The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-12 00:00:00

Supporter of the new Government succeeded to the office.
lite must say it was his firm conviction that had not
that most unjustifiable cancelling, and that appoint-
anent taken place, they would not have had to deplore
that disastrous chapter in the history of India—the re-
cord of the calamities of the Affghan war ; had Lord
Beytesbury been allowed to proceed that war would, he
believed, never have occurred. It behoved the house,
therefore, instead of weakening and rendering null the
power of the Court of Directors as a check on the Board of
Control, to maintain and strengthen it, at least so far as to
allow time for a remonstrance against any ill-advised step.
It was impossible that the nominees should not have a
bias in favour of those by whom they were appointed ; the
court would act more and more every year under the in-
fluence of party feeling, and ultimately the interests of a
remote people would be made to kick the beam in com-
parison with political considerations. They were not
without an example at that moment of what a powerful
minister, backed by a strong party, might do when he
thought it his mission to crush a particular interest. They
had only to look at the succession duty for a proof of this.
(Ironical cheers from the ministerial benches.) He did
not wish to see any such power as that introduced into
India. (Hear, hear.) Though open election was liable to
many objections, he preferred it to the proposition before
the committee, and he should vote for the amendment as
one means of opposing the bill.
Mr. J. PHILLIMORE would vote for the clause as
proposed by the Government, because he preferred a no-
minee of the Crown to a nominee of the East India Com-
pany. The most distinguished men in the service of India
had refused to undergo the fatigue and humiliation of a
canvas for a directorship. Had the hon. baronet forgotten
the case of Mr. Morris ? When the hon. baronet spoke of
the directorship being bestowed on eminent services, he
(Mr. Phillimore) said the reward had been given, not to
the most eminent servants, but to those who, like the
heroes in the Dunciad, could dive deepest through the mud.
Mr. MARJORIBANKS said, he regretted the allusion
of the hon. and learned gentleman rendered it necessary
for him to trouble the house with a few words, not for the
purpose of depreciating the services of Mr. Morris, a
civilian of standing, of much ability, and of great local
knowledge, whom he knew and esteemed, and of whom he
would not say one word of disparagement, but on his own
behalf and in vindication of the recent election. No one
had attempted to controvert the opinion of Lord Ellen-
borough, which had been borne out by the recent evidence
Wore the committee on Indian affairs to the fullest extent,
that English gentlemen, by which English gentlemen with-
out Indian antecedents must be meant, must be admitted
into the direction if they wished to preserve its tone. If
the hon. and learned gentleman granted the correctness of
that opinion he must admit that the recent election af-
forded a fitting opportunity to carry it out, 15 years having
elapsed, and 17 elections having taken place since the ad-
mission of such a person into the board. (Hear, hear.)
He could not approve the system of nomination by the
Government, nor (as we understood) that proposed by the
amendment.
Mr. PHILLIMORE having explained, and said that he
objected to the system, but was sure a better selection than
the hon. member could not have been made,
Mr. T. BARING said, that his convictions with respect
to the course taken by Government were so decided he
must trespass for a few moments on the house, but before
he did so he must say that an hon. member, bearing a name
so familiar to every East India proprietor as that of the hon.
member who had just spoken, needed no excuse for being
elected, nor did the proprietors require any apology-for his
election. The name had been honoured in Indian affairs,
and the services of the late Campbell Marjoribanks gave
every relative a claim upon them. (Hear.) It was de-
sirable for the house to recollect that the origin and cause
of this clause of the bill was the assertion in evidence that
the length of canvass militated against distinguished ser-
vants in India seeking for places at the board on their
return home. The hon. baronet said their objection arose
from a morbid sensitiveness which he could not entertain,
and it might be so in the case of an Englishman, but when
a man came over here after 25 years in India, with a high
reputation, and a name known to the world, he did not
like to undergo a canvas which would last five or six
years. The next point was, to see how the change
proposed would work in the most harmonious way.
He thought any gentleman would rather sit in the di-
rection, knowing he enjoyed the confidence of both
the directors and the Crown, than if he felt he entered
merely as a nominee of the latter. (Hear, hear.) The
house would, by the adoption of the proposal of the right
hon. gentleman, destroy the line of demarcation which
must exist when gentleman were sent in by the Crown as
its separate organs, and which was looked on with the
jealousy of a distinct body. His anxious hope was that
the Government, seeing the general feeling of those who
wished to remedy the defects of the administration of
India to adopt any plan that could be suggested to them,
but not a, clause which changed the whole principle on
which the Court of Directors was founded, would take
into consideration those views ; and if it was, as it must
be, their only object to improve the Court of Directors,
without throwing into its composition an element of
discord, or planting in itlthe seeds of decay, he trusted
they would be disposed to adopt some suggestion such as
that which had been made them. (Hear.)
