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

/7 Z

petition itself r ('Hear,. oret enactment
of the British Parliament in 1787 is dealt with
as an sot of
recent legislation, and a report of 1837 is quoted as the
latest document on irrigation in India, whilst a statem.nt
that it was impossible to obtain official information reftri
to a public document which gives the information which
the parties say they are unable to obtain. (Hear, hear.)
I wrote to Madras to make inquiry 313 to the origin of thin
petition, and the result of the inquiry was that it was got
up so obscurely that the first that was heard bf it was by
seeing complaints in the local papers that they could not
got a sight of the petition. (Hear, hear.) My correspon-
dent tells me that now at Madras its statements are known
and felt to be so untrue and so monstrous that it excites
very little attention indeed, and that wherever knowledge
exists it is treated with the utmost contempt, though here,
iu our ignorance, in London it is palmed upon us as a docu-
ment of the greatest importance. (Hear, hear.) lam far
from saying that there is not much in the administration
of India, and the circumstances of her population, that
ought to have been different—that there are not many
sins of omission rather than of commission—but I think
that when I have finished my statement the hones will 1.8
convinced that much has been effected by those in whose
hands the domestic administration of Lidia Las been re-
posed, that the functionaries selected ny the Government.
at home have not been neglectful of those great material
and domestic interests which were committed to their
charge, and that if more has not been done, it is in no
slight degree to be attributed to the unfortunate, continu-
ous, and expensive wars in which that country has been
engaged. (Hear.) It is not for mo now to express any
opinion on the conduct or policy of those wars, but this
unfortunate result no doubt has followed from them, that
they have prevented from being carried further than has
been done the material improvement of India. The points
upon which complaints have been most generally made,
and those which are most the subject of complaint in the
petitions presented to the committee, are the administra-
tion of justice, the want of public works, and the tenure
of land. I will proceed to deal with these in the order in:
which I have stated them—and first with respect to the ad-
ministration of justice, to which the attention of the com-
mittee has been particularly directed. The complaints on
this head relate principally to the inconveniences arising
from the technicalities of English law, the alleged incom-
petence of English judges, and the corruption of native
judges and native officers. As early as 1833 the difficulties
of the state of the law in India were strongly felt, and a
provision was made in that act such as was thought likely
to lead to its amendment. That provision was the appoint-
ment of a law commission for India, which was destined to
prepare a code of laws, amending and consolidating the
laws of its various provinces, and if possible to adapt one
common system to the exigencies of the different races of
their inhabitants. lam sorry to say that the result of that
commission has not answered the expectations entertained
of it. Principally under the care of my right hon. friend
the member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay), a penal coda
was prepared, which was'the first complete result of the la-
bours of that commission. This was sent to be considered by
the various legal authorities of India; it was then sent back
to Calcutta to be reconsidered by the members of the law
commission; it was subsequently sent home to England, and
again referred back to India. Meantime my right hon.
friend came back, and another president of the law com-
mission had been appointed, rho revised it, and substituted
a code differingin many essential particulars from that which
my right hon. friend prepared. The Governor-General
naturally thought that though he had authority to pass
one he had not authority to pass another and a different
one, and having been again transmitted to this country, it
was finally sent out again to the Governor-General, with
•instructions to pass it, if he were satisfied, in whatever
form he should think best. Meanwhile Mr. Meade died
in India, and the code was submitted to the authority of
a third English lawyer, perfectly able and competent to
discharge the task, though, unfortunately, unacquainted
with the manners and customs of the natives of India,
with which it was desirable he should be acquainted.
With respect to other matters, no practical result in the
shape of legislation has actually been attained, but I be-
lieve it will be found that their labours have not been
altogether useless ; and in many of the acts subsequently
passed by the Legislative Council, the spirit of their re-
commendations, if not the letter, has been complied with.
