HC Deb 26 February 1863 vol 169 cc802-18
MR. H. BAILLIE

said, he rose to submit the following Resolution:— That, whereas by a Royal Proclamation addressed to the Native Princes and Peoples of India, published the 1st day of November, 1858, it is stated 'That we desire no extension of our present territorial possessions, and while we will permit no aggression upon our Dominions or our Rights to be attempted with impunity, we shall sanction no encroachment in those of others;' and again, 'We hereby announce to the Native Princes of India, that all Treaties and engagements made with them by or under the authority of the Honourable East India Company, are by us accepted, and will be scrupulously maintained;' so, in the opinion of this House, where differences of opinion have arisen with respect to the interpretation of such Treaties, the questions at issue ought to be referred for decision to Her Majesty's Privy Council. He brought forward the Motion with much regret, because he was aware that Indian questions were distasteful to the House; but, believing that the honour of the Queen had been compromised by the conduct of the Government, it became a matter of duty to bring the subject under the notice of Parliament. When Her Majesty's Government were advised to assume the direct administration of Indian affairs, a great responsibility was cast upon the Crown. Her Majesty had no Parliament in India to counsel her in the administration of the government of that country. The Parliament of England was both disinclined to discuss Indian questions and unable to appreciate the opinions and feelings of the people of India. It was for these reasons that the Ministers who were in office when the transfer of the government of India to the Crown was made, advised Her Majesty to issue a proclamation to the Indian Princes and people, informing them not only that Her Majesty was about to assume the direct government of their country, but also what were the principles upon which, for the future, that government was to be conducted. That proclamation was issued at a time of great public danger, when the rebellion was still in progress, and when large bodies of Indian troops were still in arms against Her Majesty. The effect of that proclamation was very remarkable, and he did not hesitate to say that it had contributed very greatly to the pacification of the country, and he was sure the House would feel that the promises made by Her Majesty, under such circumstances, ought to be faithfully and honourably fulfilled. Now, what were the promises made in that proclamation? That proclamation promised to the people of India that their ancient laws and customs should be preserved to the native princes; it promised not only that no spoliation of territory should in future take place, but that all the treaties which had been made by the East India Company with the native princes should be faithfully and honourably maintained. Had those promises been fulfilled? He charged the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India with violating those promises. He knew it was a very serious charge, for it involved the honour of the Crown, and he should not make it lightly or without due consideration. He made it advisedly, and he was prepared to demonstrate its truth. The case which he was about to bring under the notice of the House was that of the Kawab of the Carnatic, but the House should not suppose that this was a solitary case. There were many cases of violations of treaties and of poliations of territories, but they occurred during the administration of the East India Company, and there would be great difficulty now in going back to those transactions. But the case which he was about to bring under the notice of the House had occurred during the last days of the Company, had been since referred to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India, he had reviewed it, and confirmed what the Company had done. In taking that course the right hon. Gentleman had violated the promises made in Her Majesty's proclamation. The case of the Nawab of the Carnatic was this. The Nawabs of the Carnatic were princes of that part of India previous to the advent of the British. At the time when the East India Company's possessions were confined to the factories of Madras and Cuddalore, and when they were contending with the French for their very existence, the Nawab gave them the most effective aid both in money and troops, and continued to assist them in all their wars down to the close of the last century. In order that the House might appreciate the debt of gratitude the East India Company owed to the Nawab, he would read a few extracts from the official correspondence of that period. Sir Thomas Bum-bold, in 1780, said— The first and most distinguished of our connections is that which has been long formed with the present Nabob of the Carnatic. Our influence in the Carnatie is founded on the free will and consent of the Nabob. It is unquestionably to his influence in the Carnatic that we are indebted for a great part of our prosperity—for our success against the French during the last war, to which, as affairs have since turned out, we