§ SIR CHARLES WOODI hope, Sir, I may be permitted to avail myself of this opportunity to ask the attention of the House for a very short time in reference to an attack which was made upon me last night in my absence. I am quite sure that the House will not refuse to grant me that indulgence. I learnt, partly from what I heard from Members of this House, and partly from what I have seen this morning, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud (Mr. Horsman) came down to the House with papers in his pocket, and made upon me what was certainly a most bitter personal attack. Sir, I think the right hon. Gentleman might have apprised me that such was his intention. I do not know that I had any right to his courtesy, but I think I might have claimed, from that sense of justice and fair dealing which 2231 I believe distinguishes every gentleman and every Englishman, that he should at least have so far apprised me of his intentions, that, if he did not choose to tell me the nature of the attack he meant to make upon me, he might at least have given me such warning that I might have been present in my place to hear what he had to lay to my charge. I shall not, however, further allude to that conduct on the part of the right hon. Gentleman, of the fairness of which I leave the House to be the judge; and I mention it only to excuse myself for now obtruding this matter again on the attention of the House.
The right hon. Gentleman repeated the charge which he made against me some time ago of suppressing papers and wilfully keeping them back from the House. I conceive I have shown, on a former occasion, how groundless that accusation is. In the course of the debate on the second reading of the Bill for the amalgamation of the Indian forces, the right hon. Gentleman quoted a telegram from Lord Clyde dated November, 1858;and so little was I aware of what he was referring to, that I mentioned to my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth (Mr. T. G. Baring), then sitting next to me, that I thought "1858" must be a misprint for "1859." On my suggesting this to him, the right hon. Gentleman said it was not so, but that he found it in a paper which I had suppressed. Now, I have since found that the telegram was contained in papers which were moved for by my hon. Friend the Member for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird) without the slightest reference to the project for amalgamating the two armies. I was asked by him at the close of last Session whether I had any objection to producing these papers. I objected to presenting them at the time because the inquiry was not complete. I had not seen the papers, and it seemed to me improper, under the circumstances, to agree to their production. At the beginning of this Session my hon. Friend renewed his request, and I at once acceded to it, and the papers were granted, as an unopposed return. Now, it appears to me, that I may fairly say my personal duty was concluded at that time. I cannot hold myself, nor do I think the House will hold me responsible for the progress either of the printing or the correction of the proofs or such other details as are done in the office, and of which I knew nothing. It was not till I inquired next day that I found how the matter stood, and learnt 2232 what had happened between the printer and the Secretary of the Military Department. The right hon. Gentleman says I had this brought to my knowledge three days before, and that with that knowledge I stated my ignorance of the fact of these papers being in the office. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth stated last night quite truly that I personally had no knowledge whatever of the matter, and I can only repeat my utter denial of having had any knowledge of it at all. I have since found that there was certainly delay in the clerical department of the Military Secretary, and that copies of part of these papers were placed in the hands of some members of the Military Committee of my Council; but neither I nor my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth saw those papers. From those members of the Council—whether directly or indirectly, I know not, and I care not to know—the right hon. Gentleman must have obtained his information of the contents of those papers, which up to the time when the debate took place I had never seen; but I am quite certain that no member of my Council, who are all men of honour, would ever have said or insinuated what is undoubtedly untrue—namely, that I had wilfully kept back or suppressed these documents. That charge must, therefore, have emanated from the right hon. Gentleman's own imagination.
