HC Deb 29 April 1881 vol 260 cc1424-50
MR. RICHARD

, in rising to move— That the power claimed and exercised by the representatives of this Country in various parts of the world to contract engagements, annex territories, and make war in the name of the Nation without authority from the Central Government is opposed to the principles of the British Constitution, is at variance with recognised rules of International Law, and is fraught with danger to the honour and true interests of the country, said, it appeared that, of all nations in the world, it was most necessary for this country to keep the action of its Representatives abroad under efficient control, inasmuch as we had so enlarged the boundaries of our Empire, and were so much engaged in commerce in all parts of the world, that we were constantly coming into contact with men of all races and of every shade of social and political condition on the globe. Again, our scientific men and our missionaries, fired with a zeal beyond our control, penetrated into the most remote lands, and they were followed, almost as a matter of course, by our national official Representatives, who felt bound to undertake the task of defending their persons and watching over their interests. Unfortunately, also, ships of war belonging to this nation were found wandering in every sea, and their officers, anxious to relieve their tedious and monotonous life, were only too ready to lend their services on small provocation, and sometimes to enterprizes of a very questionable character. To that roust be added the masterful and domineering temper of the men of our race; for there seemed to be an inborn conviction at the bottom of the hearts of all Englishmen that no felicity could be so great to any people as to be subjugated and governed by us. Very rigid regulations, therefore, were necessary to restrain these arrogant assumptions on the part of our Representatives. In order to make good his first proposition, that our Representatives were too prone to exercise their power of making war without the authority of the Central Power, he need only refer to what had passed within his own memory. Unhappily, the evidence in support of that proposition was only too voluminous; and, therefore, all he had to do was to make a selection of it to lay before the House. The origin of the second Burmese War had been stated with great force by Mr. Cobden in a pamphlet he had written on the subject. In 1851, Lord Dalhousie, who was Governor General of India, sent Commodore Lambert with a small squadron to Rangoon, in order to collect a claim of £950 due as compensation, or alleged to be due, to two British captains for some wrong that had been inflicted upon them. The instructions given to Commodore Lambert with regard to his force were most express. No act of hostility was to be permitted, although the Governor should be unfavourable to the demand made. The Commodore was also furnished with despatches to the King of Burmah, and instead of applying to the Governor of Rangoon he went to the King of Burmah, who promised to comply with the demand, and to recall the Governor of Rangoon. But when the new Governor came to Rangoon, Commodore Lambert chose to take offence regarding a miserable piece of etiquette in reference to his sending his acknowledgments to the Governor General of India without waiting for instructions. Without communicating with the King of Burmah, in less than six hours after the alleged act was committed Commodore Lambert undertook to declare war against the State of Burmah. A ship was seized, and when an attempt was made to resist its being taken from the river, he fired upon the people, inflicting great slaughter upon them. So began the second Burmese War, which grew into very large dimensions; and the employment of Englishmen on Easter Monday in the year 1852 was the firing of red-hot shot into the large and populous town of Rangoon; and after slaughtering large numbers of the Burmese and expending immense sums of money, he ended by annexing the Province of Rangoon, which was as large as the whole of England. He was not going to discuss the merits of that second Burmese War. What he wished to call attention to was this—that here they had a subordinate officer, of his own mere will, making war with the Queen's ships upon the Kingdom of Burmah, without any authority from the Home Government, without going to the head of the Government of Burmah and asking for explanations, and in direct defiance of the instructions of the Governor General of India. His second illustra- tion was the Chinese War of 1857. That war was begun by Sir John Bowring entirely on his own responsibility. That war was condemned by a vote of the House. The whole Conservative Party in the House joined in that condemnation. Lord Grey, Lord Russell, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Cobden, and almost every man of distinction unconnected with the Government in both Houses disapproved of that war. There was no reason why the question of the Arrow, which was a mere legal question, should not have been referred home, and if it had been there would have been no war. They should have been spared the spending of £6,000,000, they should not have exasperated the Chinese, and they should, above all, have been spared the shame and guilt of appearing before the world as using their strength to oppress a weak and an unoffending people. He now came to doings in South Africa in our own time. The complications in that country were owing, in a great degree, to the assumption of our Representative there in pursuing a policy which he had no right to pursue. The acts which had brought us so much inconvenience and dishonour were not the acts of the nation at all. Take, for instance, the annexation of the Transvaal. In his opinion, it was a mistake to authorize Sir Theophilus Shepstone to use his own discretion as to the annexation of that country. He was instructed to inquire and report to the Queen, and if an emergency seemed to require it, he was to administer those territories in her name, provided the inhabitants thereof, or a sufficient number of them, were favourable to that course. Those conditions were not fulfilled. On the lapse of six weeks Sir Theophilus Shepstone, without consulting the Government at home, or Sir Henry Barkly, then Governor at the Cape, peremptorily annexed the whole of the territories of the Transvaal to the British Crown. Nor was this done with the consent of the inhabitants. There was not a shadow of a doubt that even then there was evidence that the great body of the people were averse to the transaction; and in consequence of Sir Theophilus Shepstone having departed from his instructions, and acting in this highhanded way, we were involved in difficulties from which we had scarcely yet escaped. He came to another instance of the same sort in South Africa. He referred to the Zulu War. As soon as Sir Bartle Frere arrived in South Africa he assumed the attitude of an absolute Monarch, and was ready to snub and lecture anyone who presumed to interfere in any way with his supremacy. Sir Bartle Frere, he asserted, began the Zulu War, not only without the authority of the Colonial Office, but against express instructions given to him not to do so. Notwithstanding, however, this strong expression of opinion, Sir Bartle Frere of his own mere will plunged the country into a war which led, in the first instance, to disaster and defeat, and afterwards to many bloody engagements, in which at least 10,000 Zulus were slaughtered, and so desolated their country that since that time they had been told that hundreds of the people had perished from famine. In