The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-08 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF COMMONS—(YEsTERiIit.)
(Continued from the Sun of last night)
EAST INDIA LOAN BILL.
Mr. BRIGHT said he was not about to follow the right
hon. gentleman, or to attempt to answer some points in his
speech which he thought were not very sound, but he
would say generally that he thought he rather contradicted
himself in what he had been saying, because he wished
that the revenue of India should be kept separate from the
revenue of England, and yet ho proposed that under certain
circumstances certain expenditure which had been hitherto
borne by the Indian revenue should be borne by the Eng-
lish exchequer. It appeared to him that there was very
little difference with regard to the future between the plan
which was launched, he thought rather unfortunately, by
the noble lord a few nights ago, and the plan laid down by
the right hon. gentleman. But he Was anxious to address
a few words to the house on this question, which they were
forced at last to consider was one of great magnitude. The
noble lord (Lord Stanley) made a long and able speech in
introducing this bill. He explained with great fairness the
condition of the Indian finances, and, except a little colour-
ing which his lordship's position compelled him to give to
the statement, he had nothing to complain of respecting it.
He read the speech with great care, and he confessed that
when he came to the end of it he felt great anxiety, and he
thought the case the noble lord had laid before the house
and the country was calculated to excite their alarm. The
noble lord showed them that it was impossible to conceive
anything in a worse condition than the finances of India.
The finances of a country were almost everything to that
country; they meant public order, the industry of the
people. Through that single department of finance he
thought that there was no government in Europe or the
world dist was more deserving of an emphatic condemna-
tion than the government of Idia. The facts were in so
small a compass that he would re-state some of them.
The debt of India was about £80,000,000. He excluded
the sum that was to be paid at some remote day to the
proprietors of East India Stock, and he excluded also the
guarantee of public works in India, which stood of course
altogether on another basis. The noble lord showed them
at the same time that the expenses of the Government were
constantly increasing, and to make that which was so bad
much worse, he showed them that the revenue was diminish-
ing. Now a Government with a constantly increasing debt,
a constantly increasing expenditure, and a constantly dimi-
nishing revenue, was in a position of great danger, and was
going on rapidly to an abyss which he should not attempt
to describe. And it was an unfortunate thing that the Go-
vernment of India, owing to its excessive borrowing and its
excessive want of faith towards those from whom it had
borrowed, had almost lost its credit, and it would require
all the management and honesty of the noble lord to reform
it in one particular. At that moment the noble lord was
asking from them powers to borrow seven millions in this
country, and at the same time there was open in India a
loan at the rate of not less than 51. per cent., and the Go-
vernment, he believed, undertook the repayment of that
loan at a period when there was not the remotest chance
that the money could be repaid. The noble lord made use of
an argument which was very common, that the debt only
amounted to two years' revenue, while that of England
amounted to 10 or 12 years' revenue. But it was not a states-
manlike view to compare India with a country which had
got into debt more than any other country in Europe. The
argument would be bad if the comparison was just. But the
comparison was not just. We knew very well that through
the increase of machinery, of productive power and of capi-
tal, the debt of England was much less onerous on the people
of England now than it was some years ago. But that was
not the case in India. The noble lord admitted that there
was no elasticity in the revenue of India, and the increase of
its debt must necessarily result in a greater deficit. They
came then to the expense, which the noble lord admitted
was increasing; and he (Mr. Bright) was prepared to assert
to the house that there did not exist at this moment in the
hands of the noble lord or his council any control—he had
almost said any check, whatever over the increased expendi-
ture of the revenues of India. If the noble lord would tell them
all that he thought about it, he would tell them that at this
moment the funds of the Indian government were being
poured out like water in every part of India, and that there
was no responsibility and no check whatever; while, at the
same time the landed revenue, which was th most perma-
nent of any of the sources of revenue in India, was deelin •
ing, and the revenue from opium was in great danger of
falling off almost altogether; that it was just possible, nay
it was probable, that the Chinese government, having been
compelled to admit opium, would permit it to be edltivated
in that country. The state of things he was describing had
not arisen from the recent rebellion ; it had existed before
the rebellion. For 13 years out of 14, in the lifetime of any-
body in that house, there had been a deficit, and the rebel-
lion had only produced an aggravation of that state of
things. The right hon. gentleman said the government was
changed in form. The fact was that the government wss
changed only in name. He believed there had not been the
least change in principle. An hon. gentleman, who was re-
cently a member of that house, but who was now a member
of the Indian Council—he alluded to - Mr. Mangles—was
examined the other day before a committee sitting upstairs,
and he was asked if he approved of the present government
of India. He answered with great frankness that of course
he did ; that it was composed of the same men, and it was
conducted on the same principles, as before. The noble lord
would understand that he was not condemning him in any-
thing he was saying. One of his objects was to point out to
hitn'that however honest and enlightened was the minister
who might be at the head of Indian affairs in this country,
under the organisation that now existed in India it was ut-
terly impossible that he should bring about changes in that
country which'were absolutely necessary to restore Indian
finance to a condition of soundness. He should like the house
to consider for a moment whether it was possible to apply a
remedy to this state of things. This India Loan Bill was
not the last they-would have. Let them compare themselves
for a moment with loath e states. It was said WO had conferred
untold—no doubt they were untold—advantages on the na-
tives of India, but was it not a remarkable fact that while
the government of India was in the hands of 20 or 30 native
princes, every one of them, without exception, was able to
carry on his government without debt, and they had gene-
rally a surplus. Indeed, one of the great temptations to
the British autho'rities in India had been to secure the sur-
plus. He believed the noble lord could state that when the
kingdom of Oude was annexed, it was found that there was
a considerable sum in the exchequer, and that the revenue
of Oude amounted to nearly double the expenses necessary
to govern Oude. Well, we had abolished all these govern-
ments, and had spent all their revenues, and had borrowed
eighty millions sterling, and spent that also, and they had
had increasing year by year a deficit till it had become so
appalling that on both sides of the house they had been
discussing whether it would be necessary to bring in, not
only the authority but the security, the guarantee of Eng-
land to raise a sufficient sum of money to enable them to
carry on the government of India. Now, there was not
the smallest thing like a remedy proposed. It was more
debt, more taxes, no better government, and as far as he
could see, very little of that description of public works
which was necessary to develop with any success the i- dustry
of the people of India. The noble lord was not in fault at
all. He knew long before he held his present office what his
opinions were, but being in office lie was now responsible
for providing a remedy. The right hon. member for Radnor
thought that we should pay a part of the Indian army, and
that that would balance the Indian finances. But it would
not balance the English finances, and if the right hon. gen-
tleman was looking forward to again being Chancellor of
the Exchequer, he was rather surprised that he should
have made such a suggestion as that. He (the hon. mem-.
