The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, JULY 1, 1853,

the questior s the more shame for them. (Hear, hear.) You
may rest a' seared that if the House of Commons does take
no intere. A in the good government of India, the time is
not far d.4stant when they will lose that in which they take
so at) e interest. (Cheers.) If I were a minister and had
it irrefiressed on my conviction that the House of Commons
to& i. no interest in discussions on India, I would not, night
aft sr night, as her Majesty's Ministers do, triumph in he
oir cumstance. I would not take an opportunity of letting
E• arope and America know that this house took no interest
in -the affairs of India. (Loud cheers.) This only proves
—what is only too much proved already—that we are be-
coming yearly more and more a meeting of delegates and
less ambitious, and, perhaps, less competent, to enact the
part, of imperial legislators, which was once our pride.
(Hear, hear.) I say then that under these circumstances,
the House of Commons, the Parliament of this country,
is 'bound to discover what is the cause of the misgo-
ye rnment of India a misgovernment which is ac-
ln ley the very witnesses who are brought forward
to. substantiate the claim of the Ministry, that the same
authority should be allowed to exercise the power as before,
and who conscientiously give an opinion to that effect. I
do not n-ouble myself to fix upon one cause as the cause
of what is called the misgovernment of India. I do not
-mean to say that several causes may not be fixed upon
as the causes of that misgovernment ; but what I do say
is, that, generally speaking, if a country be misgoverned,
it is a prime/ facie proof, at least, that the constitution
of that country is an injurious constitution. (Hear,
hear.) Misgovernment—chronic misgovernment—cannot
exist, in my opinion, unless the general scheme of adminis-
tration has in it something essentially defective. Now, has
the Government of India, as it at present exists, some-
thing in it essentially defective? When I consider that
form of government of which we have all heard and
read and thought so much, and of which such contrary
defences have been given in this debate, by members of
equal and high authority, I find that that government is
cumbrous—(hear, hear) ; that it is divided—(hear, hear) ;
that it is tardy and deficient in that clear and complete
responsibility which is the essential source of all efficient
government. Now, these are charges which I don't make
rashly ; nor have I used a word of which I don't think the
justice can be demonstrated. Lob us advert for a moment to
the description of the Indian government which has been
given in this debate; and observe what this debate has con-
sisted of, for although we have been told, night after night,
that a house could hardly be collected to listen to the obser-
vations of members on this subject, I have remarked it as a
characteristic of the present debate that no member has
taken part in it who has not had either administrative or
local experience in India. (Cries of oh.) I should be ex-
tremely glad to be corrected if I am wrong. It is possible
that in the course of four nights' debate I may have fallen
into a mistake ; but still I am not conscious that I have
done so. (Hear, hear.) I repeat that I do not know a
single gentleman who has addressed the Speaker in this
debate who has not had either administrative or local ex-
perience of India. Perhaps the First Lord of the Admi-
ralty and myself may seem to be exceptions, but I believe
we have both been commissioners. (Hear, hear.) Well,
whom have we had ? We have had gentlemen who have
served on the Board of Control ; we have had gentlemen
who have served as military men in India ; we have had
East India Directors we have had gentlemen who have
occupied nearly all the highest civil posts in India • and at
this moment I do not remember a single individual who
has addressed the Speaker who does not come within the
category I have described. (Renewed cries of oh.) Well,
I am not going to quote any gentleman who has not been
in India or had official connection with it. We have had
thi Government of India variously described. One hon.
gentleman—and he certainly comes under my category,
for he is an hon. director—got up and said—" It is a great
mistake to suppose that the East India Company do not
exercise a bond fide and virtual authority in India." That
happened on one night of the debate, but what happened
on another ? A gentleman of equal authority then got up
and said—"Of what use is this talking of the East India
Company? It is"—(to use the classic phrase that now
taints the rhetoric of the House of Commons)—"it is a
sham ; the Government of India is the Board of Control
and the President of the Board of Control." What hap-
pened next? A right hon. gentleman who ought on this
question of all others to be the very highest authority, for
he was once Secretary to the Board of Control,and
wards a member of the Council in India, says—
"
You are wasting your breath and time ; neither
the East India Directors nor the Board of Control
have anything to do with the matter ; the Govern-
ment of India is the overnor-General." This is a subject
of very great interest,
have three high authorities rise in the house and entirely
contradict themselves on this subject. (Cheers andlaughter
I mention this to show the difficulty there is in fixing where.)
the Government of India can be found. (Hear, hear.) Now,.
observe, here is the right hon. member for Edinburgh de!
daring that neither the East India Directory nor the Presi-
dent of the Board of Control is the Government of India.
Well, a very few years ago, when many members I am now
addressing were members of this house, or, if not, the event
must be still fresh in their memory—the state of India
was most perilous and critical. We had to contend with
the greatest military disaster which the English arms have
experienced in recent times. At that period England was
governed by a strong Ministry, consisting of some of the
ablest men that this country ever produced ; and they were
under these circumstances summoned to Council to consider.
what steps should be taken in this moment of unprece-
dented peril for our Indian empire. Now, fortunately for
this country, two of the most eminent statesmen the coun-
ti7 had ever produced at that time directed the councils of
the State. Sir R. Peel and the Duke of Wellington had
to consider what, in the greatest crisis of the Indian em-
pire, was the wisest and most prudent step, and the step
the most absolutely necessary to be taken. They selected
a Governor-General for India, and they selected him at the
greatest personal sacrifice, for in choosing him they deprived
themselves of a colleague of great talents.and commanding.
eloquence, whose talents and eloquence were wanted in the
other house, where their cause was not so well supported
as in this. They sent him to the scene of Imperial danger,
with all the advantages of accumulated and previous know-
ledge, for he was at the time Minister of India. He went
to that country. I shall not enter into a criticism of his
career, but this I know, that he gave entire satisfaction to
his colleagues, and that he succeeded in all he undertook ;
and this I know also, that in the very heat of his enter-
prise he was rudely, abruptly re-called. And by whom ?
By his Sovereign ? By her Majesty's Ministers? By the
President of the Board of Control ? Not at all. But,
by the Court of Directors. (Hear, hear.) We saw
this strange and startling thing that Lord Ellen-
borough, selected for such office by such men and
under such circumstances, was recalled by the Court
of Directors with all the circumstances of shame, and
the very next day he was elevated in the peerage and de-
corated with the Red Riband. (Hear, hear.) Now, I
want to ask who is the Governor of India ? Where is that
clear responsibility which ought to exist, and the want of
which I lament ? Have the Court of Directors the same
Power under the present bill ? I have not had the advan-
tage of the counsel of my learned friends, whom I wished
to consult, but I have read the bill, and, as far as I can
draw a conclusion, it appears to me that the Court of
Directors could under it recall any Governor-General to-,
morrow. Then to tell me that the Court of Directors that
recalls the Governor-General does not govern India, is ab-
surb, because the directors can in an instant change the
whole policy, which a Wellington or a Peel approved of.