I come now to the new accusation which the right hon. Gentleman has brought against me. He stated last night that he moved for some papers on the 28th of June. That statement is not correct. It was on the 28th of June that the notice of Motion appeared on the Votes. The notice which stood in the right hon. Gentleman's name was for three papers:—First, a correspondence which took place, not in my time, but in the year 1858, between the Secretary for War and the noble Lord opposite, then President of the Board of Control; secondly, the opinions of the law officers of the Crown; and, thirdly, some despatches. The 28th happened to be the day of the meeting of my Council, and also that fixed for the second reading of the European Forces Bill. Hon. Members will easily imagine that it was a busy day with me, and, in fact, it was not until I came to this House and took up the Papers that I saw the right hon. Gentleman's notice. The first notice was for the production of a correspondence between the Secretaries of State for War and India. 2233 The papers, if they existed, must, of course, have been in both departments, and it would not have been right for me to have consented to their production without the consent of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Sidney Herbert). I showed him the notice, and asked whether his attention had been called to it, and whether he knew anything about the papers? My right hon. Friend told me that the papers were not in existence. In the course of the evening the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud came and sat down upon the Treasury Bench on the other side of my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth (Mr. T. G. Baring) with whom I was sitting, and asked me if I had any objection to the production of these papers? I told him that I had seen the notice but a short time before; that I had spoken to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, who had told me that the first papers were not in existence; that with regard to the second paper which he wished to move for he must know that it was not the practice to produce the opinions of the Law Officers of the Crown, but that to the production of the third set of papers, which was the only set which belonged exclusively to the Indian Department, I had no objection, and that he might move for them as an unopposed return. That is all that passed on that occasion. The right hon. Gentleman said last night—
The right hon. Gentleman told me it did not exist. I told him I knew it did exist, and that it was in his own office, and I begged I might have the correspondence. I told him the correspondence was in his own office. He insisted it was not.I beg to assure the House that that is a perfectly imaginary conversation; one which never took place. I did not say, and I could not have said what the right hon. Gentleman attributes to me, because the only information which I possessed as to the existence or non-existence of the papers was derived from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, who must have known from his own office whether they existed or not. Having seen the notice for the first time in this House, and having had no opportunity of inquiring at my office, it is impossible that I could have said anything as to the existence of the papers there. I stated what had been told me by my right hon. Friend, who was a perfectly competent person to give information, because the papers must have existed in his office as well as in mine. Fortunately I have a witness as to this conversation, 2234 because my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth was sitting between the right hon. Gentleman and myself. He heard every word that passed, and will, if necessary, confirm my assertion that no such conversation as that stated by the right hon. Gentleman took place upon that occasion. From that time forward I never heard a syllable upon the subject from the right hon. Gentleman, until on Wednesday I received the letter which he read to the House last night. He did not move for the papers which he states that I had in my possession at the time. Some days afterwards, however, he moved that portion of the notice to which I had said that I had no objection. The right hon. Gentleman also said last night that, on Tuesday I think, he showed these papers to my right hon. Friend. The very statement which he made in the next sentence showed that he did no such thing, because he said that my right hon. Friend asked him for the dates of the papers, in order that he might inquire whether or not they did exist, and promised to give an answer when he came to the House that night. My right hon. Friend did not come down to the House that evening, and therefore, when the right hon. Gentleman moved for the papers next day, and stated that it was an unopposed return, he did so without the slightest warrant, because neither from my right hon. Friend nor from myself had he heard that we did not object to their production. The right hon. Gentleman went on to state what, in point of fact, he could not know, that my right hon. Friend told me of the information which he had received from him, that it was he himself who, in point of fact, gave me the information which enabled me to find the papers, and that therefore when I wrote to tell him that I had found them, and offered their production, he owed me very little gratitude. That, again, is totally inaccurate. What really happened was this, that on Tuesday morning last I saw a notice of Motion for the production of papers given by the hon. and gallant Member for Westminster (Sir De Lacy Evans); I sent for the papers, and on seeing them, which I then did for the first time, I found that they were apparently those for which the right hon. Gentleman had asked me on the 28th of June. I immediately went to the Horse Guards and asked the Commander-in-Chief, one of whose letters was included in the correspondence, whether he had any objection to its