LEAVE. FIRST READING.

HC Deb 21 June 1860 vol 159 cc762-815

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question (12th June), That leave be given to bring in a Bill to repeal so much of the Act of the twenty-second and twenty-third years of Victoria, chapter twenty-seven, as authorises the Secretary of State in Council to give directions for raising European Forces for the Indian army of Her Majesty.

Question again proposed.

Debate resumed.

LORD STANLEY

In rising to address the House on this Indian army question, I would, in the first place, assure the House, and it is certainly not necessary for me to assure my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for India, that nothing is further from my ideas, or, I hope, the habits of my political life, than to come forward in opposition to a measure proposed by the Government simply because I happen to sit on this side of the House, or because the plan which he has introduced is different in many respects from that which I myself intended twelve months ago to propose. I know, probably better than most hon. Members, what are the difficulties of Indian administration in the present day; and I know also how great is the intricacy and perplexity of this particular question, involving, as it does, a vast variety of considerations, both political and military. And I will readily admit, also, that, although the permanent interests affected and the principles involved are the same now as they were at the time when I was responsible for the conduct of Indian affairs, still, as far as the immediate facility of dealing with this question is concerned, the events of the last twelve months have made some difference. Holding that opinion, if I could have agreed—if I could even have acquiesced in the principle of the Bill which my right hon. Friend has introduced, I certainly should not have been withheld from doing so by any wish to maintain an appearance of consistency with the opinions which I endeavoured to promote last year; the only consistency in such a case that I should value would be a consistent determination at every time to do that which, under the circumstances of the moment, was most for the interests of the Empire. But, having been for some months responsible for the settlement of this question, having been a member of the Indian Army Commission of 1858; and having during the last two or three years ascertained either orally or from written documents what is the opinion of almost all those who are most competent to form a judgment upon it, I think it would be not merely a want of earnestness and sincerity on my part, but it would be an act of political cowardice in me if I were now, from fear of misconception or from any other motive whatever, to hesitate to express the opinions which I honestly entertain. I do not think it is a factious proceeding to support an opinion which I formed long before taking office, and which in office I endeavoured to carry out. Nor can I think it unreasonable to endeavour at least to secure in this House a fair and full consideration for opinions which are entertained by the Governor General of India, by Sir John Lawrence and by Sir James Outram, and which are shared in by the whole of the permanent Indian Administration in this country. Before I endeavour to state what this question is, perhaps the House will allow me to mention in a few words what it is not, and what it is popularly supposed to be. My right hon. Friend, while admitting this, for him, unpleasant fact, that the members of his Council were unanimous in their opposition to this plan, threw out a hint that that need not influence the opinion of the House, since no department was ever willing to let power pass out of its own hands. I do not quite understand the meaning of that phrase as applied to the Council for India, because they have no power in connection with military administration, except that of giving advice to the Secretary of State, which he may either take or reject. But, whatever may be the meaning of my right hon. Friend, it is undoubtedly an idea commonly entertained out of doors as well as to some extent in this House, that the point really at issue in dealing with this question is a contest between the Military Department and the Indian Administration, not indeed for power generally, but for that particular form of power which consists in the distribution of patronage. Now, this is, in my opinion, entirely a mistake. The question of patronage and that of organization are altogether distinct, and if the House should think it desirable that that which was recommended in the first instance by Sir John Lawrence, and which subsequently received the sanction of the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs in a debate in this House two years ago—namely, to open altogether to competition the first appointments in the local Indian regiments—should be carried into effect, the proposition is one which might just as easily be acted upon, even though no change in the organization of the Indian army took place, as if the plan for amalgamation were realized. If, upon the other hand, the House should, upon grounds of general policy, deem it expedient that the fusion of the two armies should be carried out, and should at the same time he of opinion that, considering the Indian Administration pays for the maintenance of the existing local troops, it ought to have some voice in the first appointment of officers, it would be quite easy to retain the patronage of which I am speaking in the hands in which it is at present placed, while in all other respects the fusion of the local with the Queen's troops might be complete. I am not recommending that plan, although I believe it has been entertained; all I want to show is that the questions of patronage and amalgamation are entirely distinct, and that, whatever opinion may have been pronounced with respect to amalgamation by the Indian authorities, that opinion is one which is wholly free from all suspicion of being dictated by personal motives.

I have alluded to one of the prejudices which exist on this subject, but there is a second—for I cannot call it anything else but a prejudice—which is sometimes openly put forward, but which more frequently underlies men's thoughts than it appears upon the surface, and which makes in favour of the maintenance of a single as opposed to a double army. We are repeatedly told that it is an "anomaly"— that is the word used—to keep up two separate military organizations under the same Crown, and subject to the same authority on the part of Parliament. We in England are broken into anomalies, whether we like them or not; but, if there be any anomaly in the case, it is not the maintenance in India of a specially Indian army, but our tenure of India itself. In the present instance, however, the House must bear in mind that we have no precedent and no parallel to guide us. You cannot reason from the case of a colony as to the decision at which you ought to arrive; for India is not a colony in the ordinary sense of the word; it is not a settlement; it can hardly be called a province. It may more appropriately be designated an empire in itself, although the appellation is one which I am aware has been cavilled at. India possesses her own laws, her own finances and her own system of civil administration. She maintains at her own cost an armed force numbering no less than 300,000 men, and of two anomalies it is surely the less that that force should stand apart, than that it should be made a portion of another force, the head quarters of which is separated from it by a distance of half the globe, and which, in point of numbers is greatly inferior.

One word on the manner in which my right hon. Friend proposes to take the issue on this question of amalgamation. He raises it, undoubtedly, in the simplest form, and so far his method of procedure is for the con- venience of the House. This disadvantage, however, attends upon the proposal of my right hon. Friend, that we have not before us—at least, not in a shape which would enable us to come to any decision with respect to it—the scheme by which he proposes to carry his purpose into effect. He asks us simply to declare that no further recruiting shall take place for the local European army in India—a proposition which is almost equivalent to an abstract resolution that the maintenance of such army is inexpedient. But, while my right hon. Friend asks us to pledge ourselves to that extent, he does not call upon us to come to a decision as to what we are to substitute for the existing system. If we take the plan of amalgamation proposed by Sir William Mansfield, or any other person conversant with the subject, and endeavour to point out the difficulties inherent in it, my right hon. Friend would very fairly tell us that that was not his scheme. Well, we ask you, what is your scheme? My right hon. Friend answers,—"I am not calling upon you to decide upon the details of any scheme; all I seek at your hands now, is to affirm the principle that a local army in India ought to cease to exist." That is to say, we are called upon to affirm that it is expedient that a certain thing should be done, though many of us may believe that the greatest difficulty must be experienced in working out the necessary details in a manner consistent with the guaranteed claims of Indian officers, if indeed that be possible at all. Nor do I think the difficulty which presents itself in dealing with the question in this form is diminished by the suggestion which my right hon. Friend has thrown out to the effect, that we are not now asked to consider the case of the Native army, but only that of the European force in India. If that were really so, and that we were simply to decide upon what should be done with a force of 20,000 or 30,000 Europeans, our views upon the matter might, indeed, be materially altered. If we could dissociate from the question at issue to-night that larger question of what ought to be done with the Native army, then, no doubt, the interests involved would be incalculably less important, and the controversy would be confined within much narrower limits. I am, however, afraid that you cannot separate the case of the local European from that of the Native Indian army. And for this reason, that if you are to maintain in India a powerful European force, consisting of 60,000 or 80,000 men, composed of the principal troops of the Line, and if together with and by the side of that army you are to keep up at the same time a Native army, which will be necessarily less looked to, less thought of, and less trusted, and which will be mostly employed, in all probability, on services in connection with which opportunity will be taken to economize European life—if, I repeat, two such armies are to be maintained in a separate form, and without any tie or bond between them, it is, I think, plain that the officers of the Native force will feel that their position is one—I will not say of degradation, but, at all events, of inferiority— that they will lose that self-respect and ésprit de corps which ought to belong to every army; and that service in the Native force, instead of being sought for by competent men in India as heretofore, would form a refuge only for those who can obtain no other employment. I have heard something of jealousy as existing at present between the local forces and those of the Line; but what state of things, is more likely to create and perpetuate ill-feeling than that in which the officers of the one army will perpetually assert the superiority of their position over the officers of the other, while the latter will feel that they are placed in a position of undeserved but not the less real inferiority. To take such a course, then, as that to which I am alluding, would, in my opinion, be to destroy the efficiency of the Native force.

But the question may be asked, do we require Native troops, and can we trust them after the experience of the last few years? I answer that question by another, —how are those Native troops to be replaced? You cannot hope with any European force which you can command, to keep under control a territory containing 1,500,000 square miles and 180,000,000 of inhabitants.—60,000 or even 80,000 Europeans will never suffice to keep in subjection so great an empire, and you cannot increase your army beyond that limit, partly because of the enormous cost of European troops in India, and partly because of the waste of life in consequenc of the climate. It should also be borne in mind that you require services to be performed in India which European troops cannot render, while I believe, in practice, no large force of Europeans has ever taken the field in that country with- out being accompanied by Native troops. Let me also remind the House that circumstances may arise which will render it a matter of considerable difficulty to keep up the number of Europeans, even at the lowest limit upon which you might deem it expedient to fix. There are many circumstances in this country the tendency of which is to make recruiting difficult; wages are rising, the position of the labourer is improving, the capital of the country is rapidly increasing; but notwithstanding these things, emigration has not ceased, and the demand for labour in the home market exceeds the supply. It will be a matter of difficulty, therefore, even in time of peace to obtain the number of men required for Indian service. On the other hand, if the contingency should arise, a contingency which is painful even to contemplate, one at the present time most improbable, but still within the range of possibility, and against which the existence of an army is intended to provide—if a war should take place in Europe in which England should be compelled to take part, I do not see by what means you could maintain an European force of 70,000 or 80,000 men in India unless indeed you resorted to that unhappy, and, as I think, discreditable expedient which you were driven to adopt in the Crimean war, that of enlisting foreign mercenaries.

I hold, then, that the maintenance of a Native army both for the present and for the future is inevitable; and holding that opinion, I am glad to believe, as I do, that the dangers incident to its existence are considerably exaggerated in popular belief. You have in India every variety of race and opinion, and between those various populations the old feuds and animosities still continue. In 1857, when the mutiny first broke out, the first thing done was to raise a new Native army, and that army marched on Delhi as readily as it would have done against a foreign enemy. In point of fact to the Sikhs, service in Hindostan was foreign service, and in like manner, if insurrection were to break out in the Punjab, you would have no difficulty in obtaining the assistance of troops raised in any other part of India to put down such disturbance. The really serious danger you had to encounter at the time the outbreak occurred was that of giving to one single race a vast preponderance in the constitution of the Native force. If that error is avoided for the future, as I apprehend it will be after the lesson we have received, the maintenance of a Native force is in a great degree free from danger, and if on the one hand it be conceded, that the maintenance to a considerable extent of a Native force is under the circumstances of India inevitable, and if on the other hand it be admitted that a Native army cannot be maintained entirely dissociated from the European force, without the officers and men losing their esprit de corps and self-respect, it follows inevitably that a local European force must, to some extent at least be maintained. I do not like on questions of this kind to appeal to authorities, however eminent, because reasons of policy ought to be considered on their own merits. But I find that Sir John Malcolm, when examined before this House in 1813, so exactly expressed the opinion I have endeavoured to lay before you, that I will quote one sentence from his evidence. He was asked— If the European regiments were to be reduced, and the infantry of the Company's army to consist of Natives alone, what would be the effect? His answer was,— If such a separation were to take place it would tend materially to destroy the efficiency of the Company's army. …In the Sepoy service the officers cannot be employed except in all the lowest drudgery and fatigue of war. They will in consequence sink in their reputation, and will become little better than a country militia. He goes on to argue that an army, exclusively Native, organized in the manner now proposed, would sink into a condition not superior to that of the armies of Native Princes.