(Hear, hear.) I think I have shown that the Government
of India is not that simple instrument of polity which we
have been informed, during the debate, it was. (Hear,'
hear.) We have been told that the President of the Board
of Control was really the Governor of India ; and I have,
shown you a memorable instance—one of recent experience'
—in which the Sovereign and the Sovereign's Ministers
adopted a certain course, which was entirely counteracted
by the Court of Directors. (Hear.) I am not making
this a charge against the directors. If they have the power
they have a right to exercise it ; but when I am told that
the directors have no power, and when I show that they,
exercise the greatest act of power, and when, so far as I
can gather from this bill the same power is reserved to
them, then I say these are important points when we come
to consider the elements of which this Government is to be
formed. Now, remember it is not the question (so conve-
niently thrust forward in debate) whether you have to de
cide on maintaining the present form of Indian government
or adopting some great change. You cannot sooner or
later avoid this organic change, which we are taught to
consider so perilous. (Hear.) You may, if you like, termi-
nate the power of the Court of Directors to-morrow,
but whether you choose to do so or not, at a stated
period, which is prepared, the Court of Proprietors
ceases to exist, and of course with the constituency
the representatives must also vanish from the political
scene. Sooner or later, therefore, you must make an or-
ganic change, and the question for you to decide, therefore,
is not whether you will make the organic change, or adhere
to the existing system, but whether this is the time to
make the change, or whether by postponing it you may not
be placed in a much worse position than you now occupy.
(Hear, hear.) I think you may place yourselves in a worse
position. If it be true (no matter whose the fault may be)
that the condition of India is not a satisfactory condition ;
if it be true that the system that prevails leads to a vast
expenditure, which the resources of India cannot main-
tain, and that consequently the condition of the people
and of the country is not only not improving, but deterio-
rating every day—if it be true that all those objects which
you consider of great importance in the government are not
in consequence attained—then you must remember, and
even her Majesty's Ministers must know this, that there is
no reason why in the next twenty years any of those
causes which have tended to the degradation of that coun-
try and its population should be diminished under the bill
which her Majestys Ministers have placed on the table.
(Hear, hear.) But what would be your position in 1874 ?
You must take into calculation that, whatever the debt of
India may be, you must adopt that debt as your own.
India, with all its obligations, perplexities, treaties, and
part of England (hear) ; and,
encumbrances, will become
therefore, it is matter of urgent and eminent interest
that we should decide at once whether we can afford for
the sake of India, and for the sake of England particularly,
another twenty years like those just passed. (Hear.) If
the house will permit me, I will proceed to touch on the
bill upon the table ; and to examine whether it makes
those changes in the government of India which may be
some remedy in the circumstances to which I have ad-
verted. Remembering the hour of the night, I will cur-
tail as will as possible the observations I have to make,
and will riot touch, therefore, on the changes proposed to
be made in the local government of India. With respect
to them there are many clauses to which I have ob-
jections, but Dot such would make me oppose the second
reading of the bill, and virtually, as the right honourable
gentleman has said, this amendment is in opposition
to the second reading. I will, then, concentrate my
criticism upon the plan Draw:sled for the home govern-
ment of India, and I find on that head such objections
in the plan proposed by t the Ministers as alone,
in my opinion, fully warrant foe offering a complete
resistance to •the measure ; 'or I shall show to the
46
ebittad appearslhe to
house that the plan aggravates all the disadvantages
of the existing system, and is dePrive4'
me, of many of the advantages which uncle
ex-
isting system possesses. (Hear.) In the first Vises I must
call the consideration of the house to the new c.oy.titution
which is made in respect to the Court of Direct ore,The
first objection I make to this scheme, which is of a
peculiar nature, is that by the introduction of Government
nominees that Court becomes immediately dependent.
(Hear, hear.) Now, whatever the faults of the existing
system may be, the Court of Directors, though the ma-
chinery may be cumbrous and tending to delay, and even
to corruption, has one, if only an isolated virtue —it is inde-
pendent. I greatly object, then, to the principle of intro-
ducing Government nominees into the Court, and I will
remind the house, as authority has been so often appealed
to, that this is not a new proposition. Mr. Chas. Wynn,
in 1833, proposed that there should be a certain number
of the Court of Directors nominated by the Government,
and serving for four years. That was virtually the iden-
tical proposition of the Ministers contained in the present
bill, so eloquently supported by the right hon. member for
Edinburgh. But how did that right hon. gentleman meet
in 1833 the proposition of Mr. Charles Wynn? The house
should recollect that the right hon. gentleman in 1833 was
as great an authority upon India as at present, for he had
delivered a *each of surpassing power, and his words

were regarded, with all the consideration they deserved.
Well, Mr. Macaulay then said—
" The plan suggested by the right hon. gentleman the
member for Montgomeryshire is, I think, the very worst
that I have ever heard. He would have directors nominated
every four years by the Crown. Is it not plain that these
directors would always be appointed from among the sup-
porters of the Ministry for the time being—that their situations
would depend on the permanence of that Ministry—that there-
fore all their power and patronage would be employed for
the purpose of propping that Ministry, and, in case of a
change, for the purpose of molesting those who might suc-
ceed to power—that they would be subservient while their
friends were in, and factious when their friends were out I
How would Lord Grey's Ministry have been situated
if the whole body of directors had been nominated by.
the Duke of Wellington in 18307 I mean no imputa-
tion on the Duke of Wellington. If the present Ministers
had to nominate directors for four years, they would, I have
no doubt, nominate men who would give no small trouble to
the Duke of Wellington if he were to return to office. What
we want is a body independent of the Government, and no
more than independent ; not a tool of the Treasury, not a
tool of the opposition. No new plan which I have heard pro-
posed would give us such a body. The company, strange as
its constitution may be, is such a body."
(Cheers.) Well, sir, it is unnecessary for me to remind the
house of the particular arrangements by which the num-
bers of the Court of Directors are to be reduced. I advert
to it of course with reluctance from the presence of the
gentlemen who are members of that body, but the freedom
of discussion warrants the allusion. The Court of Directors
consists of 30 members. They are to meet and select from
their body 15 to be directors of the company. At first
there was an idea that the President of the Board of Con-
trol had dealt hardly with the Court of Directors. It was
considered a device on his part of so ruthless a character
that there was some public sense of indignation expressed
towards her Majesty's Ministers on that score; but after
considering this clause I entirely acquit her Majesty's Min-
isters of this imputation. I am sure the original idea of
this clause must have been formed in Leadenhall-street.
(Hear.) I know there is a very valuable body of papers
there—they have been examined by a friend of mine—in
the records of the Court of Directors, relating to a subject in
which the Indian Government greatly distinguished them-
selves, and that was putting down the system of Thuggee.
(Hear, and a laugh.) Now, a Thug is a person of very
gentlemanlike manners, even of fascinating manners (a
laugh);—he courts your acquaintance, dines with you,
drinks with you, smokes with you ; not only does he share
your pastimes, but even your pursuits ; whatever you wish
done he is always ready to fulfil it ; he is the companion of
your life, and is possibly a member of the same direction
and of the same joint-stock company ; but the very moment
when he has gained your confidence, when you are repos-
ing, as it were, on the bosom of friendship, the mission of
the Thug is hailed, and you cease to exist. (Laughter.)
