Commons Sitting of 22 January 1878

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—East India (Public Works), appointed; Public Petitions, appointed and nominated; Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms (House of Commons), appointed and nominated.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered —Criminal Appeals*.
Second Reading —Parliamentary Elections (Metropolis)*[14]; Parliamentary Franchise (Ireland)*[77].

QUESTIONS.
  THE DOG TAX—USELESS DOGS.

    QUESTION.
    SIR GEORGE DOUGLASasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether
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    he is prepared to propose any means by which the public may be protected from a recurrence of the injuries to person and property to which they have been so much exposed in consequence of the great increase in the number of useless dogs throughout the Country?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, my hon. Friend will understand that I have nothing to do with the protection of the public from injury to property and person, except in so far as it might be connected with the levying of the dog tax. I have no doubt, however, from information I have received, that the dog tax is not of as restrictive a nature as it ought to be; and I am now in communication with the Board of Inland Revenue for the purpose of taking further measures for effecting that object. I hope that those measures may be effective, but I am not at the present moment in a position to give any further details.

    POST OFFICE—THE AMERICAN MAIL SERVICE.—QUESTION.
    MR. ANDERSONasked the Postmaster General, Whether it be the fact that on the 26th September 1876, he issued a Circular announcing the abandonment of monopoly in the American Mail Service, that thereafter only monthly arrangements would be entered into, based on efficiency of service, and that the payments would be equivalent to the rates paid by the American Government, viz., 2s. 4d. per pound for letters, and 2d. per pound for newspapers; whether it be the fact that during the Recess the monopoly has been re-established, excluding some of the Companies which had been doing the service at these rates, and paying the favoured Companies 4s. per pound for letters, and 4d. per pound for newspapers, or nearly double the rates recently paid by us, and still paid by the American Government, for a service without monopoly; and, if he will state his reasons for taking what seems to be a retrograde step, how long the now monopoly is to last, and whether the contract is to be laid upon the Table for confirmation by the House?
    LORD JOHN MANNERS: Sir, it is a fact that in September 1876 the Circular as mentioned was issued, and that arrangements were made for carrying

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    letters at the rate of 2s. per lb., and newspapers at the rate of 4d. It is also the fact that since then, during the Recess, a new agreement has been made with the Cunard, Inman, and White Star Lines, that they shall be paid at the rate of 4s. per lb. for letters and 4d. per lb. for newspapers. The alteration was rendered necessary by the owners of the fast vessels declining any longer to provide the service required; and the mails, therefore, had to be sent by the slower vessels or a change made. The arrangement is for 12 months certain, terminable at six months' notice, and therefore there is no contract which must be laid upon the Table for confirmation by the House.
    MR. ANDERSON: As the answer is unsatisfactory I give Notice that I shall bring the subject before the House.

    PARLIAMENT—THE BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.—QUESTIONS.
    THE O'CONOR DONasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he could state whether it was intended that the Motion for Thursday relating to the Business of the House was to take precedence over the other Orders of the Day?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Yes; I propose to give Notice that the Orders of the Day be postponed until after that matter has been disposed of, in order that it may be brought on with all possible speed.
    MR. MOWBRAYasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he would add to his Motion for a Committee on the Business of the House, so that it should include his (Mr. Mowbray's) Motion on the 12.30 rule?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER,in reply, said, he would communicate with his right hon. Friend, but he did not think it would be advisable.

  POST OFFICE — TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION WITH BELMULLET.

    QUESTION.
    MR. BROWNEasked the Postmaster-General, If there is any prospect of telegraphic communication being extended to Belmullet, county Mayo?
    LORD JOHN MANNERS: I beg to inform the hon. Gentleman that negotia-
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    tions have been opened with a view to provide this communication, but the propositions which have been made have not up to the present been accepted.

    INDIA—KHELAT—OCCUPATION OF QUETTA.—QUESTION.
    MR. O'REILLYasked the Under Secretary of State for India, What troops are stationed at Quetta; what buildings or entrenchments they occupy; whether it is intended to occupy that station permanently; and, if not, when it is proposed to withdraw the force now stationed there?
    LORD GEORGE HAMILTON: Sir, according to the last Return, the total number of troops then at Quetta was 1,362; but this includes a special escort of Major Sandeman, which was to have accompanied him on a mission to settle a boundary dispute at the other end of Beloochistan. The mission being postponed for three months, the escort is waiting at Quetta. The troops occupy an old native fort and temporary barracks. In reply to the last two parts of the Question of the hon. Gentleman, I am sure he will excuse me if I refer him to my speech of last Session, in which I stated at some length the reasons for the occupation of Quetta, at the Khan of Khelat's request, by British troops. I have nothing now to add to that statement.

    THE EASTERN QUESTION—TERMS OF PEACE—DESPATCH OF EARL OF DERBY, DEC. 25, 1877.—QUESTIONS.
    MR. CHILDERSasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Despatch from Lord Derby to Mr. Layard of the 25th December, 1877 (No. 7 of Papers, Turkey, No. 2, 1878), instructing him to bear in mind a communication made by him to the Sultan in July 1877, Whether there will be any objection to lay upon the table Papers on this subject; and, whether, when or soon before Her Majesty's Government thus "sounded" the Porte in July, 1877, as to "possible terms of peace," and promised that their good offices should be exerted to secure for Turkey the most favourable terms possible, any Communication had passed between Her Majesty's Government and the Neutral Powers of Russia as to the possible

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    terms of peace on the side of Russia; and, if so, whether the views of the Powers and of Russia at that period will be communicated to Parliament?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, with reference to the first part of the Question of the right hon. Gentleman, I have to state that the substance, and, indeed, the entire effect of the communication to Mr. Layard on the 28th of July, is given in the despatch which he has quoted. It contains, in fact, the whole of what passed, sent by telegraph. With respect to the second part, I have to state that certain communications did pass at the time indicated between Her Majesty's Government and other Powers, but they were of a confidential character, and, therefore, it is not possible to lay them before Parliament.
    MR. CHILDERS: I do not know whether I should be right in asking whether one of the other Powers was Russia herself?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Yes. I may take this opportunity of referring to a matter to which I desire to call the attention of the House. Yesterday it may be in the recollection of hon. Members that the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) put a Question to me, of which he had not given me previous Notice, with regard to a statement which appeared in the newspapers with reference to a communication said to have been made by Her Majesty to the Emperor of Russia. I was not then prepared to answer such a Question put without Notice, but I will now state to the House exactly what occurred. It was this. Her Majesty, having received from the Sultan a direct personal appeal, sent by the advice of her Ministers the following telegram to the Emperor of Russia:—
    "I have received a direct appeal from the Sultan which I cannot leave without an answer. Knowing that you are sincerely desirous of peace, I do not hesitate to communicate this fact to you, in the hope that you may accelerate the negotiations for the conclusion of an armistice which may lead to an honourable peace."
    MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs a Question—of which I have given him private Notice—Whether the attention of the Foreign Office has been called to the telegrams in the morning papers announcing the advance of a strong Russian force upon Gallipoli, and whether
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    any confirmation of this new9 has been received at the Foreign Office.
    MR. BOURKE: My hon. Friend has been kind enough to send me a copy of the Question which he has just put. We have no authentic information at the Foreign Office that a strong Russian force is advancing on Gallipoli. We have received reports that the Russians are advancing in the direction of Gallipoli; but whether those reports are well founded or not our present information does not enable me to state.
    MR. DILLWYNasked whether any answer had been received to the telegram sent by Her Majesty to the Emperor of Russia?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The communication addressed by the Sultan to Her Majesty was a private and personal communication, and similarly the communication with the Emperor of Russia and his reply. I do not think it would be convenient or right that these matters should be brought before the House; but, as Her Majesty's communication to the Emperor of Russia was made by the advice of Her Ministers, and there seems to be some misapprehension as to its precise character, I have received Her Majesty's permission to lay it before the House.

  METROPOLIS—THE NEW LAW COURTS.

