§ MR. ARTHUR MILLSsaid, he rose to call attention to the constitution of the Council of the Secretary of State for India, created by the Bill transferring the Government of India from the East India Company to the Crown, and to move an Address for a Commission to inquire whether any alteration could be advantageously made in it. Considerable debate took place in 1858 on the measure to which he referred, and four-fifths of the discussion had reference to the constitution of the Council for India. Eventually it was decided that the number of the Council should be fixed at fifteen, and that the members should hold office during good behaviour, which practically meant for life, for when £1,200 a year depended on good behaviour no one ever misbehaved himself. The Bill, which received the Royal assent, gave to the Secretary of State entire control over all the functions formerly exercised by what was called the secret committee of the India House, and the Secretary of State was also empowered in cases of emergency to deal with all communications between the Home Government and the Government of India. The only practical and substantial power conferred by the Act on the Council was to deal with questions of finance and to record their dissent if they thought right from any measure which the Secretary of State, who had the power to overrule their decision, might think fit to adopt. It appeared from the opinions expressed by many leading men in that House that the object for creating the Council was twofold—to give to the Secretary of State the aid of a body of men possessing local experience with respect to Indian affairs; and to create a bulwark, as it were, between him and the Indian Government, and any sudden Parliamentary influence which might be brought to bear upon him. With regard to the first object, he apprehended that that might have been attained by providing the Secretary of State with five or six assistant secretaries; but with regard to the second object that was expected to be attained, 779 it was evident from the opinions expressed at the time by Sir James Graham, Earl Russell, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and other persons of authority, it could only be realized by the creation of an independent Council. It was thought, that that if the Council were well chosen, they would have all matters of moment, in reference to that country, brought before them by the Secretary of State. He wished, then, to ask those hon. Members, who took an interest in Indian affairs, whether the latter object had been accomplished, and whether the Council had fulfilled the conditions which were aimed at when the Act was passed? As a matter of fact, a state of things had arisen, according to which the Secretary of State for India could withdraw altogether from the consideration of the Council all questions which he might consider urgent. A despatch might arrive which the Secretary of State might declare required an immediate answer; and though that answer would involve the question of peace and war, the Secretary of State could, on the plea of urgency, withdraw the matter from the consideration of the Council and deal with it himself. It was only right that the consequences of such a proceeding should be duly considered by the House, and he wished to call attention to the fact that a similar power was exercised by the Secret Committee, and it was well known that by that Committee a despatch was sent out which led to the Affghan war, and cost £10,000,000 to the Indian revenue. The Act of 1858 left the House of Commons in ignorance as to where the responsibility fur the Home Government of India really rested. It might be said that India had of late enjoyed an unusual amount of prosperity, and therefore that the system on which the Government of that country was conducted had worked well. But he believed that, so far as the relations between the Council and the Secretary of State were concerned, it had not worked well, and as an illustration of its defective and uncertain working he would mention what had taken place in the year 1860 in reference to the amalgamation of the Indian army with the army of Her Majesty. He would not then enter into any discussion as to the wisdom of that measure; he would take it for granted that it was one which ought to have been adopted. But when it was proposed in 1860, the Secretary of State declared that he was entitled at any moment, 780 at his own discretion, to separate himself from his Council, and to regard any question as Imperial instead of departmental, and as coming under his notice not as Secretary of State for India, but as a Member of the Cabinet. Under these circumstances he might, he said, deal with a question without consulting his Council. Now, it was notorious that the Council were unanimously against the amalgamation of the two armies, but the Secretary of State acted quite independently of them, and he did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman, according to his own theory of his position, could not equally ignore the Council on any other subject. With a view to fasten responsibility on one or other, it was obviously of the utmost importance to have certainty in the relations of the Council and the Secretary of State, so that the latter should not be at liberty at one moment to cast all the responsibility of the administration on that body, and at another to disregard it entirely.
