The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-23 00:00:00

ENT INDIA HOUSE.

The special general Court of the East India Company
was held by adjournment at their house, in LeAdenhall-
street, on Tuesday, for the purpose of continuing the con-
sideration of the correspondence regarding the arrange-
, ment proposed by her Majesty's Ministers for the future
government of India ; Mr. Ellice in the chair.
• Colonel SYKES said, if he were to discuss the subjects
that impressed themselves upon his mind at the then
present moment, and were to occupy the Court with the
details he possessed to illustrate the important question
before them, he should exhaust their patience before he
exhausted his materials. Hitherto, the question before
the public consisted most in a tissue of assertions on the
one part, and he was sorry to say of a very little more
than a tissue of denials on the other part. It was quite
right that stewards should be subject to periodical ex-
aminations, but a just steward should be made respon-
sible for his own acts only, and not for those over which
he had no control. The principal heads of accusation
against the Court of Directors (he would not go into the
-puerilities contained in the petitions presented to the
House of Commons, for they were, in one word,
eras= ignorantice)—the principal accusations were,
that there had been oppressive taxation, and, as a
consequence, a dimunition of the population, with
misery, suffering, and hopleseness ; that the company
had not produced cotton to meet the call of the
Manchester manufacturers ; that the cost of the col-
lection of the Indian revenue had been enormously
wasteful ; that the directors had abused their patron-
age by not sending out to India persons of talent and
efficiency ; and that the India-house establishment was
an enormous and wasteful cost. Now, the India
Minister, in his speech of five hours' duration, showed
that in the last 20 years there had been a satisfactory
progress in every department of the administration of
the government, whether originated at home or in
India ; and that if there were any shortcomings they
were owing to circumstances over which the Court had
no control whatever. With regard to the population
of India, he would enter into a few statistics. • In
1850-51 a careful census was made of the Madras pre-
sidency. In 1839 the population of that presidency was
taken at 13,967,395; in 1850-51 the census gave
22,301,657. Admitting that the difference could not
altogether have arisen from natural causes, still there
must have been a large natural increase of population.
In 1831 the little island of Bombay contained a popu-
lation of 162,570 ; in 1849 the population amounted to
566,119. The manifest increase of the population of
India could, not, therefore, be questioned. With an
increased population there must have been increased
industry. Again, there was an increase in the exports
from India between the years 1834-5 and 1849-50 of
123 k per cent. It had been thrown in his teeth by a
Radical that the increased exports showed an increased
exaction from the people ; but what were the imports
into India during those two periods ? In 1834-5
the imports were 6,154,1291., in 1849-50 they were
13,696,6961., being an increase of 1221 per cent. Add
to this that between 1834.5 and 1849-50 33,257,4871. of
bullion was imported into India which never got out of
that country again. Since the year 1800 the total amount
of bullion absorbed in India was 100,000,0001. sterling.
The hon. and gallant proprietor then stated the great
improvements that had been made in the means of com-
munication in India, at the same time observing that
for eight months in the year India was all road. After
expressing his disapproval of the proposed nomination of
six directors by the Crown, and his wish that the delay
of legislation should be to the Greek kalends, rather
than that the bill should pass in its present shape, the
hon. and gallant proprietor concluded by disclaiming all
feeling of partisanship on this question. He hoped the
Court and the public would consider that he was an ad-
vocate of the Court of Directors from an honest convic-
tion of the truth of the opinions he had expressed.
Mr. CLARK supported the resolution. No doubt, as
the mover of the amendment had said, the Government
had the right to displace the East India Company and
to take possession of India, but the question was—were
there adequate grounds to justify that step ? To war-
rant such a course they ought to show that India was
misgoverned. Had they done that ! So far from it,
the whole speech of Sir C. Wood was a eulogy on the
present government of India ; and yet, such was the
inconsistency of the right hon. gentleman, he immedi-
ately after proposed to altogether alter the constitution
of that court which had thus so well and so wisely go-
verned India.
Mr. MILLS was desirous of noticing the attacks which
had been made upon the Court of Proprietors and upon
the executive body of the company. He thought it right
that they should, as a preliminary step in this discussion,
relieve themselves from the load of opprobrium that had
been so unscrupulously cast upon them, and, unless they
succeeded in doing so, they would be unfit to take part in
the discussion of this or of any future scheme for the govern-
ment of India. It had been truly said, that all men
who undertook a public trust must render an account
of that trust, but when the time of investigation had
come and tribunals of both Houses of Parliament had
been appointed to investigate and report upon their
conduct, they might have expected that they would not
have been exposed to personal imputations, and that
any comments made on their conduct would have been
confined to facts established in evidence: But such had
not been the case. The directors had been subject to
much animadversion by the public press and by their
anonymous contributors, and they had been assailed by
a nobleman of great talent, of great Indian knowledge,
a member of the highest court of judicature, a member
