The Sun.
London, England, 1858-04-27 00:00:00

awaited hiss. He remained in the house of Commons,
of which he was one of the brightest ornaments, and to
which he was fondly attached ; but he found the can-
duct of public business here incompatible with the pro-
per discharge of the duties he owed to his constituents
at Liverpool. He accordingly resigned his seat for that,
town and sought and obtained the confidence of another
constituency. Whom did the freemen of Liverpool elect
in his stead I No less distinguished a personage than
Mr. Huskiseon, a gentleman in every way qualified to be
a member of an Indian Council. (Hear.) I heard a great
deal the other night of the merits of Lord Canning. I
am not prepared upon the present occasion to enter into
any controversy on that subject, but, be the merits of
Lord Canning what they may, it is quite certain that
he would never have been Governor-General of India
had the freemen of Liverpool not elected his father so
their representative in Parliament. (Cries of Ok, and
laughter.) I ase afraid I have been misunderstood, It
is not my intention to sneer at Lord Canning ; all that
I mean to say is that the career of Mr. Canning natu-
rally led to the position which his son now occupies.
(Hear.) But be that as it may, I think lam fairly en-
titled to question the fairness or propriety of the manner
in which we are accustomed to speak of the constituencies
of England. Ido not arrogate for those whom I repre-
sent any superiority over the rest of the community, but
I think the house will agree that those who are interested
in the cultivation of the land are a class highly rospec-
table—(a laugh)—a class that for their private virtues,
their public spirit, and their stake in the country as the
principal employers of labour, must be recogni.ed by all
men in their calmer moments as constituting one cf the
best securities of social order. (Hear.) But if an agricul-
tural constituency happen in a sharp contest, exhibiting
a good deal of feeling and acting under the influence of
considerable excitement, to elect a particular candidate
as their representative in Parliament, what do we
find? They are described as serfs, denounced as the
instruments of feudal tyranny, and the most skil-
ful cultivators of the soil are called ignorant and
obtuse. Such is the manner in which one portion of the
constituencies are treated. Again, upon similar occasions
the electors who live in towns and cities are represented
as absolute traitors, the would-be destroyers of our insti-
tutions, while the poor freemen are generally regarded
as the pariahs of politics. (Hear, hear.) If such be
the character of the constituencies of England, what
must we be who are their choice? (A. laugh.) I have
no doubt myself—and I think upon reflection every per-
son must agree with me—that the vast majority of our
constituencies, whatever instances there may be of cor-
ruption or of intimidation, are actuated upon ad occa-
sions by a strict sense of duty and a strong feeling of
patriotism. (Hear.) If not, what hope can there be for
the country (Cheers.) My opinion is that, if our
position for giving to five great towns the right of elect-
ing councillors foe Lille had not been arrested by a
storm of prejudice, the electors of those important corn-
. munities would have acted, as the people , f England
always act, under the fair and generous guidance of their
natural leaders, and would have chosen men who would
have done credit to their constituents, and rendered
great services to the State. (Hear, hear.) Nor has
anything that I have yet heard induced tee to falter in
the conviction that our proposition was a wise one, and
I entertain the firm belief that hereafter it will be so re-
garded. (Hear, hear.) But let me revert to the subject
more strictly before the house. If you are to have a
council for India, how can you form it unless you have
partial recourse to the elective principle ? You may
extend the application of that principle in various ways,
but the recognition of it as a principle of construction I
defy you to renounce, without renouncing the very means
by which you make a council numerous, learned, fn!l of
experience, of high character and distinction, and capa-
ble of guiding any Minister, however undivided his au-
thority or sole his responsibility, with advantage and
safety to the empire. (Cheers.) Such is the proposal
you have before you. All other subjects are but of
secondary, though still of great importance. The dis-
tribution of patronage, the forms of procedure, the
question whether you can send commissions to investi-
gate the finances of India—and our plan for ouch an
investigation was matured and complete—are points
comparatively of detail ; but it would be impossible to
exaggerate the importance of the question, whether or
not you will have a real Council for India in England.
(Hear, hear.) If the resolutions which we have laid
upon the table, or the spirit of them, be adopted—modi-
fled, perhaps, in some parts or expanded in others—we
do not despair of constructing a bill which will secure
the good government of India, as far as it can be carried
on in England. But if the resolutions are not adopted,
or even the spirit of them—if prejudice, imperfect know-
ledge, or political combinations arrest their course—let
me entreat the house to tike the great Indian question
out of the dangerous sphere of political passion and
party conflict. (Cheers.) Unless you can constitute a
Council equal in knowledge and experience to the pre-
sent Court of Directors, while free from its failings, I
advise you not to relinquish a machinery by which India
has already been governed, and which has to deal with
interest more vast and various than many persons
imagine. If you reject the resolutions which we have
laid before yon, and which if carried out would create
a body capable of controlling the Government of India
—if you take the contrary course, and adopt the prin-
ciples of that school of barren simplicity to which I have
already referred, accepting a proposition like that of the
late Government, which only veils the hideous dangers
which such a scheme of policy would inevitably bring
about—depend upon it that the fate of your Indian
Empire is sealed, and you will deserve to lose it, because
you will arrogantly declare your intention to govern it
without knowledge and without experience. (Cheers.)
