HL Deb 26 July 1860 vol 160 cc188-93
THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH,

in rising to ask by whose Direction and under whose Inspection certain Articles of the Value of between £30,000 and £40,000 of a perishable nature and inferior quality, equal to Fifteen Years' Supply, were sent out to India for the use of the Royal Artillery at Bombay, as mentioned in a letter from the Governor of Bombay, dated 12th of March, 1860, referred to in Mr. Willoughby's Dissent, p. 11, Lords Parliamentary Paper (242), said, that it had, of course, been his duty to road all the various papers which had recently been laid before that and the other House of Parliament on the subject of the very important measure proposed by the Government for extinguishing the local army of India. A few days ago he read, among the last printed papers, the dissent of a great many of the Members of the Council of India against the measure suspending recruiting for the local European army. At the head of it appeared the name of Mr. Willoughby, a gentleman of very great ability, formerly for many years Secretary to the Government of Bombay, and afterwards a Member of the Council of that Presidency. Among other observations that gentleman considered that "under no other system (than the present) can the military expenditure on account of India in this country be effectually checked and controlled, or the tendency sometimes manifested to cast undue charges on the Government of India be resisted." He mentioned that there were many instances in which this had been done, but confined himself to four. He (the Earl of Ellenborough) would confine himself to one. Mr. Willoughby said,— We have recently received a remonstrance from the Bombay Government against costly stores being sent out without requisition by the War Department. It appears that perishable articles, chiefly harness of the value of between £30,000 and £10,000, were sent out for the use of the Royal Artillery, equal to fifteen years' supply, for which there was no immediate need. The Inspector General of Magazines and Horses observed,—' He had ascertained that this harness cost three lacs of rupees, exclusive of freight and storage and other incidental expenses, and is in quantity sufficient for fifteen years' supply of the Royal Artillery. The whole of the pommels are more or less moth-eaten, and, unless put into wear, will rapidly deteriorate and become unserviceable. Most of the harness has a soiled appearance, and has every indication of having been made up some years.' Now, he understood this was by no means a solitary instance of stores being sent out to India without any requisition from the Indian authorities. He was told—he knew not but he might state it as an absolute fact—that the stores sent out without a requisition amounted to considerably more than £1,000,000 in value. He had no recollection of any such system being acted upon during the various periods when he was connected with the Government of India. He believed that on all occasions the practice was to send out stores only on the requisition of the Indian authorities. However, to confirm his own impressions on the subject he had made inquiry, and he found from the very best authority—a gentleman who had been a great many years in the Store Department—that the fact was as he had represented, except only in the case of personal appointments and equipments. Whatever faults the Board of Directors of the East India Company had, and no doubt they had their faults, he must admit that they were most faithful guardians of the public purse of India; they took very good care that no portion of the revenue of India should be misappropriated—that it should all be applied to the purposes of India, and to no other purpose. He did not believe if the Court of Directors had not been superseded by the Secretary of State for India and his Council that the transaction to which he had referred could have happened. The noble Duke at the head of the Admiralty (the Duke of Somerset), knew that the Board must be in constant communication with the Ordnance Department, which supplied guns, ammunition, and other stores to Portsmouth, Plymouth, &c, but the Lords of the Admiralty would be in a state of very great excitement and surprise if they found the Ordnance Department sending stores to those ports without orders from the Admiralty. Their Lordships would recollect that two years ago an Act was passed transferring the government of India from the East India Company to the Crown, but that Parliament had, in assenting to the measure, taken special care to keep distinct the treasuries of both countries. It was, indeed, alike contrary to the intention of Parliament and to justice that the revenues of India should be applied to the relief of those of England. But it was evident they were so applied, when stores, which were worthless, which were not asked for or required, and which consisted for the most part of articles made of leather, which was in a special degree of a perishable nature, were palmed off on the Government of India, and charged to their account. He therefore begged to ask by whose direction and under whose in- spection certain articles of the value of between £30,000 and £40,000 of a perishable nature and inferior quality, equal to fifteen years' supply, were sent out to India for the use of the Royal Artillery at Bombay, as mentioned in a letter from the Governor of Bombay, dated the 12th of March, 1860, referred to in Mr. Willoughby's dissent, page 11, Lords' Parliamentary Paper (242)?