that war £5,000,000 of the money of the people of this country were squandered. But the extraordinary thing was that the man who did this in the teeth of the instructions from the Government at home was retained in his office. He came to another still more recent instance on the West Coast of Africa. The Ruler of the town of Batanga had been nick-named King Jack by people who frequented it. The inhabitants captured a person entitled to British protection, and carried him into the bush. He was detained for seven weeks, and then escaped, having, according to his own acknowledgment, been treated very kindly, or, at least, without any undue harshness. But a man who desired to magnify his own office called a meeting of the European inhabitants of the town, and they unanimously decided that the case called for the application of force. Who were those European residents? They consisted of four men, two of whom might be Englishmen, but two were Germans; and the British Consul thought he had a right to call on the commander of Her Majesty's ships to act as Protector General of all the commercial adventurers who went to that coast, to whatever nationality they belonged. The commander on the station did not seem much enamoured of the task he was invited to perform, and he demanded proof that the man who had been wronged was a British subject—proof which was never forthcoming; and he reminded the Consul that the Government did not profess to afford protection to British subjects who chose to establish themselves among savage tribes remote from our stations. Commodore Richards' scruples, however, were allayed, and he went with British vessels to the spot and gave instructions to Commander Romilly, of the Boadicea, to carry into effect the vote of the four European residents. Commander Romilly proceeded accordingly to the town of King Jack with a party of 140 officers and men; no opposition was offered to their landing. The exploit was described in Commander Romilly's Report to the Admiralty. The town comprised 300 well-built huts, some with two storeys, and forming a quadrangle. The town was burned down, many canoes were destroyed, the banana trees cut down, and the crops also destroyed. Not satisfied with working this amount of havoc, a detachment was sent three-quarters of a mile along the coast to burn down another village. The Admiralty telegraphed to ask the reason for the burning down of that village, and it was alleged that the people there had been concerned in the seizure of a man who had been taken prisoner. Now, in his opinion, the act was a piece of wanton Vandalism. The hon. Member then referred to another case in which Acting-Consul Easton wrote to the senior naval officer on the station asking for a gun-boat to be sent to help him in chastising the Natives of Oonitcha. The officer in command of Her Majesty's ship Pioneer unfortunately listened to the Consul's views, and went to inflict the punishment which the Consul deemed to be demanded. The town consisted of five villages, with a short distance between them. When the boats arrived rockets were thrown into the town and it was entirely destroyed, besides the crops and property to a large amount. The place was completely levelled, including all the factories. In The African Times an extract was published from the letter of a correspondent on the West Coast of Africa, probably a missionary, which characterized the destruction of Oonitcha as a cruel and wanton act, which merited the severest reprobation, adding that the mischief which had thus been done could not for a long time be repaired, such being the revengeful character of the Natives, that for many years to come they would hate all civilized persons and watch for the oppor- tunity of doing them harm. The scene where these things had occurred had been a centre of missionary activity as well as of commercial operations; but now the work of 22 years, during which the Church of England Mission had been established there, was brought to a dead-lock. He was bound to say he had read the records of those transactions with the strongest feelings of shame and humiliation. Commander Richards, in writing about them to the Admiralty, said that was an ignoble kind of war. In fact, it was not war at all. There was no resistance offered in either of those instances; for what resistance could the ill-armed or the unarmed savages of the coast of Africa offer to a force wielding the tremendous weapons which science had furnished to civilized and Christian nations for the destruction of their enemies? They heard of exploring expeditions and enterprizes for the improvement and elevation of barbarous races; of Missionary Societies established to carry the Gospel into the interior of their country; but he contended that ships of war and bombshells were but sorry agencies for the spread of Christianity and civilization in Africa; and that the resources of our Navy ought not to be placed at the disposal of any set of commercial adventurers who went there to stir up quarrels with the unfortunate Natives, and then invoked the strong arm of the Navy to inflict wholesale and indiscriminate vengeance upon them. With regard to the collisions to which he had referred them, he had, on a previous occasion, put a Question to his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who subsequently brought the matter before the attention of both Lord Granville and Lord Northbrook, and he was happy to see that they had taken it up bravely, and that a Minute on the subject had been issued both from the Foreign Office and from the Admiralty. He had read that Minute with considerable satisfaction, and he thanked the Government for it, for, while approving of the action of the officers—that was the unfortunate language always taken by officialism—they spoke deploring the recurrence of warlike preparations against Native Tribes, whose progress in civilization it was their desire to see, and enjoining them, if possible, in every case to refer, in the first instance, home for instructions. Similar instructions had been sent to all the officers and commanders on the West Coast of Africa. In stating, as he did in his Resolution, that making war without authority from the Central Government was contrary to the British Constitution, he knew that he was using a very vague phase. So far as he knew, according to the theory of the Constitution at the present time, the power of peace or war was vested in the Sovereign—that was to say, in the Cabinet practically. There were many who believed that this was a dangerous departure from former, and, in this instance, better times. He felt greatly obliged to Her Majesty's Government for these steps they had taken, which he hoped would operate as a check on such reckless and wanton proceedings as those he had described. His Motion stated that the practices he deprecated were opposed to the principles of the British Constitution. He was aware that the phrase "British Constitution" was very vague, and referred to a thing that was not very easily defined. But he supposed that, on the matter now before them, the theory of the Constitution, as at present generally understood, was this—that the power of peace and war was vested in the Sovereign, which, under their system of Government, meant, practically, the Cabinet in Office for the time being. There were many who believed that even that was a dangerous departure from the precedents and practices of former and, in that respect, better times. There was a time, beyond all doubt, in their history, when the consent of the "Great Council," and afterwards of Parliament, was necessary to a war, or a Treaty. Mr. Freeman, in his History of the Norman Conquest, speaking of Anglo-Saxon times, said— Every act of Government, of any importance, was done, not by the King alone, but by the King and his Witan. The Great Council of the nation had its active share in those branches of government which modern Constitutional theories mark as the special domain of the Executive..