The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-21 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF COMMONS—YESTERDAY.
EAST INDIA COUNCIL, Scc., BILL,

'On clause 2,
Mr. AYRTON moved the following amendment :
Add to clause 2, " the repeal of the act sth and 6th Wil-
liam IV., chap. 52, and of sections 15, 16, 17, and 19 of the
act 16th and 17th Victoria, chap. 95, in order to revive the
act 3d and 4th William IV., chap. 85, for establishing
Governments at Calcutta and Agra. The amendment was
one very simple in form, but the question involved in it was
one of the very highest importance to the Government and
people of India. He should almost think it necessary to
apologise to the house for bringing forward the subject,
were it not that the reproach had been frequently thrown
out that the House of Commons was in the habit of slurring
over Indian questions. He (Mr. Ayrton) had always been
an advocate of the proposal that the Secretary of State for
India should be met face to face by an efficient council.
That measure had been adopted, and they were now reap-
ing the fruits of it. One of the very first questions which
stared them in the face was whether they could have an
efficient government in India at all so long as it rested upon
its present footing. The hon. member for Birmingham had
repeatedly said it was absolutely necessary that the first
step taken should be to provide distinct local governments,
and to see that they had not too large an amount of terri-
tory to preside over. To this view he (Mr. Ayrton) entirely
assented. When he was in India he never heard any other
opinion. The people of India, in their loss to assign a rea-
son for the present system, were obliged to take refuge in
an imputation, and they said it was in order that the whole
administration should be in the hands of the Calcutta clique,
to the great prejudice of the affairs of India. Now, the Ben-
gal provinces contained a population of 37,000,000 of per-
sons, subject to a distinct government known as the govern-
ment of the regulation provinces. Besides these there was
a population of 3,000,000 in what were called the non-regu-
lation provinces. According to his conception the differ-
ence was this—that in the regulation provinces there was
law—every one had legal rights, and knew to whom to ap-
peal for the purpose of defending them. But the non-re-
gulation provinces were an unhappy district, which the
Government had pronounced to be unfit to enjoy any sys-
tem of established jurisdiction, beyond the despotic rule of
the Governor-General. There, there was no established
law ; and no man could say he had any rights at all
except at the will of the Governor-General. No
doubt the absolute power of the Governor-General was to
some extent modified by the wisdom of successive Govern-
ments, but the principle remained the same. Thus there
were 40,000,000 of people in the Bengal provinces, which
yielded also a gross revenue of nearly £13,000,000 sterling.
Now he contended that whatever might be the ability, or
the assumed or imagined ability, of any man in India, it
was quite enough for one man to rule over 40,000,000 of
people, and to manage £13,000,000 of revenue . (Hear, hear.)
The interests of the people and of good government re-
quired that these provinces alone should be made a separate
and distinct administration. He would now pass to the
north-west provinces. They had there a population of
30,000,000 of people in the regulation provinces, and of
3,000,000 in the non-regulation provinces, with a revenue
of £5,700,000. Here was a charge so extensive as to de-
mand the undivided care and responsibility of a separate
government. It would be an argument if it could be shown
that these subdivisions themselves were greater than the
existing presidencies. Madras was said to contain 20,000,000
of people in the regulation provinces and 2,500,000 in the
non-regulation provinces, with a revenue of £6,500,000.
Bombay had 9,000,000 of inhabitants in the regulation and
2,700,000 in the non-regulation provinces, and its revenue
was £7,200,000. If, with such populations and revenues as
these, it had been found necessary to have these two Govern-
ment:, of Madras and Bombay, it was quite obvious that in
the a ise of a population of double the amount, with a revenue
nearly double, it was equally necessary and more desirable.
Let not the committee suppose that nothing would be left
for -the administration of the Governor-General. He would
stiti retain a large amount of power and duty. Ile would
still have to look after many millions of people, and a large
amount both of direct and indirect revenue belonging to the
native states. But such was the love of power that they had
been unable to get the Government to consent to the estab-
lishment of this native Government, on the ground that it
would interfere with the free action of theGovernor-General.
Parliament, however, was invited to consider this subject,
when it made the most comprehensive and searching inves-
tigation that had ever taken place into the administration
of Indian affairs—he meant before renewing the charter in
1834; and the result of all that investigation and the deli-
beration that ensued upon it was, that it would contribute
to the good government of India at once to establish two
distinct governments upon the basis of the governments of
Bombay and Madras—one for Calcutta and the north-
western provinces, and the other for Bengal and Agra.