    QUESTION.
    COLONEL WALKER (for Mr. HOPWOOD)asked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether the building of the Courts of Justice is progressing satisfactorily, considering the public importance of its early completion; whether any date has been fixed by which it is to be finished; and, whether any indulgence, by extension of time or otherwise, has been granted to the contractor on account of disputes with his men or for any other reason?
    MR. GERARD NOEL: Sir, I regret I cannot assure my hon. Friend that the Courts of Justice are progressing satisfactorily, for there are portions of the building which should by this time be completed, and they are not completed. The date for the entire completion of the contract is August 7, 1880. The contractors will be entitled to extension of time under the strike clause of their contract; but no indulgence on account of disputes with their workmen has

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    hitherto been granted to them. The contract, is, however, in two parts—the one regarding works to be completed by the 9th of August, 1879, the other concluding the contracts as stated above. A short indulgence of nearly three months, on account of frost and stress of weather, has been granted in respect of the first part.

MOTIONS.
  EAST INDIA (PUBLIC WORKS).

    MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
    LORD GEORGE HAMILTON,in rising to move that a Select Committee be appointed "to inquire into and report as to the expediency of constructing Public Works in India with money raised on them," said, he made the Motion in conformity with a promise he had previously given, last Session, when opposing a Motion for a Committee upon Indian Finance. Of all the classes of expenditure which were in any way under the control of the Indian Government, there were none on which there had been greater controversy or greater discrepancy of opinion than that relating to Public Works Extraordinary. It was not only the most controversial branch of the expenditure, but also the most controllable. The Famine which within the last 18 months had devastated Madras had invested with a new interest this old controversy, and afforded strong reasons for the Motion he was making; and it also had, he thought, given greater interest to the question as to the results to be obtained by a considerable annual expenditure on public works. In making the Motion it was desirable that he should state briefly the origin and growth of the expenditure into which he proposed to inquire. Before Lord Dalhousie became Governor-General of India he was for seven years President of the Board of Trade, and naturally took great interest in the enormous development of English manufactures and English trade by the extension of railway communication. Upon taking the new appointment, he was anxious to confer as rapidly as possible the same benefits on India, but there were difficulties in the way. The credit of the East India Company in India was not very good, and its borrowing powers were exhausted
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    in England. Lord Dalhousie suggested a plan by which money might be raised through the agency of certain companies, and, in fact, the making of the desired railways was handed over to those companies, who were induced to find the capital by being guaranteed high rates of interest. That was the origin of guaranteeing railways in India. Lord Dalhousie also proposed to hand over irrigation works to similar companies, and on the abolition of the old Military Boards some few years later various offices for the construction of public works in connection with the Civil Department were consolidated into a new Department, to which the name of the Public Works Department was given. It was proposed that this Department should annually expend about £2,000,000 in productive irrigation works. The outbreak of the Indian Mutiny stopped the full development of Lord Dalhousie's proposals, but when it became evident to the Indian authorities that great advantage, direct and indirect, would accrue from a further development of railways in India, numerous contracts were entered into, much of the same character as those initiated by Lord Dalhousie, and a large number of railroads were constructed in different parts of India. It was found that the guarantee system did not conduce to the cheap construction and cheap management of Indian railways, and Lord Lawrence proposed that the construction and management of railways should pass into the hands of the Government, and that the lines should be of a less costly character. There were two sources for the construction of these public works—namely, first, capital supplied by guaranteed companies, and, secondly, that supplied by loans which were raised in the market by the State. As regarded irrigation, there was a slight difference in the course adopted by the Government. Previous to the establishment of the Public Works Department a considerable sum had been annually expended in the construction of irrigation works in India; but that was entirely from the ordinary revenue of the year. After the Mutiny great pressure was put upon the Secretary of State. Certain companies, such as the Madras and the Orissa, were formed for the promotion of irrigation, but they were failures. Lord Lawrence drew attention to the

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    great charges those high guarantees were placing year by year on the revenues of India, and he suggested that in future railways and irrigation works should be constructed by loans. Some years after a proposal was made by the India Government, and confirmed by the Home Government, that the Government should in future be entirely responsible for the construction of irrigation works. So long as money was found for these works by private companies, the real state of the case was obscured. But the moment the State undertook their construction, the whole of the capital embarked was charged against the ordinary revenue of the year. This consequently led to the erroneous assumption that the Indian Government were approaching a state of bankruptcy, and were disbursing more money than they were receiving. Last Session the Government had proposed a form of account to be sent out to India, by which the whole of the transactions connected with railways and irrigation works were brought under one head, and all the interest on the money expended on them, as well as the working expenses, were charged against the receipts, so that at a glance they could see what the actual result of the construction of those works annually was; and thus they would be able to check any statement made by the officials of the India Office, and also to verify the statement which he himself had made—that although the area of irrigation and the mileage of the railways was yearly increasing in India, the actual cost to the State was yearly decreasing. The system upon which this expenditure had been hitherto sanctioned had been one of forecast. The two most important forecasts which would come under the consideration of the proposed Committee were those of 1873 and 1875. By the first it was proposed to devote £4,500,000 annually to the construction of Public Works Extraordinary, of which £3,000,000 were to be devoted to railroads, and £1,500,000 to irrigation. This forecast further proved that although their capital expenditure was increasing by £4,500,000 annually, yet that the increased receipts from the older works more than compensated for the interest payable on the new works. The same result was verified by the forecast of 1875. It was then estimated that the
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    annual loss on the total number of public works would be £2,378,000; but it was estimated four years afterwards that the loss would be £1,900,000, thus showing an improvement of £478,000. It was estimated that in the present year the total loss on all the public works in India would amount to about £2,000,000, and that the loss upon the guaranteed railroads would amount to £1,442,000. He was glad to say, however, that owing to the immense increase in the traffic receipts on the guaranteed railroads there would be no loss at all this year. He had pointed out that the allotment annually given, to irrigation had been diminished, and in ordinary times he would not have considered it necessary to call attention to this fact; but owing to the recent agitation out-of-doors with a view to exercise pressure on the Indian Government to induce them to spend enormous sums on irrigation works, he felt compelled to refer to this subject. An association, he believed, had been formed and applications had been made to Members of Parliament asking their assistance, in order to induce, if possible, the Indian Government to embark upon a gigantic speculation in that direction. That, however, was the continuance of an old agitation. Some 20 years ago a similar agitation prevailed, there being a strong impression out-of-doors that they had merely to construct an irrigation work in India, and it must immediately pay. A chief supporter of that view and a very distinguished engineer was Sir Arthur Cotton, who in the early part of his career had been singularly successful in the construction of certain irrigation works in the Madras Delta. Those works had proved satisfactory and had paid well, although what their exact actual returns were it was difficult to say; but, making all allowance, there was no doubt that those works were a great credit to their designer and promoter. But the Delta of Madras was exceptionally favourable for such works, and could not be held to be a precedent for other parts of India. Had Sir Arthur Cotton and his friends been content with advocating the construction of works under as favourable circumstances as those he constructed in Madras, he would unquestionably have done unmitigated good. But, unfortunately, they went a great deal further, and in all their speeches and statements

