The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-07 00:00:00

show forbearance on the present occasion. (Laughter.) As,
in spite of disadvantages of soil and climate, the Scotch
were the best farmers and agriculturists in the kingdom,so
he hoped the difficulties of the income tax would prove a
benefit to them in another way. (Hear, and laughter.)
Sir J. YOUNG said the house was mistaken in suppos-
ing that any peculiar favour was shown to Ireland. (Oh,
oh.) The reason why the income tax was levied on the
poor-law assessment in Ireland was that there were so
many derivative interests that it would be impossible to
levy the tax except in that way.
The house divided—
For Sir A. Campbell's clause 54
Against it 9B-44
On the motion of the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHE-
QUER, three new clauses were added to the bill in refer-
ence to deductions for poor rate paid by one party for
another.
Some verbal amendments were made in the other clause.
On clause 43,
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER proposed
the insertion of certain words in regard to assurance com-
panies. This clause could not come onusint atthere ion till after a
the sth of October. That being so,was
committee sitting on the subject of the registration ajoint
stock companies, he thought it better to take advantage of
what remained of the present session, in order to determine
by some simple provision, to which he did not anticipate
any objection, under what conditions exemptions should be
allowed for the annual premiums. This would give no pre-
ference to one company over another, and would leave the
matter quite open.
After a short conversation the amendment was agreed to.
On the motion that the bill do pass,
Capt. ARCHDALL asked whether the Chancellor of the
Exchequer would make the allowance which the poor law
commissioners promised should be made to the rate-payers
of Lowtherstown Union for the money paid by them under
the Relief Act ?
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said that as
he understood the matter the advance was made under the
Temporary Relief Act, and not under the General Relief
Act. It was said that the poor law commissioners had
given an assurance that this money would be paid back,
but they declared that they had given no such assurance.
After a few words from Mr. J. BILL and Mr. FREWEN,

The bill was read a third time, and passed.
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA BILL.—ADJOURNED

DEBATE.

