HC Deb 03 July 1890 vol 346 cc699-731

(4.55.) Mr. BRADLAUGH, Member for the Borough of Northampton, rose in his place, and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House, for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, viz.— The taking away by the Government of India from the Maharajah of Kashmir of the Government of his State and part of his Revenues, whilst refusing to allow any judicial or Parliamentary inquiry into the grounds for such action against a great feudatory Prince. But the pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. SPEAKER called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not less than 40 Members having accordingly risen.

*MR. BRADLAUGH

I am obliged to move the adjournment of the House, because it is the only possible way in which any appeal for the Maharajah of Kashmir can be submitted to Parliament. The Government of India have deprived this Chief of his authority and of his property under cover of allegations, which are emphatically denied by the Maharajah himself. The Maharajah, as I shall show, has applied for a trial in India. That has been denied him. The Secretary of State here has been asked to sanction an inquiry, and has refused; the Leader of the House has been asked to appoint a Select Committee of Inquiry, and has also refused, so that neither judicial, nor Parliamentary, nor Governmental inquiry is being allowed, although this gentleman has been subjected to penalties which, in the case of the meanest person in this country, would entitle him to have the accusations brought before some tribunal, and witnesses against him heard. There is no other manner of bringing this matter before the House than by moving the adjournment. Though I can understand that hon. Gentlemen opposite may think it unfair that the adjournment should be moved, they must remember that on Indian matters I have always shown the greatest consideration to the Government: so much so, that at the beginning of this Session I did not avail myself, as I might have done, of my right to move an Amendment to the Address, and I only now make a Motion for the adjournment, because there are no Estimates in Supply on which, as in any case affecting any other portion of Her Majesty's Dominions, a question of grievance may be raised. It is either in the manner I am raising it to-night, or not at all. Now, on May 14th of last year—that is more than 12 months ago—the Maharajah himself asked the Government of India for a fair trial. I will read to the House presently the touching words in which that appeal for a fair trial was made. From then till now, except in a Despatch, from which it will be my duty to quote, no kind of answer has been made to that appeal, and the Maharajah has been condemned unheard. I should have pressed this claim for inquiry 12 months ago, but there were then no Papers before the House. It would have been open for the Government to say, in the fashion in which rumour has said, that this unfortunate gentleman had been guilty of crime, or was suffering the consequences' of vice, because these suggestions could be found embodied in official Despatches, to which I shall refer, and that there was, therefore, a lack of duty in bringing the matter before the House until the Government had put before it the statements on which they rely. Although this unfortunate Gentleman was deprived of his authority and his property at the beginning of last year, the presentation of Papers has been delayed until last week. They have been repeatedly pressed for by myself and other Members. Until the Government had put their case on the Table anyone would have been at a great disadvantage in submitting to this House any matter for its decision. I do not propose to ask the House, in the Division I shall challenge, to express any other opinion on the facts I shall submit than that when such a penalty is enforced against the prince, with whom we have a treaty—who has recently been regarded as being in the position of a feudatory prince, the man so dealt with is entitled to that which any other subject of Her Majesty, if he be a subject of Her Majesty, is entitled to, namely, a fair trial before condemnation. The Under Secretary must not shelter himself under considerations of State. If considerations of State justify the Government of India in depriving one man of his authority and property unheard, there is no protection for any one, be he prince or peasant, throughout the whole of our Asiatic dominions. The other day the question was stated as simply as possible in the language of the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for India (Sir J. Gorst), in answer to a question put by myself. The right hon. Gentleman said:— The action of the Government in Kashmir has been baaed not upon grave personal charges made against the Maharajah. I would ask the House to remember that, because this man's character has been rumoured away and lied away, with the help of forged letters, during the last year and a half—forged letters used as instruments of political warfare—letters, the authority of which has been denied by the Maharajah, letters which have never been produced in his presence, and yet which, the Government have the face to refer to in their worst fashion in one of the Despatches I shall read to the House. I shall be relieved from any question as to the personal conduct of the Maharajah. He may be good or bad; I do not care what he is—he is entitled to justice. If he has been criminal, let him be condemned and punished; but do not rob him under cover of a criminalty which you dare not bring in evidence against him, and as to which you will allow no inquiry, either in India or here. The right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary said the action of the Government was based upon the long-continued mis-government of Kashmir. Well, this unfortunate gentleman has only been the ruler of Kashmir for about five years; and I will quote, to within a few months of the time he was dispossessed, the testimony of the Government itself, that mismanagement did not exist as far as it was in his power to help it. I cannot conceive—I should not be justified in saying before you, Sir, anything more impudent—but I can conceive nothing more cool than the audacity of the confidence that this House would be imposed upon by the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary, that there had been long-continued mis-government in Kashmir, such as justified the dethronement of this man. Vague statements there are here, but not one statement of fact. Mis-government must be made up of something. You may shadow a man, put him unjustly in prison, or take away his property. None of these things are alleged against this unfortunate gentleman. Well, the right hon. Gentleman went on to say that the Government of India have never attached any importance to certain treasonable and criminal correspondence attributed to the Maharajah. It would have been as well not to have described the character of the correspondence, if no importance was attached to it. Why suggest that it was criminal and treasonable if it was not true, as it was not, that he was responsible for it. I do not suggest that the right hon. Gentleman has made an inaccurate statement, but I do say he has been ignorant of the facts. I will read the evidence given by the Viceroy himself with regard to this correspondence, which the right hon. Gentleman dare not lay before this House, which he dare not put in print, but on which the emissaries of the Government have lied away the Maharajah's character during the last year and a-half. I will dispose of this point at once, because, fortunately, we have the Papers on the Table, and are able now to deal with them. So far from its being true that the Government have never attached the smallest importance to the correspon- dence, the Viceroy himself says the Government were justified "not merely by the disclosure of these letters "—so that they consider themselves in part justified by them. [Sir J. GOEST indicated