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    with reference to the advantages of irrigation, by some curious oversight, those gentlemen had wholly ignored the results of recent experience. Shortly after the Mutiny great pressure was put upon the Secretary of State to construct irrigation works in Madras by means of a private company. Lord Derby was then Secretary of State for India, and all Lancashire urging him, contrary to the opinion of his Council, he assented to the project, and the Madras Irrigation Company was formed. In the prospectus it was represented that the undertaking would be very remunerative, and Sir Arthur Cotton said he would select for execution the work which would, in his judgment, give the best commercial return. In writing to the Indian Government on the scheme his language was peculiar, considering what the actual results of that company had been. It was stated that when they had secured their plunder, it would be an agreeable task to sit down at their leisure and divide the spoil. It was the actual possession which put everybody in good humour, and the 80 per cent dividend in the case of the Ganges Company was mentioned. It was further stated that the "work was composed of distinct parts, each of which formed a complete scheme in itself, and would yield when executed its own return independently of the remaining parts." On the recommendations of so distinguished an authority the company was constituted with a capital of £1,000,000 sterling, which had been spent without any return. In consequence of an agitation that was set on foot, the Indian Government was authorized to lend £600,000 to the company at 5 per cent. This money also was laid out, and no return had been made. Not only so, but the Government had not received any interest; and although they had been paid a small portion of the money so advanced, that company had never once paid its working expenses. That work ran right through one of the Famine districts, and, of course, it did some good; but its most enthusiastic supporter would not say that the crops it had saved were worth a moiety of the expenditure on its construction. It was necessary, therefore, to be cautious in regard to agitations set on foot to put pressure on the Indian Government and induce it to incur an enormous outlay on undertakings of that
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    character. One of the main points urged on the public was the advantage of cheap water-carriage. No doubt India had a number of magnificent rivers; and of all the rivers in the south the first, perhaps, was the Godavery. The Indian Government, yielding to an appeal made to it as to the benefits that would accrue from the improvement of the navigation of that river, sanctioned an expenditure for that object. The expenditure was put at £80,000, and the works went on. Lord Mayo took the Public Works Department under his own particular charge, and, having heard of the expenditure upon the Godavery, sent down gentlemen to inquire what the amount was. The result was startling; no less than £700,000 had been spent without any return. This improvement was intended for the benefit of the Central Provinces. Mr. Morris had written strongly to deprecate the further continuance of those works, and had stated that the question in his mind was whether the Government could utilize the expenditure of the past, the main result of which had been, in many places, nothing more valuable than a rich deposit of thick black mud. The Indian Government sent home the Papers relating to the affair, and the conclusion of their despatch was to the effect that the project had swallowed up £700,000, that the work could not be utilized till an expenditure of at least £900,000 had been incurred, and that the river could not be made navigable for less than £1,200,000. It was evident from that circumstance that complete designs were necessary for every project. Woeful as their failures had been, there was a still worse one. The Indian Government had commissioned Sir Arthur Cotton to inspect the Bay of Mahanuddy and to suggest some scheme for securing the neighbourhood from famine. He advocated the expenditure of £13,500,000, but the Government could not accede to that proposal, and after some delay it was resolved that the works should be constructed by a private company. Consequently the Orissa Company was formed, with a capital of £1,000,000; but that proved a failure, and the Government took over their works at a very high valuation. They then sent down engineers to revise the estimates, and it was found that a sum of £2,700,000 would give a return of 16

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    per cent. The Duke of Argyll was informed of this, and the Indian Government had reason to believe the estimate safe and sufficient; but only last August it was necessary to write with reference to the affair that while in 1871 the outlay had been calculated at £2,700,000, and the profit at 16 per cent, in 1873 the revised estimate amounted to£4,400,000, and at the present time to £6,208,000, the estimated receipts being diminished in an even greater proportion. He had mentioned this fact with the idea that it was desirable to know the results of recent experience, and seeing that, except in the Delta, these irrigation works had all failed, he thought it was wrong for anyone to support a gigantic agitation to force the Government into incurring an enormous expenditure and yet keep back these notorious facts. Especially was he sorry to find that Sir Arthur Cotton had received countenance from such a high quarter as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright). His eloquence was so great that it seldom failed to influence the public mind. But that made it all the more necessary for public men of such high position to be careful how they too freely endorsed the ideas of speculative engineers. In purely commercial life he felt certain that the right hon. Gentleman would not ask the public to embark in any scheme respecting the success of which he was not absolutely certain. He ought to be equally cautious in lending his help to an agitation for promoting an immense expenditure of money for purposes which it had been proved would be valueless. Caution and prudence were all the more necessary in this case, because the Indian taxpayer was not directly represented in that House; and of all the Departments of the State none was so weakly represented in a financial sense as the Indian Department. Indian questions were fortunately outside he arena of Party polities. The Representative of the India Office could not depend upon that support which Party organization afforded to other Departments; and whenever any scheme involving increased expenditure was brought forward, all the advocates of increased expenditure of any sort took good care to prime their Friends in the House, so that the Representative of the Government found many against him and very few in his favour.
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    He was therefore extremely sorry, and it was doubly unfortunate, that at the Manchester meeting the right hon. Gentleman should have taken up one of the wildest and rashest of Sir Arthur Cotton's schemes—that, namely, by which it was proposed to construct a number of navigable canals all over India, at a cost of £30,000,000. For his own part, he would like to know what might be expected to be the actual and final cost of such a scheme. He (Lord George Hamilton) did not deny that the reputation of Sir Arthur Cotton was deservedly great; but there was another gentleman, Colonel Chesney, well versed in such matters, in whose book, to which the right hon. Gentleman had alluded, was a passage explaining that the cost of making a canal depended upon the supply of water, the slope of the ground, and the drainage of the course. In certain favourable conditions great canals might be made for a comparatively small sum, and might be navigated cheaply for exactly those reasons which made ocean traffic cheap. But when those favourable conditions were absent, the case wholly changed, and expenditure on canals was practically indefensible. The best possible way to dispose of Sir Arthur Cotton's ideas would be the appointment of a Select Committee, before whom the advocates of rival opinions could be heard, and their value estimated; but before any Committee considered any scheme involving an outlay of £30,000,000, they should first require satisfactory explanations of those past failures to which he had alluded. The recent Famine in Madras had no doubt directed attention to that part of India, and there were some who thought that much might be done by increasing irrigation in that district to protect it against the recurrence of famine. It had been found by experience that it was no use to construct canals or tanks to prevent drought which was solely do-pendent on rainfall for their supply of water. In Madras there were only three rivers whose sources of supply were independent of the rainfall of Madras and Mysore; and in the opinion of many competent engineers, it would not be possible to utilize the waters of those rivers to any further considerable extent. Moreover, Sir Richard Temple had directed attention to the fact that in the wet lands the famine had been the worst,

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    and he had dwelt on that circumstance in a despatch to Lord Salisbury, concluding by depicting the sheets of water and all the apparatus of irrigation lying useless. From that, it was clear that the construction of tanks or canals which were not connected with permanent sources was not sufficient to save the people from famine. In Bengal the conditions were very different from what they were in Madras, because not only was there a great number of rivers, but the country was flat, and canals were easily constructed. But even in Bengal the results were very remarkable. If he took the total expenditure in Bengal, the result was not altogether unsatisfactory. It appeared, from the last account, that there had been expended about £12,500,000 in Bengal, and the result, including direct and indirect receipts, gave a return of 3½ per cent on the capital. But the moment this sum was analyzed it was found that this revenue was almost exclusively derived from two canals, the Jumna and the Ganges. The capital expended on these two works was £3,500,000, and the result was 10½ per cent. On the whole remaining expenditure in; Bengal, which amounted to £9,500,000, there was only a return of ½ per cent, and this proved very clearly, what recent experience strongly confirmed, that it mainly depended on physical conditions as well as the rainfall whether a canal paid or not.
    GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURasked whether the results referred to in connection with the Jumna Canal were independent of the old works?
    LORD GEORGE HAMILTONreplied that the Jumna Canal was an extension of the old work, and he doubted very much if the old work was included in the calculation. [General Sir GEORGE BALFOUR: Hear, hear!] He believed that was not worth very much. Another circumstance to be borne in mind was that it took 12 or 15 years for the revenue of a canal to be fully developed. The consequence was that if they were during that period to adopt a strictly commercial system of increasing the capital account by compound interest, they would make such a capital account as would prevent almost any irrigation work from making the least return. Altogether, the works which the Government had constructed might be divided
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    into three classes—firstly, those which paid well during ordinary years; secondly, those which would not pay during ordinary years, but which averted famines; and, thirdly, those which would not pay in ordinary years and which would not avert famines. It had been shown that it would be a delusion to rely altogether on irrigation; but, on the other hand, it would be a mistake to ignore the service which it had rendered in the past. One of the main questions which the proposed Committee would have to inquire into was, what had been the result of irrigation works, and to obtain from the various officers of the Public Works Department the cause of their failures; also to see whether the principle upon which their receipts were estimated was sound or not. It was not worth while to enter into a comparison between railroads and canals, because there was not at present data sufficient to enable anyone to draw a comparison between them as to their financial results. In the estimated returns from canals the whole of the indirect receipts, the enhanced value of the land, &c, as well as the direct receipts, were included; but in the case of railways that was not done, although there could be no doubt that railways also enhanced the value of land and enabled the Indian Government to largely reduce the number of European troops kept in India. As to the Amendment which was about to be proposed, he cordially admitted the energy and industry which the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) always brought to the consideration of Indian questions; but he felt bound to say that if the present Amendment were adopted, the Committee would not be of much use, during the present Parliament at all events. The main object in appointing the Committee was not merely that it should obtain evidence, but also that it should report upon it, and the Government desired, if possible, to put an end to the controversy concerning the returns from public works. The reference which he (Lord George Hamilton) proposed was complete in itself. It would enable any Member of the Committee to examine any witness not only as to direct, but also as to indirect returns, and as to the benefit which particular works might do to the country in averting famine. The hon. Member for Hackney, on the other hand, proposed to go further, and to add

