SECOND READING.

HC Deb 07 March 1859 vol 152 cc1352-401

Order for Second Reading read.

LORD STANLEY moved that the Indian Loan Bill be now read a second time.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS said

Sir, before this Bill is read a second time I think it important that the House should pause and consider the principles on which it is based. I am not one of those who are inclined to place a high value on our Indian Empire. I am not one of those, as I formerly stated to the House, who are inclined to ascribe too great an advantage, either as regards national strength or national wealth, to our territorial possessions on the Continent of Asia. It has been said that the existence of our trade with India is in itself a conclusive proof of the benefit we derive from that empire. But our trade with China is of more importance than our trade with India, and it would be quite possible to carry on a considerable commerce with India, even supposing our territorial possessions there were not so extensive as they actually are. But though I think it is important to a correct understanding of our interests in that quarter of the world that we should not exaggerate the advantages we derive from our Indian empire, nor over estimate the amount either of material strength or material wealth we obtain from those possessions, nevertheless I fully admit it is not a practical question as far as this country is concerned, whether we shall or shall not carry on the government of India. Whether, as popularly supposed even in this country, and more generally believed by foreigners, we derive vast advantages and great wealth from our Indian Empire, or whether it is true that India is essentially a poor country, that its inhabitants have little aptitude for trade and industry, that they are bowed down by a grovelling superstition, which checks every capacity for improvement; whichever of these views may be true, nevertheless we have destroyed the Native Governments of India, and assumed the authority ourselves. We have thereby contracted obligations towards the Natives which we are bound to fulfil. Whether we are likely to derive great benefits from our Indian possessions, or whether those benefits are limited within a small circle, it is, nevertheless, a paramount obligation on this country to carry on the government of India, wherever we have superseded the Native authorities. We must look upon ourselves as having undertaken obligations that are binding upon us, and, for the sake of our subjects in that quarter of the world, we are bound to discharge those obligations to the best of our ability. I think we last year made a step in the right direction when we altered the form of the home Government of India, and abolished the last remnant of the worn-out constitution of the East India Company, substituting for it a Council with a Secretary of State at its head. Though I think that change was in every respect wholesome, and though the manner in which the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) has brought the affairs of India before the House confirms the views taken last Session of the expediency of that change, still I wish to caution the House against believing that the change implies any alteration with respect to the finances of India, or that it saddles the Imperial Exchequer with any liability that did not previously exist. What is the effect of the change made last Session? Before the Act of last Session passed, the supremacy of Parliament over the territory and Government of India was quite as great as it has been since. In no one respect has the control of Parliament over India been enlarged by that legislation. The only difference which has been created is in the power of the Crown over the subordinate Government of India. The rule in respect to our Colonies is, that subject to the supreme control of Parliament, the Crown superintends the subordinate Government of a colony; but in India a different system had been established, and instead of the Crown being the immediate head of the subordinate Government the power of the Crown had been delegated to a Company; that delegated power has been withdrawn; but the power of Parliament has been, in no respect, enlarged or increased. Nor has the change made any alteration in the national liability, or given the finances of India any connection with the Imperial Exchequer. It is important, in the case of India, as in that of Canada, and our other Colonies, to maintain with the utmost strictness and rigour, the entire separation of the Indian Treasury from the Imperial Exchequer. That separation existed before the Bill of last year was passed; and it appears to me, if the question is rightly understood, that Parliament, representing the Imperial interests, has acquired no new powers, and contracted no new obligations in consequence of the passing of that Bill. Now, the great difficulty in which the finances of India now find themselves arises from the enormous amount of the military expenditure. The noble Lord the Secretary for India in his lucid statement the other night, brought before the House the various items of the present charge. He seemed to think that there might be some prospect of affecting a diminution in the civil expenditure of India. Now, it is the character of the civil expenditure of India, as of all our colonial Governments, that it is in fact extremely moderate. No doubt the scale of salaries in India is on the whole high; and that for reasons which were clearly explained by the noble Lord, and must be generally known to the House. The climate renders it necessary that Europeans should receive larger emoluments than they would receive either at home or in a healthier colony. But, after making due allowance for all this, any hon. Gentleman who will examine the Indian expenditure will find that the real expense of the civil government of India, if you deduct the cost of public works, and all the extraordinary charges of a civil nature, is extremely moderate in amount. And as we improve the character of the government, as we recede from a state of barbarism, and approach more to a state of civilization, the natural tendency of things is to diminish the proportionate cost of the military expenditure and to increase the proportionate cost of the civil expenditure. Therefore, if we really wish to render ourselves the true benefactors of India—if we wish to give to its people a form of government better than that which they would have had under their Native princes, we must look to an increase rather than to a diminution of the civil expenditure. At all events we must not look for economy in the retrenchment of the civil charges. It may, indeed, be a matter of necessity, but still only a painful and disadvantageous necessity, that we should submit to a reduction in this branch of expenditure. The financial state of India, it seems to me, is to be improved only through a diminution of the military expenditure. To give the House some idea of that ex- penditure it is sufficient to look at its amount as it stood before the mutiny. Of course the present is an extraordinary and exceptional state of things, and therefore it cannot be taken as a fair sample. But according to the accounts of the last year before the outbreak of the revolt, the expense of the military and naval establishments of India, exclusive of police, was £13,400,000. It is sometimes said that England makes no pretensions to be a first-rate military and naval Power, and the nations of the Continent are pointed out as being greatly superior to us in the efforts they make for military objects. It is hardly fair to separate military and naval objects from each other when you wish to obtain an idea of the total expense for warlike purposes. But if we take our Army, Navy, and Ordnance Estimates for the year 1858, they amount to £21,850,000. And if we add to that sum the charge for the naval and military establishments of India as they stood before the mutiny, they make a total amount of £35,250,000. The estimates for War and Marine in France in the year 1859 only amount to £19,781,000. Therefore, it appears that if we add the military and naval expenditure of England to the naval and military expenditure of India, we have a sum which greatly exceeds the total expenditure for these purposes in any other country in the world. The Secretary of State for War, in his statement the other night, told us that the number of troops at present in England is 66,000, in the Colonies 38,000, and in India 92,000. That, of course, is a state of things which at no time could have been contemplated, and which for any considerable period is not likely to continue. The right hon. Gentlemen stated that it was intended to reduce the number of regiments of the line in the present year, so as to leave the strength of the army in India—omitting cavalry and artillery—at only 50,000 for the coming year. That, I apprehend, is a considerable diminution.

LORD STANLEY

I think my right hon. Friend did not propose so large a reduction as that.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS

Then I must have misunderstood him; I certainly understood him to say that it was intended in the course of the year to reduce the force to fifty battalions of a thousand men each. I will not, however, dwell on the precise amount, but he told us there would be a considerable dimination in the numbers of our troops in India. With respect to the probability of reducing the military expenditure of India, which is the present great incubus upon Indian finance, we must look in the first instance to a reduction of the number of European troops permanently employed in that country. And I will only say that if it is desirable that the Imperial Treasury should give assistance to India in any form, in my opinion no more objectionable form can be found than that of guaranteeing Indian loans. On the other hand, it seems to me that the least objectionable form would be by paying a portion of the expenses of the troops of the Queen's army quartered in India. That would necessarily be a temporary expense. It is an expense, no doubt, for the maintenance, of our sovereignty in that country, and it appears to me to be the most natural and most legitimate means of coming to the aid of the Indian treasury in the event of that aid being necessary. How far it may be desirable to give that aid is a matter of greater doubt. But with regard to the number of troops, I cannot help hoping that the mutiny may afford the means of ultimately relieving India from the enormous and over-grown army of Native soldiers. It is, I am afraid, true that the Native army has been considerably reinforced from parts of the country other than Bengal, during the progress of the mutiny, and no doubt we have derived great assistance from the Sikh regiments. But the great justification which has always been offered for the maintenance of the Indian Native army at the amount at which it has hitherto stood has been the danger of incursions from beyond our frontiers, the number of independent States which existed within the range of the Himalayas, and the necessity of keeping a large Native force for the purposes of defence against foreign invasion. But, now that our policy of territorial aggrandizement has been carried, step by step, until our Indian empire extends from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas almost without exception—when the few native States which retain their nominal independence are placed under subsidiary treaties, and their military forces are subject to our control—the danger of foreign invasion has been reduced almost to an insensible amount. Of course, wherever our boundaries are placed, we must have neighbours and must always be liable to some danger of foreign invasion. But if the view of those Governors-General who have successively enlarged our territory in India is correct, we have diminished the danger of attack from without. If I am not greatly mistaken, from the time of Lord Wellesley down to that of Lord Dalhousie, one of the greatest arguments for the incorporation of Native States and for the annexation of territory has been that it would promote internal peace and diminish the danger of hostile aggression. If these views are correct—and I cannot help believing that in the main they were founded in reason—the time has now come when we ought to reap the fruits of all that system of warfare—when we ought to find our selves in possession of an empire which nay be defended without the enormous military force which was in existence when this mutiny broke out; and it must be obvious to every one who considers the course of that outbreak that the Native army admits of a double aspect—that it may become not less dangerous to its masters than it is formidable to resist any external enemy who may assail us. Therefore, what I wish to impress upon Her Majesty's Government is that they should, at the earliest period at which the recovery of the internal pacification of India will admit, take means for considerably reducing the numerical force of the Native army; that they should rely as much as possible for protection against internal dangers upon a system of police, to be substituted for that army; that when the great bulk of the population has bean disarmed, and there is no large body of Native troops furnished by ourselves with arms which can be used against us, our position will be stronger than it was; and that when the principal points of the country are occupied by European troops we shall be able to hold it at a less expense for military purposes than has hitherto been the case; and that, particularly when the lines of railway shall have been advanced further to completion, we shall have ample means for contending against the weak attacks of the semi-barbarous neighbours with whom, in the event of a war, we shall be likely to come in contact. It seems to me that that affords some hope of an improvement in the financial state of India, which is more reconcilable with the interest of the country, and with an advance of civilization, than any attempt to pare down the salaries of a collectors or civil servants, or diminishing the expenditure for public works. Before I sit down I will only repeat that, in my opinion, it is most important that we should maintain as sacred the principle of the entire separateness of the Indian treasury from the British Exchequer, and that if we are to come to the assistance of India it should be by relieving them from the expense of a military occupation, which, when the rule was made that the Indian treasury should pay the expenses of the British regiments quartered in that country—a rule not obtaining in any other of our foreign possessions—it was not anticipated would extend to maintaining so vast a number as 92,000 men. According to my recollection, when the first dispute arose in this House, in the year 1786, I think, between Mr. Pitt and the Indian Directors upon the declaratory Act of that year, the number of regiments sent out, upon which the question of the payment of expenses arose, was only six; and it is certain that when the system was first introduced no such large charge as that which is now imposed upon the finances of India was contemplated as even possible. Well, Sir, if we are to give them assistance, let it be done in the shape of help for some definite purpose; and even if the portion of the debt which has been incurred in this country should be found to be more than the finances of India could bear, it appears to me that the proper mode of relieving the Indian treasury would be by the English Government contracting a new loan upon its own credit, to pay off an equivalent sum of money borrowed for the purposes of India upon the credit of that country. It is a mistake to suppose that in order to diminish the charges of the Indian debt it would be necessary in every instance that the credit of the English Government should be beforehand pledged for the Indian loans; but I confess that I should with great reluctance assent to the payment out of the English exchequer of any portion of the debt which has hitherto been incurred for Indian purposes. It must be remembered that if after an insurrection of this sort no additional burthen of taxation, no pecuniary inconvenience is made to press upon the country, one of the strongest inducements to orderly conduct and peaceful submission to the laws is taken away. If we, by the interposition of our credit and by our financial assistance, make insurrection too easy and its consequences too light in India we shall be teaching the people of that country a very dangerous lesson; and however painful it may be to us to continue or increase the fiscal pressure upon them, nevertheless it will be a wholesome reproof to them, after the mutiny which they have so wantonly made against this country, and which, as every person who will candidly examine the question must admit, was not provoked by any real misgovernment or oppression on the part of the authorities in India. I have taken this opportunity of stating to the House the grounds upon which I give my assent to this Bill. The task which lies before the noble Lord and his Council is an arduous one, and will require the most constant application of the greatest ability for government which this country can produce I confess myself that even if the solution of the problem should be most successful I do not anticipate from the good government of India any great advantage to this country. The benefit to be derived from that good government will, as it appears to me, be principally confined to the Natives of that empire; but although we are not likely, even under the most favourable circumstances, to derive any great national benefit from the improved government of those territories, their mismanagement might entail upon us the most serious consequences. It behoves this House, then, to watch with care the policy which is pursued with respect to them, and, above all, it is the duty of Parliament, exercising now, as it has always exercised, the supreme sovereignty over those possessions, to enforce, as far as possible, a good financial administration, and to compel the adoption of such measures as shall offer a reasonable prospect that within no limited time the revenue of India will be sufficient to meet its expenditure.