He had no doubt he would be met by the stock answer that he had chosen either the wrong manner or time to bring forward the question. He could only say that he did not ask for a Select Committee of his own nominees, or wish to have the case at all prejudged. He left it to the Government to nominate any Commissioners they chose to conduct the inquiry. He was supported in his Motion by high authority. As to the time, he might remind the House, that in 1858, during the discussion on the Bill which regulated the existing system of conducting the Government of India, the noble Lord at the head of the Government himself proposed a clause in Committee on that Bill to the effect that at the end of five years Parliament should not merely have the option of reconsidering the constitution of the Council, but should be bound to do so. Mr. Wilson, Lord Russell, the hon. Members for Birmingham, Coventry, and Sheffield, the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn, Sir Erskine Perry, now a Member of that Council, and others, also contemplated a revision at the end of five years. The five years which the noble Viscount had in contemplation had just expired, and he thought that the revision might well take place without any reflection on Parliament or the Council, especially as the Bill had been passed in 1858 under circumstances of great political pressure.
He had no fault to find with the Secre- 781 tary of State or his Council. He would not inquire whether there was any truth in the rumours that they did not agree very well. It was the system and not the personelle of the administration to which he objected. In fair weather it might perhaps work very well, but in a political tempest he believed it would be found altogether unmanageable. Whatever might have been the vices of the old system, the present included a much more ingenious and effectual contrivance for promoting delay and avoiding official responsibility. The Secretary of State could at any moment assume the position of an autocrat or a cypher, and the House and the public never knew until afterwards in which capacity he was acting. Moreover, it was a loss to Parliament that the members of the Council—men of tried experience and proved ability—should be expressly prohibited from seats in that House, and from contributing to the slender stock of information which the House of Commons possessed on the important questions which came before them relating to their Indian Empire. The system was one in which it was impossible to say, in case of emergency or difficulty, where responsibility was to be fixed. Whether a remedy was to be found by relieving the members of the Council from their duties altogether, or by giving them greater power, he did not pretend to decide. All he did was to ask the House and the Government to do that which the noble Lord at the head of the Ministry had declared that Parliament ought to do at that very time—namely, to take steps for having the constitution of the Council reconsidered and revised. The existing arrangement had been tried and found wanting, and he believed, that if continued, it would be productive of great calamities to India. He would therefore conclude by moving an Address to the Crown for the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire and report whether any and what alterations may be advantageously adopted in the Home Government of India, as constituted by the Act 21 & 22 Vict., c. 106.
§ MR. BAZLEYsaid, he rose to second the Motion, which, he thought, if adopted, would be beneficial alike to India and to this country. He was not there to deny that benefit had accrued to India from the administration of the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn, and likewise from the administration of the right hon. Gentleman the present Secretary of State; but, in the present condition of Lancashire, he thought 782 that some important change was necessary, by which the great and vast resources of India might be made to benefit both the people of India and the manufacturing districts of England. He did not expect the Indian Government to become growers of cotton for Lancashire, but he should be glad to see such changes introduced as would permit the Natives more freely to cultivate cotton and allow European capitalists to invest their money in the soil of India. If the improvements suggested and commenced by the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn, when he was Minister for India, had been continued up to the present time, he was convinced that at least a portion of the calamity which had now befallen the manufacturing districts of this country would have been averted. He was, moreover, aware, that since the amalgamation which had taken place of the services of India, there were certain discrepancies to be reconciled which prevented that cordial action between the two services which was so exceedingly desirable. He hoped, therefore, that the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for India would take a favourable view of the proposal of his hon. Friend, and that if nothing could be done in the matter for the present year, the right hon. Gentleman would be prepared to submit to Parliament in the next Session some measure for the revision of their system of Indian Government.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that She will be graciously pleased to issue a Commission to inquire and report whether any and what alterations may be advantageously adopted in the Home Government of India, as constituted by the Act 21 & 22 Vict., c. 106."—(Mr. Arthur Mills.)
§ SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, he had no intention on that occasion, nor did he think it would be consonant with the wishes of the House to discuss those general questions connected with improvements in India to which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Manchester had alluded. He had already stated, and might have to state again before the close of the Session, what had been done in that respect, and he was not aware that the Government of India had in any degree failed to perform their duty in developing the resources of the vast country under their rule. With regard to the main question before the House—namely, the constitution of the Home Government, he could only say that it had worked very well and harmoniously, 783 and that whatever had been done had been done with his entire approval, and with the approval also of a large majority of his Council. The only question on which any considerable difference of opinion had arisen was that of the sale of waste lands. Some members of the Council were not disposed to go as far as himself, but the House had been put in possession of their opinions as well as of his own; and as regarded the general administration of Indian affairs, he could freely state that the same course would have been pursued if he had been standing alone. The hon. Member for Taunton had said he might be asked why he had brought forward his Motion, and he (Sir Charles Wood) must confess that he thought the question was a very pertinent one. On ordinary occasions, when a Motion was made for inquiry, it was because the mover implied some censure on the administration which he wished to be investigated. But the hon. Member had distinctly stated that he had no fault to find with the manner in which the Council had discharged its duties, or with any measure which had been passed by the Secretary of State in Council. The only ground he had shown for his Motion was that certain opinions were expressed by different Members of that House in 1858, that the principle on which the Council was constituted ought to undergo revision at an early period. Now, without following the hon. Member further, he confessed that at the time he did not altogether concur in the proposal of the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn; but he was bound to say that in the course of the four years, during which he had presided over the Council, he had every reason to be satisfied with the arrangement made by his noble Friend of the members of the Council, No better selection could have been made; and if he were obliged to reduce the Council tomorrow, he did not know whom he could strike off the list of members without disadvantage to the public service. He was glad to have that opportunity of publicly expressing the obligations under which he felt to those gentlemen, many of whom had been put into a somewhat difficult position, having been members of the old and independent court of directors, and having been suddenly transferred to a body in which they no longer enjoyed the same position. He willingly availed himself of that opportunity of expressing 784 publicly the obligations under which he felt to all the members of his Council for the cordial and harmonious manner in which they worked with him. Whatever doubts he had previously entertained as to the mode in which the Council might work had been entirely removed by the experience of the last four years; and, indeed, he was entirely satisfied on that subject.
The hon. Member for Taunton had complained that he could not ascertain with whom responsibility rested. He had no hesitation in telling the hon. Gentleman that the responsibility rested with himself as Secretary of State for India. On that point nothing could be more explicit than the following remarks made by the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn in May 1858:—
The Minister is to be surrounded by those who can bring long experience to bear on the questions submitted to their consideration, who can give the Minister the best advice, and supply him with the best materials on which to form his judgment; but, having the benefit of that advice and experience, he is bound to act on his own single and personal responsibility." [3 Hansard, cxlix. 2181–5]He had followed the example of his noble Friend in acting upon that principle, and there could not be the smallest doubt that the responsibility rested upon the Secretary of State, whether he took the advice of his Council or not. The hon. Member for Taunton had asserted that the Council was also intended as a protection to the Secretary of State against Parliamentary influence.
§ MR. ARTHUR MILLSexplained, that what he had said was that the Council was intended as a protection against casual Parliamentary majorities.
§ SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, he would then ask whether the hon. Member meant to say that the Secretary of State was to be precluded from bringing before Parliament any measure which he believed to be for the good not of India only, but of the whole Empire, simply because he might differ from his Council upon it. Was that the length to which the hon. Gentleman's remarks extended? He did not believe there was a man in the House except the hon. Gentleman, who would suppose that the discretion of any Member of Parliament could be so bound. The proposal for the amalgamation of the Indian army was not a mere Indian question, but an Imperial question. It had been approved by large majorities of that House; it had 785 succeeded to a great extent in its object. [Colonel SYKES: No.] Of course, he (Sir Charles Wood) did not expect his hon. and gallant Friend, a member of the old Indian army, to acknowledge its success; but in the opinion of almost every one it had improved the efficiency of the army and the economy of the system. It was therefore rather late to say that the Secretary of State ought to have been precluded from bringing it forward, because his Council differed from him in opinion. The hon. Gentleman went on to say that the House did not know what was going on, and was ignorant of the opinions of members of the Council. Did the hon. Gentleman wish that the discussions of the Council should be conducted in the presence of a shorthand-writer and reported to the world? There were, happily, few occasions, indeed, in which there had been a difference between the Secretary of State and the majority of the Council. Those occasions were only four in number in four years, and they occurred on the most trivial and unimportant matters. The Council had power to record their dissent from any decision taken by the Secretary of State, and that House could call, as it had called, for the production of the records of such dissent. Indeed, he did not know of any case in which any dissent had been recorded without that dissent having been called for and laid before Parliament. The hon. Member seemed to suppose that the Secretary of State and his Council were always quarrelling. Happily, that was not the fact, for he and the Council had acted in the most cordial manner. He felt very grateful to the Council. It would be impossible for him to go on without their assistance. There might be excellent Councils in Bengal, Madras, or Bombay, but it was in the Council of the Secretary of State for India alone that the knowledge and experience of different parts of India were concentrated. The Secretary of State, therefore, had, in respect to any general measure, better means of forming opinions and coming to a right conclusion than the Government of any single part of India possibly could have. He thought the measure of the noble Lord opposite was a very wise measure taken altogether. The noble Lord had made an admirable selection of members for that Council, and all vacancies in it had been filled up on the sole principle of choosing the very best men who could be found. For these reasons he objected to the hon. Gentleman's Motion for 786 inquiry, for which no good ground had been adduced, and which, if adopted, must seriously interrupt the course of business in the Department.
§ COLONEL SYKESsaid, that there was not a Member of the House who did not expect when the Council for India was proposed that the experienced men who were to assist with their advice would necessarily have weight with the Secretary of State, and that the result of their experience would be acted upon. The right hon. Gentleman had, however, given them an important instance in which that expectation had been falsified; for he had admitted that on a momentous question, the amalgamation of the Royal and Indian armies, affecting the interests of between 5,000 and 6,000 British officers, he had acted upon his own judgment, in direct opposition to the unanimous opinion of his fifteen experienced Councillors who were to be his guides and mentors. There was but one feeling of rankling discontent among those 5,000 or 6,000 officers whose professional prospects had been ruined by the amalgamation of the Indian army with the Imperial forces. ["No!"] He said, "Yes—a hundred times, yes." They had no security that the Secretary of State might not exercise a similar power on some great political question, which might lead, perhaps, not only to another mutiny, but to a great convulsion throughout India. The right hon. Gentleman had no knowledge or personal experience of India, and might act on the advice of individuals who were the last persons who should give him advice, and who might have personal interests, sympathies, or Parliamentary predilections, or religions fanaticism, all of which might influence him, and induce him to set aside the voice of his fifteen Councillors. The Council was in a most anomalous position. They had no power to call for the papers which might have come from India, and it depended upon the right hon. Gentleman whether they should obtain any information or not. His complaint was that his right hon. Friend, though nominally responsible to that House, was as complete a despot as Alexander, Darius, or any other autocrat who ever existed, for being a Member of a Government which ruled by commanding a majority of that House, its shield was necessarily thrown over him. No single individual ought to have such a power. The Council was no adequate check upon him. The case was very different with 787 the old Court of Directors of the East India Company. The directors were elected for four years; they then went out of office for one year that their conduct might be reviewed by the electors, who might return them again or not as they chose. They were almost invariably re-elected. Each member had the power of giving notice of his intention to bring forward a Motion on any subject whatever, precisely as was the case with every Member of the House of Commons. The India Council could do nothing of the kind. A discussion took place in the Court of Directors, the result was determined by ballot, and scores of times the Chairman, the Deputy Chairman, and those acting with them had been put into a minority. Reference was then made to the controlling power which could exercise a veto; but generally an understanding was come to highly beneficial to India. There was a Secret Committee, but it was confined entirely to political objects. They could not divulge the orders sent out, but they could record their individual objections; they frequently made those objections, and the orders sent out by the Board of Control, were sometimes in consequence modified. That was another safeguard which no longer existed. He spoke from nineteen years' experience as a Director, and having filled the office of Deputy Chairman and Chairman. What he wished was that there should be some increased power in the Council, such as he had described, that they should have power to call for any papers, to propose any Motion, and to decide on it by ballot or in open court; and if the Secretary of State took on himself the responsibility of opposing their resolutions, the House should have the opportunity of judging between the Secretary of State and his Council. He entirely concurred with his right hon. Friend (Sir Charles Wood) that a man of judgment, proper feeling, and courtesy would generally be guided by the friendly opinion of the ex-rienced men about him; but still a crotchety, wilful, despotic, corrupt person might be Secretary of State for India, and in that case the whole empire of India, with its 180,000,000 of people and its £40,000,000 of revenue, would be at his feet. He therefore thought some modifications between the Secretary of State and his counsel should be made, as a matter of safety, if nothing more.
§ SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEsaid, he wished to see the Council of India 788 strengthened, and he was of opinion that they ought to have seats in Parliament. That would materially improve their position in the country, without weakening the just authority of the Secretary for India. He thought they ought also to be allowed to take the initiative in pressing matters on the attention of the Government. But he entertained great doubt whether the inquiry, if granted, would tend in that direction, and for that reason he hoped the Motion would not be pressed to a division. There could be no doubt that the Council was a weak body, and that the Secretary for India was all powerful. But, independently of that, he was a Member of the Government, and that gave additional weight to his opinions He thought too short a time had elapsed to enable the country to form a correct opinion as to the working of the Council. It was a matter of regret that the question of the amalgamation of the army had arisen so soon after the formation of the Council and the new system of Government. In that case the right hon. Gentleman had taken a rather strong measure. But his complaint in that case was not that the right hon. Gentleman had acted against the opinion of his Council, but that he had never consulted them at all; for, although it was an Imperial question, it was also an Indian question. He was bound to admit that in many respects the working of the Parliamentary Government of India had not been attended with some of the objections which he had anticipated. He also wished to bear his testimony to the noble manner in which the right hon. Gentleman, in spite of obloquy, had stood out for the rights of the people of India, and for that he deserved great credit. No sufficient case had been made out for any great change in the constitution of the Government of India.
LORD STANLEYsaid, as it did not appear to be the desire of the House to prolong the discussion, he would say only a very few words on the subject. If, however, the hon. Gentleman who had introduced the question was disposed to press it to a division, he should not be able to divide with him. He thought there was great objection to an inquiry of the nature proposed. A Royal Commission was an excellent instrument for investigating questions involving a large and complicated mass of details, into which it could not be expected that Members of that House generally would take the trouble to inquire. In such a case no course could 789 be better than to appoint a Commission to collect evidence, to ascertain the facts, to sum them up briefly and clearly, and so to give the House the means of deciding, with full knowledge, as to what should be done. But the questions involved in the case before the House were questions not of detail, but of general policy, as, for instance, whether the Council ought to have any check or control over the finances of India, how its members were to be appointed, whether by nomination, by election, or by a mixture of both, what should be their tenure of office, what their number, and whether they ought to have seats in Parliament. All these were questions of general policy, to be argued upon grounds which were perfectly familiar to Members of the House, and they were questions upon which the House had already expressed a deliberate opinion. But his hon. Friend wanted to refer all these questions to be decided by a body of seven, eight, nine, or ten persons, whose names even he did not know, the appointment of whom was to be left to the Government, and who, if not wholly ignorant of the subject-matter of their inquiry, would probably go into it with more or less of bias. But that was not the way in which the position of the Council ought to be inquired into. His hon. Friend left undecided whether there ought, in his judgment, to be a Council or no Council, whether the existing Council was too weak or too strong; he did not tell the House what he complained of in that respect, or what he wanted to have done. All the questions which he raised would be fit subjects of debate in that House, if any hon. Member chose to bring them forward, and there was nothing to prevent any Member of that House, if they thought their former decision wrong, from proposing to reverse it. The only complaints which his hon. Friend had made were of delay and divided responsibility. But it was clear, according to the constitution of the Government of India, that the responsibility of the Secretary of State was complete and undivided, with this one sole exception, that if he proposed a grant of money, and the Council, in the exercise of the power in their hands, refused it, he had only to state this circumstance and the responsibility fell from him upon the shoulders of the Council. He was rather surprised to hear his hon. Friend speak of delay, because he ought to have recollected that under the old system perpetual correspondence was going on between the Indian Government 790 and the Board of Control, a correspondence which descended into the minutest particulars, led to a ridiculous amount of verbal criticism, and wasted a great deal of time. Whatever of good or harm might