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    words implying that the Committee should inquire into the means to be adopted for preventing the occurrence or mitigating the effects of famines in India. Now, it would be impossible for any Committee of that House to obtain sufficient local information to enable them to form a sound judgment as to every locality in India, and even if they had the time and means he could not conceive anything more dangerous than generalizing from the local experience of two or three witnesses to lay down certain principles, the general operation of which might be found to be much more injurious than beneficial. The Secretary of State had recommended the Indian Government to appoint a Commission to inquire into this very question of Madras; that Commission had been appointed, and it would be far better to confine the work of a Committee of that House to inquiring into and laying down principles and conditions under which public works should be constructed in India, and at the same time to draw up their Report so as to afford the Home and Indian Governments sufficient latitude for modifying their proposals according to the Reports they might receive from local Commissions they had appointed. The second part of the Amendment referred to military and other charges which wore under the control of the Home Parliament. There was a Committee three years ago which minutely inquired into the military expenditure of this country; and he did not believe any good would result from appointing another Committee to enter into the military charges that were under the control of the War Office in this country. Besides that special Committee, there had been Departmental Committees, and these had accumulated sufficient evidence to show that although the charges might be high they were not too much according to the principle which at present regulated them, and which had been stated by Lord Card well to be, that England was in partnership with India. So long as that principle was adhered to, we had necessarily to bear our share of the increase in the expenditure; but if the House or the hon. Member for Hackney wished a larger sum to be paid by England and a proportionately less sum by India, and chose to raise the question in the usual way in Committee of Supply, he was
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    sure the India Office would not object. The question, however, was not one into which a Select Committee could with propriety inquire. It was a question of principle, and so long as the principle remained in force, so long must the present system of payment continue. In moving for this Committee, he was not actuated by a desire to avert any possible censure for any supposed neglect on the part of the Government of India. On the contrary, he was confident that the Indian Government had exercised a wise discretion in not throwing away larger sums on the prosecution of works which past experience had shown did not pay. Neither did the Government propose the Committee because they had no suggestions to make as regarded the future expenditure on productive works in India; but what they considered necessary above all things was that this everlasting controversy should be put an end to. What they wanted was to produce, if possible, an authoritative statement which would exactly show what the results of those works were. If, as he believed, those works had on the whole paid well, and if a mode could be suggested by which the results of each work could be distinctly shown, it might very much encourage private enterprise to undertake some of those works. Therefore, he earnestly recommended the Motion to the House. He felt confident that if the Gentlemen composing the Committee showed the energy and assiduity which had characterized the Members of previous Committees they would within a reasonable time be able to lay down perfectly sound and intelligible principles for the further prosecution of those works, and suggest something as to the proper method of giving effect to them. That object might be a less ambitious one than that suggested by the hon. Member for Hackney; but he thought no mean advantage would be gained by his Motion if it placed upon a sound basis this annual expenditure, and made it a source of unceasing and increasing prosperity to the population for whose benefit it was alone incurred.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into and report as to the expediency of constructing Public Works in India with money raised on loan."—(Lord George Hamilton.)
    MR. FAWCETT,in moving, as an Amendment, that the following words be added to the Motion of the Under Secretary for India:—
    "And further to inquire into the best means to he adopted to prevent the recurrence or to mitigate the intensity of famines in India; and whether, by greater economy, specially with regard to military and other charges which are under the control of the Home authorities, a fund for the relief of famines may not be provided without subjecting the people of India to such burdensome taxation as will be imposed upon them by the contemplated increase of the salt duty,"
    said, he agreed so generally with what had been said by the noble Lord, that he should much regret if either the noble Lord or any other Member of the House might be led to regard the Amendment he was moving as being aimed at the views expressed in the speech they had just heard. The Government of India had exercised a wise discretion in the past, and would continue so to do if they stood firm in their opposition to any proposals to spend the money of the country on reckless and ill-considered public works. While, however, he agreed in the main with the principles laid down by the noble Lord, he thought his Motion inadequate and too vague in its terms. It was inadequate considering the present critical position of Indian finance and the terrible calamity which had lately afflicted that country, and had produced a widespread feeling that something more was required from that House than a simple inquiry such as the noble Lord proposed. It was vague, because unless in some way limited or strictly defined it would, he believed, do exactly what the noble Lord thought the Amendment would do, and commit the House to an inquiry into the whole field of Indian finance. The principle of carrying out public works with borrowed money depended not simply on the question of "would they pay?" but on the condition of the revenue of the Government. If there was a growing surplus, the Government would be perfectly justified in carrying out works upon that system; but it became highly inexpedient if the finances were not in such a condition. In India more public works meant increase of debt, and further financial embarrassments; and it was impossible for a Committee of this House to arrive at any conclusion on
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    this matter without knowing what was the financial condition of that country. Again, the interference of the House with Indian matters might become highly mischievous, more particularly if it attempted to interfere with the internal details of Indian administration. His only wish was to have an inquiry into general principles. Nothing could be more unfortunate than for the English Parliament, in the case of a famine afflicting India, to lay down a limit as to the extent to which relief should or should not be given by the Indian Government. This was a question which could only be properly settled on the spot by persons acquainted with the local circumstances. The same observation applied to the construction of an irrigation work or the making of a railway in any particular part of the Indian Empire. In a remarkable speech recently delivered at Calcutta by Sir John Strachey—a speech which the Government would do well to circulate as widely as possible—that distinguished authority laid down three cardinal principles, which deserved the most careful consideration. In the first place, Sir John Strachey held that famines in India could no longer be regarded as exceptional occurrences, but must be looked upon as events to be expected and provided for out of the ordinary revenue of the year; secondly, he proposed the establishment of an Indian famine fund; and as he said it was impossible for the Indian authorities to reduce the expenditure to any important extent, it was proposed to provide that fund by additional taxation, amounting to £1,500,000 a-year; thirdly, he said that during the last seven years the ordinary revenue of India, excluding famine expenditure, had only just been sufficient to meet the ordinary expenditure—if it did meet it; that that was not a safe position for a great country to be in, because there were other contingencies which might arise besides famine; and he proposed to place the finances of India in such a position that there would be a surplus of £500,000 that might be looked upon as another reserve fund. Sir John Strachey proposed, therefore, to raise £2,000,000 by additional taxation. He did not wish, on the present occasion, to express an opinion on the additional taxation which was to be levied

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    in India for raising this extra revenue. With, regard to these proposals, the House would have an opportunity on some future occasion, possibly on Friday next, on the Motion of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell), of considering them. But, even if for the sake of the present discussion it was assumed that if the money had to be obtained by additional taxation, the mode proposed by Sir John Strachey was the best, it would still be necessary to inquire whether the amount required could not be obtained without additional taxation by means of greater economy, judicious retrenchment, and wiser administration of the affairs of India. He admitted that those who proposed economy ought to point out how it could be effected. The speech of Sir John Strachey contained some remarkable statements well worthy the attention of that House and the people of this country with respect to the military expenditure of India, which was the great cause of the financial difficulties of that country, of the gravity of which the House was not aware. He did not wish to inquire into the details of that expenditure, but into the principles on which it was administered. For many years India had enjoyed an almost profound peace, and yet the military expenditure of that country had increased, between 1863 and 1870, by £1,200,000; although in that time there had been a decrease in the number of European troops of 13,000, and of Native troops of 4,000. Moreover, since the latter date, without any increase having been made in the numbers of the troops, the military expenditure had further increased by £1,000,000. While the net revenue of India was only £40,000,000, her military expenditure was no less than £17,000,000, or 45 per cent of the entire Imperial taxation of the country, or 90 per cent of the whole of the land revenue. Sir John Strachey, in referring to this steady growth of the military expenditure of India, said that the increase of £1,000,000 in a single year arose chiefly on Home charges, about which the Government in India were not consulted, and with regard to which they had often no power of remonstrance, adding that its gravity could not be exaggerated. Sir John Strachey also stated that there was no security that these military Home
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    charges would not go on increasing in the future; and he concluded by earnestly saying that he hoped the subject would be re-considered, and that in the military relations between England and India consideration would be given to the question whether the plan on which the charges were based between the two countries could not be placed on a more equitable basis with regard to India. It was on the strength of these weighty opinions that he ventured to appeal to the English Parliament to do justice to India. The House was bound in these circumstances not to lose a single moment in instituting an inquiry, not into the details, but into the principles of the Indian expenditure. If he were asked what would be the practical result of such an inquiry, he should point to the fact that the Army Retirement scheme which had been hurried through that House, and which largely affected the Indian expenditure, had been introduced without even having been submitted to the authorities in India. If he were asked what sort of evidence would be given before such a Committee as he asked for, he should say that if he were upon it the first person he should call would be a high Indian military authority, and he should put to him the question whether he had not devised a scheme for the re-organization of the Army of Madras which would save that Presidency an expenditure of £400,000 at least—a sum considerably more than would be realised by the increase of the salt tax, and whether it was not a fact that the scheme was approved by all the authorities connected with India; yet, in spite of that, it could not be carried out, and having discovered the obstacles to its being carried out, whether it would not be possible to remove them? The English people were, he believed, anxious to do justice to India, and only desired to know how justice should be rendered; and it was a pertinent and practical part of the inquiry which he suggested to find out how the English people could be, he would not say more generous, but more just to India. He had principally confined his remarks to the military expenditure; but it should not be supposed that there were not other departments, more especially in connection with Home charges, in which expenditure could be cut down. He could give many examples, but would mention two only.