… The King and his Witan, and not the King alone, concluded treaties, made grants of folk-land, ordained the assemblage of fleets and armies, &c. In a remarkable publication issued some years ago, by Mr. Toulmin Smith, entitled The Parliamentary Remembrancer, there were many cases, cited from the ancient records of the nation, showing that at a time when the Sovereigns were supposed to be less subject than they were now to Constitutional checks, they were obliged, or, at least, they were accustomed, to consult the Council and Parliament on questions of peace and war, and other questions connected with foreign policy. Would the House bear with him if he mentioned a few of the instances he adduced to illustrate that? In the fifth year of Edward III., the King's Chancellor, addressing Parliament, said that he Summoned the Parliament. … in order to make peace or other issue to the discussions between the Kings of England and France. To use the language of the Rolls of Parliament— The said Bishop of Winchester, Chancellor, on the part of our Lord the King, asked of. … all the Barons and great men then assembled whether the King should take the way of arbitration (procés)" —he was happy to find that even in those early days they were not quite strangers to arbitration— as the King of France had proposed, or should make war. The Prelates, Earls, Barons, and other great men counselled, as the best that the King should make a friendly Treaty with the King of France on the aforesaid matters. In the 17th year of the same reign (1343) a Parliament was holden at Easter. The cause was this—the King while prosecuting the war in France, which had again broken out, had received a message from the Pope, in which he besought him to make a truce with the view to the conclusion of an honourable peace. Whereupon he sent Sir Bartholomew de Barghawk to attest all the facts to Parliament, and asked of it permission to make peace. The said Sir Bartholomew said, on behalf of the King, that because this war was undertaken and begun by the common consent of the Prelates, Lords, and. Commons, the King did not wish to treat of peace, nor to accept of peace, without their common assent. The two Houses replied that they approved of the truce. In the next year the King informed the Parliament that France had broken the truce, and requested their counsel as to what he was to do in so great a necessity. Both Houses replied that the war must be carried on, and they voted Supplies, only, however, on condition "that the money be spent in the business shown to them in this Parliament." In the 28th year of the same King, Parliament was informed that negotiations for peace had been proposed, but that the King "would not make peace without the assent of the Lords and Commons;" thereupon he inquired if they were willing. Reply in the affirmative having been made, the Chancellor again put it to them—"Then you will assent to the Treaty of perpetual peace, if it can be made?" And the Commons replied, one and all, "Aye, aye;" on which it was resolved that there should be a public record thereof. In the reign of Henry V., the King summoned a Parliament, assigning as reason that he had, "with the assent of all the estates and commonalty of the realm," gone to France to prosecute the war; and, having gained great and decisive victories, he asks again "the gracious aid and counsel of the Lords and Commons" as to his further proceedings. And when the actual peace arrived, the Rolls state that, by a provision in the Treaty itself— The said peace needs not only to be sworn by the said Kings Henry of England and Charles of France, but also to be allowed, accepted, and approved by the three Estates of each Kingdom. He might cite many other instances, coming down to much later periods of their history. But at present not only did the Executive Government do all those things without the assent of Parliament, but small, irresponsible officials in all parts of the world seemed to think they were at liberty to do them, without even the consent of the Executive. His Motion also declared that such a course was at variance with recognized rules of International Law. But surely it was scarcely necessary that he should prove that; for common sense told them that, if every private officer of a Government was permitted to take questions of peace and war into his own hands, the relations of States would become a universal chaos, and they would have no Law of Nations at all. He would content himself with giving one passage from Vattel. He said— It would be too dangerous to allow every citizen the liberty of doing himself justice against foreigners, as in that case there would not be a single member of the State who might not involve us in war. And how could peace be preserved between nations, if it were in the power of every private individual to disturb it? A right of so momentous a nature—the right of judging whether the nation has real grounds of complaint—whether it is authorized to employ force and justifiable in taking up arms—whether prudence will admit of such a step, and whether the welfare of the State requires it; that right, I say, can belong only to the body of the nation, or to the Sovereign, her representative. It is doubtless one of those rights without which there can be no salutary government, and which are therefore called rights of majesty. And, finally, he alleged that that assumption of authority, on the part of their Agents, was fraught with danger to the honour and true interests of the country. Was it necessary that he should say one word in illustration of that? The question really was, whether that great nation was to be master of its own destinies, or whether every petty officer, dressed in a little brief authority, was to be at liberty to pledge the blood and treasure and moral responsibility of 32,000,000 of people, to any extent, at the impulse of his own pride, resentment, or caprice. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, in the eloquent speech he delivered last Session, on his (Mr. Richards') Motion for the Reduction of Armaments, used these words— Nothing can be so ruinous to a country, nothing so mischievous as to its progress and the formation of a just civilization, as to be in the position which we have too often witnessed in the case of the inhabitants of our own Colonies in later times, of having the privilege of provoking wars for which they were not called upon to pay."—[3 Hansard, ccliii. 103.] But if the possession and exercise of such a power, on the part of one of our Colonies, was so mischievous and intolerable, how much more so that it should be left in the hands of individual officials in all parts of the globe, plunging the nation into unlimited expenditure, and into crime, and blood-guiltiness, and then presenting the bill for them to pay, not only in money, but in character and reputation, who had never had a word to say as to the policy they pursue. He thanked the House for the kind attention with which they had listened to a speech which might have, perhaps, too long tried their patience. But the question was a very large one. He felt that he had dealt with it only imperfectly, but he had done what he could; and he now respectfully commended his Resolution to the favourable consideration and unanimous acceptance of the House.

