The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-04 00:00:00

be shown that the reason Why so little was done in India
by Europeans, was the absence of security for capital.
(Hear, hear.) Yet Englishmen were not over prudent
or cautious in investments of their capital, and often lent
to Governments who made it a rule not to repay. J(A
laugh.) It was said, indeed, by the Company some time
ago, that the settlement of Englishmen in India was !not
to be encouraged. So far as they were concerned, India was
terra incognita. In each of the three presidencies there
were scarcely 1,600. Indeed, an Englishman was hardly
ever seek except in the shape of a tax-collector. (Hear,
hear.) It was impossible but that if the Ulaited States had
been possessors of India, where we had ter.s they would have
had hundreds settled in India. (Hear, hear.) The right
hon. gentleman had spoken of the increase of trade. It could
not, of course, but be considerable, for it had begun with
nothing. (Hear, hear.) There was little alteration in our
Indian policy or principles from what they were in the last
century ; and any increase of trade was not owing to that.
Our total exports to India were 8,000,000/., 'but abpve
5,000,0001. of that amount were of the cotton trade. Upon
these figures it would appear that the cotton trade had en-
grossed almost all the increase of Indian commerce. But to
bring all .the rest of our trade together, the total amount di-
vided among the 150,000,000 of the Indian population bras
only 2,500,0001. Whereas Brazil had only a population of
7,500,000, of whom half were slaves, better off, perhaps, than
the people of India, yet the exports to Brazil were 2,500,0001.
If India bnly took in the proportion of one-half, she would
take five times as much as she did of our trade. (Hear.) Such
was the result of our rule in India as respected trade here.
(Hear.) In India the population receive only manufactures
to the amount of ls. ld. a-head per annum, while in Brazil
they took to the amount of Bs. 6d. a-head. (Hear.) The
manufacturers of this country had a deep interest in this
question. (Hear.) The right hon, gentleman referred to the
employment of the natives. This had been made a grnat
point of in 1833, that natives should be employed without
distinction of colour, caste, or creed, yet it did not appear
that there had been the least change in that respect. (Hear-)
On the contrary, the present measure would leave things just
as they were, or worse than they were, before 1833. (Hear.)
The right hon. gentleman proposed to keep up the exclusive-
ness of the " covenanted " service. The court of directors
had discouraged a native university, and had shown the ut-
most indisposition to qualify the natives for admission. to
offices of trust and credit. (Hear.) It was impossible, then,
to accept the highly-varnished statement of the right hon.
gentleman as faithful and true. (Hear, hear.) The right
hon. gentleman had spoken of education and religion. It
appeared that we had succeeded in overthrowing to a great.
degree the native system of education. The !village school-
master had disappeared. And now out of 100,000,000 of
people the Government were only instructing 25,000 childrim,
and out of 29,000,0001. of revenue, they were expending only
60,0001. on education. (Hear, hear.) In India, then, we
had upset the native system of education, and replaced it
with nothing. (Hear.) As to our ecclesiastical establishment,
there were three bishops with 100,0001. a-year, intended
only for 50,000 Europeans, half of whom were Ron:4n
Catholies. And while the Protestant bishops had
4,0001., with 1,2001. a-year for expenses, the Catholic bishops
had only 2501. a-year. (Hear, hear.) The question of Indian
finance the right hon. gentleman had got over in a very lam©
style. (Hear, and laughter.) Among the defences of the
Indian government, circulated at the expense of the Indian
people—(laughter)—was a book of Mr. Prinsep, who showed
that, for the last 16 years, the revenue raised Was
340,000,0001., and the expenditure 341,000,0001—a million
in excess. The company had ,borrowed 16,000,000/., acrd
out of this aggregate of 356,000,000/., only 5,000,000/, had
been paid for public works, and 10,000,000/. in the way of
dividends. (Hear, hear.) What was the Indian debt,
which must come into the budget some year ? (Hear, hear.)
