C. Wood). I must say I do not know any one connected with China, or at
all acquainted with the subject, who is not of opinion that the opium
revenue is very near its termination. Even the favourite authority of
the President of the Board of Control, Mr. Marshman, declared his
opinion that India was on the verge of a great financial crisis. Whether
the present Chinese Government retains its power, or the insurgents be
successful and a new dynasty be established, the scruple against the
importation of opium into China from India having once been removed, the
transition to the growth of the drug in China is very easy, and there
can scarcely be a doubt that opium will soon be as extensively
cultivated in that country as ever it was in India. This might very soon
produce a loss of 3,000,000_l_. of revenue to the East India Company.
There has already been an annual deficit in the revenues of the East
India Company for the last fifteen years; they have to bear the cost of
a Burmese war; and the annexation of new territory will only bring upon
them an increased charge, for Pegu will probably never repay its
expenses, and yet they have the prospect of losing 3,000,000_l_. of
their revenue within a very few years. Now, what would the Chancellor of
the Exchequer say if the President of the Board of Control came to that
House and proposed to raise a loan upon the credit of this country for
the purpose of maintaining our territory in India? Would it not be
better at once to ascertain whether the principles and policy on which
we have hitherto proceeded have not been faulty? Should we not rather
endeavour to reduce our expenditure, to employ cheaper labour, to
increase the means of communication in India, which would enable us to
dispense with a portion of our troops, and to make it a rule that the
Governor-General should have more honour when he came home, for not
having extended by an acre the territory of our Indian possessions, than
if he had added a province or a kingdom to them?
The plan proposed by the President of the Board of Control appears to me
very closely to resemble that which exists at present. The result, so
far as regards the real question, about which the public are most
interested, is this, that the twenty-four gentlemen who are directors of
the East India Company are, by a process of self-immolation, to be
reduced to fifteen. I think this reduction will be one of the most
affecting scenes in the history of the Government of India. As the East
India Company keep a writer to record their history, I hope they also
keep an artist to give us an historical painting of this great event.
There we shall see the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles), the hon.
Member for Honiton (Sir J. W. Hogg), one of the hon. Members for the
City of London, and the other directors, meeting together, and looking
much like shipwrecked men in a boat casting lots who should be thrown
overboard. To the fifteen directors who are to remain, three others are
to be added, and the result will be that, instead of having twenty-four
gentlemen sitting in Leadenhall-street, to manage the affairs in India,
there will be eighteen. The present constituency is so bad that nothing
the President of the Board of Control can do can make it worse; but as
that right hon. Gentleman finds it impossible to make it better, he lets
the constituency remain as it was. The right hon. Baronet proposes that
the Crown should appoint six members of the Board who have been at least
ten years in India, so that there may at all events be that number of
gentlemen at the Board lit for the responsible office in which they are
placed. But this is an admission that the remaining twelve members of
the Board are not fit for their office. They have two ingredients--the
one wholesome, the other poisonous; but there are two drops of poison to
one of wholesome nutriment. The right hon. Gentleman mixes them
together, and then wants Parliament and the country to believe that he
has proposed a great measure.
As regards the right hon. Gentleman's speech, I must say that I have
never heard so great a one--I mean as to length--where the result, so
far as the real thing about which people wish to know, was so little.
The twelve gentlemen appointed by the present constituency are degraded
already by the right hon. Gentleman's declaration, that they are not
elected in a satisfactory manner, and that they are not fit persons for
the government of India. They are, in fact, bankers and brewers, and men
of all sorts, in the City of London, who find it their interest to get
into the Court of Directors--no matter by what channel--because it adds
to the business of their bank, or whatever else may be the undertaking
in which they are engaged; but who have no special qualification for the
government of India. If the Government thinks it right to have six good
directors, let them abolish the twelve bad ones. Then it appears that
the Secret Department is to be retained. Speaking of this, Mr. Kaye,
quoting the authority of Mr. Tucker, a distinguished director, said it
was no more than a secretary and a seal. Next comes a most extraordinary
proposition. Hitherto the directors have undergone all the hardship of
governing India for 300_l_. a-year; but the right hon. Gentleman
now proposes to raise their wages by 4_l_. per week each. I must
say, that if this body is to be salaried at all, and is not to have the
profit of the patronage enjoyed by the present Government, nothing can
be worse economy than this, with a view to obtaining a body which shall
command the respect, and have the amount of influence, requisite for
conducting the Government of India. Sixteen of the directors, receiving
500_l_. a-year each--why, they would have to pay their clerks much
more!--and the chairman and the deputy-chairman 1,000_l_. a-year
each. The whole of the right hon. Gentleman's scheme seems to bear the
marks of--I am almost afraid to say what; but he seems to have tried to
please every one in framing his great proposition, and at last has
landed the House in a sort of half measure, which neither the East India
Company nor India wants. If I had made a speech such as the right hon.