I confess I shall be curious to see who are the fifteen
Thugs. (Laughter.) I want to know who will be the first
victim. Sometimes I fear it may be the venerable member
for London. (A laugh.) I will not pursue this hypothetical
anticipation, but when we meet next session I think there
will be a thrill of curiosity and horror when certain hon.
gentlemen who are members of the first new Court of Di-
rectors enter this house. (A laugh.) And practically what
what will you gain by this process ? You are going to have
15 gentlemen of the old Court, to whom the Crown, in the
first instance, has permission to add tbree and ultimately
six. Now, the object is to secure a certain superiority of
knowledge of India and its necessities. Do you gain that?
I looked this afternoon over the list of East India Direc-
tors. I took the 24 whose names are down, and I observed
the majority of them were gentlemen who had local and
official experience of India. More than one-half of the pre-.
sent directors are men who have been eminent as lawyers,
as my hon. friend the member for Honiton, or men who
have had great experience in either the military or civil
service of the company ; so that at present, with this ex-
tremely criticised Court of Directors, you have a mass of
Indian experience and knowledge represented by more than
one-half of the members of the Court. But if the arrange-
ment contemplated by her Majesty's Ministers is com-
pleted, you will only secure one-th!rd of the members who
possess that knowledge and information. It is perfectly
obvious, therefore, when the change you have projected
takes place, none of the 12 members of the company will
ever be elected with any regard to their Indian experience;
they will always be men of Lombard-street—the directors
of insurance societies ; and remember, when a city director
is wanted, you go on 'Change to find him ; there will be no
obligation on the proprietors to elect a man of Indian
experience ; and the result of the change, therefore, will
be, as I have said, that instead of one-half or more than one-
half of the directors being men of Indian experience, you
will have under this new-fangled scheme only one-third.
How will this act ? Try it with the three new members
nominated by the Crown. For some time it may remain.
Probably the 15 best lives will remain in office, and you
are to have three men of consummate Indian experience
added to the Government. What do you gain by that ?
At this moment you have three, and more than three, equal
to any men probably the Government, with the greatest
anxiety and the most praiseworthy motives which I give
them credit for in this respect, could possibly select. I
might take my hon. friend the member for Honiton, twice
chairman and a great authority in this house. Her Ma-
jesty's Ministers cannot suppose they will be able to select
a more experienced man in Indian matters than my hon.
friend. Is it probable you will get a better man than Sir
R. Jenkins, or a man of more Eastern experience than Sir
H. Willock? t(Hear.) Therefore, I say, by the very plan
you are now pursuing, if you wish to make it a council of
Indian experience, you are doing that which is most fatal
to anything pretending to be a council—losing the im-
portant element of independence. (Hear, hear.) The two
great elements of an Indian Council, whatever form it may.
take, whether a Court of Directors or a Council, are inde-
pendence and the knowledge of the members, and you can
only obtain them by making the members permanent. For
those reasons, were there no others, if I were to choose be-
tween the existing system and that curious one proposed
by her Majesty's Ministers, I would really prefer the ex-
isting one. (Hear, hear.) The existing system gives an
independence which is the first element in such a body,
and it secures apparently a great mass of Indian know-
ledge, probably at least half, if not more, of men of as
great experience as the Crown could probably obtain.
That is the great objection which I have to this plan of
the home government. It appears to me to possess all the
evils of the old system and none of its advantages.
(Hear, hear.) I must remit many objections to the prin-
ciple of the bill, because I feel time is precious, and I am
bound to answer the defence set up to this bill by those
who have preceded me. There is one curious feature of
this debate,—not a single member has risen on either side
of the house to defend the bill of her Majesty's Ministers
except gentlemen in office—(hear, hear)—and what is the
worth of their defence I will proceed to ascertain. Re-
member this, there are particular gentlemen who will not
vote for the amendment ; but there is not one of those
who spoke and opposed the amendment who did not tell
you at the same time he entirely disapproved of the bill.
(Hear, hear.) That is a very remarkable circumstance.
The honourable baronet the member for the University of
Oxford is not going to support the amendment. He very
rarely does support any amendment of ours. (A laugh.)
But he looks upon the bill with a spirit of devout re-
probation ; and says he never saw a bill of which he
more entirely disapproved, and that he votes for the
second reading in order that in committee he may move
to strike out all the principal clauses of it. (Hear,
and a laugh.) Then there is the hon. member for Hun-
tingdon—and I always regret to differ from him ; he is not
going to support the amendment ; but he says he very
much disapproves of the bill. Then the hon. member for
Rochester, a great Indian authority—he seemed inclined
to support the amendment, but is not going to vote for it ;
but he entirely disapproves of the bill. (Hear, hear.)
Then there is my right hon. friend the member for Stam-
ford ; he is a very staunch, opponent of the amendment ;
but when he goes into committee he shall feel it is duty
to show you that the bill is one of the most pernicious
pieces of legislation that could be conceived. The cata-
logue is much longer, but I cannot proceed through such
a list, because I have men of mark before me to whom I
must proceed. I said no hon. member had defended the
bill except those who were in office ; but there was one
right hon. gentleman who is not, but who ought to have
been in office, who defended it—he spoke not of his col-
leagues, but of his clients—(hear, hear)—but I appeal to
the house, who listened to him with that attention which
he always commands. whether they ever heard a more
agreeable speech or a more feeble defence. He laid it
down that the real government of India was in the Go-
vernor-General ; he said he had seen how the home go-
vernment worked in England ; and, as a member of the
Council, he had seen how it had worked in Calcutta ; and
he told us that four important measures were passed by
the Council of India when he was at Calcutta, none of
which were suggested, and some of which were after-
wards disapproved by the Court of Directors ; but still
they were passed ; those measures were—the measure for
native education, the measure for altering the transit
duties, the measure for unlicensed printing, and the mea-
sure for a uniform coinage ; and the right hon. gentleman
argued from this that there was no substantial power in the
Court of Directors. I think I have shown the house there
is reason to believe there is very substantial power in that
Court. (Hear, hear.) I should like to have obtained from
the right hon. gentleman, in the moment of that unguarded
frankness, when he gave us all the secrets of the system,
some information from him as to whose fault it may be
attributed that we have not a code for India. (Hear,
hear.) Remember, the right hon. gentleman is peculiarly
connected with that subject ; for in the year 1833 the
right hon. gentleman said, " I believe no country
ever stood so much in need of a code of laws as India,
and I believe there never was a country in which that want
might be so readily supplied." I do not tell you
that it is ray opinion. I think that was a very
bold assertion of the right honourable gentleman, though
it was received with loud and enthusiastic cheering ;
but 20 years have elapsed ; that code has not yet passed,
and I want to know what prevented it. Was it the Coun-
cil of India or the Court of Directors? (Hear.) But the
right hon. gentleman proceeded further. He said " Nei-
ther the Court of Directors nor the Board of Control have
anything whatever to do but to choose the Governor-Ge-
neral." If the only business of this elaborate and compli-
cated home government is to select a Governor-General,
then I maintain that we want no such home government
neither Board of Control nor Board of Directors. To se-
lect the Governor-General is a function which the First
Minister of the Crown may most fitly and most efficiently
perform of himself, and for himself. The First Minister of
the Crown is the best judge of the man who should be Go-
vernor-General of India, or he is himself not fit to be the
First Minister of the Crown, Warne an accurate know-
ledge of character is the chief quality for a First Minister
of the Crown, and that is the quality which should preside
over the selection of a Governor-General of India. This
argument, then, of the right hon. member tells against the
home government of India altogether, both Board of Con-
trol and Board of Directors. It is unnecessary for me at
this late hour to touch on other topics in the speech of the
right hon. gentleman. The right hon. gentleman in that
speech demonstrated many points which no one questions,
and illustrated many things which are not at all obscure—
(hear)—he did this, indeed, in so charming a manner, that
I could have listened to him for hours—in a fine conversa-
tionalexhilarated
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avoided the real question at issue, except on these points
where he made admissions, fatal, as I conceive, alike to
the Board of Directors and the Board of Control. (Hear.)
