the Governors equal in rank and dignity, and their Councils constituted
in the manner I have indicated, is it not reasonable to suppose that the
delay which has hitherto been one of the greatest curses of your Indian
Government would be almost altogether avoided? Instead of a Governor-
General living in Calcutta, or at Simla, never travelling over the whole
of the country, and knowing very little about it, and that little only
through other official eyes, is it not reasonable to suppose that the
action of the Government would be more direct in all its duties and in
every department of its service than has been the case under the system
which has existed until now? Your administration of the law, marked by
so much disgrace, could never have lasted so long as it has done if the
Governors of your Presidencies had been independent Governors. So with
regard to matters of police, education, public works, and everything
that can stimulate industry, and so with regard to your system of
taxation. You would have in every Presidency a constant rivalry for
good. The Governor of Madras, when his term of office expired, would be
delighted to show that the people of that Presidency were contented,
that the whole Presidency was advancing in civilization, that roads and
all manner of useful public works were extending, that industry was
becoming more and more a habit of the people, and that the exports and
imports were constantly increasing. The Governors of Bombay and the rest
of the Presidencies would be animated by the same spirit, and so you
would have all over India, as I have said, a rivalry for good; you would
have placed a check on that malignant spirit of ambition which has
worked so much evil--you would have no Governor so great that you could
not control him, none who might make war when he pleased; war and
annexation would be greatly checked, if not entirely prevented; and I do
in my conscience believe you would have laid the foundation for a better
and more permanent form of government for India than has ever obtained
since it came under the rule of England.
But how long does England propose to govern India? Nobody answers that
question, and nobody can answer it. Be it 50, or 100, or 500 years, does
any man with the smallest glimmering of common sense believe that so
great a country, with its twenty different nations and its twenty
languages, can ever be bound up and consolidated into one compact and
enduring empire? I believe such a thing to be utterly impossible. We
must fail in the attempt if ever we make it, and we are bound to look
into the future with reference to that point. The Presidency of Madras,
for instance, having its own Government, would in fifty years become one
compact State, and every part of the Presidency would look to the city
of Madras as its capital, and to the Government of Madras as its ruling
power. If that were to go on for a century or more, there would be five
or six Presidencies of India built up into so many compact States; and
if at any future period the sovereignty of England should be withdrawn,
we should leave so many Presidencies built up and firmly compacted
together, each able to support its own independence and its own
Government; and we should be able to say we had not left the country a
prey to that anarchy and discord which I believe to be inevitable if we
insist on holding those vast territories with the idea of building them
up into one great empire. But I am obliged to admit that mere machinery
is not sufficient in this case, either with respect to my own scheme or
to that of the noble lord (Lord Stanley). We want something else than
mere clerks, stationery, despatches, and so forth. We want what I shall
designate as a new feeling in England, and an entirely new policy in
India. We must in future have India governed, not for a handful of
Englishmen, not for that Civil Service whose praises are so constantly
sounded in this House. You may govern India, if you like, for the good
of England, but the good of England must come through the channels of
the good of India. There are but two modes of gaining anything by our
connection with India. The one is by plundering the people of India, and
the other by trading with them. I prefer to do it by trading with them.
But in order that England may become rich by trading with India, India
itself must become rich, and India can only become rich through the
honest administration of justice and through entire security of life and
property.
Now, as to this new policy, I will tell the House what I think the Prime
Minister should do. He ought, I think, always to choose for his
President of the Board of Control or his Secretary of State for India, a
man who cannot be excelled by any other man in his Cabinet, or in his
party, for capacity, for honesty, for attention to his duties, and for
knowledge adapted to the particular office to which he is appointed. If
any Prime Minister appoint an inefficient man to such an office, he will
be a traitor to the Throne of England. That officer, appointed for the
qualities I have just indicated, should, with equal scrupulousness and
conscientiousness, make the appointments, whether of the Governor-
General, or (should that office be abolished) of the Governors of the
Presidencies of India. Those appointments should not be rewards for old
men simply because such men have done good service when in their prime,
nor should they be rewards for mere party service, but they should be
appointments given under a feeling that interests of the very highest
moment, connected with this country, depend on those great offices in
India being properly filled. The same principles should run throughout
the whole system of government; for, unless there be a very high degree
of virtue in all these appointments, and unless our great object be to
govern India well and to exalt the name of England in the eyes of the
whole Native population, all that we have recourse to in the way of
machinery will be of very little use indeed.