dissent.] The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. It is the Viceroy's head that should be shaken here. I admit that the right hon. Gentleman dare not rely on the letters. I admit the right hon. Gentleman has too much good sense to use in justification of the position assumed by the Government letters, which the man himself declares to be forgeries, and which the Government have never dare to produce to his face. But in a long Despatch, dated Simla, June 26th, 1889, I say the Viceroy did say these letters were things on which the Government acted in condemning this unfortunate gentleman. What did the Maharajah himself say about these letters? In a letter which, unfortunately, time will not permit me to read fully to the House, he made a plea for justice, first to the Government of India, and then, through the Government, to the English Parliament. He said, "These letters are nothing but most daring forgeries," and he suggests that one of the forgers, if not the only forger, is his brother, whom the Government of India has placed in the position of authority, of which they have deprived this unfortunate gentleman himself. My allegation will be that it was on these letters—for the Papers disclosed nothing else, and, further, negative everything else—that this action of the Government was based. [Sir J. GOKST again expressed dissent.] The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but I have read the Papers, which he evidently has not done himself, and I shall read extracts to the House to show I am within the mark in every statement of this kind I make. Why did the Government of India, 12 months ago, say they did not merely act on these letters? What did that phrase mean if they did not act on them at all? Have the Government since discovered they are forgeries? If so, as they are part of the case on which mis-government and criminality are alleged against this unfortunate gentleman, the whole story, if it does not fall to the ground, at any rate, rests on other matters, with reference to which this man demands to be put on his trial, and as to which no evidence has been offered. Lord Cross, speaking last year at Sheffield, used words little stronger than, and, if I may be allowed to say so, not quite so skilfully as the euphemistic language of the First Lord to-night, and of the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary last week. He said:— We did interfere in the matter of Kashmir; why? Because the people of Kashmir were so ground down by the tyranny and misgovernment of the Maharajah that we were bound as the paramount power to interfere for the protection of the interests of the inhabitants. Where, in these Papers, is there one instance of grinding down? If you want to steal Kashmir, as, unfortunately, we have stolen, often stolen, in India and other parts of the world, then say so at once, and at least have the merit of honest thieves. Do not be hypocritical by saying you set up self-Government where self-Government has no existence. What is the position of Kashmir towards this country? Fortunately, the history is not long so far as it affects this unfortunate man, and I will deal with it as briefly as it is possible to do. The history of Kashmir, for the purpose of to-night's discussion, began with the Treaty of 1846, with the grandfather of the gentleman whose cause I am pleading. Then, for a considerable money payment, recorded in the 3rd section of the Treaty, the British Government transferred and made over for ever, in independent possession, to Maharajah Golab Singh and the heirs male of his body, the territory which includes Kashmir and Jummoo. This is not a case of an ordinary feudatory State. So little was it regarded as a feudatory State, that in the Statistical Abstract of this very year you have the evidence of its non-inclusion up to 1881 amongst the feudatory States; and there was never anything to suggest that we had a right or duty to send a Resident there until 1885, on the death of the father of the present Maharajah. I will not trouble the House with what has passed until the few days before the commencement of the reign of the present chief. The Maharajah Golab Singh, with whom the Treaty of the 10th of March, 1846, was made, was succeeded by his son about the time of the Indian Mutiny, and Lord Canning, in an official document, gave Maharajah Rumbir Singh, who had succeeded Golab Singh in 1857, the Sanad of adoption, which provided that in case of failure of issue, he and his successors would be competent to adopt an heir, and thus perpetuate the line. This was given on the ground of the great service rendered by the Maharajah during the mutiny. The Maharajah Rumbir Singh was ill in 1884, and I am afraid that some 14 or 15 years ago, when Jingoism was specially paramount in the making of great military frontiers and things of that kind, we looked with longing eyes upon the property of others, and were disposed to ignore any sense of justice in our dealings with them. It was then said that Rumbir Singh had misgoverned his country. If he had, it was a matter with which, except as being, by treaty, the paramount power, in which case we might have made remonstrance, we had nothing whatever to do. But, as a matter of fact, we made no remonstrance to him. The Under Secretary of State dissents. Then why is it not in the Papers? The Papers began in 1884 with a Despatch relating to the alleged mis-government during the time of the present Maharajah's father. The words of the Despatch precluded the possibility of remonstrance having been made. But what happens is that while the Maharajah is dying, the Viceroy of India, looking to the matter, as he says, with a view to his troublesome neighbours on the North West Frontier, certain reforms are suggested which, on the accession of the son of the then dying man, it would be well should be carried out, and I will read to the House, in the words of Lord Dufferin himself, the admission that many of these reforms had been carried out during the short period that this gentleman sat on the Throne. In 1885 the succession of Prapat Singh was formally recognised by the Government. He came to the throne under the Treaty which I have read to the House. One new departure there was against which the Maharajah protested namely, the establishment of a Residency instead of Kashmir being an independent possession, which, under the Treaty, it was, subject to the supremacy of the Empress Queen. After the appointment of a Resident, it is a monstrously unfair thing to spring a mine four or five years afterwards, and allege, as an excuse for confiscating property and power, that there had been misgovernment, where, if there had been misgovernment, it should have been reported day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by year. There are no such Reports. If the Secretary of State has got them, he ought to have printed them. I am not asking the House to say that this unfortunate man is guiltless, but I am asking them to say that he is entitled to be tried, and to have an inquiry before he is deprived of his rights. In 1890 the Government deprived this gentleman of his chieftainship. By what right? By no right save the right of force. By what law? By no law save the law of force. Upon what charges? Upon charges of the vaguest description. It is clear these Papers are delusive Papers. There must have been Reports made by the Viceroy, which Reports ought to be in the hands of the House. If it is said that they are of confidential character—if it is said they cannot be produced, at any rate, the witnesses who can prove the occasions of misgovernment ought to be produced in some Court. Is it because this man is rich; is it because his property is in a place where you want to have property because of frontier considerations; is he to be deprived of the right which you admit to the meanest person accused within this country, or within the Asiatic dominions of the Empress Queen herself? It is a monstrous thing, and I ask the House to look at it without consideration of Party, because you