01,°411„ now advert to the speech of one, not exceeding in
the right hon. gentleman, for no one can exceed him
in ability,
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hon. baronet. (Hear, hear.) It appeared to me that rheto-
rical inconsistency never arrived at a more culminating
point than at the close of the right hon. baronet's speech,
when the right hon. gentleman produced on every mind
the effect of a rapid rider who finds himself, after a furious,
a blind career, on the verge of an abyss, not perceived by
him until that very moment ; for the result to which the
speech of the right hon. baronet must needs have brought
him was clearly the conviction that he ought to be the first
man to vote against his own bill. (Hear, hear.) The Home
Government, the right hon. baronet insisted, was a perfect
Government, and therefore he was prepared to alter it.
(Hear, hear.) " The army of India is an heroic army,"
said the right hon. gentleman ; " its Pollocks, its generals,
its Notts, are heroes—are men of whom any nation may
be proud, and therefore" concluded the right hon. bart ,
" we will pass a bill which, for the first time, will degrade
these heroes, and make them subordinate to a Treasury
officer." (Oh, oh !) Oh, oh ! Do hon. gentlemen mean
to say they have not read the clause in the bill which
makes the Pollocks and the Notts of the Indian army
subordinate to the Treasury-office ? If hon. gentlemen
mean this, they admit they are going to vote for a bill
they have not road. (Hear, hear.) This is not all : the
right hon. baronet acknowledges that the state of the
Indian finance is not satisfactory, and he cannot deny
that there is a debt, a great debt, though he contends it is
not so great as Indian reformers represent it to be. The
right hon. baronet, however, says the bill will settle all
that, for that we shall have, in future, an Indian budget,
an Indian financial statement. It must, doubtless, be very
gratifying to the house thus to be promised, for the ensu-
ing year, an Indian statement from one who, being now
President of the Board of Control, has been also Chancellor
of the Exchequer, and who will thus, of course, combine
in his statement all the magnificent imagery incidental to
the one capacity with the perspicuity of financial detail
appurtenant to the other—(laughter)—but still there
remains the question how far Parliament will be satis-
fied with a yearly Indian Ways and Means which does
not give them control over a single shilling of those
ways and means. (Hear, hear.) Nothing, I appre-
hend, can be more dreary in itself than a budget ; the only
thing that reconciles us to its dreariness is the natural
anxiety to know what we are going to receive and what we
are going to pay with it. But of this promised Indian
budget we are to receive not a sixpence, and we are not
to have the smallest control over its expenditure. The
power of a Government to retain a house is certainly won-
derful; but I think the house-collecting or the house-
retaining powers of Government will be sorely taxed to
collect or to keep a house on the night when the Indian
budget of the right hon. gentleman opposite is coming on.
(Laughter.) Let me briefly touch on the arguments
which have been used against delay. The first arguments
employed against delay are those urged on the ground of
authority. Now, arguments drawn from authority, how-
ever efficacious they may be up to a certain point, are of
a limited character. We all of us acknowledge the force
of authority, and are daily influenced by it, but we can-
not bow to mere authority against the conviction of our
reason. The first authority that was brought forward
against us is that of the present Governor-General of India,
to contend against which is an Homeric contest, in which
one has to encounter a cloud. We cannot straggle against
the authority of Lord Dalhousie, for we know not th lan-
guage in which it is couched, nor the precise conclusions
which it recommends. It used to be held very unparlia-
mentary, not to say unconstitutional, for a government to
appeal to state papers which are not within the public
cognizance of Parliament, but, waiving that particular
point, I protest against authority such as that put forth in
the name of Lord Dalhousie being set up in this house,
when not a member of the house, except those who rely
upon it, knows what the language of Lord Dalhousie's
opinion is, what are the grounds on which it is based, or
what are the precise conclusions at which it arrives. Such
authority, I repeat, is a cloud. Another Governor-General
of India has been brought forward as an authority for im-
mediate legislation—Lord Ellenborough. The authority
of Lord Ellenborough, under any circumstances, is of
course of no light weight, but still, when I bear in mind
that only three months since Lord Ellenborough was decid-
edly in favour of delay, I cannot consent to bow in implicit
compliance to the opinion which his lordship now thinks
proper to give in favour of no delay. We have no means of
knowing on what reasoning the noble lord has changed his
opinion, and we are not called upon to follow him in what
may be nothing more than an assumption on his part.
Next, we have the authority of Lord Harding() directed
fo
itn had the
subject against
wu sa, s bnuott
aothgeivaeuntihnorihoftyoreof Hnge
been, some member of the committee might have obtained
from the noble and gallant general the grounds of his opi-
nion, which it is peculiarly expedient we should have be-
fore we adopt his expressions of opinion as authority. My
hon. friend the member for Huntingdon has also been ad-
duced as an authority. I admit that my hon. friend is an
authority on the subject, as chairman of our committee,
and who, in that capacity, exhibited his well known talents;
but then bear in mind my hon. friend is a warm supporter
of the home government of India, as it now exists, and
we can therefore easily comprehend that he thinks the
more rapidly we legislate the better is his chance of keep-
ing that home government, or something very like it.
(Hear, hear.) My right hon. friend the member for Stam-
ford has been especially relied upon over the way as an au-
thority; my right hon. friend stated, so far as I could col-
lect his statement, that he approved of immediate legisla-
tion himself, and that the late Government also approved
of immediate legislation, and had desired immediate legis-
lation. This observation, or admission, has been made a
great deal of over the way, where it has been repeatedly
and triumphantly asserted, on the authority of my right
hon. friend, that the late Government intended immediate
legislation for India, and that, therefore, our arguments
for delay are of recent adoption. I am satisfied that my
right hon. friend would make no statement of the accuracy
of which he was not perfectly convinced in his own mind;
but, I am bound to state, with the utmost courtesy to my
right hon. friend—this being a point on which no miscon-
ception should prevail—that what he so stated I heard for
the first time from his lips in this house, and I will add,
that, having spoken to the othermembers of the late Govern-
ment on the subject, I am authorised by them, and, among
them, by the nobleman without whose sanction no such
course as that stated could have been adopted or an
nounced—by Lord Derby, that none of them ever be-
fore heard of such a proposition as that the late Govern-
ment, intended immediate legislation for India. (Hear.)
1 would point out, further, with reference to my right
hon. friend, that he, too, like my hon. friend the member
for Huntingdon, is decidedly in favour of the present sys-
tem of home government. I must now touch on the argu-
ments of the right hon. baronet opposite in favour of im-
mediate legislation founded on the state of India. The
state of India has been urged as a state which did not per-
mit of any delay in legislating for its government. Well,
now, sir, I entirely differ—with great respect let me say it
—from the right hon. gentleman upon that point. There
may be good reasons for not delaying this measure for the
government of India, or there may not; but I deny that
any good reason can be found for precipitate legis-
lation in this respect derived from the state of India.
