HC Deb 04 May 1830 vol 24 cc377-87
Mr. Wynn

said, that he regretted that the duty of presenting the Petition which he then held in his hand had fallen upon him, in consequence of the indisposition under which his noble friend, the member for Woodstock (Lord Ashley) was labouring. He regretted that the Petition, when presented by him, would lose that weight which it would have derived from being presented by the noble Lord, not merely on account of his official character as one of the Commissioners for the Affairs of India, but also on account of the great diligence and attention which he was in the habit of bestowing upon all subjects connected with that country. He had to observe that the Petition was very numerously signed by the Christian, and he might call them very respectable inhabitants of Calcutta and the provinces comprised within the Presidency of Fort William, descended on one side from the European subjects of the Crown of Great Britain, and on the other from natives of India, who might therefore be denominated Indo-Britons, though they were more generally known by the title of half-castes. The grievances of which the Petitioners complained were numerous, but might, he believed, be comprised under two heads. Whilst they lived in Calcutta, within the limited jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, they were ruled in their civil relations by the laws of England; but the moment they passed beyond that jurisdiction, they complained that they were placed beyond the pale of all civil law, whether British, Hindoo, or Mahomedan. They likewise complained that they were excluded from all superior offices in the civil and military services of the East-India Company. To this subject he had alluded last year, when he had the honour of presenting a petition from the natives of India, complaining that they were excluded from all offices of trust and emolument in the land of their fathers. For his own part he could not separate the cases of these two different classes of petitioners. This, however, he must say, that whatever arguments applied to the case of the natives of India, applied with much greater force to those unfortunate individuals who were the subscribers to this petition. They, at least, were of our blood and of our religion: many of them were educated in this country, and were thus possessed of capacity and acquirements of the finest description. Though they professed themselves to be, and actually were Christians, they were, when in the interior, amenable to the Mahomedan criminal law. They were thus deprived of all the advantages of Trial by Jury; and when accused of offences, were liable to be fined and imprisoned, and corporally punished, not merely by European, but also by Mahomedan officers of justice. Questions might arise as to the validity of their marriages; and all such questions must be decided, not according to the principles of Christian, but according to those of Mahomedan law. How great the disadvantages were which arose from this system had been made apparent in the inquiries which had been recently instituted into this subject by the committee now sitting on the East India Company's charter. A great many females, the daughters of European fathers by native mothers, were married to European officers high in the service of the Company at Calcutta. Among the officers who held the highest situations on the staff in the Company's service at Calcutta, there was not at present one who was not married to a female of Indian descent. Supposing that an offence was charged against any of these married couples, whilst residing in the interior, the husband would be sent to Calcutta, to be tried by Europeans, according to the principles of British law; but the wife might be tried and condemned before any Mahomedan magistrate. This was not merely a grievance in itself, but it gave rise to a feeling among the half-castes that they stood in a different situation from their European relations, with whom they would otherwise mix upon terms of equality, and to whom they were, in point of fact, equal in this country. There was nothing in the law or constitution of this country to prevent any half-caste from being elected a Member of Parliament, or from taking his seat as such in that House, They were sent over to this country for education; whilst here they received an education equal to that received by any Gentleman whom he was then addressing; and they were thus able to discharge the duties of any situation. The grievance which they felt the most severely was their exclusion by the East India Company from all employments in their service, civil and military. Within these few years this injustice, glaring as it originally was, had been considerably mitigated, for the exclusion had been confined to the sons of parents who were both natives of India. Formerly, any one who had a tinge of colour in his skin was certain to meet with obstruction after obstruction in his road to preferment, so that it was impossible for him to rise like other persons not more meritorious. It happened that, on one occasion, the son of an English officer by an English woman was darker than suited the taste of our military critics, and there was, in consequence, a refusal to grant him a commission. He knew that there were those who talked of the inherent prerogative of Europeans to fill all offices of importance and emolument in India. He should be ashamed to argue with those who upheld such doctrines. He should blush if he were compelled, even for any temporary advantage in argument, to go through the names of those who, in spite of these regulations, had worked out their way to greatness by the commanding force of their talents. He had mentioned last year the case of Colonel Skinner, who, though he was excluded, owing to his descent from a native mother, from serving in the East India Company's army, had raised a corps of 8,000 men for it during one of the late wars, and who had by that very action earned for himself the rank of lieutenant colonel in