MR. BRIGHT

—I am not about to follow the right hon. Gentleman through his speech, nor to attempt to answer some points in it which I think are not very sound; but I would say generally that I think he rather contradicts himself, because he wishes that the revenue of England should be kept separate from that of India, and yet proposes that under certain circumstances certain expenses in India which have hitherto been borne by the Indian revenue should in future be defrayed by the English Exchequer. Consequently it appears to me that there is very little difference with regard to the future between the plan which was indicated, rather unfortunately I think, by the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) a few nights ago, and that which is laid down by the right hon. Gentleman. I am anxious to address to the House a few observations open this question, because the malady which we are forced at last to con- sider is one of great magnitude, and one which, if some remedy is not applied to it, will grow from year to year, until at last it becomes a vast calamity for the country. The noble Lord the Secretary of State for India made a long and able speech about a fortnight ago in introducing the Bill. He explained to the House with great fairness the condition of the Indian finances; and, making exception for that little colouring which his position almost compelled him to give to his statement, I have nothing whatever to complain of with regard to it. I read his speech with great care, and I must confess that when I came to the end of it I felt great anxiety. The case the noble Lord laid before the House and the country is one calculated to excite our alarm, because he showed us that with regard to the finances of India it is scarcely possible to conceive anything in a worse condition. But the finance of a country is almost everything of a country; for it means public order, it means the industry of the people, it refers to the economy or extravagance, to the goodness or evil of the Government. Looking at the Government of India in past times through that single department of finance, there is no Government in Europe or in the world more deserving of emphatic condemnation. The noble Lord told us,—and the facts are so brief and lie in so small a compass, that I will restate at least some of them—the noble Lord told us that, including the liability about to be contracted, the debt of India is at least £80,000,000 sterling. He excluded the sum which is to be paid at some remote day to the proprietors of East India stock, and he excluded also the guarantees for public works in India, which, of course, stand altogether upon another basis, and may be proofs of improved government. At all events, they are not grounds upon which to condemn a Government, as I think I should be compelled to condemn that of India, with regard to the £80,000,000 of funded debt. At the same time, the noble Lord showed us that the expenses of the Government are continually increasing, and, to make that which is so bad much worse, that the revenue is diminishing. Now, a Government with a constantly increasing debt, a constantly increasing expenditure, and a constantly diminishing revenue, is in a position of great danger, and is rapidly approaching an abyss which I shall not attempt to describe. It is an unfortunate thing too for the Government of India that, owing to its incessant bor- rowing and its excessive want, of faith to those from whom it has borrowed, it has almost entirely lost its credit, and that it will require all the management and all the honesty of the noble Lord to retrieve its position in that particular. The noble Lord is now asking the House to permit him to borrow £7,000,000 in this country, and at the same time there is an open loan at Calcutta at the rate of 5¾ per cent. I believe the Indian Government is undertaking to repay the loan at a certain period, which period will certainly arrive, but I do not suppose there will be the remotest chance of its being able to repay the money. I regret that the Loble Lord should have used the argument which, I admit, is common enough, that the Indian debt is only three or four times the amount of the annual revenue. The noble Lord, I think, urged that it was only twice, but it is somewhat more than three times the amount of the net revenue. It is common to compare India with England, where we have a debt amounting to ten or twelve years of our annual revenue; but I think it is bad policy for a man who is just beginning to get wrong in his finances to compare himself with somebody who has been getting into debt in a manner unparalleled in the world; and to say that India must always be right and safe as long as she is not so far advanced in the career of borrowing as England, is not a remark worthy of a statesman, or one which the noble Lord ought to encourage. The argument would be bad if the comparison were sound; but the comparison is not in the least sound. We know that through the increase of population, of machinery, of productive power, and of capital, the debt of England upon the people of England is much less onerous than it was some years ago. But that is not the state of things in India. The noble Lord admits that there is no elasticity in the revenue of India; and every increase of the interest upon its debt must necessarily involve the noble Lord and his Government in a greater deficit, unless he can produce some elasticity in the revenue, or discover some new sources of taxation. Come now to the Indian expenditure, which the noble Lord says is increasing. I am prepared to assert that there does not at present exist in the hands of the noble Lord, or of his Council, or of this House, any powerful or efficient check for or any control over the increasing expenditure of India. If the noble Lord would tell us all that he knows, and all that he thinks about it, he would inform us that at the present moment the funds of the Indian Government arc being poured out like water in every part of the Indian empire, and that there is no responsibility or check whatever. At the same time he admits that his revenue is falling. The land-tax, which is the most permanent of the sources of revenue in India, has fallen considerably during the last few years; and the noble Lord also admits, with great frankness, that the £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 net which are obtained from the monopoly and sale of opium is a sum held by the most precarious tenure, and that it is just possible—nay, it is rather likely—that the Government of China, having been compelled to admit opium from India, will, now that its sense of morality has been forcibly beaten down, permit the growth of opium in its own country. Then, of course, the £3,000,000 or £4,000,000 received from that source by the Government of India will disappear, and the deficit, which with that revenue has been increasing, Will become such as to require many Loan Bills, like the present, to till up the gap. And let the House bear in mind that the state of things which I am describing has not arisen from the recent revolt. The system of constant deficits existed before the revolt. Every thirteen out of every fourteen years during the lifetime of the oldest Member of this House have been thirteen years of deficit, and it is only an aggravation of this state of things that we have to attribute to the revolt. If the revolt had never happened—if the Government of India had remained unchanged and unintended—its difficulties would have been gradually increasing and its debt augmenting in future years as they have been in the past. Upon former occasions I have condemned the Indian Government by the use of facts and arguments like those which I am now using. I am sorry to say that I do not see the slightest probability, notwithstanding what took place last year, of any change for the better. The right hon. Gentlemen the Member for Radnor (Sir George Lewis) says that last year the Government of India was changed in form. The fact is, it was changed only in name. It was scarcely changed in form, and hitherto it has not been in the least changed hi principle. An hon. Gentleman, who was recently a Member of this House, but who is now a Member of the Indian Council.—I allude to Mr. Mangles,—was examined the other day before a Committee upstairs. I am told he was asked whether he approved the present constitution of the Indian Government. He answered with great frankness, that of course he did—that Government of India was conducted now by the same men as before, and upon the same principles as before, and, as he approved the Government of which he was a distinguished member in past years, it was not to be expected that he should condemn the same thing with little or no alteration in form and a real alteration only in name. I am not now condemning the noble Lord. One of my objects is to point out to him that, however honest and enlightened is the Minister who may have the chief part in the affairs of India, it is utterly impossible, under the organization which now exists here and in India, that he should be able to bring about in that country the changes which are absolutely necessary if you would ever restore Indian finance to a condition of soundness. Let the House consider whether it be possible to apply a remedy to the present state of things. We have now an India Loan Bill before us. It will not be the last. You will have an India Loan Bill every year unless you yourselves or somebody else can enforce an alteration of the state of things in India. Let us compare ourselves with the Native States. It is customary to say that we have conferred untold—no doubt, they are untold—they never will be told—advantages upon the people of India by our government. But is it not a remarkable fact that when the Governments of India were suppressed—I believe about twenty of them were suppressed—they were able by some means to maintain themselves? They had no debts, for borrowing money was not a practice in India; and having no interest to pay they had generally a surplus. I believe, indeed, that one of the great temptations to the English in India to conquer and annex territories was greed of the surpluses supposed to exist in various Native States. The noble Lord might tell us, for he must know the facts better than I do, that when Gude was annexed a considerable sum was found in the Exchequer, and the revenue was nearly double the whole expense necessary for conducting the Government of the kingdom. We have abolished between twenty and thirty Governments and laid hold of as many States; we have established one great central authority:—and yet notwithstanding all that, we wring from the people as much as they can pay, and spend it all; we borrow from them and from England £80,000,000 sterling, and spend it all; and, after getting all that the people can be forced to pay, and, in addition, spending all that we can borrow in India and at home, we now find ourselves, with broken faith and broken credit, with a deficit which increases from year to year, and with a state of things so appalling that you have Gentlemen on both sides of the table inquiring whether it will be necessary to bring in, not only the authority, but the security and guarantee of England to enable you to raise in the English market a sufficient sum for carrying on the government of India. I am not exaggerating in the least. The facts are patent to all, and if I am saying anything condemnatory of the present or past Governments, I am using no language of my own, but merely repeating what has been laid before us in official speeches and returns. Up to the present time nothing whatever has been done in the way of remedy. More debt—more taxes, if you durst levy taxes—but no better government, and, as far as I can see, very little doing in that description of public works which I think necessary to develope with any success the industry of the people of India. The noble Lord is not to blame for all the past. I know that long before he obtained his present office his opinions were, as far as I could comprehend them, of the most enlightened character with respect to the government of India. But I say that, filling the office which he now holds, the responsibility of providing a remedy, of introducing a new and better system, rests upon him, and he cannot by any means, nor ought he to attempt even to, evade it. What, then, can be done? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Radnor does not seem to think that much can be done. He thinks we could pay the cost of the Indian army, if necessary, and thus balance the Indian finances. But that would not be the way to balance the English finances; and, as the right hon. Gentleman may possibly be looking to be again Chancellor of the Exchequer in this country, I am rather surprised that he should make a suggestion so unreasonable and so perilous. He thinks that nothing can be done in the way of diminishing salaries. I admit that not a great deal is possible in that direction, but at the same time something may be done. The noble Lord admitted in his speech the other night that no service in the world is so highly paid as the civil service of India. I should say that no service is so extravagantly paid. The principle there never has been how we should best economize what was absolutely necessary, but how we should best plant on the revenues and service of India a large number of our countrymen, who should enjoy great and comfortable salaries while employed for a not very long period, and who might return with fortunes to occupy a very respectable, if not a high position in society in this country. Is there any reason why the payment of the Indian officials should be so great? It was said that the distance of India is so great that men went there and did not return until they came back with gray hairs and bad livers. But that is not the case now; and as for the climate, I do not believe one-tenth of what used to be said about it. About a dozen years ago, when we had a Committee to inquire why the growth of cotton was not extended in India, I saw some scores of gentlemen who had served fifteen or thirty years in India; and since then I have seen many scores, I was going to say hundreds, more; and for the most part they appeared in just as good health as if they had been living for one half of the year in London, and for the other half had enjoyed themselves in the highlands of Scotland. I discard therefore the distance from England and the condition of the Indian climate as being reasons rendering it necessary to pay the service in India so extravagantly as heretofore. A strong proof that I am warranted in so doing is afforded by the fact that you do not pay the officers of the army, who must suffer as much from the climate, so highly as you do the civil service. You do not pay your chaplains on an unreasonable scale. Then, with regard to the men engaged in commerce, planting, or agriculture in India (I am sorry to say that there are not many of them), their profits are not so much in excess of ordinary profits as the salaries of the civil service in India are in excess of the salaries paid by the Government in this country, and by the Governments of other European nations. Compare the salaries of the civil service in India with the salaries given in the island of Ceylon. I recollect seeing the last few weeks, in a letter in one of the London newspapers, a list of certain salaries in India, and likewise of the salaries of certain officials supposed to hold a corresponding rank in the island of Ceylon; and the difference between them was that the salaries of the Indian Civil Service were double or at least 50 per cent higher than those of the Ceylon service. That difference is enormous, and is not in the smallest degree to be accounted for by distance from England or any condition of climate, for in those respects India is at least as favourable to Europeans as Ceylon. If the noble Lord would save something out of the Civil Service he could do one of three things, each of which would be advantageous; he would be able either to employ a much larger number of Europeans in certain departments of the Indian service, or he would be able to pay much better salaries to a better class of Native officials; or, if he did not choose to have more Europeans, or to pay more to Native officials, he would have whatever saving there, was left in the Indian Treasury, and would not, possibly, require to pay 6 per cent for loans, or ask this House to enable him to raise money from year to year. It is quite true, as stated by the right hon. Member for Radnorshire, that the great source of expenditure is the military outlay, and I was glad to hear him say (for it is right that the moral and Christian people of England should know it) that, with all our civilization, with all our boasts, with all our missionaries, and with all our talk about the Bible, from the people of England, from the people of India—from their toil every year—there is being now expended, not including the debt of India, about £36,000,000 sterling in purely military affairs—upon the army and navy in that country and in this. The noble Lord told us that the European force in India is upwards of 91,000, and the Native force upwards of 243,000 men; so that there is now in India an effective force of not less than 334,000 men. I will ask the House a very short question. There is no difference of opinion on the part of the historians of India or of the Englishmen who have been resident there on one point. They have all admitted and assented hundreds of times that there is not in all the world a people, taken as a whole, more industrious, more docile, or submissive to authority, by nature and habit, than the population of British India. They are a people of that character that, if governed with ordinary wisdom and justice, instead of an army of 334,000 men being wanted, they would require no more force than would be necessary to form a full and efficient police establishment in every part of the Indian empire. I think the right hon. Member for Radnor was near saying the same thing; and for the honour of England, the good of India, and the credit of human nature, it would be better that you should leave India altogether than maintain your power there at this enormous cost, and with this great calamitous question looking us in the face, as it will from year to year, unless some great change be made. There is another question to which I must ask the attention of the House for a minute or two. I know the noble Lord can save no salaries from the Civil Service to such amount as he would require to enable him to balance his finances, but I believe he might save sufficient by a diminution of the forces. However, a change like this must be accompanied by other changes, or else you cannot have complete success. What is it that every one who has been to India or has written on it with any degree of information tells you? It is that in no country in the whole world is there such a combination of soil, climate, population, industry, and even water, if you will only garner it up at the proper season, and use it when you want it—there is no country where there are so many elements of comfort and abounding prosperity to the people as are to be found within the British dominions in India. There is everything from nature—she gives with no scanty hand—but from the first hour when you planted your foot there your system has been one by which the benevolence and goodness of God to the country has been thwarted. The noble Lord has been in India, and he knows perfectly well that, taking all these elements into consideration, the industry of India, regard being had to the vastness of the population, is almost as nothing, and that, with respect to public works, they all put together do not approach in point of extent the public works in one of our moderately-sized counties in England. The noble Lord knows also, from recent experience in respect to Ireland, that without a clear ownership and secure tenure in the soil the industry of every country is garotted, and can by no means prosper and extend. The noble Lord knows that there are districts of India in which it is utterly impossible from want of roads to bring any portion of the produce to the sea coast; and he knows further, that but a moderate outlay in certain districts in gathering up and saving the water during the rainy season for distribution over the lands in the dry season would bring within two years and permanently forward perhaps twenty fold into the Indian Treasury. I want to ask the House whether it is willing, after all the experience we have had, that this Indian Government, like some old lumbering waggon, should still be dragged along through the old ruts with the same slowness and with the same, now evident, peril to all those concerned with it. Last year I took the opportunity, on the third rending of the Bill which formed the present Indian Council, to state to the House at some length my views with respect to what would have to be done in that country, if ever it was to become anything but a trouble and discredit to us. I laid down the principle that you would require at home absolute simplicity in your Government, and in India a process which I would call one of decentralization, in order that you might have a more effective Government there. I insisted on it that the Governor General at Calcutta was totally incompetent, and must ever remain so, to govern a country whose population is variously stated at from 150,000,000 to 200,000,000. I have here a short extract from a letter which was recently written by the British-Indian Association of Calcutta to the Bombay Association, in which they refer to these propositions, and discuss this question of centralization. As it is very brief, I will read it to the House. They say— The Committee can conceive of no system of administration more prejudicial to the improvement of the various races inhabiting India, and more pregnant with mischief to the essential interests of Government, than a deep-laid, widespread, and elaborate centralization, which now prevails in this country. A central power, however skilful and enlightened, cannot, of itself, embrace all the details of the existence of so vast a nation—or rather of so many nations as those of India. Such vigilance exceeds the powers of man. The tendency of centralization, as you are aware, is uniformity; but the distinguishing feature of the Indian communities is variety. A single nation may thrive under centralization, for there the principle of the unity of action has a wide field for play. But centralization for a number of nations, each at a different stage of progress, and with various degress of intelligence, can have no principle for its basis; for it is the practical confusion of all principles imaginable. Now, I agree with the Indian gentlemen—and intelligent and respectable they are in every sense—who have written the letter from which I have read this extract. I believe it to be utterly impossible for any human being in Calcutta, with any power that you choose to give him, to exercise such a governmental eye as there ought to be over every portion of that vast dominion. I proposed, in opposition to this course, that you should revert rather to an ancient plan, and establish something like municipal Presidencies in India, by which the eye of the Government should be brought more directly over the interests of every particular locality and province. And, in addition to that, there is another point which I believe to be not less essential. It is, that you should draw into your councils, and incorporate in some degree with your Government, the best and most intelligent of the Natives of the country which you have undertaken to govern. The noble Lord told us the other night—and I know exactly the difficulty which he sees—that, in endeavouring to raise the revenue to a level with the expenditure, there is extreme difficulty in India in imposing a new tax. He cannot act as his colleague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, does with the people of this country; for if the Governor-General makes one step in the direction of a new tax, he may Commit some blunder of which he is not aware; he may excite some suspicion which he cannot suppose could