owe perhaps our present existence in the East. Such was the avowal of the Governor of Madras in 1780. In spite of that friendship and alliance, however, the Nawab was compelled by Lord Wellesley, in 1801, to sign a treaty by which he surrendered four-fifths of the revenue of his territory to the East India Company, on condition that the remaining fifth part should be secured for the maintenance of his dignity and that of his family. That violent proceeding on the part of Lord Wellesley was justified on the ground of some treasonable correspondence said to have been carried on with the Mysore Princes; but the facts were never proved, and the charge was denounced in the House of Commons in 1808 by Mr. Sheridan and Sir Samuel Romilly as frivolous and without the shadow of a foundation. Mr. Sheridan called upon the ex-Chief Justice of Bengal (then a Member of the House) to declare whether a man could be convicted upon such evidence in a court of justice, and he emphatically declared that he could not. It was upon such frivolous pretexts that Lord Wellesley despoiled the Nawab of four-fifths of his territory; and it remained for the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State to despoil him of the remainder upon grounds still more frivolous and unjust. The Treaty of 1801 was faithfully and; honourably maintained by the East India Company for a period of upwards of fifty I years. At the expiration of that time, in the year 1855, the Marquess of Dalhousie, being Governor General of India, publicly proclaimed what has been called the annexation policy, which was eagerly adopted by the East India Company because it promised them a large accession of revenue. In his celebrated minute the Marquess of Dalhousie expressed the opinion that it was sound policy to take every opportunity of annexing the territories of native princes, so that India might be governed by one central authority. Acting on this principle, when the Nawab of the Carnatic died in 1855, he sent orders to the Governor of Madras to take possession of the territory, declare the nawabship; to be at an end, and to seize on all the property, public as well as personal, of the family. The Marquess of Dalhousie justified this renewed act of spoliation on the singular ground that the Treaty of 1801 was a personal treaty, having reference only to the Nawab who signed it, and, as that Nawab had died, the treaty ceased to exist, and the Company could deal with the territory as they pleased. It did not appear to have suggested itself to the Marquess of Dalhousie, that if the treaty had ceased to exist, the Government had lost the only title by which it held any portion of the Carnatic territory, and that the whole must of necessity have reverted to the Nawab. That might be proved by the admission of the East India Company, for after the signature of the Treaty of 1801 the East India Company issued a proclamation requiring all the barons, noblemen, and gentry, the great officers of the Carnatic, to yield due obedience to them by virtue of the rights and powers acquired to the said Company by compact with the lawful Nawab of the Carnatic. That was a direct admission that their rights were acquired by the treaty. The interpretation put upon the treaty by the Marquess of Dalhousie did not convey the real meaning and intention of it; it was clearly intended by the Nawab to make over four-fifths of the revenue of the Carnatio to the East India Company for ever, on condition that the remaining portion should be guaranteed for ever to his family. And he would next proceed to show, by the most conclusive proofs, that such was the opinion of all the great officers of the East India Company up to 1855. The Nawab who signed the Treaty of 1801, Azeem-ul-Dowlah, died in 1819. Now, if the treaty had been considered as a personal one, that would have been the proper time for the East India Company to come forward and assert their rights. But what took place? His son, Azeem Jah, on the 11th September, 1819, was proclaimed as his successor, and on the 13th December of the same year the Nawab was informed by the Government agent, that in the opinion of the Governor General, a new treaty was unnecessary, as the Governor General considered his Highness to be ipso facto a party to the treaty concluded with his father in 1801. So that they had the Governor General of 1819, the Marquess of Hastings, directly at variance with the Marquess of Dalhousie in 1855. On the 3rd February, 1820, a few mouths afterwards, the Governor of Madras, Sir Thomas Monro, a great Indian authority, addressed a letter to the Nawab, in which this passage occurred— It is with infinite satisfaction I have the honour to congratulate your Highness upon ascending the musnud in the direct line of hereditary succession to your late father, of blessed memory. Sir Thomas Monro shortly after recorded his opinion in a minute as follows:— By the 10th Article of the Treaty of 1801 the rank of the Nawab as a prince and as an ally of the British Government is declared. No change in the political situation of the Nawab has taken place since 1801. He is still Prince of the Carnatic, and he is a party to the treaty by