I admit that this is a great work; I admit, also, that the further I go
into the consideration of this question, the more I feel that it is too
large for me to grapple with, and that every step we take in it should
be taken as if we were men walking in the dark. We have, however,
certain great principles to guide us, and by their light we may make
steps in advance, if not fast, at any rate sure. But we start from an
unfortunate position. We start from a platform of conquest by force of
arms extending over a hundred years. There is nothing in the world worse
than the sort of foundation from which we start. The greatest genius who
has shed lustre on the literature of this country has said, 'There is no
sure foundation set on blood;' and it may be our unhappy fate, in regard
to India, to demonstrate the truth of that saying. We are always
subjugators, and we must be viewed with hatred and suspicion. I say we
must look at the thing as it is, if we are to see our exact position,
what our duty is, and what chance there is of our retaining India and of
governing it for the advantage of its people. Our difficulties have been
enormously increased by the revolt. The people of India have only seen
England in its worst form in that country. They have seen it in its
military power, its exclusive Civil Service, and in the supremacy of a
handful of foreigners. When Natives of India come to this country, they
are delighted with England and with Englishmen. They find themselves
treated with a kindness, a consideration, a respect, to which they were
wholly strangers in their own country; and they cannot understand how it
is that men who are so just, so attentive to them here, sometimes,
indeed too often, appear to them in a different character in India. I
remember that the Hon. Frederic Shaw, who wrote some thirty years since,
stated, in his able and instructive book, that even in his time the
conduct of the English in India towards the Natives was less agreeable,
less kindly, less just than it had been in former years; and in 1853,
before the Committee presided over by the hon. Member for Huntingdon
(Mr. T. Baring), evidence was given that the feeling between the rulers
and the ruled in India was becoming every year less like what could be
desired. It was only the other day there appeared in a letter of _The
Times_' correspondent an anecdote which illustrates what I am saying,
and which I feel it necessary to read to the House. Mr. Russell, of
_The Times_, says:--
'I went off to breakfast in a small mosque, which has been turned
into a _salle à manger_ by some officers stationed here, and
I confess I should have eaten with more satisfaction had I not
seen, as I entered the enclosure of the mosque, a native badly
wounded on a charpoy, by which was sitting a woman in deep
affliction. The explanation given of this scene was, that "----
[the name of the Englishman was left blank] had been licking two
of his bearers (or servants), and had nearly murdered them." This
was one of the servants, and, without knowing or caring to know
the causes of such chastisement, I cannot but express my disgust
at the severity--to call it by no harsher name--of some of our
fellow-countrymen towards their domestics.'
The reading of that paragraph gave me extreme pain. People may fancy
that this does not matter much; but I say it matters very much. Under
any system of government you will have Englishmen scattered all over
India, and conduct like that I have just described, in any district,
must create ill feeling towards England, to your rule, to your
supremacy; and when that feeling has become sufficiently extensive, any
little accident may give fire to the train, and you may have calamities
more or less serious, such as we have had during the last twelve months.
