The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-26 00:00:00

tinue it there. During the same period the Court of Di-
rectors had exercised the power of recalling the Governor-
General, or any other public officer, and of that power ho
did not propose to deprive them.
Mr. HITME said one of his objects in supporting the
clause was to enable the secret committee to communicate
their proceedings to their colleagues in the direction. At
present they were not able to do so, except with the con-
sent of the Board of Control.
Mr. RICH should vote for the clause, because it would
give reality and substance to the remonstrances which the
secret committee could now make.

Mr. OT WAY said it was important it should be known
in India by whom public officers were recalled. At present
that could not be known, in consequence of the directors
being compelled to sign dispatches against which they had
solemnly protested. Allow them, however, to record their
dissent, and they would be relieved from a disagreeable
position.
Mr. BLACKETT observed that Mr. Tuckett, an East
India director, whose memoirs were lately published, speak-
ing in reference to the Affghan war, said that he had felt
humiliated at his name being mentioned in connection with
that war, although he had not concurred in the order of the
secret committee in which it eriginated. He (Mr. Blackett)
thought that responsibility should always be laid on the
proper shoulders, and he should, therefore, support the
amendment of the hon. baronet.
Mr. V. SMITH did not much admire the constitution of
body like the secret committee, and he quite understood
how humiliating it must be to be compelled to sign orders
in respect to which there was no responsibility and no
credit. On this account he should have wished that the
Court of Directors should be smaller, in order that the
secret committee might be done away with, and that the
orders might be transmitted through the whole Court. But
he thought there was much force in the objections which
had been stated by the hon. baronet the member for Honi-
ton, against registering the dissents of the members of the
committee, aad he should, therefore, not think it advisable
to support the amendment.
The committee then divided—
For the amendment... 3O
Against it
Majority against . —42

Mr. HUME moved the insertion of a clause extending
the qualifications of electors of the Court of Directors to all
persons having 5001. stock in the East India Company, and
having had that for 12 months, as by the present law ; also,
all holders of company's paper to the value of 10,000 rupees ;
also, to allow every civil and military servant who had
served the company 20 years in India, and who should
have retired from the service of the company, to vote for a
director after he should have been 12 months at home, and
12 months after he should have resigned the service, and to
enable all electors to vote by proxy.
Mr. LOWE said that his first objection to the proposed
amendment was that they had struck out of the act all
those clauses which prohibited canvassing for directorships,
and the great evil having been said to be that the best per-
sons could not be induced to come forward as candidates
in consequence of the onerous nature of the canvass, the
hon. gentleman now proposed greatly to increase its oner-
ousness by extending the number of the electors. Another
and conclusive objection to the amendment was, that it
proposed to give a share of the governing power to a num-
ber of persons not belonging to the company at all, but
standing so it in the relation either of creditors or servants.
Parliament had already decided that the government of
India should for the present be left with the East India Com-
pany ; and that being the case, he thought that they should
not be right in taking the government out of the hands of
the company, and giving it to some other body of men.
He therefore felt himself compelled to oppose the amend-
ment.

Mr. WISE supported the clause.
Sir C. WOOD considered that there was this fatal ob-
jection to any iacrease in the existing constituency in the
manner now proposed, that it would be totally inconsistent
with the decision to which the house had already come,
viz., that the government of India should, for a time at
least, be vested in the East India Company ; that was, iu
the proprietors of East India Stock. They might take
away the government from the company if they pleased,
and choose whatever constituency they thought best to
elect the council or other body whom they might appoint
to be the advisers of the minister for India ; but they
could not consistently, with the charter, or with the
principle of this bill, or even consistently with the very
existence of the East India Company, place upon the
electoral body by whom the directors were chosen any
other class of persons than those who were holders of East
India Stock.

Mr. T. BARING saw no force in the argument of the
President of the Board of Control, that the constituency
must be confined to the holders of East India Stock. The
right hon. gentleman bad himself introduced a great change
in that principle, by giving to the Crown the power of no-
minating to the Court of Directors without any appeal to
the Court of Proprietors, and without the qualification on
the part of the nominees of being holders of stock. If the
principle wore applicable to the Court of Directors, it
might to be so also to the constituency who elected them.
He wished to see an elective body whose interests should
be identical with those of India, and who should be per-
manent and independent—a body to whom the Government
might look in 1874 for the means of efficiently carrying on
the government of India. Qn these grounds he should
support the amendment to be proposed by the hon. mem-
ber for Warwickshire, which, if carried, would certainly
identify the Court of Proprietors with the interests of
India. He approved also of an extension of the Court of
Proprietors, because it would materially affect the evil
system of voting by proxy. He was afraid, however, that
the amendment of the hon. member for Montrose would
not meet his views.

Lord J. RUSSELL begged to observe, before the com-
mittee divided, that the hon. member for Huntingdon
carried the matter far beyond the Government proposition
or the necessity of the case. The Government proposed to
deal with a body, anomalous indeed, but whose practical
administration of the government of India had been for
the welfare of India; whereas the hon. member for Hunt-
ingdon would create a now and strange body, an indepen-
dent body, standing between the Crown and tho people of
India, and the working of which was a matter altogether
of uncertainty. The point was one, at all events, which
should be left to the wisdom of Parliament at some future
time ; it was quite inappropriate on the present occasion
The committee then divided. The numbers were—
For the clause
Against it
Ma jori ty...