must remember it is not a question only of this man, but of every feudatory prince whose property you may want to take and merge in our dominions. The Papers have not been put on the Table in a hurry. They have been in the skilled hands of the Under Secretary. We all know how frank the Under Secretary can be if he likes, and I ask him to tell the House how many Papers relating to these important Despatches between the Government of India and the Secretary of State have been kept back, and why? It is clear some have—the language shows it. Why are any kept back? They have been kept back because the action of the Government cannot be defended. I do not know what the charges are against the Maharajah, and I am only asking that this Parliament shall say that the Government of India, however powerful, and whatever the State considerations are has no right to rob this man. On the 14th of September, 1885, the Viceroy sent a Despatch, to which I must allude for a moment. It was sent just on the accession of the present Maharajah to the throne, and I allege to the House it makes a clear Bill up to that time, so far as any charges of mis-government entitled our Government to interfere. The Viceroy says:— I trust that your Highness's life may be long and prosperous, and that in all difficulties, of whatsoever kind, you will rely with confidence upon the good will of the British Government, which will never fail you so long as you are loyal to the Crown and earnest in the desire to rule your State with justice and moderation. Your Highness has before you a difficult task. During the illness of your father, the administration of the State became seriously disorganised, and it will be necessary for you to introduce many reforms. I will show you that three years after, in Lord Dufferin's time, reforms had been admittedly carried out, and that mis-government is an excuse for stealing the man's property. The Maharajah wrote in reply protesting against the Residency being placed upon him. He said— I do not hesitate to admit that the existing state of affairs in Kashmir and Jammu urgently requires immediate introduction of substantial reforms into the administration of the country, and now that you have power commensurate with my responsibilities, I beg to answer your Excellency that nothing shall be spared on my part, and no time will be lost to prove beyond any possibility of doubt that it is my ambition to succeed in making my country a model of a well governed State in alliance with the Government of India. Having got the Resident at the capital, what do we find? We find that the Resident wants to get rid of the Ma harajah, he submits some Report to the Government, the particulars of which we do not know, and a Report, the particulars of which we do know, dated March 5th, 1888. Let me point out, in the first place, that in the Despatch of the 5th of March, 1888, there is nothing to justify any of the words of Lord Cross at Sheffield, or the words of the Under Secretary of State last week, as to misgovernment, or the words of the First Lord of the Treasury to-night. Now, what was the decision the Government of India came to in August, 1888? It was that the condition of the State did not seem to demand much action, as Mr. Plowden had suggested, and that the Government had, therefore, determined not to resort to measures which would have the effect, directly or indirectly, of taking the power out of the Maharaja's hands. Yet in less than seven months after that Despatch power was taken out of his hands, and taken out solely on these letters. Solely, perhaps, is a strong word to use; but immediately after taking possession of these letters suggesting the worst of crimes—letters which the Maharaja had always denied, and as to which he is always entitled to be heard before a Select Committee of this House, or before the Viceroy himself. He had confidence in the British Government; but he had no confidence in the officials, whom, he said, misrepresented him. The decision that there should be no interference with the Maharaja, directly or indirectly, disposes of Mr. Plowden's Report of the 8th of March, 1888. I come now to April, 1889, when we had some further action. I will first mention that on the 25th of July, 1888, Lord Dufferin wrote— I do not overlook the fact that, since the appointment of the Council of which Diwan Lachman Dass was a member, considerable progress has been made in the direction of reform; useful work has been done with regard to the revenue administration, and in the reorganisation of the Public Works and Medical Departments. But much remains to be done. This is not the language of condemnation of the chronic misgovernment and the grinding down of the people. Misgovernment is only an invention—an excuse for having dispossessed this man—and I think I have a right to quote this evidence given by Lord Dufferin in 1888. This unfortunate prince, hampered by the Resident, who dictated the policy he should pursue, did make reforms as entitled him to the praise of Lord Dufferin, a statesman of the greatest eminence, of the keenest judgment, and a man who cannot be charged with being at all partial to the class of man I am defending here this afternoon. Now, I come to these horrid letters. There is a batch of 34, and the Maharaja says that they are all forgeries. I do not ask you to say whether they are or are not, but I say that if they are used against him he is entitled to go into Court and cross-examine the witnesses against him. Other letters on which the Government have relied have been abandoned as forgeries within the memory of many of us in this House. What is the character of them as described by the Resident? The character of them is that the Maharaja offered large sums of money to certain individuals on condition that they would murder, or cause to be removed, Mr. Plowden, the late Resident. It is alleged that these letters showed treasonable correspondence with the enemies of England. All these things are denied by the Maharaja. I do not ask you to say whether the Maharaja is right or wrong; but I say that when letters alleging murder are produced against a Prince, with whom we have a Treaty of Alliance, immediately after which we take away his property, the commonest and the merest justice demands that he should have an opportunity of being heard before a Select Committee of this House, or some tribunal competent to deal with his offence, if offence he has committed. The Government are not going to stand by these letters to-night, but the Viceroy has stood by them, and I will read you words in which they are so stood by. The Viceroy said— In the spring of this year, that is last year, my attention was called to the documents referred to in your Highness's letter. Many of these had every appearance of being genuine, and they have, moreover, a striking resemblance to those other papers of which I have already spoken, and which came into the possession of the Government of India at a previous time. Your Highness is correct in expressing your belief that the action subsequently taken by my Government was not justified merely by the disclosures contained in these letters. Where is the report upon which they acted? The man had a right to be tried. The letters are vague statements. The Viceroy goes on— 'Notwithstanding the ample resources of your State your treasury was empty, Well, if you are going to dethrone every Prince whose treasury becomes empty I do not know how far you are prepared to carry your policy. Does the Government really mean that? If that be so, how is it they took from this man the advance or deposit or loan of a large sum of money amounting to 25 lacs of rupees? They had this in their hands when the Treasury was empty. Why did they take money for Lady Dufferin's admirable Fund? Why, if the treasury was empty, did they take millions of rupees for railway works in the interest of frontier defence? Treasury empty Why you and your Resident helped to empty it, and then you tell this unfortunate man it is a reason why he should be dethroned?

THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Sir J. GORST,) Chatham

Will the hon. Gentleman finish the sentence?

*MR. BRADLAUGH

You put on the Table what you please, and with the House half empty, because every Member feels the difficulty when a Motion for adjournment is moved, I have, with such knowledge as is supplied, to make what case I can with this far off matter.

SIR J. GORST

I only interrupted the hon. Gentleman to point out that he had not read the sentence to the end, and I thought to put the case fairly it should be given to the end.

*MR. BRADLAUGH

I will read it to the end, and show that the right hon. Gentleman gains nothing by making me read it— Notwithstanding the ample resources of your State your Treasury was empty; corruption and disorder prevailed in every Department and every office; Your Highness was stilt surrounded by low and unworthy favourites, and the continued misgovernment of your State was becoming every day a more serious source of anxiety. Well, there is not a word affecting finance there. I was going to deal with each allegation in turn. "Low and unworthy favourites!" Every Prince has these, even in his own household; every Oriental Prince has such. The whole history of our transactions with native feudatory Princes shows that when we have wanted to take their money, their land, their position, we have used vices which appeared at the time to suit our purposes and help us to gain our ends. I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman means by inviting me to read to the end, as if I had omitted some allusion to the empty Treasury. Why, the Indian Government had then 25 lacs of rupees of his, and millions of rupees had been laid out in railway works. Who are these low and unworthy people 2 It is not enough to make a vague statement; where is the evidence? Let the man be tried. A man complains of a burglary in his jeweller's shop, and you say to him, "Oh, but you were misusing the jewels." I ask the House to take at least some tone of dignity in this matter. This irresponsible Government of India, as an Indian Secretary once said, has no public opinion to influence it, no Parliament to control it, no Press to criticise it. The Government of India is a despotism; that has, in many degrees, been well for India; it is a despotism which has brought in its train advantages which many of these poor people would not otherwise have obtained; but it cannot be denied that in many respects that despotism in the past has been tainted with fraud and crime, and I hope it is not left to the present Government to revive these evil traditions in obtaining possession of Kashmir. The Empress Queen, the paramount Power acting as Judge, has condemned this man unheard. No man should be under menace of this. The grandfather of this Prince bought these lands, and we, by Treaty, declared they belonged to him for ever. [Sir J. GORST expressed dissent.] The right hon. Gentleman does not seem to be acquainted with all these facts in the history of India. Shall I ask him to read and tell us the exact sum paid for the Maharajah's dominions? How do the Government justify their action? They say the Maharajah resigned; he says he did nothing of the kind. I am more inclined to believe him than even the Under Secretary, for whose statements I have always the profoundest respect. Officially there could be nothing better than the way he answers questions in this House; but when history, some 50 years hence, comes to deal with him, the comment of the historian will be, how wickedly the Government officials deceived the Under Secretary, making him say as truth the things that were not true. It is said the Maharajah voluntarily resigned. It is true that on March 8, 1889, the Maharajah issued the following document. I will abridge it; if it is suggested I am incorrect, I will read the whole willingly, but I do not think my abridgment will differ from the exact words. The Maharajah appointed a Council who were to govern the country for five years, he reserving to himself all his princely rights and reserving certain powers, but allowing them much the same authority, as allowing for Oriental position, a Cabinet enjoys here. The Government of India do not accept that yet; they say they accepted a voluntary resignation. What he offered they would not have; what they wanted they took from him. The Maharajah says he acted under pressure. I do not ask the House to decide that; but I do say that he is entitled to a Select Committee here, or I may say he would be content with an inquiry conducted in India if Lord Lansdowne will give his personal attention to it. The right hon. Gentleman is better acquainted with the Government of India than I am. He knows that Residents are not always perfect; that Residents sometimes quarrel with a Prince, and that matters are alleged as facts which do not always bear the test and scrutiny of examination. This man, through my mouth, appeals to this House, not that you should make a decree that the Government of India is wrong; he simply asks for an inquiry. He has a right to that inquiry. I regret that the appeal is not made by an abler tongue—by a better-informed man. But I am limited to the information in the Parliamentary Papers presented to the House and such records as the history of India enables me to present, and I say without fear of contradiction that no case is made out for the action that has been taken. In 1888 the Government of India and the Secretary of State in Council at home came to the conclusion there was nothing for which, directly or indirectly, the; Maharajah ought to be deprived of power, and within seven months they take it all away. If you trample on Treaties; if your obligations to the Princes of India are to be broken, and the native rulers are not to rely on your word, and English justice in India is a shadow and a delusion, let that be known, but let those who hold a contrary opinion vote for my Motion as the means of protest. The government of India should be no Party question, either to Liberal or Conservative, Radical or Whig; our duty and our interest demand that our paramount rule in India should be just.

Motion made, and Question proposed, 'That this House do now adjourn."—

*(5.43.) SIR J. GORST

I do not for a moment dispute the right of the hon. Member to challenge the action of the Government of India or to ask the House to order an inquiry if there is anything to inquire into. If the House will give me its attention for a short time, I will tell the House why the Government of India has acted in the manner it has, and why it appears to the Secretary of State this is not a subject which can properly be made matter of inquiry either by Judicial Commission in India or by Select Committee of the House of Commons. I need not take the House back to the early history of Kashmir; the hon. Member for Northampton has, in the little history he has given, indicated to the House that after the Sikh War we by force of arms placed a Hindoo ruler over the Mohamedan people of Kashmir; and, by doing this, we incurred, as it seems to me, the responsibility of seeing that these Mahomedan people who by the action of the British Government were subjected to an alien dynasty were at least fairly and properly governed. Now, complaints of the misgovernment of Kashmir are not so modern as the hon. Member for Northampton seems to suppose. I should like to read to the House the observations which were made by the Government of Lord Ripon in 1884, and Lord Ripon was a Viceroy whose error did not, at all events, lie in over-interference with Native Chiefs. This was what was said by his Government in 1884:—"The misgovernment to which the people of this country (Kashmir) have long been subjected."—The hon. Member for Northampton asks what the nature of the misgovernment was, and I will try before I sit down to give the House some faint idea of the nature and results of this misgovernment. Lord Ripon said— The people of that country have long been subjected to misgovernment, and this was some time since brought prominently into notice by Mr. Henvey. We did not take action at once, conceiving that a favourable opportunity would offer on the occasion of a fresh succession. The Maharajah Runbir Singh was then suffering from a mortal illness, and his death was expected. When that event takes place, we shall consider that it will be our duty to impress on the Kashmir Government its obligations to its own subjects, and to so that reforms so urgently needed are no longer postponed. To those remarks of Lord Ripon's Government an answer was returned by Lord Kimberley, Secretary of State under the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, and Lord Kimberley stated in his Despatch his doubts whether the Government of India was justified in hesitating, so long as it had hesitated, to interfere in the affairs of Kashmir. It may, indeed, be questioned whether, having regard to the circumstances under which a Hindoo family were settled as rulers, the intervention of the British Government on behalf of the Mahomedan people had not already been too long delayed. Well, the Government of India waited 18 months, and in 1885 the late Maharajah died and the present Maharajah came to the Throne. The hon. Member for Northampton has already read some of the warnings which were addressed to the present Maharajah of Kashmir on the occasion of his ascending the Throne, but he said—and I really was surprised when he made the statement to the House—that until quite recently no complaint was made of his administration, and, in fact, he quoted a few expressions from some of Lord Dufferin's Despatches which would have left upon the House the impression that, upon the whole, the Government had been very successfully administered, and many reforms had been carried out. Now, what did Mr. Plowden say in March, 1888? He thought it his duty to call the formal attention of the Government of India to the fearful condition of Kashmir under the Maharajah and his associates, whom he calls a band of corrupt and mischievous men. Mr. Plowden says— I think, however, that the Government of India should be under no illusion as regards Maharajah Pertab Singh. From first to last I have failed to discover in him any sustained capacity for governing his country or any genuine desire to ameliorate its condition, or to introduce those reforms which he has acknowledged to be necessary. More than two years have passed since his accession, but not only has he achieved nothing, but he has opposed beneficial measures proposed by others He will never, of his own free will, establish a capable and honest administration; nor if any power of interference is left him, will he permit any administration appointed by the Government of India to carry on the business of the country. He will thwart and oppose it in every way he dares; the only restraint will be the limit of his power and his fears. Well, at the same time that Mr. Plowden made this grave Report to the Government of India on the condition of the country and the character of the Maharajah, a proposal was made by the Maharajah himself to appoint a Council.

*MR. BRADLAUGH

The right hon. Gentleman will pardon me. I stated to the House that on the Report of Mr. Plowden the Government came to the decision not to take the power from the Maharajah, and that Lord Dufferin contradicted Mr. Plowden, by recognising the fact that since the appointment of the Council, of which Diwan Lachman Dass was a member, considerable progress had been made in the direction of reforms.