There is one consideration which you cannot altogether overlook, although I am far from regarding it as of paramount or primary importance—I mean the feelings of those officers whom you are about to transfer from one service to another. I allude to that subject, because my right hon. Friend said that, with very few exceptions, the feeling of the officers of the Indian army was favourable to amalgamation—or at least that it is only the older officers that are against amalgamation, the junior officers being in general in favour of it. There must be much that is conjectural in an estimate of the feelings of a large body of men with whom we do not come into personal contact; and when the opinion of a Minister is known, those who dissent from that opinion naturally shrink from expressing views which are known to be unwelcome when it is felt that their expression can serve no useful purpose. On the other hand those who agree with the Minister are, as naturally ready to say so. That rule applies, no doubt, to both sides of the question. I do not contend that I, any more than my right hon. Friend, have ascertained exactly and impartially the state of feeling on this subject. But having communicated with very many officers, and having a few years ago passed some months in India, I must say that I have never heard it affirmed that any Indian officers, except, it may be, a few of the very youngest, were favourable to the change otherwise than for the reasons which I am about to give. I certainly have heard officers, who disliked the idea of the transfer, say that though they thought it would be injurious, yet they were satisfied from the manner in which the question was treated at home, that it would take place sooner or later; that there were influences at work which could not be resisted, and that if the change was to take place, they would rather it should take place at once, in order that they might be relieved from the anxiety in which they were placed and know what their future was to be. That is a feeling which prevailed some time ago, and no doubt it is rather increased than diminished by the long period of suspense in which the Indian army has been kept. There is another ground on which I believe that some officers of the local force may not be unfavourable to amalgamation. No one who has heard the free and unreserved expression of opinion among the officers of that force, as I heard it a few years ago, can fail to be aware that one of their strongest feelings—I am not identifying myself with that feeling as founded in justice, I speak merely of its existence —one of their strongest feelings is a belief that they have little chance of justice at home—that interest, and influence, and favour have a great deal to do with military administration here, and that services rendered at a distance from England stand no chance of adequate recognition; and they argue in this way.—If we remain as a local force we have no chance whatever, but if we take our turn in service with the European forces we shall be brought under the notice of the authorities at home, and we shall have some prospect of obtaining justice. I believe, therefore, that there may be local officers who are disposed to acquiesce in the fusion—some from a natural impatience of the state of suspense to which they are subject, others from despair of justice being done to the local army. But I appeal to my right hon. Friend whether an approval on those two grounds ought to be considered as an approval of any value. But it is not for the sake of the officers of the Indian army that I would maintain a local European force in India; it is for the sake of the public service in India; and in all the discussions on this question I have never heard a fair and satisfactory answer given to what is, in my mind, the greatest objection to the measure of the Government. Supposing that the plan includes the Native as well as the European army of India, it is contended that you will lose the most valuable assistance which the Governor General now has in carrying on the local administration of Indian affairs when you lose the service of some thousands of officers trained exclusively to the Indian service. I do not know that it would be possible to obtain any more important testimony than that of the Governor General himself upon this subject, and here is what he says:— No one would dream of attempting to administer the civil affairs of India through officers who were not attached to the Government by some other tie than the receipt of Indian salaries. And inasmuch as the efficiency of our military service, in those branches of it which are of daily importance to the peace and safety of the country, such as the management of irregular regiments, or the conduct of the half-political, half-military operations on the frontiers, and in Native States, depends mainly upon the application which the officer gives to his early training, upon the heartiness with which be undertakes his duty, and upon his persevering adherence to it, I should greatly deplore seeing Her Majesty's army in India officered entirely, or even in the greater part, by men who are at liberty to cast themselves loose from the country at their pleasure, and at an insignificant sacrifice of their interests. Now, Sir, I do not suppose that any man in this House will argue the question on the ground that it is better altogether to separate officers of the army from the civil administration of India. The separation of civil from military functions may be very proper in an advanced state of European civilization, but it is certainly not a system that would answer in India. There are many parts of India in which it would be, I do not say difficult or inconvenient, but simply impossible to administer civil affairs through the agency of civilians. Let any man read, for instance, the work of Sir Herbert Edwardes, entitled, A Year on the Punjab Frontier, and he will sec what is the normal condition of life among the tribes beyond the Indus and he will be able to judge how far it would be possible in countries inhabited by such a population to separate the power of administration from the power of the sword, and how much more influence the administrator of affairs must have who is a military officer than if he were a mere civilian. My noble Friend Lord Ellenborough, than whom no one has devoted himself more thoroughly to the study of Indian Affairs, felt this so strongly that he at one time threw out a suggestion that all the civil servants should be required to pass through the army, in order that they might have some military training. I do not go that length, but I assert, what I believe no one conversant with Indian affairs will require me to prove, that Indian administration, to be successfully carried on, requires a large admixture of the military element. Well, then, the question is, how will you get military men to take part in that administration? My right hon. Friend's theory —at least, it is that which is usually put forward—is that all you have got to do is to give inducements and facilities for officers of the Line to leave their regiments and enter into the civil administration, and you will by that means obtain an ample supply. To that I have two answers. In the first place, I do not believe that you will get men, and in the second I do not believe that if you do they will be men who have received so useful and valuable a training as is now enjoyed by officers in India. With regard to the first point, the difficulty of obtaining men, probably the House will permit me to read another extract from Earl Canning's recently published Minute:— I adhere to the opinion that the interests of India require that there should be an army devoted to India. I am confirmed in it by the experience which I have acquired, after much intercourse with officers of Her Majesty's regiments of the Line in India, of the unwillingness which appears to prevail among them to look to India as the scene of their profession for any considerable length of time. During the excitement of active service this feeling was not so perceptible; though oven in 1858 the applications for leave to return to England wore numerous; but since the cessation of military operations it has become very strong, and it is not too much to say that it is a rare occurrence to meet with an officer of the Line who looks forward contentedly to a long stay in India. I do not think that the unwillingness will be removed by throwing open the door to their employment in every kind of Staff or irregular service. Making every allowance for the events of the last three years, for the disjointed and uncertain condition of service in India to which those events have led, and for all the discomforts of frequent and unseasonable move- ment of corps and indifferent accommodation, the feeling is, I fear, likely to prove a lasting one among those who are brought to India only accidentally. I believe that there are very few Englishmen indeed who will readily make up their minds to devote themselves to a career in this country, unless they are trained to look to it, and are bound to it from their youth. I think it is impossible to overrate the value and importance of a protest of that kind coming from the Governor General. I have in the course of the last two years made myself acquainted with many opinions which have been expressed upon important matters by Lord Canning. Sometimes it has been my misfortune to differ from him, but far more frequently I have agreed with him; and whether I have agreed or whether I have differed, I never read a despatch or a letter written by him upon any question of public policy which did not bear the marks of anxious and careful inquiry, and of a conscientious desire to ascertain the truth. And recollect, when Lord Canning expresses this opinion, he comes forward, not so much to speak to inferences drawn from facts which are public to every one, as to give evidence to a fact of which he is peculiarly and personally cognizant. From his position he knows better than any other man can do what are the feelings of those who are engaged in the Indian service. Applications for leave are made to him; he knows who wishes to stay, and who desires to go; and when he speaks of a prevalent distaste for Indian service as existing among men who are not trained in early youth to Indian life he is only bearing witness to a fact which is more or less familiar to every one who is conversant with Indian society. No doubt, the feeling of which he speaks has been aggravated by the recent mutiny, and by the antipathy of races to which I am afraid it has led, but it is a feeling which existed in India years ago, and I have repeatedly heard from able and experienced servants of the Government, from men whose Indian career has been one unbroken success, from men who, if any men have done so, have won the prizes of Indian public life, —I have heard, I say, from such men, that although satisfied with their own share of good fortune, although they did not regret that much of their lives had been passed in India, yet that if any opportunity of returning to England had offered itself to them in the earlier part of their career, they would undoubtedly have thrown up the service and returned to this country, at the sacrifice of their position and prospects. Nor do I assert this only from my personal experience. Of all the public men who have ever served in the East there is none who has left a more illustrious name than Lord Metcalfe. He was a man who possessed all those qualities which make success not a matter of speculation, but of certainty; yet what was the case with regard to Lord Metcalfe? We have it upon record that not long after he entered the Indian service he became so wearied of his banishment, and so disgusted with the apparent hopelessness of his career, that he wrote to his friends imploring that he might be allowed to throw up his appointment in India and return to England. If a road had been opened to him, if it had been in his power, without any material sacrifice, to come home, he would have acted upon the feeling which he then acknowledged, would have abandoned his prospects in the Indian service, and India would have lost one of her most illustrious administrators. I do not say that the life of public servants in India is one which men ultimately regret. It is a career of great interest. It offers noble opportunities, and confers splendid prizes, and men who go out determined not to look back, and knowing that their lives must be passed in India, become mentally as well as physically acclimatized, and make the most valuable public servants that we have. But what I say is, that in the first instance there is a struggle and a sacrifice, and that the prospect of banishment from England for the greater part of his life is one which no man willingly faces. It is a sacrifice generally made only when men are driven by necessity to make it.

In the next place, if you do find men who are willing so to serve, it is hardly possible they should acquire the same training as they do now; for in order to gain a real knowledge of India, I believe that it is essential that men should go there at a time of life when their ideas are still unformed, when their habits are flexible, and when they can readily adapt themselves to the ideas and requirements of Indian life. My right hon. Friend asked why should not that be the case with officers of Line regiments—why should not they go out early and determine to remain in India? Because they have no certainty of being able to do so. Suppose there is a war or a prospect of a war at home, and an officer is living with his regiment in India, and has for years been studying the lan- guages of the country, intending to retire from the service and devote himself to civil administration. His regiment is recalled with a prospect of being engaged in hostilities, and it is impossible for him with honour to leave it. He therefore quits the country, and takes his part in the events which may be passing on this side of the globe. He thus loses probably the special aptitude for Indian affairs which he had acquired, certainly, he loses the wish to return to India, and a trained administrator is lost to that country. You must not measure the amount of loss sustained merely by the number of persons who are thus inevitably prevented from pursuing an Indian career. You must bear in mind also the element of uncertainty, the not knowing whether or not they will be able to continue in the Indian service, which will more than anything else discourage men from entering upon what is at first a very laborious and very irksome task. I do not like to read extracts, but only two days ago I received a letter from a gentleman of considerable position and very high attainments, who for a time held an official situation in India, but who is wholly unconnected with either the civil or military service of that country, and whose opinion is therefore a perfectly unbiassed one. He says:— I am convinced that no man, let him possess a concentration of all talents, can or will fit himself for service in India unless it is the business of his life." "At the end of eighteen years' service in a tropical colony, with a thorough knowledge of the languages, I felt every day I had something to learn. I learnt by every day's experience how I must have irritated my people by my ignorance of their habits—an ignorance excused only as being obviously ignorance. I think that it is impossible to overrate the importance of this subject, because we have in India to deal with a people whom we can hardly measure by any European standard. In Indian affairs we have repeatedly seen how great discontent and dissatisfaction has been created by ignorance of Native customs and ideas. I will not refer to the signal illustrations of this fact which the events of the last two years have afforded, but this I will say, that having heard, as we all have, innumerable speculations as to the cause of the recent insurrection, I believe that although undoubtedly there were deep-seated causes also at work, and although there were persons who for their own objects excited the people, yet I am inclined to think with Sir John Lawrence that the alarm excited by the greased cartridges was not affected, but was a real alarm, caused by our ignorance of the prejudices entertained by our army upon that subject. I do not believe that any European going for the first time to India, and having to do with the Natives, can avoid giving offence and causing discontent, however anxious he may be to do so. If hon. Gentlemen wish to see the whole subject discussed far more fully and ably than I can deal with it, I can only refer them to that admirable Minute of Sir James Outram which they will find at page 110 of the blue-book, and with every word of which I would express my concurrence.

