GOVERNMENT OF INDIA BILL. (Hansard, 14 July 1853)

§ MR. BRIGHT
said, that he understood the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control to say that this Bill would not be proceeded with that night.

§ SIR CHARLES WOOD
said, he proposed to go on with the next four or five clauses, in respect to which no Amendments were to be moved. He did not intend to go further to-night.

§ MR. W. S. FITZGERALD
said, that this clause could not come under the category of unopposed clauses, as the noble Lord the Member for Lynn (Lord Jocelyn) had given notice of an Amendment to allow covenanted servants on the retired list, and persons who had been in office under the 230 Crown in India, to vote at elections of Directors.

§ SIR CHARLES WOOD
said, he understood that the noble Lord intended to propose his Amendment in the shape of a separate clause.

§ MR. BRIGHT
said, he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control whether he had any objection to alter this clause, so that persons who had been in India as merchants or as professional men might be included in it? The hon. Baronet the Member for Honiton (Sir J. Hogg), who was so great an authority on Indian affairs, was himself in the legal profession while in India, and might have had no connexion with the service of the Crown or of the Company, and yet no one would say that he was less proper on that account to be placed in the Court. The clause which had passed with regard to the six nominees of the Crown provided that they should be persons who had been ten years in the service either of the Crown or of the Company; and this clause proposed that at least six persons of the selected Directors should be of the same class. It appeared to him advisable, however, to extend the qualification to persons who had resided in India for that period, although not in the service of the Crown or of the Company. Many of the India merchants were men of great knowledge and experience—take the case, for instace, of Mr. Craufurd, who had been in Parliament a short time as Member for Harwich, or of the present Member, Mr. Bagshw, although he did not know how long the latter Gentleman had been in India. There were many merchants in this country who had resided in India, and who had as much information with regard to Indian matters as the great bulk of those who had been there in the service of the Crown and of the Company. It was contrary to all the principles of good policy to confine the office to persons who had been in India in either service, and to exclude all who had been there as merchants, or in the different professions; and he wished to know if the right hon. Gentleman had any objection so to alter either the clause or the Bill as to admit persons of this class among the nominated or elected Directors. It would give greater scope for the choice 231 of good men for the office, and good men were not so numerous that we could afford to exclude them; and the alteration, so far from injuring the Bill, would without doubt improve it greatly.

§ SIR CHARLES WOOD
said, that the clause did not exclude such persons as had been referred to by the hon. Gentleman. The Board was to consist of eighteen members, six nominated and twelve elected, and of the twelve elected six were to be persons who had served ten years in India, so that they were six seats open to all the world. There was, therefore, no exclusion of that class of persons who had not been connected either by the service of the Company or of the Crown; but it had been thought desirable that the selection of six of the twelve elected Directors should be persons who had served in either one service or the other. Still, he repeated, there were six seats open to all the world, and there was no exclusion of men who had bad experience of India, either in a mercantile or professional capacity.

§ MR. BRIGHT
said, he thought that the very fact of such a restriction having been proposed, was a conclusive proof of the truth of his proposition. There were many persons engaged in mercantile pursuits in Manchester, Liverpool, and, of course, in London, who had resided much longer than ten years in India, without having served either the Crown or the Company, and it was not desirable to preclude the proprietors from electing Directors from that class. Under the proposed arrangement, the proprietors would be at full liberty to choose six persons who had not been in India at all; and in all probability the selection would be made from the great houses in the City. What he complained of was the restriction of twelve of the Directors to persons who had been in the service of the Government or the Company. Unless the right hon. Gentleman undertook to alter the clause by the time when the Bill was again before the House, he should move that the Chairman do report progress.

MR. VERNON SMITH
said, he could see no solid objection to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Manchester; indeed, the hon. Member did not appear to have put his case so strongly as he might have done, for if he (Mr. V. Smith) were a proprietor of East India Stock, he should not only feel himself at liberty, but bound, to choose Directors from the class of persons mentioned by the hon. Member.

§ SIR JAMES W. HOGG
said, he would 232 suggest that the clause should be so modified as to meet to some extent the objection of the hon. Member for Manchester, or omitted altogether. For his part, he should desire on principle that the selection of the Crown should be wholly unrestricted; but if that selection were not restricted to men who had been in India for a certain period, a direct latitude would be given to the Minister of the day to nominate persons merely on political grounds.

§ MR. BRIGHT
said, he would rather have the clause altered than postponed. He would propose to amend the clause so that it should provide that, instead of the six Directors not appointed by the Crown being persons who should have been for ten years at the least in the service of the Crown or the Company in India, they should simply be persons who should have resided there for ten years at the least. Thus they would leave the Court of Proprietors at liberty to elect persons who had been in the service of the Crown or of the Company, or who had been engaged in mercantile or other occupations, or in no occupations at all.

MR. ELLICE
said, he not only agreed with the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman, but he could not understand why the choice of the Crown should be limited to the civil and military service, which might operate to the exclusion of gentlemen who, like the hon. Member for Honiton, had devoted themselves to a profession in India, and who might not choose to enter on a canvass for the other seats in the Direction.

§ MR. HENLEY
said, he entirely agreed with the Amendment of the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright), for it was manifest that when the subject was considered, persons in the legal or other professions had better opportunities of becoming acquainted with the feelings and habits of the natives of India, than persons in the service of the Crown or the Company; and that sort of knowledge was what it was very desirable to obtain.

§ SIR CHARLES WOOD
said, he thought that with regard to the Directors appointed by the Crown, the case was different to that of those elected by the proprietors, and he could not give a decided answer on that point then. With regard to the other Directors, he was quite ready to adopt the suggestion of the hon. Member for Manchester; and as it involved only a slight, alteration in the clause, it could be done at once. As respected the Directors ap- 233 pointed by the Crown, the object was to avoid all temptation for naming persons from a political bias.

MR. TUCKER SMITH
said, he thought that it would be extremely inconvenient if persons who were engaged in carrying on mercantile operations in India, although they had returned to this country, should be appointed Directors while they were so engaged. He thought provision ought to be made that no person engaged in mercantile transactions connected with India for the time should be eligible.

LORD STANLEY
said, he was glad the suggestion of the hon. Member for Manchester had been acceded to, but he thought it would be necessary to guard against the clause covering cases to which it was not intended to apply—as, for instance, the case of a child born in India, and not sent to this country until after the age of ten years. There was no limitation by the clause of the time of life at which a person was qualified to be elected.

§ SIR ROBERT H. INGLIS
thought there should not be too large an infusion of Indian experience, to the exclusion of the English element in the administration of Indian affairs.

§ SIR HERBERT MADDOCK
said, he had an Amendment hereafter to propose, the object of which was to limit the sphere of selection by the Crown, so as to prevent the nominations being used for political purposes. With regard to the other Directors, he had no objection to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Manchester, At the same time he thought it not desirable that the government of the affairs of India, should be engrossed by mercantile men; and he would prefer that of the eighteen members two-thirds of them should be men who had been employed in India. He did not agree that legal and mercantile men had a greater knowledge of the natives of India than those who were in the service of the Company.

§ SIR JAMES W. HOGG
said, that there was at present a by-law that precluded any person engaged in trade in India from being a Director; but that there was no law whatever excluding persons who were engaged in trade in England.

MR. ELLICE
said, he was in favour of the entire abolition of the limitation, and of giving to the electors and the Government the power of choosing any person who had resided ten years in India.