production. I 2235 then came to this House with the papers in my pocket, intending to show them to my right hot. Friend the Secretary for War, and ask whether he had any objection to their being produced. As I have already said, my right hon. Friend was not in the House that evening, and it was not until Wednesday morning that I had an opportunity of showing to him for the first time the papers in question. On receiving from him the assurance that he had no objection to their production, I took the earliest opportunity that I properly could to inform the right hon. Member for Stroud that I had no objection to the production of the papers, and that he might move for them as an unopposed return. I quite admit that I did not inquire for the papers in my own office until I saw the notice of the hon. and gallant Member for Westminster. I relied upon the information of my right hon. Friend that they were not in existence, and my attention was not again attracted to the subject until I saw the notice of the gallant Member for Westminster. In answer to my note I received a not very civil letter from the right hon. Gentleman, which was delivered to me when the Cabinet was sitting, and which I showed to my right hon. Friend, pointing out to him the inaccuracies of the statement which it contained. So much for the question of the papers.I wish before I sit down to make a very few observations upon another charge of the right hon. Gentleman as to my conduct towards the Indian Council. I do not intend to go into that question at large, and so far as the charge concerns myself I should be quite disposed to let it pass; but I think that if I suffered it to remain un-contradicted it might be painful to the members of the Council of India, who are not quite so well used as I am to the habitual language of the right hon. Gentleman. He stated that I had treated the members of the Council with contempt, and had reduced them to insignificance. Now, Sir, I am happy to say that from the first nothing could be more satisfactory or agreeable than my intercourse with the members of the Council. There has been the most full, frank, and free intercourse between us upon all subjects, and so smoothly has the system worked that I do not think the Council has been divided more than half a dozen times. Upon the question of the Indian army, no doubt, I differed from the council, and they complained that I had not consulted them for- 2236 mally before the decision of the Government was come to. I have stated the reasons why that course was not taken in a paper which is on the table of the House. I beg that hon. Gentlemen will bear in mind that the question is not whether I consulted every member of the Council fully and completely upon the subject, or whether or not I was in complete possession of their opinions. It was my duty to make myself acquainted with the opinions of all persons of weight and authority on Indian matters, not only in the Council, but out of the Council, before I came to any decision upon so momentous a question. The question simply is whether the members of the Council were formally consulted in such a manner as to enable them, under the provisions of the Act, to record their opinions. Now, Sir, for the reasons which are stated in the paper to which I have already referred—namely, that it was a question for the decision of the Government, and not of the Council—this did not appear to me to be a matter which came under the words of the Act. Such a course can only be taken when a difference of opinion arises upon a question to be decided in the Indian Council; but the question of the army is one for the decision, not of the Council, but of the Cabinet. I did not take this course merely upon my own authority. I consulted my colleagues in the Government upon the subject, and it was their unanimous decision that it was the right course to adopt. It was the course taken by the previous Government, who came to a decision upon the question of the Indian army, but did not consult the Indian Council before they did so. I put it to every hon. Member of this House whether a course which was thought right by the Government which created the Council, and by the Government which succeeded, can be properly said to be a course which was intended by me to throw contempt upon the Indian Council, and to reduce it to insignificance. In point of fact, as soon as I thought that I could properly put the question before the Council, in order to enable the members to record their opinions upon it, I did so. I may have been wrong in doing so, but at all events, if I erred I erred on the side of wishing to show deference to their opinions. I made the offer to them twice, once to the whole Council, and again to the vice-president, and they declined to avail themselves of it. Ultimately, when, after a long interval, they came to the con- 2237 clusion that they wished to record their opinions, I took the same step which I had offered to do before, and which enabled them to do so.
The next point to which I wish to allude has reference to two Bills which are not before the House, but with the contents of which, as discussed in the Council, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud seems to be well acquainted. I know not, of course, whence he received his information, but he should have stated correctly, if at all, the circumstances connected with those two Bills. He gave the House to understand that, upon the measures in question, I differed wholly and entirely from my Council, whose opinions, I think he added, though I may be wrong, I was disposed to override.
§ MR. HORSMANI did not say so.
§ SIR CHARLES WOODI may have been misinformed.
§ MR. HORSMAN—What I said was that you differed from a majority of your Council.
§ SIR CHARLES WOODIt so happens that upon one of the Bills, that relating to the establishment of certain high courts of judicature, there was no difference of opinion at all in the Council.
§ MR. HORSMANI did not allude to it.