I now come to that upon which my right hon. Friend laid the greatest stress, and undoubtedly, not without cause if his conviction was well founded. He argued as if there was a necessary connection between the existence of a local European force and the existence of discontent and want of discipline in that force. We have had a great many assertions made upon that point both in this House and out of it; but I have not found any proof given of the truth of these assertions. True, insubordination prevailed to a lamentable extent among the local European troops of India last year. But what ought to be shown, and what has not yet been shown, is that the local character of that army had anything to do with its insubordination. The incidents of their mutiny are fresh in the recollection of every hon. Member of this House, and therefore I need only say that the event was altogether exceptional and casual. I am not here to defend these men. Their claims, I think, were not reasonable, and their conduct, I am sure, was unfortunate. But I maintain that the circumstances which led to that mutiny were such as can hardly recur. In the first place you had the older troops, as I believe, greatly demoralized by two years of civil war. Then you had a number of recruits raised in haste and sent out from this country, under the urgent necessity of the case, with the political object of making as great a display of European force as possible; but in point of training and discipline they were not in such a state as they might have been if despatched at greater leisure, and with more previous preparation. Then, in addition, there were exaggerated expectations entertained, I am told, by many of these troops on the subject of the prize money, to which they thought them- selves entitled. Those expectations were disappointed, and that disappointment produced discontent. And although I am most unwilling to say anything which may appear to throw blame upon the local authorities, who in a very delicate matter undoubtedly acted to the best of their judgment, still I thought at the time, and I have always thought since, that if some rather fuller and more detailed explanation of the grounds on which the decision of the Government was based had been made known to the men, and it had been proved to them that they were only asked to do what they were previously bound to do by the oaths they had taken on entering the service, something at least might have been done—I do not know how much—towards allaying their discontent. All these considerations form certainly not a justification, but a palliation and explanation to some extent of the bad feeling which existed among the local force. And what I wish to ask my right hon. Friend is this—Can you show, have you ever attempted to show that, placed in the same circumstances, influenced by the same opinions, and exposed to the same—I will not say real but supposed—provocation (and even if it was ill-founded the men felt it to be real to them)—troops of the Line would not have acted precisely as they did? Then, is the accident of a single mutiny to condemn a service of 100 years? You had once a mutiny at the Nore, but did you on that account condemn the whole constitution of your navy, or the whole race of British seamen?

I am told that we must accept the opinion of the highest military authorities on this subject. Now, I do unreservedly accept that opinion as conclusive upon the fact of a mutinous spirit prevailing among the troops; but what I do not see is the connection between the local character of the force and the insubordination which has unhappily existed. I have endeavoured to collect the reasons and arguments by which that view is supported, and I find it stated by some very able advocates of the proposed amalgamation, that men serving in the local force have a natural tendency to become desperate because they have no opportunity of returning to England. If that argument had been used seventy years ago, in the days of Clive and Hastings, when men who left this country for service in India rarely came back, it might have been used with some justice; but the pension list of the Indian army sufficiently proves that the men who go out to serve in the local European force do look forward to their return, and actually do return to this country as much as their brethren of the Line.

Another plea urged in favour of the amalgamation is that if insubordination shows itself in a portion of the troops of the Line, it can be stopped by changing the quarters of the men, and thus preventing it from spreading to the rest of the army. Now, I see no reason why you should not take just the same precaution in the case of a local force. This objection would be perfectly valid if it applied to a local force raised for a territory of a very limited area. It would be perfectly sound, for example, in Malta, the Ionian Islands, or the West Indian colonies. But, when we are considering the case of a local force, maintained in an empire the area of which is greater than the whole of Western Europe, it is unreasonable and absurd to say, "Oh! it is dangerous to have a local force, because, if there be any inclination for mutiny or combination among them, you have no means of separating the regiments." My right hon. Friend appears to have picked up an argument which he had heard or read, applying to the case of local forces generally, and he applies it to the case of India, with which it has obviously nothing to do.

In his speech the other night the right hon. Gentleman gave us another reason for his measure, when he said it was the opinion of military men that a local force was apt to deteriorate, because it had no opportunity of access to the highest military authorities. Well, I want to know who the highest military authorities are; because I should say none is, or ought to be, higher than the Commander-in-Chief in India. His power and responsibility are theoretically equal to, and practically they are even greater than those of your Commander of the Forces at home. This objection, then, like the one I have previously noticed, merely takes the form of some general reasoning upon the subject, and is applied to a case to which it has no relation whatever. It is perfectly true that local regiments raised for a small colony can never have an opportunity of seeing service upon a large scale, and therefore would labour under considerable disadvantages in undertaking any great military operation; but it is quite a different thing where your local force is intended for a vast country like India, and is in magnitude an army of itself. And with regard to disaffection, I believe that so far from the fact of troops being localized in India being an incentive to discontent among them it operates exactly the other way. I believe that nothing tends so much to keep up a healthy English feeling or a sentiment of patriotism among a body of men, whether in the civil or the military service, as the knowledge that they are settled among a vast population wholly alien, and in part, hostile, a population by which they are regarded, at best, as strangers, and in comparison with whose numbers they are themselves but a drop in the ocean.

My right hon. Friend made very light of an argument which is often used—namely, that if discontent should arise in the one army the presence of the other army would act as a check upon it. And he made this remark—in which I entirely agree with him—"God help us if our best or only chance for preserving India is to be found in the employment of one English force against another!" Nobody, I should suppose, contemplates the possibility of such an alternative; yet it does not at all affect the argument to which my right hon. Friend was replying, and which, as it has remained wholly unanswered, I will venture to repeat—that, if there be a danger of combination or discontent among the troops quartered in India, the evil would be less likely to spread over two separate forces differently constituted and, in a great measure, entertaining different ideas than over one army homogeneously composed. That is all that I have heard asserted on the subject, and as far it goes I believe it is a sound and just conclusion. But, quoting distinguished authorities, the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the inefficiency as well as the bad discipline of the local European force, and he used words to this effect, that it is the commonly received opinion—I am glad my right hon. Friend did not endorse that opinion—that officers cannot pass ten or fifteen years in India without losing something of their energy. This is certainly an invidious subject; but if one is to compare the services of the two armies respectively, I will venture to say that those who were lately known as Company's officers have had their full share of all the perils and all the honour acquired in Indian warfare, and that there has certainly been no inferiority on their side. Look back only for twenty years, to the period of the greatest disaster that has befallen our arms in modern times— the destruction of the army of Afghanistan. Whose name is associated with that event as the general then commanding our troops? No word shall fall from me that can reproach the memory of Sir James Elphinstone: he was a brave and respected officer: but he was sent out late in life, afflicted with many physical infirmities, and unfit, as he himself admitted, for an active command. That was the doing of the Government of the day. But the fact remains that it was under the command of a Royal officer that the great military disaster in Afghanistan occurred; while it was under the Company's officers, Generals Pollock, and Nott, that that disaster was retrieved. Again let me turn to the events of the last three years. I should be sorry to appear to undervalue or disparage such brilliant services as those which have been rendered by Lord Clyde, Sir William Mansfield, and Sir Hugh Rose. It was lately part of my duty to ask this House to recognize those services, and I certainly never discharged any duty with greater pleasure. But every man acquainted with England or India must feel that the imminent peril was past, the neck of the rebellion broken, before those distinguished men reached the scene of action. And when Delhi fell, who were the chief agents in producing that important result? Why, the Indian generals—Wilson, Nicholson, and Neill, and the Indian civilian, Sir John Lawrence. And when I hear it said that officers, after ten or fifteen years of Indian service, lose a part of their energy, I ask myself whether I am dreaming or under a delusion when I suppose that Munro, Malcolm, Ochterlony, Henry Lawrence, Outram, Edwardes, and many others, whose names, were I to cite them, would not be unknown to this House, were men who spent not ten or fifteen years, but the whole of their working life in active employment in India. Personal contrasts are of necessity very disagreeable, but if we are to compare officers of the two armies with each other I must say I think an officer in the Indian service has opportunities for a manlier and more thorough training than can usually be enjoyed by an officer serving in the home service. Surely, a command on the Punjab frontier involves greater responsibility and more active duties, and brings with it greater knowledge of military life, than a command at Aldershot, or even in a colonial garrison. And when the object is to train men for service in India, what can be more important than an acquaintance with the country, its climate, its people, its roads, means of transport, and commissariat? And at what serious disadvantage in these respects must an inexperienced Queen's officer be placed on arriving at Calcutta or Bombay for the first time? Moreover, it should be remembered that we are always sure, under the present system, of obtaining the best men in the Indian service to fill the highest commands; whereas, if the armies are amalgamated, that advantage will exist no longer: for there will be many more attractive positions for officers of the Line. Upon the question of the relative efficiency of the two forces, Sir Thomas Franks was called before the Commission to express his opinion, and he said:— I have served in the field with portions of the European forces of the three Presidencies, and nothing could surpass their gallantry, efficiency, and intelligence. Sir Willougby Cotton said:— I do not think it is possible to have better staff officers than the Indian army had, nor that there should be a more efficient force than the Indian artillery. Sir James Outram may be said not to be an entirely impartial witness, since he has taken an active part in this controversy; but whatever his feelings may be, all who know him may be sure that he would not state as a matter of fact that which he did not solemnly believe. Sir James Outram said:— Men of the local force are better in health and physical energy, man for man. He adds, and there is some significance in what he says:— If, as is alleged, the discipline of the local army is bad, the fault of bad discipline is generally supposed to be with the Commander-in-Chief, and of all the Commanders-in-Chief who have served in India only one has been appointed from the local service. And he adds:— Contrast the performances of the Bengal Commissariat during the mutinies, when the empire was in a state of dislocation, with those of the Royal Commissariat in the Crimea, under the eye of the British nation, and where a land transport of seven miles only was required of the departments. Lord Ellenborough, who although a civilian has deeply studied war, and has directed the administration of an army, stated explicitly that the Company's offi- cers have a more extensive knowledge comparatively with officers of the Line.— The Company's officers have acquired a much more extensive knowledge; till this revolution they would probably have been, as soldiers, superior to the officers of the Queen's army. They had seen more, they had more enlarged minds, because they had more to do. But upon this question it is not merely to the evidence of men now living that I desire to refer. My right hon. Friend in the course of his speech quoted the language used by Sir John Malcolm, and I admit that a higher or better opinion than Sir John Malcolm's it is impossible to cite. I do not pretend to know what opinion he expressed at other times, because this is a question upon which men may naturally see occasion to change their views: but he was questioned in 1813, before a Committee of this House, and, after stating in very high, but still general terms, his opinion of the character of the local troops, a question was put to him which bears very closely on the proposition now made by the Government. He was asked— Would it be advantageous to have the regiments of Europeans in India completed by filling up the casualties with recruits, or to have them occasionally renewed by entire regiments? That is practically the question now in issue—whether it is better to keep an army permanently in India, recruiting it from England, or to renew it by sending out entire regiments. Sir John Malcolm said:— It would, no doubt, be most economical to have them filled up with recruits, and the regiments would always continue more efficient, as any new regiment coming entire from England is unfit for service for, I may say, a twelve month at least. My right hon. Friend quoted Lord Metcalfe, and I find in Lord Metcalfe's volume of papers the following passage:— The Indian army, although it be taken under the Crown, must, nevertheless, continue in some respects a separate body,—that is, it must be officered as at present by officers brought up in its own bosom. He then proposes a system of exchange, so that, if there is any meaning in words, it is clear that he was contemplating a state of things in which the local army was to remain distinct from that of the Line. Again, my right hon. Friend cited in support of his proposal the greatest name and authority on military subjects in modern times—the Duke of Wellington. I heard with interest, and I have since read care- fully the passage quoted. But what does the Duke of Wellington say? I do not find in that passage a single word about amalgamation, not a single word about the disadvantage of a local army. What the Duke of Wellington said was that the Company's troops ought to be transferred to the Crown. That is quite a different question from the abolition of the local army, and I venture to suggest that the motive of the Duke of Wellington's recommendation may easily be understood. He knew that there was a jealousy between the two armies: he knew also that there was a feeling among officers as to the superiority of service directly under the Crown over service under the Company; and he came to the conclusion that the supposed inequality between the two was the cause of jealousy which it was expedient to remove. I need not tell the House that since the Act of 1858 that cause of jealousy is removed. I have only one more authority to quote. Let me remind the House that I am not calling witnesses into court. I am only taking the liberty to cross-examine witnesses whom my right hon. Friend has called. I have not looked through all the writings of Lord Cornwallis. He may have entertained different views at different times; but, looking over Lord Cornwall's collected Despatches, I alighted on this passage:— Several objections have occurred to mo on more mature deliberation against declaring all the forces in this country King's troops. If an Act of Parliament could be obtained permitting the Company to beat up for recruits, and to keep them under martial law until their embarkation, and if some means could be adopted to establish equality of rank between King's and Company's officers, I believe I should be satisfied. What becomes then of the authorities cited in favour of the Government plan? Lord Metcalfe favours a local army; the Duke of Wellington is only for a transfer of the troops under the Crown; and Lord Cornwallis would be satisfied with the maintenance of a local force on certain conditions which have long since been fulfilled.