MR. RATHBONE

seconded the Resolution.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the power claimed and exercised by the representatives of this Country in various parts of the world to contract engagements, annex territories, and make war in the name of the Nation without authority from the Central Government is opposed to the principles of the British Constitution, is at variance with recognised rules of International Law, and is fraught with danger to the honour and true interests of the Country,"—(Mr. Richard,) —instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. GLADSTONE

Sir, the field opened by the Motion of my hon. Friend is, indeed, as he has justly observed, a very wide one. I have not listened to the speeches of my hon. Friend upon subjects of this kind without a great deal of sympathy with most of the particular opinions they convey, and especially with the general aim and purposes which he has in view. Those purposes are always in the main those of justice, humanity, and philanthropy. But, Sir, at the same time, I am bound to say I do not think that this is a Resolution which could be with safety or advantage adopted by the House; and I will give the House, as well as I can in a moderate compass, the reasons on which I found myself in delivering that opinion. In the first place, if such a Resolution were to be adopted by the House it would be necessary to follow it up with more positive measures. The mere general declaration against the exercise by the Agents of this country abroad of power to contract engagements, annex territories, and make war in the name and without the authority of the Central Government would require a great deal of development and a great deal of application in order to enable any Executive Government of this country to know how to act upon the general principles of its duty. Let me look a little more carefully into the terms and purposes of this Motion. We have had raised on former occasions very interesting debates about the powers exercised by the Executive Government without the direct authority of Parliament; and my hon. Friend has gone back to the records of the 14th century or thereabouts, in which he was delighted to find that he was not original in the notion of an appeal to arbitration, but that our forefathers were beforehand with him at so remote a period. I know this is a matter of some surprise to my hon. Friend; but may go a little further than he did, and say that in reading the records of those times I am struck in the main with the extreme good sense and practical turn of mind displayed by the chiefs of Government in those days—so struck that I often ask myself whether, upon the whole, notwithstanding the great progress we have made in many respects, so far as the essential quality of good sense is concerned, and that I take in its largest application, in which there are very considerable and higher elements, such as those of justice and humanity—whether in these vital particulars the advance made by our race is as great as we sometimes suppose it to be? The hon. Member has referred to a class of cases not involved in the general scope of the Motion, in which the controversy is between the right of Parliament and the practice of the Executive Government, and he has quoted with approbation precedents of the direct intervention of Parliament in regard to the making of peace or war. Upon that subject I am free to confess that the development of this Empire and the changes that have taken place in our Constitution, though, on the whole, in favour of popular liberty, have by no means tended in every case to the increase of the control of Parliament over the administration of public affairs. Without doubt, in former times, and down to a period as late as the last century, Parliament had much more to say in matters of peace and war, and particularly in matters of Treaty engagements, anterior to their absolute conclusion, than it now has. But we must recollect what the Parliament was in those days; it was virtually an Assembly meeting with closed doors. The people of this country were not cognizant in detail, from day to day, or even from week to week, or month to month, of the proceeding's of Parliament; and Parliament could be used by the Crown as a Council to a considerable extent without incurring the tremendous inconvenience of disclosing to the whole world what you were about, and, therefore, of defeating in any way the power to use our means and resources. But the augmentation of Empire, and the increase in the number of territories for which we are responsible, have entirely altered our position in that respect, and, above all, the opening of the doors of Parliament to the people of this country and the communication of its proceedings, from moment to moment, to the whole world have disabled Parliament from doing that which in former times it might justly do, and which it was habitually, to some extent, called upon to do. You cannot manage an Empire which is practically discontinuous—an Empire some part of the shores of which is washed by every sea on the surface of the globe—with the facility, or in some respects the efficiency, with which you can conduct the administration of States more limited in their extent and less complex in their machinery of government. We must be content to encounter many inconveniences, and the question is how they can be reduced to a minimum? The case to which the hon. Member last referred was a case with regard to which, I think, his reference was not altogether unsatisfactory to himself. He referred to transactions which did not take place in the time of the present Government; but which were brought under the review of the central authority during the time of the present Government. The scene was the coast of Africa, and the transactions were at an end, and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs turned them to the best account, endeavouring to do what any man of sense ought to do—namely, to use what had occurred as a ground for taking precautions that might govern persons similarly circumstanced in future, by laying down rules that would tend to prevent the undue and rash exercise of independent judgment by an Agent abroad in matters that might tend seriously to commit the country or be followed by very serious consequences. I do not think my hon. Friend is much dissatisfied with what was done by the Central Government. The case was turned to account, precautions were taken, and rules were laid down, which, no doubt, will be useful in the future. Coming more closely to the question raised by my hon. Friend, he has referred to many instances, in several of which I agree with him, that the power of the country has been rashly or improperly used by our Agents abroad. I think, however, he has not examined with proportionate care and accuracy the further question how far there would have been a remedy for these mischiefs if there had been the facility of intervention by the central authority which he desires? Has the central authority generally disapproved of these proceedings of our Agents abroad, which I am assuming to have been improper for the sake of the argument? I am sorry to say, upon looking back upon a long personal experience, that the central authority were as much to blame from the point of view of my hon. Friend, and to a considerable extent from my own point of view, as were the Agents abroad. The hon. Member began by referring to what may be spoken of as Lord Dalhousie's wars and annexations. Lord Dalhousie was a noble example of a patriotic statesman; he was endowed with great