Lord PALMERSTON—Anybody who had ewer-so:1
the house without knowing the business of the evening
and listened to the eloquent speech of the right hon. gen-
tleman, would naturally have inferred that he was mot s
ing the second reading of the India Bill No. 2. (A
laugh.) The able and elaborate speech which we have
just heard contained hardly anything applicable to
the motion before the House, but the whole, or at least
the greater part of it, was devoted to a vindication of
the unfortunate measure to which I have referred.
Following the example of those eloquent men on the
other side of the Channel whose harangues upon certain
mournful occasions we have heard or read with great
admiration, the right hon. gentleman has pronounced
a funeral oration upon the deceased India Bill No. 2
(laughter) ; but while the orators in France are ch :Ben
from the friends of the dead, and bad, probably, paid to
them daring their last illness all those cares and atten-
tions which the best medical skill could devise or the
most anxious solicitude render, the right hon. gentleman
has appeared as the murderer of the "dear departed"
to whose eulogium we have just listened -with so much
surprise and pleasure. (Laughter.) Strange that he
should be the person to pronounce an unlimited pane-
gyric upon the victim of his own hands ! The right hon.
gentleman, like. Antony, came to bury his Bill, and not
to praise it, but carried away by his feelings he has
treated us to an elaborate defence of a measure which,
nevertheless, he has thought fit to abandon. (Cheers.)
We have been assisting at a ,sort of Irish wake, The
right hon. gentleman did not say or sing in the language
of the afflicted peasant, " Och, hone, why did you die?"
(great laughter) ? but we are entitled to ask the right
hon. gentleman: now that he has told us how highly ho
estimates the merits of the deceased Bill, "Why did
you kill it ?" (Continued laughter.) Toe right hw,.
gentleman, to speak seriously, has referred to topics
connected neither with the India Bill No. 2 nor with
the resolutions before the House. He began by passing
a very severe censure on the British constitution ; and
he said—speaking no doubt from his own personal ex
perience—" What can be so absurd as the present con-
stitution of a British Cabinet ?" (Laughter.) " What
can be so ridiculous," be said, "as putting one man into
a Cabinet because he understands agriculture ; what can
be so absurd as putting another man into a thbt net be-
cause be has an extensive knowledge of commerce 2.' And
the climax of absurdity, according to theright hon. gentle-
man, was putting a man into a Cabinet because he could
make an eloquent speech. (Renewed laughter.) " Aye,"
said the right hon. gentleman, "if I were on the other
aide of the table, if my tongue were unloosed and I were
released from the shackles and trammels of office, I could
tell yen how absurd is the constitution of a British
Cabinet." (Cheers and continued laughter.) Sir, I
don't follow the right hon. gentleman through his theo-
retical declamations. I am content with the British
constitution, and, so far as my experience of Cabinets
goes, lam content with them. (Laughter.) But, in•
deed the censure of the right hon. gentleman reminds
one of those Latin lines :
" Balnea, Tina, Venus corrumpunt corpora nostra,
Sed faciunt vitam balnea, vine, Venus."
A knowledge of agriculture, an acquaintance with com-
merce, and powers of oratory may be absurd qualifica-
tions for a public career and for official existence, but,
nevertheless, they are elements of our political life.
(Hear, hear.) I should not upon this occasion have
thought it right to go into the comparative merits of the
. different measures that have been laid before the house
for the government of India if the right hon. gnntleman
had not rendered some notice on our part absolutely and
essentially necessary. In praising his own deceased bill
he bee pronounced a very severe censure on the arrange-
ments which we proposed,—net quite so severe a censure
as that which he passed on the Manchester scheme, but
he declared that our plan was nearly as bad, although
its had qualities were a little veiled from sight. Both
had the defect of simplicity, which-the right hon. gentle-
, man seems to think the greatest political sin—a per-
fee* inexpiable offence ; and certainly it is a charge
which I never heard brought against a defunct bill of
the right hon. gentleman.("Hear," and a laugh.) We
all remember th(emannin which that bill was received
Rea
by the house.
r, hear.) I have heard a story of
trhase SfiparantipstinbSioisvuesdrei!
via who reigned when "Don Quixote"
and laughing immoderatereing a man reading a book
ar, sent a courtier to ask what
laughing.
he was reading and why
came back and said thatwssailletbwas
readTihnge courtierEpon
Quixote,' " I thought so,"
ever I see a man laughing I k monarch ; " when-
' Don Quixote.'" And so it wnaoswwithhaattdhhies
People met one another in the street, ilsn dtleada Blinn!
and everybody laughed. "Whatare you loneohilaughe,d
said one. " Why, at the India Bill, to beaang at ="
" Why, I was laughing s.
What
are yon laughing at ?"
at the
India Bill, too. (Laughter.) That was the reception
that it met with out of doors, and I say, therefore, that
the public, as well as the Cabinet, had something to do
with the death of that unfortunate and immature mea-
sure. The right hon. gentleman admits that, although
the houie in giving us leave to bring in our bill, and itt