RESOLUTION. [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]

HC Deb 31 July 1882 vol 273 cc255-307

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [27th July], That, Her Majesty having directed a Military Expedition of Her Forces charged upon the Revenues of India to be despatched for service in Egypt, this House consents that the Revenues of India shall be applied to defray the expenses of the Military operations which may be carried on by such Forces beyond the external frontiers of Her Majesty's Indian Possessions."—(Secretary Sir William Harcourt.)

Question again proposed.

Debate resumed.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

Mr. Speaker, as this Resolution has as yet only been formally moved, perhaps it will be convenient if I begin the remarks which I shall have to make by repeating the terms of the Resolution itself— That, Her Majesty having directed a Military Expedition of Her Forces charged upon the Revenues of India to be despatched for service in Egypt, the House consents that the Revenues of India shall be applied to defray the expenses of the Military operations which may be carried on by such forces beyond the external frontiers of Her Majesty's Indian Possessions. Although the form of this Resolution is financial—although the Resolution itself is only an assent to the charge on the Indian Revenues for the expenses of this expedition—I conceive the purpose with which the Resolution is moved is not mainly, or, I may say, at all, of a financial character; but it is rather of a political and Constitutional character. The necessity for the Government to move this Resolution is contained in the 55th section of the Indian Government Act, with which Members of the late Parliament are perfectly familiar, and as to which there has been, at different times, a good deal of controversy. The terms of the section are as follow:— Except for the purpose of preventing or repelling actual invasion of Her Majesty's Indian Possessions, or in other circumstances of urgent necessity, the Revenues of India shall not, without the consent of both Houses of Parliament, be applicable to any military operations to be carried on beyond the external frontiers of Her Majesty's Indian Possessions by forces charged upon such Revenues. Sir, but for this section it would be possible—I do not say it would be probable, or even conceivable—that a Government might carry on its military operations through the agency of the Government of India, by means of troops maintained on the Indian Establishment, and at the charge of the Indian Revenues, without having to come to Parliament for its consent at all. I do not say such, a case is probable under any circumstances. But if it were not for this section, such a contingency would be possible. But it is not only to prevent such a contingency as that, that the section of the Act was framed. This section has the additional effect of reserving to Parliament the power of deciding upon the question whether, in the case of operations, or of a policy which has been assented to, or in principle decided upon, by Parliament, such a policy is to be carried out by means of the agency of Indian troops, or only by the agency of troops on the British Establishment. It is quite conceivable that cases might arise of wars carried on in Europe, or even in Asia or Africa, where Parliament might be ready and willing to assent to the policy of the Government, and might signify that assent by means of a Vote of Credit, or whatever other Constitutional method might be adopted; but, at the same time, might be of opinion that, for political or military reasons, that policy was not one which ought to be carried out by the agency of Indian troops. A case somewhat in point arose in the time of the last Parliament and the last Government in 1878. Parliament had given a general assent to the polic3' of the Government; but when, without asking for the previous assent of Parliament, the late Government advised Her Majesty to order the expedition of a certain number of Indian troops to be sent from India to Malta for the purpose, if necessary, of taking part in military operations to be carried on in Europe, many of those who accepted the general policy of the Government objected to that measure being taken by the Government. We raised, on that occasion, Constitutional questions of some importance. But the question suddenly became more involved, and turned ultimately on the point whether an additional number of troops not voted by Parliament might be employed within the Dominions of the Queen. In this case there are no circumstances of that kind. But, over and beyond that Constitutional question, many of us thought that it was an error of policy to employ or contemplate the employment of troops of the Indian Establishment, more especially of Native Indian troops, in a European war, and when the question was one of European policy. Now, it appears to me that this section reserves to Parliament full control over all cases in which it may be possible to employ Indian troops beyond the frontiers of India. On this occasion, there can, I think, be not the slightest doubt, both legally and Constitutionally, that it is necessary for us to come to Parliament. As to the question of the general policy of our intervention in Egypt, as it was debated at great length last week, it is not necessary that I should say anything. The decision of the House was, I think, finally and con- clusively given by the Vote taken on Friday morning. The only question, it seems to me, we have to decide is whether, having adopted the general policy of intervention in Egypt recommended by the Government, this House assents to the employment of a portion of our Indian troops for the execution of that policy. Sir, I must say I know of no reason why the employment of Indian troops should not take place on this occasion. On the contrary, it appears to me that there are many political as well as military reasons for the course which we are adopting. India is, in my opinion, more greatly interested, both, directly and indirectly, in the policy which has been recently under discussion than she has been on many previous occasions on which her troops have been employed. It may be desirable that I should state shortly to the House on what former occasions Indian troops have been employed beyond the frontiers of India. At the beginning of the present century an expedition of Indian troops took place to Egypt, in circumstances and at a time about which it is not necessary that I should say anything to the House. Indian troops were employed beyond the limits of India in the China Wars of 1839–40, in the second China Expedition of 1856–7, and in the third China War of 1859. They were similarly employed in the Persian Expedition of 1856, and presently I shall ask the House to bear in mind that the Persian Expedition was carried out entirely by means of troops on the Indian Establishment. Indian troops were also employed beyond the limits of India in the Abyssinian War of 1867–8, and nearly the whole of the troops engaged in that campaign were on the Indian Establishment. Again, they were employed in the Perak Expedition; moreover, they were brought to Malta for the purpose of taking part in military operations in 1878; and again very recently they had been employed beyond the frontier of India in Afghanistan, although, of course, that was an operation of a different character, and might be considered as a frontier war. Sir, my contention for my present purpose is simply that India is more interested in the policy involved in the Egyptian intervention than she has been on many of the former occasions when Parliament has approved the employment of her troops beyond the frontier. I need waste very little time in pointing out in what manner India is interested. It is impossible to separate the interest of the people and the interest of the Government of India. The Government of India are indirectly interested in this policy, because, ruling as they do over many millions of Mahomedan subjects, it is of the highest importance that in a country like Egypt, in which Mahomedans take a deep interest, and in which we have for some time past exercised a great influence, that influence should not be summarily destroyed by the pretensions of a military adventurer, relying on the support of the Army alone, or, as he erroneously supposes, on the fanaticism of the Mahomedan world. It is of very great, though perhaps indirect, importance to the Government of India that pretensions such as these should not be admitted, but should be summarily suppressed; and, therefore, the Government of India has, in my opinion, a very strong interest in this policy. Then it is of great importance that we should be able to proclaim to the world that we can trust our Indian troops, whether they are composed of Mahomedans or of adherents of any other religion. It is important besides that we should be able to proclaim to the world that our Military Forces in India are maintained not solely as a garrison, but that they form part of the Forces of the Grown, and are able to support the policy of this country, at all events in all cases in which the interests of India are concerned. Then the Government of India is also directly as well as indirectly concerned in what has occurred in Egypt. The relief of the British portion of our troops in India is carried on through the Suez Canal. Different opinions, I am aware, are held as to the importance of that Canal as a means of maintaining our military communications with India. Whether we may, at some time or other, revert to the former system of relieving our garrisons viâ the Cape of Good Hope, at all events the fact remains that at present our military communications with India are made by means of the Suez Canal. But it is not only from a military point of view that the Canal is important as the highway between this country and India. A great part of our commerce, our postal communication, and part of our tele- graphic communication with India depend on the Canal. Again, the Suez Canal is the channel through which the ruling class of India proceed to that country, and by means of which all the intimate relations between that ruling class and the country at home are maintained. In these ways the Government of India is greatly interested, both directly and indirectly, in the internal affairs of Egypt. It may, perhaps, be said by some that the interests of the people of India are not in any way concerned with those of the Government of India. Those who think that our Government do not rule India for the good of the Indian people may be entitled to hold that opinion, and they may seek to establish some difference between the interests of the Government of India and the interests of the people of India; but those who, like myself, and I believe the great majority of the Members of this House, believe that our rule in India has conferred and is conferring great benefits and prosperity on the people of India, know that it is impossible to draw any such distinction between the interests of the Government of India and the interests of the people of India. But even those who may be disposed to draw such a distinction must admit that there is one point in which the people of India are deeply interested in the free navigation of the Suez Canal and in the internal condition of Egypt. Whatever may have been the commercial effect of the Suez Canal upon the trade of this country—and I believe there are some who maintain that although we have made great use of the Canal, it has not been altogether an unmixed advantage to our commerce—whatever, I say, may have been the effect to this country, it is undoubted that the opening of the Suez Canal has been an unmixed benefit to India and its trade. In the year 1880–1, the last year for which we have a Return, out of£143,000,000, the total trade of India,£88,000,000 passed through the Suez Canal. Therefore, considering how deeply the people of India are interested in its prosperity, it cannot be denied that the people of India are directly interested in the condition of Egypt. Then, if the Indian Government and the Indian people have a strong and direct interest in our policy in Egpyt, I think it may also be shown that there are dis- tinct and clear military reasons for the employment of Indian troops in Egypt. It will be a distinct advantage in putting us in possession of a double base of operations, be that we shall not be forced exclusively to rely on our base of operations in this country. Again, one of the chief difficulties which we are called upon to contend against is not the formidable character of our opponents. I do not wish to disparage any of the difficulties which may be opposed to us; it would be very unwise to undervalue the enemy we may have to contend against; still, I think our chief difficulty at first will be found in the nature of the climate of the country in which our operations are to be conducted. It must be evident that the British troops who have been on service in India, who have been inured to a climate not very dissimilar to that in which they will now be called to serve, and that the Native troops, to whom that climate is a natural one, will be admirably fitted, in a military point of view, for the service which is now contemplated. Now, as regards the question of cost, that, as I have said, is not raised by the present Resolution. When a similar Resolution was moved by the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Stanhope), in the case of the Afghan War, he said that his Resolution did not in the smallest degree prejudge the question of the cost, and that if the House should think fit at any time to declare that a portion of the expense incurred in the war, or even the whole of it, should be borne by the Imperial Exchequer, there was nothing in the Resolution which would place any impediment in the way of the adoption of such a course. The statement, it seems to me, is perfectly true, and applicable to the present case. If it was the view of the Government and the House that every sixpence of the charge should be borne by the Imperial Exchequer, nevertheless it would be necessary, in our view, that this Resolution should be moved, because it is necessary that the previous assent of Parliament should be obtained, and that, in the first instance, that charge should be temporarily borne by the Indian Government, even though it were the intention that the whole charge should be ultimately repaid. Referring again to former precedents, I may point out to the House that dif- ferent courses on different occasions have been followed. In the case of the China Expedition, the ordinary charges—that is to say, the ordinary pay of the troops—was on two occasions borne by the Indian Government, although on one occasion the whole charge was defrayed by the Imperial Government. The extraordinary cost of the two expeditions to which I have referred was defrayed by the Imperial Government; and the general course in these expeditions has been that the ordinary charges have been defrayed by India, and all the extraordinary charges by the Imperial Government. In the case of the Persian Expedition, in which the interests of India were more directly concerned, all the ordinary charges were defrayed by the Indian Government, and one-half the extraordinary charges. The effect of that is that more than one-half the whole cost was borne by India, because all the military operations were conducted from India. In the Abyssinian Expedition, where the interests of India were not directly concerned, the ordinary expenses only were charged to India, and this country bore all the extraordinary charges. In the case of the Malta Expedition, the interests of India were not held to be directly affected, and the whole cost, ordinary and extraordinary, was borne by this country. In Perak, the ordinary charge was borne by India and the extraordinary by the British Government. These are the recent precedents which are applicable to this case, and, as I have stated, they show that a considerable variety of practice has prevailed; but the rule apparently has been that, where the interests of India were not directly concerned, India bore no charge, and, in other cases where they were concerned, there was a division of the charge between the Indian and the Imperial Governments. In such a matter, it is evidently necessary that the opinion of the Government of India should be taken, and that it should have great weight. In this case, the Government of India have been consulted; there has not been time to obtain a detailed expression of their opinion; but I should not be dealing frankly with the House if I were not to state that the Government of India have informed me by telegraph that they object to India bearing the charge of her contingent, and that they are sending home a despatch upon the subject. I had stated, a fortnight ago, by telegraph that the view of Her Majesty's Government was that India should bear the whole charge of her contingent, including both ordinary and extraordinary expenditure.