You must change all this if you mean to keep India. I do not now make
any comment upon the mode in which this country has been put into
possession of India. I accept that possession as a fact. There we are;
we do not know how to leave it, and therefore let us see if we know how
to govern it. It is a problem such as, perhaps, no other nation has had
to solve. Let us see whether there is enough of intelligence and virtue
in England to solve the difficulty. In the first place, then, I say, let
us abandon all that system of calumny against the Natives of India which
has lately prevailed. Had that people not been docile, the most
governable race in the world, how could you have maintained your power
for 100 years? Are they not industrious, are they not intelligent, are
they not--upon the evidence of the most distinguished men the Indian
Service ever produced--endowed with many qualities which make them
respected by all Englishmen who mix with them? I have heard that from
many men of the widest experience, and have read the same in the works
of some of the best writers upon India. Then let us not have these
constant calumnies against such a people. Even now there are men who go
about the country speaking as if such things had never been
contradicted, and talking of mutilations and atrocities committed in
India. The less we say about atrocities the better. Great political
tumults are, I fear, never brought about or carried on without grievous
acts on both sides deeply to be regretted. At least, we are in the
position of invaders and conquerors--they are in the position of the
invaded and the conquered. Whether I were a native of India, or of
England, or of any other country, I would not the less assert the great
distinction between their position and ours in that country, and I would
not permit any man in my presence, without rebuke, to indulge in the
calumnies and expressions of contempt which I have recently heard poured
forth without measure upon the whole population of India.
There is one other point to which I wish to address myself before I sit
down, and in touching upon it I address myself especially to the noble
Lord (Lord Stanley) and his colleagues in the Government. If I had the
responsibility of administering the affairs of India, there are certain
things I would do. I would, immediately after this Bill passes, issue a
Proclamation in India which should reach every subject of the British
Crown in that country, and be heard of in the territories of every
Indian Prince or Rajah. I would offer a general amnesty. It is all very
well to talk of issuing an amnesty to all who have done nothing; but who
is there that has done nothing in such a state of affairs as has
prevailed during the past twelve months? If you pursue your vengeance
until you have rooted out and destroyed every one of those soldiers who
have revolted, when will your labour cease? If you are to punish every
non-military Native of India who has given a piece of bread or a cup of
water to a revolted trooper, how many Natives will escape your
punishment and your vengeance? I would have a general amnesty, which
should be put forth as the first great act done directly by the Queen of
England in the exercise of Sovereign power over the territories of
India. In this Proclamation 1 would promise to the Natives of India a
security for their property as complete as we have here at home; and I
would put an end to all those mischievous and irritating inquiries which
have been going on for years in many parts of India as to the title to
landed estates, by which you tell the people of that country that unless
each man can show an unimpeachable title to his property for ninety
years you will dispossess him. What would be the state of things here if
such a regulation were adopted?
I would also proclaim to the people of India that we would hold sacred
that right of adoption which has prevailed for centuries in that
country. It was only the other day that I had laid before me the case of
a Native Prince who has been most faithful to England during these
latter trials. When he came to the throne at ten years of age he was
made to sign a document, by which he agreed that if he had no children
his territories should be at the disposal of the British Government, or
what was called the paramount power. He has been married; he has had one
son and two or three daughters; but within the last few weeks his only
son has died. There is grief in the palace, and there is consternation
among the people, for the fact of this agreement entered into by the boy
of ten years old is well known to all the inhabitants of the country.
Representations have already been made to this country in the hope that
the Government will cancel that agreement, and allow the people of that
State to know that the right of adoption would not be taken from their
Prince in case he should have no other son. Let the Government do that,
and there is not a corner of India into which that intelligence would
not penetrate with the rapidity of lightning. And would not that calm
the anxieties of many of those independent Princes and Rajahs who are
only afraid that when these troubles are over, the English Government
will recommence that system of annexation out of which I believe all
these troubles have arisen?