(Hear.) Gentlemen in this house speak of India as if it
were some small country in which an insurrection would
occur the moment the second edition of the 'newspapers
had brought word that this bill for immediate legislation
had been thrown out ; but just remember that India is a
country more than one-third of Europe in size, and inha-
bited by 25 nations differing in race, differing in religion,
and differing in language. (Hear, hear.) What are the
elements of combination among the people of India under
these circumstances ? Why, sir, take the case of Germany
four or five years ago. Here you have a considerable
country, but a country not to be compared in extent with
India. You have a country occupied by seven or eight
nations of the same religion, of the same race, and of the
same language. You have that country with all the ad-
vantages which modern science has produced for the inter-
communication of man and for the communication of in-
telligence. You have railroads, you have telegraphs, you
have a universal press, and yet, what did the efforts, five
years ago, to attempt a combination in Germany end in ?
It was found totally impossible to make Austrians, Prus-
sians, Bavarians, and Hanoverians combine in any man-
ner there. Though the people were of the same race and of
the same religion, and speaking the same language, it was
found that their prejudices were so great, that their
interests were so different, arising from different con-
figurations of the soil and other causes, that the whole
thing blew up like a delusion ; and yet you are afraid
of an insurrection in India, a country nearly the size of
Europe, and inhabited by 25 different nations. (Cheers.)
But then, Sir, the right hon. gentleman warmed with his
subject, and taking up the statement of the hon. gentleman
the Secretary to the Board of Control (Mr. Lowe)—which
otherwise I should not have noticed, because it was only
one of those dashing statements with which the hon. gen-
tleman sometimes concludes his speeches—adverted to the
state of Asia. It is not merely the state of Asia, but the
unprecedented and peculiar state of Asia, which, we are
told, renders it the more important that our legislation
with regard to India should be immediate. Now, I say,
the state of Asia is not peculiar, is not unprecedented, and
that every circumstance alleged by the hon. gentleman
(Mr. Lowe), and sanctioned by the high authority of the
right hon. gentleman, is totally unfounded. (Hear, hear.)
What was the statement of the hon. member the Secretary
to the Board of Control ? It was a statement in great de-
tail, not a mere general allusion. He adverted to the con-
dition of Arabia, to the condition of the Turkish empire,
to the condition of Central Asia and China, and he said
they were peculiar and unprecedented; that Arabia was
in a state of uncontrolled fanaticism, and that the position
of the Turkish empire was most perilous and critical. I
am very sorry to hear that. I am sorry that, with the
coalition in power, Arabia is in such a state, and the posi-
tion of the Turkish empire has become perilous and critical;
but it is a rule of law that no man has a right to take ad-
vantage of his own wrong—(hear, hear)—and it is no argu-
ment for the misgovernment of India that you have mis-
governed our foreign affairs. Then we are told that
Central Asia is in a critical state—that the Khan of Bokhara
is making war upon the Khan of Kokand, or some other
Khan—daughter)—as if there had not been war from all
time between some one or other of the Khans. (Hear,
hear, and laughter.) The fourth point was about the state
of China, which is now ravaged by a successful insurrec-
tion. Well, take the year 1833, when the bill of 1833 was
brought in, and in every one respect the circumstances to
which the hon. gentleman referred existed in far more
extensive and aggravated a state, and yet they were never
brought forward as an argument for imperfect and pre-
cipitate legislation. (Cheers.) What was the state
of Arabia in 1833? It was not merely in a condition
of fanaticism, but you had a new religion, which arose
in the desert— a religion of conquest, —and you had
the invasion of Egypt by the Wahabees. What was,
then, the condition of the Turkish empire, which now we
are told is critical and perilous ? Why, the Pasha of Egypt
at the head of 100,000 disciplined troops was invadirg ;;he
Turkish empire. (Hear, hear.) While the right hon. gen-
tleman, the member for Edinburgh, was delivering his
eloquent speech on the state of India, the Pasha of Egypt
had already fought that great battle which rendered him
complete master of the Turkish empire ; and there was a
Russian fleet at the entrance to the Bosphorus, and a Rus-
sian army on the heights above Constantinople, six weeks
before the bill was introduced by Mr. Charles Grant.
(Hear, hear,) No one, however, spoke then about the state
of Arabia and of the Turkish empire as proofs of the im-
mense danger which existed with regard to India as rea-
sons why we should not act like statesman towards that
country, and as reasons why we should at once pass a law
for its government for the next 20 years. (Cheers.) As
to Central Asia, instead of a mere contest between Tartar
Khans, had you not in 1833 the commencement of those
mysterious combinations in Central Asia which afterward
ended in the invasion of Affghanistan, as the only means
by which you could terminate those terrible and impend-
ing perils ? (Hear.) As for China, instead of an insurrec-
tion against the reigning dynasty in 1833. already those
misunderstandings had commenced, which made every
man, acquainted with the state of affairs there, sure that
war only could terminate our disputes with that country,
and a very few years afterwards war with China com-
menced, and gave rise to a motion brought forward by the
right hon. gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty.
Taking, therefore, the state of Arabia, the state of the
Turkish empire, the state of Central Asia, and the state
of China in 1833—in all these instances the circumstances
of peril were considerably greater, but no man then, and

no man ever will, again come forward and support an argu-
ment for an imperfect and impolitic measure for the go-
vernment of India on the ground that there is danger in
that or in any other part of Asia. (Cheers.) I have only
one more observation to make, and I am deeply grateful to
the house for the patience with which it has listened to
me—there is one other reason given why we should
not sanction delay in legislating for India. I have
adverted to the argument drawn from the state
of India and of Asia. There is one more argu-
ment urged why we should not delay—that is because
next year we are to have a measure of parliamentary re-
form. I know well that her Majesty's Ministry are bound
—not merely as statesmen, but as men of honour—not
only to propose a measure of parliamentary reform, but
also a large measure of parliamentary reform. I know that
the right hon. gentleman (Sir J. Graham), with a candour
which quite became him, informed the country that the
only condition on which he could be induced to serve his
Sovereign and the State was, that the present Prime Min-
ister should introduce, as soon as was convenient, not later
than the commencement of the session, a large measure of
parliamentary reform. And I know we have the autho-
rity of the right hon. gentleman—an authorityunimpeach-
able —that the Prime Minister completely consented to his
condition—that he virtually formed his Government on
the principle of parliamentary reform—and that he en-
gaged with the right hon. gentleman that a large measure
of parliamentary reform should be introduced, (Hear.)
