has reason to complain, that in his Resolution he endeavours to evade
the real point of discussion. The noble Lord who has just sat down
(Viscount Goderich) says he will not meet this matter in any such
indirect manner as that proposed by the Amendment of the hon. Member for
Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn); but what can be less direct than the issue
offered by the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for
Oxford? This is proved by the fact that, throughout the course of this
discussion, every serious argument and every serious expression has had
reference to the character of the Proclamation, and not to those little
matters which are mixed up in this Resolution. Nobody, I believe,
defends the Proclamation in the light in which it is viewed by the
Government, and censured by the Government. All that has been done is an
endeavour to show that it is not rightly understood by those who censure
it as announcing a policy of confiscation. In fact, in endeavouring to
defend it, hon. Members insist that it does not mean something which it
says it does mean, and which if any of us understand the English
language it assuredly does mean. The right hon. Gentleman asks us to do
that which I think is an absolute impossibility. He wants us to condemn
the censure, and wishes at the same time--and I give him credit for
this--that we should pronounce no approval of the thing censured. I do
not think the right hon. Gentleman, though unfortunately he has been led
into this movement, wishes the House to pronounce an opinion in favour
of confiscation. I do not believe that any Member of this House asks us
to come to a conclusion in such a way as that our decision shall be an
approval of that which the Government has condemned in the despatch. But
if we affirm the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman, how is it
possible for the people of India to understand our decision in any other
sense than as an approval of the policy of Lord Canning's Proclamation?
With regard to the publication of the Government despatch, it is not a
little remarkable how men turn round and object to what they formerly
were so loud in demanding. On this side of the House it has been the
commonest thing to hear hon. Gentlemen say that all this secrecy on the
part of the Foreign Office and the Board of Control is a cause of the
greatest mischief. Assume for a moment that the publication of this
despatch was injudicious--after all, it was no high crime and
misdemeanour. We on this side of the House, and hon. Gentlemen below the
gangway, ought to look with kindness on this failing, which, if a
failing, leans to virtue's side. Then, Sir, with regard to the language
of the despatch, I do not know of any Government or Minister who would
not be open to censure if we chose to take up every word in a despatch.
A man of firmer texture, of stronger impulse, and more indignant
feelings will, on certain occasions, write in stronger terms than other
men--and I confess I like those men best who write and speak so that you
can really understand them. Now I say that the proposition before the
House is a disingenuous one. It attempts to lead the House into a very
unfortunate dilemma. I think that no judicial mind--seeing that the
result of a decision in favour of this Resolution will be the
establishment of the policy of the Proclamation--will fail to be
convinced that we ought not to arrive at such a decision without great
hesitation, and that we cannot do so without producing a very injurious
effect on the minds of the people of India.
We now come to what all parties admit to be the real question--the
Proclamation and the policy of confiscation announced in it. There are
certain matters which I understand all sides of the House to be agreed
on. They agree with the Government and the East India Company that the
people of Oude are enemies but that they are not rebels [Cries of 'Yes,
yes!'--'No, no!'] I thought the supporters of the Resolution of the
right lion. Gentleman the Member for Oxford told us that if the
Government had written a judicious despatch like that of the East India
Company, they would have applauded and not censured it. Well, the East
India Directors--and they are likely to know, for they were connected
with the commission of the Act that brought this disturbance in Oude
upon us--say that the people of Oude are not rebels; that they are not
to be treated as rebels; but as enemies. If so, the Government have a
right to treat them according to those rules which are observed by
nations which are at war with each other. Will the House accept that
proposition? ['No, no!'--'Yes, yes!'] Well, if hon. Gentlemen on this
side will not accept it, I hope the noble Lord the Member for the West
Riding (Viscount Goderich) will not include them amongst those who are
in favour of clemency. I am quite sure the people of England will accept
that definition--that civilised Europe will accept it; and that history--
history which will record our proceedings this night, and our vote on
this Resolution--will accept it. Sir, I do not see how any one claiming
to be an Englishman or a Christian can by any possibility escape from
condemning the policy of this Proclamation.
I now come--and on that point I will be as brief as possible--to the
question. What is the meaning of confiscating the proprietary rights in
the soil? We have heard from a noble Lord in 'another place' and it has
been stated in the course of the debate here, that this sentence of
confiscation refers only to certain unpleasant persons who are called
talookdars, who are barons and robber chiefs and oppressors of the
people. This is by no means the first time that, after a great wrong has
been committed, the wrongdoer has attempted to injure by calumny those
upon whom the wrong has been inflicted. Lord Shaftesbury, who is a sort
of leader in this great war, has told the world that this Proclamation
refers only to 600 persons in the kingdom of Oude.
