The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-24 00:00:00

WEDNESDAY EV ENING,

men's which would have the ground %mulct be those Nho
had served in the Crimea.

FISCAL AFFAIRS (IRELNDI.
Sir DENT:IAA NORREYS moved for leave to in-
trod UCI3 a bill to provide for the management of the fiscal
afftirs of c untio3 in Ireland, by electorl boards, and
by this moans to sxeep away the grand jury system in
vhich he strongly condemned.

Colonel FRENCH defended the grand jury system,
declared that the phn which Sir D. Norreys would in-
tro:uce would lead to indefinite expense, and met his
motion by a direct negative.
Mr. M'MATION supported the bill.

Mr. H. HERBEIit admitted that the grand jury
system was defective, but he maintained that :is a whole
it worked well. If Sir I). Norreys pressed his motion to
a division, he would divide against him.

Mr. MAGURIE was disappointed with the speech of
the Irish Secretary, but he did not ihinic the bill could
be carried without the aid of the Government, and he
therefore advised the mover to withdraw the bill.

After some further conversation,
SIR D. NORREYS withdrew his motion.
INDIA.

Mr. J. B. SMITH presented a patition from A an-
chester, praying the house to direct its attention to the
subject of India.

Mr. WATKINS presented a similar petition from
Manchester.