of the committee of the House of Lords, appointed to
try the East India Company, and a witness before the
committee of the House of Commons. It might have
occurred to that distinguished nobleman that the first
attribute for the discharge of those important functions
was impartiality. But, unluckily, whenever the Court
of Directors were named the noble lord seemed to lose
all sense of legislative propriety and to think of nothing
but of his recal. (Cheers, and laughter.) With this
angry and unstatesmanlike feeling he had endeavoured
un all occasions to overwhelm the Court of Directors,
and degrade it in public estimation by statements for
the most part unfounded. The first charge made against
the Court was that of last year—namely, the perversion
of patronage. He accused the directors of not regard-
in, the claims of their Indian servants. That charge
was answered by the secretary of the company.
who showed that nearly one-third of the patronage
went to the sons of their Indian servants. At that time
he (Mr. Mills) had the curiosity to ascertain in what
manner this friend of India had bestowed his patronage,
and he discovered that the noble lord had done as others
did—had given it to his own friends and acquaintance,
but among whom not one Indian was to be found. He
(Mr. Mills) should not have alluded to this if, after the
error had been pointed out, any apology had been made
for it ; but in lieu of that the noble lord, on a subse-
quent occasion, in alluding to their civil patronage,
said,—" It seemed to him most scandalous and most in-
jurious that the system now existing should be pre-
served ; that any man, never heard of except within the
narrow limits of his own private acquaintance, should
have the power, if he should think it agreeable to him
to become a director of the East India Company, to ad-
vertise himself as a candidate, and, by dint of the most
judicious bowing during a period of seven years, at last
to obtain that which he miscalled the object of his
ambition ;' that he should then be able, with paternal
kindness, and prepossession, and fondness, to review
his young sons, and at once to designate the one who
might appear to him to possess some superior ability
to the rest as the future governor of a province as
populous as Canada ; that he should select another
standing perhaps a little lower in ability, a future judge
of a great empire • and that he should turn to the
most stupid or indolent among them and say, You
are unable to pass for the civil service, I shall be com-
pelled to give you nothing but a direct commission ;
you will die -a general, and you will come home at a
later period than your brothers, and with much inferior
emolument, but such is the necessary consequence of
your deficient industry of talent ;'—was it decent that
in 24 cases in every year that passed over our heads
this scene might take place, and that the persons so de-
signated, all perhaps equally incompetent, should be
sent out in the different departments—in the army, or
the revenue, or the judicial branch—to discredit the
country ?" Now, that was a grossly exaggerated state-
ment, as h%d been proved by the hon. baronet (Sir J.
Hogg) in the House of Commons ; for out of 688 appoint-
ments only 159 had been given to the relations of direc-
tors. He could for himself say, having with his father
and uncle altogether had a seat in that court for 68
years, that only one member of his family had been in
the service of the East India Company. He claimed no
credit for that, because, being connected with the great
commercial interests of the country, they had been able
to do better for them. What he wished to state was,
that the committee of the House of Lords being sitting,
that was the proper place for these statements to be in-
quired into, and then their truth or falsehood would be
established. But the real question was, had they or not
provided able and efficient civil and military servants
for India ? In the presence of many of those distin-
guished men, it was hardly for him to speak ; but it was
universally admitted that for high moral feeling, for in-
tegrity, for ability, for general efficiency, those services
had produced men unsurpassed, if not unequalled, by
any service in the world. (Cheers.) India servants were
sent to every quarter of the globe to overcome difficul-
ties which the servants of the Crown never were able
to grapple with. The hon. director them proceeded
to comment upon the evidence given by Lord Ellen-
borough and Lord Hardinge before the corn mittee of the
House of Lords, and after passing a wpm eulogium on
the great services rendered by Mr. Melvilla the secre-
tary of the Court of Directors of the East India Com-
pany, for a long series of years, especially in the pre-
paration of the papers used on the occasion of the re-
newal of the company's charter in 1833, concluded by
expressing a hope that the Court of Proprietors would
remember that up to this hour the East India Company
had been as glorious as it had been successful, and that
they would not be a party to any measure which they, in
their consciences, believed was calculated to destroy or
impair the independence of that court, and thus render
them a degraded and inefficient instrument for the future
and lasting good government of India. (Cheers.)
Dr. Sayer, Mr. Alderman Salomons, Mr. Gray, Mr.
Twining, r. Ripley, and Mr. Lewin then severally
spoke in support of the motion.

The CHAIRMAN said, before the resolution was put,
he wished just to observe that the Court of Directors
were unanimously of opinion that the question as to the
future government of India ought at once to be decided.
Her Majesty's Ministers having proposed to continue
the system of a double government, the directors trusted
that that system would be adopted. The proprietors
bad seen from the correspondence that the Court of
Directors did not entirely approve of the alterations
which were proposed to be made ; but he was in hopes
that, fortified by the opinion of the proprietors, the
Court of Directors would, on submitting their resolution