On the order of the day for resuming the adjourned de-
bate on this bill being read,
Mr. J. G. PHILLIMORE said it was with no ordinary
anxiety that he rose to express his opinions on a question,
on the proper solution of which depended the happiness of
by far the larger proportion of their fellow-subjects.
Differing as he did from the right hon. gentleman (Sir C.
Wood) in much which fell from him the other evening,'
there was one point on which he agreed with him, namely,
that, however theoretically absurd and anomalous the
frame of our Indian Government might be sup-
posed to be, still if it had really promoted the
happiness and welfare of those who were subject to its
dominion, it ought not to be abolished or even altered.
If, however, he were able to show that it had failed in the
discharge of ' its sacred duties, and that not through acci-
dent, but owing to causes which had been repeatedly
pointed out by the greatest and wisest statesmen, including
Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke, and Lord Grenville, then he should
contend that uniform experience, as well as general reason-
ing, was in favour of the discontinuance of the present
system. He was ready to meet the right hon. gentleman
on the issue, whether the present mode of government had
been practically advantageous to the natives of India.
When the charter was last under the consideration of the
house, the right lion. gentleman the memberfor Edinburgh,
who proposed the bill for its renewal, insisted especially on
two points—the necessity of employing the natives, and
the necessity (the paramount necessity, as he termed it) of
a code for India. The right hon. gentleman said—" There
is one part of the bill on which, after what has passed else-
where, I feel myself irresistibly impelled to say a few
words. I allude to that wise, that benevolent, that noble
clause, which enacts that no native of our Indian empire
shall, by reason of his colour, his descent, or his religion,
be disabled from holding office." Now what had been the
conduct of the EaSt India Company since that language, so
worthy of au enlightened statesman, was used ? Why,
from that time to this, not a single native of India had
obtained an office to which he was not eligible before.
(Hear, hear.) Again, the right hon. gentleman (Mr.
Macaulay) said no country ever stood so much in need of a
code as India, and he added—and he (Mr. Phillimore) re-
quested the attention of the house to this statement—that
there never was a country in which that need could be so
easily supplied. In describing the state of the law, the
right hon. gentleman said, " The whole is a matter of
chance. Even in this country we have hail complaints .of
judge-made law, where there is everything that can miti-
gate the evils of such a system ; but judge-made law where
there is absolute government and lax morality—where
there is no bar and no public—is a curse and a scandal not
to be endured." Now, what was the commentary on this
text ? One of the most able civil servants of the Crown
told them that nothing had been done, and that when he
sent remonstrances and recommendations t) the directors,
the only effect was that he received a sneering answer, and
was told to take Westtninster-hall as a model. There was
no part of the right hon. gentleman's (Sir C. Wood's)
speech to which he, listened with so much surprise and
mortification as that in which he spoke of the operation of
the law in India. Speaking of the whole subject in a
slighting manner, the right honourable gentleman said
no doubt there were abuses of the law in India—there
were abuses of that kind in all countries, and that if
our own courts wore ransacked, similar abuses would be
found to those which existed in India, as he had been in-
formed by a judge. Whoever made this last statement
had grossly calumniated the administration of law in
this country. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Holt Mackenzie said
that just in proportion as the law had been enforced in
India had the people suffered ; and he (Mr. Phillimore)
believed that if any abuse of the same kind were dis-
covered in England, the whole country would be in a
flame, and Parliament would address the Crown for the
removal of the judge who had been guilty of it. Mr. Le-
win said there were now on the bench at Madras persons
who were not only unfit for the office which they held, but
who had been guilty of acts which rendered them unfit to
be trusted with the life of a flea. (Laughter.) In one
case there was a document, consisting of a side and a-half
of foolscap, in which it was declared that one man was to
be hanged, another to be transported, and a third to be sot
free " because there was not a /vestige of evidence against
him." (Laughter.) Such was found to be the spelling of
the word. The judge had evidently not examined the do-
cument to which he attached his name. In another case—
s case in which a man was prosecuted by a nabob in. an
affair of accounts—the accounts kept by the nabob's wife
were admitted as evidence. Many of the cases in India
were of such a nature that if they wanted anything like a
parallel they must look for it in the orations of Cicero
against Verres. The question was not one of refinement or
comfort, it was one of existence. One great reason, he be-
lieved, why natives of Britain did not settle in India, was
that they were unwilling to entrust their property and cha-
racter to the jurisdiction of the Indian courts. The remedy
for this state of things was the employment of natives, in
favour of which he might quote the authority of almost
every man of great official experience in India. To say,
indeed, that among one hundred million of people none
were to be found who were qualified to administer justice,
was to libel Providence. Sir Thomas Munro said the in-
tegrity and diligence of the natives fitted them to adminis-
ter the law. Sir George Clerk, who was by no means un-
favourable to the East India Company, said that the mo-
rality among the higher classes of Hindoos was of a high
standard, and that among the middle and lower classes it
was remarkably high. That was the evidence of an old
servant of the company, and similar evidence had been
given by individuals equally intelligent and influential,
This was the oppression that made the heart sick,
,this the
iron that was sure to enter the soul. They talked of 'En-
do° corruption, but could not the Hindoos retort about
European corruption I (Hear, hear.) Had they not in
recent days seen all the influence of a Government used to
screen corruption, and had they not seen rank and station,
and, what was worse intelligence, bowing down before
successful speculation? How had committees of the House
of Commons been employed during the last three months ?
(Hear, hear.) The right hon. gentleman, when comparing
India under native rule with the present government, had
gone to bhe period immediately preceding our invasion,
when the country was torn and convulsed, and had not al-
luded to the time of Akbar when it was contented and
happy. He might as well have gone to the days of Attila
for an account of the Augustan era. Suppose the Hindoo
were to refer us to Europe in the 17th century, to the times
of the Regent Orleans, of Louis XV., of Catherine of Rus-
sia, or to the incestuous court of Berlin, or more recently
to the sack of Warsaw, the partition of Poland, or the still
freshly remembered horrors of the French revolution ?
(Hear, hear.) Did not the house think that in such events
a Hindoo might find counterparts for the worst scenes
in the history of his own country. (Cheers.) The
next question to which he should allude was the tenure of
land, a question respecting which it was scarcely possible
to exaggerate the difficulty. With respect to the land, the
East India Company had assumed all the rights of the na-
tive proprietors, while, at the same time, evading all the
duties. The settlement of Bengal in '93 was perhaps
adopted from good motives, but it had been adopted in
ignorance, and had ended in complete failure. It was
called a permanent settlement, but such were its effects
that at the present moment only one family remained that
had signed the compact, all the rest having been ruined or
totally destroyed. Mr. Mill condemned the settlement of
'93 as having ruined both the Zemindars and the ryots,
the latter being in a state of utter poverty and degrada-
tion. With respect to the state of this same Bengal pre-
vious to our rule, he would quote the testimony of Mr.
Holwell, a very old traveller, who described it as the best
ordered and happiest portion of India, and the only one
that retained the best features of the old Hindoo system.
At the present moment therejwas the one level of uniform
misery m the richest country in the world, under the go-
vernment whose power the house was now called upon to
renew. At Madras they had adopted the Ryotwarrie sys-
tem, the great defect of which was that one collector was
obliged to settle terms with 300,000 ryots, and there could
1,?30 lower deep of human degradation than the condition
of Madras ryots under the sway of Madras collectors. The
wYstera had also been introduced at Bombay in spite of Mr.
(ii.ll)..llwh'it't.°,li:e but the authorities had been obliged to with-
draw
systeltibe north-western province an entirely dif-
Volume.
ag
to T.cel been established. One fact would speak
pany's maimgeLtuno4vesierity of the country under the com-
years sixty rlt was that during the last fourteen
the inhabitants of °I nears of rent had been remitted to
public works, mostiltha' (Hear.) Of the question of
the public funds were-W:l=eivil* servant had said that
andibnzapplied, and that half
a million properly laid ont
sults than any they coulaNveTl have produced better re- I
opinions of Mr. Burke, Mr. Macaulay, Having quoted the
as hostile to the patronage of ,;,,, and Lord Grenville,
learned member proceeded to say, company, th© hon. and
of the company, was to be
gteankteinemalaiyb,
ebix°l;:tZevPinit\t;°angagtoe
remain. Tho_right hon.
away everything that was essential for as
lowed the company to remain as a sham with that
which_ was the strongest incentive to tyranny're-
spons ibili ty
When the light hon. morel. had been told httlieky.
tom of Indian governmen
.was anomalous, he answ -
that our Indian empire was itself anomalous. Why, if etielekti
were so, it was the more neceswiry to But rep
men to
administer the government. i r
e(Hlle,aasr.a)noßinualtotuhse, rg tt
hheorne
gentleman ssid that the emp
fore the government must be
.anomalous
.li n t
a also.t, asTheth right
l
hon. gentleman was not even origina
remembered to have seen in Boswell 's
in" Jorhnasnond/e'
laugh.)Who
drives fat oxen must himself be fat." , ea
He begged of the right hon. gentleman to pause
ablefior if
he
renewed the present system of government; a