§ MR. HANBURYgave Notice that he would take the earliest opportunity to call the attention of the House to the language of an article recently printed in a publication called The Nineteenth Century, which article purported to have been written by a Member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, lately First Lord of the Treasury, and especially to the following paragraph:—
In this partnership the effusion of blood will fall largely to the Indian share. But the policy will be ours. The command ours. The reward and promotion ours. India will be as much at the beck of our will as the elephants, whom, perhaps, with the aid of a little winter clothing, she may send us. We shall use her as we use a steam engine, and shall consult her just us much. She will have just as much control over the expenditure of her own blood as the locomotive over the consumption of fuel; at least, this alone will be her share, unless and until she explodes. In the disasters of our wars she will be involved. In their successes she will have no concern. We may conquer territories, but not for her. We may even impose war indemnities, but she will have no voice in determining their application; and if a portion of them should, indeed, find its way to her Treasury, it will be the bounty given to a suppliant by his landlord, not the freely and rightfully adjusted share of a common remuneration for common sacrifices and efforts. It is very much to say to India, as we have said, we will measure, raise, and direct, and you shall pay, the Army which is to defend you from the foreigner. It is now, in the light of a sublime discovery, to be said, we will raise, manage, and direct, and you shall pay, the Army which is to be kept on such a scale that, besides defending you, it shall be sufficient to add largely to our European Force, and make up for the disadvantage at which we stand in the struggle with any Continental Power. Is it possible that this can work"——
§ MR. MUNDELLA rose to Order. He wished to know, whether the hon. Gentleman was in Order in reading at length from a magazine article for the purpose of making an allegation against a right hon. Gentleman who was not present?
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, he understood the hon. Member to be reading from an article on which he proposed to found a Motion. He could not, therefore, rule that he was out of Order.
§ MR. HANBURYcontinued reading—
Will India be content? Can India be content? Ought India to be content? In distant, and to her children ungenial, climes, in lands of usage, tongue, religion, wholly alien, the flower of her youth are to bleed and die for us, and she will have no part but to suffer and obey. This is injustice, gross and monstrous injustice; and those who are parties to its perpetration must prepare for the results to which injustice leads.He wished to add that he would move a Resolution to the effect that, in the opinion of this House, such language on the part of a Member of Her Majesty's Privy Council was much to be condemned as unwarranted, inopportune, and calculated to create sedition in Her Majesty's Indian Empire.