Mr. J. B. SMITH then rose to move that in the
opinion of this house, it id expedient that Parliament
shall direct its immediate attention to the best mode of
removing the obstacles which impede the application of
British capital and skill to the improvement of the pro-
ductive powers of India. He said that Government had
not directed its attention to the improvement of India
until a famine had been produced by drought, and then the
Ganges canal aad other modes of irrigation were estab-
lished. The wise change which took place in the com-
mercial laws sf 1806 had led to the meet beneficialresults,
but the consequence was that they were now running
short of cotton. Our supplies of cotton came principally
from America, where it was grown by slave labour.
The supply coming from America caused great fluctua-
tion. Now, in India we had land sufficient to pro-
duce an unlimited supply of cotton, and to that
quarter of the world our manufacturers looked for
their future supply. It might be said that the
manufacturers might send out their agents to ob-
tain a supply, but it was a remarkable fact that
although Englishmen were found in every quarter of
the world they would not emigrate to India. There
were but 10,000 English in the towns of India besides
those connected with the service, 273 in Bengal, and
37 in Madras. The reason that Englishmen would not
emigrate to India was that the government there meant
bad government. There were no roads, no bridges, and
the fruits of industry in consequence were frequently
left to perish in the field. Colonel Grant said that of
the sheep sent from ,Deccan to Bengal not one-third
reached their destination. Mr. Mackie, who was sent
out by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, gave a
fearful description of the road. From the evidence of
the chairman of the East India Company it appeared
that the country had received in revenue from India
about 300,000,0001. sterling, but they had only ex-
pended 1,14001. on roads and irrigation, about a penny
in the pound. Now there was more water in India than
in America, and yet the people perished from the want
of proper works of irrigation. It was the want of irri-
gation that bad made Egypt and Nineveh what they
were now—deserts. With proper irrigation the pro-
perty of India would be doubled in value immediately.
It was true that the Ganges canal had been constructed,
but why should they stop there ? As well might we
in this country have stopped the railway system when
we made the Manchester and Liverpool Railway. One
of the greatest obstacles to the improvement of India
was the tenure of land. The East India Company
claimed to be the owner of all the land, and no one could
hold the land in fee simple. The real tenure of land in
India was an annual settlement. That necessarily gave
immense power to a swarm of government officials. As
far back as 1809 the East India Company bad reported
on this subject. The best test of a system was the con-
dition of a people. The people of our colonies were the
most flourishing on the face of the earth, while the
native tenants of the Eastlndia Company were the mott
wretched. In Singapore, Hong Kong, and Penang the
India tenure of land had been abandoned, and the result
was that those places were the most flourishing of our
Indian possessions. The land tax in Madras was less than
it was fifty years ago. A new assessment and a new
survey had been ordered in that province. It was
estimated that this survey would take 22 years to
accomplish, and that it would cost a sum equivalent to
several millions of our money. How many of the poor
wretches would have passed away from the miseries of
taxation before the survey was completed, while the
sum to be expended in the survey would make 2,000
miles of roads. The hon. member proceeded to refer to
the great improvement which had taken place in the
value of the land in the state of Illinois by the construc-
tion of a railway, as evidence of the great advance which
would take place in the value of land in India if suitable
roads were constructed. Similar results had attended
the formation of roads in Ceylon, where 3,000 miles—
nearly as much as in the whole of India--had been made.
In one district of the Madras Presidency where roads
existed, a state of prosperity existed which contrasted
most favourably with the other portions of the presidency
where no such means of communication had been pro-
vided. With increased prosperity in India, the con-
sumption of British manufactures there would be greatly
extended, and it was most disgraceful that a few thou-
sand people of Australia should consume far more of the
manufactures of this country than the 1,0,000,000 in-
' habitants of India. (Hear.) Another subjcc;; to which he
was anxious to draw attention was the great increase in
the imports from India, and the drain of specie which
had been consequent upon that increased trade. The
great cause of the increased imports was the facility of
freight, which had precisely the same effect in foreign
trade as improved roads had upon the domestic trade of
a country. The rise in the price of all commodities during
the late war had led to increased production, and hence
had arisen the large addition to the exports from India.
The profits upon public works in India were so enormous
that the only wonder in his mind was that they had not been
carried out to such an extent as to provide all the works
that were necessary for the country. The not average
profit upon 39 public works, as ascertained by a com-
mission appointed by the Indian Government was 69
per cent, per annum from the year of their comple-
tion. The increased revenue derived, and the addi-
tional experience obtained proved that these works at
present realised au average profit of not less than 200 per
cent. per annum. The Government of India had gone
altogether on a wrong principle in carrying out the pub-
lie works. They had paid for them out of revenue, and
had thus embarrassed their finances, whereas they ought
to have borrowed the money, because the work to be
executed would be of greater value to posterity than to
the present generation. The Government of India was
ready enough to borrow money for the purposes of war,
why could they not adopt the same course for carrying
out public works in this country ? With respect to the
growth of cotton in India, he contended that it might be
placed in a position to enable it to.compete successfully
with America in the production of this staple. The hon.
member referred to the reports of Mr. Shaw and some
other person for the purpose of showing that cotton
might be grown with pi ofit and advantage under a mare
enlightened and liberal system of land tenure and a more
humane treatment of the ryots. He was aware that it
might be said that those statements were exaggerated,
but statements of this kind were not to be confounded
with disproof of the facts which ho had brought forward.
Tortures of the most disgusting and degrading character
had been inflicted upon the men and women of India,
such as he would not trust himself todescribe, and he re•
ferred to the experience of several travellers to prove that
a state of the utmost misery and distress prevailed
throughout the company's territories. Many hon. mem-
bers would remember the denial given by Sir J. W. Hogg
the late chairman of the East India Company, to the
statements made that torture was resorted to in India.
What reliance could be placed on the assertion of the ad-
vocates of the company who did not know what was taking
place in the country ? When Lord Harris heard of this
statement, he ordered an inquiryon the spot, and the re-
sult had been to show that torture to an enormous extent
had been resorted to in the Bengal Presidency. It was
high time that the government of the East India
Company should be brought to a close, and that in
future 180,000,000 inhabitants of that empire should
cease to be called the subjects of the East India Com-
pany, and be recognised hereafter as the subjects of
Queen Victoria. (Loud cheers.) The hon. member
concluded by submitting his motion.
Mr. A. TURNER seconded the resolution, and
showed how the demand for this cotton was encroaching
upon the American supply, so that the price was stea-
dily rising. The Indian cotton, be knew from his own
experience, was quite equal to the best American cotton,
and it could be had at a price with which America could
not compete, but it was not properly cleaned, and capital
alone was wanting to make the roads, so that cotton
might come easily and cleanly to the coast, and that
capital and those roads the Indian Government ought to
supply.
Mr. 11. MANGLES contended that the industrial de•
veloprnent of India was proceeding at a greater rate than
England could pay for. Everything but cotton was pro-
duced in the greatest abundance. What made cotton an
exception I The reason was that the men of Manchester
would do nothing for themselves ; but contented them-
selves with abusing the Government. But the truth was
that the Government had done much for India. They
had sanctioned and provided for the making of 400,000
mills in India. There was nothing to prevent Englishmen
from going to India, cultivating cotton, and there was
nothing in the tenure of land to forbid them. One Eng-
lishman—a Mr. Landels—had done so, and was rapidly
making a fortune. If Manchester men would send out
their agents to India, and follow the example of Mr.
Landels, there would be no scarcity of cotton. But,
while the Manchester manufacturers only went to India
when they could not get it elsewhere, and thus did not
make a continuous demand, they could not expect that
the supply would increase. He entered into a detail of
the public works that were now in progress in India,
and reminding the house that this was the centenary of
Clive's victory of Plassy, which secured India for Eng-
land, he concluded by saying that some members seemed
to think India bad been a thousand years in our posses-
sion, instead of only a single century.
Lord STANLEY confessed he did noti exactly see how
it followed as a logical consequence that because this was
the 100th anniversary of a great victory in India by one
member of the Indian Civil Service, it was the duty of
another member of that service to set himself to oppose
the development of the internal resources of India. The
hon. gentleman (Mr. Mangles) had taunted the gentle-
men of Manchester with asking the Government of India
to help them out of their difficulty. But the Government
of India being the landlords were bound to take upon
themselves those works and improvements which in other
countries were executed by individual landlords, (Hear,)