The opinion of Lord Cornwallis alludes to one of the principal grounds upon which the plan of fusion is based—the alleged existence of jealousy and rivalry between the two services. I do not care to deny that such jealousy has existed. No doubt it has often gone beyond the limits of natural and healthy emulation, and its existence has prejudiced the interests of the public service. But why has it existed? Let us see what complaints the local officers have had, and up to what time they have been excluded from an equality of rank and honours. The first instance of a Royal commission being granted to an Indian officer is in 1788. The rank of Lieutenant General was not granted until 1813. The Order of the Bath was nominally conceded in 1815, but it was actually given for the first time in 1826. Brevets for service date from 1828. The rank of General was first extended to Indian officers in 1837. Their rank as officers was not recognized in Europe until 1855, and the first instance of a Commander-in-Chief being appointed from the local forces was in 1856—only four years ago. It is not unnatural that officers of an army 300,000 strong, treated in such a way, should have entertained feelings of jealousy towards their more fortunate comrades of the Line. We should entertain the same feelings under the same circumstances. It is very easy to do away with the feeling by doing away with the causes. By far the greater part of those causes have been removed, and if any remain at the present day they are insignificant. But when it is argued that jealousy must exist between two armies differently constituted in two countries, subject to the same supreme authority, I say that jealousy need not exist unless you put one army in a condition of greater advantage and favour than the other.

In one respect there is a disadvantage in the continuance of a local force. I admit that many soldiers who are invalided at an early age are only incapable of service as far as India is concerned, and are still able to do effective duty in a temperate climate. But, if that is admitted to be a disadvantage, it is one from which it is very easy to escape, because there is no difficulty whatever, as far as the men are concerned in arranging a system of transfer from Indian to general service, by making service in one army count towards pension for service in the other. Such an arrangement involves no other difficulty than the mere mechanical one of balancing the accounts of the Indian and English Exchequer. In the case of the exchange of officers from one service to the other I am disposed to agree with Lord Canning that the difficulties, though doubtless grave, are not insuperable; but as regards the men, there are absolutely no difficulties to encounter; all that is necessary is to determine how much of the pension of the soldier transferred ought to be charged on the Indian, and how much on the English revenue.

But there is one other consideration which I think the House ought not altogether to overlook, and that is the effect of the change on the army of the Line. What do you propose to do? Why virtually to employ 25,000 troops or 30,000 troops in India more than have hitherto been considered necessary. You will not be able materially to reduce the strength of your Colonial garrisons. You can reduce that of the Cape, because the number of troops maintained there of late years has been, to my mind, extravagantly high. But, with that exception, you cannot reduce the Colonial forces. If, then, the Colonial service cannot be reduced, and the Indian service is to be increased, every officer and soldier gets a longer period of service abroad, and a proportionately shorter period of service at home. For the men, perhaps, that change will not make much difference; but for officers, consider how far you can afford to make the service less attractive than now. You now require from them intellectual qualities of a higher character than before; the pay is low compared with other professions; the chances of distinction in time of peace are uncertain; and I apprehend that this change will materially increase the difficulty—a difficulty already beginning to be severely felt—of obtaining candidates for commissions. It is now your object to induce, as far as you can, men of social position and of independent fortune—who have a stake in the country, and have the feeling of citizens as well as soldiers—to enter the army. That is a principle which may be carried too far. I think it is carried too far, if you sacrifice the intellectual qualifications of an officer in order to secure those advantages; but, kept within reasonable bounds, no doubt the policy is sound; and it will be for the House to consider how far this prospect of considerably increasing the period of foreign service will be likely to affect the entrance of such men into the army. It may be said, perhaps, that individual officers can find the means of evading foreign service, because they can generally, at least in time of peace, arrange an exchange out of a regiment which is going abroad, into one which is to remain at home. But, even when such exchanges are possible consistently with the rules of the service, I do not believe that is a system which the House will desire to encourage.

A good deal has been said as to the inconvenience of locking up in India a considerable European force, by making it a merely local force, when you may require it nearer home. There is an Indian, as well as an English side, to that question; and it might be contended that, considering that India bears the expense of maintaining an army for her protection, it is not reasonable that she should be obliged to maintain as large an army in time of peace as in time of war, in order that that army may act as a reserve for the benefit of the Home Government. But I deny that, in any strict sense of the word, a European local force is locked up in India. The Company's forces have had before, and the local Indian troops may have again, if required, to serve in time of war beyond the limits of India, as, for instance, in Egypt, in Persia, and in China. When any great emergency arises, there can be no doubt that they will and ought to be sent out of India, provided that it be for purposes of war, and not for ordinary garrison duty; and provided also that their employment beyond the limits of India shall not be protracted when the urgent need of them has ceased. What I contend for is, not that a local force shall never, under any circumstances, cross the frontiers of India—for that has never been the case—but that India shall be its home, and that it shall not leave India, except in the case of war. If its liability not to leave India, except in the event of war, constitutes any objection to a local force, precisely the same objection applies to the rule which regulates the service of the Guards at home.

It would be exhausting the patience of the House were I to go further into this question now. The question is one which it is hardly possible to argue fully within the ordinary limits of a debate; but there is one aspect in which the House ought to look at it, and that is in its effect on the power of the Governor General. I am far from wishing that, in regard to administrative matters, greater authority should be given to the Governor General than he now possesses. In some respects I think he, or rather his immediate subordinates at Calcutta, have a larger administrative authority than is desirable. I should be glad to see somewhat less centralization in the Administration of India, and somewhat more local freedom given to the governors of the minor Presidencies. But that feeling is quite consistent with the opinion I now maintain, that in all matters which are political or military, the power of the Governor General ought in India to be supreme. Since the days of Hastings, to whatever disadvantages the Indian Administration has been exposed, it has always been free from the evil and danger of a divided authority. If that danger is ever to arise, the division of power can only be between two persons. The only person who can possibly be placed in a position which would render him a rival to the Governor General, is the Commander-in-Chief. In the case of a local army stationed in India, every officer looks up to the Governor General, as the head of the whole local service and. the representative of the Crown; but it is obvious that the same feeling will not and cannot exist in an army of the Line which is serving only for a short time in the country, and of which the immediate head is the Commander-in-Chief on the spot, with a limited power of appeal to the Commander-in-Chief at home. With India garrisoned exclusively by officers of the Line, the person first in importance will be the Commander-in-Chief—the Governor General will both in Native eyes and in those of the army, stand only second. I do not want to exaggerate the amount of inconvenience, not to say danger, which will ensue; but the effect, both as regards the relations of the two, the one with the other, and as regards the relations of the Government with the Native Princes and subject population, will be most injurious.

I am not going, at this time, into a consideration of the estimated cost of the change projected. I agree fully in the remarks made by the gentleman to whom my right hon. Friend committed the charge of the inquiry into this subject, that materials are wanting for anything like a minute or correct estimate of that cost. The question principally to he considered under this head is, how far the invaliding of soldiers, with the expense it occasions, will be diminished by a system of more frequent reliefs. That of itself is a proposition not altogether free from doubt. It is distinctly affirmed by medical men, and is, indeed, familiar to every one who has Indian experience, that however men may suffer in the course of years from the Indian climate, still by far the largest and most formidable mortality is that which arises among newly landed troops. I find from one statement that among eight regiments of the Line the proportion of loss was 110 out of 1,000 men in their first year in India. And, of course, the more frequent the reliefs, the more frequently you bring young, raw, unseasoned soldiers into India, the greater will be the mortality from those causes which affect men on their first arrival. The House must not omit to observe, also, that the liability to sickness which affects men who have been long in the country is capable of diminution by prudent sanitary measures, more especially if it shall be found possible to quarter a largo number of European troops in the hills. On the other hand, the mortality which falls upon young soldiers from their own imprudence, their ignorance of the climate, their neglect of precautions, cannot, in a proportionate degree, be diminished by artificial means. Then you have further to consider, even assuming that more frequent removals would diminish the mortality of the troops, whether the saving thence arising would compensate for the enormous cost of transport and the practical neutralization of a considerable portion of the army by its being constantly on the passage backwards and forwards. I have touched but lightly on these two last topics, because I fear I must have exhausted the patience of the House in endeavouring to state, (and after all I have done it but imperfectly) the grounds on which I object to the total substitution of the army of the Line for a local force in India. In doing so, I can assure the House I have discharged what is to me a distasteful duty. I would always much rather on Indian questions support the Government than oppose it. I know in this case I am acting against the opinions of many of those whom I deeply respect; but I know the arguments I have laid before you—and the weight of which I feel far more strongly than I have been able to express—I know these arguments do weigh heavily on the minds of those who, from their experience and knowledge of Indian matters, are most competent to form a judgment on the question. I wish only that the subject shall —as I am confident it will—receive a fair, impartial, and deliberate consideration. I am well aware that from the position I have occupied I have been too much mixed up in this question, too long personally interested in it, to approach it at this time with a completely unbiassed mind; and, whatever decision the House may come to, I, for one, will acquiesce in it frankly, knowing from an experience now extending over a considerable length of time, that upon almost every topic that comes before us, be it what it may, the collective judgment of this House is wiser and sounder than that of any individual Member.