MR. ONSLOW

Will the noble Lord read this telegram and the answer?

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

I have not got them at hand, but the facts are as stated. It is very necessary, before the House comes to a final decision, that it should have before it the grounds on which the Indian Government bases its dissent. It would also be necessary to know what the amount of the charge will be. I have asked the Government of India to provide me with an estimate of the cost of the despatch of the troops from India; but they have not been able to provide me with that information. It will also be necessary to know in what way the Indian Government propose to raise the Ways and Means for this unexpected charge on the resources of the year. These are elements in the consideration of the question, without which it is impossible to come to a final decision; and the Government do not ask the House to come to a final decision by this Resolution, which only sanctions the employment of Indian troops. It is the Amendments which have been placed on the Paper which ask the House to come to a final decision opposed to the view of the Government. They wish, without waiting to hear the opinion of the Government of India, without knowing what charge will be thrown upon the resources of India, to decide that in no case shall any charge at all with respect to the Indian Contingent be thrown upon the Indian taxpayer. The proposal of the Government is, that from India there ought to be a contribution in aid of these operations. If India is to make a contribution at all it can be made in only one of two ways. India may be called upon to pay a certain share of the total expenses, or she may, as we propose she shall, be called upon to pay the total expenses of her own share of the operations. Whatever opinion may be entertained by the House as to the justice of calling upon India to make any contribution at all, I have no hesitation in saying, as Minister for India, and in some degree responsible for Indian financial matters, that if India is to be called upon to make a contribution in any shape or form, it is greatly to her interest that she shall be called upon to make it in the latter of the two ways, for this reason—the share of the work that can fall upon India must, from the circumstances of the case, be limited. India can only be called upon to contribute from her military resources such a part of the expedition as may be convenient and safe as regards her internal condition. She cannot, under any circumstances, be called upon to make great sacrifices in this undertaking. The primary object of the maintenance of a large force in India is the security of our rule in India. It is not conceivable that in any circumstances the security of that rule could be allowed to be endangered or imperilled by calling upon her to move an undue portion of her garrison for any purpose whatever. Therefore, the share which India can be called upon to take in the actual operations, and consequently in the cost, can only be very limited, while for this country no such limit is possible. The share which this country will have to bear in this undertaking will only be limited by what may be necessary for the requirements of the successful completion of the operations. The share, in fact, of this country will be only limited by the necessities of the case, while the share of India will be limited by her convenience and her own need. Therefore, it is fair and advantageous, if India is to make any contribution, that she should bear a certain proportion, and that she should pay the charge for that limited part of the undertaking which we are asking of her. The only question that remains is, whether India should be called upon to make any contribution at all; it is raised, not by the Resolution, but by the Amendment. If it is necessary that it should be discussed at any length on this occasion, I prefer to reserve any detailed observations until I have heard by what arguments the proposition is going to be supported that India on such an occasion shall be asked to make no financial contribution at all. The proposals which we make, subject to the consideration of the opinions of the Indian Government, are based upon our view of the great and vital interest of India in this question. If it was just that India should pay, as was proposed by the late Government, the whole cost of the operations in Afghanistan, amounting to£20,000,000, without receiving any contribution from this country; if it was just, as we proposed, and as Parliament has agreed, that£15,000,000 of the expenditure shall be paid by India, and only£5,000,000 by this country, we consider it is infinitely more just that she shall be called upon to make that limited contribution from her resources which is involved in the part she is called upon to take in the expedition. It would not be desirable that I should state in detail the actual amount and composition of the forces coming from India. The call we have made is a very slight one; the number of men under orders does not amount to 5,000, with a reserve of about 1,500. It is not likely that the number of men will be greatly increased, and the proportion of charge for that limited contingent will be comparatively small. We consider it is not unjust that India should bear a burden financially so limited. We call upon her to bear this because it is an expenditure incurred in defence of a policy in which the honour and interests of the whole Empire are involved, and in which, in our opinion, the honour and material interests of India are still more directly and enormously concerned. For these reasons, I have to move the Resolution of which I have given Notice.

MR. ONSLOW,

in rising to move, as an Amendment— That the whole charges which may he thrown upon the Revenues of India by the Military operations proposed to be undertaken in Egypt should be repaid out of the Revenues of this country, said, he must disclaim any wish to impede the Government in the prosecution of their policy to restore law and order in Egypt, and to guarantee the perfect safety of the Suez Canal. A month ago, foreseeing that Indian troops would have to be sent to Egypt, he asked the Prime Minister whether India was to pay any portion of the expenses of the war; and now they were told that the Viceroy and his Council objected to India doing so. The Government, foreseeing that a necessity would arise for the employment of Indian troops, ought to have asked the Indian Government whether they would sanction the requisite expenditure for the force which the Government might think proper to order from India. The noble Lord had made an appeal that they should not come to a final decision until a despatch had been received from the Viceroy; but, in his opinion, it was rather late in the day for such an appeal. If India were to pay, he maintained that it ought long ago to have been consulted in this matter. He (Mr. Onslow) personally held strong opinions with regard to the payment by India of troops for Imperial purposes. To a certain extent, he thought the Government had hoodwinked the House, because it was unquestionable that if the war went on the£2,300,000 would have to be augmented; and he supposed that few Members of the House for one moment thought that that sum would be sufficient even for the expenses of the English portion of the expedition, putting altogether on one side any portion of the re-payment to India for the necessary expenses incurred by that country. He had no hesitation in accepting the statement of the noble Lord, that the interests of India were undoubtedly wrapped up in the Egyptian Question; and, that being so, the Indian Government should long ago have been consulted on the subject. He did not wish to traverse the noble Lord's remarks about the necessity of sending Native troops to Egypt. Indeed, he believed the Mussulman and Hindoo troops would be found loyal to the Crown, and they would gladly assist the Government of the Empire and fight its battles. The policy was that of the late Lord Beaconsfield; and, though strongly disapproved of at the time, yet they now saw Her Majesty's Government following out that policy to the letter. with regard to the Amendment, no one, he hoped, would think that he wished India to make any profit by the employment of these troops; he only thought that their transport and similar charges ought to be defrayed out of the Revenues of this country, but that the ordinary pay for officers and men, and the ordinary payment for victualling the various regiments—a payment which the Indian Government would have incurred had the regiments remained in India—should be met from the Revenues of India. There was no analogy between the present case and the Afghan War. In the former every despatch was known to the Viceroy and his Council. That was a purely Indian war, undertaken for Indian purposes—as he maintained, for the integrity of the Indian Empire; but this was a war undertaken for European and Imperial purposes. He hoped, therefore, that the House would not, on the strength of the imagined resemblance, lay down the doctrine that India and the Colonies ought to be called upon to pay for Imperial wars. He might notice the manner in which the Prime Minister's opinion on this subject seemed to have changed since the year 1878. In that year the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) moved an Amendment to the proposal of the then Government, somewhat similar to that which he (Mr. Onslow) was now moving; and the ground the right hon. Member for Hackney took was that, as the late Afghan War was, in his judgment, a European war, undertaken in furtherance of the Imperial policy of Lord Beaconsfield, India ought not to be charged the cost of it. The right hon. Gentleman was seconded on that occasion by the present Prime Minister, who declared that the Indian people had had nothing to do with the war— That they were wholly guiltless, and had washed their hands in innocence as far as that war was concerned. Whether that was right or wrong he did not now challenge; but he asked the right hon. Gentleman how he could come back on his words, when he was defending a policy which the Indian people knew nothing about, and a war in regard to which they had not been consulted? On December 16, 1878, the right hon. Gentleman said— Those who make war for purposes, whether they he or be not Indian purposes, are the right persons upon whom should rest finally the charges."—[3 Hansard, ccxliii. 904.]

["No, no!"]

MR. GLADSTONE

It is nonsense.

Mr. ONSLOW

Nonsense or not, he was quoting from Hansard; it might be nonsense, but that was the only record they had to go by; and, for the purposes of his argument, he was justified in assuming the correctness of the words.

MR. GLADSTONE

again said the words as quoted were nonsense.

MR. ONSLOW

said, he was aware of the dexterity of the right hon. Gentleman in explaining away his own words; but here they were recorded in Hansard, and without, so far as he could see, any- thing in the context to modify them. Again, in the course of the same speech, the right hon. Gentleman had said— I am not surprised that there is a difference of opinion upon this subject. It is a very puzzling one. That seemed to be still the Prime Minister's opinion, for these words appeared still to be very puzzling to him. The right hon. Gentleman continued— We have made our protest against the war, and, having done so, we will not now proceed to place the burden of it on the people of India."—[Ibid.] The hon. Member for Orkney (Mr. Laing) also spoke as strongly as possible against India paying anything for the Afghan War, because the finances of India were in an unsound state. But he failed to see that they were in a more unsound state than they were now. The Amendment was supported by the present Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Lyon Playfair), by the right hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella), and, in fact, by the whole strength of the Liberal Party. If they called upon India to pay for this, which he contended was a European War, they ought to call upon Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon, and the Straits Settlements to contribute, for all these Colonies were much interested in the maintenance of that great international highway, the Suez Canal; at the same time, he did not deny that India was more interested in the free passage of the Canal than, perhaps, any other Colony. When the Control was established in Egypt, India was not consulted any more than Australia, Ceylon, Singapore, or any other of our Colonies. The right hon. Gentleman had also delivered among his memorable speeches in Mid Lothian one at the United Presbyterian Church at Penicuik, in which he talked about the acquisition of Cyprus.