It was stated by Sir Robert Peel, in 1842, in his great speech
on the state of our finances, when he proposed that tem-
porary income tax which had happened to be permanent—
(laughter)—that though there might appear no direct con-
nection between Indian and English finance, that was a very
superficial view of the case ; for that if the credit of Indian
finance were shaken, that of England must sustain it, or be
shaken too. (Hear.) Aud the right hon. baronet stated
that the deficit was 4,700,000/., which had been growing ever
since. (Hear.) And though the last year there was an ap-
parent surplus, it was delusive ; and this year there was a de-
ficit again, which must increase, in consequence of the
Burmese war. (Hear, hear.) He wanted to know where
that system was to end. He found that under the present
government of India the debt of that country had been con-
stantly increasing. When the Board of Control had
first been constituted, the debt had amounted to 8,000,000/. ;
in 1805 it had amounted to 10,000,000/.; in 1849 it had
amounted to 44,000,000/. ; in 1853 it amounted to
47,000,000/. ; and including the bonded debt at home,
it was at present 51,000,0001. The military expenditure
had increased since the. period when the last charter act
had been passed from 8,000,0001. to 12,000,0001. Under
the present system of governing India, a feeling must
necessarily have grown up among the population,
that we hold their country for the purpose of extort-
ing taxes from them, and not for the promotion of their wel-
fare. He believed that the sum taken from the people was
equal to the entire rent of the land. (Marks of dissent from
Mr. Mangles.) • The hon. member shook his head; but he
(Mr. Bright) believed he could show that in many parts of the
country the sum paid to the Government was more than the
rent of the land. Mr. Campbell hail set down the gross re-
venue at present raised in India at 27,000,000/. ; and Mr.
Kaye, who was the latest authority upon the subject, and
who, no doubt, wrote in a comfortable room at the India
House, with the best sources of information at his command,
estimated the gross revenue of India at 29,000,0001. The land
revenue alone amounted to between 12,000,000/. and
13,000,000/. ; and yet it was not half enough to carry on the
government of the country. And let it be remembered that
29,000,000/. in India was a very different sum fi om 29,000,000/.
in this country, for in India any given amount of money would
purchase four or five times the amount of labour which it
would purchase in England. In India they raised from a
people without steam-engines, and from a people whose lauds
'were cultivated in the rudest manner, an amount of taxation
which imposed a heavier burden, he would venture to say,
than had ever been borne by a people possessing the same
means of bearing it. (Hear.) And yet that taxation was not
sufficient to maintain the public establishments, and during
the last 16 years 16,000,000/. had been borrowed for paying
the dividends of the holders of East India stock in this coun-
try. The right hon. gentleman had alluded to the opium
question. Now he (Mr. Bright) wondered that the right hon.
gentleman had been able to speak of it with his usual com-
posure. It appeared to him that that opium question was ono
of the most alarming which they had to consider. (Hear,
hear.) There could not be the slightest doubt that opium
would soon be very extensively cultivated in China, and then
away went the 3,000,0001. of revenue which the East India
Company at present derived from that article. They had
already a deficit in the finances of India ; they had seen loans
opened in that country during the last 45 years ; they had a
Burmese war, involving a considerable new outlay ; after hav-
ing annexed a portion of the Burmese territory, they would
have to meet au increased expenditure; and, in addition to all
that, they had a prospect of a loss of 3,000,000/. of revenue,
which might take place next year. (Hear.) He asked the
house to consider how the people of this country would be
prepared to listen to a proposal for raising a considerable loan,
with a view to maintain our supremacy in India. He asked
them to consider whether it would not be better for them
to see in time whether they could not alter the policy which
tended to those results—whether they could not reduce the
expense of their civil service—whether they could not im-
improve their means of communication, and by that means
diminish their military expenditure, and whether they might
not with advantage receive it as an acknowledged principle
that a Governor-General who returned home from India
without having added one acre to their territory should be
received•with more honour than a Governor-General who re-
turned home after having added to that territory a province
or a kingdom. The plan of the right hon. gentleman appeared
to him (Mr. Bright) to differ very little from the existing
system ; and he confessed he had never seen so great a cry
with so little wool. The proposal of the right hon. gentleman
came to this, that the 30 gentlemen who had hitherto consti-
tuted the East Indian Board were, by process of self-immola-
tion, to be reduced to 13. He thought that would be one of