SIR J. GORST

The hon. Member is impatient. I am coming to that. I shall have something more to say first. At the time that this Report was being sent home, application was made by the Maharajah to have a Council appointed, upon which the Government of India decided to give him another trial to see whether, by his Council, he would govern the country better. I must say, speaking by the light of after events, it was unfortunate that the Government of India set aside the Report of Mr. Plowden, and gave the Maharajah what, in vulgar phrase, would be called "another chance" I confess, if the hon. Member for Northampton, instead of attacking the Government of India for having at last relieved the Maharajah of the functions of government, had attacked the Government for being so weak in 1888 as to give this second chance, I am sure that I, as Under Secretary, would have found it difficult to make out a good defensive case. But Lord Dufferin decided on this course. He wrote a complimentary letter to the Maharajah, which the hon. Member has read, and no doubt he made use of the expressions the hon. Member has quoted as to the success of the Council, since the appointment of Diwan Lachman Dass, under whom considerable progress, he said, had been made in the direction of reform. But will the House believe that the object of that letter, on which the hon. Member relies as showing the improvement in the government of the country, was to remonstrate with the Maharajah for dismissing summarily, and without the knowledge of the Government of India, that same Diwan Lachman Dass, whose reforms were praised in the passage of Lord Dufferin's letter which the hon. Member has quoted as praising the Maharajah for the improvements in the government of the country. The beginning of Lord Dufferin's letter which the hon. Member has not quoted is as follows:— I cannot avoid informing your Highness that the news of the sudden removal of Diwan Lachman Dass was received by me with some surprise. Your Highness appointed him to your Council after consulting me, and I hoped that your Highness would, before making another change of Government, give me some previous intimation of your views. However, this point has already been brought to your notice by Mr. Plowden, and I do not now desire to dwell upon it further. Well, the arrangements for governing the-country by means of a Council were made, and, in order to give the new scheme the fullest possible chance of success, Mr. Plowden was removed from Kashmir on the occasion of his promotion, and Colonel Nisbet, a personal friend of the Maharajah, and in whom the Maharajah placed implicit confidence, was sent to Kashmir. Now, I said I would give the House some little idea of the misgovernment that the hon. Member for Northampton treated so lightly, and of which he said no trace was to be found in the Papers before the House. Now, if hon. Members have read the Papers, they will see that they close with the Report of a certain gentleman of the name of Wingate. Mr. Wingate was a Revenue Officer of the Bombay Government of 19 years' experience, and he had also been employed in the revenue settlement of some of the native States of Rajputana. He was a highly qualified and experienced officer. He was employed by the Maharajah's Government, and his Report well deserves the study of anybody who desires to understand the position of Kashmir, although it is full of technicalities and written in a dry businesslike technical spirit, but his narrative is enlivened occasionally by the most horrible statements as to the condition of Kashmir. Let me say this gentleman was 18 months among the people surveying in Kashmir and Jummoo, and the appears to have gone to work in a dry business-like fashion. In these Oriental States we know that the foundation of the happiness of the people consists in the correct measure- ment of their land. The first thing Mr. Wingate discovered was that the measurement of the land upon which the ryots paid their rent was altogether incorrect against the ryots.

*MR. BRADLAUGH

Does the right hon. Gentleman represent that in any way that this was done under the direction of the Maharajah?

*SIR JOHN GORST

The evil existed under the Government of the Maharajah, and was approved by the Maharajah's Government.

*MR. BRADLAUGH

Mr. Wingate's Report referred to the existing state of things, part of the condition of things that had long existed over Kashmir, was no part of the mis-government of the Maharajah.

*SIR JOHN GORST

It was part of the condition of things in Kashmir under a Government of which the Maharajah was the head. I do not know whether the Maharajah shields himself under the allegation that all this had happened in the past, and that he was not responsible for the misgovernment which he allowed to exist. I do not think this House will take such a view of the limitations of the Maharajah's duties to his subjects. Besides, we have read Mr. Plowden's Report, in which it is stated that the Maharajah opposed those reforms which were admitted to be necessary. Now, under the land system in Kashmir the assessment of the ryots is arbitrarily fixed, and a divisional official gets the revenue out of the unhappy cultivators in the best way he can, the result being that from one-half to two-thirds of the gross produce of the land was exacted from these unhappy people, mostly in kind and partly also in cash.

*MR. BRADLAUGH

Does not Mr. Wingate say that existed as far back as 1874?

*SIR J. GORST

I have been reading the Report.

*MR. BRADLAUGH

You have not been reading at all.

*SIR J. GORST

The hon. Member challenged me to say what the mis-government had been in Kashmir.

*MR. BRADLAUGH

I challenged the right hon. Gentleman to prove specific acts of misgovernment on the part of the Maharajah.

*SIR J. GORST

I am in the recollection of the House. I appeal to hon. Members whether, if the case rested solely on the speech of the hon. Member for Northampton, they would not have gone away in the belief that Kashmir was the best governed country in the world. I am showing what was the state of the affairs which compelled the Government of India to take this action. I am going to show the House why the Government in the interests of humanity were peremptorily called upon to take this step. [A laugh.] The hon. Member may laugh, but I think it is not a laughing matter. Now, let me describe what was done. The assessment was paid at fixed rates in kind, that is to say, it was levied on the people in money value, and then they were made to give produce at certain fixed and prescribed rates in lieu of paying the assessment in cash. In the case of rice, the main staple which the ryots cultivated, the prescribed rate was extremely unfavourable to the cultivator—all this is in Mr. Wingate's Report, and if I am epitomising it unfairly the hon. Member can subsequently correct me. I do not see why he should interrupt me now—but the prescribed rates for cotton, which is grown by the richer ryots, were very favourable. Therefore it came to this, that the Officers of the Revenue allowed the rich ryots to pay on the staple bearing the most favourable rate, while the poor ryots had to pay on the staple bearing the most unfavourable rates. Every year, says Mr. Wingate in his Report, "the bulk of the rise goes into the city;" and further, he adds, "these poor ryots often have to buy it back at two or three times the price at which it was credited to them in their assessment." And then this dry technical Report contains this statement, "In this fertile valley there are women and children actually starving." Further on it says— It may be easier now to understand why the Kashmir cares naught for rights in land, why his fields are fallow or full of weeds, and manure and water neglected, why he has, as I can well believe, even to be forced to cultivate. The revenue system is such that, whether he works much or little, he is left with barely enough to get along on till next harvest. He is a machine to produce Sháli for a very large and most idle city population.

MR. MACNEILL) (Donegal, S.

Like Ireland!

*SIR J. GORST

A city, the population of which consists of officials and of Hindoo pundits, who have prepared the brief from which the hon. Member for Northampton spoke. These men get their rice cheap, while the ryot who grows it, and is forbidden to dispose of it for export starves. Again, Mr. Wingate says that The cultivator is compelled to grow rice, and in many years to part with it below the proper market rate, in order that the city may be content. If the harvest is too little for both, the city must be supplied, and is supplied, by any force that may be necessary, and the cultivator and his children must go without. That is the explanation of the angry discontent that filled the valley during the famine. The cultivator is considered to have rights neither to his land nor to his crops. The city population have a right to be well fed whether there is famine or not. and that is not all. The officials of the Revenue contractors are gradually in Kashmir converting themselves into landlords. They get grants of waste land, they foreclose upon ryots who are indebted, and they purchase a considerable part of the land, and as Mr. Wingate says— Since the death of the Maharajah Golab Singh, from which date central authority appears to have been weaker, there has been a steadily, and, latterly, rapidly increasing transference of land from the cultivating to the non-cultivating classes, and a landlord element is intruding itself between the cultivator and the State. I earnestly commend this to the attention of some of the hon. Members from Ireland. Then besides this, there exists among the unhappy ryots a system of begar, or forced labor. This scourge, which is peculiar to the Government villages, and from which the villages which happen to be in the hands of these landlords are free, is imposed upon the people with the utmost severity.