Mr. GLADSTONE

inquired whether the hon. Member was quoting from an authorized report?

MR. ONSLOW

said, it was impossible to tell what was an authorized report of the right hon. Gentleman's words—he seemed to object to Hansard, which was generally considered an authorized report. This particular extract was from a pamphlet which was distributed very largely throughout the country, and which was also circulated one evening at a meeting at Exeter Hall to denounce Her Majesty's late Government, and presided over by a Gentleman whom the Prime Minister, no doubt, knew very well. The right hon. Gentleman said then that the only way to maintain the position of the Suez Canal was by supremacy at sea. He supposed he did not deny that he made use of that remark. It was in a speech denouncing the then Government for the acquisition of Cyprus, and he used these words— There is no greater folly than to suppose that it is by multiplication of your garrisons and your islands that you guard the road to India. But that was what the right hon. Gentleman was going to do at the present time. He was going to garrison the whole of the Suez Canal; and, in fact, the policy of the Government was to have garrisons from Gibraltar right away to Aden. He defied the right hon. Gentleman to deny the truth of that assertion, for they knew that Her Majesty's Government had been in correspondence with the French Government for the joint occupation of certain strategic positions along the Canal. He was not saying anything against that policy; but he pointed out that, to use a common expression, the right hon. Gentleman had not only eaten his own words, but had taught his Party to do the same. When he was talking about these garrisons, the right hon. Gentleman said— More double-distilled nonsense could not be administered to a set of idiots. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] The Prime Minister shook his head, but he was quoting from his own speeches. In another speech the right hon. Gentleman said— The road to India is perfectly safe so long as you retain the command of the sea. But were we not now sending an expedition to Egypt to fight on the mainland? The noble Lord said that India was to pay only a very limited sum. He hoped that might be the case; at present, however, the House had not the slightest idea what that limited sum was to be. But were they sure that when they defeated Arabi they would be able to withdraw their troops? Many months would elapse before this country would be able to withdraw a single soldier that she was sending out; and were they to call upon India to pay for the Indian troops for an indefinite time? The noble Lord had somewhat startled the House by the telegrams which he said had passed between him and the Viceroy. It was a very serious thing for the Government of this country to ignore what the Viceroy and his Council had said against being compelled to pay anything towards the expenses of the war. It might be the case that Her Majesty's Government, with their numerical majority, might overrule the decision of the Viceroy and his Council; and it was because he (Mr. Onslow) thought that such a course would be perilous to the interests of India, and to the authority of the Representative of the Queen there, that he wished to make this strong protest against the decision of Her Majesty's present Advisers. In conclusion, he begged to move the Amendment which stood in his name on the Paper.

MR. PUGH

said, he rose to second the Amendment. He could not agree with the noble Lord that the House had endorsed the policy of intervention in Egypt. The affair having gone so far, the House could not have refused to vote the money which the Government had asked for in connection with the operations in the Mediterranean; but with regard to the general policy of the Government the House had expressed no opinion, and he, for one, was anxious to guard against it being thought that he sanctioned the policy which had preceded the war. The noble Lord had reminded them that Her Majesty the Queen ruled over a large Mahomedan population. He could not agree to the argument which the noble Lord had founded upon that fact, believing that if it should become necessary for us to wage war against a Mahomedan population it would be unwise to ask the Mahomedans over whom we rule to contribute to the expenses of that war. The late Lord Derby had said that in the case of a war which was chiefly or solely an Indian war the charge ought to be borne by India. The present, however, was neither solely nor chiefly an Indian war; and, that being so, India ought not to bear a large share of the expenses. Under the Resolution which the Government wished the House to adopt the whole cost of the expedition might be thrown upon India when the£2,300,000 voted by the House should have been exhausted. It would, in fact, be in the power of the Government to recall the English troops, and to carry on operations with Indian regiments only. It would be said that to suppose such an eventuality would be absurd. It ought, however, to be borne in mind that when the actual war should have been brought to an end, it would not be at once possible to withdraw our men. Troops would be required for police or protection duty, and the Government might possibly not be disinclined to employ Indian troops for that purpose. The Afghan War afforded a pertinent illustration. He was always averse to India's bearing any portion of the expense of that war; and he thought the war was unjust. But there was much force in the arguments used in support of the Government. We were told that from every part of India a cry arose against our inaction, and offers of assistance were made by every Native Prince. It was said in India on all hands that steps ought to be taken to vindicate the honour of the country. But nothing of the kind had been urged on the present occasion, and it could not be said that there was any such feeling as was then described in India. During the late Government there was no point upon which there was so much unanimity among the present occupants of the Treasury Bench. Was it reasonable that there should be such a partnership between this country and India, that India had no means of guessing what would be the limit of liability to he finally imposed upon her? We had not heard from India. He could understand the noble Lord's asking the House to stay its hand until he received a despatch from the Viceroy. As he understood, the noble Marquess had sent a telegram to the Viceroy to ask if the Viceroy approved of throwing the burden on India, and the Viceroy had said that he did not approve of it, and there was no reason to expect that there would be a single word in that despatch which would justify the Government in that matter. During the late Government the Postmaster General had been the Mover and the Prime Minister the Seconder of a Resolution adverse to the Government. The Prime Minister on that occasion said— I think we are entitled to know whether, so far as the Government are concerned, this is a definitive proposal to lay the expenses of the war upon India, or whether it is a proposal to hold over the whole question until they may find it more convenient to make some final proposal on the subject. I say it ought not to be held over; there is no reason for holding it over. We ought to decide, and decide now, whether India or England is to bear this charge."—[3 Hansard, ccxliii. 902.] If it was right that the House of Commons should make an immediate decision then on the question, it was so on the present occasion. The Secretary of State for War, in the same debate, had expressed himself in the same sense, and said that the Natives of India were entitled to know what their real position was. Similar language was used by the Postmaster General, and Lord North-brook denounced the proposal of the Government in strong language. Lord Lawrence took the same view. He could only add one word as to how the money was to be provided. The noble Lord had said that there was no need of coming to a conclusion on the subject at once. But he, on the contrary, thought that the question ought to he immediately dealt with in Ways and Means. Although India was in a better condition than formerly, and was improving, she was not in a position to bear the charge of any portion of the expenses of the operations in Egypt. To make India bear such charges was not only unjust to her; but lowered this country in the eyes of other Powers. In fact, he might say, as the Postmaster General had said at the time of the Afghan War, that it made England appear, "a mean, grasping, and selfish Power." Not only were we now driven to raise money from opium and salt; but we derived a large revenue in India from the administration of justice. It was a fact not generally known to the people of this country that every man in India who was sued for a debt had not only to discharge the liability to his creditor, but had to pay a certain amount to the State over and above the costs incurred in the litigation. Under these circumstances, they ought to hesitate before imposing an additional burden on the heavily-taxed people of India, and he appealed to the House to do justice in this matter, regardless of Party considerations altogether. Let India send the number of troops required, pay them at the same rate as if they remained in India, and bear the responsibility of any steps that might be taken to reinforce the Native Army in that country. That would be a substantial contribution, and as much as could reasonably be expected from India; but any extra expense incurred ought to be paid by England. The hon. Member concluded by seconding the Amendment.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the whole charges which may be thrown upon the Revenues of India by the Military operations proposed to be undertaken in Egypt should be repaid out of the Revenues of this Country,"—(Mr. Onslow,) —instead thereof.

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

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL,

who had the following Amendment on the Paper:— That the expenses of an intervention in the internal affairs of Egypt cannot be justly charged on the Revenues of India, which has absolutely no concern in the internal affairs of that country, said, he understood that the Forms of the House prevented his moving the Amendment which stood in his name; but he should like to make a few observations in the sense of that Amendment. Unlike some hon. Members, he did not take a highly sentimental view of the position of India with regard to this country, nor did he go so far as the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General used to go with respect to the rights of the people of India; but, steering a middle course, he thought it would be very unfair to the taxpayers of India that the cost of war—undertaken to support the policy of the Government— should fall upon them. He was one of those who wished they had never gone to war in Egypt, as he thought it would have been much better to have left Egypt alone, and certainly not to have taken isolated action; but having gone to war, he did not object to the employment by the Government of Indian troops. Instead of objecting to that, he was rather in favour of the proposal; but the question raised was, who should pay the expenses of this expedition, and in that respect he was of opinion that the Resolution before the House placed an unfair burden upon the Indian taxpayer. For his own part, he objected to placing any burden on the taxpayers of India, except so far as the object of the war was the defence of the Suez Canal. This, however, was not the object of the expedition. It was to secure payment to bondholders through the Control, and to establish good government in Egypt; and these were matters in which India had no concern at all. In fact, so far from India being concerned in the question of the good government of Egypt, it was just the opposite, because Egypt was in some sense the rival of India in regard to cotton, corn, and other commodities; and, therefore, if she were crippled and hampered it would be to the benefit of India. In regard to the establishment of good order in Egypt, India had absolutely no concern, and for that reason it would be unfair to call upon her to contribute one farthing of the expense. Putting aside the Suez Canal, he was wholly unable to find in the speech of the noble Lord any reason why England should be interested in the internal affairs of Egypt. The noble Lord said that England ought to interfere in this Mahomedan country because she ruled over 40,000,000 Mahomedans in India; but that appeared to him to be a very singular argument for carrying fire and sword into Mahomedan Egypt; indeed, he altogether failed to see why India should be taxed for such an object. India might, no doubt, be properly called upon to contribute towards the expense of guarding the Canal; but who had threatened the Canal? It was unquestionably not in danger when the Government resolved to employ Indian troops. If they took the whole history of this question, they would find there was no real question as to the danger of the Suez Canal until the bombardment of Alexandria took place, when the question became prominent. The interest of India in Egypt was, he thought, infinitesimal; and it seemed to him that as regarded the present war, if we had had no Control and no bombardment we might have had no Arabi and no question which might have occasioned the war. Arabi himself had given us no reason to suppose that the Canal would be threatened if we left him alone. Admitting that the Canal was, to a certain extent, endangered by the operations incidental to the war we had now undertaken, he would ask what was a fair share of the cost of that war which India ought to pay? Under the Resolu- tion before the House the effect would be that the control of this expedition from India would pass away from the House; and it would be in the power of Her Majesty's Government to send not only 5,000, but 50,000 troops from India to Egypt, and to maintain them at the expense of the Indian Exchequer, not for three months, but for three years or 30 years. This country was embarked in a policy which might lead to terrible consequences, and the difficulties were not only great in bringing the war to a conclusion, but greater in dividing the chestnuts which we might pull out of the fire. It would be a grave mistake to regard the war from an Indian standpoint, and to ignore the experience of the French in Tunis, where the invaders had had to contend with very great difficulties. One word as to the Canal, the safety of which was at once the object of the Government, and their justification. Of its great commercial importance he was well aware; but he was not equally ready to admit that its possession was a thing of absolutely vital consequence to the country. It was not so long since it was believed that if the Suez Canal were made it would ruin this country. That was the view of Lord Palmerston and others of the "Rule Britannia" school of politics. We had survived the making of the Suez Canal, and if the Suez Canal were stopped we should survive that too. But the interests of Europe in the Suez Canal were too great for the Government in Egypt, whether that of Tewfik or Arabi, or anyone else, to stop the Canal. As the interests of India in the Suez Canal were in some respects involved, he thought she might on that account bear some small portion of the expense; and, therefore, he could not vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Onslow). The Secretary of State for India had told the House that they were not to take the question as finally decided that the whole of the cost would be thrown upon the Indian Revenues in the first instance; but that arguments were coming from India which might induce the Government of this country to repay the charge. But why should not this country bear the whole of the cost first, and afterwards the Government might consider whether India should repay any portion of it? The Secretary of State was in the habit of drawing bills upon India every month for large amounts. Why should he not, by buying his own bills upon that country, supply it with the means of sending the Indian troops to Egypt? He would suggest that some words should be inserted in the noble Lord's Resolution to show that the cost was not finally saddled upon the Revenues of India; but that the matter would remain open for consideration. If the Resolution were not amended in that way, he could not vote for it.