the most affecting scenes in the history of India—(laughter)—
and he hoped' that as the company kept their writers they
would employ a painter to depict that great event. (Renewed
laughter.) The public would then see the hon. member for
Honiton (Sir J. W. Hogg), the hon. member for Guildford
(Mr. Mangles), and their colleagues, like so many men in a
sinking boat, 'casting lots to see who should go overboard,
whether the young or the old, the fat or the lean. (Continued
laughter.) Fifteen of them should go, and 15 of them would
remain, while three others would be added ; and then,
instead of 33 councillors they would have but' 18. Of those
18 the Government would ultimately have the nomination of
6 ; and let me here observe how the right hon. gentleman
would carry Out his Scheme. He wished that six of the direc-
tors should be chosen by the Crown, from the most eminent
men connected with' the service of India, who had passed 10
years in, that country. But that very arrangement showed
that the right hon. gentleman himself did not approve of the
mode of selecting the other six. There were to be two ingre-
dients in the composition of the board, the one wholesome
and the other poisonous, and the right hon. gentleman would
give them two grains of poison for one. grain of wholesome
nutriment. (Hear, hear.) That was the plan which the right
hon. gentleman sought to palm upon the house as a great
and a comprehensive measure. (Ironical cries of hear,
hear.) He (Mr. Bright) would venture to say that there
never had been so great a speech—he meant so great in
length—(a laugh)—as that of the right hon. gentleman,
which told so little of what the house and the country
really wanted to know. (Laughter.) There were to be
twelve members of the board whom the right hon. gentle-
man would degrade, by the very nature of his proposal, and
there were six other 'members who were to be properly
elected, because the twelve others were not elected in a satis-
factory manner— (laughter)—those twelve others consisting
of bankers and brewers, and people of all sorts in the city of
London—(continued laughter)—who found it their interest to
get themselves nominated to the office, no matter through
what kennel they might have to pass on their way to it.
(Laughter.) But those gentlemen were to be twelve in num-
ber, while their better selected, and no doubt better qualified
colleagues, were to be only six in number. (Hear„ hear.) He
should certainly have been less disposed to disapprove of the
measure of the right hon. gentleman if he had left out the
toa k
secretn o w whetheramcommittee
e theas
twelve altogether, and had confined himself to the six, who
alone could be expected to possess the confidence of the
r country.ighthol2 (H e r,he
gentlemana
heretofore (an indication in the affirmative from Sir C. Wood).
The right hon. gentleman, it appeared, was to have that
secret committee, which was to be composed of the chairman,
confirmation of his opinion, said that
quoted Mr. Tucker in
uastthaneorit'h;
rlannte towiltevde
he believed that the secret co
present 30 gentlemen under-
went, was no better than a
the deputy-chairman, and himself. Rut Mr.. Kaye, who
very
extraordinary Then
In
ditherelndia
;hbw.
the small sum of 3001 a year
Now, no private weat, s
it
secretary, or even than a sea.
each, all the hardship of governing
gentleman was going to raise the wages f
ifis 18 directors by
to the office, he (Mr. Bright) had
pa-
tronage were to be attached
no hesitation in expressing his belief that the salary would be
vaulmd anpgpemeaern,tforAt.
a sum of 200/. a year. (A laugh.)
too small, and would be inconlsdistea nteawr tahs
aifw:hs:economy.
(Hear, hear.) Indeed,
weorurourufepd by' all sorts of rightdifficul-
ties,hon
gentleman, finding himself s
do tine*
alittle of everybody's
had determined upon a
if adopting
tried
e had rre to please everybody,
views except his own—as
and bad in the end succeeded in pleasing nobody at all. He
Bright)
(Mr. honestly declared that if he could make such a
I,at of the right honourable gentleman, and
speech as t .
believe in
its statements, he would have left the Go-
vernment of India as it was—{hear, bear)—and if he had
thought it necessary to alter that government at all, he
would have altered it essentially and upon principle. He
• t the whole plan of the right hon. gentle-
protested against
-man.
That was a question in which no class in this country
could have any intere •
st distinct from that of any other class ;
it was not a question of Manchester against Essex, of demo-
cracy against aristocracy, of Church against non-conformity.
(Hear,
hear.) It was a question upon which they had all
the ram© interest, and upon which their children might have
a still deeper interest. (Cheers.) If they drove the people of
India to an insurrection which would render it necessary for
England to re-conquer them, or to retire from their land for
ever, they would find themselves reduced to a most distress-
ing alternative, and one which he could certainly not wish to
have recorded in the annals of his country. He objected to
that bill mainly upon the ground that it would maintain a
double government of India. Mr. Tucker's description of such