In another part of the statement I am addressing to the
house, I intend to state the means proposed for the sake
of bringing to a conclusion the labours carried on for some
time, and giving to India at an early period the results of
the consideration given to her legal requirements. With
respect to evils occasioned by the technicalities of English
law, lam afraid there is some truth in the allegation.
We carried to India that attachment to our own laws and
modes of proceeding which distinguishes, or rather did
distinguish, the courts of justice and lawyers in this
country. No doubt its language is entirely foreign to the
habits and manners of the people of India, and even now
by many of our lawyers it is proposed to make alterations
and distinctions departing still more widely from native
ideas. lam afraid if we look at our own proceedings at
home we have not much reason to complain of the manner
in which these matters have been conducted in India. I
have been some twenty-five years in Parliament, and one
of the first motions I heard, I remember, was a motion for
the reform of the Court of Chancery, which it at least
twenty-five years to accomplish. I cast my eye the other
day over a report of the law commissioners, presented in
the course of this session, and I found a reference to two
recommendations of the commission which sat twenty
years ago, for the removal of two evils, one of which is
still utterly unremedied, and the other was remedied only
a few years ago—the necessity of a unanimous verdict by
a jury, and the admissibility of evidence the exclusion of
which tended for many years to the utter defeat of justice
in our courts of law. Probably many gentlemen may have
aeon the pamphlet by Mr. Norton on the administration
of justice in India. No doubt he has succeeded in string-
ing together many features and provisions of the existing
system which appear absurd—(hear, hear)—but gentlemen
who cheer that as such a striking exemplification of its
defects, will be astonished when I tell them that I have
heard it is the opinion of one of the most eminent judges
in this country that if you took the course of our criminal
judicature, from the first proceeding in court to the ulti-
mate decision of the judge and the revision of the sentence
by the Secretary of State—and this is a fair comparison,
because the sudder court in India exercises the same
power of mitigating the sentence—it would not be difficult
to string together as formidable a list of absurdities—
for the existence of which no adequate reason could be
given. How long is it since we recorded sentences of
death which we never intended to carry into effect ?
How often has it been necessary for a Secretary of
State to pardon a man who should have been acquit
ted ? Look at all these circumstances, and I think yon
will find that there is no such wonderful proof of the
inadequacy with which justice is administered even
in the presidency of Madras. (Hear, hear.) But I beg
honourable gentlemen to consider not only this, but the
difference of the circumstances under which the courts aro
.placed in the two countries. Here, for the most part, the
judges have a fair right to believe, and are justified in be-
lieving, the evidence given in court. There may be excep-
tions, indeed there are, but it is almost an universal rule
that the evidence given on oath in our courts is true and
not false. Is that the case in India ? If you believe the
evidence which has been given before the committees, it is
directly the reverse. The chances are that the evidence
given in India is false and not true. And is no allowance
to be made for judges administering the law or attempting
to administer justice under such circumstances? So far
from that, it seems to me that every allowance should be
made for them ; that instead of trying to depreciate the
administration ofjustice, andrun down those who adminis-
ter the law under such adverse circumstances in India, we
should be inclined to make every possible indulgence for
the circumstances in which they are placed. And it seems
to be rather a matter of surprise that justice is adminis-
tered with any satisfaction, than that it should be open to
the charges that are made against it. The house is no doubt
hardly aware to what extent perjury and subornation of
perjury extends, and yet there is evidence of the strongest
nature, evidence which I think no man can deny, which
shows that it prevails to an extent truly incredible if it
did not rest on authority so entirely above suspicion. Dr.
Duff, a Christian missionary, in his evidence given before
the Lords' committee, said, "It is the simple fact that
scarcely a single case comes before the courts in India.
without there being perjury and bribery ou both sides."