The kingdom of Onde has about five millions of people, or one-sixth of
the population of the United Kingdom. Applied to the United Kingdom in
the same rate of the population it would apply to 3,600 persons. Now, in
both Houses of Parliament there are probably 700 landed proprietors. It
would, therefore, be an edict of confiscation to the landed proprietors
of the United Kingdom equal to five times all the landed proprietors in
both Houses of Parliament. An hon. Gentleman says I am all wrong in my
figures. I shall be glad to hear his figures afterwards. But that is not
the fact; but if it were the fact, it would amount not to a political,
but to an entire social revolution in this country. And surely, when you
live in a country where you have, as in Scotland, a great province under
one Member of the House of Lords, and seventy or eighty miles of
territory under another, and where you have Dukes of Bedford and Dukes
of Devonshire, as in England--surely, I say, we ought to be a little
careful, at any rate, that we do not overturn, without just cause, the
proprietary rights of the great talookdars and landowners in India. It
is a known fact, which anybody may ascertain by referring to books which
have been written, and to witnesses who cannot be mistaken, that this
edict would apply to more than 40,000 landowners in the kingdom of Oude.
And what is it that is meant by these proprietary rights? We must see
what is the general course of the policy of our government in India. If
you sweep away all proprietary rights in the kingdom of Oude you will
have this result--that there will be nobody connected with the land but
the Government of India and the humble cultivator who tills the soil.
And you will have this further result, that the whole produce of the
land of Oude and of the industry of its people will be divided into two
most unequal portions; the larger share will go to the Government in the
shape of tax, and the smaller share, which will be a handful of rice per
day, will go to the cultivator of the soil. Now, this is the Indian
system. It is the grand theory of the civilians, under whose advice, I
very much fear, Lord Canning has unfortunately acted; and you will find
in many parts of India, especially in the Presidency of Madras, that the
population consists entirely of the class of cultivators, and that the
Government stands over them with a screw which is perpetually turned,
leaving the handful of rice per day to the ryot or the cultivator, and
pouring all the rest of the produce of the soil into the Exchequer of
the East India Company. Now, I believe that this Proclamation sanctions
this policy; and I believe further that the Resolution which the right
hon. Gentleman asks the House to adopt, sanctions this Proclamation;
that it will be so read in India, and that whatever may be the
influence, unfortunate as I believe it will be, of the Proclamation
itself, when it is known throughout India that this--the highest court
of appeal--has pronounced in favour of Lord Canning's policy, it will be
one of the most unfortunate declarations that ever went forth from the
Parliament of this country to the people of that empire.
Let me then for one minute--and it shall be but for one minute--ask the
attention of the House to our pecuniary dealings with Oude. A friend of
mine has extracted from a book on this subject two or three facts which
I should like to state to the House, as we are now considering the
policy of England towards that afflicted country. It is stated that,
under the government of Warren Hastings, to the arrival of Lord
Cornwallis in 1786, the East India Company obtained from the kingdom of
Oude, and therefore from the Exchequer of the people of Oude, the sum of
9,252,000_l_.; under Lord Cornwallis, 4,290,000_l_.; under
Lord Teignmouth, 1,280,000_l_.; under Lord Wellesley,
10,358,000_l_. This includes, I ought to observe, the Doab, taken
in 1801 in lieu of subsidy, the annual revenue of that district being
1,352,000_l_. Coming down to the year 1814, there was a loan of a
million; in 1815 a loan of a million; in 1825 a loan of a million; in
1826 a loan of a million; in 1829 a loan of 625,000_l_.; and in
1838 a loan of 1,700,000_l_. Some of these sums, the House will
observe, are loans, and in one case the loan was repaid by a portion of
territory which the Company, in a very few years, under an excuse which
I should not like to justify, re-annexed to themselves, and therefore
the debt was virtually never repaid. The whole of these sums comes to
31,500,000_l_.; in addition to which Oude has paid vast sums in
salaries, pensions, and emoluments of every kind to servants of the
Company engaged in the service of the Government of Oude.
I am not going further into detail with regard to that matter; but I say
that the history of our connection with the country, whose interests we
are now discussing, is of a nature that ought to make us pause before we
consent to any measure that shall fill up the cup of injury which we
have offered to the lips of that people. After this, two years ago, we
deposed the Sovereign of Oude. Everything that he had was seized--much
of it was sold. Indignities were offered to his family. Their ruin was
accomplished, though they were the governors of that kingdom. Some hon.
