The Sun.
London, England, 1835-06-30 00:00:00

It never could afford an
,argurnent that from thenceforward,
o i every iharose of Gtaer;ment at home, the opinions of indi-
viduals holding responsible situations in India should be in-
quired into, and their agreement or disagreement wiqi the
sentiments of the ruling party in En.)-land be taken as the ,
ground for continuing their appointments. To admit such a
proposition would be to establish a most dangerous precedent.
It was necessary that the person appointed to fill the situation
of Governor- General of India should possess the confidence
of the Court of Directors as well as of the Government of the
day. There was another reason which rendered it most impo-
litic to lead the Governor-General of India to suppose that he
held his office entietly at the pleasure of the Crown, or of any
particular party who might happen to hold the reins of Go-
vernment. It would circumscribe him in the choice of offi-
cers to assist him in his Government. At present it was
the policy of the Indian Government, wherever they
found a man whose talents were suited to their purpose,
at once to engage his services, without reference to the poli-
tical opinions he might happen to hold. But if the office of
Governor-General were made a purely political office, it
would be necessary that all those whom he employed should
be attached to the same political opinions as himself : those
political opinions of course being the same as those of the
Government at home. Thus, instead of the unlimited range
which he at present enjoyed, the Governor-General would
have to select his officers from among the adherents to one
party only. It was most important that the Court of Direc-
tors should have the appointment of every authority placed
in their hands, and that the people of India should be taught
to look up to them, and to respect their independent station.
The step recently taken by the present Government was cal-
culated to have just the contrary effect, and to place them in
the eyes of the natives of India in the worst light possible.
He would urge upon the House the expediency of checking
this first endeavour to make what he conceived to be an un-
due use of the power of the Crown. He did not call upon
the Government of the present day to do more than was done
by the Government of the Right Hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel.)
He was quite sure that nothing could justify the revocation of
this appointment which could riot justify the revocation of an
officer to whom the appointment was given by the Government
that preceded that of the Right Hon. Baronet. But what
was the conduct of the Right Hon. Baronet's Government?
When he succeeded to the Government, in the autumn of last
year, he found in one of the Indian Presidencies an officer
newly appointed, who for many years had been strongly op-
posed to the course of policy adopted by the Right Hon.
Baronet ; but the Right I-lon. Baronet did not dream of re-
calling Sir Robert Grant from the Presidency of Bombay.—
( Hear.) More than that, there was another gentleman, one
of the Supreme Council of India, who had not long held his ap-
pointment, and who had constantly opposed himself to almost
every measure arid every opinion entertained by the Right
Hon. Baronet ; he alluded to Mr. Macaulay. It never en-
tered into the Right Hon. Baronet's mind to recall that
Gentleman from the situation to which be had been ap-
pointed. If, indeed, be had been at all disposed to do so, a
very fine oppportunity was afforded. The Noble Lord, at
that time the President of the Board of Trade (Lord Ellen-
borough) had, amongst other duties, to review several of the
acts of the Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. Macaulay) and
without directly censuring them, the Noble Lord certainly
found acts of the Right Hon. Gentleman, which did not ap-
pear to bear out his fitness for the office to which he had boen
appointed. He had endeavoured to bi ing the subject forward
in such a manner as not to excite any angry feeling, and he
trusted he had succeeded in his object. In conclusion, he
begged to move—" For copies of any communications which
have passed between the Board of Commissioners for the
Affairs of India and the Court of Directors of the East
India Company, on the subject of the revocation of the
appointment of Lord Heytesbury as Governor-General of
India."

Sir J. C. HOBHOUSE said, with respect to the papers
for which the Hon. Gentleman had moved, he could not dia-
tinctly make out whether or not he intended seriously to insist
upon having them. If he did so, undoubtedly it would be his
(Sir J. Hohhouse's) duty decidedly to object to their produc-
tion. In the first place he did so for the manifest reason that
us good whatever could come from the production of
them. The Hon. Gentleman, the House, and the country
knew all that it was needful to. know on the subject. Thr
Hon. Gentleman, the House, and the country knew full well
that his Majesty's present advisers had thought fit to re-
commend to his Majesty to negative the appointment of Lord
Heytesbury to the Governor-Generalahip of India. If there
were anything wrong in that, it was quite competent for the
House of Commons to come to a decision on the fact, and to
say at once_ that the prerogative of the Crown had Leen abused.
If the House of Commons disapproved of the act of the Mi-
nisters, it was for the House of Commons to express its disap-
proval. The lion. Gentleman need not be told—for his e 7.
perience must have taught him already—that it would be ex-
tremely noes:lvey:kilt to produce any documents referring to
contideantial intercourse between the Board of Commissioners
for the Affairs of India and the Court of Directors. The
Hon. Gentleman must be aware that if it were so, generally
apeaking, upon almost every subject, mere particularly must it
be so upon the subj, et to which his speech had referred. Sup-
, pose, for instance, if it were the fact—ahich he did not mean
to sat. it was—that in consequence of smre communication
which he (Sir .1, Hohhouse) had held with the Court of Di-
rectors he geould feel himself obliged to take a personal oh.
jection to Lord Heytesbury, and that, in so doing, it had be, n
his misfortune to bring forward a reason founded upon facts
known to himself or to others, which might bear hard, or at
-least uncomfortably, upon the Noble Lord—if that had been tie
.case—he repeated he did not say it was—what would have been
the inconvenience, what the impropriety of producing such do-
cuments as those far which the Hon. Member had moved? And
here, perhaps, be ( Sir J. Hohhouse) might be permitted to quote
the opinion of as great, perhaps a greater titan than any now
to he found in the country—he alluded to Lord Grenville.