Well, Sir, one word upon that, as a reason why we should
not delay legislating for India. The subject of parliament-
ary reform, let me remind the house, is not of that com-
plicated character that it was in 1830; the nature of the
suffrage, the elements of the franchise, the principles of
representation—all these things now are pretty well known
and understood. There is hardly a combination with re-
spect to these things which the Ministry would not be an-
ticipated in, and though we may have a measure of parlia-
mentary reform—a large measure—l have no idea that it
need take up the whole of the session in discussion. I
think the Government may introduce a well-matured
project as to the government of India in February, and may
dispose of it and bring in a measure—a large measure—of
parliamentary reform before Easter. (Hear, hear.) But,
Sir, I hope the house will remember the circumstances
under which this engagement of the Minister was made. It
is two years ago since the noble lord, then the First Min-
ister of the Crown, announced that there ought to be a
measure of parliamentary reform—not in theo .7. but as a
practical opinion which he had arrived at, and upon which
he was prepared to act. Let it not be said that while, from
motives of personal convenience, a measure of reform. said
to be necessary for England, is to be put off for two years,
not the slightest delay can be brooked in regard to a mea-
sure which concerns the good government of 150,000,000 of
people. (Loud cheers.) Are we to be told that India
is to continue to be misgoverned, or that India is not to
have the chance of better government because the noble
lord who thought a measure of Parliamentary reform was
necessary two years ago for England, has deemed it
necessary to postpone that measure, from political or per-
sonal reasons, until next year? (Hear, hear.) The argu-
ments drawn from the state of India and Asia are power-
ful, valid, and respectable arguments compared with this
argument, that the political convenience of a Government
will not allow them to bring in such a measure. (Hear.)
No, Sir, I will not believe that the House of Commons
will sanction such a proceeding. (Hear.) lam sure that
they will hesitate before they authorise such conduct on
the part of the Government. (Hear, hear.) I have now,
placed before the house the principal reasons why I support
the amendment of my noble friend. It is au amendment
brought forward, not in compliance with any new-fangled
ideas in connection with this subject,—it is brought for-
ward in deference to the highest precedents—it is sup-
ported by the conduct of the most eminent men. It leads
necessarily to a substantive measure for providing a future
government for India. Before the existing act terminates,
there is no reason why a government in India should not
be provided by Parliament which shall be worthy of the
exigencies of the occasion, and which shall show that the
Parliament of this country is not entirely unworthy of its
office, or unfit to do that which circumstances require.
Sir, I am told this is a party question. Ido not hesitate
to say that it would be no discredit to the Government if
they sometimes availed themselves of the suggestions of
this side of the house. (Cheers.) They have been in office
only for a few months, and the right hon. gentleman the
President of the Board of Control had not been peculiarly
attentive to the knowledge required by his office until he
came to fill it. These are valid reasons why the Govern-
ment might have agreed to postpone legislation. I know
not the fate of this motion, but when I am reminded of
party questions and party feelings, I remember how often
we have to struggle here animated by those feelings on
questions of passing and transitory interest. (Hear, hear.)
We may have causes of struggle which may be soon con-
signed to oblivion, but we are now struggling for something
that will not soon be forgotten; and, however I may go to
the lobby, I shall be supported by the consciousness that on
this great occasion I have attempted to do my duty to
those who have deemed me worthy of their political confi-
dence, and that I shall connect their names with a course
of policy which I think will be honourable to themselves
and beneficial to the country. (Loud cheers.)

Lord J. RUSSELL—I am sorry that in the present ex-
hausted state of the House I shall have to trespass on its
attention before a division is taken on this subject. But I
feel that the question before the House is one of so much
importance, and that the observations of the right hon.
gentleman are directed so much against the measure of the
Government, that I must ask the House to listen to some
observations from me. (Cheers.) In so doing I will pro-
mise the House that I will make no reference to the ques-
tion of Parliamentary reform. (Cheers and counter-cheers.),
This great question of India seems to me sufficient on the
present occasasion to engage our attention. (Hear, hear.)
My right hon. friend the First Lord of the Admiralty said
that, in fact, this discussion was directed towards two
branches—the one, the question of delay, and the other, of
the double government. These are, in fact, the two ques-
tions which the House has to determine. Before I address
myself to these two questions I cannot avoid remarking
upon the lesson that the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Dis-
raeli) seemed disposed to give to his party in his address
to the House. (Cheers.) From the general observations
which the right hon. gentleman made upon party I should
be one of the last to disagree. I can conceive nothing dis-
honourable, and nothing discreditable, when two parties
have a difference of principle, and one party takes one side
and another the other, conscientiously believing that the
welfare of the country will be promoted by the struggle
for the ascendancy of those principles. But the right hon.
gentleman's position has its difficulty in this,—that a party
ought to have some settled purpose and some decided
policy in, favour of which their friends and supporters are
united when they call upon parliament and the country to
aid and assist them. But this is a political occasion in
which the noble lord (Stanley) who brought forward this
motion, and whose candour and fairness I admit, and
the right hon. gentleman who closed this debate on that
side of the house, are both entirely wanting in the prefer-
ence of any policy that they can recommend. (Cheers.)
They tell us to delay the passing of this measure. The
noble lord's address was characterised by an inconsistency
that has been pointed out by my hon. friend the Secretary
to the Board of Control (Mr. Lowe), and I will now discuss
the measure before the House. Upon the great question,
whether we will continue the government of India in the
hands in which it has already been placed by Parliament,
we have scarcely any light from the noble lord, and very
little more from tho right hon. gentleman, and therefore
it is that in adopting the motion of the noble lord the righi;
hon. gentleman had to endeavour to prop it up by dimi-
nishing the authority, by weakening the influence, and
combating the arguments of a right hon. gentleman of
great knowledge and experience, whom the Earl of Derby
entrusted with the Ministry of India, and pitched upon as
President of the Board of Control, and who therefore is
the man of all others to whom the Earl of Derby and his
Cabinet would have listened when he proposed his views
on legislation for India. (Hear.) That is the first autho-
rity which the right hon. gentleman has endeavoured, but
unsuccessfully, to weaken. (Cheers.) The next authority
on this subject whom the late Government would have
been disposed to consult is the hon. gentleman the member
for Huntingdon (Mr. T. BA:ng), whose unwearied atten-
tion to this subject, as c'-ait.man of the India Committee,
whose experience and whose sagacity the right hon. gen-
tleman (Mr. Disraeli) ought to be the last man to call in
question. (Hear, hear.) And yet his case is that the au-
thority of these two persons, pre-eminently the highest
authorities of his party, are to be neglected and set aside
in order to accomplish some object which the right hon.
gentleman has in view. (Cheers.) That is the way in
which a great party is weakened. (Cheers.) It is
not that a party will cease in England, but that when
the leader of a party like the right hon. gentleman has
no clear and settled policy to state, the more intelli-
gent members of that party, who have considered
this subject, find it necessary to act for themselves,
and express such opinions as we have heard in
this debate opinions which, if they do not agree
with this bill, yet derive much strength from the fact that,
while the hon. gentlemen who express them are not wil-
ling to support the bill, yet they have a decided opinion
on this subject—that we ought to proceed to legislate for
India during the present session, and that legislation for
India is the main principle and the first clause of the bill
of the Government. (Hear.) Why, sir, it was difficult
to find out by whom the motion of the noble lord was
adopted. The noble lord's motion states that the house
requires further information before they will be prepared
to legislate permanently for the government of India.
