§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ SIR CHARLES WOODmoved that the Bill be now read the Second Time.
§ MR. VANSITTARTsaid, he was induced to offer a few observations on the Bill, because in his capacity of a proprietor of East India Stock he was in a position to state that great uneasiness prevailed 260 among that body, proceeding from the fact, which was only too transparent, that the Bill tended to invade the sanctity of what was called the Security Fund. Hon. Members were not, perhaps, aware that the East India Stock was the old, original stock of the East India Company; that by the Act of 1833 a bargain was entered into between the Government and the East India Company by which the proprietors were guaranteed an annuity at the rate of 10½ per cent on their stock, and the final payment of a sum of £12,000,000 sterling; that in consideration of this the Company relinquished their right of trading, surrendered to Government all their commercial assets, amounting to upwards of £15,000,000, and placed in the hands of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt £2,000,000 as a securityfund, which, by interest and compound interest had accumulated so rapidly that it already amounted to £5,125,000. Now, he fully admitted that, as India had been incorporated with the rest of Her Majesty's dominions, and as it had been proved that the old system was unsuitable to the altered circumstances of the country, it was incumbent upon the House to make great and important changes. He did not, therefore, object to the payment of the stock being transferred to the Bank of England; on the contrary, he believed such an arrangement would enhance the value of the stock; but he did most strongly object to the security fund and the unclaimed dividends being placed at the absolute disposal of the Secretary of State for India. By such a proceeding an extraordinary and dangerous power would be placed in his hands, and that House would reverse the award of the arbitrators—only appointed last year, with the mutual consent of the Government and the Company—which ruled that the Directors were bound to retain the unclaimed dividends for the proprietors and Company. In respect to economy no saving would be effected, as he understood that the Directors were being rapidly reduced to six, two retiring every year. Under those circumstances, if the House passed the Bill as it now stood it would not only repudiate a previous bargain, and the award of the Government arbitrator, but it would lend its hitherto unsullied name to a wanton aggression on the right and property of a chartered body of its own creation, with regard to which it was distinctly laid 261 down that all acts must be done upon the requisition and with the approbation of the Court of Directors. He had, therefore, in conclusion, to express a hope that the Government would omit from the Bill the 20th Clause, which dealt with the security fund. If they did not consent to take that course, he should feel it to be his duty to divide the House against the second reading.
§ SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, the 20th Clause would be omitted, and that the security fund would then stand in its present position.
§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, he must complain of a system of legislation according to which questions of the utmost moment, involving a vast amount of property, were treated as matters of arrangement between the Secretary of State for India and certain private Members. A Bill had been introduced containing a clause, which he did not hesitate to stigmatize as dishonest. By what authority, he wished to know, did the Government seek to take into their hands rights appertaining to a large body of stockholders, the enjoyment of which had been guaranteed to them by charter? Could the proposition be defended on any principles of justice, by which the whole of this guarantee fund was to be handed over to the Secretary of State and the Chancellor of the Exchequer? The House was now aware that the National Debt Commissioners were a complete sham: for the right hon. Gentleman had admitted the other evening that he exercised the whole powers of that Commission. An opinion was consequently gaining ground out of doors that, by this measure, chartered rights would be greatly jeopardized.
§ COLONEL SYKESsaid, if his hon. Friend would wait till the Bill was reprinted on Monday, he would doubtless find his objections removed.
§ Bill read 2o, and committed.
§ Considered in Committee, and reported; to be printed, as amended [Bill 295]; recommitted for Monday next.
§ House adjourned at a quarter after Two o'clock.