ber) was aware that a diminution in the rate of salaries
would form but a limited resource; but still it was ad-
mitted that there was no service in the world that was so
highly —he might say extravagantly—paid as the civil ser-
vice of India. The principle of that service was never how
to economise, but how best to plant upon the people of
India the largest number of our countrymen, who might live
there very comfortably for not a very long period and then
return home to occupy a very respectable if not high posi-
tion in English society. But was there any reason why the
officials of India should thus be paid? Fifty or a hundred
years ago, it was said that our eastern possessions were so
far away that men who went there seldom returned till
they had grey hairs and bad livers. (A laugh.) But the
distance had of late been much shortened, and ho (Mr.
Bright) did not believe one-tenth of what was said aboutthe
climate. Several years ago, when he had a committee on
the supply of cotton, he had an opportunity of seeing many
gentlemen who had been in India for 15 or 20 years. Since
then he had seen scores, he might almost say hundreds, of
the same class, and they appeared to enjoy just as good
health as if they had been spending one-half of the year in
London, and the other half in the Highlands of Scotland.
(Hear.) He dismissed, therefore, all idea that there was
anything in the nature of the service or in the climate of
India which rendered it necessary to pay such extravagant
salaries. If there was, why did they not pay their military
officers or their chaplains on a similar scale? They did not
pay those gentlemen any unreasonable sums, nor did those
who were engaged in agriculture or commerce in India—a
class which he regretted to say was a very small one—reap
profits that were so much in excess of the ordinary remune-
ration enjoyed by those who were engaged in similar pur-
suits. (Hear.) Or, again, compare the salaries received
in India with those paid in Ceylon, and it would be found
they were enormously larger; some being as large again,
and others 50 per cent. greater; and yet the conditions of
service in India were at least as good as those in Ceylon,
and the climate at least as favourable to European life.
(Hear, hear.) If the noble lord saved anything out of the
civil salaries he would be able to do one of the three things,
any of which would be very advantageous. He might em-
ploy a much larger number of Europeans, or he might' em-
ploy a much better class of officials (and of native officials
there were 10 for every European), or lastly, whatever was
saved would go into the Indian treasury, and render it less
requisite for the noble lord to borrow at 6 per cent. in India
or to come here for leave to borrow money from year
to year. (Hear, hear.) But it was quite true that the
great source of expense was, after all, the military establish-
ments ; and he was glad to hear what had fallen from the
right hon. gentleman (Sir G. Lewis). It was right that the
moral and Christian people of this country should know
that, with all our civilisation, all our boasting, all our mis-
sionaries, and all our talk about the Bible—it was right that
the people should know that there was every year wrung
from the toiling millions of this country and ofr
India no less a sum than 35 millions sterling, for
.purely military purposes. (Hear, hear.) The noble lord
told them that we load 91,000 European soldiers in India;
iu addition to a native force of 243,000, making thus an army
of 334,000 men. (Hear, hear.) Every historian of India
and every Englishman who had resided in India, was agreed
that in the whole world there was no peOple more industri-
ous, more docile, or more submissive to authority, by nature
and habit, than the people of British India. Governedwith
ordinary wisdom and justice they would require to keep them
in subjection, not an army of 334,000 men, but simply a well
organised police. (Hear, hear.) it would be better, and the
right hon. gentleman (Sir G. Lewis) was very near saying
the same thing, it would be far better for the honour of
England, for the good of India, and for the credit of human
nature, that we should leave India altogether if we could
not maintain our power:without this immense cost, and if
these great calamities were to look us in the face from year
to year, as they would do unless some great change were
made. (Hear, hear.) The noble lord could not save enough
from the civil salaries to make his finances balance ; but he
might save enough by diminishing the armed force. Such a
step must, however, be combined with other changes, or it
would meet with no complete success. In the first place,
everybody who had written about India said there was no
country in the world in which there was such a combination
of soil and climate, of people and industry, and even of
water, if they would but garner it up at the proper season—
every one admitted that there was no country where there
were the elements of such abundance and prosperity than
were to be found in British India. (Hear, hear.) Every-
thing that nature could give she had bestowed with no
scanty hand ; but the whole system of the Government had
been to thwart the benevolence and the goodness of God to
His creatures. At the present time the industries of India
were almost nothing ; and all the public works put toge-
ther did not approach what had had been done in any mo-
derate sized English county. The noble lord knew that with
an insecure ownership of land the industry of every country