abilities, which he used unsparingly for what he thought to be for the honour and benefit of his country, and to the great abbreviation of his own valuable life. At the same time, I must own that the exact colour of his policy in India is not that which approves itself to my mind. I am not aware that it ever fell under the general disapproval of the people of this country. I think that this case is not one which is strictly relevant to the matter in hand, because Lord Dalhousie was a servant of the East India Company at the time when there was not, in regard to this class of case, that close relation between Parliament and Indian responsibility which there now is. I pass on to that from which I think we may draw a lesson, but from which I think it is difficult for my hon. Friend to draw a direct argument in favour of his Resolution, if we are to consider it as one for our adoption rather than as an expression of opinion. That is the case of the Lorcha War, in 1857. In that case Sir John Bowring went out to China with the reputation of a great peace politician, and it was with no small surprise that I, for one, found in what his mission resulted. He made a war which I thought at the time, and I think now, to have been deplorable. It was reported home, and it was at once challenged. I say it in honour of the late Lord Derby that he was the first person to challenge it in a public form in the House of Lords; and he made that challenge, not upon Party grounds, but on account of his strong conviction that the war was iniquitous and ought to be condemned. But what happened? Lord Derby was beaten on the Motion he made in the very Assembly whose confidence he usually commanded, and whose votes on almost every other occasion he secured. That is a case of central authority. What happened after this? Mr. Cobden, undismayed by the defeat of Lord Derby, made a somewhat similar Motion in this House. He had a very favourable rally from various quarters against the Government of Lord Palmerston—so formidable that we succeeded in defeating the Government and condemning the war by a majority of 16 or 20. But this was not the end of the matter. We are all sent to take counsel with that which, after all, is the central authority; we went down, full of indignation against this unrighteous war, to appeal to our constituencies; but they entirely sympathized with the Government, and, by a triumphant majority, supported Lord Palmerston in his approval of the war. It is difficult to found upon a state of facts like that any conclusion that Sir John Bowring mistook the feeling of the country. It may be said the country would have judged differently if they had the power to judge in the first instance. In the first place, that is an assumption difficult to prove; and, in the second, it is obvious that if you have an Empire dispersed over the whole world, it was then, to a much greater extent than now, a matter of absolute necessity that decisions be taken upon the spot for the protection of Her Majesty's subjects. These responsibilities must be assumed; and, undoubtedly, I am compelled to confess that in those particular cases, where I think they were assumed very wrongly and wrongfully, a most emphatic approval was given first by the Government and then by the nation. My hon. Friend has referred to what has taken place in South Africa. There was the case of Sir Theophilus Shepstone and the Transvaal, and there was the case of Sir Bartle Frere and the Zulu War, and a great many other transactions which distinguished the time of the late Government. Let me do justice to the late Government in this respect. I have never known a proceeding of theirs which appeared to me to be exceptionable which there was the slightest disposition to check, much less reverse, on the part of the authority to which my hon. Friend referred—namely, that of Parliament. That was a Parliament of a very different composition and tendency from the present; but it derived its authority from the same source, and, although I may say I abhorred a great deal of what it did, that Parliament had just as good a right in a Constitutional sense to do all it did as we, the present House of Commons, have to act in conformity with our own convictions. I must go a little further. In justice to the late Government, I will say that I do not recollect one single instance in which a majority of that Parliament showed the slightest disposition to check the late Government; but I do recollect various instances in which they showed a disposition to urge on the late Government to do more than it was engaged in doing. Though I should have said that the control of the late Parliament was no control at all in reference to the proceedings of the late Government, I must say I felt on various occasions obliged to the late Government, because they did not do all that the late Parliament wished them to do. There are many other cases. My hon. Friend does not like annexations; but, I am sorry to say, annexations in many instances were forced on the Government by the action of Parliament. I do not recollect any instance in which annexations made by the Government have been disapproved by Parliament. When the North-Western Frontier of India was enlarged the emphatic approval of the House of Commons was given to that enlargement. When the Island of Cyprus was in a certain sense acquired by proceedings as to which I have a decided opinion, which it is not necessary to utter, it was thoroughly and cordially approved by the Parliament that represented the people, and was elected under the same charter as we have been. I might go further back. During the time of the Government before the last there were some of the most benevolent and philanthropic agencies in this country that from time to time exhibited a very great disposition to press annexations on the Government. There was the annexation of the Fiji Islands. I was accustomed once a year to be beseiged in this House by those who insisted on it. Going further back, the annexation of New Zealand was not due to any proceedings of the local Representatives of this country—it was not due, unless my memory deceives me, to statesmen of either Party in either House of Parliament, but to an action strictly popular, forcing it on the attention of the Government. I will take another instance—one which always seemed least justifiable of all the proceedings carried on in the British name within the last half century, and that was the destruction of the fleet—it was called the piratical fleet—of the Rajah of Sarawak by Sir James Brooke. But it was challenged in Parliament by Mr. Hume, who received a sort of isolated support from Mr. Sidney Herbert and some others, acting on a strongly conscientious conviction; but he was met by a very large majority indeed. It was one of the most unauthorized proceedings; and, if Parliament had been so disposed, it could easily have disavowed it. My memory may have failed to take up other instances that may have occurred; but I must say during the last 40 years I can only recollect one proceeding of the character my hon. Friend reprobates as having been effected in a distant portion of the world by the Representatives of this country which was seriously and generally disapproved at home, and that was the annexation of Scinde. Scinde was annexed by Lord Ellenborough, under Sir Charles Napier, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army on the Indus. That country was rapidly conquered and annexed; but the annexation was unanimously disapproved by the Conservative Cabinet of that day. I know not whether I speak without