exist; he may create an alarm among millions of his subjects, he may bring about a disbelief of the good faith of the Government, and it might not be difficult in certain localities, by such a course, to stimulate actual revolt, But if in your local Indian Councils you had two or three or four—for I am not pleading for a majority—of intelligent and influential men, Natives of the country, and if these questions of taxes were discussed in those councils openly, I believe that it would be quite as competent for the Government to persuade the people of India to anything that is just and necessary, as it is for any other Government to persuade any other people; and if they found, joining with you in your Government, paid as your servants are paid, and treated with an equal degree of liberality, some of their countrymen, I have no doubt—at least I have a strong belief—that it would be possible, looking over the vast population in all the cities of India., to select some new impost which might touch those who have property, and leave unscathed the vast body of the poor, and from which the noble Lord, if it were necessary to balance his finances, or to relieve the taxpayer in some other quarter, might obtain an amount, which, acting as he does now, without co-operation with the Natives, he might think it hazardous to attempt to raise. The noble Lord is in a position of the highest responsibility and the greatest difficulty. He committed a fatal error last year when, in obedience to his colleagues, he proposal to surround himself with the instruments of the former misgovernment of India. The noble Lord may not find direct votes of want of confidence in himself in his new Council; but we all know that one man sitting with fifteen others—though he does not see the direct opposition to his plans and principles—may find a difficulty constantly brought before him, offering itself at every step of his path, which be will be utterly unable to overcome. As regards the government of India, we know perfectly well—I know it from private correspondence which comes by every mail to an association in this city with which I have been many years connected—correspondence both from Europeans and Natives, that not even a shadow of change has been brought about in India in consequence of the alteration in the name of the Government made last year. The House may remember the case of the Principality of Dhar, with respect to which a question was asked of the noble Lord last Session. Dhar was a Principality with a revenue of £50,000 a year. The Rajah was a boy of thirteen; he was not even charged with having done anything to forward the objects of those who were engaged in the revolt, because a lad of that age could hardly be held accountable—the only charge against him was that those who were connected with him had not been sufficiently zealous on behalf of the English; but his Principality is confiscated—"annexed." The phrase is sometimes sneered at when we speak of language used to describe certain proceedings on the other side of the Atlantic; but it is now au English word certainly as legal do our territorial aggressions in India. I understood last year that the noble Lord did not approve of the annexation of the Principality of Dhar, and that instructions had been sent out to India with regard to it. But the annexation has not been relinquished; and those who have asked the noble Lord whether he has any papers to lay upon the table containing the explanations offered by the Governor General, or by any authority in India, have been told that there are no such papers, and that there have been no such explanations. It is plain that the Indian Government in England know no more about the matter than they did last summer. The fact is, that the Government in India do not care a straw for your Go- vernment in England; and there is no man who has travelled in India during the last twelve months who will not tell you that in discussing the matter with the officials there sonic of those gentlemen have made use of language which would not be polite anywhere, and certainly would not be suitable in this assembly, when they have endeavoured to describe how very little they cared about the Government at home. I say that unless they are made to care they will drag the country into a great calamity. It is imperative that the noble Lord, or whoever may fill his office, should insist upon this—that no Governor General, no Governor of any Presidency, should for one single post neglect to execute the orders that go out from this country. Recall him instantly if he is not obedient to his chief; for by that means alone can you impress upon the minds of your great pro-consuls in India that there is a power here, although thousands of miles distant, that can pull them down and check them in their career of wrong doing towards the population over which they govern. Look at the Proclamation which the noble Lord sent out. What can be more admirable than its tone and intention? Does anybody believe that the noble Lord was dishonest in sending it out? Does anybody believe that the Queen did not intend what it said when she put her hand to that new charter for the people of India? We all believe that the noble Lord was in earnest: we all know that the Queen was in earnest. But that Proclamation is an absolute reversal of the general policy which has been pursued in India; but its execution has been left in the hands of your old instruments, your civil service men, those who have monopolized the patronage and emoluments of India for generations; and unless there be a Minister here with a firm hand, backed by his colleagues in the Cabinet and backed also by Parliament, depend upon it that gracious Proclamation of the Queen, which has been translated into all the languages of India, will, in five years, be no better than waste paper; for it will not in the slightest degree change the conditions upon which Englishmen in India have governed that country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Radnor, remarked almost exclusively upon the question of the debt, and I wish to say one or two sentences with respect to it. I do not think that any person who has lent money to the Indian Government has a shadow of a claim, either moral or legal, upon the revenues or the taxation of India. He knew his security; he bargained for his rate of interest; and that rate of interest has been on the whole very nearly double that which he would have received had he lent his money to the English Chancellor of the Exchequer. At the same time I am bound to say that I believe there is no real justice in the people of England fixing these debts upon the Natives of India. Some of them were incurred in the Affghan war. Well, does anybody mean to say that it is just that the people of India should pay a debt which was incurred, not by the policy of any one in India, but by the policy of the English Cabinet at home? So also with regard to this very revolt, which will cost the noble Lord's Government, or at all events will cost somebody, £40,000,000. I undertake to say that when the account is made out, when the country is entirely pacified, and all the expenses are reckoned up—and I believe all of them will be reckoned up—that £40,000,000 will not more than cover the cost of this revolt to the Government of India. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Radnor, after the speech he made last year, now says that it was an unjustifiable revolt. The noble Lord the Member for the City of London (Lord John Russell) in a work recently published, has written in justification of the American War of Independence. Now, I won't go into that question, but I think after the speech the right hon. Baronet the Member for Radnor made last year, in which he pointed out the atrocities of the past Government of India, it is rather inconsistent in him now to say that there has been no cause and no excuse for the conduct of the people of India during the last two years. I do not want to enter into any defence of the people of India with regard to that. My object has always been to promote that kind of Government for India which was based upon justice, and which all the people could feel and see, and to secure your power in that country without calamities such as we have seen and without the necessity of maintaining an army of 334,000 men. I think that the £40,000,000 which the revolt will cost is a grievous burden to place upon the people of India. It has come from the mismanagement of the people and Parliament of England. If every man had what was just no doubt that £40,000,000 would have to be paid out of the taxes levied upon the people of this country. ["No, no!"] An hon. Gentleman says "No, no!" Well I won't enter into a dispute with him. His notions of what is just may be very different from mine, but I think if he were neither an Englishman nor a Native of India, and had read an impartial history of the transactions of the Government of this country in India during the last 100 years, or during the last 200 years, he would come to the conclusion that if revolts have ever been justified, there have been excuses for this revolt, and if we in pursuance of the policy sustained by this country should involve ourselves in these vast expenses it is more just that we should pay the expenses than that we should impose them upon a people whom we have succeeded in re-subjugating. Now, Sir, I am sorry on this occasion, as I was last year, to stand up and to speak for half an hour or an hour in disparagement of the course which the Indian Government have pursued in India; but I am convinced that the course they have pursued has led by a logical and inevitable process to the position in which we find ourselves. And I am equally convinced that, unless somebody undertakes to reverse the system pursued in India ten years hence you may have another great revolt and perhaps, with consequences to the credit and position of this country more disastrous than ally that have happened within the last two years. If we could only once believe that England would profit as much—I believe much more—by a just and wise Government of India than she can ever profit by an opposite course, we ought out of simple selfishness, as it were, to reverse the helm and give the Government a different direction. We hear how much the trade of India has increased, and I know that down in Manchester for months past there has been a prodigious impetus given to trade in Lancashire by the extraordinary demand in cotton goods for India. No doubt a large portion of that demand arises from the squandering of the many millions which the Government has expended there; but I also know very well, as a manufacturer, as a person who has, whether as a manufacturer or a Member of this House, investigated Indian affairs, that you cannot push your goods a mile further into any part of the country without finding customers waiting for you. There appears to be no limit—there can be no limit that we can reach for a long time—in trading with 150,000,000 or 200,000,000 of persons, if you will only give them a chance of reaping the fruits of their industry and securing the enjoyment of that which they produce. I hope the noble Lord will believe as I assure him, that I have not made a single observation for the purpose of finding fault with his Government, or with anything that he has done since he came into office as Minister for India; but I do beseech him well to deliberate Whether, with the machinery that now exists after the twelve months' experience that he has had, it be possible for him or for anybody else to bring about the change of circumstances and the change of policy which are necessary in India, and if he should come to the conclusion which I believe no Minister for India can escape from, I hope that before long he will be prepared, either as Minister for India or as a non-official Member of the House, to declare to us, what his experience teaches him, that what we did last year was provisional and only for an experiment, and that we must, within a very short period, entirely reconstruct the Government of India, not only in this country but in India itself.