GENERAL PEEL

Having sat with my noble Friend on that Royal Commission to which he alluded, and having been a party to the settlement which he proposed in 1858, I am anxious to take the earliest opportunity afforded me of stating the grounds on which I now come to an entirely different conclusion from that which he has just laid before us. The question before the House is, whether the right hon. Gentleman (Sir C. Wood) shall be permitted to bring in a Bill to repeal so much of the 22 & 23 Vict., c. 27, as enables the Secretary of State for India to raise men for Her Majesty's local European force in India—whether we shall continue to maintain a separate European force for the protection of India, or whether the whole of the European troops in India shall form part of the Queen's general army. This is a question the importance of which it is impossible to exaggerate. It is far too important to be made a party one. By a party question I do not mean of a political kind. I do not think that on either side of the House there is the slightest disposition in that sense to treat this as a party question. What I mean is that we ought not to allow our judgment in this matter to be biassed by any preference we may as officers have for the regular rather than the Indian army, or for the Home as distinguished from the Indian Government. I cannot but think that my noble Friend must naturally, from the position which he formerly filled, be so biassed in his opinion on this question as not to attach the same weight to the evidence of officers of the Royal army as to that of other persons, and no doubt my own opinions are as much biassed by my connection with the Royal army. Such has been the diversity of opinions and such the conflicting arguments for and against the proposition of the Government, that it is not in the least degree surprising that there should be a want of unanimity in the House, and for that reason I shall not quote any of the authorities, for they are all before the House, and the House can form its own judgment upon them. The bare majority and the minority of the Royal Commission came to exactly opposite conclusions. There was an understanding between my noble Friend and myself that, as the question would come before us in our capacity of Members of the Cabinet, we should not express our opinions on the Commission; but, still, as I agreed generally in the views of the majority, and my noble Friend in those of the minority, our voting on the Commission would not have made any difference in the relative proportions of the majority and minority. The majority consisted of five eminent officers of the regular army, and the minority contained the names of four as eminent officers of the Indian army. But the Marquess of Tweedale, Lord Melville, Sir Harry Smith, Sir George Wetherall, though Queen's officers, have served in India for a long time, and have had just as good an opportunity of forming an opinion on this subject as Indian officers. The diversity of opinion arose from viewing the question in reference to the several interests—I will not say prejudices—of India and the Indian army, or the interests or prejudices of England and the Queen's army. It was my duty, as Chairman of the Commission, to put the questions to the witnesses, and in the case of nearly every witness, as soon as ever he declared to which service he belonged, I could pretty well predict what his evidence would be. I perceive, from the papers before the House, that the Report of the Commissioners has been submitted to the political and military Committee of the Indian Council, and that they were unanimous in condemning the Report of the majority of the Commission. But that is no wonder, if you look to the composition of that Committee. Of the five Members of it three had given the strongest possible evidence before the Commission in favour of the views of the minority. Still, even then, when they came to express their own individual opinions, we find there also a majority and minority totally differing from each other. And equally so among those who have held the highest stations and had the best opportunities of forming an opinion on Indian affairs. In fact, names of the highest authority and the largest experience in India, statesmen and soldiers, may be found arrayed on each side of the question, and whichever opinion a man may espouse he will be in no want of authority to back it up.

In the midst of this conflict of evidence it was the duty of Her Majesty's late Government to come to some decision, and it is notorious now that they were in favour of two-fifths of the European army being local. I, of course, concurred in that view, and it may therefore be asked why I have since changed my opinion, and am now decidedly in favour of an amalgamation of the armies. The events that have since taken place, and the all but mutiny that has occurred in the local European army, are quite a sufficient justification for the change of opinion which has been effected in my opinions and in those of Sir William Mansfield and many other officers. I do not wish to lay too much stress on that mutiny; no doubt at first the Government was to some extent in the wrong; but it is impossible to get over the fact that a correspondence was carried on, that mutinous meetings were held in the barracks, and that even to the last moment none of the non-commissioned officers or old soldiers came forward to inform their officers of what was going on. There are also many other reasons besides the fact of this mutiny which contribute to alter my opinion. So far from the proposal of the Earl of Derby's Government, to have two-fifths of the European army local, meeting the views of those who supported a local army, one of the ablest opponents of the amalgamation, Colonel Durand stated distinctly in one of his latest despatches, that the Indian army would prefer amalgamation rather than that proposal. There is also another circumstance which has greatly tended to alter my views as to a local force. It is quite evident from the large number of the men of the Indian army who accepted their discharge when the opportunity offered, that after ten years' service a great many men will always prefer to accept their discharge. It has not been sufficiently observed that the Limited Enlistment Act puts an end at once to the idea of a local force. It has been suggested by my noble Friend that if you have a local force you can allow men to exchange from one service to another. The men of that force are, I believe, able to do so even now, and at the expiration of ten years it is natural that a man should be anxious to come home again to see his friends, and if at the end of six months he re-enlists he can count his ten years' previous service. Therefore, unless the number of exchanges from one service to the other be equal or almost equal, either the Indian Government or the English Government will be paying pensions for twenty-one years' service of which it has only received ten, or if you divided the pensions between the two Governments according to the length of service you would be giving a man a pension for ten years' service, because he served the other Government afterwards; whereas he would not be entitled to any pension if he left your service at the end of ten years. There are other difficulties of the same kind, which can only be got rid of by having one united army. Of course, in carrying out an amalgamation, you must take care to continue to the officers and men belonging to the present European force all their present advantages of promotion and pensions, and all the advantages which they possess from having subscribed to funds which do not exist in the Queen's service. The right hon. Gentleman has not told us how he proposes to get over these difficulties, and it is the want of these details that constitutes, in my opinion, the weak part of his ease.

Subject to being able to get over this, I think the other objections may be easily met. The advocates for a local army oppose the amalgamation on the following grounds. First, they state that the army in India has hitherto supplied officers, not only to perform all military duties, but civil and Staff appointments, and that it cannot be expected that if the army is to consist entirely of regiments whose service in India is to be of comparatively a short date, that officers will be found qualified to fill these appointments, or to look forward to lives spent, and a career in India. Now, in passing, I must beg leave to congratulate the army on this acknowledgment, that notwithstanding all the accusations that have been brought against it of want of education and ability on the part of officers, that they fill these situations much better than any other class of men, and that the security of India depends upon being furnished with a supply of them. Now, I think that there need be no fear on this head. I quite agree with Sir Charles Trevelyan on this point, that if you throw these appointments open to officers of the general army that you will have a great rush of candidates for commissions in regiments in India, and who will qualify themselves to obtain them, and that so far from shutting out men who look to an Indian career, you will afford them far greater facilities for obtaining it than they now possess. A commission is much easier to obtain now than a cadetship, and if the views of His Royal Highness, the Commander-in-Chief, as stated before the Organization Committee, be carried into effect, they will be open to everybody, without any other test than that of respectability and passing the necessary examinations. Instead of service in India in civil and Staff appointments being confined to the friends and relatives of members of the Council, they will be open to the whole world. Why, even by Lord Canning it is proposed that every cadet should be appointed to, and do service with, a line regiment, and why not better belong to it. I maintain you would have a much larger field to select from, and every candidate for civil and Staff employments in India must have selected that life by his own free will, for I would make any examination for them perfectly voluntary, and unless others sought them they would be still confined to the same old Indian names and families who now possess them. The men selecting this life would, if approved of, and after a certain service with their regiment, be placed upon the Staff list, and their places supplied in their regiment, thus getting rid of the old fatal system of denuding a regiment of all its good officers and leaving only the refuse to do the duties of it. I beg to say that this term "refuse," is not one of my selecting, but that of a distinguished Indian officer, and I think it is only to be justified as a term of comparison between those who have been selected for peculiar merit, and those who, failing in those qualities, have not succeeded in obtaining that which was equally the object of all. Now, this would never apply to the regular army, because there would be a larger portion of the officers who never sought these appointments, and looked to their professional position in preference to any other that might be offered to them.

It has also been said that a local army always secures to India a certain amount of permanent force in India not removable at the desire or caprice of the Home Government. I do not attach the slightest weight to that objection to the proposal before us. The Home Government must always feel the same interest in the welfare of India as they do in that of any other part of the empire. India is represented in the Cabinet by a Secretary of State, and therefore I cannot suppose that we need dread such an interference as would affect the security of that country. But it is a mistake to imagine that the local European force cannot now be removed from India. The fact is, I believe, that it is as liable to be removed as any other portion of the European force now in India. The opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown was taken upon that point and laid before the Royal Commission. It was to the effect that the Native troops could not be removed, but that the local European troops were quite as liable to serve in Persia, for instance, as any other portion of the Royal army. No British Government, as I have said, would ever endanger India by removing a larger number of troops than the Governor General would sanction. Indeed so far from India having any ground of complaint as to the withdrawal of the Queen's troops in times of pressure, India was saved by the exertions made to send Queen's troops in the time of her need. Our colonies and some of our garrisons were even placed in jeopardy by the number of troops withdrawn from them for the purpose of being sent to India. India can be looked upon only as a part of the Empire—a most important one I admit—but still she must be prepared to give as well as receive assistance when the exigencies of the State require it.

Another objection has reference to the consideration of expense. It is properly contended that the amount of force in India should always be regulated by the amount of the Indian revenue; and it was the opinion of a minority of the Royal Commission that the authority of the Secretary of State and the Indian Government with respect to the application of the Indian revenue would be interfered with by having the whole of the force a Royal army. Recollect, however, that the amount of force in India, whether local or regular, must always depend upon the Governor General and the Indian Government. The Home Government has no authority to send a single regiment to India without it being applied for by the Indian Government; but at the same time the latter has the power of decreasing the force there at any time it may think proper by sending regiments home; and that power has sometimes been exercised, to the great disarrangement of the financial Estimates of the Secretary for War. You have an example of it this very year, in the necessity he was under of withdrawing his original Estimates, and substituting revised ones on account of the unexpected arrival of troops from India. I think the Secretary of State has shown that there is not such a difference in point of expense between a local and a regular force as ought to influence the decision of the House upon this subject. I agree with him that the most efficient force is the cheapest. Why should there be any difference of expense? I am satisfied that sufficient allowance has not been made, in calculating the expense of a local army, for the effect of the limited Enlistment Act. Moreover, if the whole of the army in India were a regular army, I do not see why the scale of allowances made to troops serving in India should not be subject to revision, and placed more on a footing with the allowances granted to troops serving in the Colonies. Of course, the Staff and those who remained there permanently would receive higher allowances, which would be an additional inducement for officers to seek these appointments; but, if regiments are to be relieved oftener than they have hitherto been, I do not see why there should be that great difference in point of expense between troops serving in India and troops serving in the Colonies which now exists. I think, too, that some reduction might be made in the cost of the transport of troops to India, and I hope we may have recommendations from the Committee now sitting which will enable the Indian Government to cut down the expenses under that head. There would also be a saving of the expense of a double Staff; and, upon the whole, I see no reason why, if the proposed change were to be made, you should not have quite as cheap and a more efficient army than you have at present, and that all objection on the score of expense would fall to the ground.