which one-fifth part of the revenue is secured to him; without a breach of the treaty we cannot, except with his consent, alter any of the articles. That was a quotation from Gleig's Life of Sir Thomas Monro. Nothing could be more clear and decided than this opinion. Upon the death of this prince, who reigned but six years, he was in due course succeeded by his son, and this succession was announced as follows:— Mahomed Ghouse, only son of his Highness Azeem Jah Bahadoor, was on the 22nd December, 1825, proclaimed successor to his deceased father in the rank and title of Nawab Subhadar; during the minority of the Nawab the affairs of the Durbar will be conducted by his Highness Azeem Jah, Bahadoor, brother of the late Nawab, with the title of Naib-i-Mooktar, or Regent. And thus, with the consent of the East India Company, the present claimant was appointed Regent during the minority of his nephew. In a letter of the Honourable Court of Directors of January 14, 1829, it was said—"The Nawab being an infant and in declining health, and the Naib-i-Mooktar being next heir in case of his demise." That was a direct acknowledgment of his right of succession. Again, the Directors, on the 4th of July, 1824, expressed their approval of certain proceedings on the ground of the Naib-i-Mooktar being heir in case of the demise of his nephew, Gholam Ghouse Khan. He now came to a later period—namely, 1843. On the 20th of September, 1843, on the occasion of a question of precedence, the Governor of Madras, the Marquess of Tweeddale, again expressly recognised Prince Azeem Jah's right to the succession. His Lordship in Council observed, that— His Highness Prince Azeem Jah Bahadoor does not hold the place in list No. 1, to which he is entitled in consideration of the position he lately occupied in communication with the British Government, and of that he still holds in relation to his Highness the Nabob and to his succession to the Musnud. He (Mr. H. Baillie) had now shown what was the opinion up to 1855, not only of the East India Company, but of all its officers, and yet the regent's claim had been set aside by the Indian Government. If that mode of dealing with native princes was to be tolerated, there was not a native prince in India who held a treaty which was worth the paper on which it was written. Take the case of the Rajah of Putteeala, who had rendered efficient services, and had perhaps saved India to the British Crown. The Rajah died a few months ago, and supposing the Governor General had been a disciple of the Marquess of Dalhousie, he would have written a letter stating that the treaty was a personal one, and that the death of the Rajah put an end to it, and would have seized his property on behalf of the Government. Had the Governor General done so, his conduct would, no doubt, have been severely condemned; and yet it would not have been a whit worse than the behaviour of the Indian Government in the case he had just cited. He was ashamed to be compelled to expose, not only to his fellow countrymen, but to the nations of Europe, the iniquities of that system of administration which so long prevailed under the East India Company, sanctioned by the Government of this country. It was a system of fraud, violence, and spoliation, carried on under the hypocritical mask of honesty and virtue, which for impudence and unscrupulousness was without a parallel or example in history. The day of retribution for the Company came at last. Let the House beware how, by its inattention to Indian questions and its disinclination to discuss Indian affairs, it allowed full scope to a Minister to continue a course similar to that which had been pursued. A day of retribution might again arrive. Even at that time, thousands of people in India were anxiously waiting for the decision of the House on the question. Last Session he presented a petition signed by 15,000 landowners of Madras, praying the House to allow cases to be decided by the Privy Council, a tribunal in which every confidence was placed. It was not only the people, but also the princes, who were waiting for the decision of the House, in order that they might know whether the treaties they held were worth the paper on which they were written; whether the gracious proclamation of Her Majesty was to be regarded as a reality or only as an empty form of words, issued at a time of great public danger, and intended to mislead and deceive; and whether for the future the government was to be conducted on just and honourable principles or like that of the East India Company. He did not call upon the House to decide anything, or to pronounce an opinion as to whether he had given a right interpretation of the treaty, or whether the right interpretation was that given by the Government. All he asked the House to do was to express the opinion, that when such questions arose, they should not be decided by the Minister for India, who was an interested party, but that they should be referred to Her Majesty's Privy Council, whose decision would give satisfaction, because it was admitted by the natives of India to be a fair and just tribunal. The hon. Member concluded by moving his Amendment.