MR. AYRTON

said, he thought it would be most injurious if it should go forth that India was now in that desperate financial condition which his hon. Friend (Mr. Bright) had suggested. India had in times past been in a condition tenfold more desperate than it now was. Time had been when it was compelled to borrow money, not at £6, but at £12 per cent., and failed to get it even at that rate. He had no doubt that at this moment much more confidence was felt in India in the durability, the strength, and he might say, the solvency of our administration than in this country. His hon. Friend had said that the change which took place last Session could not for a moment be maintained, and ought to be immediately abrogated; but he also said that he saw no chance of a Government in India unless it were controlled by the strong hand of a Minister in this country. He would ask his hon. Friend how any Minister could exercise such a power as he had suggested, unless he had the assistance of some men who had a practical knowledge of the administration of affairs in India? He did not by any means take a despairing view of the present financial condition of that country, or of its future prospects. He did not think it was the duty of the Government of India to get rid of the opium duty, or of the salt revenue; or, in short, of any of those great means by which the revenue must necessarily be collected in India. The treaty with China would greatly increase the trade of India, and enlarge its resources. He looked upon the land revenue as an abiding source of revenue, and thought that it would undergo a great increase with the growing prosperity of the people; and he believed that if it were judiciously administered during the next five years it would more than cover any additional charges that might be put upon India by the recent disturbances. There were even at present many men in India who confounded the right to possess the soil with the liability to pay taxes. There were positively public servants who declared that the Government was the owner of the soil, and that the people were merely tenants at will. He ventured to say that the whole history of India established conclusively that the people in possession were the absolute owners of the soil, and that the revenue that was taken from them was nothing more than a land-tax. Ages ago it amounted to 30 per cent. of the produce. The Mahommedans increased it in some places, and to such an alarming extent had it been raised that insurrections had taken place. There were millions of acres in India that were not properly waste land, though it was unoccupied; if they made grants of this land tax free, they were only giving a bonus to the tenant to cultivate it at the expense of the rest of the community, as if the Chancellor of the Exchequer remitted the house-tax on unoccupied houses to induce persons to inhabit them. The result was that while they were endeavouring by commissions to reimpose the tax on those who held lands free of it, they were granting lands tax free, because they were unoccupied, and thus depriving themselves of a legitimate source of revenue, which would increase as the country was opened by roads and railways, and greater value was created for agricultural products. The Acts of the Government of India prescribed the conditions under which the grants of former Governments should be considered valid and legal. Those conditions were settled on the first occupation of the several territories, and what the Natives of India complained of was that these conditions, after a lapse of thirty years, had been changed; and secondly, that their whole rights were put without the pale of the law, were withdrawn from every judicial tribunal, and remitted to the arbitrary discretion of the Government. That was the evil which the noble Lord was asked to arrest; instead of complying with this reasonable re- quest, it was proposed to extend the power of resumption to the Presidency of Madras, and the noble Lord would see how necessary it was that he should do justice on this question if he wished to pacify the minds of the people of India. The noble Lord, in speaking of the progress of India, did not bring his facts quite down to the present time, the returns put into his hand being rather early, and none of them dating later than 1857. To show how much room for hope there was, he would merely give one illustration. The noble Lord bad adverted to the Bombay Railway, and stated that eighty-eight miles had been constructed, and that the return had been 4½per cent. upon the capital. In another six months the traffic on that railway had so increased that the returns exceeded £5 per cent.; in another six months an additional fifty miles of railway had been opened, and the returns had increased to 6¾ per cent. Since then sixty miles more had been constructed, and there was every reason to believe that the returns would be in the same, if not a greater ratio. As soon as the interior was put into communication with the ports of India, he firmly believed that the value of land would increase; unoccupied ground would be brought into cultivation, commerce would extend, and the land revenue, if husbanded, would be quite equal to the charges to which the Government were put. The placing a permanent land-tax upon the land in India was, he thought, a blunder which they had better remedy as soon as possible, and he saw no better means of doing so than by redemption; but there was no time to capitalize revenue so unfavourable as when money was at a high rate of interest, and the noble Lord should wait until it could be capitalized at twenty-five years' purchase. He knew very well that some hon. Gentlemen on his side of the House were of opinion that there was very great merit in keeping the finances of England separate from those of India in borrowing money. He believed that to be most erroneous in principle, and most wrong in practice, for they never could separate India from the British Empire. Were they prepared to give it up to any country that would take it off their hands? Could they give it up to France or Russia? No! it must always be treated as an integral part of the Empire, and that being so, the maintenance of the British Empire involved the maintenance of every part of it. There were at this moment £5,000,000 in the Treasury accumulating at 3 per cent., a guarantee fund for the proprietors of India Stock, in relief of the Indian revenue, and yet practically they were borrowing money at 6 per cent. The result was, that the £5,000,000 would increase very little at 3 per cent in twelve years, at compound interest; but the money borrowed at 6 per cent. would double itself in that time. From the beginning of 1857 to the beginning of 1858 they had borrowed £8,000,000 at 6 per cent., whilst the price of English securities had been only 3¼, so that there was a clear loss of 2¾ per cent. Let hon. Members calculate what that would amount to in twenty years. They would find a sum equal to the whole amount of capital sunk in this additional interest alone, and we should then remain chargeable with the original amount of the debt. Such a charge must either directly or indirectly fall upon the people of England, and it would be a far better policy to bring the credit of England to bear upon India and borrow money at once at 3¼ per cent, and lend it to India, receiving from India the interest and a certain percentage for a sinking fund. That would still be a separation of the finances, and they would not lay so heavy a charge on India as they were now doing. With respect to the question of reducing the expenditure, no doubt the army was the first item which would have to be considered. That item might safely be reduced if there was peace and quietness in India. But how was the reduction to be effected? It had been the misfortune of the noble Lord to hear from his (Mr. Ayrton's) side of the House nothing but general remarks on that subject. The noble Lord must retrench everything, and he must meet his difficulties. But when they came to the question of how that was to be done, he did not see that the noble Lord received the least assistance from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax, nor from the right hon. Gentleman who sat beside him. They placed before the noble Lord the whole question as one full of difficulties, and in the politest manner possible requested him to solve them. He would take the liberty of impressing the noble Lord with some of the views which he entertained of the mode of meeting those difficulties. In the first place, he ventured to address himself to the question of the European army, and he would ask the noble Lord whether he thought that any part of that army ought to be a local army, or whether it ought not to be wholly incorporated with the British army. Its efficiency should depend less upon its numbers than on the facility and rapidity with which it could be moved. An army of 50,000 men which could be moved to any place on an emergency was equal at least to an army of 100,000 if they got into a state of immovability, which was the tendency of more local armies. It had been said of the first Napoleon that his battles were as often won by the legs as by the arms of his soldiers. With respect to the maintenance of cavalry regiments in India, he thought, to be efficient, they must be English, and in point of fact, the Native army would be far better if it were reduced to a kind of local police. He hoped that the noble Lord would deal with those subjects himself, and not remit them to the Government of India, actuated as it was by all the old prejudices of a service which had ceased to be efficient. There was another point upon which he wished to express an opinion, and that was regarding the administration of justice. There was no greater means of economy than to attach the Native population to our rule by means of an efficient administration of justice; but if the noble Lord trod in the steps of the philosophers at Calcutta who would administer justice to all classes in exactly the same manner without the slightest reference to religious feelings and national prejudices, he would be laying the foundation for future disturbances. He was of opinion that the principle of the ancient Roman system was the only true principle for governing a large empire like that possessed by England—they ought to administer justice to the people by races, or by classes. They could not place them all under one system of administration of the law, as had been suggested. Europeans, for instance, in India, were almost as much dissatisfied as the Natives, by being obliged to resort to tribunals which were inconsistent with their ideas, and they could no more put down the feeling that rose in the minds of Europeans by their habits and education, than they could put down the Native prejudices of the Indians upon this subject. It was not enough that the noble Lord should deal with the courts of superintendence, but he must put the local administration of justice in India upon a more satisfactory footing by making the people take a more active part in the administration of justice. With respect to the employment of Natives, he thought they might prove extremely useful for their information and their influence, but they could not safely invest them with any political power. They might have a council of advice composed of Natives, but it was impossible to make them legal members of a council with power to vote against the Governors or control the Civil Service of India. It would be utterly impossible to establish a Native council which should sit side by side with the British authorities, because he was satisfied that for years to come the executive Government of India must be confided to a body of experienced European civil servants such as at present existed. That, however, would not justify them in treating the Natives with an amount of arrogance which had been complained of, and which was so offensive that Natives too often could not come into the presence of the civil servants without feeling the utmost humiliation. On the contrary they ought to be treated with kindness and courtesy; their advice should be asked, and in every district the collectors should endeavour to do what the Native Princes did—make the more influential Natives fully respected by the community at large, and use them for the maintenance of authority and order. Our Governors, like the old Native Governors, ought to hold a sort of durbar, at which the opinions of the principal Natives might be canvassed as to matters which interested them; and the district officers ought in the same way to take counsel of their community. In this manner the self-respect of the Natives would be increased, and such moral means as these would preserve the peace where otherwise an army would be required. Some people thought the present state of things in India the height of civilization; he thought it the height of expenditure, rendering an enormous establishment backed by military authority necessary. But if the wealthy Natives were encouraged to act in co-operation with European civilians such would not be the case. It was an important question to determine how expenditure could be cut down. When the Crown, in 1833, proposed to take away the rights of the East India Company, it was said, "You cannot do that, because our revenue is insufficient." The Duke of Wellington replied, "You must reduce your expenditure; and if you say you cannot do it you must be made to do so." Lord Ellenborough then soon set to work and succeeded in reducing the expenditure to the extent of more than a million. Since that time many abuses had crept in which required reformation. He believed that the majority of the offices might be filled by Natives, to whom a salary might be given commensurate with the services they performed and the position they held in society; but these salaries need not be on such a scale as for Europeans, who left this country at the sacrifice of health, prospects, and family connections. It should therefore be decided what offices Natives were capable of filling; proper salaries should be offered for the performance of the duties of such offices, and then if Europeans chose to accept such appointments and such salaries they should be allowed to do so, but afterwards no attention should be paid by the Government to appeals from them for increased remuneration. This would put a stop to much increased expenditure. The noble Lord in speaking of the salaries paid by the Government to the civil servants said, that they could not pay on a proportionately less scale than railway companies. At present railway companies were obliged to pay high salaries because Government did so, although the duties could be performed equally well for less money. The origin of such high salaries was no doubt the fact that civilians originally were found to be revelling in rapacity and wrong, and then high salaries were paid to make dishonest men honest. India was then a terra incognita; people of doubtful character were banished to India in the hope that they would die there and never come back again. But such was not the present state of that country. The civil service of India now, indeed, in point of character and reputation, ranked higher than any public service in the world, and it was wholly unnecessary to purchase the honesty of its members by offering them extravagant emoluments. So much was this the case that—just to give an instance—he might mention that during the whole time he was in India but one charge was made against a civil servant, and that had such an effect upon the individual charged that be committed suicide. He thought that many of the evils recently developed were the result of unjustifiable attempts to reduce the expenditure of India by the confiscation of Native States; but this policy was now at an end, and he hoped that the noble Lord would be enabled for the future to keep under efficient control the expenditure of India. That upon which the strength of English Government in India would mainly depend upon was the Natives' conviction that those in authority in India were merely the servants of a greater power in this country, and that that power was of such a nature as to be able efficiently to control every act of administration, to protect them from every attempt at injustice; and that if, being well treated, they endeavoured to rebel, it was strong enough to send an army that would crush every rebellious act of which they might be guilty. Such a conviction would render English Government not only useful, but harmonious to the feelings of the people of India, and such a Government only could be permanently maintained in India with advantage to the people there and of this country.

MR. W. EWART

believed that, looking at the future state of India, a splendid prospect presented itself as the result of the development of the resources of that country. Indeed, when an efficient system of irrigation and internal communication was established, he thought there would be a development which would not only surpass expectation, but almost outstrip imagination itself. He, therefore, differed from the hon. Member for Birmingham in his views. The personal wealth of the people of that country would, under such a beneficent policy, largely increase, and from the augmented incomes of the commercial classes it might be possible to raise an impost which, while it would not be grievous to those who had to bear it, would render important aid to the finances of India. It had been said that the old Native Governments contrived to supply themselves with revenues, and it seemed to be thence inferred that their system of management was superior to ours. But, he apprehended, that, in matters of revenue, they supplied themselves by a somewhat summary system, according to The good old plan That they might take who had the power, And they might keep who can. He did not, and never did, think the present Council would become the permanent Government of India, but always regarded it as an intermediate state of things—a kind of isthmus between the old and that which would be the future Government of the country. He thought there was too much centralization at present, and that a more localized system of Government would be found beneficial. It would be wise in the Government gradually to prepare the Natives for some sort of self-government hereafter. Far distant was the time, perhaps too distant for present contemplation, when India could be politically self-governed; but she might gradually be prepared for it. Meanwhile he would advise the constitution of municipalities to be extended in India. Why not accustom the Natives, under the lead of Europeans, and in concert with them, to superintend the improvement of their towns, to levy rates when rates could be borne, to investigate local questions, and look after local institutions; even in the country, they might, in the form of committees, and in common with Europeans, if Europeans resided there, superintend the formation of roads and bridges. Thus their minds would at once be enlarged and practised, instead of being narrowed and untaught. With the same view, he would recommend the general use, wherever it was practicable, of the system of punchayets, or small juries of arbitration; thus calling into action the dormant powers of the Native mind. Further, he strongly advised an enlargement of the Legislative Councils in the different Provinces, Let there be in each at least one or two non-official Europeans to represent the interests of commerce and agriculture. These Councils often wanted local and practical knowledge. They were too official. Two or three Natives might also be advantageously introduced into the Legislative Councils. Such improvements as these would gradually emancipate the Natives of India from their present state of darkness, and lead them to self-reliance, and finally to self-government.

