frame a great and comprehensive scheme before Parliament the results of the labours for the government of India. But let of the two Committees which first laid bare him, or let any Gentleman opposed to the the state of Indian administration-that of Government on this question, produce that Mr Burke, and that of Mr. Dundas; and scheme, and we shall fully and fairly dis- since that period the Charter had been cuss those measures upon their merits. twice renewed. Upon the first of those My own opinion is, that nothing would be renewals, Mr. Fox declared his indignation more dangerous than to give the Crown at the attempt of Mr. Pitt to smuggle the the whole control of the thousands upon Charter through the House. The Reports thousands of the population in that part of of those Committees were to this day perthe British dominions. Then we should fect text books upon Indian administration. endeavour to avoid that, danger, and to Previous to the Charter being renewed in frame a Government upon principles more 1833, a Committee of that House was apin conformity with, and more favourable to pointed; they were appointed in February constitutional freedom. With respect to 1830, and produced thirteen volumes, the the Government that has existed-and sixth of which he recommended to the existed for a period, as I have said, for perusal of hon. Members, as a perfect hisseventy years-nothing, I should say, tory of India during the preceding twenty would be more likely to fail in theory than years; whilst the first volume contained the Government of a Board of Directors the evidence of Mr. Hope Mackenzie, controlled by a Board entirely dependent which was only equalled by the masterly on them, and they, again, having their or- and vigorous testimony of the Earl of ders transmitted to a Governor General at Ellenborough, just given before the Coma great distance from the mother country. mittee now sitting. He recommended But in framing that Government the expe- these papers to the attention of the House; rience of seventy years is not to be despised. and in doing so, he must again protest The experience of those seventy years, from against the course which, he regretted to 1784 to 1854-when this Act will expire- see, the Government had determined upon must furnish material elements in every adopting. way worthy of the consideration of the House in reconstructing or renewing the system of administering the affairs of India. I will only now say that we shall be prepared to legislate on this important subject in the present Session; and when we think that all the information that has been obtained in reference to the question has been sufficiently long in the hands of the Government and the House to enable us to legislate on the subject, we shall bring forward the measure which we mean to propose; and in the meantime we shall deprecate as a great evil the postponement for two or three years, for purposes of agitation, a question of this kind. MR. BLACKETT said, he could not help expressing his deep regret at the nature of the answer which had been given by the noble Lord to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Manchester; and he trusted, before this subject was pressed to a conclusion, the noble Lord would see reason to come to a different opinion. When the Indian Charter was renewed for the first time in 1793, no one would deny that the public mind was far more familiar with the then state of India than it was at present. The proceedings against Warren Hastings had kept alive a continual feeling upon that subject. There had also been laid MR. J. G. PHILLIMORE said, he also must express great regret at the statement just made by the noble Lord, for whose character and public services he entertained the most unfeigned respect. It appeared to him impossible that the House could proceed, upon so short a notice, to the decision of a question, the importance of which could not be overrated, and which concerned the interests of 130,000,000 of our fellow subjects. Now, when the noble Lord appealed to the experience of seventy years' government of India, surely he (Mr. Phillimore) might remind the House that he appealed to a circumstance which beyond all others pronounced a full condemnation of the system which, up to twenty years ago, India had endured. If the noble Lord looked to the speeches of Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke upon this question, and, above all, to that magnificent speech delivered by Lord Grenville in 1812, in which he developed the wisdom of a statesman and the humanity of a philanthropist, he would find that even all the restraints of long official experience had not prevented those great men from expressing, in sentiments of loud and general reprobation, their condemnation of that very system to the merits of which the noble Lord now appealed. He (Mr. Phillimore) would state three simple facts which nobody could possibly dispute, and which appeared to him to demand most serious and anxious consideration. One of the facts was, that in spite of the letter and spirit of the law last passed for regulating the affairs of India, no Indian native-with one or two exceptions-had been allowed to obtain any office of consideration and importance in his own country. What would be our own feelings as Englishmen under such treatment? Was the House to be told that 130,000,000 of God's creatures were so depressed below the level of our own civilisation, that no two of them were fit to hold situations of importance in their own land? Was such language to be addressed to the British House of Commons? Another of the facts to which he referred had reference to the question of the internal communication in India. So scandalous had been the neglect of internal communication, so reluctant had been the Indian Government to spend money upon public works in a country from which 8,000,000l. yearly were drained, that local famines had been the result, and that actually the native inhabitants lay down to perish when food was absolutely