The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-21 00:00:00

EAST INDIA COMPANY.

[A portion of the following appeared in our late edititou
of last evening :]—

The adjourned meeting of the proprietors for the con-
.,idera,tion of the resolution discussed last week, was
held this morning. The meeting was also made special
to conLider the communication from Government and
the Directors reply relating to the future government of
India. Mr. Mangles, the Chairman of the Board of
Directors, in the chair.

The CIIAIRMAN, before proceeding with the debate,
said the court had received an answer from her Majesty's
Government to their communication, referred to at the
last meeting, and with the permission of the court he
directed the correspondence that had passed between
her Majesty's Government and the Court of Directors,
on the proposed change of Indian Government, to be
read. (Hear, hear.)

The following lettere were then read by the Seere-

I ary :

" East India House, Dec. 31.
"My Lord,—lt has been our duty to communicate to
the Court pf Directors and to the Court of Proprietors
the intimation which your Lordship has made to us of
the intention of her Majesty's Government to propose to
Parliament a bill for the purpose of placing the govern-
ment of her Majesty's E at Indian dominions under the
direct authority of the Crown.
" The contemplated change involves of necessity the
abolition, as an instrument of government, of the East
India Company, the body by whom, and at whose
sole expense, without any demand on the national
exchequer, the British empire in India has been acquired
and is maintained ; and, although the Court of Directors
have not been furnished with information as to the
grounds on which her Majesty's Ministers have arrived
at their determination, or as to the details of the scheme
by which it is proposed to supersede the existing Home
Government of India, they nevertheless feel it dui to
themselves, and to the constituent body which they
represent, to lose no time in offering a few observations
which immediately suggest themselves ; and they are
persuaded that a frank expression of their sentiments
cannot be otherwise than acceptable to her Majesty's
Ministers, in their further consideration of this iu3por-
taut subject.

" lheCourt were prepared to expect that a searching
inquiry would be instituted into the causes—remote as
well as immediate—of the mutiny in the Bengal native
army. They have themselves issued instruction-4 to the
Government of India to appoint a co.nmission, in view
to such an inquiry, and it would have been satisfactory
to them if it had been proposed to Parliament, nut only
to do the same, but to extend the scope of inquiry to the
conduct of the Home Government, for the purpose of
ascertaining whether the mutiny could, wholly or
partially, be ascribed to mismanagement on the part of
the C turt acting under the control of the Board of
Commissioners. But it has surprised the Court to hear
that her Majesty's Government, not imputing —so
far as the Court are informed—any blame to the
home authorities in connexion with the mutiny, and
without intending any inquiry by Parliament, or awaiting
he result of inquiry by the local government, should,
even before the mutiny was quelled, and while consider-
able excitement prevailed throughout India, determine
to propo>e the immediate supercession of the authority
of the Cast India Company, who are entitled at Last to
the en- dit of having so administered the government of
India that the heads of all the native States and the mass
of the population, amid the excitement of a mutinous
soldiery, inflamed by unfounded apprehensions of danger
to their reli ion, have remained true to the Company's
rule.

"The Court would fail in their duty to your Lordship
and to the country if they did not txpress their serious
apprehension that so important a change will be mie-
under-tood by the people c,f India. The Court are by no
means insensible to the value attached to the name of
the Crown. But the company are already trustees for the
Crown ; and the announcement of a great change in
the ystem of government which has existed from the
first moment of our possession of India is calculated to
excite alarm, the more e,t.pecially if inaugurated at a
time when the Government on the spot finds it difficult
to give free action to the retributive justice so emi-
nently due to the guilty, without endangering the
innocent, and also when public opinion in this country
has been so exciter as to press for the abandonment
of the policy which the company have stric ly ob-
served of abstaining from all authoritative interference
with such of the religious customs and prejudices of the
natives as are not abhorrent to humanity.
" The Court submit that if any such change as that
which your lordship has indicated be thought desirable
It should be introduced in a time of tranquillity, when
the crcurostances of India and its population could be
regarded without prejudice and with calm and deliberate
consideratiou, and when it would not in the minds of the
natives be directly connected with the recent calamitous
events.

" In approaching the question of the necessity of mak-
ing a change we are requested to state that the Court
would most gladly co-operate with her Majesty's Go-
verianeht in introducing any reforms into the existing
system which might tend to greater simplification and
promptitude with equal security. The Court have always
shown themselves ready to acquiesce in any changes
which were deemed likely to prove conducive to the
general welfare, although such changes may have in-
volved impertant sacrifices to themselves. They need
only refer to their venial relinquishment of trade in
1813; to its total abandonment, and the placing of the
Company's commercial charter in abeyance in 1833 ; to
the transfer then to India of all large commercial assets,
and of their undoubted ttoritorN claims and possessions;
and more lvely to the concurrence in the measure by
which their body was reconstituted and reduced to its
present number. Although four years have not yet
elapsed since the last change, yet the Court, animated by
the same anxiety for the welfare of Lidia, would be re-
pared wit,h,mt a murmur to relinquish *heir trust alto-
gether, if satisfied that a system could be devised better
calculate than the present to advance the interests of
the British empire there. They would, however, remark
that in the inquiry which took place in 1852 and 1853,
before the legislation of the latter year, the question of
the constitution and working of the Home. Govern-
ment was thoroughly sifted and completely exhausted,
and that therefore it wse not unreasonable to
expect that the arrangement of 1853 would have been
subjeutd to Vie test of a more lengthened experience.
" The details of the measure which her Majesty's
Government have in contemplation have not yet been
made known to.the Curt. Tney trust that it will not
be at'.erupted to administer the goverum.nt by means of
a single functionary. Such a proposal would, in their
judgment, involve a practical impossibility. The mass
of business perpetually arising requires much knowledge,
long experience, and a division of labour ; and so far al
the Court can form an opinion the duties would not be
safely discharged if subject only to the check of Parlia-
ment.

" The Court are aware that the double government of
the Company and the Boar i of Control is deemed to be
objectionable ; but whatever may be its defects, and
although its working may clogged by a control of all
the detail, so minute as hardly to have been contem-
plated hy the Legislature, yet in its results they sincerely
believe that the system, possessing, as it does, a moral
check, works, on the whole, advantageously for India.
The Court do not deny that the system is susceptible of
improvement, but they think it important to bear in
mind that there can be no effective check without a
second authority of some kind ; and further, that the
objection which is taken to the principle of double
government is more nominal than real in the case of the
Company, whose duties are rather those of a deliberative
than of an executive body.
"It is the opinion of the Court that an intermediate,
non-political, and perfectly independent body, in concur-
rence with her Majesty's Government, man indispensable
necessity, without which there can be no adequate secu-
try for good government ; and, as at present advised,
the Court do not see that it will be possible to form such
a body if its members are to be wholly nominated by the
Crown. They abstain, however, from offering any further
observations to your Lordship, until they are placed in
' possession of the det§ils of the proposed measure, which