prejudice on the point; but the policy of annexation and aggression was at that time more uniformly and strongly discountenanced by the Conservatives than even by the Liberals. That, however, was an instance deemed generally by the country to be unjust, and certainly it was so deemed by the central authority. Besides, it could not be reversed without producing a greater amount of mischief than was involved in the recognition of the act. But now, having thus far been rather tragical in the picture I have drawn, I wish to suggest one topic for the consideration of my hon. Friend. Such a case as that of Scinde cannot occur again. It is impossible, and that which has made it impossible is not so much the fact that Parliament has taken under its own control the management of that vast East Indian Empire, which was formerly under the superintendence of the East India Company, but, in an infinitely greater degree, to the invention and the use of the electric telegraph. No such transaction can now be carried into effect without the concurrence and action of the central authority. If we take the proceedings of Lord Lytton, on which I give no opinion, they were proceedings certainly, as far as there was an opportunity of judging, which were approved by the Executive Government of the day; and the House of Commons of the day, when challenged, likewise approved of them in a very solemn manner. But you have now got undoubtedly, notwithstanding the complexity of your Empire, the control of the central authority enormously increased. The responsibility of the central authority is, of course, increased also. I will not say this is an unmixed good, because, unquestionably, proceedings of a very complex nature, conducted from week to week amidst the other abstractions of Government through the medium of the telegraph, are more liable, I think, to miscarriages and mishaps than where the communications are of a more deliberate and regular character; still, upon the whole, there is an enormous balance for good, and my hon. Friend may rest satisfied that the risk is diminishing in a very great degree indeed. I will not say it is infinitesimally small; but the risk is diminishing to the greatest degree in which local administration by our Representatives abroad may involve us in consequences of serious national difficulty. The case on the West Coast of Africa last year, to which my hon. Friend alluded, is one of those cases in which the control of the telegraph was not applicable; but then the theatres of action, not within the immediate reach of the telegraph, are comparatively very limited; so that, upon the whole, my hon. Friend may rest satisfied with the knowlege, at any rate, that the control of the Central Government is now immensely increased by the action of the telegraph; almost from every principal centre of British territory abroad intelligence is transmitted in a time that may be counted by hours, instead of by weeks, and in some cases by months. With reference to the contracting of engagements without the sanction of authorities, I have in 1878 and on other former occasions stated, I think, very clearly, what I conceive ought to be the guiding principles of the Executive Government in these matters. I think the Executive Government are bound in general terms to contract no Treaties except such as they can contract compatibly with certain assurances on their own part—first of all, of course, that they deem the engagement to be for the advantage of the country; and, secondly, that they deem it to be one sufficiently within the knowledge and expectation of Parliament. With regard to the annexation of territory, I must say that no annexation of territory performed by an Agent abroad is a valid or binding act; it is mere waste paper, until ratified at home, unless it was done in pursuance of authority from home, and if so done it has the seal and the stamp of the central authority. With regard to making war in the name of the nation, I am afraid it is impossible to take adequate security; but you have in recent years immensely increased the security. But the main moral I want to infer from the useful speech of my hon. Friend is this—what you really want is not merely the improvement of the machinery by which the central authority controls its extraneous agents, it is the improvement of the central authority itself, the formation of just habits of thought; it is that we should be more modest and less arrogant; it is that we should uniformly regard every other State, and every other people, as standing upon the same level of right as ourselves. It is that in the prosecution of our interest we shall not be so carried away by zeal as to allow it to make us for one moment forgetful of the equal claims and the equal rights of others. That is a very grave question indeed, and one upon which I am bound to say I believe the central authority is quite as much in need of self-discipline and self-restraint as its extraneous agents. In these circumstances, I hope my hon. Friend will not be dissatisfied with me for saying that I am not willing to see the House committed to the formal declaration which he invites us to make. I think he will see that when I say that it is not on account of any fundamental difference in purpose or in view from him, but from the feeling that it would not be wise that we should take any step whatever tending to the alteration of Constitutional traditions without being very clear and distinct indeed as to the extent to which we should go, as to the limits in which we should move, and without being perfectly certain that we are not going to cripple those whom we send abroad to represent the nation, and put them in a position in which they might find themselves incapable of performing their primary and elementary duties. I hope we shall at this moment be just in this matter. It is very easy for us who are a majority of the present House of Commons, generally, I think, possessed of uniformity of view in regard to the policy, the overseeing policy, of the Empire, it is very easy for us to express a desire that the views which we entertain may prevail; but it is fair to recollect that it is there the responsibility lies. I must own I think it would be a mistake if we were to adopt a Motion which, even irrespectively of other difficulties and objections, would imply that the main and fundamental defect in our present arrangements is a want of due control by the central authority. I think I have shown that it is impossible to bring forward a single instance in which anything liable to disapproval has occurred in consequence of the want of that control. I am entirely in favour of maintaining that control as regards the relations between the House of Commons and the Government. The more effectual the control maintained over Agents abroad the more effectual will be the control of the House of Commons over the Government, and I am as anxious for the one as for the other. But this purpose, to which I lately alluded, of studying, each for ourselves and in our own sphere of personal influence, whatever it may be, to promote the extension and the prevalence of the principles of justice and philanthropy is, after all, where we come to the root of the matter, and unless we can hope that this nation will in the gradual progress of its education make from time to time progressive advances in these views, which lie at the very root of civilization, the merely mechanical changes in the control of the central authority over its Agents abroad would do little, in my opinion, to attain the objects which my hon. Friend has in view.