*MR. BRADLAUGH

I venture to make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman. I fancy that by the Rules of the House I have no right of reply. I wish to ask him, in reference to this forced labour, whether it is not a fact that the system prevailed long before the death of the father of this unfortunate gentleman, and whether the Maharajah did not himself issue a decree abolishing it?

*MR. SPEAKER

Order, order! I may explain that the hon. Member will be entitled to reply, and it would be more convenient therefore for him to reserve his comments.

*SIR J. GORST

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity of replying, because otherwise he will not wait patiently to hear the end of my argument. He challenged me to show misgovernment in Kashmir. I am telling him what exists there, and presently I will ask him what was the Government of India to do under the circumstances. This forced labour was so unreasonably enforced on the people that if 20 coolies were wanted it was customary to requisition a hundred. Eighty would buy themselves off with payments to the officers, and 20 of the poorest would be compelled to do the duty. And it was so serious and so formidable that they left their homes and hid themselves for days in order to escape the work. I am speaking of matters which are within the knowledge of many hon. Members of this House who have served in India. But I am bound to repeat them when this House is asked to censure the conduct of the Government of India. Mr. Wingate says that the cultivators under this Hindoo rule have been pressed down to the condition of coolies cultivating the State property at subsistence allowance. This has been going on in Kashmir for years, and what has been the result? The population has been reduced by one-half, the ryots are deserting the country wherever they can do so, the villages are ruined, the bridges broken down, the irrigation channels are abandoned, and a population under the protection of a British Government which boasts of its Christianity and its civilisation, has sunk into a condition which I have tried faintly to describe. "They are gaunt with want and famine, they gnaw the ground in wasteness and desolation." This, Mr. Speaker, is a description of the condition of the unhappy people of Kashmir, which seems to have moved the laughter of the hon. Member opposite. I should have thought he would have treated the subject more seriously. Such was the condition of the people—a condition which weighed upon the Government of India and the Secretary of State, who had hoped almost against hope that the new arrangement of the Maharajah would afford some amelioration in the condition of the people. But no Colonel Nisbett, appointed Resident because he was the Maharajah's friend, arrived at precisely the same conclusion as Mr. Plowden, and his conversion to those views was announced to the Government of India at the time of the discovery of the treasonable criminal letters, to which the hon. Member for Northampton has alluded. These letters, in spite of what the hon. Member says, have never been treated by the Government of India as serious, nor have they been made the ground for the exclusion of the Maharajah from interference in the public affairs of Kashmir. They might never have been noticed had they not been accompanied by the resignation, of his own accord, of part of his power. The Government of India, at the outset, said they were not disposed to attach excessive importance to these letters. They also wrote that they did not exclusively base their action upon the Maharajah's edict of resignation, but the edict gave them an occasion—and they would have been criminal if they had neglected to avail themselves of it—for placing the affairs of Kashmir on a more satisfactory basis. The Despatch in which these conclusions were announced to the Secretary of State contains these words— We greatly regret the necessity for any interference at all, but we are now convinced that, in the interests of the people of Kashmir, and of the ruling family itself, it is no longer right or possible to leave the control of affairs in the hands of the Maharajah. In the whole of this business the Government of India have carefully avoided acting upon any personal grounds and I must object to the hon. Member for Northampton, and those who instruct him, trying to make out that this is a sort of personal question between the Maharajah and the Government of India. They insist on making out that the Maharajah has been deposed from his throne because of these letters, or because of some personal vices, or because of his own resignation. Not one of these is the real ground upon which the Government of India has acted. As I have stated in this House, in answer to questions over and over again, the Government of India has acted in the interests of the people of Kashmir and of their right to better Government. I can only say that, in my humble opinion, these reforms could not longer be delayed, and, if anything, both the Government of Mr. Gladstone and the present Government ought to reproach themselves for the long delay. It is a curious example of the irony of fate that the Radical Member for Northampton should be pleading in this House the Divine right of an Oriental despot to deal with his people as he pleases, and that I, a humble but reactionary Tory, should be pleading the right of these poor Moslems of Jummoo to cultivate their own land. But we have of late been accustomed in this House to strange sights. I ask the House to look at the Papers and see how careful the Government of India has been of the right of this reigning family. Will the House believe that in the Government of this country, the Government which is the paramount power in Kashmir, not an Englishman sits on the Council, which is composed exclusively of the natives of the State, and includes two members of the reigning family. The Government of India does not, and never has, in its policy interfered with the personal rights of the chiefs of India. It has been most careful of all existing rights, of all rights that affect the chiefs. But there is one right which it regards as more sacred than even the rights of Oriental despots to their thrones, and that is the right of the people who live under the protection of the power of Great Britain to just and upright Government. I hope that the House of Commons will not stand in the way of justice being done to the people of Kashmir. I hope that the House of Commons to-night will, by a large majority, approve the conduct of the Government of India in at last interfering in this unhappy State, and in allowing the Maharajah of Kashmir and the chiefs of India generally to know that, although their rights are respected, it is on the condition that their people are moderately happy and moderately justly governed.

*(6.24.) MR. BRADLAUGH

I will, Sir, at once take advantage of the right of reply which you have ruled rests with me. The point I wish to state is so important that I think it better to put it before the House at once. I say that the Report of Mr. Wingate refers to no specific act of misgovernment by the deposed Maharajah. It relates a state of things which obtained long prior to the Maharajah's birth, and which he has himself partially remedied since his accession to power. In September, 1885, he actually issued a decree abolishing forced labour both in Kashmir and in Jummoo, so far as he could, and in another decree he removed the cause of complaint as to the price of edibles. For three years this unfortunate man, step by step, took up reforms; and in one of his Despatches he speaks of the settlement of the land question as a task which it would take five years to deal with. I never said that the Government of Kashmir was perfect; on the contrary, I said that, like all Oriental Governments, it had many defects, and that the people of Kashmir were in a state of misery and difficulty, from which millions of the population of India were not free. I repeat that no specific act of misgovernment has been even pretended to be proved against the Maharajah, and that, so far as Mr. Plowden's Report is concerned, the decision of the Government of India itself was that it did not justify any interference on their part.