MR. SMOLLETT

said, he rose to second the Motion. He did so on the general principle that, for the last twenty years, the treaty engagements entered into with the princes of India had not been carried out faithfully by the British Government. It was of no use denying the fact, for it was notorious, that one of the principal causes of the rebellion of 1857 was the treatment which the native princes of India received from the government of the Marquess of Dalhousie, and the well-founded conviction that not the least reliance was to be placed on the faith, or the honesty, with which treaty engagements would be carried out under the Marquess of Dalhousie. Unfortunately, immediately ofter his inauguration as Governor General, the Marquess of Dalhousie laid down the preposterous dictum that it was the right of the British Government to take possession of any territory whenever a fitting opportunity should arise; and he constituted himself the judge as to the fitness of any opportunity. He acted upon this dictum consistently and invariably, and it was that policy, as he (Mr. Smollett) believed, which mainly contributed to the rebellion. He would not mention every lawless act, but he would briefly notice some of the prominent cases in which the princes of India were summarily and contemptuously set aside. Shortly after the Marquess of Dalhousie's arrival, in 1848, a "fitting opportunity" occurred. The Rajah of Sattara died, having on his deathbed adopted a son and successor from among his collateral relations; but the Marquess of Dalhousie repudiated the right of any native prince to adopt a son; and the Treaty of 1819, which defined our relations with the state of Sattara, and stipulated that the full sovereignty was vested in the Rajah, his heirs and successors in perpetuity, was set aside. The second case was that of the Rajah of Nagpore, who died childless, in 1853, and who had not adopted a son, probably because he knew the adoption would be set aside by the Governor General; but the Rajah left behind him one or more widows, several relations, and a considerable private fortune. In this case the Marquess of Dalhousie not only annexed the territories, but seized the private possessions, which he confiscated to the State. He seized all the jewels, bijouterie, and valuables, and sent them to Calcutta, where they were brought to the hammer at an auction mart. That act disgusted all the natives of India, and it was an act which was mischievous in itself and disgraceful to the British rule in India. The third case of the non-fulfilment of treaty occurred in the annexation of Oude. There was, in 1856, a reigning sovereign, and there was no chance of any lapse of succession. The state, however, was a large and valuable one, and the Marquess of Dalhousie considered the lax rule of the kingdom a sufficient cause for annexation. There was a treaty with the kingdom of Oude which defined our relations with, that kingdom. It had been entered into and acted upon by Lord Auckland, in 1837. It laid down the rule that in all cases of sudden emergency, and if in cases of trouble the British Government should feel it necessary to interfere, they should do so and assume the administration; but the treaty bound the administrators to keep correct account of the revenues for the benefit of the reigning family. When the King referred to the treaty in answer to the demand that he would cede his territories, the Governor General asserted that the treaty was obsolete, and that it had been abrogated, because one of the clauses had been considered to trench too deeply on the rights of the native Royal Family and had been disallowed by the Court of Directors. It so happened that that very treaty had been laid on the tables of the Houses of Lords and Commons by command of Her Majesty, in 1853; and when the fact was stated, the Marquess of Dalhousie replied, that it must have been done through the inadvertence of a clerk. On that pretence the treaty with Oude was set aside, and the country was annexed to the Crown, on the broad ground that the people were sighing for British rule, whereas in the year after the whole country rose as one man to put down the administration which the Marquess of Dalhousie had instituted, and to endeavour to recover their independence. The other cases he would refer to were those of the Rajah of Tanjore and the Nawab of the Carnatic. They were protected princes who had ceded their territories under treaties which bore the same date—1800 or 1801. Both treaties were based on the same principle. The Rajah of Tanjore ceded his dominions on condition that his debts should be paid, and that he should receive one-fifth of the net receipts of his principality; and a similar bargain was made with the Nawab of the Carnatic. In 1855 the Rajah of Tanjore died, leaving behind him several wives and two daughters, but no lineal heirs male. The Marquess of Dalhousie was in Madras at the