That is the first and main part of the noble lord's amend-
ment. But is that the meaning of the motion ? (Hear,
hear.) By no means. We have had four nights taken up
in discussinc, question, that view of the but can it be con-
ceived that hon. gentlemen are in that position, that they
have not made up their minds upon the great question
whether the government of India shall be continued or
altered ? But that is not the situation of those who have
spoken on this subject. There is hardly one of them who
has not stated a clear and decided opinion as to the nature
of the course to be taken. (Hear, hear.) Therefore, in
fact, the motion is entirely fallacious in its terms, and
does not mean that which it would lead the house to be-
lieve it does. But we have an explanation of the noble
lord's motion from the leader of Cie Opposition to the
measure, when my right hon. fiiend asked for leave to
introduce the bill. The hon. gentleman the member for
Manchester has explained the meaning of this motion.
(Hear, hear.) He told the house it was intended, if the
motion succeeded, to introduce a bill to continue the Go-
vernment as it is for the space of two years ; and he ven-
tured to affirm, and I think well he might venture to
affirm, that if two years were allowed he was convinced
that, at the end of that period, no Government founded on
the existence of the East India Company would be adopted
by the house. (Hear.) I do not find fault with this decla-
ration of the honourable gentleman. His conduct upon
this subject has been frank, direct, and intelligible.
(Hear, hear.) I differ from him in some of his opinions,
but I am disposed to agree with him in the opinion
that, if for two years you have continual agitation,
excited hopes, and inflamed opinions on the subject
of the government of India, if for two years you
should support throughout India the notion that the pre-
sent Government of India should be displaced, and that
something more grateful to the popular feeling, some repre-
sentation of all classes, something wild and impracticable,
should be put in its place, and if you find every man who
has not been successful as a lawyer, or who has been dis-
appointed as an applicant for office, if you find these all
adding to the agitation in this country, and endeavouring
to indispose the people of India to expect and approve of a
continuance of the present system of government, I own I
am willing to avow -that the enactment by Parliament of
such a Government would be highly problematical, (Hear,

hear.) But is that all ? Will nothing else be seen in that
time ? It is only the continuation of the Government that
would be in question ? Would it not be the very empire
itself. (Cheers.) Could any man tell me that at the end
of the two years there would be any surety that British
rule would still exist in India? (Cheers.) Well, then, I
think the noble lard is lending the aid of his arm to shake
India, and that he has little considered what fruit he might
be scattering on the ground, what branches he might shake,
what roots he might loosen, if not absolutely destroy, by
being successful with his motion. (Hear, hear.) The hon.
gentleman for Manchester thinks he could stop short when
he had secured his object of destroying the East India
Company. I doubt his power to do so. I can understand
his proceedings, for he has employed his strength in oppos-
ing us in the course which we propose ; but I cannot un-
derstand the tactics of the noble lord. If the noble lord
will permit me to parody a declaration of his own, I should
say, "that his motion is neither conservative nor reform-
ing." It is not conservative, becauses it proposes for a
long period of time to maintain existing agitation—a pur-
pose more opposed to Conservatism cannot well be imagined;
it is not reforming, because the noble lord has not shown
us even a single feature of any plan of reform. (Cheers.)
Well, then, the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) says,
" Oh, but you talk of dangers to India. The First Lord
of the Admiralty talks of the state of Asia, and of
China, and of other dangers that surround this question."
I will show that in 1833 great, if not greater, dangers
existed. Can the right honourable gentleman say that, in
the face of those dangers, the Government of Lord Grey
postponed for two years, or even for two months, to legis-
late on the subject 7 (Hear, hear.) No, Sir, in the face of
those dangers, comprehending the full peril of the case,
they introduced a bill into the house, which was read a
second time on the 9th of July, which was read a second
time in the House of Lords on the 2d of August, which
passed through Parliament, and every danger was averted
by the promptitude and decision of Lord Grey. Then I
ask the right hon. gentleman to complete his precedent,
and, as he has adverted to the circumstances, to admit
that we in 1853 should follow a similar course to that pur-
sued by Earl Grey in 1833. (Hear hear.) This seems to
me to be the great fact of the question of delay. I cannot
but think that if the house agree to adopt that course, it
would be a course attended with grave dangers (Hear,
hear.) I say that circumstances themselves ought to be
sufficient to convince the house that the authority of the
Earl of Dalhousie and of Lord Harding° may fairly be
acted upon as the opinions of persons of actual experience
in the government of the country. I think their opinions
add additional weight to the force of the arguments which
the question itself affords. (Hear, hear.) Well, next
comes the important question which my right hon. friend
has called the double government. In speaking on this
question, I beg the house to recollect what the right hon.
gentleman (Mr. Disraeli) does not seem to have kept
in mind—the general argument used on former occasions,
used by my right honourable friend the member for Edin-
burgh, and used by Mr. Mill in his evidence in favour of
what has been called double government with respect to
India. I beg to call this fact to the attention of the noble
lord who brought forward the motion, that no one has pro-
posed any system of government for India which is any-
thing- else but a double government. No one has said that
it would be sufficient to have a Minister of the Crown en-
trusted with the affairs of India without the assistance of
some council, or the advice of some persons who had ex-
perience with regard to India, and who might give that
knowledge of details which persons coming into office,
when Ministers change from time to time, must necessarily
want. (Hear, hear.) Let us see whether you can have
any other government for India. Let us see whether you
cannot have in this country some change which shall
temper and guide the Governor-General, however wise,
however able, and however temperate he may be—nay,
let him have the abilities of a Lord Wellesley, all the
virtues of a Lord William Bentinck—and which shall act
as a check in cases where his power might require control ;
and then let me ask whether you can have any better check
than a body of persons independent in their positions—men
thoroughly acquainted with the affairs of India, and who
would be able to explain to the Governor-General the de-
tails of every measure proposed or adopted in India, and
who would thereby oblige the Governor-General to feel that
every act of his must be well considered, and that if at any
time he should do an unadvised or inconsistent act, he
would be liable to check and rebuke. (Cheers.) Well, Sir,
I must say I think a government of India, supported as it
is by 70 years of experience, ought to have considerable
weight with the house. I do not say it must be at all
times the best government, or that you may not find, as
you proceed with the mechanical improvements of the
present day, that some of the machinery may be sim-
plified and replaced by better. That may be so ; but I
say the course is at the present time to adopt that govern-
ment which is sanctioned by such authorities, up-
held by such arguments, and confirmed by such experi-
ence. There were, however, two defects, which have been
constantly pointed out, and pointed out by those who
now find fault with us for attempting to correct those
defects. One of these was that the process of being elected
to the Court of the Directors was one which occu-
pied considerable time, and which exposed the person
seeking that honour to great solicitation, and which de-
terred many of the ablest servants who come from India
from seeking it. Another injustice was, that there was so
much patronage in the hands of the directors, and that,
above all, the civil patronage was an object among
so many of the proprietors, that it had great influence in
the election of directors. As regards the first of these,
we have provided that a certain number of directors should
be named by the Crown—and could be named by the
Crown, provided they had had ten years' service in India
—without going through the process of election by the
Court of Directors of the East India Company. I own,
I think, the objection quite done away with by that
proposal, nor do I think the objection once stated by
my right hon. friend the member for Edinburgh would