We examined before the Commons committee Mr. Baillie,
than whom I cannot conceive one more competent to give
an opinion—a gentleman who had appeared as pleader in
many of the Bombay courts, not only at Calcutta but else-
where, and had been concerned in the preparation of cases,
and the collection of evidence, which he had ultimately to
bring before the court ; and what did he say :—" Oral evi-
dence in a case is, generally speaking, plainly and palpably
false. To express in the strongel way my own views, I
may state that I was a pleader in the Sude Dewany Adaw-
lut for 12 years. For a good many of those years I had a
very large business, but I scarcely recollect an instance
where I thought it worth while to comment upon the evi-
dence at all." What does Mr. Norton who complains so
much of the administration ofjustice, say ? What is his
opinion of the mode in which evidence is prepared, or of
the reliance to be placed upon it ? He says, ' Informing
a native of a point which it is necessary for him to prove
in order to substantiate his case, is almost tantamount to
bidding him go to a bazaar, where witnesses to any fact
may be procured for 14d. a head, there to set going all the
secret springs of the machine of forgery and the suborna-
tion of perjury." It is scarcely possible. to overstate the
difficulty ofadministering justice under such circumstances;
and it is, I think, hard upon the judges not to make a fair
and full allowance for the circumstances in which they are
placed. Nor is this a temporary or a new state of things,
nor one produced, as some people would have one believe,
as all abuses are in India, by the prevalence of English mile.
I referred the other day to a charge of Sir James Mackin-
tosh to the grand jury of Bombay, in 1803, in which he
states not only his own experience, but that of one of the
first judges in India, Sir 'William Jones. He says :—" Such
is the unfortunate prevalence of the crime of perjury that
the hope of impunity is not extinguished by the apprehen-
sion of the delinquent. I observe that Sir W. Jones, who
carried withhim to this country (India) a pejudice in favour
of tho natives, after long judicial experience reluctantly con-
fesses their general depravity. The prevalence of perjury,
which he strongly states, and which I have myself already ob-
served, is perhaps,a more certain sign of the general dissolu-
tion of moral principle than other more daring crimes. It
is that crime which tends to secure the impunity of all other
crimes, and it is the only crime which weakens ihe foun-
dation of every right by rendering the administration of
justice on which they all depend difficult, and in many
cases impossible." But really the evidence with regard to
the difficulties by which these judges are beset only in-
creases upon one as we look further into the subject. Well,
in this Madras petition to which I haucavEisruieefate
telidecialab before foa ; casee w
thenb
vgiucetteeddbasefuornee otfbeextiurefemrieurinjeuusutritc,e,aub
superior court or sudder court. But, strange to
was convicted in the first instance not on evidence, ebauyi hone
giaiveenarb,yhethare.
hear,) And
Dr ra.gDainukifyyououNil-ise.ill
fheirs otownthcoenefvessidieonnee!
ffiunrdpeuheosetaintelutdihaattuit
confess themselves
othulemeasellelveesil guunieeltyleo'r an crimetiling
of which they are perfectly innocent and of which subse-
quently they may be proved innocent!
to be attributed to a judge who Well' is any blame
convicts on his own
confession? Are we to condemn the administration ofjus-
supposed to deal with them
tice if an Englishman, dealing
when a man confesses he hasbineethin
with parties as he may be
guulauryfe,ssheos?hasireadululyubb,guilty
ii tyu country,
f murder believes
u r that
bur
.
guilty of the crime which he so
etehnerefore, think that these strictures
upon. the administration of justice have been fairly made.
I think, considering the difficulties of the case, it is utterly
unfair to the judges not to make allowance,for such cir-
cumstances as I have mentioned. There is no reason to
doubt that justice is fairly and impartially administered
by the English judges in India. It has been stated, but
most incorrectly, that the judges were put on the bench at
a very early period of life ; that many of them were mere
raw youths just arrived in India, quite incompetent to acted
as superior judges. Sir George Clark, who was well
, in Indian affairs, and had served in
"such cannot be themore parts
ofv versed
case, because I find on
referring
to the Bengal judicial ap-
• than one, said in his evidence that
youngest judge on the Bengal bench
has been twenty-one years
) Pointr"nts, that the a civil servant," We were told
,
1 that gentlemen of the earliest age aro put on the bomb,

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