In 1806, Lord Grenville resisted the motion of Lord Melville
for the production of the papers and correspondence between
the Court of Directors and the then Board of Control, re-
specting the recall of Sir J. Barlow from his situation of Go-
vernor-General, in this decisive and conclusive language—
" If the private reasons and personal objections which made
Ministers refuse the appointment of any individual must be
made a matter of public discussion, no persons would be found
to take the situation of Ministers. There might be many
reasons why, without crime being imputable to an individual,
- Ministers might suppose him unfit to be trusted with the inte-
rests of millions. If, however, in every individual case, Mi-
nisters were obliged to tell each individual to his face the per-
sonal objections they had to him—or if, which would be the
same thing, their correspondence upon this subject were to he
laid before Parliament—the situation of Minister would be in-
tolerable to any one who possessed the common feelings of a
man. On these grounds, he must object to the production of
the correspondence moved for."—( Hear.) That which ope-
rated with Lord Grenville, and induced the Ministers of that
day to say that they would not tell why it was that they ob-
jected to Sir George Barlow being made permanent Governor-
General of India, also induced hint to say, on the part of the
Government of which he had the honour to be a humble
Member, that unless the House of Commons should force
them, by a decided vote against them, they would not consent
to inform the House why it had revoked the appointment of
Lord Heytesbury.—( Hear.) If the House should compel
them. of course they must bow to its decision, but he thought
it would not fo:-ce them to depart from the uniform course
hitherto pursued. If he ( Sir J. Hohhouse) were to follow
the Hon. Gentleman through the whole of his speech, point-
ing out where he was wrong and where right, he should be
departing from the rule which had been laid down as that
which it was his duty to pursue, and should be throwing more
light upon the subject than he felt himself justified in doing
, But there were one or two points on which, without going
out of the course he had prescrilA for himself, lie thought
he could ana,yer the Hon. Gentleman: points in respect of
which the Hon. Gentleman had stated that he considered
the Board of Control to have failed in its duty. For the act
of recalling, or more properly speaking, of vacating the order
for Lord IHeytesbury's appointment, of course -the King's
Cabinet was responsible. if there was anything discourteous
or improper in the mode in which the act was done, he alone
was amenable ; but he did not think that in his intercourse
with the Court of Directors, he had ever done anything
which could be considered as at all an encroachment on
their honour, or as showing forgetfulness of their indi-
vidual or collective respectab.lity, as well as power. When
the lion. Gentleman first approached this question, he spoke
of what had taken place as of a violation of the Constitution.
He had, in consequence, looked with some alarm at the Acts
of Parliament bearing upon the question, to see in what point
•
he had violated the Constitution, but had not been able to find
any.. The lion. Gentleman asked him why, on his own ac-
count, and on account of the Government, he had given the
Court of Directors the assurance that there would be no ap-
pointment to supply the place of Lord William Bentinck for
two months after his arrival? The reason why he had given
that assurance was this. When the King's Government thought
it their duty to vacate the appointment of Lord Heytesbury,
they considered it right to intimate to the Court of Directors
that they would not take advantage in any way of the lapse by
which, according to both the old and the new Act of Parlia-
ment, if the Court of Directors did not appoint a Governor
within two months of the vacancy, the appointment fell to the
Crown. Having made this communication to the Board of
Directors, he had the satisfaction of being informed by them
that the arrangement was perfectly satisfactory to them.—
( Hear, hear.) He did not mean that the vacation of Lord
Heytesbury's appointment was satisfactory to them, for he
believed it was most unsatisfactory to them ; but he meant
that the assurance he gave them was satisfactory, he having
received a communication from them that his word of ho-
nour was sufficient for them.—( Hear, hear.) Shortly after,
however, he had another letter from the Court of Direc-
tors, asking him whether or not his letter might not be
fairly interpreted to mean that the two months should com-
mence to rim from the arrival of Lord William Bentinck, and
not from the vacation of Lord Heytesbury's appointment ? In
his reply, he said that he thought there could he no doubt
about his meaning being that the two months should commence
to run from the vacating of the warrant of Lord Heytesbury's
appointment ; but he added, that if it was more agreeable to
the Court of Directors, which he saw from their letter it
would be, that the time should commence to run from the ar-
rival of Lord Bentinck, the Government were willing they
should have the greatest latitude in interpreting his letter, and
that they were the masters to say whether the two months
should commence to run from the vacation of the appointment
of Lord Heytesbury or not. So far from•this being a matter
of charge against the Government, he thought it should be
matter of praise.
Mr. PRAED here gave some explanation of what he had
said: which did not reach the gallery.
Sir JOHN HOBH 0 T.7S E—The only thing in which there
:aa the least appr,o;ee of a ground for complaint was, the
eirL.-arassiug situ4tion in which the Court of Directors would
filet themselves placed by the sudden accession to office of
It.. qpv4tt. Intim?, that %its the main