MR. WILSON

said, he would not have troubled the House if it had not been his duty to act a rather conspicuous part in some transactions which had been canvassed, particularly as to the establishment of railways in India; and if he had not differed entirely from almost all the speakers who had preceded hint. The difference of opinion was, that instead of having apprehensions of the future, he had the greatest hope in the resources of India being developed, and the only part in the speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham in which he entirely concurred was the expression of the hon. Gentleman's confidence in the unbounded natural resources of that country. It was a curious and instructive fact, that if they examined into the history of Indian finance, almost every increase of debt might be referred to wars undertaken either for the maintenance of peace or the subjection of foreign States, and he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Radnor (Sir George Lewis) that if they pursued an ordinarily prudent course, they might avoid insurrection and annexation. The present amount of Indian debt was £75,000,000. By the addition of the £7,000,000 now proposed, it would be £82,000,000, and he should be very glad if, when peace was entirely established, it should be no more than £90,000,000. Assuming the debt to be £90,000,000, the increase consequent on the mutiny would be £35,000,000, and taking the interest of that sum at 5 per cent, they would have to provide £1,750,000 a year in addition to what was required prior to the revolt. He knew that there had been, for some years, annual deficiencies, but they arose from a large expenditure on public works, which the noble Lord had very properly said should be regarded as investments for future benefit. If they took £2,000,000 for the interest on the increased debt, and £1,000,000 more for the deficit by expenditure on public works, there would be a deficiency of £3,000,000 on the regular expenditure of India. The question, therefore, arose, was it possible to discover a means by which the Indian revenue could be increased to that extent. Judging from the experience of the past, and what they knew of the present, he did not despair of seeing such an increase of revenue within the next three or four years. It was common to talk of reduction of expenditure, and it was a proposition which was always received with loud cheers, but he never found it put in practice. Advice might be given to the noble Lord to cut down expenditure in this or that quarter; but the noble Lord would find it exceedingly difficult, and some years hence it would be found that the permanent expenditure of India, like the permanent expenditure of this country, had a tendency to increase rather than to diminish. Much must depend on how the military affairs of India were finally settled, but he did not think they could calculate upon any large saving on that score, and, at all events, not for a considerable time to come, because it would be no economy, but rather the reverse, to leave anything undone, in order to make at the present conjuncture, as far as possible, a final and complete settlement of the country. But was there nothing in the past which gave encouragement for the future? Hon. Gentlemen who spoke in such disparaging terms of the resources of India could not have watched narrowly the growth of Indian revenue. With the present sources of income the net income in 1850–51 was £18,841,000, and in 1856–57 it was no less than £23,208,000; being an increase of £1,366,000. It was true, that during that period there had been considerable accessions of territory; but the net income obtained from those sources amounted to only £1,473,364, leaving an increase in round figures of £3,000,000 in those six years from the improvement of the revenue. That increase had arisen from every branch of the public income; it had not been accidental, but bad grown up year by year, and therefore he did not see any reason why we should doubt or hesitate about the probability of the increase going on in the same ratio for the future. In some branches of the revenue it was going on in a still larger ratio. The net increase in the land revenue during the six years, after deducting the sum obtained from newly acquired States, was considerable. In the North-West Provinces the increase was particularly remarkable, and the experience of that part of the empire showed that recent legislation in the matter of settlements had not been so bad as the hon. Member for Birmingham seemed to believe. In the year 1838–39, before the settlement, the land revenue demanded in the North-West Provinces amounted to £4,554,000; that collected to £3,630,000; and the unrecoverable arrears to £694,000. In 1847–48, after the settlement had been completed, the amount of tax demanded fell to £4,292,000; but that collected rose to £4,248,000; and in the year 1854–55 the amount was £4,598,000, with no appreciable arrear at all. No one who looked at those figures could doubt that we had effected a great improvement in the condition of the people and in the revenue of the State. The hon. Member for Birmingham had referred to the enormous expenditure which marked the Government of India in the present day. Bad as he might think things in this respect, they were not half so bad as they were in former times. in the year 1793 Mr. Dundas stated in that House that on an average of three years the land revenue amounted to £6,897,000, and the charges for its collection to £5,283,000, or 75 per cent upon the receipts. At present the land revenue was £29,613,000, and the charges of collecting it £6,343,000; or only 20 per cent upon the receipts instead of 75. His hon. Friend must admit, then, that bad as things were now, they were worse then. While speaking of the land revenue he was anxious to express his disapproval of what he understood to be an opinion which the noble Lord expressed the other night. If he understood the noble Lord, he said that it was desirable, in making new settlements of waste or jungle land, not to let the land for long periods, but to sell it in perpetuity; and where land was let at a small rent, that there should be the power of commuting the tenure into freehold. He could hardly conceive a policy more dangerous to the future finances of India. It was to repeat the error committed in Lower Bengal by the settlement of 1786, which had been, both financially and socially, a mistake. The Indian Government held the land of that country not as absolute owners, but only as trustees for the whole community, and they had therefore no right to make a gratuitous present of that land to particular persons, which belonged to the whole of the public. The Government of India was entitled to receive the rent or the tax for the land for the public use, and if they alienated that source of revenue they did so to the disadvantage of the future people of India, who would have to supply the deficiency by taxation. He could not agree in any principle the tendency of which would be to repeat the error committed by Lord Cornwallis by giving a perpetual settlement, or by converting existing settlements for long periods into perpetuities. No doubt formerly the annual settlement was one of the greatest evils which could attach to cultivation, for they assessed according to the crops; but that was no reason why, instead of adopting the intermediate system they should alienate the land for ever, He had the greatest confidence that if they made settlements for twenty, thirty or even filly years only, that the steady improvement of the land revenue would go on. Much had been said as to the railway system introduced six or seven years ago, and much fault had been found with regard to the guarantees which had been given. He regarded railways and similar works as the main foundation of our hopes for the development of the Indian land revenue. He would ask the House to consider the condition in which the question was in 1849. From 1844 to 1848, during a period of the most excited speculation, some of the wealthiest and most influential merchants of London endeavoured in vain to induce the English public to support Indian railways; and it was only after the greatest labour and difficulty that the Government were persuaded to adopt the system of guarantees. To have given simply a guaranteed dividend would have led to great financial loss to the Government, and therefore the Board of Control based the arrangement into which it entered with the railway companies upon a combination of private enterprise with Government supervision. The right hon. Member for Kidderminster, (Mr. Lowe) asked why the Government did not undertake the works themselves; for, he added, if the Government had done so, and a mutiny came, they could have suspended the outlay, and taken away the men in aid of the Government requirements elsewhere. The Government of that day thought that that was one of the strongest reasons to influence them the other way. They foresaw that if the Government undertook the works, and any extraordinary event occurred they would be suspended, and then indefinitely postponed. The right hon. Gentleman also said that if the Government had not guaranteed five per cent., but constructed the railways themselves, they might have obtained a profit of ten per cent. Was he not aware, that though the railways constructed by private individuals might be profitable, it might be very different if Government constructed them? In Belgium the Government had constructed railways, but they never paid, he believed, one per cent.; whilst one constructed by private enterprise, on the other side of the French frontier, paid six per cent. Another very important consideration which influenced the Government was that they thought it was of the utmost importance to introduce a new and independent English element into India. For these reasons they thought it best that the works should be executed by private enterprise rather than by the Government. But he was at the same time bound to admit that the practice of guarantees was one which should be followed with the greatest reserve and caution; that no new guarantee should be given for branch lines until the main lines had been almost entirely constructed; and that in no case should Government aid be extended to a railway running alongside a great navigable river. There was another matter, in reference to the settlement of the land revenue, to which he wished to call the attention of the House. It was called a robbery if the Government raised the rent when a new settlement took place; and there seemed to be a notion that the cultivator of the soil was entitled to continue in possession at the same rent. That matter had been seriously considered a few years ago, and a despatch was written by the then Government, which stated their opinion that the only satisfactory principle on which the renewal of settlements should be made was that, while attention should be paid to the value of the land at the time, a liberal allowance should be made for improvements attributable to the tenant himself, especially such as were of recent date. Where the Government had, by expensive works of irrigation and the introduction of railways, given increased value to land, there was no earthly reason why the rent should not be increased proportionately. The next head of revenue from which he hoped for increased income was the Customs' duties. These were collected almost entirely upon imports from this country, but in almost every case there were high differential duties as against foreign produce. In many cases there was double the duty on foreign articles that there was on British articles. They must consider that they were dealing with a crisis. They did not think it unwise to raise their import duties during the war with Russia? The duties in India were moderate but differential, and if it was wise as a temporary measure to raise their duties on imports at home, why not do the same with regard to India? The goods thus imported were consumed almost exclusively by the wealthy classes of that country, and not by the cultivators of the soil. The export duties were extremely small, but the price that all articles of Native produce brought was high. It had been said, and he agreed in it, that no duty was worse than an export duty, but financial embarrassment and derangement were even more so. No doubt if they were to put an export duty on any articles exported from India it must be done with very great care. There were articles such as cotton that could bear no duty because of the competition with America, but on the other hand indigo was grown in no other part of the world but India, and that cheaply; and although there was a duty of 6s. on 84 lbs., it must be regarded as extremely moderate. The crop was worth between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 sterling. No doubt by a wise discrimination in dealing with regard to the customs and import and export duties, they had it in their power, without injuring the trade of the country, or inflicting any hardship on the cultivators of the soil, to raise the revenue at very little expense and pressure on the people. Then as regarded the salt duty, he for one always thought it was an objectionable tax; but they must touch on sources of revenue in a country like India, where they had the prejudices of the people to deal with, with the greatest possible caution. He should like to see the salt duty abolished, but it was not so much the duty as the cost of its conveyance that rendered salt so dear; and when India got railways, and better and cheaper conveyance, it would be tantamount to a reduction of the salt duty. He did not share in the apprehensions that were entertained with regard to the subject of opium. The noble Lord (Lord Stanley) had told the House that the Chinese Government might legalize the culture of opium. But its growth and manufacture were not now prohibited in China, but it was of an inferior description, and could not possibly compete with the opium of Bengal, any more than the admission of beer would compete with Burgundy at the tables of the rich. Opium had always been a fluctuating source of revenue, but he did not share in the apprehension of its total loss. The noble Lord had hinted at an excise duty, but he should be unwilling to take the responsibility of exchanging the present revenue from opium for so uncertain a source of revenue as an excise duty would be, with the numerous evasions to which it would be subject. There were many rich classes under British rule who did not at present contribute a fair proportion towards the taxation of the country,—for example, Native bankers, and Native cultivators, and Native capitalists in the interior, who lent out money at usurious rates of interest; and who were the proprietors of almost every crop before it came off the ground. It was worthy of consideration whether, by stamp duties upon the transactions of these persons, a greater revenue would not be derived from them. Upon the other hand, if the Government allowed the establishment of banks upon the principle recommended by Mr. Thomason in the North-Western Provinces, advantages would be conferred not only upon the capitalists, but upon the Native ryots, who were subject to their extortions at the present time. With reference to what had been said regarding a reduction of the civil expenditure, it was true that the increase of expenditure in that department was the necessary consequence of civilization. They wanted better schools, better roads, and the whole of the political and educational establishment of the country to be put on a higher scale, and they would find that source of expenditure continually increase rather than diminish. He believed that the Government would never be able to employ Native agency with advantage unless under European agency. With reference to the question of granting an Imperial guarantee to India, he thought, whether looking at it in an Indian or British point of view, that it was one beset by every possible objection, and he could not conceive anything more detrimental to India itself than to introduce a laxity into its financial economy and transactions, and to open the English Exchequer to the demands and requirements of that country. The introduction of that principle would introduce a laxity fatal to the good government of India. It was said that if we interposed our guarantee we should raise Indian credit; but if so, would they not depress British credit? Our national debt was £780,000,000, and we had added £40,000,000 to it during the last four years, and if we took upon ourselves the indefinite debts of India would it not cripple our credit in European markets? India was scarcely out of the throes of a great revolt, and prior to that her capitalists and bankers held a large amount of the public debt; but they sent it to Calcutta and sold it in large quantities, and did not hold it now; but the moment India was tranquilized these bankers and capitalists would reinvest their capital in Indian stock, and they would find that Indian credit would rise as before. The Government of India were formerly able to borrow at 3½ per cent; and was there, therefore, any necessity to call on this country to interpose any guarantee? In the Bill of last Session the word "only" was introduced into the clause "that all future charges shall be on the revenues of India," but in the Bill of this Session the word "only" was omitted, and in Committee he should propose the reinsertion of the word. Looking at the enormous in crease in the trade of India, looking at the gradual development of its resources, and at the way in which the rebellion had been suppressed, and British authority established over Native insurrection, in a manner that neither Natives nor Europeans expected, he believed that the future rule of India would be far more secure than it ever was in former times. Looking at the development of her river navigation—at her improvements in railways, and at the enormous influx of wealth during the last three or four years, we had nothing whatever to fear as to the future resources of India, neither had we the slightest reason to entertain the expectation of this Government being chargable either with a guarantee of debt, or with any portion of the cost and charges of India.