the King's service, and obtained the cross of a Commander of the Bath. He had had evidence placed before him within the his two days, which proved that Colonel Skinner's influence in India was so great that he could raise 10,000 men at any time. That officer was as gallant a man, and as loyally attached to his Sovereign, as man could be; and was it wise, he would ask, to make such a man, with such influence the object of proscription? If such a policy were to be permanently adopted, individuals in such circumstances would soon be animated with feelings of hostility to our Indian government. If the career of honour were shut against them, the talents which could not be used in its favour, would be used for its destruction. Others held it to be politic that these men should be systematically degraded, and why? "Because (said they) the natives of India look upon these half-castes in a very different manner from that in which they look upon Europeans." This mode of argument was really monstrous. The governors of India first placed these individuals in a state of degradation and then urged that degradation as a reason for continuing it. Whilston this subject he would refer to the opinion which had been given upon it by Sir Thomas Monro. The right hon. Gentleman then read an extract from that gallant officer's correspondence to this effect:—"With what grace can you talk of your paternal government of India, if you exclude the descendants of European fathers by native mothers from all offices, and if, over a population of 50,000,000 you enact that no one but an European shall order any punishment? Such an interdiction is a sentence of degradation on a whole people, from which no good can arise. How can we expect that the Hindoo population will be good subjects unless we hold out to them inducements to become so? If superior acquirements cannot open the road to distinction, how can you expect individuals to take the trouble of attaining them? When obtained, they can answer no other purpose than that of showing their possessor the fallen condition of the caste to which he belongs. This is true of man in all countries. Let our own native Britain be subjugated by a foreign force,—let the natives of it be excluded from all offices of trust and emolument,—and then all their knowledge, and all their literature, both foreign and domestic, will not save them from being in a few generations, a low-minded, deceitful, and dishonest race." The right hon. Gentleman then proceeded to declare, that the whole of the correspondence of the able officer, from whose work he had just quoted a passage, deserved the attention of the House; and he should therefore move that it be laid before the Committee sitting on the Affairs of India. He could assure hon. Members that if they would take the trouble to read it through, they would be no less delighted than benefitted by the sentiments of enlightened humanity, and by the high-minded and liberal views which it contained. Before he sat down, he could not help observing, that the effects of this system of exclusion were not merely confined to a legal operation, but were also productive of great moral and personal degradation. He had found that to be the case during the period in which he had himself superintended the affairs of India. He had discovered that in a charitable institution, founded by Lord Clive, for the benefit of the widows and children of his companions in arms, and founded without the slightest intention of establishing any system of an exclusive nature, it was now arranged, that before any widow could receive the benefit of it, an affidavit must be made that she was not of native blood. By the regulations of the Military Fund, established at Madras in the year 1808, and at Bombay in the year 1816, it was stipulated, that it should be an indispensable qualification to any child who sought relief from it, that both the parent and the child should be European and of unmixed blood; and it was likewise added, that four removes from African or Asiatic blood should be considered as restoring the blood to purity. He considered that the state of society in which such regulations were publicly avowed and acted upon required revision and reformation. He therefore trusted, that whatever might be the issue of the inquiry now proceeding up-stairs, the House would take into its consideration the situation both of these petitioners and of the natives, and would admit them to every office which their education and acquirements rendered them qualified to discharge. He might perhaps be asked, "Would you wish the whole government of India to find its way into the hands of Asiatics?" To that question he would merely answer, that in his opinion the regulation, which he sought to obtain as matter of right for the half-castes, would never be extensively granted to them in practice, no matter in what hands the patronage of India might be hereafter vested, whether in those of the East-India Company or of the British Government. We might be sure that, under any Administration, favour would be shown to Europeans, and that nothing but decided merit would place an Asiatic on the same level with them. It was unwise to let the natives and the half-castes feel that the career of honour was shut against them; and in a House of Commons, which had removed the exclusion which for so many years had operated upon a large class of its Catholic fellow-subjects, an exclusion which had only been justified on political grounds, even by those who advocated its continuance—in a House of Commons which had also taken the first step to emancipate the Jews from the state of degradation to which they had been so long consigned by the law of this country,—in such a House of Commons, he said, he did not expect to find any opposition made to so reasonable a prayer as this—that men should not be shut out from all offices of trust in the country of their birth, simply because they derived their being from its Original inhabitants. He moved that the Petition be brought up.