Another objection which, though not prominently brought forward, has, I am afraid, affected the opinions of many in a greater degree—even of those who are not directly interested in it—than any of the objections I have already enumerated, has reference to the transfer of patronage from those who now hold it to the Commander-in-Chief, or, as it is called, the Horse-Guards. Any fear on that score is ground-less. I have shown that original appointments would be open to the whole world. The Commander-in-Chief has expressed his willingness to give up all patronage ns to original appointments, and the only thing left to him would be the common regimental promotions, in which there is no patronage whatever; they are almost matters of course, and are the subject of fixed regulations. The selection of officers to fill civil or staff appointments in India will, I take it for granted, be left entirely to the Governor General and the Indian authorities. All appointments to commands in India ought to rest with the Governor General, with the exception, perhaps, of those immediately connected with the discipline of an army—such as the posts of Adjutant General and Quartermaster-General. I believe, indeed, that, so far from the patronage or power of the Governor General being at all affected by the proposed change, that great functionary will be placed in a much higher position than that which he now occupies. The only difference will be that you will deprive the Indian Council and the Commander-in-Chief of the patronage of original appointments. But there has arisen a question between the Indian and the British Governments. We have raised, solely on account of India, twenty-six regiments of the line, two regiments of cavalry, and have made great additions to our Artillery and Engineers. We have now an army quite sufficient, in time of peace, to supply India with all the troops she requires; they have been raised entirely for the service; and if the Indian Government does not employ them, I am quite certain you will not consent to the annual addition of at least another million and a-half to the Army Estimates, and that a large portion of these troops will have to be disbanded at great expense to this country. That will be done —for what?—to enable the Indian Government to raise new regiments, and to continue that fatal system which has already so signally failed. A greater act of madness than to disband old regiments for the purpose of raising now ones, cannot be conceived. You now have plenty of men. I will undertake to supply India with all the force she requires without adding a single man to the British army, and at the same time I could maintain a much larger force in this country than we have ever yet had without adding one shilling to the army Estimates. For these reasons I shall not only vote for leave being given to introduce the Bill, but shall give the measure my cordial support in all its stages.

COLONEL SYKES

said, he took a much more comprehensive view of this question than was comprised in the mere consideration of class interests, Line or local. What they had to look to was, would this proposal conduce to the good government of India and the satisfaction of the people of that country. His right hon. Friend (Sir Charles Wood) last August brought in a Bill which empowered him to increase the local force in India from 20,000 to 30,000 men, but the same Minister now came before them with a Bill to abolish that local force. What was the cause of his vacillation? It was that he had now no confidence in the local European troops. But the right hon. Gentleman had formed that new opinion because the local force in India had endeavoured to maintain what they considered to be their rights. For the purpose of placing the matter before the House in its true light, and explaining the cause of the dissatisfaction shown by our troops, he would explain the manner in which soldiers were enlisted for service in India. Every recruit before joining the local force in India had to take two oaths before a magistrate in this country, and he had given to him an attestation paper. The first oath was to serve the Sovereign of this country, the second was to serve the East India Company and the generals placed over them. The recruit was not furnished with a copy of the first oath, but he was furnished with a copy of the second, and he (Colonel Sykes) held in his hand one of these papers. Let the House imagine then the effect of ignorant and uninstructed persons carrying about with them a paper wherein they read that they were bound only to servo the East India Company. That was the general feeling among them, and not only that, but they considered that if the engagements they had entered into were broken they were entitled to enter into new conditions and to have a bounty, or to be sent home. Curiously enough, a question almost identical in its features was raised in 1795. Lord Cornwallis at that time advocated the amalgamation of the local force in India with the troops of the Line, and he wrote this Minute:— The condition on which the European noncommissioned officers and soldiers at present in the Company's service have enlisted cannot be altered, and therefore those men who do not choose, upon receiving a new bounty, to re-enlist voluntarily on the usual terms in the King's service, can only be required to perform the engagements in India which they have contracted to perform to the Company, subject to the articles of war, which are in no essential point different from those in the King's service; and after the expiration of those engagements they are to be furnished with passages in the Company's ships to England. Now the present question having been raised, and the matter having been referred to the law officer of the Government, the Advocate General, it did seem semewhat strange that he and the military Judge Advocate should not have been aware of this Minute, which would have at once set at rest the question of the rights of the men. The men were quite aware of the opinion of Lord Clyde; they also had in their recollection the declaration of the noble Viscount (Viscount Palmerston), "If the troops do not like to be transferred, let them take their discharge." Under these circumstances, when the men found that their application for a bounty was resisted on the part of the Government, it could not be truly said that the men were in a state of mutiny because they asserted what they considered to be their rights. What was the history of the case? The soldiers had presented memorials upon the subject, complaining of what they deemed an injury. Committees sat at the different stations to hear the men's statements, and they were desired to be patient while the matter was under reference to the Government. Several weeks, nay months elapsed before any reply was given, and during that period they behaved with the greatest propriety. The reply came, founded upon the dry technicalities of the law, upon the wording of the first oath, a copy of which had not been given to them, and it told them they had taken an oath of allegiance to the Crown, and were servants of the Crown, and not entitled therefore to any bounty at all, or new conditions of service. Up to that period they had been perfectly obedient, but then they began to say, "We require justice, not law; combination is necessary; there can be no mistake about our rights, and we must have them." That conduct of course constituted mutiny, if it were mutiny for troops to demand what they conceived to be their rights. But was it true that they had all quitted India? Only 10,000 out of some 21,000 returned to this country, and of these great numbers re-enlisted and went out again. His right hon. Friend said that in consequence of the conduct of the men they had shown themselves unworthy of trust for the future, and that they ought to be abolished as local troops, and yet with singular inconsistency, notwithstanding their untrustworthiness, he would make them regiments of the Royal army. Now let the House apply that argument to the troops of the Line. During a former war a Highland regiment, which had since highly distinguished itself, was raised on the express condition that it should not be sent abroad. In course of time, however, troops were required in the West Indies, and this regiment was ordered to be marched down to Leith for embarkation. But when the men discovered their intended destination they marched through Leith and Edinburgh with their drums beating and colours flying, and took up a position under Arthur's Scat and set the Government at defiance. The Government, in that case, was forced to give way, but it was never contended that on that account the Regiment was to be distrusted for the future, or that the Government were bound to disband the whole of the Highland corps. By parity of reasoning, however, his right hon. Friend (Sir Charles Wood) ought to say, as he did of the soldiers in India, that because those Highlanders had contended for and obtained their rights not only they ought to be disbanded, but all the other Highland Regiments for their loyalty was not to be trusted. Take another instance. The 22nd Royal Regiment, than which none could be more brave or loyal, when stationed at Muttra, complained that they were unable to obtain the arrears of pay due to them, from the defalcations and death of the Paymaster of the Regiment. One fine day the Sergeant Major fell in the Regiment on parade, and the men demanded a settlement of their pay. Major-General Dickson, who commanded the station, was obliged to call out the cavalry and Horse Artillery, and on his requisition the regiment grounded their arms and retired to barracks; but the result was that the men obtained what was due to them, were re-armed, and were finally sent on active service. No man would venture to say that this regiment—since distinguished as Sir Charles Napier's—was not to be trusted on account of this occurrence. The readers of Irish history were aware that the 5th Dragoons in the rebellion of 1799 refused to charge the rebels. [An hon. MEMBER: No! never.] The regiment had been disbanded and was now restored; but was any slur to be cast on the loyalty or gallantry of the present regiment? He could give twenty other instances of a similar kind, but these were quite sufficient to bring his right hon. Friend's argument to what the schoolmen termed the absurdum.

The next argument was, that in consequence of the indiscipline of the European troops in India, they were not so efficient as troops of the Line. Lord Clyde, Sir Hugh Rose, and Sir William Mansfield it was found in the blue-books had expressed themselves to this effect. But the local Artillery had long been acknowledged to be equal to any in the world and the colours of the European Regiments were emblazoned with the names of many victories in which the regiments had participated; and with respect to the Native army, Lord Clyde, on taking leave of the 9th Bombay Infantry said, addressing Major Evans, who was in command, he had long desired to have an opportunity of thanking his fine regiment for its soldier-like appearance, with which he could scarcely find words to express his satisfaction. Lord Clyde also expressed his warm acknowledgment to the whole Native army of Bombay for its strict discipline, which he said he had first beheld at Peshawur ten years before, and which had kept steadfast in its allegiance and loyal to the Government when the whole Bengal army, as if seized by a sudden fit of insanity, had withdrawn from their duty. Sir Hugh Rose, in taking leave of the Bombay army, stated that he appreciated fully the position of being in command of a force which occupied so high a military position, while General Mansfield, in assuming the command, said that he was well acquainted with the character and discipline of the Bombay army, as illustrated in many brilliant actions. With those facts before him, he must contend that the conduct of the local European troops and the circumstance of a mutiny having broken out among the Native troops in Bengal furnished no sufficient ground for the proposed extinction of the local troops in India.

Another argument of the right hon. Gentleman was, that it would be impossible to recruit for the local army. No doubt there might be some truth in that objection if the local force were intended to be entirely European, and to consist of 80,000 men. But the European force in India had always hitherto consisted of Line and local regiments, and for the prospective arrangements it was never contemplated that this system should be altered, or that the whole European force should be local. But why should 80,000 men be deemed necessary? In 1857 our European troops in all India consisted of 25,771 men belonging to the Line, and 15,227 belonging to the local army, in other words, of 40,998 men; there were also a few veteran and invalid companies. With that force the authorities contrived to break the neck of the mutiny and to take Delhi, under the most unexampled circumstances recorded in the annals of military sieges—they managed also to take Lucknow, and to hold their own till reinforcements arrived from England. If they were enabled to do that with 40,000 men, why, in the name of common sense, should 80,000 be thought necessary now when there was not left a Native Prince that could stand against a single English brigade, when there was no longer a fortress before which they could sit down, and when they had disarmed a considerable portion of the Native population? With respect to a local European force there could be no doubt about the completion of the local force of 30,000 men authorized to be raised by the Act of last year, for its strength at that moment was 13,884, besides 3,492, who were on their passage and 1,600 recruits at the depot. Drafts from the Line would be quite uncalled for.

The right hon. Gentleman stated that while all the officers above the rank of captain objected to the amalgamation, all those who were below that rank were in its favour. He (the gallant Colonel) was at a loss to conceive where the right hon. Gentleman had obtained that information. Since the year 1840 he had given commissions to at least 200 officers of the Indian army, and he had at that moment two sons in that force, subalterns, who had been with their regiments twelve years, and had never sought a staff employment; and he had a tolerably extensive acquaintance with Indian officers, but in the whole course of his experience (with the exception probably of a few lads occasionally who wanted to get back to Europe), he had never heard of the wish stated by his right hon. Friend. The right hon. Gentleman had used the names of Malcolm, of Metcalfe, and of Grant, in support of his view; but he seemed to forget that the opinion which those distinguished men had expressed was given before 1855, before, in fact, Lord Lyveden had obtained for Indian officers equal rank in all parts of the world with those in the Queen's service. Since that time there had been no jealousy between the two services as regarded the question of rank; and the opinions the right hon. Gentleman had quoted were no longer applicable to present circumstances.

