The Sun.
London, England, 1851-06-20 00:00:00

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EAST INDIA HOUSE.

A quarterly general Court of the East India Com-
pany was held on We,in: sday at their house in Leaden-
hall-street. Mr. John Sh,pherd, chairman of the
company, was in the chair.
The minutes of the last quarterly meeting were
read and confirmed.

The CnainmsN announced that the warrants for
the half-yearly dividend would be ready for delivery
on the 7th of July next.

The report of the committee on the bye-laws was
then read, and the committee re-appointed fur the ea*
suing year.

PUBLIC WAYS IN OUZERAT.

Colonel DICKINSON then brought forward the mo-
tion of which he had given notice,—That a fixed per
tentage on the revenue of each collectorate in Guzerat
be annually expended for the improvement and ex-
te nsien of the public ways throughout that province.
Tne people of that province were at one time in a
state of great prosperity, but by degrees a great de-
cadence of that prosperity had taken place, which
justified him in asking for a special grant for the
amelioration of the condition of the agricultural popu-
lation of the four collectorates into which the pro-
vince was divided. After showing how those col-
lecterates had le!en impoverished by fire and inun-
dation, as well as by the competiticn to which they
were exposed in the markets of Europe by the
introduction of American cotton, the consequence cf
which had been to take the ryots out of the hands of
the landlords, who were always considerate in their
dealings with them, and to expose them to a set of
rapacious money-lenders, the Hon. and Gallant Pro-
prietor proceeded to describe the went of roads or any
other means of communication for the conveyance of
the cotton produce of those districts to the western
seaboard of Bombay. Guzerat was the garden cf India,
and what New Orleans was to America Surat was to
Guzerat. It WE'S unquestionably the finest portion of
British India. Half the Indian cotton imported into
the English market came from Guzerat, and yet there
had not been a single public work undertaken during
the 50 years since that portion of India had been in
our possession from which the natives could derive
any benefit. It was very unpleasant to him to differ
from their respected Deputy-Chairman (Sir James
Hogg), but he thought what that Honourable Baro-
net said in the House of Commons, in June last, as
to the excellent state of the roads of Guzerat was very
erroneous. The Honourable Member then read ex-
tracts from a pamphlet written by a Mr. Williams, who
described the roads in Guzerat to be so narrow that
only one cart could pass at a time, that they were full
of hollows and deep ruts, and that for three months in
the year, namely, during the monsoon, they were utterly
impassable ; so that the carts were in some of the col-
lectorates obliged to make detours of several miles.
The plea for allowing this state of things to exist was
that there were no materials on the spot for making
roads; but it appeared from the reports of officers
employed to survey the country, and who were well
acquainted with geology, that there were abundant
materials for that purpose. If any further delay were
allowed before taking steps for the improvement of
the public roads in India, the chances were that Ame-
rica would supplant us in the China trade. Vigorous
measures were necessary to meat the evil, and to
secure to ourselves the natural advantages which the
country possessed. An American merchant having
walked over the grounds of one of the estates at
Amedabad, the capital of Guzerat, where the cotton
crops were growing, was quite startled, and declared
that he had never seen such cotton. It was a curious
fact that throughout the whole discussions of the
cotton committee no allusion was made to Amedabad,
although it was the finest and most productive cotton
district in India, and from which 91,000 bales were
exported last year. Tramways might be laid down
at an expense of not more than 7001. to 8001, a mile.
Mr. LxwlN seconded the motion.
The CHAIRMAN said, the motion was contrary to
the usual rule of governing a country, and he did not
think his Hon. and Gallant Friend had made out a
special case for departing from that rule. He could
not allow the statement of the lion. and Gallant
member as to the neglected condition of the roads in
Guzerat to pass unnoticed. He (the Chairman) was
in possession of a letter from a Mr. Davey, the col-
lector of one of the collectorates, stating that, with
the exception of the three months during the monsoon
there was no difficulty in getting from Guzerat to
Bombay. The Hon. and Gallant Proprietor had
spoken of an American gentleman. He (the Chair-
man) presumed that Mr. Haigh was the gentleman
referred to. Now Mr. Haigh had, within these few
dues, stated distinctly that the facilities for communi-
cation from that district with the coast were admi-
rable ; and that a very little outlay would make those
means of transit excellent. The Hon. and Gallant
Colonel would no doubt be glad to hear that the ex-
penditure had been recommended by the Court of
Directors. The Government of India were alive to
the necessity of maintaining public works in that
country. The other day no less than 50 lacs of
rupees were appropriated for the construction of such
works at Madras and Bengal. Everything was being
done for facilitating communication between the dif-
ferent portions of India, the Government being per-
fectly aware of the importance of that great object.
lie therefore hoped the Court would see the propriety
of rejecting the present motion.
An Hon. PROPRIETOR suggested that after the
very satisfactory explanation of the Chairman, it
would be becoming on the part of the Hon. and Gallant
Mover to withdraw his motion.