SIR HENRY HOLLAND

said, that he had not the experience of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell); but he would undertake to be more brief in his observations. He would pass over the legal questions, turning upon the proper construction of the Act of Parliament, which had been referred to by the noble Marquess; and he would not discuss the question whether the Egyptian policy of Her Majesty's Government was right or wrong. He entirely agreed with the noble Marquess that the employment of Indian troops in Egypt was highly desirable. Those troops were thoroughly acclimatized and accustomed to the kind of work which would have to be done in Egypt. But the simple question before the House was, who was to pay for the troops? Now, in considering this point, the first questions to be asked were those asked in 1878 by the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Stanhope), then Under Secretary of State for India— namely, What was the real interest of India in this matter? Was India vitally interested in the results which it was hoped to obtain by the present war? To which questions he (Sir Henry Holland) would venture to add a no less important one—namely, Whether India had taken any part in commencing hostilities, or had, by any action of her Government or people, led up to the present hostilities? Now, he thought no one could contend for a moment that India had in any way by her action created, or even added to, the present difficulties. The war was the direct consequence of a state of affairs in a country quite removed from India, and it had not arisen from anything directly or indirectly connected with the Indian Empire. Of course, he (Sir Henry Holland) would not take up the time of the House by attempting to prove this by pointing out in detail the origin of the present hostilities in Egypt; but, briefly, it might be said that Arabi Bey, having gradually gained power, used that power and influence against the Anglo-French Controllers, who had set themselves, amongst other things, against the increase of the Army, and of the salaries of officers and men, which he advocated; that, ultimately, he managed practically to defeat the Controllers and the Khedive, and revolted against the authority of the latter. This short statement showed that the war was not connected with the Indian Empire, but arose from strictly local causes. He might, therefore, cite Lord Northbrook and Lord Derby, and, indeed, other Members of the present Government, as authorities against laying the charge on India, as proposed by the Resolution of the noble Marquess. Lord Northbrook, in December, 1878, spoke as follows:— It would have been just and generous to have decided that no portion of the expenses should fall upon India. I consider the war to be the direct consequence of the state of affairs in Europe, and not to have arisen from anything immediately connected with the Indian Empire. For that reason India should not be called upon to bear the cost."—[3 Hansard, ccxliii. 478.] And Lord Derby said, on the same occasion— If this is an Imperial war, the charge ought to be borne by England; if solely or chiefly an Indian war, the charge should be borne by India."—[Ibid.] No one could assert that this present war was solely or chiefly an Indian war, and, therefore, the charges proposed should not be borne by India. The second question he (Sir Henry Holland) would ask was, How far India was interested in the result desired? He would, however, in passing, observe that if India had not commenced the war— that was, if the war was not commenced solely or chiefly on her account—the result desired, though favourable, in fact, to India, could not properly render her liable to pay any part of the cost of the hostilities which led to that result. Her liability was not to be tested by the result of the war. This point he would venture to press strongly on the House, as he had heard it frequently argued that India ought to pay some part of the charge, because she would benefit by the result of the war. The results desired were peace in Egypt, and the suppression of the military revolt; but as India had done nothing to disturb the peace which formerly existed, and did not excite the military revolt, the restoration of peace in Egypt could not make her justly liable for any charges connected with the proceedings which had secured that peace. Moreover, India was not vitally interested in the result of these hostilities. Her interest could not be put higher than this—that the stoppage of the Suez Canal would affect her trade with this country, and render the transport of troops more difficult. Well, a temporary stoppage of the Canal would not seriously affect that trade; and, indeed, a permanent stoppage of the Canal would only affect the trade temporarily, though for a time the loss might be considerable. He did not at all desire to underrate the importance and advantage of the Suez Canal, and he thought that it had been unduly diminished a few nights ago by the hon. Member for Carnarvonshire (Mr. Rathbone); but it must be remembered that the trade would find its way by the old route round the Cape of Good Hope, and that, as a set-off against the loss of time consumed in the voyage, we might fairly consider the extraordinary improvement in steamships, both in their speed and carrying powers. But, again, it appeared to him (Sir Henry Holland) questionable whether any danger to the Suez Canal need be anticipated. It was against Arabi's interest to damage it; and, if the papers might be believed, he had engaged with M. Lesseps not to do so. There appeared also to be some hopes that the Canal might be neutralized under the protection of the European Powers. He (Sir Henry Holland) trusted that he had shown to the satisfaction of the House that India had in no way, by the action of her Government or people, led up to the present state of things in Egypt; that, therefore, although the result of the war might be favourable to India, that fact alone would not make it just or equitable to call upon her to bear any portion of the expenses beyond the pay of the troops, whom she would have had to pay in India if they had not been summoned to Egypt; and, thirdly, that India was not so vitally interested in Egypt, and the result of the war, as to make it just to lay the proposed charges upon her. He would now only refer very briefly to the case of the Afghan War in 1878, which had been more than once referred to in the course of the debate. There was then the question of a safe frontier for India. There was then the question of the peace of India, for it was not unnaturally feared that troubles in Afghanistan, unless speedily quelled, might lead to troubles in India itself. There was then the question of staying Russian intrigue and Russian interference, which might cause the Ameer to become a hostile neighbour, and which might dangerously extend over the Indian frontier. And, lastly, there was direct action on the part of the Viceroy and Government of India in the different negotiations, and in sending the Mission to the Ameer, the repulse of which might be said to have been one of the direct causes of the war. Such, rightly or wrongly, were the views of the late Government; and it could hardly be denied that the grounds for charging India in 1878 were far stronger than those now put forward in support of the present Resolution. But the course pursued by the late Government was declared by the present Postmaster General to be— A course characterized by meanness and the absence of anything like generosity, and he believed it would be repudiated by every constituency in the Kingdom." — [3 Hansard, ccxliii. 894.] He had seen the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General in his place during the evening, though he was just now absent; and he hoped that the House might have an opportunity of learning from the right hon. Gentleman whether he still adhered to the opinion which he expressed with reference to charging India for the Afghan War. He hoped the Postmaster General would have the courage to state his opinion, and that the possession of Office—an Office in which he (Sir Henry Holland) gladly recognized the excellent work he had done—would not keep him silent. He especially hoped this, as no one had more earnestly fought for India than the right hon. Gentleman; no one had done more to resist the inequitable imposition of charges upon the Revenue of India for Imperial purposes. He (Sir Henry Holland) would venture to read to the House some words of the present Prime Minister in the debate in 1878, although the exact accuracy of some part of his speech on that occasion had been impugned. He was reported to have said— The Indian people have had nothing to do with this war; they are wholly guiltless; they wash their hands in innocence, so far as this war is concerned.… Can I bring myself to vote that the expenses of this struggle, which, is wholly our act, shall be placed upon India? I say 'No,' and I will go freely into any assembly of Englishmen and tell them I say 'No,' and appeal to them whether they will not say 'No' also. Nay, I am…persuaded that when they thoroughly understand the facts of the case, they will say distinctly that those who make the war should pay for the war."—[Ibid., 904.] But he would not attempt to ask the Prime Minister to reconcile his present conduct with his past words. The Prime Minister was the very Proteus of politics. He readily changed into fire, and from fire into water, and no chains would hold him. He (Sir Henry Holland) felt bound to support the Amendment, unless some concession was made by Her Majesty's Government.