Gentleman, speaking on this side of the House, has tried to persuade the
House that this confiscation policy only intends that we should receive
the taxes of Oude. But that is altogether a delusion. That is a
statement so absurd that I am astonished that any one, even of those who
support the Resolution, should offer it to the House. In 1856, when you
dethroned the King of Oude, you stepped into his place, and became the
recipients of all the legitimate national taxes of the kingdom of Oude;
and now, having seized the 500,000_l_. a year, the revenue of that
country, after a solemn treaty which contained a clause that if there
were a surplus of revenue it should be paid to the credit of the kingdom
of Oude; after having applied that surplus, contrary to that clause of
the treaty, to the general purposes of India; you now step in and you
descend below the King, to every talookdar, to every landowner, large or
small, to every man who has proprietary rights in the soil, to every
man, the smallest and humblest capitalist who cultivates the soil--to
every one of these you say in language that cannot be mistaken--'Come
down from the independence and dignity you have held. As we have done in
other provinces of India we shall do here. Two-thirds of you have not
been mixed up in this war; but in this general confiscation the innocent
must suffer with the guilty, for such is the misfortune of war, and such
is the penalty which we shall inflict upon you.' Sir, if this
Proclamation be not a Proclamation of unheard-of severity, how comes it
that so many persons have protested against it? Does any man believe
that the noble Lord the Member for the West Riding (Viscount Goderich)
understands this Proclamation better than the high military authorities
who have so long known India? Does he suppose that the House of Commons
will take his authority upon a matter of this kind in preference to the
authority of the whole united press of India? ['Oh! oh!'] Well, I dare
say that hon. Members who cry 'Oh!' have not read the newspapers of
India upon the subject. Some of them uphold it because they say that at
one fell swoop it has done that which it took us twenty years to do in
other districts of India, and destroys every man who could influence the
people against the British Government. Others say that it is a
Proclamation of such a character that it must cause 'war to the knife'
against the English, and that the Governor-General who issued such a
Proclamation should have been prepared with a new army at his back that
he might have power to enforce it.
The learned Gentleman the Attorney-General for Ireland referred in his
speech the other night to what had been said by the hon. and learned
Member for Devonport (Sir E. Perry) on the occasion of a question that I
had put some two or three weeks ago. Now I call the House to witness
whether when I put the question which brought out this despatch, and
when the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer rose in
his place and gave the answer that with respect to the policy of
confiscation--for that is the only thing there is any dispute about in
the Proclamation--the Government disavowed it in every sense--I call the
House to witness whether every Gentleman present in this part of the
House did not cheer that sentiment. Of course, every man cheered it.
They would not have been men; they would not have been Englishmen; they
would not have been legislators; they would have been men who had never
heard of what was just and right, if every instinct within them, at the
instant they heard the declaration of the Government, did not compel
them to an enthusiastic assent. And it was only when the fatal influence
of party, and the arts which party knows how to employ, were put in
motion, that hon. Gentlemen began to discover that there was something
serious and something dangerous in this memorable despatch. Now, I would
ask the House this question--are we prepared to sanction the policy of
that despatch?
I am very sorry that I have not done what only occurred to me after this
debate commenced, and after the Amendment was proposed, or I should have
proposed another Amendment to the House that went expressly upon that
point, because--and I speak it without the smallest reference to the
influence which it may have on any party in this House--I think it of
the very highest consequence that, whatever decision we come to, it
should be liable to no misinterpretation when it arrives in India. Then,
Sir, we have been treated to a good deal of eloquence upon the manner of
the despatch; and with regard to that I must say a word or two. The
noble Lord the Member for London, who sits below me, has, I think,
fallen into the error of most of the speakers in favour of the
Resolution; that is, of treating some of the outside circumstances of
the case as if they were the case itself. I do not think, however, that
he stated there was a word in the despatch which was not true, although
he did express what I thought was rather an immoral sentiment for so
eminent a statesman. The noble Lord told us that after a crime had been
committed, men in office were never to let it be known or suspected that
they thought it was a crime. [Lord John Russell: 'The hon. Gentleman is
mistaken; I never said anything of the kind.'] I did not hear it myself,
but I read it, and many of my friends came to the same conclusion. ['Oh!
oh!'] Well, I understand, then, that he did not say it; but what he did
say was, that there was a great deal of sarcasm and invective in the
despatch, and he read a passage to show that such was the case. But the
fact is that a great deal depends upon the reading. I could take a
despatch of the noble Lord himself and read it in a manner that would
perfectly astonish him. He said, if I am not mistaken, that if the House
were to approve of that despatch as a proper despatch, then Lord Canning
was not fit to occupy the meanest political or official situation.
Indian despatches have, to my mind, never been very gentle. I recollect
having read in _Mill's History of British India_, and in other
histories also, despatches that have been sent from the President of the
Board of Control, the Secret Committee, and the Court of Directors, over
and over again; and I have thought that they were written in a tone
rather more authoritative and rather more dictatorial than I should have
been disposed to write, or than I should have been pleased to receive.