There were many other objections to the plan of the Government. In the first place if the amalgamation took place the applications for exchanges would be incessant, and the Indian Government would be put to a large and unnecessary expense in the shape of passage money to officers on their way to India or coming home, which passages were not paid for local officers. Again, the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) had spoken in very strong terms of the disregard of authorities by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir Charles Wood). There were fifteen Councillors of India who had been expressly appointed for their knowledge of that country, and their acquaintance with the habits and manners of the people; but his right hon. Friend, having privately ascertained, one by one, that their opinions were absolutely adverse to his proposition, refused them an opportunity of expressing their opinions in council and collectively in regard to it. There was no document on the table of the House to show what the opinion of the Council really was. If the opinion of such men as Sir John Lawrence, General Vivian, and Sir Frederick Currie, who had passed so many years in India, was not to outweigh that of three or four Royal officers who had been only three or four years in India, he feared the reputation for knowledge and experience of any set of men could be of little value in the estimation of his right hon. Friend. The local force possessed the great advantage of having become acclimatized. A lengthened residence in India generally softened down those asperities and that dislike of a black face or a black skin which new- comers too often felt. They could only hope to hold India by producing a good feeling between the European and the Native soldier, a feeling of which there were happily abundant examples. Thus, on one occasion, when the gallant Sale was shut up in Jellelabad in Affghanistan and provisions ran short, the 35th Native Regiment begged that their share of meat might be given to the 13th Royal Regiment and the artillery with whom they had been brigaded; they said they could do without meat, but Europeans could not; and the 78th Highlanders, when in Persia, used to call the 26th Bombay regiment the Black Cameronians, and treated them as comrades. It generally, however, took Europeans four or five or even six years to become used to the habits of the Natives, and get upon such friendly terms with them. It would be perfectly easy to keep up a local force of 30,000, because a Royal regiment never came home with out 150 or 200 men volunteering into some other force, because they preferred remaining in the country. He did not touch on the financial part of the question, as some papers were about to be presented to the House bearing upon it; but he believed that the amalgamation would involve an increase of expense amounting to a million sterling. The patronage question had been pooh-poohed by the right hon. Gentleman; but it would require to be well weighed at a later stage of the Bill. Even under the quasi independence of the company he had known a commander-in-chief appointed who could not find his way out of the court-room in which he was sworn on account of his defective sight. He had known another who had never mounted a horse after his arrival in India; and a general officer appointed to the Staff who was a valetudinarian, and had the misfortune to lose an army. If such things had happened before, when objections could be raised by a Court of Directors, there was no reason why they should not happen again when there would be no objectors; and it could not be denied that 4,980 new commissions to fill up in the Indian army would be a very pleasant addition to the patronage of the Horse Guards. He would conclude by saying that, giving his right hon. Friend credit for good common sense, he could not help expressing the belief that his convictions were not quite in accordance with his arguments, and if he wished to promote the welfare of our Indian Government and the contentment of the people, he earnestly recommended him not to persevere with his Bill.

Mr. PEACOCKE

said, he thought the primâ facie evidence in favour of one united army under one head, and guided by one impulse, so manifest that he would not detail the numerous arguments for amalgamation, but would rather endeavour to answer the objections which had been urged by the noble Lord who spoke first in the debate to-night. The noble Lord maintained that additional expense would be entailed on the country by amalgamation. The proposal of the Government was to maintain 80,000 European troops in India. According to Mr. Hammack, whether that army was composed of local troops or Queen's troops, it would only make a difference of £170,000. Against that larger outlay of the Queen's troops was to be put the larger cost of the non-effective por- tion of the army—a double set of staff officers, and a double college, which would have the effect of impeding business and fostering jealousy, and when the noble Lord said that there were no practical advantages to be gained by the change, he would remind him that Lord Elphinstone declared that the double expenditure upon these objects was the least of the evils they entailed. The noble Lord (Lord Stanley) went on to urge the superior acclimatization which a local force enjoyed, and the hon. and gallant Member who spoke last had also employed a similar argument. He was excessively surprised to hear that argument, for the whole weight of medical authority was the other way. Dr. Martin, the highest medical authority on the subject of Indian climate, stated that there was no such thing as acclimatization, and added "Length of residence in India, so far from conferring any advantage in the way of acclimatization, surely and gradually leads to physical degradation." That was borne out by the statements of Sir Alexander Tulloch. Another argument was that a local Indian force acted as a wholesome check upon the withdrawal of an excessive number of European troops for service at home. He had no fear that the Government of this country, responsible as it was to the Queen, and to Parliament, would ever withdraw troops from India except under an emergency, so perilous and imperious that the best interests of India itself would be promoted by it. Our supremacy in India might be as dangerously assailed in the Mediterranean or on the shores of the Solent as on the banks of the Hooghly or in the Carnatic; and if the security of Portsmouth or Malta wore menaced, it would be but a poor consolation to know that Calcutta and Madras were safe. He was for these reasons a partisan of the thorough amalgamation of the two armies. The noble Lord had pointed out how India might be made the training school for our troops; and it was indeed desirable that the military experience acquired on the soil of India should be made available for the battle-fields of Europe, and that the experience gained in Europe should likewise be made available in India. They were always pointing to the superior organization of the French army, and, saying with truth, that it was owing in a great measure to the practical training of French soldiers on the plains of Africa, where they received their bapteme de feu. India might be made our Algeria, but we declined to avail ourselves of it. The French thought it right, under the pressure of a recent emergency, to transport their Turcos and their Zouaves to the plains of Italy, and he did not see why we should not similarly avail ourselves of the resources of our Empire. India should be our Algeria, but unfortunately we had thought proper to adopt the very opposite system, and with what consequences? Why, when war broke out in Europe, we searched almost in vain for generals who had seen a shot fired in earnest, and for staff officers who had the smallest practical knowledge of their duties. Again, it was undisputed that a superior esprit de corps existed in the Queen's army to that which existed in the local force, and this fact, indeed, was acknowledged by the Earl of Ellenborough and Earl Canning. The Earl of Ellenborough acknowledged that the Queen's army had never mutinied; whereas, the Indian army had frequently mutinied, and once to an alarming extent in the year 1806, when some of the officers were believed to have been mixed up in the movement. The mutiny of 1859 was also shared in by the non-commissioned officers. Every hon. Gentleman present was, no doubt, aware of the last mutiny in Bengal, but very few were, probably, aware as to the extent of its organization. Lord Clyde showed that for weeks previously to the breaking out of that mutiny the best mode of effecting a rising was openly discussed in all the cantonments of the local European force. Yet not a voice was raised by the non-commissioned officers to warn the officers of the impending danger. He might be told that the balance of authority of old Indian officers was against the amalgamation. But the House would do well to regard their evidence with suspicion, because Sir Hugh Rose truly affirmed, that a great portion of their opposition arose from self-interest. He said that those officers who had given their opinion in favour of a local corps did not hesitate to admit in private that the present system had led to disorganization; but they added that amalgamation would ruin them, for the Staff appointments would be distributed by the Horse Guards. Hitherto no great inducement had been held out to officers of the Queen's army to acquire the acqusition of the Indian languages; but Lord Elphinstone said that where an inducement had been held out of the most meagre kind, an active competition amongst the officers in the acquirment of these languages had taken place. Great stress had been laid to-night, and naturally, on the despatch of Earl Canning; but he thought that it would be seen that the admissions made in that document very much outweighed the arguments it contained in favour of a local corps. Earl Canning admitted that the European troops in the Company's service were much below those of the Line, and that there was great difficulty in completely training a local European force. He acknowledged that the opinion of high authorities in India was, that it would be difficult to maintain two distinct English armies in India; and that many of the young officers in the Native army in 1859–60 forgot their duty, and committed acts of gross insubordination. Against these admissions, the noble Earl used only this argument—that the officer of the regiments of the Line in India were unwilling to make India the scene of their professional life for any length of time. That argument had been, however, fully answered by Lord Elphinstone, who had shown that no appointments had been open to the Queen's troops; and that they were as willing as officers of the local corps to make India the scene of their labours, when adequate encouragement was held out to them. Whatever was the opinion on the subject of that despatch, he hoped that the doubts and hesitation of Earl Canning would not be allowed to weigh for one moment against the united testimony of the highest military authorities in India; and he trusted that it would be recollected that Lord Clyde, Sir Hugh Rose, and Sir William Mansfield, had emphatically declared that the maintenance of a local European corps in India was not compatible with the existence of our empire in India.

SIR DE LACY EVANS

said, he would preface the few remarks he wished to make to the House by observing that this was only the first reading of the Bill, and that if any active opposition were entertained to the measure, the proper course would be to take the debate on this subject on the second reading. He also wished to bear testimony to the very able speech he had listened to from the noble Lord opposite. Had he (Sir De Lacy Evans) consulted his own feeling in the matter, he should not have said a single word on this occasion; but he thought that the subject of India was very little understood in this country, and that its affairs, though studied with assiduity by a small portion of the community, did not generally meet with the attention which they deserved. He had, therefore, ventured to say a few words, as being a person who could not be supposed to have any personal interest in the decision. He was sorry to sec the benches of the House so very empty, and he regretted that even the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (General Peel), who made so gallant a speech just before on this subject, and who was particularly interested in it, not only as having held the office of Secretary at War, but also as Chairman of the great Royal Commission which had considered this question, was no longer in the House. He was sorry that the hon. and gallant Officer had not waited to watch the current of this discussion. But now, one word as to what was called the mutiny of the local European army, which had arisen out of faults on both sides. He called attention to this, because it was alleged to be the cause of the present Bill, which was a very remarkable Bill, and a very unjustifiable one in his opinion, inasmuch as from its peculiar form and nature it prevented the House from fairly considering on a future occasion the whole of the large question which it raised. The measure consisted, indeed, of only one small clause, but it deprived the House of an opportunity of examining the arrangements of the Government, and left them no alternative but to vote for the abolition of a local European force. The records of Parliament furnished no precedent for such a proceeding. It appeared that the five officers of Her Majesty's service who sat upon the Commission all gave their Votes for a Royal army in India; while the four Company's officers and the only Indian civilian who composed the rest of the Commissioners, unanimously gave their Votes in the contrary direction. If that were so, what value attached to the Report of such a Commission? The Commission was not fairly constituted. He had pointed out on a former occasion in what a false position the advisers of the Commander-in-Chief would place his Royal Highness if they induced him to act as one of the Commissioners. His remonstrance had not, however, been attended to, and he now repeated that under a Royal Commission so composed there could not be a fair and impartial investigation of this question. The noble Lord (Lord Stanley) was the only civilian upon the Commission, and he was strongly in favour of a local army. The late Secretary for War was upon the Commission also, and it was bard to place officers in the position of voting against the Minister of War and the Commander-in-Chief.