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    One was the subject of pensions granted by the Government of India. It was surely time that that subject was reconsidered. Then, again, in 1856 the cost of printing to India was £90,000, a few years later it was £230,000, while at the present moment it amounted to no less than £430,000 a-year. India was too poor to bear that kind of extravagance; but the fact was, the whole expenditure of India was framed in days when the idea prevailed that India was the richest country in the world, while it was now known that she was not only not the richest, but was actually one of the poorest. He had no hesitation in saying that to spend an unnecessary shilling of Indian money produced more bad consequences than to spend unnecessarily a pound of English money. So desperate, indeed, were the financial straits of India that, in order to obtain the insignificant sum of £300,000, the Indian Government were about to increase the salt duty 40 per cent, and that in districts in which the people of India were only beginning to raise their heads from the consequences of a great calamity. Salt was as much a necessary of life as the food they ate or the air they breathed, and yet they were about to increase the duty on salt in the case of people still bearing the marks of starvation. The evidence against such an increase of duty was overwhelming. He would give only two out of many high authorities against the adoption of such a course. Lord Lawrence stated before a Committee of the House of Commons that in no circumstances should the duty on salt be increased; and Lord Hobart, speaking several years since, said that a then recent increase of the salt duty showed conclusively in its result that it not only decreased the consumption of salt by human beings, but that it diminished its use in agriculture, producing thereby cattle disease. He proved that increasing the duty caused a decline in the consumption of salt, by showing that an increase of 18 per cent in the duty only produced an increase of 12 per cent in the revenue. He knew it would be said that one of the objects in view was to equalize the salt duties. Well, if they wanted to equalize the duties, they ought to do it by reducing instead of raising them. When it was remembered that to obtain £300,000 they had to
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    resort to the salt duty, and to increase it in the case of the very poorest peasants and ryots, surely nothing could show more strongly the necessity that existed for setting themselves to work with a view to find out how they could save that sum by economy instead of raising it by taxation. He quite agreed with what the noble Lord had said as to the pressure which was brought to bear on the Government of India to incur vast expenditure in the construction of public works. When it was stated that expenditure on irrigation works would yield a return of 70 or 80 per cent, why, he asked, did not the capitalists and commercial men of large means who made those assertions embark their money in so splendid an enterprise? He strongly deprecated any partizan feeling in discussing the question whether railways or works of irrigation were the better calculated to yield a profitable return and to prevent the recurrence of famine. He was quite aware that railways had done great things for India; but, on the other hand, all the railways had not paid, and in the same way some irrigation works had been disastrous failures, while some, no doubt, had been attended with success. Every figure that had been brought forward by the Under Secretary for India with regard to irrigation schemes could be proved by a reference to official documents before the House. He believed that it could be shown that out of £9,000,000 that had been spent by the Indian Government on irrigation schemes of their own design and construction, there was not one that was paying 1 per cent, and many that were not paying their working expenses. The noble Lord the Under Secretary had alluded to the case of the Orissa irrigation works, and it was a well-known fact that owing to the great pressure brought to bear upon the Government of India they were induced to purchase those works, not at the price at which the shares of the Company were quoted on the London market—namely, at 60, at which price they were unsaleable, but at their par value of £100. If any such pressure were brought to boar upon the Government of India in the future he hoped they would be sufficiently strong to resist it, or that if they did not the House of Commons would have its at-

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    tention called to the matter. He joined his humble testimony as to the zeal and ability which were shown by all the officials in India in relation to the famine, and the devotion displayed by the people generally. He believed it was the settled determination of the House to spare no effort to prevent the recurrence of these visitations, which had produced to the people of our great Dependency unspeakable woo and suffering, which they had borne with great patience and calm resignation. The hon. Member concluded by moving his Amendment.
    Amendment proposed,
    At the end of the Question, to add the words, "and further to inquire into the best means to be adopted to prevent the recurrence or to mitigate the intensity of famines in India; and whether by greater economy, specially with regard to military and other charges which are under the control of the Home authorities, a fund for the relief of famines may not be provided without subjecting the people of India to such burdensome taxation as will be imposed upon thorn by the contemplated increase of the salt duty."—(Mr. Fawcett.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
    MR. JOHN BRIGHT: Sir, I am not about to address the House at any length, but after the part which I have taken in Indian matters, and after some of the observations made by the noble Lord, I do not wish to abstain altogether from speaking on this occasion. First, then, I should like to say, with regard to the Motion and the Amendment, that I think both of them are open to very considerable objection. The Motion is for
    "a Select Committee to inquire into and report as to the expediency of constructing Public Works in India with money raised on loan."
    The Motion has nothing whatever to do with any particular class of public works; it does not refer in any way to the question which has lately very much excited the public mind and feeling as to the causes of famine, or as to the mode in which famines may be prevented. It applies, I presume, to all public works in India, and it is simply this question, whether it is expedient, in constructing public works, that the money should be raised on loan. Now, that does not appear to me to meet the requirements of the case which is before the public; and I think it would have been much better if the Committee could have been
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    confined to the question as to which I think the House now is—and I am quite sure the public in connection with Indian matters is—now thinking. Then I come to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), and I object to the Amendment on the ground that it would overload the Committee with so much subject-matter of inquiry, that I think the objection of the noble Lord was quite well-founded, and that you might carry on that Committee for two or three Sessions of Parliament, and probably get no Report at all. But the main question which I thought we were going to consider—that is, what should be done with reference to famines— would be almost, if not altogether, lost sight of in the multitudinous and prolonged inquiry which the hon. Member for Hackney wishes to force the House to enter into. Now, on these grounds I should object to both the Motion and the Amendment—not that the Motion of the Under Secretary may not be of some use; but I think it would have been a great deal better if the Reference were worded differently, and the attention of the Committee kept more distinctly to the question of famines, and of what can be done to prevent the recurrence of them in future. The noble Lord has made some—I will not say attack on me —remarks which I have no doubt he thought himself quite justified in making; but he has not had so much to do as I have with out-of-door agitations. I can tell him, from my own experience, that nothing has been more common for the last 40 years than to hear denunciations of out-door agitation from the Ministerial Bench. There has been scarcely a single great question agreed to by Parliament during that period that has not been agreed to mainly in consequence of political agitation outside. Of course, the noble Lord is entitled to his opinion whether the statements made during an agitation and during the public discussions which arise are justifiable or not. The matter which we are now discussing is one upon which we may quite expect to have great mistakes and great exaggerations, because the country about which we are talking is a great many thousand miles away; and I find that gentlemen who have lived in India for 20, 30, or even 40 years, and have been concerned in the government of India, differ about almost every Indian question. One man