It arose from this--that in old times the magnates sitting in
Leadenhall-street were writing, not to Lord Canning and men of that
altitude, but to merchants and agents whom they had sent out, who were
entirely dependent upon them, and to whom they could say just what they
liked; and for 100 years past, as far as I have seen, their despatches
have had a character for severity, and that which men call
'dictatorial,' which I think might be very well dispensed with. But that
is a matter which should certainly be taken into consideration, when a
large portion of this House are disposed not only to censure Lord
Ellenborough, but to overturn the Government, because a despatch is not
written precisely in those gentle terms which some hon. Gentlemen think
to be right when inditing a letter to a Governor-General of India.
There is one other point which I must notice, and that is the supposed
effect of this despatch upon the feelings of Lord Canning. I am not so
intimate with Lord Canning as many Members of this House, but I have had
the pleasure of his acquaintance, and have always believed that he was
one of the last men who would knowingly do anything that was inhuman or
unjust, and that is my opinion now. I think he is to be commiserated, as
any other man would have been who happened to be in India at such a time
as this; and I think we are bound also to take a lenient view even of
such errors as we may think he has committed. If I had gone to India, or
into any service under the State, I should expect that there would be a
general disposition to give me fair play in the exercise of my office,
and that no strained construction to my injury would be put upon
anything which I did. Well, that is the view which I entertain with
regard to Lord Canning. I have never uttered a syllable against him in
public, although I think that some of his acts have been open to great
objection; and I am not about to say anything against him now. I would
not support a Resolution which was intended to damage Lord Canning; and
I think the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) has not done wrong in
offering to the House the Amendment he has placed before us. But it is
just possible that Lord Canning is in the midst of circumstances which
have rendered it very difficult, perhaps impossible, for him to exercise
his own calm judgment on the great question which forms the subject of
this Proclamation, I see in that Proclamation not so much an emanation
from the humane and just mind of Lord Canning, as the offspring of that
mixture of red tape and ancient tradition which is the foundation of the
policy of the old civilian Council of Calcutta. But, Sir, if it were a
question of hurting Lord Canning's feelings and denouncing this
Proclamation, I could have no hesitation as to the choice which I should
make. A man's private and personal feelings are not a matter of
importance for the House when compared with the vast and permanent
interests involved in the dangerous policy which we are now discussing.
And I do not think the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cardwell), the noble
Lord the Member for the West Riding (Viscount Goderich), and the noble
Lord the Member for London, have any right to throw themselves into
something like a contortion of agony with regard to the manner of this
despatch; because, as was stated to the House the other night by the
learned Attorney-General for Ireland, they did not tell us much about
the feelings of another public servant, acting on behalf of the Crown at
a still greater distance from England, when last year they gave a vote
on the China question which pronounced a most emphatic condemnation on
the conduct of Sir John Bowring. Now, I like fair play. I would treat
Lord Canning as I would treat Sir John Bowring; and I would treat Sir
John Bowring as I would treat Lord Canning. Do not let us have in the
service of the State low-caste men who may be trampled upon at pleasure,
and high-caste men whom nobody dare criticise.
I said, when I began, that this Resolution is important in reference to
something else besides India; that it is important with reference to the
position of parties in this House. I would ask the attention of the
House for a few moments to that branch of the subject. I am afraid--and
I hope I am not slandering anybody in saying it--that there is quite as
much zeal for what is called 'place' as there is for the good of India
in the proposition brought before us. If that despatch had been
published three months ago, when we were all sitting on that side of the
House, it is very probable that many Gentlemen who now speak against it
would have thought it a noble despatch, containing noble sentiments,
expressed in noble language. But now, Sir, there has been for the last
two months a growing irritation observable, particularly in this part of
the House. There has been a feeling which no ingenuity has been able to
disguise--a fear that if the present Government should, by some means or
other, remain in office over the Session, no small difficulty would be
found in displacing it--lest, like the tree, which, when first planted,
may be easily pulled up, it should by and bye strike its roots downwards
and its branches outwards, and after a year or two no man would be able
to get it out of the ground. Hon. Gentlemen opposite know that I differ
very widely from them on many public questions, and probably at some not
distant day they may find it out in some act of severe hostility; but I
put it to the House, whether, out of doors, the reputation of the
present Government is not, in many respects, better than the last? Take,
for instance, the Gentlemen who come up from the country on various
deputations to the Ministers--the judgment of these deputations, without
an exception, is in favour of the manner in which they have been
received by the present Ministers, and of the way in which their
suggestions and requests have been treated. Now, this may be no great
matter, and I do not say that it is; but I make the observation for the
benefit of the Gentlemen who sit on these benches, because it is just
possible that they may some time have to receive deputations again. Then
take their conduct in this House. 'Oh, yes.' hon. Gentlemen may say,
'but they are a weak Government; they have not a majority, and they are
obliged to be very civil.' But what I maintain is, that every Ministry
ought to be very civil, and what I am prepared to assert is--and I ask
every man on this side of the House if he does not agree with me, for I
have heard dozens of them say it out of the House--that when the late
Government were in office civility was a thing unknown.