-20

The clause was consequently lost.

Mr. BIACKETT then moved to add the following words

to clause 22:—"And whereas doubts have been entertained
as to the extent of the powers granted to the Governor-
General in Council by the 43d sec. of the said act of the 3d
and 4th years of King William IV., it is hereby declared
that the said Governor-General in Council shall have full

powers to enact, alter, or amend any laws for the said ter-
ritories (subject to the restrictions specified in the said 43d
section of the said act, as well as to the right of disallowance
of such laws vested in the Court of Directors by the 44th
section of the same), without any previous sanction of the
said Court of Directors, except in the cases reserved by the
46th section of the said act, notwithstanding any provision
to the contrary contained in former acts or charters still in
force and unrepealed."
Sir C. WOOD opposed the clause on the ground that
there was no doubt whatever with regard to the existing
state of the law. There was an old axiom that prevention
was better than cure. For that reason he thought it right
that the Government should possess the power which they
did, and he should therefore oppose the clause.
The clause was then negatived without a division.
Mr. RICH, who had given notice to move a clause, in-
quired before doing so whether his right hon. friend had
adopted any regulations, and if so, what regulations, to
provide for the great difficulties which attended the admis-
sion of the young natives of India into the college at Hal-
leybury ?
Sir C. WOOD said it was impossible that he should have
made any regulations of the nature referred to until he
knew whether the house would assent to the principle of
the bill which he had introduced.

Mr. RICH concluded, then, that the right hon. gentle-
man had prepared no regulations on the subject. Although
he was certain that it would be rejected, he felt bound to
move the resolution of which he had given notice, and to
. .

oress it to a division in order to show the sense entertained

of what was due to the natives, not in word, but in deed.
The hon. gentleman then moved a clause giving greater
practical efEsiency to the 87th section of the act 3d and 4th
of William IV., c. 85, which declared that no native of her
Majesty's Indian territories, nor any natural born subject
of her Majesty resident therein, should by reason only of
his religion, place of birth, descent, colour, or any of them
be disabled from holding any place, office, or employment
under the said company.
Sir H. MADDOCK could not support the motion.
Mr. BRIGHT believed that justice might be done to the
natives of India without diminishing the sources of employ-
ment for Europeans in that country, or reducing their
emoluments. He was convinced that arrangements might
be made which would render the natives of India just as
well satisfied with British rule as the Europeans in India
were themselves and it was because he believed that the
proposition before the committee was just in itself, and
consistent with the interests of both countries, that he
asked tho committee to assent to it and to force the Presi-
dent of the Board of Control to insert it in the bill.

Sir C. WOOD observed that the object of her Majesty's
Government was to do justice to all classes in India, and to
extend the employment of the natives, not only with re-
gard to the numbers to whom employment was given, but
also by promoting them to higher situations than they had
hitherto filled. The hon. member for Richmond had stated
that the clause in the act of 1833 had been a perfect nullity.
Mr. RICH explained that what he had said was, that
that clause was a nullity so far as the covenanted service
was concerned. It was true that natives had been admit-
ted, under the company's authority, to minor situations,
but they then reached a wall which, by the rules of the
covenanted service, was impassable.

Sir C. WOOD proceeded to say that the hon. member
for Manchester (Mr. Bright) had stated that the clause had
been an entire nullity, and that the natives had not been
admitted into the service of the
➢lr. BRIGHT explained that he had said that natives
were now only employed in offices which were just as ac-
cessible to them before the clause was passed, and the bar-
rier which that clause was supposed to throw down still
existed.

_ Sir C. WOOD said the object of the clause to which the
hon. member referred was to promote the general employ-
mentdia, but i
of natives in India, and if the natives had been gene-
rallyenployed the clause was not a nullity. The hon.
member.e for Manchester had complained that much higher
'''''''' were given to Europeans than to the natives of In-
office in India
Rho
n thotevidence taken by the committee it was dis-
tinctlywn
, artarlity to leave this country to undertake
induce a
man
of
fiat a much higher salary was required to
country, than would t, expose himself to the climate of that
ssuimpeirilin.t(eiuntdieenacaetoiheouh,eie.b7ceived for
maintained
e performance. of
salaries must be paid
tions, and who were called officers
duties. He must observe
had been admitted to much higher
tofore been open to them, and Lorrd
to a native the appointment of nia
to It was necessary that European
in India, and large
o.ttfihaaciteilinatives of India
who occupied high posi-
, hour, to discharge important
Reference had been made to the petitions which Dalhousie had given
Calcutta.
presented to Parliament from India, but it was 1.1w).1
well known
been
that those petitions were not wholly the productions
the natives, for they were partly got up by the Englishno
editors of newspapers. He would undertake to say that
one of the petitions was written and got up by the editor
of a newspaper at Madras—(hear, hear)—and was not, as
it was represented to be, the spontaneous production of the
natives. It was not necessary, in order to insure the ge-
gistraoitithan had here.
ge-
neral employment of the natives, that they should be
largely admitted into the covenanted service. The door
was thrown open to them, practically, to a far greater ex-
tent than before by the general admission of natives to
Haileybury College, and, for his own part, he believed
that natives might be admitted safely and advantageously
into the covenanted service.

Lord STANLEY was afraid that the right hon. baronet
was not fully awata of the importance of this amendment.
UNA it turned the 'whole queation whether or no the 24