Mr. SULLIVAN said, the Chairman had it in his
power to put his Hon. and Gallant Friend entirely out
of court by producing the accounts of the expenditure
made for the construction and improvement of roads
in India.

Sir J. HOGG observed, that every statement made
by him in the House of Commons as to the condition
of the ways of communication in India was founded
upon the reports of collectors in India.

. Colonel 6LIPHANT said, it might seem strange why
during three months of the year, when the roads were
required to be made, that they were not made, but
the fact was, that during the monsoon the natives did
not travel, as their goods would be exposed to the wet.
This was the reason why the Government of India
did not do what, under other circumstances, they
might deem it necessary to do.

After some further - discussion, the
withdrawn. motion was

In answer to a question from Mr. LEw/N,
The CHAIRMAN stated, that the Bill introduced
into Parliament for granting compensation to Mr. J.
S. Buckingham had been withdrawn.
MR. J. S. BUCKINGHAM'S CASE.
Mr. LEWIN wished to make an observation upon the
me of Mr. Silk Buckingham, who, in his opinion,
had really made the press of India free, and to ask
what view the Court took.

The CHAIRMAN said the Bill brought before Par-
liament by Mr. Buckingham had been withdrawn.

RIGHTS OF NATIVE PRINCES.

Colonel DICKE NSON then brought forward his mo-
tion—" That a list be prepared, with as little delay
as possible, and laid before the Court of Proprietors,
of those native states with which treaties have been
entered into by the British Government, the chiefs of
which are thereby deprived of any of the rights or
privileges of adoption without the consent of the pa-
ramount power." Lord Ellenborough's proclamation
must lead to the ruin and demoralisation of the native
princes. He would cite the case of the Nabob of
Surat with whom the company entered into a treaty
after his dethronement in 1800. It the treatment
complained of had taken place after a war, there might
have been some excuse for severity. The Hon. Pro-
prietor then quoted the Calcutta Review in support of
his argument, and said that Mr. Duggan had affirmed
that the rights of the Nabob's family were secured.
The Nabob died in 1842, and 1846 arrived without
anything being done for his family, though they were
led to hope and expect that there would have been.
One of the Nabob's nephews writes afterwards that
he had received a small sum, but that it went imme-
diately to pay creditors, and God only knew when
his claims would be settled. The Government, in
order to justify their acts, passed a measure through
the Legislature which put it out of the power of the
native princes to obtain redress. They had shut the
door to all possible appeal, and cases of the kind he
was citing would be of every-day occurrence with
Indian families, owing to Lord Ellenborough's pro-
clamation. Ha (Colonel Dickenson) wished that
those families should see what would be their fate.
There would be endless appeals, but only give the
families notice what would be their fate when the
time arrived that they were to lose their inde-
pendence.
Mr. LEWIN rather thought the Court would ob-
ject to give a list of those whose independence had
been forfeited, because it would involve the necessity
of giving also a list of those who were not deprived.
The case of the Raja of Lahore, which had been cited
in Parliament, was in point. Not only his territory
and revenue, but even his regalia, had been taken away,
and part of it—the Koh-i-noor—was in the Exhi-
bition.
The CHAIRMAN felt it impossible to divine the ob-
ject of the motion. It was, however, rather remark-
able that the Hon. and Gallant Colonel should have
quoted a case in illustration of his object which could
not by possibility apply, for Surat was a Jlahomedan
state, where adoption was impossible. The Nawaub
died without heirs, leaving daughters, one of whom
married, and the property of the deceased Nawaub
was given to the son-in-law, with the exception of that
portion of it which was necessary for keeping up the
dignity of the Nawaub, that title having ceased to exist.
He (the Chairman) might however say that there
were no treaties of the nature mentioned in the notice

of motion. Adoption, it was true, required.. the sanc-
tion of the paramount power ; and that was occasion-
ally withheld, but it was not by virtue of any treaty
that such a power existed. The Chairman, in refer-
ence to the recent occurrences in the Punjaub, said
that the public were aware that the procedure of the
Indian Government in the l'imjaub was one of awes-

N

sity. The chiefs of that country having first attacked
the British power, Lord Hardinge, in subduing them,
displayed great moderation in maintaining Lahore as
an independent state, taking the young Raja under
British protection. The chiefs again rebelled, and
then it was found necessary to take possession of the
country; but there was no one who knew the charac-
ter of Lord Dalhousie but would acquit him of any
intention to adopt violent or unjust measures under
any circumstances whatever. Ile was very sorry that
this subject should have been alluded to on the pre-
sent occasion.