§ SIR CHARLES WOODAs to the other Bill, that relating to the Civil Service, there was no difference of opinion in the Council except upon one clause. Upon one clause there was a difference of opinion, but a large minority concurred in the view which I took, and therefore I did not differ from the whole of my Council, far less did I attempt to override their opinion. I agreed with a large minority and determined to introduce the clause into the Bill. The clause was not a child of my own brain. It was prepared by the noble Lord who preceded me in the office of Secretary of State for India, and who left behind him a Bill ready drawn, going further than I propose to do in the clause to which I refer. Here, again, I may be right or I may be wrong; I am not going to discuss the merits of the question, but it cannot justly be said that to proceed in a course which was thought expedient by two successive Secretaries of State, and by a large minority of the Indian Council, is treating the Council with contempt or overriding the opinion of a majority of its members. I do not wish to prolong my explanation beyond that which seems to be necessary to vindicate myself from charges made with- 2238 out any foundation whatever. It is not my intention to enter into the question of the merits either of the Bills to which I have alluded, or of the course which I may ultimately think necessary to take upon them. My object has been to show the utter and complete inaccuracy of the statement which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud has made with reference to the production of certain documents, and to prove that the charge of having treated with contempt the members of the Indian Council—gentlemen from whom I have received the most cordial assistance, and to whom I have on many occasions expressed my warmest gratitude—is wholly without foundation. I should feel ashamed of myself if I had left un-contradicted a charge which, however it may affect me, could not but inflict serious pain upon them.
§ MR. HORSMANI do not think I have any complaint to make of the tone or even, so far as I could hear it, of the matter of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. But there is one remarkable omission, at which, considering that he was complaining of my having attacked him in his absence yesterday, I cannot help feeling some astonishment. His complaint is that I attacked him in his absence. Will he be good enough to inform us why or how the spirit moved him to leave the House immediately before I rose to address it? I think that is not altogether, in the circumstances, either an uninteresting or an unimportant question. I saw the right hon. Gentleman in the House very shortly before I rose to address it, and, not being able, from this seat, to see what Minister may or may not he in his place, I had a right to believe that the right hon. Gentleman was on the Treasury bench, because he had one very great advantage of me and of other Members of the House who were not in the secrets of the Cabinet, and who came down here yesterday in the innocent belief that it was the intention of the Government to render the present Session to some extent, at least, memorable as having witnessed the passing of one useful measure. Having abandoned their Reform Bill, and having met with an accident in their finance, there was an impression that they intended to adhere to their only other important measure, and to amend the Law of Bankruptcy, in order to, save themselves from the disgrace of complete political insolvency. We came down yesterday, therefore, under the firm belief 2239 that the Bankruptcy Bill was to take up the whole evening. I came to the House with not the least idea that we were to go into Committee of Supply, with not the least expectation that I would have an opportunity either of making that speech or reading that correspondence, during the speaking and reading of which the right hon. Gentleman as it appears was so unaccountably and strangely absent. But the right hon. Gentleman knew what I did not know. He knew that the Bankruptcy Bill was to be given up; he knew that we were to go into Committee of Supply; he knew that the Indian Army Bill stood first among the orders for to-day, and he knew that the noble Lord at the head of the Government was going to announce that fact unexpectedly to the House. Moreover, he had my letter in his pocket; he saw me in my place; he knew that the announcement of the Prime Minister would call me up, and that I should make a statement to which it would be his duty to reply. Yet the right hon. Gentleman suddenly vanished from the House, and having done so he ventures to accuse me of attacking him in his absence. Every hon. Member of the House knows that upon the Motion for going into Committee of Supply Ministers are liable to have questions put to them, but it so happens in the present instance that the right hon. Gentleman was aware that a question would be addressed to him. He knew that a discussion would be raised on the subject of the Indian army. I saw him in his place immediately before; I believed he was still in his place when I rose to address the House, and he has yet to explain how it was he left the House at the very moment a discussion was coming on in which he knew it would be his duty to take part. The right hon. Gentleman has said that I brought the correspondence down yesterday on purpose to read it and make an attack upon him. It is obvious I could have done no such thing, because I thought the Bankruptcy Bill would take up the whole evening, and I could not foresee that I should have an opportunity of reading the correspondence. I brought it down for the purpose of showing it to my hon. Friend the Member for Aryshire (Sir James Fergusson), who had given notice of an Amendment upon the Motion for going into Committee on the Indian Army Bill, and I told my hon. Friend that after that correspondence, which I supposed the noble Lord at the head of the Government had seen, the Bill 2240 would probably be postponed until the papers promised to us were in our hands. I said the same thing to other Members of the House whom I see in their places, and I have no doubt they will, if necessary, confirm my statement. I did not intend to read the correspondence. But the noble Lord at the head of the Government suddenly got up and, without any question being put to him, volunteered a statement to the effect that the first business taken to-day would be the Indian Army Bill. [Viscount PALMERSTON: A question was put to me.] The noble Lord will excuse me. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bucks asked a question about the paper duties, and another about fortifications, and the noble Lord stated that those subjects would not come on to-day, adding that the Indian Army Bill, on which no question had been put to him, would be taken first. I heard that with great surprise. I believed the Secretary of State for India was in his place, and I am not sure, even now, that he did not hear the noble Lord make that announcement. I expected him to rise after the hon. Baronet the Member for Evesham. I was surprised he did not. I rose, therefore, on the impulse of the moment. Before coming into the House I had no design of speaking or of reading the correspondence; but that sudden announcement having been made by the noble Lord, believing that the right hon. Gentleman was in his place, and believing likewise that the correspondence was known to the Prime Minister, I thought myself justified in reading it to the House. I cannot help thinking that what has taken place raises an important question as to the treatment by the right hon. Gentleman of his own colleagues. His conduct towards them seems to have been quite as objectionable as his conduct towards the House. What did we hear last night from the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster? That the right hon. Gentleman had not made known to his colleagues the opposition which was to be raised to the Indian Army Bill. His letter was delivered to me with a message that he was at the Cabinet, and begging I would send my answer to the Cabinet. I did so. He received it in the presence of his colleagues. They must have been at that time discussing, among other things, the business of the House, and considering what measures they should sacrifice in order to shorten the Session. I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman 2241 ought not to have told his colleagues that his Indian Bills were going to be strongly opposed, and that any attempt to press them through the House of Commons in the absence of papers which had been ordered, would probably prolong the Session several days? If he had made that known to his colleagues what would have happened? Can any one doubt that something would have happened similar to that which took place yesterday, when the noble Lord at the head of the Government, instantly he became aware of the circumstances, administered a severe practical rebuke to his colleague, by postponing the very Bill which the right hon. Gentleman, with a full knowledge of those circumstances, had endeavoured to press forward with undue haste? If my letter had been placed in the hands of the noble Lord he would have said "Oh! our clever Secretary of State has got us into another mess about these Indian papers, and we must get out of it by tying these Indian Bills to the Attorney General's Bill, and by throwing them over together." Every one who knew the good sense and fair dealing of the noble Lord, must feel that that would have been the course he would have pursued. But the right hon. Gentleman did not give his colleagues that opportunity. He suppressed the fact that these Bills were going to be strongly opposed; and what more did he do? The right hon. Gentleman presses the Bill on, gives it precedence over all other measures, though a short Bill and the least urgent, and at the same time, with considerate and characteristic generosity, he graciously promises these papers, which he knows he has taken sure means to make too late. What could be the reason of his writing to me on Wednesday, telling me I might move for these papers which I held to be essential to the discussion of the Bill at the very moment when he put the Bill at the head of the Orders of the Day for Friday? The right hon. Gentleman took every means in his power to get the Bill on before the papers could be before the House. Under these circumstances, I can only repeat that I feel that the right hon. Gentleman has neither behaved fairly to this House nor to his colleagues; that the information we gave to him ought to have been laid before his colleagues, and that the Bill ought to have been postponed.
I will state very shortly what the right hon. Gentleman said about the papers. My statement last night was that the right hon. 2242 Gentleman led us into many divisions by assuring us that he knew nothing whatever of the papers, and he himself had shown by his own statement that it was known to his Secretary, if not to himself, that they were at the time in the printer's hands. Remember that on the morning of the 28th these divisions took place. At the evening sitting of that day the right hon. Gentleman told the House that there were still 300 pages to be printed—that the printing had been delayed by the papers being sent back to a department of his own office, and kept there for revision, and that this matter was not brought to his notice by the Under Secretary until the 27th ultimo, when a note was written stating that hon. Members were inquiring for the papers. This was before the divisions took place, and then came an enigmatical sentence from the right hon. Gentleman stating that the steps he had taken upon that information evinced a desire on his part that the printing should be pressed on as rapidly as possible. Does not that mean that the steps taken were the getting the papers out of the hands of the Military Secretary, and sending them to the printer? What else does it mean? The hon. Under Secretary was sitting by the side of the right hon. Gentleman when he made his statement, and must naturally have felt that the printer had nothing to do with it.
§ MR. SPEAKERobserved that, though he had not hitherto interrupted the right hon. Gentleman, he must now point out that reading from newspapers a report of a debate in that House was out of order.
