HUTCHINSON'S CLAIM BILL. (Hansard, 9 May 1853)

§ MR. OLIVEIRA
, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, stated that this was a claim amounting to something like 48,000l., which originated in a debt alleged to have been due from the late Rajah of Travancore to Mr. Hutchinson, who had been a resident at his Court. Both Mr. Hutchinson and the Rajah were dead, and the East India Company having succeeded to the property of the Rajah, they were looked to for the payment of the debt by the representatives of Mr. Hutchinson. 1315 The Government of Travancore so far admitted the justice of the claim, that after the Rajah's death, they paid a portion of what was due. In 1808, the East India Company sent out instructions that the claim should not he satisfied till Mr Hutchinson established its justice. A Committee of the House of Commons, however, was appointed to investigate the claim in 1831, and their Report was in favour of Mr. Hutchinson's claim. The House of Commons, however, rejected the second reading of the Bill that had been brought in, and nothing was done in the matter till the present time. The reason that the claim was not followed up, was, that litigation on the matter had been going on between the representatives of Mr. Hutchinson. That litigation was now at an end, and he therefore brought the matter before the House of Commons, as the only tribunal that was capable of doing justice in the case. He hoped the House would allow the Bill to go before a Select Committee.

§ MR. LOWE
said, he must oppose the Bill, on the ground that the claimants had no title whatever to compensation. The late Mr. Hutchinson, while in his capacity of Agent for the East India Company at the Court of the Rajah of Travancore, had thought proper to mix himself up with the Rajah in transactions of a very questionable nature—questionable enough in their ostensible character of a trade in pepper, Mr. Hutchinson favouring the monopoly in that article established by the Rajah, to the detriment of the East India Company—and still more questionable in relation to various loans for which these transactions in reality served as a cover. Colonel Munro, the Resident, had investigated the nature of all debts said to be due from the Rajah of Travancore to the different claimants, and he understood that the representatives of Mr. Hutchinson had not ventured to appear before that well-informed gentleman. In 1831, a Committee of that House was appointed to investigate the claim under notice, the renewal of the Charter then about to expire being thought, he supposed, a convenient opportunity for such an investigation. The Committee consisted of twenty-one Members, of whom six only, in addition to the Chairman, thought it worth their while to vote upon the Report; and the result of that inquiry was, that three voted against the 1316 claim, and three and the Chairman for it. Subsequently, in 1832, a Bill was introduced, and upon that occasion the right hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Macaulay), the then Secretary of the Board of Control; Mr. R. Grant, the President of the Board; and the hon. Member for Evesham (Sir H. Willoughby), took part in the debate. Upon a division the Bill was thrown out by a majority of 38 to 6. Since that period the claim had been allowed to sleep. It was not a claim founded upon justice; and he objected that the House should be called upon, after a lapse of twenty-one years, to do that now which they had declined to do then.

§ MR. BRIGHT
said, he did not exactly see how it could be brought as a charge against the Rajah that he had engaged in a kind of pepper monopoly, because that was a course which had been followed to a considerable extent by the Company in the matter of opium. He had risen merely to observe that this was a question, like many others, between private individuals and the East India Company, and that there was no proper tribunal for its adjudication. The late Sir Robert Peel, in 1833, admitted that it was a great grievance that no such tribunal existed, and recommended that they should be provided. Without regard to the particular claim before the House, he should vote for the second reading of the Bill.

§ MR. COLLIER
said, he thought the House could do nothing less than send the Bill before a Committee; he would also state, by way of answer to the argument from lapse of time raised by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Lowe), that the affairs of the family, including the subject of this Bill, had been all that time in Chancery.

§ SIR CHARLES WOOD
said, that his hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Lowe) having omitted to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, he had risen to supply the deficiency. Upon what ground they were now asked to tax the people of England to pay this debt, he was at a loss to understand. He did not believe that the ex-Rajah had been fairly indebted to Mr. Hutchinson at all; and the East India Company had merely advised him not to pay unless he were satisfied that it was a just debt. Upon the evidence in the case, there was the strongest possible reason for supposing that it was a fraudulent and collusive claim altogether. That was clear enough to 1317 everyone who had read the evidence; and he now moved, as an Amendment, that the Bill he read a second time that day six months.

MR. HUME
said, he must also complain that there was no tribunal by which these matters could be investigated, without going before Parliament. As he was always favourable to inquiry, he should support the Motion.

§ SIR JAMES HOGG
said, that the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright) and the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) had both declared they knew nothing about this matter, and yet they were going to support the second reading of the Bill. That there was some equitable ground for this claim was the truth, but it was not the whole truth. Hon. Gentlemen wanted inquiry; but there had been an inquiry already before the House, and the House rejected the claim. That claim was brought forward in 1831, when the renewal of the Indian Charter was under discussion, and nothing had been heard of it ever since till the charter was about to expire, when all kinds of birds of prey were hovering over the carcase of the East India Company. The Report of the Committee had been carried by the casting vote of the Chairman only, and yet with that Report there were only six Members of the House of Commons who supported the second reading of the Bill in 1832. He held in his hand a report of Mr. Hutchinson to the Government, stating that the Rajah was fraudulently cheating the Government, by not giving up the pepper; whereas at that very time he was preventing him from doing so. The items contained in the account against this unfortunate ex-Rajah were of the most absurd and preposterous description, such as a lac of rupees, or 10,000l. upon some supposed profits of a sale, 79,000 rupees upon expected profits of a transaction, if it should ever occur, and so on. He wondered that the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Oliveira) had allowed himself to bring forward such a case. He (Sir J. W. Hogg) could only account for it by supposing that he knew nothing about it;

§ MR. T. DUNCOMBE
said, he was one of the Members of the Committee which 1318 sat upon this case in 1831, and who had concurred in the Report of that Committee that the claim was a just one. He still believed the claim to be a just one, and was therefore surprised to have heard the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control (Sir C. Wood) denounce the claim as fraudulent and collusive, notwithstanding that a Committee of that House had reported in its favour. He really began to suspect that there was more in the claim than he had originally supposed, when he saw the East India Company so very energetically opposed to it.

§ MR. MARSHALL
said, he had also been one of the Members of the Committee of 1831, and his impression of the case, from the evidence then submitted to him, was, that the accounts produced by the petitioner were on the face of them so monstrous that he wondered any person could have brought them before that or any other tribunal. He hoped, therefore, the House would pause before they allowed another Committee to sit upon them.