Mr. SULLIVAN said he did not entertain the same
opinion of the motion as had been expressed by the
Chairman, nor did he think the public would. The
motion appeared to him to have a very intelligible and
responsible object. His friend, Colonel Dickenson,
had said the Governor-General had passed a sentence
on every native prince in India, he having proclaimed
that henceforward all the possessions of netive princes
who died without natural heirs should be confiscated
to the British Government, and that principle had
been recognised by the Chairman. It appeared to
him (2,1 r. Sullivan) that the least they could do to
the parties who were so deeply interested in this mat-
ter was to apprize them of the fate nose hanging over
them. Up to the present moment they had been
spending all their revenues under the confi-
dent belief that treaties made would be observed,
and therefore the least they could do was to
tell these native princes that they had only
a lire interest in their estates and possessions,
and ouglit to begin at once to make adequate provi-
sion for their families. Perhaps the directors thought
it was a reasonshle thing that they should not know
their sentence until it would be put into execution.
He, however, contended that they were not only
bound to tell them to make timely provision for their
families, under the sentence thus summarily passed
by the Governor-General, but were also bound to
induce them to place such provision in the hands of
the Governor-General and the British Government ;
tor, strange and paradoxical though it might seem, it
was nevertheless true that the only place of security
for the property and possessions of native princes was
in the treasury of the East India Company ; for when
native princes put their property and possessions in
the British treasury they were under the protection
of the law. So long as the Governor-General
was limited to the Company's territories
he was a constitutional monarch, but when
he went beyond that he became an auto-
crat, and seized the property and possessions of
native princes, and nobody could call him to account.
He would say again, therefore, that they were bound
to make the people over whom the sentence was im-
pending to lay by some adequate provision for their
families, and moreover bound in all equity and jus-
tice to point out to them that their fate would be the
same as that which overtook the Raja of Sattara—
they were bound to tell them that 26 lacs of rupees,
the property of the family of Pertaub Sing, if in-
vested in the company's funds, would amount to a
permanent provision of one leo of rupees a year, and
that the benevolent Governor-General thought he had
made a sufficient and ample provision for his family
by giving him a life annuity of 30,000 rupees a year,
and that though Appa Sahib had an adopted son, who
was formerly recognised as his real heir, and was en-
titled to all his private property and possessions,
they disposed of them as they pleased, and simply
gave him in return a life interest. That was the po-
sition, without any exaggeration whatever, in which
the native princes of India were placed at the present
moment. The Chairman had said the company had
no treaties with these princes, but what was the fact ?
There were no less than 150 native princes with
whom they had treaties, and his Gallant Friend's
motion only amounted to a request that they might be
warned that they had only a life interest in their es-
tates. In the 150 treaties with these native princes
and chiefs they had guaranteed to them and their
heirs in perpetuity all their estates and possessions;
but the construction now sought to be placed on them
was, that they were to have only a life interest. That
being so, he would say again, " Warn them ; tell
them to begin to make a provision for their families,
so that they may not be reduced to the same state as
the families of the Raja of Sattara and Pertaub
Sing, who first had their property confiscated, and
then received an annuity of 30,000 rupees a year."
Every person who denounced the proceedings of the
Governor-General, or was opposed to him, must ex-
pect himself to be held up as a factious opponent, as a
person who used undue influences, and who possessed
no discretion. He found such expressions frequently
used in the papers just laid before the House of Com-
mons. But the Chairman himself was one of the
old faction who denounced in the strongest possible
terms the taking away of the Raja's property; so
else did Mr. Tucker, one of the directors ; and,
speaking of him, he would take the liberty
of saying, in parenthesis, that none was more
distinguished, none more devoted to the in-
terests of the country than Mr. Tucker, and yet
the Governor-General, in those dispatches, said that
all those who really ventured to express an opinion
as to the confiscation of the principality of the Sat-
tarn territory, committed a breach of good faith. He
thought the Court could not think there was any-
thing unreasonable, or in the slightest degree im-