LORD STANLEY

Sir, one, and not the least, difficulty experienced in addressing the House after a discussion such as has now taken place is, that the debate has ranged over such a variety of topics that it is next to impossible to enter for any practical purpose into the majority of the subjects that have been discussed. Many suggestions have been thrown out for the better government of India—some of them of touch value—which will receive, as they deserve, the fullest consideration. One hon. Gentleman has told us that among the principal requirements of Indian administration was the admission of a certain number of Natives into the Legislative Council of India. I quite agree that it is very important to obtain as far as possible a genuine expression of Native opinion upon matters which are discussed in India; but the objection to the plan of proceeding suggested is this, that you cannot find any one, two, or three Natives who can be said in any sense to represent the Native population as a whole. You might as well look for one, two, or three men to represent Europe. So again, the question of judicial form has been mooted. That is a question of the deepest interest. It is one that must and does call for immediate and careful consideration; and I shall only repeat to-night, what I said on a former occasion, that I am quite satisfied—the Government here is satisfied—that any partial, fragmentary, and incomplete mode of dealing with this subject would introduce greater complication than it would remove, and that when the question comes to be dealt with it must be in a comprehensive manner. As to the subject of Enam at Madras, I may remind the House that this question will be reported upon by the new Governor of Madras, and that pending the receipt of his opinion no definite step that can commit the Government will be taken. Now, the hon. Gentleman opposite, (Mr. Wilson) with much of whose speech I agree, said it was a fatal error to sell uncultivated lands in India in perpetuity to private persons; that you would be merely making a present to them of that which was a lease or grant, the property of the State; and that for a given number of years would afford the cultivators all the encouragement and security they desire, whilst it would eventually be much more advantageous to the revenue. I apprehend that that is not found practically to be the case; because both in India and the Colonies the one point on which all those agree who apply for lands of this description is, that they desire to have them in perpetuity, to pay a sum down and be released from all further obligation. And when I am told that a thirty years' lease, or a lease for a term of years at a fixed rent, subject to be raised at the end of the term, is found sufficient in England for all practical purposes, I answer that there is no analogy between the case put and that of a tenant who holds lands in this country, who, when he comes upon a farm on a lease for years, finds that the most considerable outlay for buildings and permanent works has already been made by the landlord. The hon. Member for Birmingham has accused me of making light of the debt of India by comparing it to that of England, and says that I have justified one bad thing by a comparison with another. I beg to say in reply that I never thought of making light of the Indian debt by comparing it with that of England; I never made light of the injury which is inflicted on India by the burden of that debt; I admit that it is a great drawback and a great inconvenience; but my argument was and is this—that as England has enjoyed an immense amount of material prosperity even under an enormous pressure of debt—there is no reason why India should not be equally able with increased resources to bear even a greater burden than the present. The hon. Member for Birmingham answered his own argument when he admitted that he saw no limit to the development of the future resources of India. That is what I fully believe, and believing that the trade of India will increase to an extent altogether beyond our present expectations, I contend that the amount of this permanent burden, even taking it at £90,000,000—looking at what the resources of the country will be when properly and fully developed—will not be greater than those resources will bear. Frequent remarks have been made on the deficit in the Indian revenue. It is said there has been a continual deficit, and that the debt has constantly increased. It is true that the debt has constantly increased; but I have not heard any contradiction of the statement I made on a former occasion—namely, that, although there has been a considerable increase in the debt absolutely, yet previous to the mutiny there has been no increase in the amount of the debt relatively to the amount of the revenue on which it is charged since the beginning of the century. Nothing could be further from my intention than to convey the impression that the Government have referred the whole question as to the mode of raising the revenue to the Government of India, and thrown the whole responsibility on them. What I did say was that we have offered suggestions and made propositions, but that we think it better to leave some discretion to the Government there and not to fetter them by too minute instructions. A question largely touched on to-night, and on a former occasion, is that of the salaries of the civil service. I have stated, and I state again, that I do not mean to pledge myself that those salaries are incapable of considerable reduction; but this I will assert, that the whole amount of retrenchment which it would be possible at any future time to make in that branch of the public expenditure is absolutely insignificant when compared with the outlay which takes place in the military department. It is to that enormous excess of military expenditure that the present financial embarrassment is owing. A comparison had been made between the salaries of the civil servants of Ceylon and those of Madras. I remember seeing that comparison drawn up in considerable detail in a journal not long ago. It is quite true that in point of climate there is not much difference between the two places, whereas the salaries in Madras are much higher; but it is fair to remember that the whole administration of Madras is on a scale incalculably larger than that of Ceylon. In Madras there are 20,000,000 of people, in Ceylon there are less than 2,000,000 of people, so that it is natural that those holding corresponding offices should have lower salaries. Again, we are told that the clerical and military services do not receive the same enormous rate of pay as the civil service. As regards the clerical service, that was rather an unfortunate assertion, because it so happens that the salaries paid to chaplains in India do very greatly exceed the rate of salary given for corresponding duty at home. It is reckoned that, taking the whole of the ecclesiastical appointments in this country, the average income of each clergyman would not amount to £300 a year; while, in the Indian service the chaplains are paid £600 a year, with a prospect of rising to £900 a year, and in some cases even more. Then again, with regard to the military pay and allowances, it is impossible to forget that they are much higher in India than in any other part of the globe. I cited the other night the case of those employed on railways and the high rate of salary paid to them, as a proof that the Government did not stand alone in finding it necessary to give a high rate of remuneration for services in India. We are told to-night that that is an unfair example—that it is the amount which the Government pay to their servants that fixes the rate of remuneration offered by private employers; but I doubt whether that can be made out to be the case. When the option is offered to a railway engineer to serve on a line in India or to be employed in England, he does not consider what is paid to civil or military servants in India, but he considers whether it would answer his purpose to submit to the various inconveniences of a protracted residence abroad, and whether the increase of salary offered is such as to make it worth his while, I have fully admitted that in fixing future salaries, it should be borne in mind that the inconvenience attendant on a residence in India resulting from distance is an inconvenience which every hour is tending to diminish; but that inconvenience, which arises from climate, is not so imaginary as some hon. Gentlemen are inclined to suppose, because it is well known that children born in India are sent to England, or if not to England, they are sent to the hills. In the latter case a man is obliged to keep one establishment there and another in the plains; so that all his expenses are doubled. With regard to Mr. Rickets' report on these salaries, it has been received in this country, in a printed shape, occupying five considerable folio volumes. I do not pretend to have mastered its contents, but the general result is that an increase rather than a diminution of the total expense is recommended. It is fair, however, to explain that that increase is produced by the recommendation that an increased amount of European labour and superintendence should be had recourse to in some departments. There are proposals for reductions in existing offices and others for the creation of new ones. It may be possible to separate one from the other, and to adopt. I hope, some of the proposals for reduction without adopting those for increased expenditure in other respects. I have called for a statement of the views of the Government of India with regard to the Report, and when it has been received Her Majesty's Government will take the subject into consideration; but I must repeat that if the total amount of retrenchment were larger than I believe it will be, still a very small saving would be available for existing purposes, because you cannot cut down the salaries of the present possessors of office. Therefore it would be only misleading the House if I were to hold out the prospect of a considerable reduction in this quarter. It is to the reduction of the military expenditure almost exclusively that we must look, and I agree that when India is restored to its normal state, there will no longer be any need for so large a Native army as has hitherto been maintained. The House will have an opportunity very shortly of seeing a good deal of evidence taken on this subject here and in India, but until the Report of the Commission to inquire respecting the reorganization of the Indian army, and the evidence taken by that Commission are received, it will be desirable to avoid any discussion on this subject. With respect to the Imperial guarantee, I have been told that the Act of last year makes no difference in that respect; and in that statement I fully concur. I fully allow that the Indian creditor has no claim whatever except on the Indian revenue; nor have I ever held language to a different effect. What I have stated, and what I do not hesitate to state again, is, that the Indian creditors have the first charge on the Indian revenue. If that revenue, after paying the interest of the debt, were to be found not to suffice for carrying on the civil and military administration, then the question would arise as to who would be responsible for the defence and government of India. It is in that way that the question of responsibility will turn up. With respect to the proposal of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Wilson), I was not aware that there was any difference between the Act of last year and the present Bill. The omission of the word "only" is, I apprehend, not material, but I have no objection to its insertion. We have been told that the change made in the government of India last year is one of form, and has produced no practical result to the country. I venture to doubt whether that is a correct statement. It is quite true that before the change there was an Indian Minister responsible to Parliament for the conduct of Indian affairs; but the first and most practical difference which the measure of last year has made is this, that two departments formerly in perpetual conflict, are now working in harmony. There has been some, not very considerable, saving of expense, and in the transaction of business at home there has been experienced a very considerable saving of time. In India it is considered that that delay in forwarding answers to questions sent home, which was so much complained of before, is materially diminished since the Act of last year. And when it is asserted that no alteration has been made, and that everything remains as it was, it will be worth while to recollect that different classes of objectors, from precisely opposite motives, hold the same language. Those who maintained that no improvement in the Government of India was required are naturally unwilling to admit that any has taken place; and those who believed that much more extensive reforms were needed will likewise hold the same language, and deny that anything has been effected worth mentioning. As to the influence which the change will have on the Government of India, apprehend that it is quite possible that expectations may have been formed on that point which it was impossible to satisfy. Practically the Government in India is carried on as it was before. Instructions are sent from home, but a large amount of discretion is necessarily vested in those who administer the affairs of that country on the spot—a discretion which is as large as the responsibility devolving upon them is heavy. We hear it said sometimes that the administration of Indian affairs is falling into the old routine, and that it is guided by the advice of those who are called "Old Indians." I believe that all persons, whether possessed of Indian experience or not, have been led in many respects greatly to modify their ideas upon Indian affairs by the events of the last two years. No doubt those who have been connected with the civil or military services in India form peculiar notions, just as professional men at home become imbued with the ideas of their profession; but I do not admit that they alone guide us. I believe that in India, as in England, the best security for a proper Indian administration is a due admixture of those who bring Indian ideas and experience to bear upon Indian subjects, and of those who bring English ideas to bear upon Indian opinions. I am far from thinking that it would be well, whether in London or Calcutta, to entrust the Indian administration exclusively to those who take an Indian view of such matters; but neither can I consent to hold, what is now a common doctrine some quarters, that Indian experience is a disqualification,—that the best way of administering the complicated affairs of a great empire is that the administrators should be absolutely new to the work and come to their consideration without any previous knowledge. I have always felt, and I repeat it now, that there have been in our system of Indian administration many abuses that required weeding out—that there were many reforms necessary,—but I cannot forget that that administration as a whole has produced some of the ablest men and called forth some of the noblest qualities which have been exhibited in our history. I cannot assent to—I cannot hear without protesting against a doctrine that has become somewhat common, that our administration of Indian affairs has been nothing but a blunder or a crime.

