QUESTIONS. (Hansard, 9 December 1857)

§ SIR J. PAKINGTON

Sir, I trust that I am now in order, and may address to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control the question to which I have already referred. I am extremely sorry at having made the right hon. Gentleman so angry as he appeared to be just now; but when he accused me, as he did, of being in the habit of lecturing the Members of this House, he will allow me to say that I do not think I have ever lectured anybody since I have had the honour of a seat in this House as he did me in the course of the last few minutes. What was the gravamen of his charge? He said that I had complained of what I thought an improper exercise of patronage on the part of the Board of Control and the Directors of the East India Company, and then that I had refrained from doing that which I ought to have done—namely, risen in my place and substantiated the charge on the spot. Well, the only reason that I did not do so was that you, Sir, had decided that I was not in order. The right hon. Gentleman will see, however, that I am now putting my question at as early an opportunity as circumstances will allow. My first question relates to the Clive Fund. On Monday evening he was sitting opposite to me, when, in order that he might be aware of my intention, I read in his presence the terms of the question I intended to put to him; but if, notwithstanding that public notice, the right hon. Gentleman wishes for further time to answer the question—for I do not put it with the view of giving pain to him or to anybody else—I put it merely to elicit information, which seems to me of peculiar interest at this moment, and especially in connection with that fund which is being raised all over the country with so much generosity and alacrity for the relief of the sufferers by the rebellion in India—I shall be happy to postpone it to another occasion. Now, in 1765 the great Lord 421 Clive generously devoted a legacy of £70,000, which he received from Meer Jaffier, to what I call a most charitable object. He paid that sum into the treasury of the East India Company at Calcutta, and devoted the interest of it to the relief and support of decayed or disabled European officers and soldiers serving in India, and to the relief and support of the widows and orphans of European officers and soldiers who might die in the service in India. Now, the question I wish to put to the right hon. Gentleman is, whether he can inform the House what is the present state and condition of that fund? It is now nearly a century since that sum of money was devoted by Lord Clive to this noble purpose. I do not know what may have been done with the interest of this fund, but I think it would be satisfactory to the country at this moment, when efforts are being made to alleviate the distress consequent upon the Indian mutinies, if the right hon. Gentleman could state what is the present condition of the fund; whether the interest has accumulated; whether the fund is still devoted to its original object; and whether—and this is the important part of the question—it holds out any means of affording additional supplies from which the sufferings of European soldiers and their families in India may be relieved? The other question which I desire to put to the right hon. Gentleman I also beg to assure him I put in the most perfect frankness and fairness, and with the sole object of eliciting information. I may be wrongly informed, or I may put a wrong construction upon the facts to which I am about to advert; but I do not shrink from saying, that if I am correct in regard to the facts, I do think they amount to an improper and unwise exercise of Indian patronage at this particular moment. What I refer to is a statement which I have seen in the public newspapers, with regard to what is called the arrangement of patronage for the year 1858. I find it there asserted that 110 infantry cadets are to be sent out to Bengal for the year 1858. Mention is also made of a considerable number of cavalry cadets; I forget how many. But the point I wish to call the attention of the House and the Government to is this exercise of patronage, and the sending out of 110 infantry cadets for the Bengal Native army. What, at the present mo- 422 ment, is the condition of that army? I believe I am stating the facts correctly when I remind the House that of the Bengal Native army forty-six regiments have mutinied, and two have been disarmed and disbanded. Indeed, I believe I am speaking within, rather than beyond the facts in making that statement. Assuming it, however, to be correct that forty-eight regiments of the Bengal Native army are practically gone, where, I should like to know, are the officers of those regiments? Those officers would, I believe, amount to not less than 1100, from which number you must deduct a certain proportion who have died, and a certain proportion who are holding staff or civil appointments. But, after allowing for those who have died and those who are holding civil offices, I do not think that I am in the least overstating the facts when I say that at this moment there must be a body of between 600 and 700 officers who are holding commissions in Native regiments, and who, in consequence of the mutiny or disbanding of their regiments, are wholly unemployed. I put it to the House and to Her Majesty's Government, then, whether, considering that there are 600 or 700 officers unemployed, for whom the Indian Government is bound in honour and in fact to provide in some way or other, they have chosen the right time to exercise their patronage at home by sending out 110 military cadets to be added to the officers in the Bengal Native regiments, and which regiments, in truth, have not an existence? Under the regulations of the East India Company, I believe these cadets, when once appointed, will have a claim upon the Government for gradual promotion and subsequent employment. Every one of them, therefore, may ultimately rise to be a general in the service. I make this complaint subject to correction, either in regard to the facts, or in regard to the construction which I put upon the facts. But I do think it to be a state of things that ought to be brought under the notice of Parliament, and of which we are entitled to have some explanation; because it seems to me that the 600 or 700 officers who are unemployed might be made available either for the remaining Native regiments, or newly raised regiments; that the step which has been taken is not a proper exercise of patronage; and that in a financial point of view it is ob- 423 jectionable and unfair for the Government of India to have these 110 persons imposed upon them hereafter as military officers.