(6.26.) MR. MACNEILL

The Under Secretary for India is always interesting, and his great abilities add additional charms to what he says. But on this occasion I think he was scarcely fair in accusing me of smiling at the sufferings of these people. I see too much suffering to regard it otherwise than with infinite sorrow and sympathy. What I smiled at was this. Knowing, as I do, the infamous transactions and secret springs which I intend to expose, I smiled that a gentleman representing a Government guilty of such conduct should claim universal benevolence and pretend to be benefiting the people, whereas they are robbing an ancient Prince of his inheritance. The right hon. Gentleman was careful to put forward the religious question, and to point out that the Maharajah was a Hindoo, while his subjects were Mahommedans. But I can tell him that if he would take a pl°biscite of the inhabitants of Kashmir he would find that three-fourths of the people favour the restoration of the Prince. We know that 40,000,000 of our subjects in India are in a constant state of starvation, and that during the famine in 1877 the number of deaths from famine exceeded the population of London. Surely our efforts at administration in India have not been so successful as to justify our bringing more of the natives under our system. I heard the speech of the right hon. Gentleman; I must say I thought it a most shifting defence. I can only repeat the statement of an eminent statesman who once said that the iniquities of the Government of India are so rank that they smell from earth to heaven. We are in precisely the same situation to-day. I may say that I speak on behalf of all my Colleagues. We are all in sympathy with the suffering and the injured classes.

*MR. SPEAKER

Order, order! The hon. Gentleman is speaking of matters that do not arise on the Question before the House, on account of which the adjournment of the House was moved.

MR. MACNEILL

I bow to your ruling, Sir; but I think I have a right to put it to the House whether the charges made by my hon. Friend cannot be substantiated by investigation. I think I shall be enabled to prove that the Maharajah has been deprived of his inheritance simply by the pursuance of an annexation policy, which was the approximate cause of the Indian Mutiny. What has happened has been what is called in Ireland "land-grabbing." The Maharajah, who was placed in his position many years ago, has displayed nothing but kindness and loyalty to British rule. He was placed on that throne, and it was reserved to him and his heirs, and in the meantime he has acted well towards this country. With regard to the letters on which so much stress has been laid none of them have been read to the House. Their date is important, because they came into the possession of the Government of India just about the time when Pigott's forgeries appeared in the Times. The Government of India has resorted to the old dodge of forged letters in order to destroy character of this Prince. The Government had no right to depose a Prince without rhyme or reason, and it is the duty of this House to do all in its power to prevent them from doing so.

(6.45.) MR. HUNTER

Mr. Speaker, the defence which has been offered on the part of the Government does not explain the degradation from his rank of the Maharajah of Kashmir, and the act of wholly unjustifiable spoliation. One remark with which the Under Secretary of State wound up his remarks, intended to be eloquent, was an appeal to this House on behalf of the poor Moslem cultivators. Why the Moslem cultivators? Surely, a Hindoo, if he happens to be a cultivator, is as much entitled to sympathy as the Moslem. But the right hon. Gentleman laid stress on the word Moslem in order to excite those unhappy religious prejudices which, unfortunately, prevail in India. He knew that in India, unfortunately, both Moslems and Hindoos are animated by strong fanatical opinions on the subject of religion, leading to collisions and breaches of the peace. And here is the Under Secretary for India, in this House, pointing his moral by the contrast between the Moslem and the Hindoo peasants, and trying thus to fan the embers of religious antipathy. What are the reasons which he adduced why the Maharajah should be deposed? Not one of the reasons had the slightest relation to anything that was done by the Maharajah of Kashmir himself. That I pass by. But what is the state of the country upon which he relies? There were three arguments. The first argument was that in consequence of the mismanagement of the revenue derived from the land there was a great deal of poverty in the country, and that the population had largely diminished. Well, I was amazed to hear a Minister sitting on that side of the House raising that as an argument, why the Maharajah of Kashmir should be deposed, because the Maharajah has equally good reason for deposing you from the Government of Ireland, if that argument has any validity whatever. But that is not the only thing. We are told that the land revenue is extortionate. That is, no doubt, the reason why you are putting out the Maharajah and putting in yourselves. There is no doubt a margin, a large margin, which excites the cupidity of the British Government, and induces them to take possession of that country. But all this argument simply comes to this point, that, according to the view of the Government of India, the ancient, not the recent, mode of collecting the Revenue from the land is defective, and that oppresions arise in the exercise of the right; so that, according to the eloquent language of the right hon. Gentleman, the people are starving in the midst of plenty. That is precisely the condition of things in Ireland. The case of Ireland is precisely an analogous case. Not a single argument adduced by the right hon. Gentleman in reference to Kashmir but is applicable to Ireland, in the eyes of impartial people living outside the latter country. I am afraid the transaction is a very doubtful one, when it has to be supported by such exceedingly ludicrous statements as those which have been advanced by the Under Secretary of State.