apply to this proposal. It was no doubt the proposal first
made by Mr. Chas. Wynn, and he put a limitation on it,
which we have adopted, and which, I think, nullifies the
objection which has been made against it—namely, that
the persons nominated should have passed a certain num-
ber of years, and we have proposed that the number should
be 10 years in India. We all know persons who come
home after long service in India are not extreme partisans
or party men ; that they consider India always present in
their minds, and, whether they are appointed by one Min-
ister or the other, that they regard the welfare of India
above all other objects. There was another proposal made
by Mr. Wynn at the time, which we have adopted, and
which my noble friend Lord Glenelg wished to adopt in
1832, which is that of diminishing the number of the
directors, and Mr. Wynn gave an admirable reason
for it—" You had," he said, " twenty-four directors
divided into four -committees, but three of these
committees were engaged on subjects connected with
trade. You are now about to deprive the com-
pany of all business connected with trade or commerce,
and, therefore, you-have no need of more than the number
of directors for one of those committees—or, at least, have
not so much need of them as when you had three commit-
tees sitting on trade," I think that the plan we have sug-
gested is a very reasonable proposal, and one which should
receive your assent. I now come to the other proposal to
meet the other defect I have mentioned, and here I think
the proposal we have to make is not only founded, as my
right hon. friend the member for Edinburgh showed, on
sound principle—that those who go out as candidates for
civil officers should be exposed to general competition—but
that it may be hereafter of the greatest importance as re-
gards the government of India. In the first place I think it
will serve to connect the people of all classes in this coun-
try more with India—that there will be a more general
concern—a more general interest in the welfare of India
'in this country, where young men are taken from all classes
of society here. But, in the next place, it will altogether
put an end to the fears which, I confess, I have always en-
tertained, that some day or other it might please the Par-
liament to give to the Crown the. Government of India, and,
with that Government, the vast patronage connected with
it. I believe there could be nothing more dangerous for
India and nothing more injurious to the Constitution of
the country than that course. (Hear, hear.) But I have
always apprehended that, without some change, such a
proposal would be made. One who has written on Indian
reform—a gentleman of very considerable ability, who has
written on the subject last year and this—l mean Mr. Camp-
bell—says he thinks it would be a good distribution of the
patronage of India if the offices were given to persons recom-
mended by members of the House of Commons. I entirely
differ from that proposition. (Hear.) I can conceive nothing
more dangerous—nothing more injurious than that we
should adopt that plan. If the plan we propose should
succeed—and, mind, I don't say it will succeed, because it
is only an experiment—whether we continue the govern-
ment in the company or confer it on the Crown, you
have provided a great mode of dispensing this great
patronage. I have heard hon. members speaking in this
debate with a view to amend, either with or without
alterations, the present mode of the government of India,
and I have heard them speaking with a resolute deter-
mination to put an end to the government. Some of
those who have taken that line are favourable to the
government of the company, but there is one extra-
ordinary exception—my hon. friend the member for
Montrose. I confess I was quite astonished that the
hon. member, who was wont to extol the government
of India, and to praise so highly the mode in which
its affairs were administered by the Company, should give
his support to a motion of which the end was to weaken and
finally to subvert the government of India. I will not now
go into the mode in which the government of India has
been conducted. I think the general result of that govern-
ment—and I state it in opposition to the right hon. gentle-
man opposite—has been a flourishing condition of India—
an improvement in the revenue, and an improvement in
the trade of the country—greater facilities of transit than
were ever known before, and, generally speaking, a flou-
rishing and prosperous empire, whose fate you have now
to consider. I have seen it Wed that we have not in
India those great public works which the former sultans
and princes of India founded, and that if we were to depart
from India, we should leave no monument of our power.
I entirely differ, sir, from that opinion and from that state-
ment. (Hear, hear.) For my own part, when I look back
to the government of great empires, especially in India and
in other parts of the East, I can see little to admire or ap-
prove—l see undoubtedly powerful empires, having esta-
blished their power by a disregard of all obligations, found-
- lug great works for some purposes of vanity and ostentation,
and erecting those works by the labour of those who were,
as we see by the accounts of the sculptures of Assyria,
lately published, slaves, who were prisoners of war, and
taken in battle with foreign nations. Those works were
in fact records of the misery, the endurance, and suffer-
ings of those prisoners of war whom we now treat with
humanity and kindness. (Hear, hear.) But are there no
monuments which we should leave behind us ? Will his-
tory tell no tale as regards the last seventy years of our
Government in India ? Will it not, Sir, be recorded
that in that time we have put an end to those devas-
tating wars in India in which the neighbouring princes
attacked and destroyed each other to the total ruin of the
people, and that the scene of the ravage of the Carnatic so
eloquently described by Mr. Burke has not been repeated?
(Hear, hear.) Will it not be told that, instead, of this,
our language has been introduced, that better notions of
law and justice have been spread among the people of
India, and that if we have not done what one hon. mem-
ber seemed to think, strangely enough, it was the duty of
the East India Company to have done in less than a
single century, and changed the whole character of the
people, we have at least laid the foundations for that
change of character by which the people will learn that in
English estimation truth and justice are to take the place
of falsehood and venality ? We have introduced to the
cultivated minds of India a knowledge of the science and
literature of Europe, and we have thereby enabled them
in future, whether they may be governed by England or by
other authority, to judge that Government by a better
test than by the old barbarous rules by which one per-
fidious conqueror was wont to estimate another. (Hear,
hear.) My belief is, that, if our rule in India were to be
destroyed, we should possess that consolation—a consola-
tion better than that of having built any of those palaces
or having raised any of those stately works which Sove-
reigns formerly erected in India. I believe and hope that
the Government of this country will long continue in India,
and I can see no other power so likely to maintain peace
among the various nations of India, and no other power so
likely to introduce improvements from time toitime tend-

ing to the civilisation of India ; r m d believing that such is
our great mission, I shall decid ei fly, so far as I am con-
cerned, not put that power in j e, >pardy by consenting to
two years' agitation and the unce rt ainty of delay, and shall
certainly vote against the ame at lment of the noble lord,
and I trust that the house will as sont to this measure.
The house then divided on the question that the words
proposed to be left out stand part of the question :
Ayes
Noes

Majority
The bill was then read a seco n d time without a divi-
sion.

The Savings-bank Annuities 1 all went through com-
mittee.

The Leasing Powers (Ireland) 'B ill was read a third time
and passed, as was also the Paris h Vestries (No. 2) Bill.
LIVERPOOL 'WRIT.

On the adjourned debate being resumed,
Lord D. STUART moved tlitil; the writ be suspended
till the 20th of July, his object being hereafter to move
that the votes at the election be taken by ballot.
Mr. HINDLEY moved the a djournment of the house,
but ultimately withdrew the motion.
Lord PALMERSTON though.t, the issuing of the writ
should be delayed till the evid.e nce was in the hands of
members, and proposed that th a issuing of the writ be
postponed for a fortnight.
Lord J. MANNERS hoped no delay would take place
in the issuing of the writ.
Mr. MALINS also supported the immediate issuing of
the writ.
Lord PALMERSTON, under n'Anding that the commit-
tee had distinctly recommended the issuing of the writ,
would not press the postponement.
The gallery was cleared for a. division, but none took
place.
The amendment was then withdrawn, and the motion
for the issuing of the writ was ag need to without a division.
The house adjourned at 10 minutes to 3 o'clock.