I would tell them also in that Proclamation, that while the people of
England hold that their own, the Christian religion, is true and the
best for mankind, yet that it is consistent with that religion that they
who profess it should hold inviolable the rights of conscience and the
rights of religion in others. I would show, that whatever violent, over-
zealous, and fanatical men may have said in this country, the Parliament
of England, the Ministers of the Queen, and the Queen herself are
resolved that upon this point no kind of wrong should be done to the
millions who profess the religions held to be true in India. I would do
another thing. I would establish a Court of Appeal, the Judges of which
should be Judges of the highest character in India, for the settlement
of those many disputes which have arisen between the Government of India
and its subjects, some Native and some European. I would not suffer
these questions to come upon the floor of this House. I would not forbid
them by statute, but I would establish a Court which should render it
unnecessary for any man in India to cross the ocean to seek for that
justice which he would then be able to get in his own country without
corruption or secret bargain. Then I would carry out the proposition
which the noble Lord has made to-night, and which the right hon.
Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer made when he introduced his
Bill, that a Commission should be issued to inquire into the question of
finance. I would have other commissions, one for each Presidency, and I
would tell the people of India that there should be a searching inquiry
into their grievances, and that it was the interest and the will of the
Queen of England that those grievances should be redressed.
Now, perhaps I may be told that I am proposing strange things, quite out
of the ordinary routine of government. I admit it. We are in a position
that necessitates something out of the ordinary routine. There are
positions and times in the history of every country, as in the lives of
individuals, when courage and action are absolute salvation; and now the
Crown of England, acting by the advice of the responsible Ministers,
must, in my opinion, have recourse to a great and unusual measure in
order to allay the anxieties which prevail throughout the whole of
India. The people of India do not like us, but they scarcely know where
to turn if we left them. They are sheep literally without a shepherd.
They are people whom you have subdued, and who have the highest and
strongest claims upon you--claims which you cannot forget--claims which,
if you do not act upon, you may rely upon it that, if there be a
judgment for nations--as I believe there is--as for individuals, our
children in no distant generation must pay the penalty which we have
purchased by neglecting our duty to the populations of India.
I have now stated my views and opinions on this question, not at all in
a manner, I feel, equal to the question itself. I have felt the
difficulty in thinking of it; I feel the difficulty in speaking of it--
for there is far more in it and about it than any man, however much he
may be accustomed to think upon political questions, and to discuss
them, can comprise at all within the compass of a speech of ordinary
length. I have described the measures which I would at once adopt for
the purpose of soothing the agitation which now disturbs and menaces
every part of India, and of inviting the submission of those who are now
in arms against you. Now I believe--I speak in the most perfect honesty--
I believe that the announcement of these measures would avail more in
restoring tranquillity than the presence of an additional army, and I
believe that their full and honest adoption would enable you to retain
your power in India. I have sketched the form of government which I
would establish in India and at home, with the view of securing perfect
responsibility and an enlightened administration. I admit that these
things can only be obtained in degree, but I am convinced that a
Government such as that which I have sketched would be free from most of
the errors and the vices that have marked and marred your past career in
India. I have given much study to this great and solemn question. I
entreat the House to study it not only now, during the passing of this
Bill, but after the Session is over, and till we meet again next year,
when in all probability there must be further legislation upon this
great subject; for I believe that upon this question depends very much,
for good or for evil, the future of this country of which we are
citizens, and which we all regard and love so much. You have had enough
of military reputation on Eastern fields; you have gathered large
harvests of that commodity, be it valuable or be it worthless. I invite
you to something better, and higher, and holier than that; I invite you
to a glory not 'fanned by conquest's crimson wing,' but based upon the
solid and lasting benefits which I believe the Parliament of England
can, if it will, confer upon the countless populations of India.
* * * * *
INDIA.
III.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, MAY 20, 1858.
_From Hansard_.
[A despatch of Lord Ellenborough, the President of the Board of Control,
to Lord Canning, the Governor-General of India, had been laid before the
two Houses. This document severely censured the Governor-General's
policy in dealing with the talookdars of Oude. Immediate advantage was
taken of this document by the Opposition, and on the 10th of May Mr.
Cardwell gave notice in the Commons of a motion condemnatory of Lord
Ellenborough's despatch. Lord Ellenborough retired from the Government.
