§ Report of Address brought up, and read.
MR. GRANT DUFFSir, before the Report is agreed to, I wish to call attention to an omission in Her Majesty's gracious Speech, which is, I think, very unfortunate. We were told of the famine in Southern India; we were told of the Delhi pageant; but no allusion whatever was made to the astounding calamity which destroyed a vast number of Her Majesty's subjects close to the capital of Her Majesty's Eastern Dominions. The 130 noble Lord the Mover of the Address (Viscount Galway), guided, I think, by a happier inspiration than that under which the Cabinet settled the details of the Royal Speech, did allude to the sad event, but surely the Speech itself should have made some mention of it, especially as it was the first Royal Speech delivered since the proclamation of the Imperial Title. An hon. Member addressing his constituents in a town of Northern England the other day referred to the curious manner in which we pass over with little remark occurrences of great importance in distant parts of Her Majesty's dominions, and he used an extremely happy illustration. If, he said, a storm takes place on our coast, and 30 men go down at the mouth of the Tyne, there is a great and general excitement; but now 250,000 persons have been destroyed in India in one moment, just as if the whole population of the county of Northumberland had been swept into the sea. That I thought a striking illustration when I read it, and I confess I did not expect so soon to meet with so startling a confirmation of the truth which the hon. Member was enforcing. I hope the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House will be able to tell us that it was not forgetfulness, but some sufficient and explicable, though not obvious reason which excluded allusion to such a tragedy from the gracious Speech of yesterday. Surely to have said one kind word about it would have been very agreeable to Her Majesty's own feelings, and to show that India has its fair, though not more than its fair, place in the thoughts of its Ruler would, I cannot help thinking, do more to attach the inhabitants of that country to the Throne than much burning of powder in salutes, or the congregating of any number of elephants amongst the ruined cities which surround the present Delhi, and whose fallen magnificence must, in the eyes of some of the observers have given a touch of grim irony to the Imperial display. I the more regret that this terrible visitation has been left without mention, because it fell chiefly upon the peasantry, and because of late the tendency—the result, I trust, of accidental circumstances—has been, I think, to bring the Princes and Potentates of the Peninsula a little too prominently into relief at the expense both of the humbler 131 classes of the Natives and of the European servants of the Crown, by whose brains and arms the Empire was wisely and bravely won, and is mainly held.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERSir, I cannot wonder at what has just fallen from the hon. Gentleman, and I may say this, that the omission to which he refers is one which struck my noble Friend Lord Salisbury. I think I may fairly say that if Lord Salisbury had been present amongst us at the time of the early discussions of the draft of the Queen's Speech, that omission would not have occurred; but on the only occasion on which his Lordship was able to attend the Cabinet before the Queen's Speech was finally settled there were other matters which attracted attention. I can only say that this terrible calamity is one of which it is impossible to speak with too much gravity or too much sympathy. It is perfectly true that the calamity is one which I believe is altogether unparalleled in the history of the world. Of all the famous catastrophes, including the famous earthquake which took place in the last century at Lisbon, there is nothing to compare with this fearful disaster. On the other hand, the disaster is of a kind which is apparently beyond the reach of human means of prevention. It was not, as in the case of the Famine, a matter in which it was possible to take precautionary measures to prevent such calamities happening in the future. Therefore, it was not a matter immediately under consideration, whereas the Famine was a subject which for some two months was directly under our notice, and the question necessarily arose as to what steps the Government could and ought to take. But I can assure my hon. Friend that it is a matter of serious regret to the Government that by an oversight there should have been an omission on the part of those who advise Her Majesty—an omission of a subject the notice of which, as he says, would have been very grateful to the people of India.
§ Address agreed to:—To be presented by Privy Councillors.