advantage will have been gained by this short session before Christmas, if the Government take the opportunity which it affirds of laying before us—not with the view of proceeding at once to its discussion—the measure of Parliamentary Reform which they have announced, so that all parties may see how far the views of Ministers coincide with their own, and may be able during the recess to consider what course they ought to pursue when Parliament reassembles in February. Earl Gmoivir.LE, in reply, admitting the great distress which Lord Derby had sta , ed to exist in the manufacturing districts, and which he said his own rivate information confirmed, defended the course pursued by the Government in regard to the suspen sion of the Bank Act as a step which he declared had only been taken when its urgent necessity had been shown, and by which only the commerce of the country had been saved from the most serious and dangerous embarrassments. As to any change in the Charter Act, Lord Granville observed : I can only say that it is not the intention of her Ma jesty's Government to propose any change in that act; as at present advised they do nut think it desirable to do so; but they are anxious that the committee of the House of Commons which sat upon the subject last year, and which recommended that it should be reappointed in the present session, should be permitted to consider carefully all the additional circumstances which have occurred. At the also heard it said again and again, " Take care of your im ports, and yourexports will take care of themselves." N , in ten months of 18.55 our exports amounted to 78,087,4311. That was an enormous, perhaps an inflated amount of commercial business; but in 18.57, during the same space of time—ten months—your exports, that unvarying test of national prosperity by which we are to measure the happi ness and welfare of the manufacturing community, have increased to 106,000,0001., being an increase of 28,000,0001. within two years in the single item of exports. Has there been a corresponding increase in the happiness and com fort of the operatives, in the wealth of the manufacturers, in the wellbeing of all persons engaged in those branches? We are told that with this increasing amount of exports there has been a constantly increasing and almost over whelming amount of distress. Large as our exports have been, yet they have not kept pace with our im ports. In the course of three years our exports have been 308,000,0001., while our imports have been no less than 468,000,0001., showing a balance of 159,000,0001. against us in those three years. Well, if your imports have exceeded your exports, you must have been driving a very profitable trade, and must have the advantage of having about 159,000,000/. in your pockets. But the trade has not been so profitable as you seem to imagine. Let me, in the first place, ask you whether all your imports have been paid for? ( Hear, hear.) We have in the course of the period to which I have referred, in consequence of the inequality which pre vailed between the amount of our exports and our imports, sent out of the country something like 84,000,000/. in the shape of bullion—(Hear, hear)—and if we happen at this moment to be in a state of indebtedness it is not solely because the amount of our exports has been so large, but because our imports are encouraged by the Legislature in a degree which is out of all proportion to our exports. (Hear, hear.) If that be not the cause of the commer cial distress which now prevails, I should wish to know from her Majesty's Ministers to what, in their opinion, that distress is to be attributed, and what it is which has rendered necessary the immediate interference of the Legislature in order to restore confidence to the public. ( Hear, hear.) Lord Derby then proceeded to speak of the rebellion in India, entering into a most minute detail of the gradual rise and development of the mutiny from the first individual caws of insubordination to the aecu initiation of horrors at Delhi, and exposing the utter and hopeless ignorance of the Government in deal ing with these events. He greatly blamed the con duct of her Majesty's Government in not sending reinforcements sooner, and, when at last they did despatch a tardy aid of troops, in sending them by the long sea voyage, though the Sultan, in July, had granted a firman for their passage overland, the Pasha of Egypt had offered his own carriages and horses to convey them across the htliinu4, the Emperor of the French had offered to allow the passage of any numter through France, and the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Company offered to tlie Government in July to make arrangements for the passage of troops from Alexandria across the Isth mus, by which they could have been transported from ship to ship within twenty four hours, and they offered the use of their steamers, which they stated were capable of carrying 500 men at each tip:— If troops had been conveyed by that route across the Isthmus, they would have arrived at Bombay or Point de Galle in six or seven weeks; and, consequently, troops despatched from this country at the end of June or the beginning of July would have reached India by the middle of August. The Government, however, declined all these propositions. They refused to avail themselves of the offers of the Sultan, of the Pasha, of the Emperor of the French, and of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. They relied upon their own means .and resources—and what happened? After a time matters became more serious, and, towards the latter end of August, application was made by the Government to the East India Directors, who had from the first been anxious to forward troops by the overland route, to arrange with the Peninsular and Oriental Company the very bargain which a month be fore her Majesty's Government had declined. The East India Directors, in concert with the War-office and the illustrious duke (the Duke of Cambridge), who I am sure was from the first anxious to provide for the despatch of reinforcements, undertook the arrangement. Lord Derby then related a fact which, as the noble lord stated, sounded so incredible that it was difficult to believe it : I ask to be contradicted by the Government if they are able to contradict me, but should they do so I promise to bring forward incontrovertible evidence