Mr. Stuart Wortley

thought that as the whole subject of the government of India was at present undergoing the consideration of a committee above stairs, the present was an unfit opportunity to enter into a discussion of the situation of that class of persons from whom the Petition purported to come; yet, after what had passed, he should not feel himself justified, if he suffered the Petition to be brought up, without presenting a few observations to the notice of the House. The principal object he contemplated, in rising to address the House, was to assure the right hon. Gentleman, the House, and the petitioners, that the half-castes were not looked upon with any of that contemptuous feeling which they attributed to the government of India. He assured the House that there existed every disposition on the part of the Government to pay proper attention to the wishes and interests of the class of persons to which the petitioners belonged. Government was always ready to relieve them from any grievances under which they might suppose themselves to be labouring, provided it could be done consistently with the good government and safety of our Indian possessions. Amongst the grievances alluded to in the Petition, there were some such as the laws relating to marriage and succession, which might be remedied—there were others which required much caution and deliberation, because they involved important considerations respecting the government and even the safety of our possessions in India. He considered also, that it would be inconvenient to enter into any discus- sion of them in bringing up a petition, more particularly as there was then a committee sitting to investigate all the affairs of India. It was to that committee rather than to the House, that he should wish to refer the whole subject, particularly as it had already made some inquiry concerning it. The committee had ascertained that the number of persons of the description of the petitioners in the province of Bengal was about 2,000, and of these, it had been stated by one of the witnesses examined before the committee, about 1,500 were fit for holding offices. Now he could not think that these people had much to complain of, for it was also given in evidence that about two-thirds of them, or 1,000 actually held offices of one kind or another. He did not mean to say that such a statement was an answer to the allegations of the petitioners, but it was a clear proof that in practice they were not excluded from employment to such a degree as their Petition might lead Members to suppose. He was one of the last persons to throw any obstacles in the way of the petitioners; he had no prejudices against any caste or colour, but he deprecated discussion on the important questions involved in the Petition, and he could assure the House that the Government was ready to give the subject that grave and serious consideration which it deserved.

Sir J. Macintosh

said, he had had an opportunity of observing the conduct and character of that class of persons whose petition was then under discussion, and he had inquired and reflected much respecting them. He had heard much too, of the natural inferiority of particular races—that there was one race born to command, and another to obey; but this he regarded as the common-place argument of the advocates of oppression; and he knew there was no foundation for it in any part of India. This, he declared, he spoke upon due consideration, because he had observed boys of all races in places of public education. He had observed the clerks in counting-houses, and even in the Government offices, for some were admitted to the subordinate situations, and thus allowed to sit in contact as it were with all the objects of their ambition, though they were only tantalized by the vicinity of that which they could never attain. He was convinced that there was no race, not actually in a state of slavery which was used with more needless harshness than that to which the petitioners belonged. He did not agree with the hon. Secretary to the Board of Control that the House ought not to enter into the subject because it was to come before the committee, for that committee could not go into all the questions connected with India; and unless the House look frequent opportunities to discuss many of hose questions, it never would be ripe for the proper consideration of the great and extensive subject of settling the government of our Indian possessions. He was surprised to hear the hon. Member insinuate a charge of exaggeration against the petitioners, for if he would reflect on their conduct, he must see that their patience had been exemplary under many years of negligence and insult; and instead of reproaching them for now complaining, he ought to have expressed admiration at their having been so long silent. The stigma, the brand, was still upon them, and they suffered all the inconvenience of a degraded situation; being deprived of those honours and rewards that ought to be gained by their exertions. It was no answer to him to say that these people were excluded by usage, but not by law. They were excluded by no fault of their own, by no actual offence on their part, and the exclusion, whether operated by law or usage, ought to be put an end to. The hon. Secretary left out of consideration some of their chief complaints. He referred to their marriages, but by what rules they were regulated he (Sir James Macintosh) did not know—certainly' not by the laws of England, and not by the Mahomedan laws, so that the half-castes were in a state of outlawry. The regulation about offices was intended only to exclude them from the highest offices of the Company's Service, but in fact it was acted on to exclude them from the meanest offices, even those held by Mahomedans. The law did not exclude them, but it was the evil of tyrannical laws that they led to still more tyrannical practices; and if the legislature wished to see the people tolerant towards each other, it must not set the example of intolerance by legal exclusions. All experience shewed that whenever the law declared one class of men inferior to another, the inferior class was visited by greater evils and more severe degradation than that contemplated by the law. Nobody who knew him would doubt the esteem he entertained for the great majority of those with whom he had the happiness to be acquainted in India. He did not believe that greater generosity or a finer sense of honour was to be found in any class of men, either at home or in our foreign possessions, but he must nevertheless say, that, to him their conduct in this respect was not praiseworthy. The law of the half-caste which they had suggested, had a most odious appearance—one which he was almost afraid to mention, but which he would mention, because he thought it was well that the Government, should know what appearance it bore—it had the odious appearance of disfranchisement, made by fathers against their children. Those who made those regulations did not, it was true, contemplate them in this odious light, but seduced by motives of state policy, they had done as public men, what as private individuals they would have recoiled from with horror. He would not longer delay the House, except to express the delight he felt at having read that morning an account of a meeting held at Calcutta on December 15, at which the speeches delivered in the English language by two Hindoos of high rank and considerable wealth, would have done honour to any assembly of Europeans. One of them had embraced the Christian faith, notwithstanding the degradation to which natives professing Christianity were exposed. That man eminent, too for his learning, said that he was convinced that the more the Hindoos came into contact with English gentlemen the more they would improve in morality and knowledge. In this view he cordially concurred, and that improvement would be promoted by nothing so much as by abolishing all political and civil distinctions between the different castes. He therefore was ready to give the Petition his warmest support.

