ADDRESS MOVED. (Hansard, 8 June 1860)

§ MR. H. BAILLIE
, in moving for an Address for Copies of all Correspondence with the several Governments of India, regarding the disarming of the Natives in Guzerat, together with any Minutes or Opinions recorded by Members of the late Court of Directors previously to the transfer of the Indian Government to Her Majesty, and subsequently of the Council of India, having reference to the same subject, said he wished to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India to the proceedings of the Indian Government in regard to this matter. There was no mode of punishment, no disgrace, no humiliation, so great in the eyes of a proud and warlike people as being deprived of their arms. It was calculated to arouse the bitterest feelings of the people, and this mode of punishment if carried out without great judgment and discretion would create great evils. When the people of Oude and elsewhere took up arms against us, and were conquered in fair fight, and as a matter of course were obliged to submit to the penalty—that was not the disarming he complained of. What he complained of was, that the disarming should be carried on indiscriminately, and in those territories were the people had shown no hostility, where they 215 had not rebelled, but where, in spite of strong temptation to a different course, they had remained tranquil. To disarm in such a case was not only unnecessary, it was tyrannical and oppressive. Nevertheless, the Government of India had adopted this course, and with a severity altogether unjustifiable. He held in his hand an extract from a letter from an Indian officer of rank and position. It was dated in 1859. The writer stated, My opinion now is that we are hated cordially; and the mode in which the disarming Act is carried out is in a great measure the cause of it. The arms were collected by the use of torture. The Natives were tied up, and flogged, and tortured to make them confess were their arms were concealed; and sometimes the flogging produced nothing. The men employed were chiefly youngsters, inexperienced, and likely to commit all sorts of folly. Well, this did not appear to be a very satisfactory mode of inaugurating Her Majesty's reign in India, nor of convincing the people of the great advantages they were likely to derive from subjection to British dominion. Some years ago a statement was made in the House of Commons that torture was employed in India by the Government. The statement was received with incredulity, and indignantly denied by those who had administered the affairs of India. But the House of Commons thought that inquiries should be made. Inquiries were made accordingly, and it turned out that torture was not only carried on, but that it was so common that it was used as the ordinary mode of collecting their revenue. Villages, too, had been burned down and razed to the ground in Guzerat, for no other reason than that the people were supposed to have concealed their arms. And this was in the territory of an independent Prince, an ally of the British Crown. The Indian Government had obtained the permission of that Prince to the disarmament of his subjects; but it was on that account the more to be regretted that the measure had been carried out with circumstances of such great severity. He trusted that there would be no objection to the production of the papers, for which he then begged leave, in conclusion, to move.

§ COLONEL SYKES
, in seconding the Motion, said he had from the first regarded the disarming of the Natives as a highly impolitic measure, because it would not only be ineffectual, inasmuch as we could not disarm the people of the independent Native States, but it would indicate a de- 216 gree of distrust unworthy of a strong Government. It would, moreover, expose the peaceful population of our own and the Native States where the disarming could be carried out to being made the victims of the predatory hordes who infested India. This disarmament was taking place not only among our own subjects, but was being attempted amongst the populations of the independent States of Gwalior, of the Guicowar, and the Rajpoot States. It should be remembered that the Pathan Mahomedans, the Rajpoots, and many other Native castes, looked at the bearing of arms as bound up with their personal honour; and consequently to disarm them could only excite in their minds a feeling more intense than resentment—of deep and bitter revenge—against the Government. When in the Court of Directors he had therefore protested against the measure as unworthy of us. He trusted, however, that the alarm which had existed with regard to the Native population was subsiding, and that we were beginning now to place a little more confidence in them. He had heard—but he hoped the report was not true—that in some of the Coolie villages in Goojrat the inhabitants had been removed by force from the districts in which they had been planted from time immemorial, and that to prevent their returning to their homes the sites of the villages had been literally turned up with ploughs drawn by asses, an indignity which would necessarily excite great exasperation. He was glad that the papers were to be produced, and the willingness of the right hon. Gentleman to grant them was an evidence that he did not participate in the feelings which dictated the orders that had been issued.

§ SIR CHARLES WOOD
said, that the measure referred to was taken before he was appointed to his present office. The disarming of the Natives was not a measure of punishment, but only one of prevention, and to be justified by the circumstances in which India was placed. The disarmament referred to had taken place with the consent of the Guicowar, and was the means of preventing serious mischief in his States. Tantia Topee went down into that country with a view of raising an insurrection, but he failed in his object, the people, who were otherwise willing enough to join him, being destitute of arms. He 217 had no objection to the production of the papers moved for.

§ MR. H. BAILLIE
thought it must be a gratuitous assumption on the part of his right hon. Friend to state that there would have been a rising in the States of the Guicowar if the people had had arms, because he understood that they could by no possibility disarm the people of India, and that when they were asked to deliver up their arms they merely surrendered the old and useless arms, reserving the good and useful ones. It was because the officers were aware of this fact that they resorted to such harsh measures.

§ MR. VANSITTART
said, that the measure of disarming the Natives originated in the Legislative Council of Calcutta, where it was fully discussed and found to be absolutely necessary. It was, he thought, one of the most judicious measures that had ever emanated from an assembly of which, as he had frequently avowed, he had not a very exalted opinion. That precaution had had a great effect in keeping down the population in the Punjab. There was no doubt that the prompt disarming of the people of Scinde by Sir Charles Napier was of the greatest service to Mr. Frere in his administration of that province. Had the advice given by Mr. Coverly Jackson—who was sent to Oude by Lord Dalhousie—been accepted by that noble Lord, and the people then and there disarmed and some hundreds of mud forts dismantled, there was little doubt that the fearful siege of Lucknow and the Cawnpore and other massacres would have been wholly prevented or greatly mitigated. Therefore although isolated cases of hardship might have occurred in carrying out the disarmament, he was persuaded that it was a wise and politic measure.

MR. J. B. SMITH
said, that whatever might be said of the disarming of the people, the burning of their villages could not be considered as a measure of prevention.