Gentleman has delivered, and believed what he said, I would leave the
Indian Government as it is; but if I thought it necessary to alter the
Government, I would do so on principle essentially. The right hon.
Gentleman is afraid of bringing the Government of India under the
authority of the Crown. What, I should like to know, would have been
done if India had been conquered by the troops of the Crown? We should
then never have sent some thirty men into a bye-street of London to
distribute patronage and govern a great country. The Government of India
would then have been made a department of the Government, with a Council
and a Minister of State. But it appears that the old system of hocus-
pocus is still to be carried on.
This is no question of Manchester against Essex--of town against
country--of Church against Nonconformity. It is a question in which we
all have an interest, and in which our children may be more deeply
interested than we are ourselves. Should anything go wrong with the
finances, we must bear the burden; or should the people of India by our
treatment be goaded into insurrection, we must reconquer the country, or
be ignominiously driven out of it. I will not be a party to a state of
things which might lead to the writing of a narrative like this on the
history of our relations with that empire. Let the House utterly
disregard the predictions of mischief likely to result from such a
change in the Government of India as that which I advocate. When the
trade was thrown open, and the Company was deprived of the monopoly of
carrying, they said the Chinese would poison the tea. There is nothing
too outrageous or ridiculous for the Company to say in order to prevent
the Legislature from placing affairs on a more honest footing. I object
to the Bill, because--as the right hon. Gentleman admitted--it
maintains a double Government. In the unstatesmanlike course which the
right hon. Gentleman is pursuing, he will, no doubt, be especially
backed by the noble Lord the Member for London. I only wish that some of
the younger blood in the Cabinet might have had their way upon this
question. Nothing can induce me to believe, after the evidence which is
before the public, that this measure has the approbation of an united
Cabinet. It is not possible that thirteen sensible gentlemen, who have
any pretensions to form a Cabinet, could agree to a measure of this
nature. I am more anxious than I can express that Parliament should
legislate rightly in this matter. Let us act so at this juncture that it
may be said of us hereafter--that whatever crimes England originally
committed in conquering India, she at least made the best of her
position by governing the country as wisely as possible, and left the
records and traces of a humane and liberal sway.
I recollect having heard the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton
(Viscount Palmerston) deliver in this House one of the best speeches I
ever listened to. On that occasion the noble Lord gloried in the proud
name of England, and, pointing to the security with which an Englishman
might travel abroad, he triumphed in the idea that his countrymen might
exclaim, in the spirit of the ancient Roman, _Civis Romanus sum_.
Let us not resemble the Romans merely in our national privileges and
personal security. The Romans were great conquerors, but where they
conquered, they governed wisely. The nations they conquered were
impressed so indelibly with the intellectual character of their masters,
that, after fourteen centuries of decadence, the traces of civilisation
are still distinguishable. Why should not we act a similar part in
India? There never was a more docile people, never a more tractable
nation. The opportunity is present, and the power is not wanting. Let us
abandon the policy of aggression, and confine ourselves to a territory
ten times the size of France, with a population four times as numerous
as that of the United Kingdom. Surely that is enough to satisfy the most
gluttonous appetite for glory and supremacy. Educate the people of
India, govern them wisely, and gradually the distinctions of caste will
disappear, and they will look upon us rather as benefactors than as
conquerors. And if we desire to see Christianity, in some form,
professed in that country, we shall sooner attain our object by setting
the example of a high-toned Christian morality, than by any other means
we can employ.
* * * * *
INDIA
II.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, JUNE 24, 1858.
_From Hansard_.
[After the suppression of the Indian mutiny, Lord Palmerston's
Government determined to introduce a Bill the object of which was to
place the possessions of the East India Company under the direct
authority of the Crown. This Bill was introduced by Lord Palmerston on
February 12. But the Government fell a few days afterwards, on the
Conspiracy Bill, and Lord Palmerston's Bill was withdrawn. On March 26
the new Government introduced their own Bill, which was known as the
India Bill No. 2. The chief peculiarity of this Bill was that five
members in the proposed council of eighteen should be chosen by the
constituencies of the following cities:--London, Manchester, Liverpool,
Glasgow, and Belfast. The scheme was unpopular, and Lord Russell
proposed that it should be withdrawn, and that resolutions should be
passed in a Committee of the whole House, the acceptance of which might
prove a guide to the proceedings of the Government. The suggestion was
accepted by Mr. Disraeli, and in consequence India Bill No. 3 was
brought in, and read a second time on June 24.]