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    has lived in the South of India, and another in the North, and they have been as far away from each other as we are from Italy. One speaks of what he saw in his neighbourhood, and the other of what he saw in his, and their evidence conflicts, and it is difficult to come to the truth upon any matter. I think, therefore, we may make some allowance for persons who discuss this question of India, and I think there will be exaggerations and mistakes. But now as to the cause of this debate. What is it? Why is it the noble Lord has brought this question before us to-night? If the famine in Madras had not happened, we should not have heard of this Committee. We have heard of this Committee, but the Committee, apparently, is to say nothing about the famine. There is an inconsequence in this which the House might correct, and which the noble Lord ought to allow to be corrected. I think there is little use in this Committee unless it directs its attention to the special question which has caused it to be appointed, and unless it endeavours to ascertain how it is that so many millions of persons during the last 10 years—and they are to be counted by millions—have died by famine. Talk of "this savage and destructive war" now waging in the East of Europe—we hear of thousands being slaughtered; but all that that war has done, and all that the wars of the last ten years have done, has not been equal in the destruction of human life to the destruction caused by the famines which have occurred in the great Dependency of the English Crown in India. That is a question of some importance, and why should this Committee not be appointed for the express purpose of ascertaining from such evidence as we can get in England, and, if necessary, such as we can get from India, how it is that after so many years of possession—100 years of possession—of this very part of the country, still we have got no further than this, that there is a drought, and then famine? There is no failure of water, except at particular times, and over a particular district? But take the year through, almost without exception, in India there is far more water than is necessary there for what is required for the cultivation of the soil, yet almost no step has been taken to provide irrigation works. We hear that there has been £9,000,000 or £16,000,000 spent on
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    such works. What is that in India? The town of Manchester alone with a population of 500,000 has spent £2,000,000 already, and is coming to Parliament now to ask to be allowed to spend £3,500,000 more—that will be £5,500,000—to supply the population of that town and its immediate surroundings with pure water, and a sufficient quantity of it. But in India we have 200,000,000 of population subject to the English Government, and with a vast supply of rainfall, and great rivers running through it, with the means— as I believe there are the means—of abundant irrigation, and still the whole sum expended has been only £16,000,000. We have heard some other authorities say it is £20,000,000; but be it £16,000,000 or £20,000,000, what is it when we consider the vast extent of the country, and the greatness of the need? I remember years ago that Sir James Hogg, the Chairman of the East India Company, and the late Mr. Mangles, stood up in this House and insisted that the Indian Government had not failed in its duty with regard to the public works in India. I showed then—that was in 1856 or 1857—that the Corporation of Manchester had, during the preceding 14 years, spent more in public works for the good of its own population than the East India Company had spent in the same 14 years throughout the whole of the vast territories which were subjected to their care or to their neglect. Now, I have no doubt whatever, notwithstanding what has been said, and notwithstanding what may be said, of the condition of their finances, it is the duty of the Indian Government in some way, if possible, to find a remedy; but if not possible, of course famine must come and the doomed must die; but I believe it is possible, and I will not rely on the authority of Sir Arthur Cotton alone; but if hon. Members will take that book which the noble Lord quoted from, they will find there the evidence—I was going to say of scores of eminent men— as to what ought to be done, and what may be done in India. There is the evidence of Colonel Chesney, in which he shows how much may be done, and how much has been neglected in regard to the question of irrigation. The noble Lord stated that the Secretary of State for India had ordered an inquiry to be made in India as to some matters having

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    regard to the further progress of works of irrigation. What I want, and what Sir Arthur Cotton wants, is, not that you should believe me—for I am no authority on the matter—or even that you should believe him, but that you should have a fair and full inquiry on the spot. You have a great Government in Calcutta, and you have what is called a Government in other parts of India. Surely it would be possible in all parts of India to have a complete scientific inquiry and engineering report of what is possible to be done; and some great plan might be devised, not, perhaps, to be immediately carried out, but to be looked forward to as a portion of the duty of the Government of India towards the people of India. If that Commission be appointed, and if its purpose be such as I have indicated, then it may possibly be said that this Committee which we are about to appoint need not go into these questions. But I fear, from the terms in which the Committee is moved, that when hon. Members get into the Committee they will find that they have a vast problem before them; the terms are so vague that it will be scarcely possible to keep the Committee within any bounds; while if the terms were such as I think necessary they would simply inquire into the desirability of irrigation works for the prevention of famine. The hon. Member for Hackney has asked a Question which other persons have asked—Why is it that if some of these schemes will pay 70 or 80 per cent, the people of Manchester, or the City of London or elsewhere, with capital to employ, do not go to India and establish these great works, and put in their pocket this great profit? I will tell the hon. Gentleman why they will not do it. There are no people in this country who will form public companies and expend money in India without a guarantee from the Government. There are circumstances which make it very doubtful whether it would be wise for any man to do it. He had better do it, he thinks, in almost any other country than India. The Indian Government does not like these independent companies. It acts partly upon the traditions of the old Company. The Indian Government objects to the expenditure of English money which is not under their control. The noble Lord knows quite well that
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    only last year a deputation waited upon the Secretary of State for India to ask permission that the Nizam of Hyderabad, who was represented here by Sir Salar Jung, should be at liberty to borrow money in England for the purpose of making a railway about 200 miles long in his country. The Indian Government objects. I doubt very much whether Lord Salisbury objects; but the Indian Government objects. They say—"No; we will make the railway for you if you like; or, if you can make it out of your own funds, you can construct it." But I suppose Sir Salar Jung would say, if he said exactly what he thought—"No; I have not the funds to make it for myself or for my Government, and I do not wish you to make it and get more absolute possession of my country than you have now, and diminish in any degree what I have now—an independent position in India; but I can go to London, and there find plenty of people who will trust the Government of Hyderabad; and I can raise a million sterling for the purpose of making this railway of 200 miles long, which will enable me to communicate from Hyderabad with the line that runs from Bombay to Calcutta, and at the same time to carry a branch railway through extensive coal fields that promise to be of the greatest value." Sir Salar Jung makes that proposition, and the Indian Government say—"No, we will not give you liberty to borrow money. English capitalists may think they have security enough in the Government of the Nizam; but we do not wish that English capitalists in London should have possession of a railway track in your country, or the influence it would give them in your State. Therefore, unless you can make it out of your own funds, or allow us to make it, the population of the State must be deprived of the great advantage of this railway." Now that is a specimen of the narrow, jealous, and miserable spirit in which this Government acts; and it is that which makes it impossible for capitalists in England to go to India and lay out their money in great works of irrigation unless they have the sanction of the Government. I have no doubt that if it were possible to bring all the facts connected with the Madras scheme before the House, it would be shown that a very large portion of the fault, whatever

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    it is, of the failure of that scheme has been the mismanagement of the Government in connection with it. However, I do not wish now to go into it. Everybody must admit the tremendous difficulties which any Government must have in managing the affairs of that vast country and its population of 200,000,000 persons. I admit that; and therefore, perhaps, it is not reasonable or just that one should bring strong charges against men who, I dare say, do the best they can in their position, but who fail in much that they do. The noble Lord quoted two or three cases in which irrigation had failed. There may be works of irrigation that may pay nothing to the Government, but which will save the lives of their people; and I do not like to hear the Secretary of State or the Under Secretary, in discussing this question, always treat it as if it were a shopkeeper in London or a merchant in Manchester who was considering whether he should open another shop or another mercantile house. It is not exactly in that spirit in which the question should be dealt with. I believe there are many cases in India in which, probably, it would not be possible for the Government to say—"We shall get 10 per cent out of the expenditure of £1,000,000,"but a year afterwards they might say that the expenditure of that £1,000,000 had probably saved 1,000,000 of human lives; and therefore it might be worth while for the Government, as a clear duty, to expend that £1,000,000 in that work. I do not know that I have any more to say than this. If the noble Lord intends that the Committee shall thoroughly examine this question, and if they can do anything in India, it should be done by a Commission in India. I do not ask them to take my opinion, or the opinion of Sir Arthur Cotton. But Sir Arthur Cotton lived 45 years in India. He has more information in connection with works of irrigation in India than any other engineer. He has given the attention of a lifetime to them; he is a man of the most undoubted honour, and of the highest character; he believes absolutely what he says as to what is necessary to be done and what may be done. I confess I think it will be difficult—almost impossible—after discussing this question with him, not to come to the opinion that his authority is one
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    which ought to have great weight with the House. He is willing to say—I have myself heard him say—that there have been many mistakes made—there have been mistakes in the railroads, in the irrigation works; but that if famine comes from want of water, clearly to get rid of famine you must have water. You cannot have water except by works of irrigation. You have the rain from Heaven; you have the great rivers; and you have a great Government, which has conquered the country, and which, having conquered it, at least ought to exercise all the powers of its intellect for the purpose of saving its people from this suffering and this ruin, and ought to save this country and this Parliament from the degradation and humiliation of allowing it to be known throughout the world that millions of the subjects of the Crown in India, in the course of 10 years, perish by famine, which great engineers and men of character and experience say positively might altogether have been prevented.
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLconsidered that the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) had made out some case for inquiry into the military and other charges which were under the control of the Home authorities, if it were only that statements on the subject had been made by high official authority in India, and that the educated Natives of India had been led to think that there ought to be such an inquiry; but the noble Lord the Under Secretary for India was right in saying that such an addition to his Motion as that proposed by the hon. Member for Hackney would make the inquiry which he proposed too large, and therefore he would recommend his hon. Friend rather to move for a separate Committee to inquire into all those important questions which he had brought before the House. He would not enter into the question whether or not irrigation works in general were good, right, or proper in themselves—that would be for the proposed Committee to decide—but having had much personal experience in regard to several of the works of which the noble Lord the Under Secretary for India (Lord George Hamilton) had referred, he thought it his duty to support him in several of his statements. He felt bound to point out the utterly unreliable character of the reports of Sir Arthur Cotton.