proper, in his Gallant Friend bringing forward this
most important subject. He confessed, on consider-
ation, that he was sorry the question of Lahore had
been introduced inadvertently into the dis-
cussion, but, as it had been mentioned,
the Court would, perhaps, allow him to say
that he dissented altogether from the opinions which
had been expressed by the Chairman. He believed
that Lord Dalhousie's Government would be princi-
pally remembered for two measures—in the first
place, for the confiscation of the principality of Sat-
tarn against all right and treaty ; and in the next, for
the confiscation of the dominions and lives of princes
with whom we had made war. The Peishwah
kindled a rebellion in that province, which was put
down at great expense and loss of life, with the loss
of his crown, and the first act of the British Go-
vernment was to seize upon the state of Lahore, to se-
parate public and private property, and to secure or
confiscate the Koh-i-noor, which, according to the ac-
counts in the papers, seemed ashamed of the country,
for they could not get it to show its lustre any how.
—(A laugh.) He would now confine himself to one
more single observation, and that was, that though
the principle on which the directors now proceeded
was, that no native prince would be allowed to adopt
children without the sanction of the paramount power,
it had been determined by Lord Auckland and Lord
Bentinck, and other Governors-General of India,
that every Hindoo prince had a right to adopt a suc-
cessor, whom we were bound to acknowledge.—(Hear.)
Sir J. HOGG, the Deputy-Chairman, thought that
from the tone adopted by the last speaker he took
upon him to chide the proprietors, and that he had
been betrayed into invective as unbounded as it was
uncalled for. The cause, however, soon appeared. It
was the old question of Sattara which haunted the
Hon. Gentleman's imagination. Had it never oc-
curred to the Hon. Proprietor that other people were
capable of forming an opinion as well as himself, and
that he did not concentrate all the honour, and all the
intellect, and all the knowledge of the Court of Pro-
prietors, or that the majority might be right and the
minority wrong? Had he forgotten the discussions
and decision in Parliament ? His indignation about
the Sattara affair could afford the only excuse for
such warmth. It was ever Sattara, Sattara, Sat-
tara, and for twelve years past the cry had been
Sattara. Mr. Sullivan had selected the case
of the Mahoniedan states, although such a case as that
in Colonel Dickenson's motion could never arise there.
He asked them to give a list of those native princes
who had been sacrificed for some ten, thirty, or fifty years
by some iniquitous Governor-General, and a list of
those whom it is intended to sacrifice.—(Hear, hear.)
Was it not monstrous that such a propositiion should
be made to an intelligent assembly that they were to
anticipate such gross injustice ?--(Hear.) Mr. Sul-
livan had gone the length of asserting that the con-
quest of the Punjaub was a black spot in the history
of India ; but he (the Deputy-Chairman) would tell
the Hon. Proprietor that the people did not think so,
and that, in his opinion and that of the world, the
story of the Punjaub would be a bright star in that
history.—(Cheers.) Those who had given judgment
in the matter had said that Lord Hardinge was
too forbearing.—(Hear, hear.) With a degree of
moderation which must redound to the honour of
that nobleman, he had taken but a small territory
from the vanquished. It had been asserted that we
entered into a treaty with a minor. Why, the whole
countrytreaty
was was at
with hear.) The
we could enter into a treaty with an infant.
The
theeur chiefs.disPe s (
wasile a rsupposed
' never
the Governor-General wished to try the effect of a treaty
with the chiefs, but those very chiefs, he (
Deputy-
Chairman) believed, had, without exception, taken
part in the subsequent rebellion. The Hon. Pro-
prietor
Dalhousie
prietor had charged Lord with fomenting
this rebellion.—(" Hear," from Mr. Sullivan.) He
(the Deputy-Chairman) was sorry to hear that affir-
mation. Lord Dalhousie had adopted measures for
the interest, not only of British India, but of all those
people committed to his rule. The treaty could not
be impunged.—(Hear.)
Mr. SULLIVAN said he had charged Lord Dalhousie
with fomenting the rebellion in the Punjaub by his
agents. He (Mr. Sullivan) had put his opinions in
print, and should be glad to have a field day with the
lion. Deputy-Chairman, who had carried the Court
e n ti r
away from the question before it. There
had
notely been one word said upon the matter of Colo-
nel Dickenson's motion. He denied that he bad re-
vived the case of the Raja of Sattara. He merely
named it.
Colonel DICKENSON said he simply required a list
of those native princes who needed the adoption of
the Government.
The motion was then put and negatived.
THE MADRAS LIGHT CAVALRY.
Ur. lam then made the following motion