within their reach if proper means of sending it had been provided. The third was the cruel and oppressive tax on salt, which, like our corn laws, interfered with the support of millions-a tax which obliged the people to pay four, five, and, sometimes, ten times as much for a necessary of life as they did under their native rulers. These circumstances called strongly for the serious attention of that House, for they proved that the welfare of 130,000,000 of people, the inhabitants of India, had hitherto been only a secondary and subordinate subject on the part of their governors. Such facts pointed to one conclusion most distinctly-namely, that the Court of Directors ought to be discarded as an instrument for the government of India; and if that House, consented to be hurried into a precipitate measure upon a question of such vast and awful importance, he could only say they would, by it, stand condemned to the most remote posterity. MR. H. D. SEYMOUR said, he also regretted to have heard the speech of the noble Lord upon this subject. The noble Lord had denied the poverty and the misery of the people of India, and yet refused to receive before the Committee the evidence by which, it was alleged, the existence of those evils could be proved. Such a course as this he (Mr. Seymour) could not but regret, respecting as he did the high character of the noble Lord. The noble Lord had chosen to bring into question the statements which appeared in the press upon these subjects; but he (Mr. Seymour) would remind the noble Lord that it was not the press only which produced the allegations by which the present system was condemned. Great statesmen, like the Marquess Wellesley and Lord Grenville, had condemned the system; and after the evidence which had been received, the House would be justified in condemning it also, certainly until it was clearly proved that India was not suffering from the measures to which reference had been made. Most hon. Gentlemen had probably read the Madras petition. In speaking on that petition, a very strong statement had been made by a high authority, Lord Campbell, who said, that having sat as a Judge in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as a Court of Appeal on Indian Affairs, he could, from the enormous evils that had been brought before him, believe every word in that petition. It was useless, then, for the Government to shut their eyes to these matters, and say they did not know that misery and degradation were to be found in India, when, if they took the proper means, they might have it proved by evidence which could not be denied. The miserable condition of the people of India was not proved merely by newspaper reports; it had been admitted in the book of a gentleman who was the great apologist of the Court of Directors. Mr. Campbell, at page 360 of his work, called Modern India, said the Madras officers to whom he had talked, candidly admitted that at present the state of things there was most unsatisfactory; that the people were wretchedly poor; that their land was of little value; and that the difficulty was to get people to cultivate it upon any terms, and that cultivation was only kept up by forced and by Government advances. Mr. Campbell also alluded to the system of collection. " "Only imagine," he said, "one collector dealing with 150,000 separate tenants, not one of whom had a lease, and all of whom paid according to his cultivation, and according to the number of cattle, sheep, or children, for which he got a reduction if he could make out a good case.' If, added Mr. Campbell, the collector were one of the prophets, and lived to the age of Methuselah, he would not be sufficient for the duty; but as he was only an ordinary man, and a foreigner, and continually changed, it would be strange indeed if the native subordinates could not do as they liked, and, having power, if they did not abuse it. And he added, that it was generally agreed that the abuses of the whole system were something frightful, and that extravagance, peculation, chicanery, and intrigue, were unbounded. This was likewise the case under the Government of the Company in the years 1802 and 1811, when Sir Henry Strachey, one of their most distinguished servants, gave that evidence as to the condition of the people, which must be familiar to every student of Indian history. The noble Lord (Lord John Russell) said the Indian revenue had increased. But how Mr. Campbell explained how. He said that the real revenue of the country had diminished, but that an apparent increase was kept up by the confiscation of the lands of the middle classes. And he (Mr. Seymour) believed it was unanimously acknowledged by almost every servant of the Company who came back to this country, privately at least, that we had, by our system, wholly destroyed all the middle class in India; and had left nothing but our collectors, of whom there was one to every 1,000,000 of inhabitants, and the miserable ryots, who had barely the necessaries of life. If you spoke to travellers who had visited our dominions in India, they gave exactly similar accounts. Why should everybody, then, except official persons, be disbelieved? Who had hitherto been examined? Twenty-four gentlemen, all officials, and interested in keeping up the old system, had been examined as to the government of India, with a population of 150,000,000. Now it was most unfair for the noble Lord to allege that the objection to the examination of official persons was, because they were officials; for the unanswerable objection made by former speakers really was, that none but official persons were examined. If it were thought that all which was said on the other side of the question was untrue, and that what was alleged in the petitions from India was false, let the parties be asked to come forward to substantiate openly their statements. Allow them either to be substantiated or disproved. But if the Bill were framed before the inquiry was closed on the two most important subjects-the revenue