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    That gentleman was a man deserving of very great respect, but he was in this matter wholly unreliable. Though he did not doubt Sir Arthur Cotton's honesty, he thought there was some truth in the saying regarding him that he had water on the brain. He was hopelessly enthusiastic, and had been carried away beyond all bounds of reason in his views, and was neither to bind nor to hold in his statements of what might be done if his recommendations were carried out. It was because of the reckless manner in which he had set forth his views that he had prevailed with so many; but he (Sir George Campbell) was sorry that Sir Arthur Cotton had prevailed with the right hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright). As Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, he had had experience of great public works which Sir Arthur Cotton had designed and forced upon the Government, and as Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces he had also had experience of some of Sir Arthur's projects. The noble Lord had stated the facts in regard to one or two of these when he said they never could return interest on the money expended on them, and that they had never extended over more than a limited area, or done more than a very limited amount of good. One of Sir Arthur's projects was to create an enormous reservoir in the centre of India, to store water there during the rainy season, and to let it down on the country when drought prevailed. That scheme was submitted to him as Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces. He found that Sir Arthur Cotton had never been in the country where he proposed to place his reservoir, and had never obtained information in regard to it. He had simply taken a map, and having found that there were two or three rivers in the country, he had marked a circle on the map and said—"You can make a large reservoir, a grand lake there." They found that Sir Arthur Cotton had no data on which to found his assertions. They obtained men to examine and work out these projects, but having gone into them they saw there were physical conditions which made it impossible to carry them into effect. That was the last he had heard of Sir Arthur Cotton, until he was resuscitated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham. There was another of
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    his projects equally wild. India and China were, Sir Arthur said, great countries. Water was the panacea for all evils, and it was the easiest thing possible to make a canal between the two countries. He was oblivious of the fact that between them there were mountains 19,000 or 20,000 feet high, and when somebody pointed this out, he said it was the simplest thing in the world to make locks. While pointing out the unreliability of Sir Arthur Cotton in these matters, he would admit that this was a great and important subject. It had been well said that some projects had been failures, but other projects might be successful. It was important that the general principle on which these might be grappled with should be inquired into and reported on by a Committee of the House. No doubt the details would need to be investigated by a Commission in India, but as regarded the general principle a strong Committee of the House might take up the matter, and the Report would be one of a very valuable character. That was all he had to say in regard to the Motion before the House. He should just like to say one or two words in regard to the observations that fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham. He set forth that a large profit could be made out of public works in India if they were carried out by public companies, and that the reason that the works were not undertaken was because the Government of India would not let these companies do it, but discouraged them, and did not give them fair play. That, he thought, was the gist of the right hon. Gentleman's observations. He was sorry to pit himself against the right hon. Gentleman, or to venture to contradict him in this matter; but he must say it was not the fault of the Government if people abstained from starting companies and constructing works out of which they could not make a profit. Were there not tea companies in India? were there not coffee companies in India? and were there not jute and cotton and other companies there? Ordinary companies had been found profitable, and there was no reason to suppose that the Government had unfairly discouraged or hindered them. In the matter of taxation, he thought the Government had given too much encouragement to companies at the expense of the poor people

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    of India. He thought the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham was not justified in saying that the people of this country could not form companies and send money to India to work out their projects. They had done so in many cases. They had not done so in the case of irrigation works, because money invested in this way had been lost or only recouped from the Government by means which the hon. Member for Hackney had alluded to, and they were not satisfied that it would now yield 80 or 100 per cent as Sir Arthur Cotton had asserted. He did not know whether he should touch upon another matter which the right hon. Gentleman had introduced into this debate — the proposal that Sir Salar Jung should raise a loan in this country to construct public works. He (Sir George Campbell) thought the Government of India had exercised a wise discretion in not allowing this. It was all very well saying he had come there as a public-spirited man. His object was to create a financial interest in this country, and there were other reasons behind. The Legislature of this country had, indeed, exercised a wise discretion, looking to the intrigues in India, the financial adventurers and other adventurers that tried there to get hold of Native Princes, in saying that no European should lend money to Native Princes without sanction.
    MR. JOHN BRIGHT: The Government did allow it in one case.
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, they had in a particular case, and they might allow it in another case, but if the Government had thought fit to allow it, and capitalists went to India with the permission of the Government at home and lost their money, they would come to the Government and say—"You permitted and sanctioned these loans, and you are bound to see them paid," and whether their arguments were right or wrong they would put pressure on the Government to cause that money to be re-paid. This had convinced him that the Government did wisely in not permitting loans to be made to Native Princes, which would be an eternal burden upon their posterity. If the principle were once sanctioned that Native Princes were to be free to raise loans, the result would be that many of them would soon be in the position of the Khedive of Egypt
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    —they would be raising large sums till their revenues were pledged, and till their countries were in that position that their finances were hopelessly embarrassed, and then the burden was liable to be thrown over into the hands of our Government. He thought the Government did wisely in considering, before sanction was given to such loans, whether the object was to promote public works, or whether there was some ulterior object. At the same time, he admitted this was a great and difficult subject, and had been brought somewhat unexpectedly before them. He thought it right that the House should suspend its judgment in regard to Sir Salar Jung, and not be led away by the great authority of the right hon. Member for Birmingham. Many things would crop up connected with this subject before long, and a suspension of judgment was the more necessary.
    MR. GRANT DUFFsaid, he hoped the House would not be tempted by the numerous and collateral issues which had been raised to wander too far away from the main subject. The question raised by this Motion and Amendment was whether it would be expedient to appoint a Select Committee on Public Works in India, and what would be the best order of reference to that Committee? He hoped the House would not elect to go into the larger question which had been raised by the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett). It appeared to him (Mr. Grant Duff) that the question raised on the Motion of the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) was a sufficiently wide one to occupy the Committee for a considerable amount of time. He would only suggest to the noble Lord that, considering all that had recently passed out-of-doors, it might not be unwise to introduce into his Motion some words which would show that the Indian Government and the House were especially anxious for the avoidance of famine in India. He might, for example, add to the Motion before them, without in any way varying its purport, these words—
    "And especially into such works as may be adapted to prevent the recurrence or mitigate the intensity of famines in India."
    He gathered that the object of the noble Lord and the Government was to raise before the Committee the large