SIR ERSKINE PERRY

said, it was agreed on all hands that money must be raised in this country now, but the real question present to the minds of all was whether any ultimate liability of the English Treasury was involved in this loan in the case of disaster befalling our Indian Empire. They were all agreed that the present circumstances of Indian finance presented some alarming features. The increase of expenditure consequent upon annexations, although accompanied by increase of revenue, had been admitted in the statement made by the noble Lord, and by many other authorities. That being so, and the system of providing for an annual deficit by an annual open loan being in force, the question was whether, if this state of things were to continue, it was not evident that this country must be charged with the cost sooner or later, or India be lost. His hon. Colleague (Mr. Wilson) had given a somewhat different description of the state of things; but his views were at variance with those of the highest Indian authorities. The hon. Gentleman had shown truly an increase of three or four millions of revenue during the six years in question, but this increase, like all former increases arising from annexations of territory, had been accompanied by a still greater in- crease in expenditure. The right hon. Baronet the Member for Radnor (Sir George Lewis) had frankly admitted that a time would come when England must step in to assist in meeting the charges in India, and he suggested that the best mode would be by bearing the cost of the army to be maintained there. If, then, they were to take the cost of maintaining 50,000 or 60,000 European soldiers, the expenditure might be estimated at between £2,000,000 or £3,000,000; while the interest, taken at 5 per cent, on the £40,000,000 which would be required as the cost of the rebellion, would amount to £2,000,000. Under these circumstances he asked the House, as practical men, whether it would not be better to lend the credit of this country at once, so as to raise the £40,000,000, and allow the revenues of India to recover themselves, without posing at a moment like this a heavy and crushing burden upon its resources. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Devonport (Mr. Wilson) said there was a moral advantage in making the people of India pay the expense of putting down the mutiny, as a guarantee for future good conduct; but it should be remembered that from the nature of taxation of India it is impossible to impose the slightest additional charge on the people, or at all events on the agricultural population, who were the parties involved in the rebellion. He was aware it might be asked, "Why should India get a guarantee when no other British colony has ever got it?" The answer was that colonial debts were raised for colonial purposes, they were raised by Colonies having self-government, and if those Colonies ripened into independent States, the new country would take all the benefit created by the public work as well as to the debt incurred in its behalf. But the Indian debt was not created for Indian purposes, but for the maintenance of English rule in the country. This debt was neither more nor less than the price of the conquest and reconquest of the country. If this were so, and the connection between the two countries was inseparable, why not raise the money in England, by which means they would secure two advantages—they would raise the money upon cheaper terms, and without the slightest ultimate risk to England allow India to recover itself, and a more healthy system of finance to be adopted, and secondly by making it apparent that defective system in India involved changes in England. They would fix the attention of statesmen and constituencies on the subject, and thus ensure a vigilance in respect to Indian affairs that could not be overrated. The truth was becoming apparent to all that India could not be governed, for centuries to come, otherwise than despotically; giving, as he contended should be the case, a due share in administration to Natives of ability, station, and character. But to make a despotism by England, the mother of freedom, justifiable either in our own eyes or in those of Europe, it was necessary that our administrators in the East should be subject to the strictest and mosts earching control by enlightened public opinion in this country. Nothing was so certain to insure this constant surveillance as to make it apparent to the English people that bad government in India produced pecuniary liability here. These observations would have been perfectly futile if no more loans were to be applied for on behalf of that country; but hon. Members would remember that last year we had had a claim on their behalf of £3,000,000, and this year £7,000,000 more were required; and although hon. Members might cry "no" when he stated his conviction on the subject, he still thought that this would not be the last application that would be made on behalf of the Government of that country.

MR. CUMMING BRUCE

said, he did not rise for the purpose of objecting to the extremely reasonable proposal of the noble Lord, but to express his surprise at the repudiation of all liability on the part of this country for the embarrassments of the Indian revenue, which had been so strongly urged by the hon. Members for Halifax and Radnor, as well as by other hon. Members. A very great statesman, and one whose name was always mentioned with great respect in that house, had so long ago as the year 1842, when introducing the income tax, expressed his views with regard to the liabilities of India. Sir Robert Peel, who did not entertain very Utopian notions generally, expressed himself in a marked manner in reference to our liability for the possible future embarrassments of India; and he (Mr. Bruce) well recollected the attention which the House paid to that portion of his speech, and the assent given to the opinions he enunciated. Nor was any person more capable of guiding the decisions of the House upon a question of finance than was the late Sir Robert Peel. In bringing forward his proposal to restore the finances of this country by imposing an income tax, he said that he thought it his duty to call the attention of the House to the state of the Indian finances; and stated that he was quite aware that there might appear to be no immediate connection between the finances of India and this country; but it would be a superficial view of our relations with India if they should omit the consideration of that subject. Depend upon it," said he, "if the credit of India should become disordered—if some great exertion should become necessary—then the credit of England must be brought forward to its support, and the collateral and indirect effect of disorders in Indian finances will be felt extensively in this country." [3 Hansard, lxi. 428.] Now he (Mr. Bruce) perfectly agreed in the opinion enunicated in that extract, and it seemed to him that on every principle of equity, when they assumed, as they thought fit to do last year, the government of India, which—say what they might—was done not less for the benefit of this country than the advantage of India—it seemed to him that on every principle of equity and common sense they could not repudiate the liabilities of the Indian revenue. We were bound as honest men in taking the Government to take it with all its liabilities. To a great extent those embarrassments had arisen from the action of the Imperial Government on the East India Company. The noble Lord stated the other night in the candid speech in which he introduced the subject, that there were certain years in which there was a surplus—they were years of peace; but there were many more in which there were great deficiencies, in consequence of wars of aggression and annexation. The Indian debt would soon, chiefly in consequence of these wars, amount to £90,000,000. A great number of these wars had been forced on the country in consequence of the now happily extinguished Board of Control against the consent of the Board of Directors. The House of Commons was the only power which could control the Board of Control and prevent the imposition of burdens occasioned by such mistaken policy and profligate expenditure; and as the House had not opposed it must be considered as having sanctioned this policy. It became, then, very ill for them to shirk their liability in case the necessity should arise. At the same time he did not apprehend any such necessity; for he agreed in what had been said of the hopeful view of the finances of India. His belief was that the resources of India were really in- exhaustible, and that when men of energy and capital embarked in commercial speculations the revenues of India would revive in a much shorter period than had been anticipated. With respect to the incurring of the liability, he asked whether anybody in this country, though it might have cost £100,000,000, would have avoided that liability by withdrawing our troops from India and leaving unavenged and unrelieved those gallant men, those devoted women, and helpless children who bore the first brunt of that demoniacal rebellion. By doing so we should have forfeited our position as the first great power in Europe. Could there be any doubt that we should have chosen rather to have incurred the greatest liability than have submitted to such a loss as that of India. There would have been but one shout from Land's End to John o'Groat's, from the Scilly to the Shetland Isles, of indignation at such a suggestion. He disagreed entirely with those who thought that incurring at once the liability of India would lead to reckless and extravagant expenditure; on the contrary they would have the hon. Member for Lambeth (Mr. Williams) upon whom the mantle of Mr. Hume so gracefully sat, inquiring, with a scrutinising eye, into every item, and in that task he would be assisted by other Members of the House who regarded the expenditure of India with the most watchful jealousy. With regard to the opium trade, he was aware that many very excellent persons in this country were opposed upon moral grounds to the opening of that trade; but he was informed that in many parts of India opium was an absolute necessity of health and life. Some years ago, a most violent and malignant fever broke out in the gaol of Assam, which carried off the people in such numbers that the Government sent up a Medical Commission to investigate the nature and the cause of the disease; and the Commission reported that they could attribute it to nothing else than that the prisoners had been deprived of the opium which they had been accustomed to take. He was informed also that in certain districts of India every man, woman, and child took a small dose of opium every morning, and that it was absolutely essential to them for the maintenance of their vital powers. He did not believe that the use of opium in that country was immoderate, and he thought, therefore, that the imposition of any excessive duty which would prevent its cultivation would be much to be deprecated. He did not participate in the fears expressed that in consequence of a provision in the recent treaty with China, the opium revenue might altogether fail us, for the opium manufactured in China was of a very inferior quality; and that imported from India would always command the markets of China. The clause referred to would tend more to regulating the trade, and putting an end to the evils and violence in separable from a trade carried on by smugglers, than to increasing the amount now imported under a system which all must deprecate.

Motion agreed to: Bill read 2^o