and the judicial system-it would have been framed without sufficient evidence, and the responsibility of all the evils which might be perpetrated by it would rest upon those who framed and who voted for it. VISCOUNT JOCELYN said, as a member of the Indian Committee, he must entirely deny the statement that had just fallen from the hon. Gentleman who spoke last, to the effect that there was a difficulty thrown in the way of any person being heard before the Committee who was capable of giving important evidence. On the contrary, he believed he spoke the sentiments of every member of the Committee when he said that it was their wish to obtain, as far as it was practicable, all the evidence possible, so as to elucidate the great and important inquiry upon which they were engaged. Perhaps he might be permitted to say that if a suggestion which he had humbly made to that House in 1850 had been acted on, he thought they would not now be in the condition in which they found themselves. That suggestion was for the appointment of a Committee. If that course had been taken at that time, they should now be ripe for legislation on the subject, and all the information which they would then have received would be sufficient for their present purposes. He, however, acknowledged that, as far as his feeling went on the subject, it appeared to him that if the legislation proposed by the Government was such as merely affected the Home Government here, and the Indian authorities abroad, the information before them was sufficient. He must acknowledge, however, that he could not see how far the further inquiry they were about to make into the revenue and the judicial and other departments, would assist them in the consideration of such legislation. The noble Lord (Lord John Russell) had properly and rightly stated that it was the duty of the Government to legislate upon this subject; and it was, he considered, impossible for a Committee of the House of Commons to declare and determine what the future government of India should be. It appeared to him that the Committee, so far as obtaining information to enable the future Government of India to carry out and improve the internal administration of the country, would be performing a most important duty, inasmuch as it would be then seen where the real evils existed, and what ought to be done in the way of a remedy. That he took to be the great object of the Committee's inquiry, but he thought the Committee wholly incapable to determine the best mode of re medying the judicial grievances, or to de- | duty to look into the question, and if they cide what was the best revenue system- believed that they were not prepared at whether the ryotwar, mouzawar, or the that moment to legislate with vigour, let zemindary. Those were questions for them postpone it until such time as they those whom Parliament in its wisdom considered themselves competent to deal thought fit to entrust with the adminis- with it. Better to postpone for some time tration of Indian affairs. Well, but had longer the consideration of the question, they evidence at present to justify them in than to run the danger of legislating hastily their proposed legislation? He acknow- and in error, and of handing over the ledged he thought that they had, and he government of India, for another period of should like to see laid upon the table the twenty years, without any hope of that propositions of the Government for remedy-improvement which this country had a ing the admitted evils of the country. He right to expect. thought that very great and very serious MR. OTWAY said, he also felt regret alterations were necessary both at home at the statement of the noble Lord (Lord and abroad. He was not prepared to J. Russell). There could not be a doubt admit that the Government for the last that the wants and the evils from which seventy years had been such as was de- the people of India were suffering should scribed by an hon. Member opposite. He be ascertained before that House proceeddenied the truth of that statement. He, ed to legislate. Now, who were the reprehowever, thought far more might have sentatives of the people of India in this been done, and ought to have been done, country? It would be idle to reply that than had been done for that great empire. the Court of Directors represented them, It appeared to him that it was no excuse for the Court of Directors only represented for the Government to say that the revenue 800 civilians, and a few officers employed of the country had been swallowed up by in India. The Court of Directors had, in an internal war. To his mind, one of the point of fact, no sympathy whatever with great sins committed by the East India the people of India. It had been said by Company was, that they had not encou- the noble Lord, that if rapacity and corraged the introduction of English capital ruption could be alleged against the Goand English capitalists. He believed that vernment of India, there must be some that was the only source from which inter- reason for delaying legislation. Well, on nal improvement could be secured to India. this point he would meet the noble Lord; Believing, as he did, that great alterations for if any Member had waded through were required in the home department of those extraordinary and mystifying proIndia, in order to give vigour to the Govern- ductions called the Outram papers, which ment both here and in India, he trusted had emanated from the India House, he that the Government would not think of could hardly fail to see that, if corruption adopting any of those quack measures did not actually exist, there was a belief in which he had seen recommended in some the corruptibility of the officials of the Goof the public papers. If they hoped to vernment existing in the minds of the naeffect a sound cure of the evils complained tives of that part of India. Colonel Outof, the Government must go far deeper ram, who was a most distinguished officer, into those evils than any of those measures he