Mr. Cutlar Fergusson

said, that shortly after he had obtained the honour of a seat in that House, he had called its attention to the hardships suffered by the class of half-castes in India. He was happy to be able to say, that a liberal system was gradually making its way in India, and he was convinced that, in point of policy, the British Government must draw more largely than it had done on the intelligence of the native inhabitants of India. There were some statements in this petition that were questionable; but at the same time it was quite true that those per- sons were in a painful situation, they could not tell what law they were under—they were treated neither as natives nor as Britons,—and he hoped that some means would be taken to put an end to the disabilities under which they now laboured. There was one point which had not been noticed, but which was deserving of consideration—he meant the situation in which those persons of half-caste, who were Christians, stood with regard to the other inhabitants of India. He thought that both in policy and justice these persons, being Christians, ought not to be subject to laws which were administered by Hindoos. He could bear testimony to the honour and ability of the half-caste, whom in those respects he considered equal to the European of full blood. The questions relating to the condition of these persons were well deserving of consideration. He trusted that the grievances of which they complained would be done away with, but the Government must proceed by degrees, and after grave deliberation.

Mr. W. W. Whit

more supported the Petition, and expressed his satisfaction that it had been brought forward, as it would show the Indian population that the House of Commons felt interested in their condition.

Sir C. Forbes

concurred with all that had been said as to the justice and propriety of removing the disabilities of the half-caste of Indo-Britons. He had been seventeen years in this country, after having been twenty-two years in India; the more he saw of the old country the better he liked the natives.

Mr. C. W. Wynn

said, in reply to the observations of the hon. Secretary to the Board of Control, begged leave to stale that the highest office held by any of the class whose petition he had presented, did not yield more than 700l. a year. They were excluded from all military-offices, and from all civil-offices directly under the Government, and all such appointments contained the words "provided he (the person appointed) be not a native of India." There was no reason why this exclusion should be continued, nor why native Christians should be worse off than any other class.

Mr. Stewart

Wortley was not aware that these exclusions were contained in the instructions sent out by the directors, or in the appointments which emanated from them.

Mr. John Stewart

also bore testimony to the merits of this class of native population in India, and he hoped the Government would remove the disabilities under which they now laboured. He was glad even of this hasty discussion, and he did not think the opportunity an improper one, for the more the question was discussed the better would the House be able to legislate on the subject of India, when it was formally brought before it. He agreed in the representations made in the Petition. The petitioners by being excluded from European society, were treated with contempt by the natives, and were thus subject to more causes of irritation than were perceptible in the regulations.

The Petition laid on the Table.

Mr. Wynn moved for a copy of a Minute of the late Sir T. Munro, relative to the state and condition of the inhabitants of Fort St. George.—Ordered.

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