EARL DE GBEY AND RIPON

said, he desired to express his entire concurrence in the general principle laid down by the noble Earl, that it was undesirable that stores of any description should be sent out to India except upon the requisition of the authorities in that country. He could not, however, assent to the statement that stores could not, under the rule of the East India Company, be sent out to India without a requisition, and that the practice was one which had sprung into existence since the administration of Indian affairs had been confided to the hands of a Secretary of State; for, so far as he could trace the circumstances to which the question of the noble Earl related, they had taken place when the Court of Directors was yet in existence, and at a date prior to that at which the change of Government was effected. When his attention was first drawn to the dissent of Mr. Willoughby he was at a loss to understand to what particular issue of stores the passage on which the noble Earl's question was based referred; but when he saw that the report had been made by the Inspector of stores at Bombay—a responsible officer, who had ample opportunity of obtaining information on the subject—and when he found the charge contained in that report adopted by Mr. Willoughby, a Member of the Indian Council, who, he was bound to suppose, from his official position, had taken the necessary pains to test its accuracy, although he had made no inquiries at the War Department—he had deemed it to be his duty to institute the closest search at the War Office into the matter. Having done so he found that the charge could only relate to the issue of harness to batteries six and seven of Artillery, which were despatched to India in 1857 during the period of the mutiny and were originally intended to serve as garrison artillery, and were not, therefore, provided with saddlery. In the course of that year it was found necessary to send out to them saddlery and harness for field equipments; and immediately afterwards a duplicate set of harness was despatched for those and other batteries in India, in consequence of representations made by officers of Artillery; but he was bound to admit that in the particular case of this duplicate set—and it should be borne in mind the transaction had taken place before the present Government came into office—he had not been able to discover that any requisition for it had been received from the Indian Government. An irregularity, therefore, might have been in that instance committed; but inasmuch as the mutiny was raging at the time it could hardly be regarded as so great an irregularity as if it were to occur at the present day. These stores were despatched at the time when Lord Panmure was Secretary for War, who, he believed, was in constant communication with the Chairman of the East India Company, and it was possible, and probable, that if these issues were not officially recommended, they were made at the instance of the Court of Directors, and for the purposes of the war. The noble Earl was then understood to say that subsequently, in July, 1858, a requisition for harness for batteries K and Y had been made; that the requisition was referred to the India Office, and that a memorandum had been sent back in reply to the effect that the Council of India were unable to give any opinion on the subject, and that it was desirable the War Department and the Military authorities should send out such stores as they thought fit, which had accordingly been very properly issued on the responsibility of the Secretary for War. That was the entire extent to which, so far as he was aware, harness had been despatched to those batteries, and he was therefore unable to understand what the inspector of stores at Bombay meant by stating that a quantity sufficient to supply the Royal Artillery for fifteen years had been sent out; for, suppose the first issue lasted four years—which was a reasonable time—and the duplicate issue four years more, the whole amount would fall very far short of a fifteen years' supply. It was, moreover, absurd to enter into such calculations in the case of an army in the field, whose stores might be destroyed in the course of a single action. With respect to the serious allegation contained in the report of the inspector of stores as to the condition of the harness, the only answer he could give to it at the present moment—inasmuch as the matter had only just been brought under his notice—was that he had the assurance of the storekeeper at "Woolwich that the harness in question was of the best description, and that that which had been sent out without any requisition was perfectly new.

THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH

asked the noble Earl if he would have any objection to grant the particular papers on which the statement of Mr. Willoughby was founded. He understood the noble Earl to say that it was founded on two letters of the Government of Bombay, one dated the 25th February last, and the other the 12th March last, which, with their enclosures, containing of course the report of the Inspector of magazines and stores, were sent by the Secretary for India to the Secretary for War on the 12th of May; and therefore it was to him a matter of very great surprise that it should have only now, for the first time, come to the knowledge of the War Department. There might be some mistake, but, as he (the Earl of Ellenborough) was informed, those letters were sent on the 12th of May to the "War Department, although that was two months and a half ago, and he had heard it stated—and, indeed, it seemed probable under the circumstances—that no reply had been sent to those letters. He, therefore, supposed that they had been mislaid. He wished to know whether the noble Earl had any objection to his moving for the letters and their enclosures.

EAEL DE GREY AND RIPON

said, that the letters were addressed to the India Board, and of course he was unable to answer for that Department; but if the noble Earl would repeat his question tomorrow (Friday) he would be able to say whether there was any objection to the production of the letters. The whole subject of the arrangements with regard to stores, between the India Office and the War Department had been under the consideration of the Government, and recently, a Committee, consisting of officers of the two Departments, had been sitting upon the matter, and had drawn up a Report, making certain recommendations, which he trusted would prevent the possibility of any error arising again, such as the noble Earl had alluded to.

THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH

said, he would move for the papers on Tuesday-next.

House adjourned at Half-past Eight o'clock, till To-morrow, Half-past Ten o'clock.