MR. BLAKE

said, he was surprised that three speakers who had preceded him, having extensive knowledge each of portions of India, from official connection with it, had not touched at all on the most important point involved in the Resolution—the capability of the people of India to bear a share in the expenses of the war in Egypt. He contended that they were not able, and, therefore, should not have any portion of the cost imposed on them; and to that part of the subject he would confine his remarks. He regretted very much that the Secretary of State for India, in addition to the high qualifications he possessed for his Office, did not add a personal knowledge of India—as he had little doubt if he had travelled through it he would arrive at the same conclusion that he (Mr. Blake) had come to from personal observation—that so miserable was the condition of the great body of the people that it would be an injustice, even a cruelty, to add anything to their present burdens. He could furnish the House with most harrowing recitals of the wretched state of the ryots as a rule; but as his experience in India was under a year he would prefer to give the statements of gentlemen who had been a much longer time in the country, and had been officially connected with it. Had the Prime Minister allowed him to proceed with his Motion a week ago, calling attention to the condition of the peasantry of India generally, and especially those of Oudh and Behar, he would have produced a large mass of official evidence, in the way of Reports of Commissions and the utterances of officials, regarding the wretchedness of the people, which would, he believed, have gone far to convince Parliament that he was correct in his assertions. He would not now trespass on their patience by going so deeply into the matter, and would confine himself to a very few quotations from the statements of Indian Civil servants. Amongst the pamphlets which lately appeared on the condition of the people was one from a distinguished Indian official, who recounted, in feeling and eloquent language, the wrongs and sufferings of the ryots of Behar, in a pamphlet entitled The Ruin of an Indian Province, addressed to the noble Marquess the present Secretary of State for India. He would read a few extracts showing the present state of things in Behar. [Cries of "Name, name!" "Who is the author?"] The author was Mr. Charles James O'Donnell, Justice of the Peace for the Province of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] He was not surprised that the mention of that name elicited great dissatisfaction from certain quarters; but it was that of a man who still held an important official position, which he had won by his ability, and who had the courage, independence, and humanity, at the risk of disadvantage to himself, to stand up for the unfortunate Natives, and to recount, in telling language, the inhumanity and injustice to which they were subject in Behar. Here is what he says— It would be no impossible task to prove that Indian progress, such as it is, has not been attained without much cruel suffering on the part of our Native subjects, and that from various causes English government has, in some instances, inflicted an amount of misery that is almost incredible. The condition of the agricultural classes in Bombay will immediately present itself to your mind. Permit me to lay before you a description of that condition as given in the pages of a journal the most favourable in India to every form of Governmental action. The Pioneer, in 1877, felt that any further cloaking of the facts and causes of agrarian discontent in Bombay fell not far short of the act of a disloyal citizen, and that it was wise, and necessary, and just, to tell the truth, and the whole truth. Its vigorous, candid language in this instance is an honour to Anglo-Indian journalism. 'Worried by the revenue survey,' it wrote, 'for heavily enhanced public payments, enslaved by his private creditor, dragged into Court only to have imposed upon him the intolerable burden of fresh decrees, without even the resource of flight which was open to his forefathers before the kindred scourge of Holkar, the Deccan ryot accepted, for the third of a century, with characteristic patience and silence, the yoke of British misgovernment, For 30 years, as we now learn from the Papers published, he had been at once the scandal and the anxiety of his masters. Report upon Report had been written upon him; shelf upon shelf in the public offices groaned under the story of his wrongs. If anyone doubts the naked accuracy of these words, let him dip into the pages of Appendix A (Papers on the indebtedness of the agricultural classes in Bombay). A more damning indictment was never recorded against a civilized Government. From 1844 to 1874, successive Administrations have been appealed to, have been warned, or have been urged. Each, in its turn, has replied—as the present will doubtless answer to the late Committee's importunities— with a suave sigh of non possumus. The hospitalities of Dapooree or Ganeshkhind—the Palaces of the Bombay Governor—have for 30 years been lavished in graceful and generous profusion; while the ryot, who paid for them, lay hard by in enforced and ruinous idleness, a debtor in the Poona gaol; or ate at their gates, in the field of which the fruits had once been his own, the bitter bread of slavery.' It is true that this seems the language of exaggeration; yet, after making every allowance for the influence of a just indignation, it is impossible to assert that the history of this century presents many more fearful pictures of maladministration by a European nation than does this paragraph from one of the most Conservative journals in the Empire. 'So,' it continues, 'the survey officers (of the land revenue) came and went, adding each his thousands and tens of thousands to the public assessments. Marwaris (money lenders) swarmed up, in ever-increasing flights, from the far North-West, and settled down on the devoted acres. Honourable Justices visited India, to carry off after a while to their homes, also, some trifle from the ryot's hands, leaving him in exchange their precedents and their rulings; leaving also, in a thousand desolate homesteads, a monument, to those who sought it, of the wisdom of the system over which (always, of course, at the ryot's expense) it had been their pleasure to preside. Decrees of the Courts flew like arrow-flights into the thickest of the population, striking down the tallest and the most notable. Stupidity, blindness, indifference, greed—inability, in a word, in all its thousand forms— settled down, like the fabled harpies, on the ryot's bread, and bore off with them all that he subsisted upon.' There were other important testimonies besides The Pioneer quoted by Mr. O'Donnell. He said— Truly and piteously did Sir George Wingate, a distinguished Bombay officer, exclaim— 'What must be the state of things which can compel cultivators, proverbially patient and long-suffering, accustomed to more or less of ill-usage and injustice at all times, to redress their wrongs by murder, and in defiance of an ignominious death to themselves? How must their sense of justice have been violated? How must they have been bereft of all hope of redress from law or Government before their patient and peaceful natures could be roused to the point of desperation required for such a deed.' Sir George Campbell, late Governor of Bengal, declared— Nowhere have the rents of a peaceable, industrious, and submissive population been more screwed up than in Bhagulpore. It was the same action of the zemindars that was leading to rebellion in the Sonthal pergunnahs. According to the same authority— The result of Mr. Kemble's—he being-magistrate of the great district of Burmah— inquiries on the Nepaul frontier is discouraging, in that, after very fairly weighing the respective advantages and disadvantages of both, he comes to the conclusion that the condition of the Nepaul ryot (peasant) is, on the whole, better than that of the British ryot. Although the smaller rent taken from the former by the Nepaulese Government is supplemented by forced labour and the purveyance system, on the other hand the illegal cesses and exactions of zemindars, middlemen, &c, and other vexations, turn the scale against the British cultivator. He (Mr. Blake) would now quote an authority which he expected the House would regard as important, that of Sir Richard Temple, formerly Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, a man more accustomed to depict everything relating to India in a roseate hue than otherwise— Was forced to admit that 'undoubtedly the condition of the peasantry is low in Behar—lower than that of any other peasantry, with equal natural advantages, in any Province in which Sir Richard Temple has been in India. A system of rack-renting prevails in some parts of the division; the zemindaris (great estates) are let either wholly or in part to farmers or lessees, who are thus middlemen, standing between the landowners and the actual cultivators of the soil. It is reported that the object of the rent receivers is to exact from the ryots as much profit as they can. Bents, including therein the innumerable cesses by which they are supplemented, are limited in the case of the majority of agriculturists by little else than their inability to pay more.' Sir Richard Temple was succeeded in 1877 by Sir Ashley Eden, who occupied that position up to March of the present year, and was now a Member of the Council of the Secretary of State for India. Soon after his accession the following, issued from his Secretariat, in the shape of a Besolution:— The majority of the zemindars in Tirhoot are unfavourably mentioned, being described as grasping and oppressive to their tenantry. In the present Report of the Commissioner of the Bhagulpore division a lamentable account is given, by the sub-divisional officer, of the state of things in the Banka sub-division, two-thirds of which are leased out in farms to non-resident speculators, while in the remaining one-third at least half of the landlords also are nonresident. The farms run usually for seven years, and are only renewed on the payment of a heavy and increasing premium, which falls entirely on the ryots. The tenants are said to have no rights, to be subject to the exaction of forced labour, to illegal distraint, and to numerous illegal cesses, while the collections are made by an unscrupulous host of up-country peadahs—bailiffs of the fierce races of Northern Hindustan. There can be no doubt whatever that the combined influence of zemindars and ticcadars (land speculators) has ground the ryots of Behar down to a state of extreme depression and misery. In a speech to the nobles and zemindars of Behar, in Durbar assembled, he subsequently said— It seems to me that the time has come when Government must come forward and endeavour to take substantial measures for ameliorating the condition of the Behar peasantry. The Lieutenant Governor had then occupied for nearly a year the high position which he still held; and he declared that, having devoted much attention to Behar administration, he had come to the conclusion that it was his clear duty to interfere on behalf of the tenantry of Behar, whom, in language of honest and temperate indignation, he described as— Poor, helpless, discontented men, driven about from village to village by the extortion of underlings or the exactions of irresponsible under-farmers—tenants who never know whether they will possess next year the land they occupy this, and who feel that any attempt to grow more profitable crops will only end in increased demands from the ticcadar. A short time before the delivery of this speech, in rebuking the evils of indigo planting as carried on by Europeans, he had denounced the farming system of holding land—known as the ticcadari system, on which their industry depends —as "the great curse of Behar," adding— It is this mainly which makes the ryots of the richest Province of Bengal the poorest and most wretched class we find in the country.

MR. SPEAKER

said, that the hon. Member for Waterford should confine himself more to the subject immediately before the Chair, instead of making a statement, as he was doing, of the condition of the peasantry of India.

MR. BLAKE

said, he considered that, in quoting authorities to prove the wretched and impoverished condition of the people of India, he was strictly keeping himself within the subject of the Motion before them, which was to charge on the finances of India a portion of the cost of the war in Egypt. His contention was that the people were so poor that they could not bear any more imposts, unless at the cost of being deprived of the means of providing themselves with the bare necessaries of life—the late famine being due, to some extent, to the impoverishment caused by high rents and heavy assessment for taxes. Of course, if the Chair ruled against him, he could not help submitting. He would, however, venture on one more quotation from a most important authority to prove that the people should not be taxed for carrying on this war. It was from the pen of Mr. W. G. Pedder, in The Nineteenth Century for September, 1877. Mr. Pedder had occupied a high position in the Revenue Department of India, and was now, he believed, in something of a similar position in the Indian Office here, having been transferred to it owing to his great abilities and knowledge of India. In the concluding portions of his interesting and important article he says— It is to be hoped that the Report of the Deccan Commission will receive the most serious consideration of the Indian Legislature before a Revised Code of Civil Procedure becomes law. It is not too much to say that British honour, and the character, if not the stability, of our Empire in India are at stake. We justly reprobate Ottoman misgovernment, and pity the unhappy peasantry of the Turkish Provinces. It is a serious reflection that almost equal misery is being inflicted over a far wider area under the best meaning of Governments and through the most scientific of systems. Now, there was the testimony of the condition of things in India from a most trustworthy source. He was very sorry that he would not be allowed to quote other authorities in the same direction. He would have much wished to have read a few extracts from a work of great ability by Mr. Irving, a most distinguished Indian official, published last year, entitled The Garden of India, dealing with the wrong-doing of the Talukdars of Oudh, and showing the state that the peasantry of a Province designated the Garden of India were brought to by bad landlordism. As he had been through the principal part of Oudh himself, he would also bear testimony to the deplorable condition of its peasantry, notwithstanding the fertility of their country, and their inability to bear further pressure, as the last coin was wrung from them, sometimes by torture, by their hard tax-masters. He had ample materials with him to prove that what he stated with regard to the portions of India he had been allowed to deal with held good with regard to nearly the entire of the country. Within a few years 4,000,000 had perished from famine, which would not have happened if they had been in anything like the state of prosperity they ought to have been in; and fully 40,000,000 were at that moment in a state of chronic starvation. Notwithstanding this, they had put on them nearly the entire cost of the Afghan War. And now it was proposed to saddle them with a contribution for the Egyptian War, the extent of which could not be measured, and against which, as they had heard from the noble Marquess, the Government of India had protested. Twenty years ago England was startled by the dreadful revelations contained in the Report of the Commission appointed to inquire into the effects of indigo planting in Eastern Bengal. The sufferings of the ryots to gratify the greed of the planters were shown to be so dreadful, that indigo planting in that part of Bengal was killed; but the evils that existed then were still in force elsewhere, and resulted in misery to the Natives. There were some in that House ready, he believed, to defend even the planters of Behar; but when opportunity came he was prepared to show up the iniquitous system they defended. He had been over India, from Afghanistan to Mysore, and, taken as a whole, he never beheld in all respects so poverty-stricken a people; and it was on these that, directly or indirectly, for the most part, the cost of the war would come. Many of the tenants held under the Crown, and were in numerous instances rack-rented. If India became liable for part of the expenses of a costly war, what little chance then would there be for those poor people to seek a reduction? One way that probably would be resorted to, to meet the quota of India for the war, would be to stop much of the public works that had been contemplated to aid the peasantry to recover from the effects of the late famine. What a deplorable expedient that would be. He most earnestly besought the House to pause before it affirmed the principle of adding to the burdens of a people who were already so oppressed that their toil, with rare exceptions, gave them scarce enough to keep them alive of the poor food on which they subsisted. So satisfied was he of the inhumanity, injustice, and impolicy involved in the Resolution proposed for their acceptance, that if the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Onslow) went to a division on his Amendment he would support him; and, if not, he would vote against the Government in the, he was sorry to think, vain effort to defeat the Resolution of the noble Marquess.