time, and he gave immediate orders to the Government of Madras to declare the Raj extinct. He would not allow that heirs female came under the words of the treaty—"the Rajah and his heirs and successors." But he did a great deal more than declare the Raj extinct. Under the arrangements of the treaty the Rajah and his family had been receiving £60,000 or £70,000 a year for fifty-five years, and they had acquired a large amount of private property in lands, houses, jewels, &c., valued at £400,000 or £500,000. The Marquess of Dalhousie declared that all these were confiscated, and that the Rajah had no right whatever to private property. The government of Madras sent an officer to take an inventory of the property, with a view to its being sold and the proceeds applied to the public account; but the family had recourse to the protection of the British Law, and obtained an injunction from the Supreme Court of Madras to prevent the sale. The Government of India appealed to the Privy Council, the case was argued in London, and Lord Kingsdown, in giving the decision, stated that the authorities in India had acted in a violent and unjustifiable manner; though, as their agents had proceeded professedly under a treaty, a court of law had no jurisdiction in the matter. Fortified with that decision, Sir Charles Trevelyan proceeded to dispose of the property, but his council luckily interfered; the course of spoliation was stopped; the case was brought before the House of Commons, where the Secretary of State promised that justice should be done to the family, and he had now great pleasure in stating that all the private property of the late Rajah had been returned to its rightful owners. In the case of the Nawab of the Carnatic, the family had received an allowance under the treaty; and three generations passed without any mention being made of the treaty being a personal one. The last possessor of the allowance was a young man who had been our ward from the age of two years, and whose education had been entirely neglected, the allowance having been wasted during his minority. He died childless in 1855; but an uncle of his had been received by us with regal honours at the Government House at Madras for twenty-five years, and recognised as the heir presumptive of his nephew. Notwithstanding, his undoubted claims, the Marquess of Dalhousie set aside the treaty on three grounds. The first was the alleged treason of the great-grandfather and grandfather of the claimant; and the second was that it was a personal treaty, that the last possessor had died without heirs male—for he would not admit that the uncle could succeed to the nephew. The third, and most probably the true reason, was that the late Nawab had been a spendthrift, and had set a bad example to his dependents by the manner in which he got rid of his allowance. On these frivolous pretences, the treaty, which had been observed for fifty-five years, was set aside, and the family turned adrift to starve. It was no wonder, then, that the people in India had come to have no faith whatever in our adherence to treaty obligations, seeing that Governor Generals could arbitrarily set aside successions in this way. He therefore hoped the Motion, if opposed, would be pressed to a division. It might be said that it was of no use closing the stable door when the horse had boon stolen, and there was some truth in. that; or it might be said that there was no use in referring these questions to the Privy Council, because the treaties were so clear that "he who runs may read;" but there was a want of honesty in men of high position, and it was because he had no confidence in men like the Marquess of Dalhousie when invested with large arbitrary power, because he wished to sec such cases as those he had mentioned decided by legal gentlemen who would not be moved by the breath of faction or actuated by political motives, that he had the greatest possible pleasure in seconding the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Inverness-shire.

Amendment proposed. To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "whereas by a Royal Proclamation addressed to the Native Princes and Peoples of India, published the 1st day of November 1858, it is stated 'That we desire no extension of our present territorial possessions, and while we will permit no aggression upon our Dominions or our Rights to be attempted with impunity, we shall sanction no encroachment in those of others;' and again, 'We hereby announce to the Native Princes of India, that all Treaties and engagements made with them by or under the authority of the Honourable East India Company are by us accepted, and will be scrupulously maintained;' so, in the opinion of this House, where differences of opinion have arisen with respect to the interpretation of such Treaties, the questions at issue ought to be referred for decision to Her Majesty's Privy Council, —instead thereof.