I do not rise for the purpose of opposing the second reading of this
Bill--on the contrary, if any hon. Member thinks proper to divide the
House upon it, I shall vote with the noble Lord. I must say, however,
that there are many clauses in the Bill to which I entertain serious
objections. Some of them will, I hope, be amended as the Bill passes
through Committee; but if that is not the case, I can only hope that, as
the Bill of 1853 is abandoned in 1858, within the next five years the
House of Commons will take some further steps with regard to this
question, with the view of simplifying the Government of India as
carried on in England. I wish to take this opportunity of making some
observations upon the general question of Indian government, which it
might have been out of place to have made during the discussion of the
various Resolutions which have been agreed to by the House.
I think it must have struck every hon. Member that, while two
Governments have proposed great changes with regard to the government of
India, no good case has really been made out for such changes in the
speeches of the noble Lord and the right hon. Gentleman by whom the two
India Bills have been introduced. That opinion, I know, will meet with a
response from two or three hon. Gentlemen on this (the Opposition) side
of the House. It occurred to me when the noble Lord at the head of the
late Government (Viscount Palmerston) introduced his Bill--and I made
the observation when the present Chancellor of the Exchequer brought
forward his measure--that if the House knew no more of the question than
they learned from the speeches of the Ministers, they could not form any
clear notion why it was proposed to overthrow the East India Company.
The hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles) has expressed a similar
opinion several times during the progress of these discussions. The
right hon. Member for Carlisle (Sir James Graham) has also said that the
East India Company was being dealt with in a manner in which animals
intended for sacrifice were treated in Eastern countries and in ancient
times,--they were decked with garlands when they were led out for
immolation. That is true; but it does not therefore follow that the
House is not quite right in the course it is taking. It must be clear
that the moment the House of Commons met this Session there was only one
course which the then Government could adopt with reference to this
question. A feeling existed throughout the country--I believe I may say
it was universal--that for a long time past the government of India had
not been a good government; that grave errors--if not grievous crimes--
had been committed in that country. I think the conscience of the nation
had been touched on this question, and they came by a leap, as it were--
by an irrepressible instinct--to the conclusion that the East India
Company must be abolished, and that another and, as the nation hoped, a
better government should be established for that country. There was a
general impression, arising from past discussion in Parliament, that the
industry of the people of India had been grievously neglected; that
there was great reason for complaint with respect to the administration
of justice; and that with regard to the wars entered into by the Indian
Government, there was much of which the people of England had reason to
be ashamed.
It has been said by some that these faults are to be attributed to the
Board of Control; but I have never defended the Board of Control. I
believe everything the East India Company has said of the Board of
Control--to its discredit; and I believe that everything the Board of
Control has said to the discredit of the East India Company to be
perfectly true. There was also a general impression that the expenditure
of the East India Government was excessive; and that it had been proved
before more than one Committee that the taxes imposed upon the people of
India were onerous to the last degree. These subjects were discussed in
1853, at which time, in my opinion, the change now proposed ought to
have been effected. Subsequently the calamitous events of 1857 and 1858
occurred; and the nation came at once to the conclusion--a conclusion
which I think no disinterested person could resist--that it was
impossible that India and its vast population could any longer be
retained under the form of government which has existed up to this
period. If, then, a change was inevitable, the question was how it
should be accomplished and what should be done. I think it is quite
clear that the course the noble Lord has pursued is right--namely, that
of insisting that during this present Session, and without delay, the
foundation of all reform in the government of India should be commenced
at home, because we cannot take a single step in the direction of any
real and permanent improvement in the Indian Government until we have
reformed what I may call the basis of that Government by changes to be
effected in this country.
What, then, is the change which is proposed, and which ought to be made?
For my own part, in considering these questions, I cannot altogether
approve the Bill now before the House. What we want with regard to the
government of India is that which in common conversation is called 'a
little more daylight.' We want more simplicity and more responsibility.
