§ MR. LOWE,in rising
to call attention to the decision announced in a Despatch from the Secretary of State for India to the Governor General in Council, dated the 30th day of September 1875, that the allowance of £150 a-year now granted to successful Candidates for Indian Service during their two years of probation will be withdrawn from all Candidates selected in July 1878, or later, who do not pass their probation at some University to be approved by the Secretary of State for India,said, that the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India had been turning his attention to the regulations as to the successful competitors for positions in the Indian Civil Service, and in doing so had arrived at certain conclusions. The noble Lord seemed to have spared no pains to enlighten himself on the subject, and everything he had said and done deserved great respect and consideration. It had been determined that the maximum age of competitors might be reduced, and, further, that it was desirable the successful competitor should pass the two years of his probation before leaving for India at a University. For the purpose of what he was about to say he would assume that those conclusions were right. It was clear, however, that the idea of the noble Lord was, at first, that the two years should be spent at Oxford. Further, it was proposed that the successful candidates should during each of those two years receive £150, and that they should pass their probation at a University to be approved by the Secretary of State. This system was not to be enforced by positive order, but by withdrawing from the persons who did not go to the University fixed upon the allowance of £150 a-year. Now, if the Government of India was of opinion that it was right these young men should go to a University, they would be perfectly within their right and jurisdiction in making an order to that effect; but he could not bring himself to think that their going should be enforced by something in the nature of a fine. A man in easy circumstances who thought his son would do better at home than at Oxford could 718 keep him there by simply sacrificing £300, whereas a poor man would have no alternative; and the result was to produce great injustice by setting up two standards for men who differed in nothing but their wealth, and to allow a rich man, merely because of his wealth, to infringe what the Secretary believed to be a useful and valuable regulation. If the Secretary of State was convinced that it was a good thing for a young man to go to some University, let him take the responsibility of boldly saying so; for where young men were pitted one against the other, there should be no advantage whatever given to one over the other by the mere possession of wealth; but was it quite so clear that either by compulsion or a fine these young men should be made to go to a University? He did not ask for any decision now, but hoped that the suggestion he made would be considered. Then, again, the Secretary of State clearly had the University of Oxford in his mind. He had been in communication with the authorities of that University on the subject, and he was Chancellor of the University. The proposal was that the probationers should each receive £150 a-year during the two years. Well, 40 years ago £150 a-year was not enough money to live upon at Oxford, and it would not go as far now as it did then. These young men would go to Oxford with allowances of £150 a-year, and although that sum would be inadequate to their support, they would possess almost unlimited credit with the harpies who made disreputable livings by lending money at exorbitant rates of interest to members of the University, for the reason that they would have fortunes secured to them in the Indian Civil Service, dependent only upon their passing satisfactorily through a period of probation, and afterwards retaining their health so as to perform the duties devolving upon them. That was a consideration which could not be too seriously entertained before fixing upon Oxford. But it seemed that the Secretary of State had abandoned the idea which he originally entertained of having them only at Oxford; and he (Mr. Lowe) apprehended that no course could be more injurious than that of scattering these young men amongst a number of places. He could not help regarding it as a mis- 719 take for the reason that there was no existing English University at which these young men could obtain the special education they required, and if their University probation was to be worth anything it would be necessary to form special departments in each of the Universities to which they might proceed for the purpose of giving the necessary instruction. It could not be expected that the Universities would bear the cost of thoroughly efficient special departments to meet the requirements of a few students; and therefore the men would in the majority of cases be compelled to pay private tutors in addition to the sums payable to the Universities. If a really efficient system was to be established, it could only be done by providing that these young men should go to some one institution, and that institution, in his view of the matter, ought to be in the immediate neighbourhood of London, if not in London itself. It was important that an esprit de corps should be maintained among Indian Civil Servants, and this would not be possible if the candidates for the Service were to be scattered over all the Universities in the country. Most of these young men when they got out to India would be sent away into solitude, and it was important that before going out they should have some such experience of life as could be obtained at its best in London, which was the seat of government, the centre of the legal system, the great mart of the world, and the place where, of all others, the full current of life ran at its fastest; and, perhaps, at its clearest. He hoped, therefore, that the Government would seriously consider the point which he had brought forward; and, in conclusion, he wished it to be clearly understood that he was not speaking in the interest of the University of London, which he had the honour to represent, because that, being an examining and not a teaching body, was not a University in which these young men could possibly pass their period of probation, for it could not possibly provide the necessary instruction.
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONthanked the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Lowe) for the kind and friendly tone of the remarks which he had offered upon the proposals of the Secretary of State for altering the present system of training candidates for the Indian Civil Ser- 720 vice. He (Lord George Hamilton) acknowledged the weight which attached to all the right hon. Gentleman's opinions in respect to University education, and was glad to find that his objections were so qualified as almost to amount to praise. It was impossible that any Secretary of State, after the preponderance of evidence embodied in the Blue Book, could have maintained the old system of training and selection in its entirety, and the two alterations which his noble Friend proposed were—first, to reduce the limits of age; and, secondly, to enforce indirectly a residence at a University after the candidates had passed their first examination. There was a strong preponderance of opinion both on the part of the men who were trained at Hailey bury under the old system and of the competition men in favour of association, and the Secretary of State considered that this object would be best accomplished by putting indirect compulsion on the candidates so as practically to enforce them to go to a University. He understood the right hon. Gentleman did not object to the alteration of the limit in respect to age, but thought that attendance at the University should be secured by direct rather than by indirect compulsion. The compulsion to attend the University was only indirect, because any candidate who had no wish to pass through the University course could refrain from doing so by declining a grant which, according to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, would not be sufficient to maintain him while there. If any grant was to be made from the State in order to enable a candidate to complete his education for a service which he desired to enter, it was surely no injustice for the State to insist upon his going through the educational course which was deemed to be the most fitting for the purpose contemplated. There was much to be said in favour of making attendance at a University compulsory, but it was felt that in making an alteration of this kind the steps should be gradual. He might say, however, that if the indirect compulsion contemplated by the present scheme proved successful, and if it should be found, after the experience of a few years, that the young men benefited by association at a University, he had no doubt that all candidates would be forced to go there. The 721 other suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman was open to the objection that if the Secretary of State were to select any one University to which these young men should go—say Cambridge, Oxford, or Dublin—he would place a monopoly in its hands, and at once get rid of the principle of competition which ought to exist between the Universities. If they were all allowed to offer inducements to young men to go to them there could be very little doubt that the University which gave the best education would get the greatest number of men. The right hon. Gentleman also thought that £150 was not sufficient to enable young men to go to Oxford, and that they would be likely to fall into the hands of the money-lenders; but if that were likely to be the case, surely it was more likely to prove so in London than at either Oxford, Cambridge, or Dublin. Besides, London had its disadvantages as well as advantages; for instance, the right hon. Gentleman had himself described one advantage of living in London as being that when one wished to drink water he could get nothing but sewage. [Mr. Lowe remarked that the Oxford water was worse still.] He could assure the right hon. Gentleman that the Secretary of State did not look upon his scheme as perfect, and any suggestions which were made from time to time for its improvement would receive the consideration of his noble Friend.