MR. E. STANHOPE

said, he thought that the Government was very much inclined to under-estimate the importance of that debate. They seemed forgetful of the fact that a similar Motion was brought forward four years ago. The discussion on that occasion lasted for three nights, and the same discussion came on again after the original Motion was disposed of. Yet the Government were now quite willing to push that debate to the end of the night. [The ATTORNEY GENERAL: A quarter past 7.] He was referring to what the Prime Minister said about bringing the debate on at any hour of the night. The Resolution of the Government seemed to contain two propositions of great importance. First, it committed the House to the employment of Indian troops in conjunction with the English forces of Her Majesty; secondly, the Resolution gave the assent of the House to the application of the Indian Revenue, temporarily or permanently, for the expenses of the expedition. With regard to the first proposition, he thought he was expressing the views of most hon. Members on his side of the House in giving it cordial approval. The employment of Indian troops in conjunction with those of England on proper occasions was an advantage to both countries. But he could not but listen with astonishment to the speech of the noble Lord, for every proposition contained in it was in direct contradiction to the statements made by him four years ago, and to statements made since that time by his Colleagues now sitting on the Treasury Bench. It was also true that the main question then raised in opposition to their proposal was the Constitutional one, whether they were entitled to bring troops to Europe from India without first obtaining the assent of Parliament? Yet no one could deny that that was only one of the many questions which were raised. Every charge that human ingenuity could suggest was hurled at their unfortunate heads, and the greater part of the objections had no reference whatever to the employment of Indian troops in Europe. One objection was as to whether the Articles of War followed Indian troops when they were employed out of India. Another was whether Indian troops could, without certain formalities, be legally employed outside the territorial limits of the old East India Company. The opposition raised to their proposal was carried beyond that House, and was to be found in the speeches of right hon. Gentlemen in all parts of the country. He would not now go through them, but would rather direct attention to some remarks made by the Prime Minister. He thought the right hon. Gentleman was a little hard on the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Onslow) when he told the hon. Gentleman he had quoted from an unauthorized report. As the Prime Minister apparently objected to the quotations from Hansard and his Mid Lothian speeches, he would refer, not to speeches delivered, but to articles written by the Prime Minister in The Nineteenth Century. The passages he was about to quote applied to the employment of Indian troops in any part of the world out of India. The Prime Minister wrote— It is quite impossible to work out this strange outlandish project of employing the Indian Army in common stock with our own, and yet to maintain the present distribution of charge between England and India. It would be a depredation and a swindle—a swindle perpetrated by a guardian upon his ward, whose interest he is specially bound to protect. England must prepare to assume a sensible, a just, a handsome share of the enormous charge of the Indian military system, and it could hardly be counted in less than millions. Yet the righthon. Gentleman came down to the House to-day, and, by the mouth of the Secretary of State for India, asked for permission to perpetrate what he formerly called a swindle. And then the right hon. Gentleman went on— The number of subsidiary questions which come up in connection with this headlong operation is already great, and must hereafter multiply. Will it be extravagantly costly? Is the Suez Canal equitably available for such a purpose? Will it not be a mercenary system, and is a mercenary system safe? Who and what are these 'followers' of the Native troops carried in their train at the public charge, and allowed for in the expenses of the expedition? He did not desire to dwell upon this for the purpose of making an attack on Her Majesty' Government; but he did wish to express their satisfaction that the arguments they used on a former occasion had converted right hon. Gentlemen opposite. The noble Lord the Secretary of State for India told them, as if it were a new discovery, that they could trust our Indian Army; and hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed also to have discovered that the co-operation of Indian and English troops might, in certain circumstances, add strength to our military system. He now came to a much more important question—namely, if the House sanctioned the employment of Indian troops in Egypt, what proportion of the charge ought India to pay? As he understood the matter, the object of the war was two-fold—to establish a good and stable Government in Egypt; and to do that for the purpose of securing the safety of the Suez Canal. But for the Suez Canal the internal affairs of Egypt would be of comparatively small concern to this country, and of no concern at all to India. The construction of the Suez Canal altered the whole position of affairs. The maintenance of that highway was of the utmost importance to this country, and nobody could reasonably doubt that it was also of the greatest possible importance to India. His hon. Friend the Member for Midhurst (Sir Henry Holland) had cited certain words which he used in the course of a debate in 1878. One of the tests lie then desired to apply was whether India was vitally interested in the matter. He thought he should now go so far as to say that India was vitally interested in the maintenance of the Suez Canal; and, therefore, he came to the conclusion that India might be fairly asked to contribute something towards the cost of the operations to be carried on in Egypt. Consequently, he could not vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Onslow). There was another objection to the Amendment that ought to be stated. It was that if it was carried it would defeat the Resolution of the Government. He, for one, could not be a party to defeating that Resolution, because it was important that at a crisis unexampled in our time the Government should be armed with the fullest powers for which it asked. As to the proportion of the cost that ought to be contributed by India, that was a much more difficult question. The proposition of the Government appeared to him to be one of the shabbiest ever brought forward in that House, considering the quarter from which it proceeded. Indeed, he was not surprised to hear that the Indian Government had put down its foot and declared that proposal to be entirely inadmissible. He might here observe that the proposal made by the late Government in 1878 was urged upon them by the Government of India, which desired the Home Government to adopt it. But the present proposal was to charge upon India the whole cost of their part of the expedition, whatever the duration of the campaign, and however extended its operations. For his part, he thought that at the present stage they could not possibly come to a final decision as to the proportion of the cost to be borne by the Government of India. One argument, which went strongly to support this view, was that we did not know to what extent, in what quarter, or by what means the Suez Canal might be threatened in the contemplated operations. All the more, therefore, did he say that it was quite impossible to foretell what was the real extent of the interest of India in the war; and we ought to wait before we arrived at a final decision, so long as it was certain that the question was really left open. Did the Resolution really leave the question open? It would be easy to raise a doubt by arguing from former speeches of right hon. Gentlemen opposite. They had then contended that the question was absolutely concluded by the use in the Resolution of the word "defray;" and the word "defray" was in the present Resolution. What the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for War had formerly said was that the word "defray" almost necessarily implied not a temporary but a permanent charge, and that, therefore, a Resolution identical with this imposed a permanent charge on India. When it was urged that the matter ought to be postponed for further consideration, right hon. Gentlemen opposite said—"No; we will decide it now; we expect an absolute decision at once as to the proportion India is to bear." He was glad that to-night the Secretary of State had made a declaration which was satisfactory; he understood him to say that the question was not to be prejudged by the passing of the Resolution. Unless they had a perfectly distinct declaration that the House was in no way committed, he should submit an Amendment to the Resolution; but upon the distinct understanding that they reserved entirely their freedom of action, and did not give the smallest countenance to the absurd proposition shadowed forth by the noble Lord, he would give his support to the Resolution. The noble Lord had told them that the Resolution was not a financial, but a political one, hoping, no doubt, to avoid the necessity of discussing the cost of the expedition; but, in 1878, the Government was pressed for an Estimate, and gave it as nearly as they could. An hon. Member asked—"Do you call that an Estimate?" In reply he would say it would have been an insult to the Government of India not to have accepted the Estimate which it sent to this country; and he might add that the estimate of the cost of bringing the Indian troops to Malta was singularly accurate. He hoped that before the discussion of the Indian Budget, some details of the cost to be incurred would have been obtained by telegraph from India. In 1878, it was said that the assent of the Opposition to the Resolution depended upon the condition of Indian finances, and they called upon the Government to declare at once how the proposed expenditure was going to be met. When they came to discuss the Indian Budget, he should be prepared to describe it as courageous, but as leaving much too narrow a margin. The surplus was£285,000, and all experience suggested that it ought not to be less than£500,000. A small extraordinary expenditure upset the framework of the Indian Budget, while in England a screw of the Income Tax, or an ingenious financial operation, would provide what was required. In India increase of taxation was very difficult, and could only be accomplished with caution and by slow degrees; and it was utterly impossible to look to increased taxation to provide any additional sums which might be required. Therefore, the amount had to be raised either by loan or by a reduction of expenditure. Three years ago the view of the House was strongly expressed in favour of wholesale reduction. Three years ago, a large reduction was made, and the only criticism made by Members of the present Ministry was that it was not large enough. The Home Secretary, speaking in the country, said that a reduction of Indian Expenditure was accepted by all Parties in the House, and that Indian Revenue was inadequate to meet Indian Expenditure. With that statement he was not disposed to quarrel; but the Government had largely reduced the income of India, and had enormously increased the Expenditure. Since 1880, the expenditure had been raised£3,500,000. This increase was alarming; and the first stop the Government must take, if they asked India to pay any part of the cost of this war, must be to apply the pruning knife with no unsparing hand. When the Indian Budget came on the noble Lord ought to tell them how the expenditure was going to be met. He had not made any quotations from the speeches of the Postmaster General, whose pluck and courage he had always admired; but he believed the right hon. Gentleman would be glad to be able for a few minutes to speak from an Opposition Bench, and criticize the speeches of his Colleagues.