§ MR. HORSMANI should not have alluded to that matter unless the right hon. Gentleman had referred to it; but may I not ask another question about the papers? Is it not a fact that the printing of them was retarded by the right hon. Gentleman or his Secretary, in order to make way for more pressing matter which the right hon. Gentleman had in hand? I will not descend into the question whether the conversation between the right hon. Gentleman and myself was imaginary or not; but the right hon. Gentleman is inaccurate in one point. He says that the Under-Secretary was sitting by when the conversation occurred. There were, however, two conversations, and after I returned to my seat the right hon. Gentleman invited me back again, when we had 2243 a second conversation. Again, the right hon. Gentleman said that I showed the papers to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War. I mentioned the date of the papers, but I never professed to have seen or have shown the papers. With respect to the conversation which occurred with the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War, if he states that there is any difference on that point I will admit the error to he on my side. I will not follow the right hon. Gentleman into the subject of the conversations that took place. My statement was short, and next week we shall have another opportunity of going into the matter; but I stated that with respect to the Indian Army Bill the right hon. Gentleman was at issue with the whole of the Council, and with respect to the Civil Service Bill he was at issue with the majority of the Council, though, according to the Act of Parliament, it was expected that he should take them into counsel; and that he had not given to the Indian Council the weight and authority which Parliament intended. I stated that during the whole of the Session complaints were made against the right hon. Gentleman, which I am not disposed to modify or retract; that we had the utmost difficulty in getting requisite information; that he had himself misinformed us as to the papers in his office, and that when he promised we should have the papers before going into Committee on the Bill, he nevertheless pressed on the Bill before the papers were in the hands of Members. On the 28th of June I put a Notice on the Paper for other papers, and it was not till three weeks after that the right hon. Gentleman admitted that these papers were in existence. Would any other Minister, after notice had been put on the Paper, and after he was told that these papers were in existence, have been three weeks without inquiring whether they existed or not, while during the whole of that period he was pressing forward the Bill on the table with indecent baste? All those interested in Indian affairs concur in the opinion that the right hon. Gentleman has not treated us fairly, has not given us information in time, and has hurried on his Bill unduly, has overridden the Indian Council, not giving them a due opportunity of recording their dissent. There are dissents with respect to the Civil Service Bill, but they are not yet laid upon the table. I have nothing more to say. I think I have shown that in the first in- 2244 stance I am not responsible for the absence of the right hon. Gentleman, and that if there is any inconvenience accruing to him from that absence he himself is the not unintentional cause of it. I have shown that I did not come here to read the correspondence, but that I was induced to do so by the speech of the noble Lord, and I can only say that I do not modify, qualify, or retract one single syllable of the complaint I made.
§ SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, he rose to explain why he left the House on the previous night. An hon. Friend brought him a message that Sir Richard Airey wished to see him, and he went out of the House to speak to him.
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTON—As the right hon. Gentleman has alluded to me I wish to say one or two words on the matter. I must say that I never heard a more lame apology or excuse for the most discourteous and unfair proceeding that ever took place in my memory in the House of Commons than that which the right hon. Gentleman has attempted to make. I hope and believe that the right hon. Gentleman is the only Member in this House who would have so conducted himself on such an occasion. What is the statement of the right hon. Gentleman? Why, forsooth! he had in his pocket the correspondence which he said he brought down for the purpose of showing to me. ["No, no!"]
§ MR. HORSMANI said that I brought it down for the purpose of showing it to the hon. Member for Ayrshire.