Sir J. GRAHAM could assure the hon. member he did
no more than justice to the motives which actuated the
Government with respect to the point they were now de-
bating. They had no object—they could have no object,
but that for which he had given them credit—namely, to
promote by the arrangements they were now making the
security and harmony of the Board of Directors. Their
sincere desire was to take ample security by this bill for
the most efficient and independent body exercising no di-
rect power, but exercising that moral influence and con-
trol which, by reason of their knowledge of Indian sub-
jects, they must necessarily possess. The hon. member
seemed to think it was possible to increase the powers of
the government by nominating a certain number of. per-
sons to the board. They could not desire, as a govern-
ment, any more power than they already enjoyed. Their
powers were as large as the most ambitious ruler could
wish, and the power of riding India was totally vested in
the Board of Control for the time being. The influence
of the Court of Directors was a moral influence, and just
as they added to its ability and intelligence they increased
that moral influence. Therefore, so far as related to di-
rect power, the Government asked for no addition by no-
minating members to the Court of Directors. His hon.
friend laboured under great misapprehension if he thought
any power was given by the bill to remove the nominees of
the Crown at the pleasure of the Crown. So far, from that,
the words used in the clause were taken from the act
appointing the County Court judges, who were
appointed, not during pleasure, but during good be-
haviour, and there must be some power of removal
under peculiar circumstances. If he mistook not, the
Court of Proprietors had now the power of removing in
case of inability or misbehaviour, and if the Crown was
to nominate, it must have the same power in cases to
warrant its use. The hon. member opposite had used
some strong expressions as to this bill, which he called a
rash and illusory measure. But what was the course he
would adopt? He proposed more extensive changes than
those proposed by the Government. He agreed that if
there was any one point as to which all the evidence they
had heard was conclusive and unanimous, it was the sys-
tem of canvassing now existing. (Hear.) It was the
weak point of the present system. It the first place, as
was justly observed by the chairman of the Indian Com-
mittee, it was quite certain that many of the most distin-
guished servants of the Crown returning to this country
after a long absence, with acquired tastes, feelings, and
habits quite of an opposite description to those prevailing
here, could not be induced to undergo a canvas such as
was necessary under present circumstances ; and, again,
he was sorry to say, he was convinced that, though there
might be exceptions, there was in connection with the
present amount of patronage a system of promised patron-
age, which, he must say, threw some discredit on the
Court of Directors itself. It was necessary to put an end
to that system of canvass, and to strike at the root of the
evil by diminishing the amount of patronage. He was
certainly of opinion that there was great force in the obser-
vation made by his hon. friend the member for Kidder-
minster, founded on the assumption made by the late Pre-
sident of the Board of Control—it was impossible to
dissemble the fact—it was vain to do so—it would be
wrong to do so—that the time was inevitable when the
present system of government in India must cease—when
the government must be carried on as a single govern-
ment, in the name and in the hands of the Crown, and
when the double system of government must terminate.
He stated it truly and unquestionably—the longest period
that could elapse before the change took place was 20
years. At the conclusion of the time the present system
of election by the proprietors to the Court of Directors
must necessary terminate. (Hoar.) He stated, when he
addressed the house on the second reading, that it had
more or less of an experimental character. If it was suc-
cessful—as he hoped and believed it would be—he had no
doubt it would remain for the next 20 years without any
material change ; but if, on the other hand, it should not
succeed, he was satisfied the next change would be the sub-
stitution of a single government by the Crown for the
system of the double government. In 20 years the go-
vernment must be exclusively in the hands of the Crown—
that change might be anticipated, and it might become
necessary, owing to circumstances, to assume it an early
period, and the great object of the Government and of the
Legislature which had to deal with it was to make the in-
evitable change as little conclusive in its nature, and as
easy as legislation could render it. He believed that was
the effect of the clause. He believed the introduction into
the direction of a small number of directors, nominated by
the Crown, would form the nucleus of a body which would
be the council of the sole Minister nominated by the Crown.
Then came the question—how would the new direction.
work ? He thought it would work well ; he did not be-
lieve it would be a discordant body. It was quite true,
as had been said by an hon. member behind him, that it
was impossible for one who had served for several years in
India not to have a community of feeling and habits, and
not to entertain common views and common opinions with
those who were connected with the same country; and,
though one portion of the new board was formed of nomi-
nees of the Crown,
and another, and the larger proportion
was derived from the proprietors, still he thought, when
bled at the board, there would be such an
they assembled
eunlitof position, sucha perfect uniformity of past
.
habits and feelings, that there would be nothing of differ-
ence between them. He considered that it was open to
discussion, when they arrived at a subsequent clause,
whether six years should be the term of service, or whether
it should be prolonged to 10 years. That was a subject
open to consideration, but he would point out that a pro-
longed period of service would diminish the objection en-
tertained to the expected favour on the part of the Crown,
for the same person would not, in all probability, be at
the head of the Board of Control at the end of six yea ,
and, judging from experience, he should say that in poli-
tical affairs expectation of future would prove a stronger
motive than recollection of past favours. He must say,
that although the question
was of an embarrassed and
difficult character, looking at the circumstances of the
case, and carefully weighing the conflicting opinions,
he certainly thought that, for the
reasons he had
Government stated, the Proposition of the was the one
which he hoped the committee would adopt, and he did
not anticipate from it an
those evils which hon. gen-
tlemen hod prophesied, yof
but,
strongly of opinion that from toile the contrary, he was
more evil was to be apprehended than
of self-election
on the part of the Crown, particulailfroln any v when that nomina-
nomination
tion devolved upon a minister himself responsible to
Parliament. (Hear.)
had
mr. BRIGHT said that the baronetrightheonbe.r
combated the proposition of the hon.
tamown•ioti eNmobrtehrs-
ampton with the very argument used by h
who had opposed the Government measure.
to the amendment of the hon. member for Northamrepgtaornd,
he thought that he had made the matter worse than the
Government proposed to make it already. If he had moved
that the 18 were to be chosen as the 24 were now, it
would, in his opinion, have been better. Strong as his
objections to the bill were, he felt bound to vote for some
of its provisions, because lie was afraid that some of the