Mr. CROPPER

said, he thought there were others interested in Egypt besides England and India who might contribute to the cost of the war—the bondholders, for instance, the speculators in Egyptian funds, the Sultan, and the Lancashire cotton spinners. His fear was that war would become popular in England if others were made to pay for it; and, of all whom it concerned, those who were wholly unrepresented, the Indian taxpayers, ought to be the last to be called upon to contribute. For these and similar reasons, therefore, he was unable to support the proposal of the Government.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

said, that although very few hon. Members were in the House when the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India moved his Resolution, all must have admired the equanimity with which he had to-day supported that remarkable proposal. In his present position of responsibility, the noble Lord seemed to be fully alive to the force of those reasons which, when in Opposition, he had ignored. He had now given very cogent reasons for the employment of Indian troops in Egypt, and had also expressed the deliberate opinion of the Government that the whole cost of the expedition should be defrayed out of the Revenues of India. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister and the noble Lord had stated that it would be in the power of the House, after the passing of the Resolution, to decide how the expenditure should be distributed between the two countries. It was very easy to say this; but hon. Members knew well what was the present fixed intention of the Government. The Vote, it was said, was to be applied for a certain number of troops during a period of three months. But if the Resolution were passed any number of troops might be employed for any length of time, and the moment the Government obtained the assent of the House to their proposal they might legally impose an unlimited amount of expenditure upon the people of India. The Indian Government might protest against this, but they would protest in vain, because it would be in the power of the Government to override their objections; and, that being so, it was simply throwing dust in the eyes of the House to say that if the Resolution were passed, it would still be in the power of the House to decide upon the distribution of the expenditure between the two countries. His hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. E. Stanhope) had alluded to a number of speeches made by Members of Her Majesty's Government when they were in Opposition; and he was, therefore, unwilling to trouble the House with any further quotations. The noble Lord, as he had already remarked, had given very good reasons for the employment of Indian troops at the present time; and all these, with one exception, would have applied with equal force in 1878. The analogy between the position in 1878 and that at the present time was in one respect incomplete, because if the soldiers and taxpayers of India were to be consulted and asked which object more roused their sympathy and enthusiasm—the collision averted, by Lord Beaconsfield's foresight or the contest provoked by the Prime Minister's timidity and blindness— there could be no doubt that their reply would be that they were more deeply interested in the events of 1878 than they were in those that were now taking place. The noble Lord, however, admitted that he had been wrong on the former occasion.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

When?

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

In 1878.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

In the Spring or in the Autumn?

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

ventured to say the noble Lord's admission related to both the Spring and Autumn. If he were to recapitulate the reasons given by the noble Lord for the employment of Indian troops in Africa, it would be found that the whole of them hold good with regard to Lord Beaconsfield's despatch of Indian troops to Malta in 1S78, of which the noble Lord complained.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

I never complained of the Indian troops being brought to Malta.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

said, the noble Lord was at that time the Leader of a Party nearly all the Members of which had objected to the despatch of Indian troops to Malta. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had objected in the strongest possible way; and although he had said he was unwilling to trouble the House with further quotations, if hon. Members desired it he would read a passage from an article by the right hon. Gentleman in The Nineteenth Century. In that article the Prime Minister said— All this is radically changed by the recent proceeding. A force has been brought beyond the old Eastern limits, and brought to assert, by way of earnest, that we possess in India an Army such as will make good our numerical deficiencies in Europe. This is not a question of five, or seven, or ten thousand men; if it were, the case would fall, for the purpose of my argument, mainly within the ancient categories. But the whole meaning of the measure is that India, with her scores and her hundreds of thousands, is to be introduced into partnership in our European wars. In and upon this view of the matter a multitude of questions will arise, of which I will now specify two. 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 the 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 as much. She will have just as large a control over the expenditure of her own blood as the locomotive over the consumption of fuel; at least, this alone will he her share unless and until she explodes. In the disasters of our wars she will he involved. In their successes she will have no concern. We may conquer territories, but not for her. And then the right hon. Gentleman went on to say— Is it possible that this can work? Will India 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 nave 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. A little further on the right hon. Gentleman added these words— We are to bring them from their homes, associations, kindred, from all that ever makes life to be truly living; in order to exhibit them to the nations of Europe, be these allies or be they enemies, as a soldiery of an inferior order to whom every high reward for valour is denied, every avenue of hope for eminence and fame jealously and irremediably closed. But were this financial question ever so liberally disposed of, and the British taxpayer already fitting his back as best he might to his burden, this would not in the least degree meet the political, social, and military grievance of India, nor requite her for the blood of her children drunk up by foreign lands, in foreign quarrels, and under alien command. Now, he asked, would not every one of those statements apply even with greater force to the present situation than they did to the situation in 1878? The noble Lord the Secretary of State for India had said that, as the Vote of Credit had been sanctioned, the policy for which it was asked had also been sanctioned; but he (Lord George Hamilton) did not understand that by sanctioning the Vote of Credit the House had endorsed the action of Her Majesty's Government. On the contrary, he understood the position to be, that in a great national emergency the House had consented to place funds at the disposal of Her Majesty's Government in order to extricate them from the difficulty in which they were involved, without expressing any opinion as to the policy which had led to that difficulty. If they were now asked to pass this Resolution upon the understanding that Indian interests were involved to an extent which would justify that action, they would be bound to investigate more closely the cause of the quarrel. The noble Lord, amongst the precedents to which he referred, had cited that of the Persian Expedition in 1856. When that dispute arose between the Persian and Indian Governments with respect to the possession of Herat an expedition was sent from India which was attended with success, and a Treaty was eventually negotiated between the two Governments, the Imperial Government defraying a considerable portion of the cost. But here the noble Lord proposed that in an expedition for purposes totally outside Indian policy India should bear the whole cost of every soldier which the Home Government might ask the Indian Government to send into Egypt. The Government of India, as he had before mentioned, might protest; but the fact remained that although we had created a Government in India it was in the power of that House to overrule or even to ignore their opinion. It seemed to him that Her Majesty's Government did not fully estimate the variety of interests involved in Egypt. We had enormous interests in the East, not because we were an European, but because we were an Asiatic Power. We had two great interests in the Eastern Question—one in common with the other European Powers, which consisted in a desire to promote commerce and good government in the territories of the Sultan, and the other, the paramount interest arising from our possession of India. But was it fair or right, on the one hand, to employ in this expedition Indian troops and. Indian money on the ground that the interests which those troops defended were so purely Asiatic as to justify their employment, and yet, when the expedition was brought to a conclusion, to submit the whole result to an European Congress? The European Conference, as Lord Beaconsfield contended, was not a fitting Assembly for the settlement of questions affecting countries outside Europe. The only Power interested in the East besides England was Russia. The interests of these two Powers were antagonistic, and, therefore, he said it would be absurd to subject our interest in the East to an European Conference; and if Indian troops and Indian money were asked for by the Government the result gained by their employment ought not to be subjected to the control of such a Conference. The Prime Minister had alluded the other night to the great change effected in 1879 in the position of the officers who exercised the control over Egyptian finance. But the really great change in their position was made in December, 1881. He was sorry to go at length into this matter, but he felt it directly affected the question before the House. The reason why he came into such immediate collision with the leaders of the Egyptian Army and Chamber of Notables was that M. Gambetta was determined to alter the position which our Agents and our Controllers General had up to that time occupied in Egypt; and he put them into an exactly similar position as that which in India an English Resident occupied at the Court of a Native Prince. Now, that system was known as the subsidiary system. It was one under which the Resident was partly Minister and partly Ambassador; he had the right to interfere in internal affairs of State, and to make his interference effective he had always a force behind him. But the Government had allowed M. Gambetta to entrap them into such a position as brought their Representatives into direct collision with the National Chamber and the National Army at a time when they had no force behind them. Would anybody contend that this was done in the interests of India? It was done, as they all knew, for a very simple purpose —namely, in order to obtain, if possible, a renewal of the Commercial Treaty with France. Hon. Members were aware of the result of those negotiations. As soon as the official news arrived that the French Government had backed out of their position, the Government came down and put India in the place which France had occupied in relation to Egypt. Her Majesty's Government were now in this extraordinary position. They took isolated when they ought to have taken concerted action with the Powers of Europe; and when they ought to have taken separate action, they submitted their proposed action to a Conference. The result of this was that we had failed diplomatically in almost everything we desired to succeed in, and succeeded in everything in which it was desirable we should fail. He was bound to say that the difficulties in which we were involved did not arise from our possession of India. They arose, in his opinion—first, from our desire to get a Commercial Treaty from France; and, secondly, because, having been entrapped into a position which we ought not to have taken up, the Government had not the courage to act decisively, owing to a certain number of Mid Lothian speeches which stood in the way, and a certain number of Liberal Members who were opposed to intervention in Egypt. If he were right in his view, then it seemed to him a most unfair thing to propose to burden India with the results of a year's vacillation on the part of the English Government. Everyone would admit that India had a great and direct interest in the maintenance of the Suez Canal; but it would also be admitted that the present warlike operations in Egypt were operations against Arabi Bey. In those operations the French Government had from the first declined to take any part; but they did propose to take part in the operations for the protection of the Suez Canal. These two objects were, therefore, perfectly distinct from each other, and in the latter only had India any interest. Therefore, it seemed to him fair and legitimate to suggest that Indian troops and money should be employed in the defence of the Suez Canal. But the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War had said it was necessary to effect such a state of things there that Egypt should cease to be a Military Power, and upon that point two important questions presented themselves. First, would the Vote of Credit be sufficient for the purpose the Government had in view, seeing that it was to cover a period of three months only— that was to say, would Egypt cease to be a Military Power in three months? If not, what troops would be best fitted to continue the operations in Egypt? The Indian troops, undoubtedly; and this the noble Marquess had himself admitted. That being so, he repeated that if the Resolution were passed in its present form, there would be nothing to prevent the Government sending Indian troops into Egypt when they pleased, and charging the whole expense upon the Revenues of India without obtaining the sanction of Parliament. But there still remained the question—What was to be done? And on this point he was bound to say that the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Onslow) did not, in his opinion, quite meet the case. He was sure that no one in that House would wish to deprive Her Majesty's Government of the money or the forces which they declared to be necessary to extricate the nation from its present difficulties; but the Amendment of his hon. Friend would, as he understood it, prevent this Resolution being carried at all; and, therefore, it seemed desirable to add to the Amendment some words which would make it perfectly clear that the House, in giving its consent to the Resolution, did so on the distinct understanding that a certain number of soldiers on the Indian Establishment were to be temporarily employed in Egypt, and that the question as to whether the Imperial or Indian Revenues should bear the cost would be again brought before the House. His own opinion was that a proposal in that form would meet with general approval. If some Amendment, such as that of the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Pugh), could be substituted for the Amendment of his hon. Friend, he believed it would meet the wish of the great mass of hon. Members on both sides of the House, which was that in this emergency Indian troops might be employed in Egypt, but that the question as to the apportionment of the cost of their employment should be considered hereafter. He believed he had shown that this quarrel, which was entered upon in defence of English and French interests, was one in which primâ facie India was not concerned; and it only remained to him to apologize to the House for the length to which his observations had extended.

