The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-07 00:00:00

OFFICERS IN THE INDIAN ARMY.

Colonel SYKES, on the motion for going into committee
of supply, moved :—" That the recent appointment of
employment (except in emergent cases) of officers
of the Indian armies with regiments to which they
do not belong, in suppresssion of the regimental
rights of the officers or usages of those regiments,
is contrary to the spirit of the Act 21 and 22 Vic. c. 106.
which guaranteed "that the military and naval forces of the
East India Company should be deemed to be the military
and naval forces of her Majesty, and should be under
the same obligations to serve her Majesty as they
would have been under to serve the said company,
and should be liable to serve under the same territorial
limits only, for the same terms only, and be entitled to the
like pay, pensions, allowances, and privileges, and the like
advantages as regards promotion and otherwise, as if they
had continued in the service of the said company;" and asked
the Secretary of State for India whether such appointments
had been approved by him.
Mr VANSITTART supported the motion, and said that
it was high time there should be a remedy applied to a
grievance which was now brought under the consideration
of the house in a temperate and logical form.
After some observations from Mr TOR ENS and Captain
JERVIS,
Sir C. WOOD said that the whole question raised, the
importance of which he admitted, was under the considera-
tion of Government,and he trusted in a few days he would be
able make a satisfactory explanation to the house on that
subject. (Hear, hear.) He denied that the appoint.
ment of officers in the Indian army was regulated by any
principle except the efficiency of the officers who were
selected to occupy important positions. He contended that
in order to secure the preservation of our dominions
in India it was necessary to increase the number of English
soldiers in the garrisons, so as to render us independent
of the native soldiering. In support of this argument
he cited the authority of eminent persona Connected with
Indian affairs.

Sir M. FARQUHAR. reminded the house that the right
hon. baronet had been warned of the impossibility of carry-
ing out his pledges with respect to the Indian army if he
was determined that no injustice should be done to the
British army; and also that he had been warned that if
the staff corps were established injustice must be done to
the other officers of the Indian army.
The subject then dropped.
THE CONFERENCE.

Lord H. LENNOX—Sir, before you leave the chair, I
wish to ask my hon. and gallant friend the member for Lis-
keard (Mr B, Osborne) whether he is satisfied with the
tenor of the reply which he received from the First Lord of
the Treasury this evening ; for if he is, I venture to say my
hon. and gallant friend is the only member of the house
who is so, (Laughter.) The noble lord and his Government
have all along discouraged any attempt to inquire what is
going on in the Conference; and if complete secresy bad
prevailed with respect to what was going on in the council
chamber, I should be the lest person to undertake the re-
sponsibility of pressing upon the Government, or upon my
hon, and gallant friend, a course which would jeopardise
the interests of peace. But such is not the case. Although
her Majesty's Government are silent, the journals of Paris,
Vienna, and Berlin teem with news of what passes, or is
supposed to pass, in the council chamber in Downing-street.
It will be recollected that at the commencement of the ses-
sion the noble lord at the head of the Government and his
colleague in another place, night after night, were in the
habit of declaring that they intended to abide by the treaty
of 1852. Subsequently the noble lord announced, amidst
the cheers of the house, ttiat the Conference was to mee4_,
upon the basis of mierintaining the independence e_.4id ba"
tegrity of the &minions of King Christian. 7
0,4 the
ver Go,
-
vernment of
the noble lord and his collee
and over again declared that thee:
'fie having o
1)015:,;37, was of itself a sufficient
jastification for the question
of my hon. friend. I wash then to ask my hon. friend
whether he will give Co the house an assurance that upon
an early day he will again call attention to this subject. If
he does he 'will meet, I am sure, with the sympathy of the
majority of this house and of the country, and will endea-
vour to elicit from the Government whether the statements
put forward by foreign journals are correct, that the Confe-
rence now only sits upon the basis of the annihilation of the
treaty of 1852. I beg to ask my hon. friend whether he
can give that assurance to the house.
Mr B. OSBORNE—I do not know what assurance I
can give to the house; but before I give any I should like
hon. gentlemen on the other side of tho house to give this
assurance, that in the event of my again reviving a debate
upon the treaty of 1852, I shall not be met again by a
movement of the previous question. (Cheers.) The course I
have hitherto taken upon this subject has met with encou-
ragement from the other side of the house. If lam asked
whether I am satisfied with the answer given by the noble
lord to my question, I have only to say that, although
gratified for the smallest favours, I do not feel exactly satis-
fied with that answer. For it struck me from the very first
that this Conference was instituted more to preserve the in-
tegrity of the Treasury Bench—more to prevent the dismem-
berment of the Ministry—than to preserve the integrity of
Denmark. (Opposition cheers and laughter,) And I would
put this to the house, that this Conference is meeting—mark
you, not from day to day, as if with the object of settling
the question ; but the month of July will speedily arrive,
hon. members will go out oe town, and the question must
die a natural death. lam surprised at the reticence of the
house upon the question. Up to a certain point I think they
were right, and perhaps I was wrong in bringing it pre-
maturely forward; but when we have arrived at the 6th of
Jtules and the question has been allowed to drag its slow
length along from day to day and week to week, I think the
house ought to be put in possession of some definite infor-
mation. What is the position of the house and the coma-
try ? We see the lowest inhabitants of the most minor ca-
pitals in Europe are informed by their newspapers of what
is taking place in the Conference. (Hear, hear.) We have
therefore what we believe to be our best information derived
from foreign newspapers; and it comes to this, that the
subjects of a constitutional Government are the worst in-
formed in Europe of what is taking place in our own capi-
Tyr
—ow long is this to go one If I were to use the true
phrase with respect to these proceedings, and speak of them
as a farce, I should be called to order by you, sir, from the
chair; therefore I will not do so--.(taughtee—)but there
can be no doubt the house is placed in a most humiliating
position, and that the house is being tricked into silence by
members of a Government who, like the monks of La
Trappe, have taken the vow of silence, (Laughter) Whe-
ther they are digging their own graves is another question.
But this I must say, if we submit day after day and week
after week to be put off with these evasive answers, in which
the noble lord is so great a proficient as to eminently entitle
him to that doctor's degree which he obtained the other
day, we shall not only be digging the grave of the indepen-
dence of this house, but the grave of our national honour.
(Cheers.)

Mr. DISRAELI—Great reticence has been preserved
in the House of Commons on these affairs. I hardly
know anything to be more admired in our Parliamentary
system than the reserve which obtains when it is known
that her Majesty's Government are engaged in important
negotiations upon which the question of peace or war may
rest. (Hear.) I think it is a characteristic which marks
it out from all other attempts at parliamentary govern-
ment; and is one of the surest guarantees for the endu-
rance of constitutional rule; bat at the same time I must
say that, after listening to the observations, and accepting
without annoyance the taunts of the hon. and gallant gen-
tleman who has thus addressed us on the moving of the
previous question—l having moved the previous question
on a former occasion, whenever I thought it was for the
interests of the country and due to her Majesty's Govern-
ment—l must say I was disappointed to-night in the answer
the noble lord gave. (Opposition cheers.) I think, in the
situation in which we now find ourselves, it would have
been salutary, and it would have been wise and politic on
the part of her Majesty's Government to have shown more