On May 14, however, Mr. Cardwell brought forward his motion in the House
of Commons, but, after a lengthened debate, consented to withdraw it, at
the earnest entreaty of many from his own side of the House.]
I am afraid I shall hardly be able to take part in this discussion in a
manner becoming the magnitude of the question before us, and in any
degree in accordance with the long anxiety which I have felt in regard
to Indian affairs, but I happen to have been unfortunately and
accidentally a good deal mixed up with these matters, and my name has
frequently been mentioned in the course of debate, not only in this but
in the other House of Parliament, and I am unwilling, therefore, to vote
without expressing my opinion upon the matter under discussion. First, I
may be allowed to explain that I think almost everything that has been
said and imagined with regard to the part that I have had in bringing on
this discussion has been altogether erroneous, and has no foundation
whatever. There was no arrangement between the hon. Gentleman the
Secretary of the Board of Control and myself with regard to the question
that I thought it my duty to put to him on the subject of Lord Canning's
Proclamation. I had spoken two or three weeks before the date of that
question to the hon. Gentleman, because I had been informed by a
respected friend of mine, Mr. Dickinson, the hon. secretary of the India
Reform Society, who has very great information on Indian affairs, that
he had received communications to the effect that some Proclamation of
this character was in preparation and was about to be issued. I spoke to
the hon. Member with regard to that report; and he told me that he had
received no communication which enabled him to give me any information
on the subject. I then intimated to him that in case there was anything
of the kind I should certainly put a question to the Government
respecting it. This was three weeks before the date of my question.
Well, I read the Proclamation in _The Times_ newspaper, the same
day that every one else read it; and I came down to the House, not
having seen the hon. Gentleman in the meantime. I met my hon. friend the
Member for Stockport (Mr. J. B. Smith) in Westminster Hall, and he told
me that having read the despatch, and knowing my intention with regard
to it, he, having met the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Baillie) that evening,
said to him he had no doubt that when I came down to the House I should
put a question respecting it. When I came down I put a question and
received an answer; both question and answer are before the House and
the country. But I confess I did not anticipate that we should lose a
week from the discussion of the Indian Resolutions on account of the
question which I then asked the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the
Board of Control.
Now, Sir, with respect to the question before the House, I should have
been content to let it end when the hon. and learned Gentleman the
Solicitor-General sat down. I think, Sir, the House might have come to a
vote when the Solicitor-General finished his speech. I could not but
compare that speech with the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who
moved the Resolution now before the House. I thought the right hon.
Gentleman raked together a great many small things to make up a great
case. It appeared to me that he spoke as if his manner indicated that he
was not perfectly satisfied with the course he was pursuing. I think he
failed to stimulate himself with the idea that he was performing a great
public duty; for if he had been impressed with that idea I think his
subject would have enabled him to deliver a more lively and impressive
speech than that which he has made. But, Sir, I believe that every one
will admit that the speech of the Solicitor-General was characterised by
the closest logic and the most complete and exhaustive argument. There
is scarcely a Gentleman with whom I have spoken with regard to that
speech who does not admit that the hon. and learned Gentleman has seemed
to have taken up the whole question, and to have given a complete answer
to all serious charges brought against the Government.
This Motion is an important one in two aspects. First of all as respects
the interests of parties at home--which some people, probably, think the
more important of the interests concerned; and, secondly, as respects
the effect which will be produced in India when this discussion, with
the vote at which we arrive, reaches that country and is read there. The
princes, the rajahs, and intelligent landholders, whether under the
English Government or independent, will know very little about what we
understand by party; and any cabal or political conspiracy here will
have no influence on them. They know little of the persons who conduct
and take a part in the debate in this House; and the 'loud cheers' which
they will read of in our discussions Will be almost nothing to them. The
question to them will be, What is the opinion of the Parliament of
England as to the policy announced to India in the Proclamation?