to prove it. Some considerable time after the arrangements to which I have referred, the right hon. gentleman the President of the Board of Control somewhat surprised the agent of the Peninsular and Oriental Company by a letter, in which he asked him if some plan could not be arranged by which troops could be sent to India by means of the steamers of the company. Well, my lords, the gentleman to whom the letter was addressed read it over, and then examined the seal and scrutinised the signature to see it' it could possibly be a hoax, but finding that it was a genuine pro duction, he wrote back to say, " You ask if it can be done ; why, it is being done and has been done fur a considerable time, wider the authority of the Government." I ask your lordships if it is not inconceivable that the President of the Board of Control, himself a member of the Cabinet, should write and ask if it was possible to organise a scheme when that scheme had been in full operation for a consi derable period under the sanction of the Government? (Laughter.) I ask you if, with such instances, the country same time they do not mean to preclude themselves should they deem such a step advisable, from making any alterations in the Bank Charter which upon further infer• mation may appear to them either prudeut or necessary. (Hear.) He defended the course adopted by the Government in regard to the mutiny in India, and denied that our empire there was now in peril, though he most heartily joined Lord Darby in the eloquent eulogium which he had uttered on its military servants, a share of which praise he also claimed for the ci vilians. As far as regarded the proposed Reform Bill, he could only say that as soon as Parliament met in February the Government would be ready to give a most free and ample account of the details of their intended measures. The Earl of ELLENBOROUGS reproached the Government with their want of energy and the loss of time they had occasioned in sending out the troops to India. In the month of May Government promised that eight thousand men should proceed to India : Not a man went before the Ist of July, and in the first three days of July between 600 and 700 sailed. But, I repeat, there was a loss of five weeks. t Hear, hear.) I was so constantly thinking on the subject, that, having left London for the country immediately after the 19th of May, I actually from the country wrote a private note to the noble lord the Secretary for the War Department, in which I suggested that the vessels carrying the last troops to China should stop at Point de Galle, and be there placed at the disposal of the Governor-General if he thought them necessary. That 1 did on the 21st of May, and if these troops had gone to Point de Galle how different would have been our position in India! (Cheers.) Again, when they were sent, five weeks too late, hJw were they sent? Why, in the old ships which had been trading to India fifteen years ego. (A laugh.) And what assistance was given to them on passing the Line? None at all. They were all sailing ships, and you have ten or twelve steamers employed on the coast of Africa, every one of which might have been made available in towing them through the calms by which they would be detained in crossing the Line. ( Hear, hear. ► The dif ference of five weeks is the difference of the safety or the fall of Lucknow. (Cheers.) That is the difference, and I say distinctly that due diligence was not used. (Hear, hear.) The frith of the Government, pledged on the 19th of May, was not kept; the troops were not sent as they should have been; proper care was not taken, and if Lucknow now falls, for all the loss of honour to this country which that event will entail, and for all the horrors that will be perpetrated, her Majesty's Government will be responsible. (Cheers.) The Duke of ARGYLL denied that the Govern ment had shown any want of energy, or that any distinct pledge had been made by the Government as to the time when the first troops were to quit England. Earl GREY spoke strongly against the recent sus pension of the Bank Act. That Government should require twice within ten years a Bill of Indemnity, for violating an Act of Parliament, without taking any steps to alter that act, was manifestly wrong. The act having been thus twice suspended its moral power was at end, and in any other time of pres sure which might arise it suspension again would naturally be looked forward to by the mercantile classes. Lord OVERSTONF was quite prepared to support the principle which would separate the laws relating to the dealing in money from the laws relating to the issue of money. The principles of the Act of 1844 were founded entirely upon the principles of free trade—a free trade in money, which provided for the supply of the country with money as it did for the supply of the country with food. The Go. vernment must look to the causes which had led to the recent suspension of the Bank Act, and not go on merely applying palliatives to a practice which was in some parts so wrong that, if not checked, it would at last overpower our whole monetary system : Of all arrangements the prasent was the most unsatis factory. If so great a subject as the standard of value were to be tampered with by discretionary acts on the part of any one, let Parliament be told by whom and under what circumstances so great an authority was to be exer cised. At present there was a divided authority between the Bank and the Government. He thought that nothing ought to be done to interfere with a matter of such vital importance as the maintenance of the standard of value by which all commercial transactions were regulated. His complaint against the act was that it was likely to place WI in a situation in which some departure from the standard of value would be inevitable. What he feared was, not that the standard of value would be departed from by what he might call malice prepense on the part of the Bank or the Government, but that a state of things would arise under the operation of the act in which the existing standard of value could be no longer maintained without incurring difficulties which neither Government nor Parliament nor the country would be prepared for. The Address was then agreed to, and the house adjourned at eleven p.m. HOUSE OF COMMONS.—THURSDAY. The house met at 1.30 p,nl, A very full attendance of members was present.