SIR CHARLES WOOD

said, it was a convenient practice in that House, when a Motion was about to be introduced, that some intimation should be given of the matters which were to be brought under consideration, but certainly by the words of the present Resolution little intimation was afforded him that the hon. Gentle man intended to enter into details relating to the Carnatic from the year 1760 downwards, and still less that he should be called upon to defend, not his own acts, but acts that had been the subject of debate in that, House for thirty or forty years past. It was true that the hon. Member had informed him, a short time before he came down to the House, that he should refer to the case of Azeem Jah; but he (Sir C. Wood) had not had time since then to acquaint himself with these former matters, nor did they bear much upon the question they had to discuss, and it would scarcely be expected that he should go into the Sattara and other cases on which the House had, on former occasions, expressed its opinion, and on which he did not think much could be added to what had been said before. But, first, with reference to the general question, what the Queen undertook by Her Proclamation to do was correctly stated in the Motion. The words were— That we desire no extension of our present territorial possessions, and while we will permit no aggression upon our dominions, or our rights, to be attempted with impunity, we shall sanction no encroachment in those of others, and we hereby announce to the Native Princes of India that all treaties and engagements made with them by or under the authority of the Honourable East India Company are by us accepted, and will be scrupulously maintained. The treaties entered into before the assumption by the Crown of direct authority over India were simply put on the footing of all other treaties made with the Crown, and he apprehended they must be treated precisely in the same way. If, therefore, it was proposed that all treaties—when a question arose regarding their construction — should be submitted to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for interpretation, all he could say was he did not think that would be a convenient or constitutional mode of determining such matters. All treaties must be left to be dealt with, as they now were universally, by other nations as well as our own. The Judicial Committee of Privy Council were not responsible advisers of the Crown in cases of this kind. Ministers referred in such matters if they thought it necessary, to their Law Officers, and in any particular instance the House might express its opinion on the conduct which the Government pursued. But on all questions arising with other Powers, independent or quasi-independent, the Government must act on their own responsibility, subject to the control of Parliament, and they could not shift that responsibility to the Judicial Committee of Privy Council. He apprehended, then, that on the general ground, the House could not possibly accede to the principle that the interpretation of treaties should be subject to the opinion of that tribunal. He now came to the main case brought forward by the hon. Gentleman. From the observations of the hon. Member it might be supposed that the prince in question was a native ruler exercising rule and authority in some part of India, and that he really had some territories which the Marquess of Dalhousie could have directed to be seized. But the fact was that the Government of India in 1801 took, possession of the territories of the Carnatic, and the then Nawab was reduced to the rank of a pensioner at Madras, where he and those placed in a similar situation for the last fifty-five years had resided under superintendence—a mode of life not very advantageous either to the State or to themselves. As to their having the slightest control over any portion of the territory of India, with any single person to govern in any way whatever, it was a total and entire mistake. The House, therefore, might dismiss at once all question of the annexation of territory. There were many reasons why he thought we should not annex native States. It was for our advantage that such States should be left in India. It was undesirable to annex those portions of India which were happy under the native rule of their princes. But there was no sort of similarity between putting an end to native rule over a native State, and the doing away with the very anomalous position of the pensioned princes, whether at Madras or Calcutta; and he frankly avowed that he thought, if that could be fairly done, without injustice or breach of faith, it was desirable to do it. The representatives of the Nawab of the Carnatic were in precisely the same position at Madras as the pensioned princes of Delhi had been at Calcutta. The late King of Delhi was, in some respect, connected with the mutiny and accessory to the murder of many subjects of the Queen at Delhi. For that he was tried and punished with exile, in which he died. Could anybody suppose that it was of the least advantage to that prince, his family, or the State, that he should have lived in a position in which he was exempt from all law, amenable to nothing but his own will and pleasure, with a certain number of dependents around him over whom he exercised a certain power and control? It was notorious that crime of every kind was rife in the palace at Delhi. He did not think the position of the Nawab of the Carnatic at Madras was very much better. Lord Harris in a despatch said he was convinced that a serious moral evil was caused by the continuance of this semblance of the pomp and state of an effete Royalty, which, while it did no good to these persons themselves, was capable of being made the nucleus of intrigue. That opinion was borne out by what occurred not long ago at Delhi, where the name of the Emperor was invoked by the mutineers, and the King, if not actually forced, was, at any rate, led into a participation in their schemes, whereas, if he had been in a different position, merely as a great nobleman with a large income, he might have now been living in peace and prosperity instead of dying in exile. With regard to the treaty to which the hon. Gentleman alluded, the expression he had spoken of referred to a great number of