That was the deliberate judgment of Parliament at that
time, and it was embodied in the statute, which contained
all the requisite provisions for carrying it into effect. But
after a year or two the subject was considered in Calcutta,
and a despatch was written, which was laid upon the table
of the house, suggesting that it would be undesirable to
carry that act into effect. He had read the discussions
-which led to that conclusion, and had been struck by the
-want of reason for giving effect to that which was the deli-
berate legislation of the House of Commons. From that
day to this, however, the operation of the act had been sus-
pended, and what he desired the house now to do was to
put an end to that suspension. If there had been difficulties
in the way of carrying the act into effect, they rather arose
from the position of the Government having to deal with a
Court of Directors and Board of Control, from having a
civil service in India, which was the child of the Court of
Directors, and from the state of the army, which was in the
last degree unsatisfactory. But the alteration that had now
been made in the home administration, in the civil service,
and in the administration of the army, had entirely removed
all the difficulties which were then suggested in the way
of giving effect to the act of Parliament. He did not be-
lieve there was any real objection to the act now coming
into operation, and that being the case, the great question
came before them whether it was not their imperative duty
to provide for a population of 40,000,000 an efficient local
administration—whether they ought to leave such a
population the sport of circumstances, as they had
done during the last 27 years of their Indian
administration. Hitherto these people had been left to the
casual rule of a lieutenant-governor—they had never had the
advantages that other presidencies had had of having regular
governors sent from this country, but had been placed in an
inferior category, which he believed had been very prejudi-
cial to the interests of their inhabitants. In order that the
provinces should be well governed it was necessary that they
should not have a person directly taken out of their own
body to govern them, but that they should have an hide-
pendent British ruler sent out from this country. However
able a man !eight be in the civil service of Bengal, when he
was taken from the local administration and placed directly
in the office of Lieutenant-Governor, he did not assume the
government under conditions that were favourable to sound
administration, but rather under conditions most unfavour-
able to an efficient: administration, and the maintenance of
that authority and influence which he ought to possess. If
there had been a British governor in Bengal, the same as in
Bombay or Madras, he did not believe they would have
heard e word of those indigo transactions, which had been
se
anxideplorable in their results. At a time when we were so
made ctouastihvaetfßritish enterprise should go to India and be
or the Purpose of promotingindustry
the of the
natives, it was the b.aundenduty of the Ifouse of Commons
to consider well what was necessary to promote the resort
of British subjects to India' to place the administration
of affairs in such a positionaasnt ogive greater confidence to
-W
British capitalists. hat was necessarygoodgovern-
ment vernment in Ben-
gal, and he considered that the Governog General had u f
ficient to do in attending to general affairs. And he thought
that his amendment was necessary for the due carrying
of the policy of this bill, because it was thought desirable
out
that the Governor-General should not be fixed at Bengal,
Calcutta, or Agra, but should be at libertyto
served go where he
by the pleased, an object which would be greatly
esta-
blishment of these local councils. There was only one other
point to which he wished to refer in support of his motion,
and that was the great commerce of Bengal even :as com-
pared with Bombay and Madras. The exports of Bengal
were year by year increasing, and had now attained a mag-
nitude which a few years ago none could have anticipated,
and with these great interests involved, he placed the ques-
tion before the right hon. gentleman as one of paramount
importance. Every one with whom he had conversed upon
the subject acquiesced in the necessity of the step. Terrified
indigo planters looked upon it as essential for the protection
of their interests; the natives had always demanded it; the
personal interests of the civil service they were no longer to
be governed by as the first consideration in regulating the
affairs of India. Military interests were also now made
subservient to the interests of the nation, and he trusted
the right hon. gentleman would give his consideration to
the matter, and upon Pis own responsibility propose the re-
peal of the suspending acts that had been passed, and give
to these great populations that which was a necessary con-
dition of their future good govet nment, and which he be-
lieved was absolutely necessary if they did not want a re
currence of those proceedings ending in mutinies such as
they had had before. He proposed in line 19 to add the
words " the repeal of the act sth and 6111, Will. IV, cap.
52, and of sections 15, 16, 17, and 19 of the act 16th and
17th Viet., cap. 95."
Sir C. WOOD said it was difficult to gather from the
speech of the hon. gentleman what his proposal was, and
how far it differed from the clause of the bill. The hon.
gentleman considered it essential to have a local adreinietra,
tive council in Bengal and a fixed governor. Now, there
had been for the last eight or nine years a fixed Lieutenant-
Governor of Bengal, the executive government of Bengal
had been separated from the government of India, and this
bill proposed to give them a separate legislative council. The
difference, then, between the proposal in the bill and that of
the hon. gentleman simply amounted to this, that instead of
a lieutenant-governor appointed by the Governor-General,
and who was always a civil servant in India, there should
he a governor, who might or might not be a civil servant,
sent out from this country. The observations of the hon.
gentleman Principally referred to having a local administra-
tion as distinguished from the general administration of In-
dia, and therefore the general tenor of the Speech had been