MR. VERNON SMITH

To the first question put to me by the right hon. Gentleman relative to the Clive Fund, I must reply that, although I was entering the House when he gave notice that he intended to ask it, yet, that, seeing it was not contained in the printed paper next morning, I concluded that the right hon. Gentleman, for some reason best known to himself, did not intend to ask it; and therefore I did not come down provided with the information which was necessary to enable me to answer him. As it is a question which involves, as I said before, a great number of figures and details in reference to the present pecuniary position of a particular fund, I think it would be better that I should abstain from attempting to answer it until the right hon. Gentleman puts it on some future occasion, when I have been furnished with the information he requires. "With regard to the second question, I must say that, to put it without notice, and, as he says, for the purpose of eliciting proper information, is not the way of putting it to the best advantage. For instance, I provided myself the other day with papers to enable a noble Friend of mine to answer a similar question relating to cadetships, which had been put by the Earl of Ellenborough in the House of Lords. I have not seen to-day whether that question has been asked or not; but my noble "Friend is still in possession of the papers, or I should be quite ready to reply to the inquiry of the right hon. Gentleman now. As, however, his question involves a charge in reference to the exercise of patronage by the Government, I may be permitted to say that he is not correct in his estimate of the number of officers killed in India, and that I am afraid he will find it to be a great deal more than he supposes. The supply of cadets is intended to make good the loss of ensigns in the regiments; and the distribution of the appointments rests with the East India Directors; for although, of course, the Board of Control may interfere, it is not usual for them to do so. "What is done is done under an Act of Parliament; but the only communication habitually made to the Board of Control relative to the ap- 424 pointments is a private communication, and it is very seldom that the Board of Control has interfered. The fact is that the distribution of these appointments by the Court of Directors in the present instance has not supplied anything like the number of vacancies that exist. The right hon. Gentleman talks of the Native infantry having been disbanded and disarmed; but surely he does not imagine that we are about to conduct the military affairs of India without any Native troops whatever. It is not to be supposed that for purposes of police and escort alone we could do with less than half the number of Native infantry hitherto existing, and the estimate made by the Court of Directors, I am assured by them, would not supply one-half the Bengal infantry regiments still existing, and I do not believe that any one supposes that we are to go on with less than half that number. The officers of whom the right hon. Gentleman has spoken as now unemployed would almost all of them be officers of higher rank, and it would be absolutely necessary to supply the loss of ensigns in any circumstances under which India may hereafter be governed. That is the explanation which the Directors will give of their present proceedings. They have considered the subject maturely, and if the right hon. Gentleman imagines that, for the sake of the exercise of patronage, they have filled up the vacancies in any other than the ordinary method, he is greatly mistaken. With regard to some of the officers who have been thrown out of employment by recent events the Directors hope to employ them again in those regiments of cavalry below the standard of the Horse Guards, which the East India Company are raising and about to send out to India. If this explanation is not satisfactory to the right hon. Gentleman, I shall be happy to give him more precise information if he will repeat his question on another occasion.