§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTONWell, that makes the matter worse. The right hon. Gentleman had in his pocket a correspondence which he thought afforded good reasons why I, having announced yesterday that the India Army Amalgamation Bill would come on to-day, ought not to persist in that Motion, and yet the right hon. Gentleman now says that he had no intention to show me that correspondence. The right hon. Gentleman says that he had fair reason to suppose because he had seen my right hon. Friend the Secretary for India in the House at an early period of the evening that therefore he must have been in the House when he made the attack, because he thought that every Member of Government should be in the House of Commons when Supply comes on. That is a rule which I do not find recorded in the Orders of the House, but we will assume, therefore, that it was the rule 2245 which the right hon. Gentleman observed when he was in office. Now, let me in common fairness ask this question. A Member may be in the neighbourhood of the House, or he may leave it for a short time, but does it follow that he is necessarily to remain here? Even when a call of the House takes place he is not compelled to stay in his place afterwards; and, therefore, no man is entitled to assume that because a Member is present at a particular moment he is necessarily to be present half-an-hour or an hour later. But the right hon. Gentleman had in his head and in his pocket an attack—a virulent, an unfair, an unhandsome attack on my right hon. Friend. I will not use strong language, though I might do so if I followed the example of the right hon. Gentleman, who yesterday made use of expressions which I did not think it worth while to notice, because they are not such as are usual in this House. Why, Sir, any man of common feeling and of common generosity— any man who felt and knew the social obligations existing between man and man would, before he got up to make such an attack, have taken the trouble to ascertain whether my right hon. Friend was in his place, and remained in his place. He ought also to have given my right hon. Friend notice of his intention. Perhaps that would be expecting too much from the right hon. Gentleman, but any other man in the House would have given such a notice. He saw my right hon. Friend in the early part of the evening. Why did he not go up to him and say, "I am going to animadvert on your conduct and to read a correspondence which has passed between us; pray have the goodness to stay in your place?" That is the course which hon. Members usually take, and had that course been taken here, and had my right hon. Friend not then attended in his place, the right hon. Gentleman would have been entitled to say that the Secretary for India had mysteriously absented himself after full notice given of an attack which it was evident, therefore, he was unprepared to meet.
That, however, is not the state of the case. The right hon. Gentleman says that I brought it all upon my right hon. Friend. Now, what was my statement yesterday? Not that the Indian Army Bill was coming on last evening. The right hon. Gentleman was not driven into a corner, as it were, by such an announcement; though even then I think the courtesy usual be- 2246 tween Member and Member would have led him to go to my right hon. Friend and say to him, "You have given notice of a Bill to-night, and I have reasons why I think it is one which ought not to come on. There are papers which I think most important to be produced in order to its due consideration, and they have not been produced. I am sure you will feel the impropriety of bringing on that Bill to-night." That would have been a very proper appeal, and, under such circumstanees, I should have felt myself authorized to comply with his request. Then, the right hon. Gentleman says I volunteered the statement. Sir, I did no such thing. I was asked a question about the course of public business. Minute details do not impress themselves very distinctly upon the memory, but what occurred, I think, was this:—I was asked a question respecting the course of business, not for yesterday only but for to-day, and I stated—if not in answer to a direct question, at all events from a desire to give full information— what measures would be taken this evening. That being so, and the Bill to which the right hon. Gentleman objected standing not for last night but for this evening, there was surely ample time for the courteous appeal which hon. Gentlemen usually make in such cases, stating reasons why the Bill should not come on as proposed. But the right hon. Gentleman is also omniscient. It seems that he has his ear at the keyhole of the Indian Council, and knows completely everything that passes there. He knows who is consulted, and which way minorities and majorities go; he knows even the assumed feelings of the Members of the Council, who, he says, believe that they are reduced to insignificance by my right hon. Friend. Well, Sir, I must ask the right hon. Gentleman to confine his mysterious knowledge to the Indian Council, and not extend it by leading us to infer that his ear is equally applied to the keyhole of the Cabinet. He states with the utmost confidence, and in that sort of offhand way in which he makes his assertions, that at the time when my right hon. Friend received a communication from him the Cabinet were discussing the measures they intended to drop, and those they would go on with. Now, I am bound to secrecy, though the right hon. Gentleman seems to be released from any obligation of the kind. Without violating my duty, however, I may go so far as to say that the right hon. Gentleman has been speaking of matters of 2247 which he is totally and entirely ignorant. That is not, perhaps, a singular case. But, on the part of my Colleagues, I can assure the House that we grant the right hon. Gentleman our full forgiveness for any imaginary breach of the secrecy of the Cabinet which he conceives himself at liberty to commit. I think the right hon. Gentleman has made out no case whatever, and I most sincerely lament, from the regard which I have for him personally, that he should have done what I am sure every man who both observes and values the courteous mode of proceeding usual between Members of this House must have regarded with the greatest concern and regret.
§ MR. HORSMANThe noble Lord misunderstood me in one point. I said distinctly that my intention to speak was owing to his own announcement, my full belief being that he had seen my communication.