have been done by the change which had been made, this one fact was certain—that a greater amount of speed was attained in the despatch of business under the new system than ever could be arrived at before. The decisions come to might be better or worse, that was matter of opinion, but that they were more expeditious was matter of fact, capable of proof. There remained only the question whether it would be of advantage that some of the members of the Council should have seats in that House. That was a point upon which a great deal might be said upon both sides. There was great force in what was said as to the advantage of having in the House men with special experience on Indian subjects. But, the objections on the other side were strong. The Council were the confidential advisers of the Minister, chosen for their knowledge of Indian affairs, and not from party motives; they were necessarily conversant with everything that passed in the India Office, and there would be extreme inconvenience if a Minister were to be exposed to Parliamentary criticism from gentlemen holding such positions, speaking from official knowledge, and possibly using that knowledge for the party purpose of an opposition. He did not think that the two positions of confidential adviser and Parliamentary critic were reconcilable. He was bound to say that the inconvenience to which he referred had to a great extent been avoided by the moderation and good sense of the old Directors who had seats in Parliament; but the difficulty must have been felt more or less; and when the remodelling of the system was proposed, the House determined by a large majority, upon a review of the whole question, that the members of Council should not have seats in the House. He had only, in conclusion, to repeat, that if his hon. Friend had any complaints to make, he ought to bring them at once before the House, and they should be ready to discuss the matter. There was no reason why the arrangement of 1858 should be considered final, but he (Lord Stanley) did not think it necessary to unsettle that arrangement by referring the question to a number of gentlemen of whom the House knew nothing, and pledging themselves as they would be pledged 791 to abide by the decision to which those gentlemen might come.
§ MR. KINNAIRDsaid, he hoped, after the speeches of the noble Lord and the hon. Baronet (Sir T. E. Colebrooke), the hon. Member would not press his Motion. Many of the suggestions made by his hon. Friend seemed, no doubt, as if they would be improvements; but he entirely agreed with the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, after an experience of five years, that the improvements in the Government of India were manifest to all, and that the natives of India themselves felt increased confidence in the justice which they obtained from that House. He (Mr. Kinnaird) wished to join in the well-deserved tribute which had been paid to the right hon. Gentleman for the discretion and wisdom he had shown in his administration of the affairs of India.
§ SIR HENRY WILLOUGHBYsaid, there were circumstances in the position of the Council which might render discussion advisable, and he believed that the discussion which had taken place was calculated to do good. Any real check upon Government must be exercised by a well-considered opposition in that House; and an impression appeared to prevail in India that there was no opposition to the Indian Government. He, for one, thought that the present system of Government had worked better than could have been anticipated. He was one of those who supported a Motion for allowing some of the Indian Council to have seats in that House—a Motion which was supported by Earl Russell and a large minority; but he owned, on reflection, that he thought the House came to a right decision in rejecting the Motion. It would not be a seemly thing to have the Secretary of State for India opposed in that House by his confidential advisers. In other matters the House ought to use all the weight of its authority in favour of the Council; and where the Councillors dissented, the record of the dissent should come before the House. He should like to know whether the Secretary of State, when he differed from the Council, recorded the reasons on which his dissent was founded. He quite concurred in the remark that a Commission would not be desirable, and that the House could deal with questions as they were raised, and introduce such Amendments of the system as might be deemed advisable.
§ SIR CHARLES WOODwas understood to say that the Secretaries of State and 792 the Members of the Council were precisely on the same footing, and that either might record their dissent if they liked.
§ MR. ARTHUR MILLSsaid, that he would not press his Motion, but he wished to observe, as his proposition had been so much criticised by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for India, that in suggesting a revision of the present arrangement, with regard to the unsatisfactory nature of which his opinion remained unaltered, he had only done what had been suggested by the noble Lord at the bead of the Government in 1858.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.