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    question that had so often been agitated with reference to the railways and irrigation works in India, and it appeared to him most desirable that that question should be raised, and that Parliament should thoroughly understand the principles upon which irrigation works and railway works had recently been made in India, and the manner in which they had been paid for. He thought it highly important and most advantageous to the Indian authorities to have the principles upon which they had been working submitted to the best financiers in this House, who might bring to bear upon the discussion experience gained in other fields of public business, and who did not look at the matter with purely Indian eyes. But he could not think that any advantage would be obtained by going into the wide question as to how the recurrence of famines was best to be averted. He thought if they stuck to the question relating to railways and irrigation works they would cover a sufficiently wide subject. Inquiries as to the prevention of famines must be carried on in India, and even there they would branch into many local inquiries which would have to be carried on in different parts of India. If they were to attempt, in this country, to go into the many details necessary, the very acutest men would be puzzled with them, and no result would be arrived at. Very possibly the end would be that the Committee would not report at all, but merely give the evidence. That was the melancholy fate of the Committee appointed in 1871, which sat for throe years. The first year was usefully employed, part of the second year was also usefully employed; but after that the Committee got involved in so many details and so many minutiae, that it exhausted itself, and did nothing but lose the time of its Members, the time of the witnesses called, and the time of the officials in the India Office. He trusted they would not again see a spectacle of this sort, but that the Government would keep a very clear and definite question before the Committee. All that he would suggest was the addition of a few words at the end of the Motion of the noble Lord, namely—
    "Especially such works as may be adapted to prevent the recurrence or mitigate the intensity of famines."
    GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, he had heard with regret the remarks which the noble Lord the Under Secretary for India, had made with reference to Sir Arthur Cotton. Having had many years' acquaintance with Sir Arthur Cotton, and, having examined the works which he had made in Madras, he could say that, so far from Sir Arthur Cotton being justly chargeable with the mistakes attributed to him, he believed him to be entirely free from blame. Standing up before the House he would say that he did not believe that a singe work which Sir Arthur Cotton had executed had ever been a failure. Sir Arthur Cotton was a man of mighty genius; he was a man who had done much for the people; he had been a great benefactor to India, and his name would go down to posterity as one who had done great things for that country. His hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) had attacked Sir Arthur Cotton; but he would say that if the hon. Gentleman had known Sir Arthur Cotton and his great services as well as he and those who had worked with him did, he would never have given utterance to the censure he had passed upon him. When the investigation was made by the Committee which he hoped would be made it would be found that there was no ground for some of the particular charges that had been made against Sir Arthur Cotton. The Under Secretary had made remarks about the Madras Irrigation Company, with the view of throwing on Sir Arthur Cotton the blame of failure. But it was the Government itself which assigned to the company the particular works to be undertaken, and he believed it could be proved that they had not shown good faith to the Madras Irrigation Company. No doubt, great mistakes had been made; but the mistakes and bad management were greatly duo, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham had said, to the Government themselves. He believed that if Sir Richard Temple, a man of great independence and integrity, and quite capable of judging about these matters, were examined before the Select Committee it was proposed to appoint, he would show that there was great mismanagement on the part of the Government officers. In many parts of the country the reservoirs were empty, and a

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    large number of tanks in the Madras Presidency were thoroughly out of repair. There was in the Madras Presidency only one irrigation work which Sir Richard Temple asked the Government to carry out. This project, if carried into effect, would have cost only £270,000, and after all expenses had been paid, the Government would have derived from the work an annual revenue of £25,000. The Government of India and the Secretary of State came to the conclusion that this work was not yet matured, although the Papers laid before the House of Commons in 1870 showed that the project was matured in all its details.
    LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, that after the satisfactory tone of the debate, he should not detain the House with many remarks. He thought there was some amount of force in the objection raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham as to the terms of Reference which he had proposed, and which might not be understood out-of-doors to be applicable to the mitigation or prevention of famines. He himself thought that the Reference was sufficiently large as it stood, but he should not object to add certain words to make that point clearer if the hon. Member for Hackney would withdraw his Amendment. In that ease, he would propose that the Motion should be in the following terms:—
    "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into and report as to the expediency of constructing Public Works in India with money raised on loan, both as regards financial results and the prevention of famine."
    As to the scope of the Commission appointed by the Secretary of State for India, he might explain that its duty was to inquire, not merely into the irrigation works in Madras, but also into the various measures adopted for the relief of the poor; and also, as far as possible, to collect evidence on those points of famine administration on which there was a difference of opinion between the Madras Government and the Supreme Government. In addition to this, the Commission was to inquire into the capacity of the ryots to dig wells and tanks, and to suggest means by which the construction of such works might be expedited. He mentioned these circumstances in order that it might not be
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    supposed that the proposed Committee was to be a small and pettifogging inquiry.
    MR. CHILDERS,after the explanation of the noble Lord, with whom he entirely concurred, hoped his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney would not object to withdraw his Amendment. By the addition of the proposed words the greater part of his hon. Friend's object would be attained.
    MR. FAWCETTsaid, that though the proposal, as it stood, did not touch a great deal of what he had in view, he would gladly accede to the request which had been made, and withdraw his Amendment. He thought, perhaps, it would be better to raise the question of military expenditure on another occasion.
    Amendment and Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

    EAST INDIA (PUBLIC WORKS).
    Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into and report as to the expediency of constructing Public Works in India with money raised on loan, both as regards financial results and the prevention of famine."—(Lord George Hamilton.)
  KITCHEN AND REFRESHMENT ROOMS (HOUSE OF COMMONS).

    MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
    LORD KENSINGTON (for Mr. ADAM)moved that a Select Committee be appointed,
    "to control the arrangements of the Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms, in the department of the Serjeant at Arms attending this House:"— Mr. ADAM, Mr. DICK, Sir WILLIAM HART DYKE, Mr. EDWARDS, Mr. GOLDNEY, Captain HAYTER, Lord KENSINGTON, Mr. MUNTZ, Mr. RICHARD) Power, Mr. STACPOOLE, and Sir HENRY WOLFF.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Three be the quorum of the Committee."
    MR. HARDCASTLEsaid, there was a very general feeling in the House that the kitchen and especially the wine department were in an unsatisfactory state. He mentioned this matter on behalf of those hon. Members who were from time to time compelled to dine in the House, and with the view of effecting a remedy he moved that the quorum

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    should consist of five instead of three persons.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "Three," in order to insert the word "Five,"—(Mr. Hardcastle,)— instead thereof.
    LORD KENSINGTONassented to the suggestion of the hon. Member.
    Question," That the word 'Three' stand part of the Question, "put, and negatived.
    Question, "That the word 'Five' be inserted, instead thereof," put, and agreed to.
    Main Question, as amended, put.
    Ordered, That Five be the quorum of the Committee.
    And, on January 24, Lord HENRY THYNNE and Mr. MONK added.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (METRO- POLIS) BILL— [BILL 14.]
  (Sir Charles W. Dilke, Mr. Forsyth, Mr. Ritchie, Mr. Gordon, Colonel Beresford, Mr. William Edward Forster.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Heading read.
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE,in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, it would carry out the Report of the Committee of last Session on this subject. It was also recommended that the Committee should this year be reappointed, to take into consideration the case with regard to the rest of the country. He had accordingly moved for the re-appointment of the Committee, and it had been re-appointed. The case of London seemed to the Committee last year to stand alone, and all parties were agreed as to the necessity for the present Bill.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Sir Charles W. Dilke.)
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for To-morrow.

  PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE (IRE- LAND) BILL— [BILL 77.]
  (Mr. Meldon, Mr. Henry.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. MELDON,in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he would make only a few observations, as the Bill he asked the House to read a second time was substantially read last year, with this alteration only—that certain objections to it were pointed out last Session, and he had tried by certain omissions to meet the objections that had been raised to it. He merely asked the House to approve of its second reading.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Meldon.)
  MR. CHARLES LEWIS,who had given Notice of his intention to move that the Bill be read a second time upon that day six months, said, he would not to-day move his Amendment; but when the Bill went into Committee he would move the omission of one of the clauses. He had no objection to the Registration Law of Ireland being assimilated to that of England, but he objected to its being carried further.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for Wednesday 13th February.

  PUBLIC PETITIONS.
  Select Committee appointed, "to whom shall he referred all Petitions presented to the House, with the exception of such as relate to Private Bills; and that such Committee do classify and prepare abstracts of the same, in such form and manner as shall appear to them host suited to convey to the House all requisite information respecting their contents, and do report the same from time to time to the House; and that such Reports do in all cases set forth the number of Signatures to each Petition:—And that such Committee have power to direct the printing in extenso of such Petitions, or of such parts of Petitions, as shall appear to require it:—And that such Committee have power to report their opinion and observations thereupon to the House:"—Committee nominated: —Sir CHARLES FORSTER, Sir UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH, The O'DONOGHUE, Mr. O'CONOR, Mr. M'LAGAN, Earl DE GREY, Viscount MACDUFF, Lord ARTHUR RUSSELL, Mr. H. CORRY, Mr. CAVENDISH BENTINCK, Mr. REGINALD YORKE, Sir CHARLES RUSSELL, Mr. SANDFORD, Mr. SIMONDS, and Mr. MULHOLLAND; — Three to be the quorum.
  House adjourned at Eight o'clock.