things, to personal property and other matters, but not to the territory or the right to the territory of the Carnatic. It was, he thought, of no use going back further than the year 1801, when we took possession of the Carnatic, and the treaty, which must be the basis of all that could be claimed, was concluded between the Nawab and the Indian Government. The treaty of 1801 was distinctly a personal treaty with the then Prince Azeem alone, and the Indian Government stipulated to provide him for his life with a certain income. The Marquess of Dalhousie distinctly stated that as an indisputable fact. The hon. Member said that in the Sattara case the stipulations were to the heirs and successors for ever. These words were not in the treaty of 1801; nor was their omission unintentional, because the Madras Government at first proposed that there should be some recognition of the hereditary successors, but the Indian Government decidedly refused to consent to it, and the terms were ultimately confined to the life of Azeem-ul-Dowlah. Thus there was no direct or indirect obligation entered into by the Government beyond his life. When he died, in 1819, the Government of Madras or the Government of India determined, as a matter of favour, to put his son in the same position as Azeem had occupied. The Government of Madras thought that a new arrangement was necessary for that purpose—that, the old treaty having expired, a new one should be entered into. But the Indian Government said "No;" and all they required was that the successor of Azeem should conform to the conditions imposed on his predecessor. In 1855 the second prince died, and the question arose whether it was desirable to continue that state of things any longer. He must distinctly say he believed that the existence of these pensioned princes, without power and authority, fancying that they had rights which some day or other they would enjoy, was the most inconvenient state of things, both for the Government and the princes themselves, that could possibly be conceived. And Lord Harris recorded deliberately his opinion that it was desirable to put an end to that state of things, making a liberal provision for the princes. The Marquess of Dalhousie took exactly the same view, not because there was territory to annex, for there was no territory to annex, and he determined to put an end to it. The hon. Gentleman had made an attack on him, as if he had contravened the Queen's Proclamation. But what had been done took place in 1855, long before he acceded to his present office. Undoubtedly, he had not taken active steps for reversing the state of things which he then found. The Queen's proclamation was a very wise proclamation, and the pacification of India might be, to a considerable extent, attributable to it. But he did not think that that proclamation called upon him to undo what was done fifty or sixty years ago, and thereby throw everything in India into confusion. He was happy to say that he believed the princes of India were pleased and contented with what had been done for them of late years, and we had now a prospect of tranquillity in India such as had not been enjoyed for many a year back. He might also remark, that as his hon. Friend took so strong a view of this case, it was strange that something was not done during the time that he was Secretary to the Board of Control. Azeem Jah, the person to whom the hon. Gentleman chiefly alluded, had not been illiberally treated. He was put by Sir Charles Trevelyan in the position of a great Indian nobleman, with an income of £15,000 a year assigned to him. The obligations of the treaty expired in 1819, and whatever had been done since was an act of grace and favour. The Government was under no obligation to do what they had done, and he thought they had made an advantageous arrangement for the State and for the individual. That, however, was not the question before the House, but the question was whether the meaning of treaties was to be determined by the Privy Council, and he sincerely trusted that the House would not take so strange a course as to refer the treaties to the Privy Council.

COLONEL SYKES

said, he concurred entirely in the opinion of his hon. Friend the Member for Inverness (Mr. H. Baillie) that in all questions of litigated rights au interested party should not have the power of decision, and least of all when one of the parties possessed great political and military power. Unfortunately, however, the reverse had been the case in all our proceedings with the native princes of India. But his hon. Friend having been at the Board of Control, knew perfectly well that the obloquy which was sought to be attached to the East India Company was in nine cases out of ten undeserved. That Company was represented by a Court of Directors who had the initiative and nominally the administrative power, but they were really overruled by another Board which had absolute power to control them, and that Board represented the Government of the day of the country. He agreed that in many cases the East India Company lent themselves to oppression, but he could bear testimony, from a seat in the Direction for nineteen years, that there were multitudes of instances in which they protested in the strongest manner against such cases of oppression as had been brought before the House by the hon. Member. The gravest case of oppression was practised towards the Ameers of Scinde. He raised his voice against the injustice that was done to those princes. If the secret records of the Court could be produced, they would show that there was a very strong protest on the part of the India Company against the appropriation of the territory of Scinde. He might say the same with regard to Sattara, and also with regard to Oude, a transaction which had cast a stigma upon the country. Many of the difficulties had arisen from the utter ignorance of those who overrid the Court of the real relations between the dependent princes and the paramount Power. He had frequently, at the discussions of the Directors of the Company, advocated earnestly that there should be some tribunal provided to arbitrate between those who considered themselves oppressed and those who ruled.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes 104; Noes 24: Majority 80.