I objected to the scheme originally proposed by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer because it did not provide these requisites; that scheme so
closely resembled the system we were about to overthrow that I could not
bring myself to regard it favourably. In considering the subject before
Parliament met, I asked myself this question:--'Suppose there had never
been an East India Company or any such corporation,--suppose India had
been conquered by the forces of the Crown, commanded by generals acting
under the authority of the Crown,--how should we then have proposed to
govern distant dominions of vast extent, and with a population that
could scarcely be counted?' I believe such a system of government as has
hitherto existed would never have been established; and if such a system
had not existed I am convinced that no Minister would have proposed the
plan now submitted to the House.
I think the government would have been placed in the hands of a
Secretary of State, with his secretaries, clerks, and staffs of
officers, or of a small Board, so small as to prevent responsibility
from being diffused and divided, if not actually destroyed. I suspect
that the only reason why the Country or Parliament can be disposed to
approve the large Council now proposed is, that they have seen something
like a Council heretofore, formerly of twenty-four, and subsequently of
eighteen members, and I believe there is something like timidity on the
part of the House, and probably on the part of the Government, which
hinders them from making so great a change as I have suggested to the
simple plan which would probably have existed had no such body as the
East India Company ever been established. I am willing to admit candidly
that if the government of India at home should be so greatly simplified
it will be necessary that very important changes should be made in the
government in India. I agree with the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) that the
representatives of the Crown in India must have power as well as
responsibility; that they should be enabled to deal with emergencies,
and to settle the hundred or the thousand questions that must arise
among 100,000,000 of people, without sending 10,000 miles to this
country to ask questions which ought to be settled at once by some
competent authority on the spot.
There are two modes of governing India, and the hon. Member for
Leominster (Mr. Willoughby), who has been a very distinguished servant
of the East India Company, has publicly expressed his views upon this
question. I have been very much struck with a note attached to the
published report of his speech, referring to the multifarious duties
discharged by the Directors of the East India Company. That note states
that--
'A despatch may be received, containing 60, or 100, or 200 cases;
and the despatch, in itself voluminous, is rendered more so by
collections attached to it, containing copies of all former
correspondence on the subject or subjects, and of all letters
written thereon by various local officers, and all papers
relating thereto. There has not long since been in the Revenue
Department a despatch with 16,263 pages of collections. In 1845
there was one in the same Department with 46,000 pages, and it
was stated that Mr. Canning, some years since in the House of
Commons, mentioned a military despatch to which were attached
13,511 pages of collections.'
The hon. Gentleman did not say in his speech that anybody at the India
House ever read all these things. It was quite dear that if the
Directors were to pretend to go through a waggon-load of documents
coming to Leadenhall-street every year it must be only a pretence, and
if they want to persuade the House that they give attention to only one-
tenth part of these papers they must think the House more credulous than
it is in matters of this kind. That is one mode of governing India. It
is the mode which has been adopted and the mode which has failed. If we
are to have the details settled here, I am perfectly certain we can have
no good government in India. I have alluded on a former occasion to a
matter which occurred in a Committee upstairs. A gentleman who was
examined stated that he had undertaken to brew a wholesome beer, and
quite as good as that exported for the supply of the troops, somewhere
in the Presidency of Madras, for one-sixth of the price paid by
Government for that exported to India from England; that the experiment
was completely successful; that the memorandum or record with regard to
it was sent home, no doubt forming part of the thousands of pages to
which reference has been made; and that it was buried in the heap in
which it came, because for years nothing was heard of a proposition
which would have saved the Government a very large amount annually and
opened a new industry to the population and capital of India. I believe
this system of government is one of delay and disappointment--one,
actually, of impossibility--one which can by no means form a complete
theory of government as held by any persons in the House; and that the
other, the simpler system, which I wish the House to undertake, would be
one of action, progress, and results, with regard to India, such as we
have never yet seen and never can see until there is a complete
simplification of the Indian Government in this country.
I come now to the question--and it is for this question that I have
wished principally to address the House--if at any time we obtain the
simplicity which I contend for with regard to the government at home,
what changes will it be desirable to make in the government in India?
And I would make one observation at this point, that in all the
statements and arguments which I hope to use, I beg the House to believe
that I use them with the greatest possible deference, with the feeling
that this is a question upon which no man is at all entitled to
dogmatize, that it is a vast question which we all look at as one we are
scarcely capable of handling and determining. I submit my views to the
House because I have considered the subject more or less for many years,
and I believe I am actuated by the simple and honest desire of
contributing something to the information and knowledge of Parliament
with regard to its duty upon this great question.