*(6.50.) SIR R. TEMPLE

Mr. Speaker, I feel bound to trouble the House for a very few moments on this subject, because I am one of those Members who happen to know this country of Kashmir. I have travelled over every portion of it repeatedly, and for years I was officially connected with it; and though I never had the pleasure of knowing the Maharajah of Kashmir personally, unless I may have seen him as a child, yet I knew his father well, and his grandfather also. Now, Sir, much has been said by the hon. Member for Northampton and by the hon. Member for South Donegal, and again by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, who has just sat down, regarding the ambitious or greedy eye which England has cast upon Kashmir. Indeed, in effect, the language used by hon. Members embodies the charge that England is attempting a theft of territory. Indeed, the hon. Member for Northampton exhausted the resources of phraseology in accusing England of appropriating the lands of others. But is the House aware that England gains not one rood by the transactions which are now under consideration? All that happens is the transfer of the sovereignty from one brother to another. The power, the wealth, the property, remains in the Same family; it is a mere exchange from one person to another as Regent. England remains exactly in the same position as she was before, and is in no wise benefited. She has acted with entire disinterestedness, and whether she is wrong or whether she is right, her sole object has been to benefit the people of Kashmir. What ground has the hon. Member for South Donegal for saying that we want a frontier there? I am afraid the hon. Member does not know what our frontiers are. We have no military frontier in that direction. It is not from there we should be invaded. No, Sir, the mighty-mountains of the Himalayas constitute an impassable barrier to any enemy, either from Asia or from Europe. Then, Sir, the hon. Member for Aberdeen seemed to find fault with my right hon. Friend the Under Secretary, for saying that the Moslem of Kashmir must be protected. The hon. Member entirely misapprehended my right hon. Friend's meaning. What my right hon. Friend meant was this, that the Maharajah of Kashmir is a Hindoo potentate, and that we interfered by force of arms to place him over a Moslem population—a population which was not Hindoo at all by allegiance or by tradition. They were, therefore, placed under an alien prince by the action of the British Government. My right hon. Friend meant to say that we were bound to see that the Moslem population suffered nothing at the hands of the Hindoo masters whom we had set over them. And the hon. Member for Aberdeen spoke of the gratitude which we owe the Maharajah of Kashmir. I am not prepared to deny that Sovereigns of his house have behaved well—his grandfather co-operated with us during the darkest days of the Mutiny. But, after all, the gratitude was due from him to us rather than from us to him. He was our ally. We had placed him on the throne for political reasons of our own, and he was bound to act for us when we required his services. Something has been said of the several British Residents. I was grieved to hear the terms of disparagement in which the hon. Member for Northampton spoke of those most able servants of the State. At all events, they have no Party purpose to serve; they are above partisan considerations. They may, like all men, be liable to error, but they are completely disinterested, and their action is based on inflexible impartiality. In this case it was not one or two, but three Residents—men of different ideas, but who all came to the same conclusion respecting the Government of Kashmir. Then, Sir, regarding the misgovernment. I quite admit that reforms were at one time introduced and carried out to a considerable extent. I, myself, in former days, have been witness to them. But I am afraid those reforms came to a termination, or at least declined. But, Sir, much was said, and with great truth, by my right hon. Friend, with regard to mismanagement of the Land Revenue, and the gross oppression which was practised upon the ryots. I quite admit that the abuses are not recent, and the Report which has been read to-night confirms what I used to hear when I was connected with the Foreign Department in India. But I am afraid that the evils have now reached alarming proportions, perhaps even a monstrous development. The hon. Member for Aberdeen speaks of the decreasing population. Now of all countries, Kashmir is the most favoured physically. The climate may be severe in winter, but in summer the land smiles with fertility, and is as bountiful as any place in the world. Indeed, nature has lavished advantages on what once was the Happy Valley. That its population is decreasing, is a sure sign of misgovernment. I quite admit that there may have been outbreaks of cholera and other epidemics; but as for famine, it is the last place in the world where such a calamity would be expected. The question comes, what is the nature of the misgovernment? Well, now, I submit that that is a question which should be left to the responsible Government on the spot. Surely it is our duty to see that a good Government is set up in that Empire, and when it has been set up do not harass it, or interfere with it, or try to establish Committees of Inquiry here to investigate matters, which can hardly be made the subject of specific inquiry by evidence, by prosecution, by defence, and so forth, but which must be left to the discretion of the responsible Government on the spot. If we are to have a Government at all in India we must entrust such affairs as these to that Government. There is, we are told, a bad system in this State of Kashmir; that the population is decreasing; property is not secure; that communications are not looked after; that the whole land is going rapidly to ruin, and that all Departments are falling to a low level. But how are we to examine into these matters by an inquiry such as is asked for? Such questions are hardly susceptible of quasi-judicial inquiry. We all know how that would end. It would end in the acquittal of the accused, while everyone knew that mal-administration existed. All these matters should he left to the Governor General in Council, and he is responsible for dealing with matters which are within his purview and not within ours, and to him we leave the responsibility. An inquiry of this kind would have a bad effect in India. The hon. Member for Northampton speaks as if this political measure of superseding the Maharajah of Kashmir would have a bad effect; but I can assure him that to have an inquiry of the kind which has been suggested, in which the whole Government of Kashmir would be overhauled by a formal investigation, would be a measure above all others calculated to alarm the Native Princes of India, and would be repugnant to those very purposes whom he proposes to serve.

*(7.2.) SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLE-WORTH (Lancashire, Clitheroe)

In this Debate we have been placed under the disadvantage that the Papers relating to Kashmir are not yet in the hands of Members. But by the courtesy of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir John Gorst), I have had the advantage of perusing these Papers for a short time, and it is only fair that I should rise to say, that so far as I can judge from a hasty perusal of the Papers, and following carefully the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, he has stated the case as regards the action of successive Viceroys and successive Secretaries of State in their relation to the late Maharajah of Kashmir and the present Maharajah with perfect fairness. I may venture to say one or two words more as to whether the facts which have been laid before us show a necessity for such an inquiry as is asked for. I believe if hon. Members will examine these Papers, they will find that there is nothing in them to call for a review by a Parliamentary Committee of the patient and deliberate action of the Government of India, who seem to have hesitated long before taking any strong step, although the misgovernment of the Maharajah has been, I fear, of a very glaring description. I would only venture to make this one remark. It should be a satisfaction to hon. Members on this side of the House to find, with respect to the Government of India, that it has not been drawn into the annexation policy which my hon. Friend deprecates, but that it leaves the Government of Kashmir under a Council of natives guided by the Resident; and in concluding a Despatch addressed by the Viceroy of India to the Maharajah of Kashmir, the Viceroy treats him with the greatest consideration and courtesy, and expresses a hope that it may be possible to give greater power to him in the future. At present the Maharajah is put in an ornamental position. He is not deposed, but simply relieved of the powers of ruler of the country; and these powers are confided to a Council. I hope, therefore, the House will pause before voting for this Motion.

*(7.6.) SIR W. PLOWDEN) (Wolverhampton, W.

I will not detain the House for more than a few minutes, but I am not at all satisfied with the statement of the Under Secretary of State for India. The course of the Debate has rather taken us from the point we ought to have before us, and I am very much surprised to hear the remarks which have fallen from the right hon. Member who has just spoken, in face of the glaring case which has been made by the Member for Northampton. The Member for Northampton is condemning the action of the Government of India, and is asking the House to express its sense of the course taken by the Government of India with respect to the Maharajah of Kashmir, and his complaint is that they have not given this man a chance of clearing himself from the charges which have been brought against him. It is not to a Parliamentary Inquiry that this man's chance of clearing himself is to be entrusted. Why should we not have a Judicial Inquiry, and why is it that the Government are refusing to give this man a real investigation into the charges made against him? From what we have had brought before us, there is real reason to believe that not only has considerable misgovernment been going on in Kashmir in preceding reigns as now, but that there has been no reproof administered as to this misgovernment. The right hon. Gentleman asks us are we going to stand in the way of justice being done in Kashmir, but is he going to stand in the way of justice being done to the Maharajah? If he asserts that he (the Maharajah) is innocent of the charges brought against him—

SIR JOHN GORST

There are no charges.

*SIR W. PLOWDEN

Then if there are no charges why is he deposed? Evidently there must be some misconduct attributed to this man; in fact, we know there is, because the whole defence put up by the Government is that he has been misconducting the Government, and because he has been doing so he has been deposed. He says, "I have not misconducted the Government; I am not guilty, and I ask to have my case inquired into." If the hon. Member for Northampton presses his Motion to a Division, I shall be bound to support him, unless we get a clear assertion from the right hon. Gentleman that he will send out instructions to the Government of India to form some Judicial Commission which shall inquire into the charges alleged.

(7.10.) The House divided:—Ayes 88; Noes 226.—(Div. List, No. 174.)