MR. RATHBONE

said, he was sorry the right hon. Gentleman had not been able to give an assurance that greater control would be exercised by the central authority over its agents abroad. From the present practice, which had gone on from generation to generation, had arisen many evil results. Anyone who read the history of our policy in India and abroad must have been ashamed of various acts which, had it been known beforehand that it was intended to commit them, would not have been tolerated by the conscience of the nation. We sent out a Governor General to India who was always told never to annex territory, to go to war, or to use his authority in the oppression of nationalities. But when he annexed territory, the nation confirmed the annexation and rewarded the man for what he had done. If he succeeded he was rewarded; if he failed it was said we must support our Agents and condone the offence, however iniquitous. So long as the practice was carried on by statesmen on both sides, we should have a continuance of the evils which the hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. Richard) had pointed out. When we talked of other nations we were very clear-sighted. We thought Russia very unwise in making wars right and left; but she did exactly as we did. She sent out officers, ordered them not to make war or annex territory, and when they did both the one and the other she gave them decorations. A Russian official had proposed the other day that when an officer was sent out and the Government bound him not to make war, they should give him all the decorations he could acquire by the most successful career, and for every war or annexation if he disobeyed they should take away one of his decorations. The great danger to this country was in extending its responsibilities beyond what we were able properly to discharge. This was not merely a financial question. He had never known a nation perish from want of finances; it perished rather from want of power to perform the duties it undertook. He appealed to right hon. Gentlemen on both sides whether they were not sensible of the enormous danger arising from that cause. It was difficult, if not impossible, for a Government to follow the acts of their Representatives in all parts of the world; and if that were so, could they not devise some sort of moral court martial before which an Agent who had acted contrary to their orders should be put upon his defence? However, it would be impossible to devise any punishment for an Agent who led his country into wrong doing until the nation preferred to condemn, rather than to reward, an immoral policy.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

supported the Motion, and concurred in the feeling of the hon. Member for Carnarvonshire (Mr. Rathbone), that he would have preferred to have something more positive from the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister had said we must look to ourselves; we were, in reality, at the bottom of all the evil there might be in the matter. But he ventured to suggest that it was because the people of England were so excitable, so prone to war, and to lording it over other races of the world, that it was indispensably necessary that the Government should exercise strong and vigorous control over their Agents abroad. Undoubtedly, there were many cases in which the Government and the country would not have gone into war but for their Agents having acted rashly. The country had been excited, and the Government had supported them. It was because we were sitting, so so speak, over a powder magazine of feeling in this country that our Agents should be checked by strong measures. The hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. Richard) had made out a very strong case, that was greatly supported by the frequency of small wars during the last six years. It was all very well for the Government to issue general instructions to our Agents to be cautious; but there was reason to expect that a Government such as the present Government should do something more than former Governments had done to check and control our Agents. Of the necessity for this there was a recent striking instance. Nothing could be more complete than the caution issued to the late Sir George Colley. He was cautioned in the strongest terms to avoid bloodshed; but he, being our Agent abroad and a military man, disregarded the caution, and plunged us into another war and another disaster. His (Sir George Campbell's) consolation was not only that of the Prime Minister, but in the fact that in regard to the Transvaal the Government had at last shown that they had the courage to do right even after defeat; and their conduct in that respect, for which he gave them all due credit, satisfactorily discountenanced the old idea that a British Agent, no matter how unjust his actions might be, was to be applauded if he succeeded, while, in the event of failure, only one course was supposed to be open in order to remove the stain upon the honour of the nation.

MR. RYLANDS

regretted that the House did not appear to take in the subject an interest at all commensurate with its importance. The action of our foreign Agents, unless it was checked in some way, might in the future, as it had done in the past, involve the country in very great obligations and great crimes. It was to be regretted that the Vote for some small sum of money often excited greater interest with some Members than a question involving considerations of such magnitude and interest as this. It was difficult to induce Gentlemen to realize a question of this nature which was not constantly before their attention. He believed, from the statement of the Prime Minister, the present Government was anxious to take every step in its power to check action on the part of its officials which involved such serious consequences; but there was an unsatisfactory element in the case. Within a recent period there had been a Government in power under whose auspices action had been taken by our Representatives abroad, involving this country in great responsibilities, great expenditure, and, he thought, great crime; and the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister said that the late Government had the support of the House of Commons, and, therefore, the Motion submitted to-night would have no effect. But there was all the difference in the world between action taken before and after an event; and if by any possibility the power of Parliament or the Central Government could be brought to bear to prevent the occasion for an ebullition of public feeling, which, when war occurred, was so often found to prevail, it would be well. No sooner did a Representative of England engage in some transaction, however unjust, which led to the employment of a British force, than it was accepted as a fait accompli. It was thought that they could not disturb it however much the Government disapproved of it; it was accepted as an accomplished fact, and very likely, if the Government had sympathy with a so called Imperial policy, it would very probably endorse engagements entered into without its previous approval, but involving the country in serious expense and responsibility, and would give encouragement to the official who brought on the difficulties. The Prime Minister alluded to a circumstance which was in the memory of all who were in political life at that time. He meant the Dissolution of Parliament on the China Question. He remembered, as though it occurred last week, the great debate upon the Motion of his distinguished and illustrious Friend Mr. Cobden. He recollected the majority went against the Government; and he remembered reading over the Division List, and seeing that in the majority there were some of the greatest minds and most independent statesmen in the House of Commons. The majority defeated Lord Palmerston, and he dissolved and went to the country, and he carried the country before