regretted to say, had been removed to which he had referred had gone. They while engaged in the active investigation must strike down at the root of those evils of corruption. He had brought his inif they hoped to render their measure at quiries nearly to a successful issue, when all efficacious. There were many eminent he was removed from his office, as he (Mr. men, no doubt, in the present Government Otway) believed, in consequence of the -men of greater capacity for business vigour with which he had acted. He (Mr. than perhaps were ever assembled together Otway) had moved for certain papers which for many years-men who were fully capa- would throw greater light upon this matter, ble of looking well into the question, and and he must respectfully urge the right of effectively legislating upon it. The hon. Baronet the President of the Board question was well worthy of their legisla- of Control to expedite the production of tion and their consideration, for it was a those papers. They contained matters question in which there were 150,000,000 affecting the character of the administraof people deeply interested, but in the tion of justice in India, and they affected settlement of which they had no voice what- the character in their corporate capacity of ever themselves. He said it was their the Board of Directors. He hoped, under such circumstances, that they would be laid on the table before the debate on the measure of the Government; but if the right hon. Baronet (Sir C. Wood) could not extract them from the India House, he (Mr. Otway) would bring the case before that House, and found a Motion even upon the mutilated and mystifying documents which had been produced. MR. COBDEN said, that being a member of the Committee on Indian Territories he felt it necessary to explain the grounds upon which he differed from the noble Lord opposite (Viscount Jocelyn). The noble Lord said he saw no objection to the House proceeding to legislate upon what might be termed the machinery of the Indian Government, after the inquiry which had already been made; and in so doing he treated the question in a way which required just a word or two of plain interpretation. Now, when they talked of the machinery of the Government of India, they talked of that to which they were afterwards to leave the administration of affairs in that country. If they said, "We are now only going to set up a Government, which is not a matter of so much consequence as affecting the Government in past times," it appeared to him they were dealing with words, and not with things. He would illustrate his meaning. If they were going to ascertain the value of a watch, they would not at once content themselves with counting the number of parts, or with seeing that the whole wateh was entire, but they would inquire how it would go, how it kept time, and what would be its motions. In the same manner if they contented themselves with inquiring what was the machinery of the Government of India, and, because they found officials to tell them it was a good Government, they immediately renewed the charter which set up the machine for twenty years, it appeared to him that they had not instituted the kind of inquiry which would be satisfactory either to reason, to common sense, or even to ordinary justice. Before they proceeded with legislation they must ascertain how the machine had worked in India; and in order to ascertain that, they must hear evidence from some other persons than officials. Up to the present time, however, not a single person had been called before the Committee who was not employed either by the Honourable Company or by the India Board. Certainly there had been two witnesses who had given rather adverse evidence; but one of those was the Earl of Ellenborough, who had been Governor General, and the other was a civil functionary. The fact, then, remained that the Committee had not had before them one single independent witness. They had not had one adverse witness from India. Now he thought the doors of the Committee room ought to be opened to all, and that the same course ought to be pursued in respect to witnesses from India as was adopted in reference to witnesses at home. At home, whenever any public inquiry was made by a Committee of the House of Commons, the expenses of the witnesses were paid; and, in the present case, so far from shrinking from inquiry, they should have before them the representatives of the malcontents in India, bring them over from India at the public expense, and examine them upstairs. He must add an observation with regard to this precipitate legislation. It was proposed to bring in a Bill to settle the Government of India when the Committee had not got through one quarter of the evidence which they proposed to themselves to take. Was there ever such a thing done before? Had the House ever before instituted a solemn inquiry before a Select Committee, and proposed to legislate upon it before it was one quar ter finished? The noble Lord (Viscount Jocelyn) said the Committee was not appointed to arrange or determine the Government of India; it was set up, according to his view, only to obtain information to enable the House to legislate. This was all he (Mr. Cobden) wanted. Wait until you had the evidence before you began to legislate. If there was danger of agitation and discontent because a provisional Act was passed for a temporary Government, what danger might not be apprehended from the fact that the Committee of Inquiry had been treated so little as a reality that the House would not wait to see what evidence they had collected? It might be an inferior and secondary question, but he would ask the noble Lord, as a member of the Committee, what he intended to do with the members of the Committee if he did not intend to avail himself of their inquiries? He said they might go on with their investigations. But, surely, in the present state of public business, they might be better employed than in making inquiry after the noble Lord and his Colleagues |