§ MR. VANSITTARTrose to call attention to the removal of the seat of Government of the North Western Provinces from Agra to Allahabad. It would be in the recollection of the House that three evenings since, on asking the Secretary of State for India whether it was true that he had issued instructions to move the seat of Government of the North Western Provinces from Agra to Allahabad, and to produce the correspondence, the only answer the right hon. Baronet condescended to give was a flat denial. He thought that this mode of answering was not satisfactory, and that the House would think him justified in again bringing the matter before it. He would therefore, with the permission of the House, read a copy of a despatch addressed by the right hon. Baronet to the Governor General so recently as November last, in inserting which the Indian journalist remarked—
It is now settled that Allahabad is to be the seat of Government of the North Western Provinces. We give a prominent place to the despatch on this subject from Sir Charles Wood.
§ "No. 45, of 1862.
§ "To his Excellency the Right [Hon. the Governor General of India in Council.
§ "India Office, London, Nov. 29, 1862.
§ "My Lord,—I have had before me in Council your letter No. 58, of the 5th of September last, and its enclosures, regarding the proposed construction of public buildings at Allahabad, in consequence of the removal thither of the seat of Government of the North Western Provinces. Captain Peile, Executive Engineer at Allahabad, has been instructed to prepare revised designs without loss of time, taking care to keep the estimated outlay within sixteen lacs of rupees. For this sum it is expected that the office establishments of all the civil departments of Government may be located in substantial, commodious, and handsome buildings, arranged so as to allow of any communication with each other and with the Government House, which last edifice is to be provided for by separate estimate, I approve of the orders you have given.—I have, &c.
§ &c., "C. WOOD.
§ "By order of his Honour the Lieutenant Governor, North Western Provinces,
§ "W. E. MORTON,
§ "Lieutenant Colonel, Secretary to Government."
§ He now trusted that the House would think him perfectly justified in asking the right hon. Gentleman to reconcile the answer he gave on Tuesday with this de- 89 spatch. Without entering into the question, on the present occasion, of the necessity of abandoning Agra, or whether in that case Bareilly, the capital of Rohilkund, the finest climate in the North West, and which also adjoins Oude, would not be more centrical and more salubrious than Allahabad, situated at the extremity of the Presidency of the North West, and notoriously one of the hottest cities in India, he would merely add, that up to the present time he had had no cause to complain of any want of courtesy on the part of the right hon. Baronet, and was therefore unprepared for the altered tone which he assumed towards him on Tuesday. Under these circumstances, he hoped the right hon. Baronet would be good enough to explain the precise part he had taken in the question of the removal of the peat of Government of the North Western Provinces from Agra to Allahabad.
§ SIR CHARLES WOODbegged to express his regret to find that the hon. Member fancied there was something discourteous in the reply given the other evening. The question which the hon. Gentleman asked him on Tuesday evening was, whether it was true that he (Sir Charles Wood) had issued instructions to remove the seat of Government from Agra to Allahabad? He (Sir Charles Wood) answered that he had not issued any such instructions. The House would see that there was no difficulty in reconciling the answer he gave on Tuesday With the answer he should now give. The Government of India took on itself, without any communication with the Secretary of State for India, to remove the seat of Government from Agra to Allahabad; and the Secretary of State gave no sanction or instructions with respect to that transfer. Whether the Indian Government were right in their mode of proceeding he did not pretend to say; but thinking the change from Agra to Allahabad on the whole advantageous, he was not disposed to interfere with the Indian Government in what it had done, or to quarrel with the mode of making it. A year and a half afterwards a question arose as to certain expenditure on public buildings in consequence of the change, and the despatch quoted was the reply sent to communications respecting that expenditure.