him, and many distinguished Gentlemen lost their seats. But, in considering the circumstances which then occurred, it should be borne in mind that when the intelligence of the high-handed proceedings of Sir John Bowring first reached this country, there was a very general condemnation of his conduct—the newspaper Press, in most cases, disapproved of it—and it was not until it was found that Lord Palmerston endorsed the policy of Sir John Bowring that Party feeling was excited, and all considerations of justice and reason were swallowed up in the bitter excitement of political controversy. That scarcely supported the contention of the Prime Minister that they could do little or nothing in transactions of this kind, because Parliament controlled the Executive, and the people controlled the Parliament. He thought substantial reason had been shown for placing some check upon the action of the Representatives of Great Britain abroad. The Prime Minister seemed to be afraid that there was no means of giving effect to the recommendation of his hon. Friend, and suggested that often the Central Government was as much to blame as the officials abroad. He thought, however, that something might be done towards carrying out the views of his hon. In the first place, a rule might be laid down that an official who committed the country to a war contrary to the orders of the Central Government should be punished for disobeying instructions. Again, officials ought to be cautioned as strongly as possible against committing the Government in any transactions of this kind. When the Liberals were on the other side of the House, they joined in condemning the conduct of Sir Bartle Frere by a Resolution of the strongest character. The present Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs proposed that Resolution, and called on the Government of the day to recall Sir Bartle Frere. It was true that the late Parliament supported the late Government; but an appeal was made to the country, and he believed the people were roused to a sense that a policy had been adopted which was contrary to justice and morality. The Liberals came into power; but nevertheless Sir Bartle Frere was not recalled, as many of the Members of the Party expected he would be. It thus appeared that officials who acted in a manner to entail on this country great difficulty, loss, and very often heavy responsibility by acting either without orders or contrary to instructions, did not, as a rule, receive the condemnation they deserved. Sir Bartle Frere was allowed to remain for some time in the position he occupied, and no satisfactory evidence was given that the existing Government entirely condemned his action. The House must bear in mind that at the fringe of our extended Empire there were numerous barbarous tribes with whom at any moment an indiscreet or violent official might carry us into war, to be followed by further aggressions of territory; and it was to be hoped that the interesting and important speech of the Prime Minister in connection with the present discussion might assist in educating public opinion to discourage the actions of ambitious pro-Consuls in promoting unjust aggressions abroad.

MR. LYULPH STANLEY

said, that, much as they must all agree with the speech of the Prime Minister, he could not help thinking that some more positive assurance might have been given as to the future action of the Government in censuring public servants who had exceeded their instructions and thus involved the country in a needless war, So long as our public servants saw that they could gamble with the National Forces, and that if they succeeded they would receive honour and promotion, whilst if they failed they got no punishment, so long should we have great danger in our remote Dependencies. It was true that the electric telegraph had brought our officers more under the control of the Home Government; but, on the other hand, the publicity given to their proceedings by the newspapers encouraged public servants to bid for popularity and reputation outside the circle of their superiors. This made it necessary that the Government should keep a stricter hand on its subordinates. The Perak War waged in the Malay Peninsular some years ago was unwarrantable in its origin and most trumpery in its nature. Yet the officers who served in it asked that a medal should be granted to the troops, and the concession was ultimately wrung from a somewhat reluctant Government. This was an illustration of the temptation there was for persons to engage in these insignificant wars for the purpose of obtaining reputation and distinction. In reference to this subject of the Perak War, he would appeal to the Government to consider the case of the Malay Chiefs, who were deported to the Andaman Islands, and who still remained there. He hoped they would be set free as a token that the Government were willing, at least, to do a remnant of justice to those who had suffered. This discussion would show, at any rate, that the sense of the House of Commons, which reflected the feeling of the country, had made considerable progress upon previous years, and that there was a desire not to be led astray by false appeals to what was called the honour of England. The late General Election was the first instance of an appeal being made to the country against a blustering and aggressive foreign policy, and of a favourable verdict being given by the country in answer to the appeal.

MR. WARTON

said, it might be presumptuous in him to say anything after so much had been said on the other side of the House, but all in the same strain, in favour of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Merthyr; but he could not allow the debate to close without saying a word in favour of that fine old English spirit which seemed about to become extinct. He would not refer to a quotation made in "another place" about blushing; but he could not refrain altogether from blushing. Hon. Members opposite seemed to forget the history of their country—the glorious times of Drake, Frobisher, and Hawkins, when our fleets swept the seas, and our campaigns in India, when every act of annexation strengthened our Empire. They had heard from the Prime Minister, with a grandeur of language and sublimity of moral sentiment, which, he feared, was used as a mere cover for a cowardly policy, that which made those who had the honour of England at heart regret that the honour of England had fallen into such hands. He should be sorry in any way to hurt the Prime Minister's feelings; but he did think he traced in some of his phrases an undercurrent of feeling, as if he were condemning the proud policy of him whom Queen and country now mourned. He (Mr. Warton) could not help feeling keenly that great loss; but if the sentiment he referred to was present in the Prime Minister's mind, he was sorry for it. There was no mistake as to the sentiments which fell from the hon. Member for Carnarvonshire (Mr. Rathbone). The hon. Member and others threw every obstacle in the way of Lord Lytton, though his policy was dictated by a due regard for the honour of his country; but if the present wretched Government had not undone, as far as they could, the work his Lordship had accomplished in Candahar, we would have found for many years to come that our Empire had been very much strengthened. The Government should not mix up with their professions of morality a profession of being statesmen. When did great Powers begin to decay? When their fighting spirit went down. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, who reckoned up their pounds, shillings, and pence, ought to remember that, even from a commercial point of view, a brave policy was the best, for the moment a nation began to care more for money than honour its doom was sealed.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 72; Noes 64: Majority 8.—(Div. List, No. 188.)

Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."