An easy answer to the speech of the Secretary of State for India was supplied by the statements which that right hon. Gentleman made to the House only last Session, and which were directly the reverse of what he had said on the present occasion. True, the right hon. Gentleman announced in a light and tripping tone that, having given further consideration to the matter, he had come to a different opinion. But when grave and responsible Cabinet Ministers changed their minds so completely on a cardinal question of policy in a few short months, what reliance was to be placed upon their decisions? On the 10th of August last the right hon. Gentleman came down to the House and proposed an augmentation of the local European army to 30,000 men, including the force at home. In 1853 he had proposed a similar augmentation. The right hon. Gentleman's Bill was, therefore, at direct issue with his own conduct and speeches in 1853 and 1859. Last year the right hon. Gentleman wholly denied that what had just happened in the local European army could be fairly described as a "mutiny," and he asserted that the men were under a strong impression that they had justice on their side. And so no doubt they had. For who had produced the so-called mutiny? Why, the noble Viscount at the head of the Government in the first instance, because, speaking with all the authority of a Prime Minister—an authority equal to, if not greater, than that of the Sovereign herself, although, perhaps, that opinion should be uttered with bated breath—the noble Viscount in introducing his Bill for the better government of India in 1858, distinctly declared that if the local European force objected to be transferred to the Crown they would, as a matter of course, have a right to their discharge. That statement reached the ears of the men, and naturally produced a strong impression upon them, and they were further confirmed in their persuasion of the justice of their claim by a report then current in the camps of India, that Lord Clyde and Sir William Mansfield both concurred in the declaration made by the English Premier. The troops were, however, abruptly told that they were to be transferred to the Crown. They expected cither to receive their discharge or a bounty on re-enlistment; but the Indian Government told them they were entitled to neither the one nor the other. When they saw that their comrades in the Queen's army wore obtaining bounty upon the transfer of their services to other regiments, the men of the local force thought it most extraordinary that the same trifling advantage should be refused to them. The Indian Government, finding matters growing serious, reported, home that the soldiers insisted on having the bounty or their discharge; whereupon the Ministry further complicated affairs, by absurdly referring the question to the law officers of the Crown, and those wise Gentlemen declared that the men had no right to claim either. Still it would appear that the Indian Government again represented the great difficulty in which they were placed, and begged for further orders from home. It would, therefore, seem that, after all, the Indian Government were not so much to blame, they having referred to this country for fresh instructions. It was stated that the Home Government again answered that the men had no right to the bounty, but that the Governor General might deal with their claims as he pleased. If that statement was true, it showed that the real originators of this affair, which was called a mutiny, sat on the Treasury Bench. The Government in India were asked to give these men either a bounty or their discharge, and after having refused both the one and the other they published an order declaring that the men might have their discharge if they pleased; and by the manner in which a portion of these men were sent home, it almost seemed as if the local authorities at Calcutta had some resentment towards them; for the deplorable state in which a large body of them reached Liverpool was well known to the public. These men came home, having been declared unworthy of trust; and, strange to say, yet orders were given to recruiting officers to go on board ship before they had time to land, and, if possible, to re-engage them for the service. Could anything be more completely convincing than this of the inconsistency and impropriety of the Government in reference to this matter?

But, it was said, those great authorities in the army, Lord Clyde, Sir William Mansfield, and Sir Hugh Rose, were in favour of the change now proposed. They were all hon. and gallant officers, no doubt; but he did not think them such supreme and overwhelming authorities on this question as they were represented to be; because he found that they had held their present opinions but for a very short time. They were not long ago of a different opinion, though they had now seen reason to alter their views. When the opinion of Lord Clyde was asked in the first instance, he said it was not the function of the military commander to give an opinion on these matters; that to settle such questions lay with the Government; and that it was his business to execute the orders he received. But he now declared that there was no safety for India, unless the local corps were abolished; and Sir William Mansfield said that the events of the last six months had convinced him that the existence of a local force in India was dangerous to the empire. Now, he maintained that the career and services of these local troops were a sufficient answer to all that could be urged against their conduct during these six months. Putting aside all their former services that stand recorded in history, he would say that their conduct during the extreme emergency of the great mutiny of 1857, proved that they were highly disciplined and most efficient soldiers. It was astonishing that officers in the high position of those to whom he had just referred, should endeavour to cast a stigma on troops that had distinguished themselves on so many fields, from that of Plassy down to the present time. They all remembered the distinguished services performed by a regiment of the local army from Madras, which accompanied General Neil in his expedition against the mutineers. When that regiment went to Calcutta, after performing those services, how were they received by the Governor General and the whole people of Calcutta? Why, there never was a regiment belonging either to the Crown, or to the East India Company, that received so magnificent an ovation; and yet they were now taunted as men unworthy of trust. One would suppose, from what was said by the eminent men to whom he had referred, that the local officers of India had disgraced themselves on almost every occasion in which their services had been required. Who was it, he asked, that founded our Empire in India? A local officer, Lord Clive, who began his career as a writer in the civil service, and afterwards distinguished himself so highly as a soldier. And if he were to single out any man who more than another saved India during the late mutiny of 1857, he would say it was a local civilian officer, Sir John Lawrence. Again, to refer to one of the best appointments the Government ever made, who was it that in a dire extremity was expressly selected to be the Provisional Government of India, in the event of any accident taking off Earl Canning? It was Sir Henry Lawrence, also a local officer.

But they were told that the local regiments were not so well disciplined as the regiments of the Queen. He had no doubt they did not look quite so smart on parade; but who ever presumed to say that those troops were inferior to those of the Queen on the field of battle? On the contrary, they were in some respects more efficient for Indian warfare; for they had learned on high authority that it was one of the drawbacks to the efficiency of the Queen's regiments that, until they had been a year or so in India, they were seldom able to muster in their full strength; and even when they did, they could not act with the same advantage as the local troops, who had been long accustomed to the climate. He had listened to the charges brought against what he had hitherto considered a distinguished portion of our army with great regret; and he did not think it became some of the officers who had passed those comments, to make them. He was told that the local officers were not fit for high command; but the noble Lord (Lord Stanley) had referred to some very remarkable cases in recent history, which disproved this, and which could not be gainsayed. During the calamitous outbreak that had recently taken place, the local officers, somehow or other, had taken a most prominent position. He feared that if the patronage was to be placed altogether at the disposal of the Horse Guards, they would only have a repetition of those misplaced appointments which had hitherto been so much complained of. He understood that questions had been put before the Commission as to whether or not officers had on critical occasions been selected for high command in India, who were physically unfit for those commands; but that those questions were rejected and treated with disdain by some great authorities on that Commission. It was notorious, however, that officers had been appointed to chief commands in India who, though gallant officers, were physically incapable of discharging their duties; and what were they to expect, if the pa- tronage of the Indian army was altogether placed with the Horse Guards, but an extension of this evil? One general officer said that he was complained of, because he was bad in his legs; but his predecessor was bad in his head. Another, it was notorious, was both deaf and blind. These were the appointments made by that perfection of military administration, the Horse Guards. To the last appointment, which was made by the noble Viscount, he alluded with reluctance, because the officer appointed was a man whom every body liked, who had good natural abilities, and who, if he had had experience, and had devoted his time to military affairs, would have been, he did not doubt, as good an officer as any other. Unfortunately, he doubted whether he had ever commanded a company; certainly he had never done so before an enemy, and yet the noble Lord appointed him to a most important command—that of 320,000 men. How were the interests of the Empire consulted when such appointments as that were made? The right hon. and gallant General (General Peel) had said that it was quite a delusion to doubt the excellence of the mode in which patronage was dispensed by the Horse Guards, and assured the House that that department exercised the most perfect justice and the most perfect wisdom in that respect. If that was the case, undoubtedly they could not do better than increase the patronage of the Horse Guards. Unfortunately, however, the conduct both of the right hon. and gallant General himself and of the present Secretary of State for War was at variance with that statement. They both thought that there was so much confusion and disorder in the proceedings of the Horse Guards and of the War Department that they had successively moved the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the irregularities. If the exercise of patronage by the Horse Guards was so perfect, what necessity was there for the appointment of that Committee? The hon. and gallant General said that the appointments to the cadetships for the whole Indian army would be beautifully managed by the Horse Guards; but before that Committee some most alarming and appalling statements had been made with regard to the exercise of the patronage of that department. It was not Parliamentary to allude to the proceedings of a Committee before its Report was presented to the House; but the right hon. Gentleman had observed that it would be mere affectation to pretend not to know what had taken place in the Committee; and, therefore, he should follow his example and refer to it.

MR. SPEAKER

The rule of the House is just as the hon. and gallant General himself has stated it. It is not competent to an hon. Member to refer to anything that has taken place before a Committee till its Report has been placed on the table of the House.

SIR DE LACY EVANS

said, he would, of course, bow to the decision of the right hon. Gentleman. But before the Bill was read a second time he believed the Report of this Committee would be laid upon the table, and he should then be able to refer to the evidence. He should confine himself to stating that he believed several very remarkable circumstances had been disclosed before the Commission. The patronage of the Horse Guards was immense, and he hoped that the House would consider that for constitutional reasons it ought not to be increased. It was generally thought that some higher influence had been brought to bear to induce the Government to depart from the opinions which they had previously expressed upon this subject; and when he remembered that they only last year introduced a Bill to provide for the augmentation of the Indian forces, and were now asking the House to adopt an entirely opposite course, he could not but be afraid that such had been the case. The arguments of the noble Lord the Member for Lynn had been most satisfactory and most conclusive against the policy Her Majesty's Government seemed determined to adopt; and he would reserve any further remarks which he had to make upon this subject until the House was asked to read the Bill a second time.

CAPTAIN JERVIS

complained that the hon. and gallant General the Member for Westminster (Sir De Lacy Evans) had departed from the real question before the House, which was, whether there should be a local army in India, or an amalgamated British army, in order to make an attack upon the Horse Guards. He seemed to think that the measure before them was a result of a job on the part of the Horse Guards, backed up by the down, to place in the hands of the former a little more patronage than it at present possessed. Since the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for India addressed to the House his clear and able speech upon this subject there had been, distributed a despatch of the Earl Canning, dated May 6, 1860, in which that noble Lord stated that rapidly to raise any European army in India and officer it efficiently from the present body of officers, was impossible. The question, then, was, whether we were to create a fresh local army or to raise the British army in India from 66,000 to 80,000 men. There was now no local army in India. In the Ben gal local army there was one officer to six European men; in that of Madras one officer to ten Europeans, and in that of Bombay one officer to every twelve Europeans. There were between 4,000 and 5,000 men at present belonging to the local army in India, and in the course of the year 300 men would be sent out to replace thousands who had been disbanded and sent home. It was a fact recognized by every man in India, from the Commander-in-Chief downwards, that that army could not be re-established. If there was one other authority whose opinion ought to command respect in that House more than another, it was Sir Charles Trevelyan, who in one of his Minutes stated that, on the balance of advantages and disadvantages, he preferred the plan of having a Royal army in India to that of re-organizing the local force. The Horse Guards, against which the hon. and gallant General had made so unwarrantable an attack, was nothing more nor less than a number of officers, who were appointed by the Crown to enforce the discipline of the army, and to see that promotion in the service was carried out in an efficient and correct manner. There was great misapprehension in the public mind as to the extent to which the powers of the Commander-in-Chief would be increased by transferring the local European troops to the regular army. A Commission which sat in 1837, upon which were some of the most distinguished Members of the House, had shown that the Commander-in-Chief was responsible for the efficiency of the army, but the Secretary of State was responsible to the Crown and the country for the expenditure. It was shown that if the Commander-in-Chief wanted to remove a corporal's guard from one place to another the order must have the sanction of the Secretary of State. He (Captain Jervis) did not believe that there was any jealousy between the local force and Her Majesty's army, and he could not understand how the amalgamation of a few thousand men could injure the Government of the country.

Leave given.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir CHARLES WOOD, Mr. Secretary HERBERT, and Mr. BARING.

Bill presented, and read 1°.