MR. MACFARLANE

said, he should not enter upon the wide subject which had been discussed by the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton), but would direct his remarks towards another aspect of the question. He had held for a great many years that the best thing that could happen to this country would be that the Suez Canal should be silted up, and that the next best thing would be that it should be left open. The question, however, which they had to consider was not the creating of the Canal, but the maintenance of it as it now existed. And they had to consider whether the Indian Exchequer should or should not bear the expense of that maintenance. Now, it seemed to him a fair question for Members of that House to raise, whether the Im- perial or the Indian Exchequer should bear the expense; because, if Her Majesty's Government had correctly stated their position, they had not invaded Egypt for any other purpose than that of restoring order. And if, through the default of the Porte, we had undertaken the task of restoring order in Egypt, he considered that upon the Porte and upon Egypt jointly the cost of that undertaking should fall. That, it seemed to him, was a self-evident proposition. But the question, in its present form, was whether the Indian Revenues should bear an undefined proportion of the expense; for the Resolution of the noble Marquess had this serious defect—that it neither limited the number of men, the amount of money, nor the length of time over which the operation might extend. He repeated that he should not go into the political question; but he desired to say a few words with regard to the policy of employing Indian troops in the operations in Egypt. He had heard many dispiriting prophecies made in that House and elsewhere as to the danger of employing Indian troops in Egypt; but the experience gained during his residence in India convinced him that Mahomedan troops were quite as ready as Christian troops to cut Mahomedan throats—that Mahomedan troops who remained loyal had no greater pleasure than to cut up their disloyal brethren. It was a very important fact to be remembered that only one-fifth or one-sixth of the population of India was Mahomedan, and that for every Mahomedan we had under our rule in India five Hindoos. With regard to the justice of charging India with the expense of preserving the Suez Canal, unless it could be shown that we ruled India solely for selfish purposes, and not for the benefit of her people, then, he said, India had a very solid and substantial interest in the maintenance of the Canal; because, after many years' experience in that country, he believed that, in spite of blunders, there was never a Government in the world that ruled with better intentions towards the people it governed than the Government of India. An hon. Gentleman who had spoken in the course of the debate had condemned the Government of India because the people were poor. But he reminded the House that poverty was the normal condition of the people of India, although, in this respect, their condition was better now than it was before; and he took that opportunity of repeating that, in his opinion, no Government had ever ruled a people with more conscientious and disinterested motives than the Government of India. He had observed that the noble Lord who spoke last was much more anxious to prove the Prime Minister in the wrong in 1878 than he was to prove his country in the right in 1882, Notwithstanding this, he was quite sure that the noble Lord had no objection, either in principle or in practice, to the employment of Indian troops in Egypt. He was not sure whether a Conservative Government was in power at the time of the Abyssinian War; but he remembered that the Government of the day charged India with the ordinary expenses of the troops employed, and that the Imperial Exchequer was only charged with the extraordinary expenses. There was another case which occurred to him; and here, again, be did not remember what Government was in Office. A few years ago the Sultan of Turkey paid a visit to this country; his arrival was celebrated by a grand ball, and the cost of his entertainment was put upon India, on the ground that he was the head of the Mahomedan Power. As he had stated, the noble Lord was very anxious to prove the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister in the wrong; he bad alluded to certain speeches of the right hon. Gentleman; but hon. Members all knew that it was impossible to get through any debate, be it short or long, without a reference to the utterances of the right hon. Gentleman at Mid Lothian. Those speeches seemed to him like the Apocalypse—you could make anything of them if you went to them with a preconceived notion. He did not suppose, however, that the right hon. Gentleman in 1879 considered himself a prophet, or that he was able to say then what the Government would do in 1882. He was dealing with matters quite distinct from those now under consideration; and hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House would bear in mind that speeches made in Office and speeches made out of it were totally different things. His object, however, in rising, was to state emphatically his opinion, founded upon considerable experience, that the theory advanced by some hon. Members that it was dangerous to employ Indian Ma- homedans to cut Egyptian Mahomedans' throats was a complete delusion.

MR. CHILDERS

Sir, I have listened with great attention to most of the speeches which have been delivered since my noble Friend moved his Resolution, and especially to those delivered by hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House in Opposition—I may say, not so much to the intention as to the wording of that Resolution. I paid careful attention to the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton), and I am bound to say that I considered it very ingenious, inasmuch as the noble Lord has discovered as many mare's nests in this Resolution, in the course of a few minutes, as are generally discovered by many hon. Members in the course of a whole debate. Starting from the assumption that there was something in the Resolution proposed to-day connected with the action of the French Government a few days ago, he carried us back to the Dual Note, and what happened about that time; and he seemed to have connected the policy of the Government with something proposed by M. Gambetta, which Her Majesty's Government did not accept, and with the negotiations relating to a Commercial Treaty with France which took place about the same date. Now, I must say that all this imaginary connection has nothing whatever to do with the case itself. The present proposal of the Government is entirely unconnected with the negotiations with France during the last week; it stands on its own basis, and has been supported by arguments, one of which I will venture to repeat in the course of the observations I shall have to make, and which, I think, will have great weight with the House. There has been a great deal said—very much indeed by the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. E. Stanhope)—as to the events of 1878 in connection with the discussions in Parliament, during that year, upon the subject of the employment of troops out of India for the benefit either of India or of this country. But I noticed— and no one who was in the House at the time could have failed to notice—that two quite distinct transactions were mixed up in the argument of the hon. Gentleman. It would have been the impression left on the mind of anyone who on that occasion heard the subject dis- cussed for the first time, that but one question was involved—namely, the employment of and the charge for troops outside India; whereas there were two distinct questions raised with reference to the Indian troops in 1878. But, Sir, the question of the despatch of Indian troops to Malta, and the charge connected with them, is one thing, and the question of the employment of Indian troops in Afghanistan is a thing totally different. As to the first, the question which was discussed at some length, and with some degree of warmth, was the Constitutional question—that is to say, under what circumstances Indian troops could be employed in Europe, and also under what circumstances Indian troops could be employed outside India. The question of expense did not occur, because the cost was defrayed by this country. But the question was raised subsequently as to whether the expenditure for the Indian troops employed in Afghanistan should be borne entirely by the Indian Exchequer; and those who now appear before this House and the public as the friends of India, and anxious to maintain her credit by refusing to charge the cost of the troops sent to Egypt upon her Revenue, should remember that it was the Liberal Party who, in spite of the hon. Gentleman opposite, who represented the late Government, that this country should bear its fair share of the cost of the war in Afghanistan. And we did this because the war in Afghanistan was waged, to a great extent, on account of Imperial interests—because it was not purely an Indian war, the cost of which should fall upon India. It was on the ground that the war was, to a great extent, ours that we insisted, when we took Office, in charging a large portion of its cost upon the Imperial Revenues. That being the case, let me speak of the present position with regard to Egypt. We are now engaged in operations of a warlike character, though not, strictly speaking, of war, for a special purpose, in which, we say, both India and this country are concerned. We say that these warlike operations in Egypt are the result of a policy which has for its object the maintenance of the great line of communication between this country and our Eastern Possessions. We maintain that there should be in Egypt, which is, perhaps, the most important part of that line of communication, a stable Government, and one not subject to military despotism, which shall keep that line of communication open; and we say that India may properly bear a certain share of the cost of securing that result. If we go back to 1840, when this country took an active part in a war in connection with Egypt, we shall find the case to be quite different. The object of that war was the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire against the ambition of Meheme Ali; and if we had on that occasion brought Indian troops to Suez, and used them in Naval operations in the Mediterannean, it would have been altogether unjust to charge the cost of them upon the Indian Revenues, because it was not an Indian war. But we are now engaged in operations in which the interests of this country and of India are involved; and we therefore ask Parliament to determine that India, being interested, should bear a certain share of the expenditure. The noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) and the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. E. Stanhope) have both, over and over again, spoken of the Indian Revenues being charged with "the whole expenditure" on account of the Indian troops to be employed in Egypt. But let me remind the House what the proposal is. We are sending from this country— speaking in general terms—something like 24,000 men, while from India we are getting a force of between 5,000 and 6,000 men. The proposal, then, is that India should bear about one-fifth of the expense, whereas the Imperial funds are about to bear four-fifths of it. If we were to do what many have recommended—that is to say, carry on these operations in Egypt solely with Indian troops— and were then to call upon India to bear the whole expense, that, I venture to say, would be unjust towards India. But we are only asking India to bear a small proportion of the cost of the troops acting in Egypt, and we say it is not unfair to charge her with that proportion. The House, I trust, will clearly understand that there is no idea in the mind of Her Majesty's Government of overcharging India in respect of these Egyptian operations, in which she is interested. We are only asking her to bear a fair proportion of the charge. But the noble Lord and other hon. Gentlemen who have criti- cized the Resolution say that it is not sufficiently definite. They say that— "Under these words you may carry on an unlimited expenditure, and employ any number of men for any number of years"—that Her Majesty's Government might, for instance, withdraw the whole of the European troops from India; that, after a short campaign, they might be under the necessity of occupying Egypt with troops, and that Her Majesty's Indian Forces were most suitable for such an operation. "We have no intention of acting upon any device of that sort. My noble Friend the Secretary of State for India has stated plainly what the Government propose. They propose that, assuming the duration of this campaign to be such as they have declared to Parliament, India shall bear that proportion of the expenditure which is represented by her troops, and that our Exchequer shall bear the rest. We propose, after the words, "this House consents that the Revenues of India," to insert "subject to any future decision of Parliament." That will establish the fact that we consider that India ought to bear a share of the expense, and will express the opinion of the great majority of the House.

Mr. R. N. FOWLER

said, that he had supported the Government on the proposal to put on the Imperial Revenues a portion of the expense of the Afghan War. India was a very overtaxed country; and, under these circumstances, he had a great objection to anything which would add to the taxation of that country. The people of India were not represented in that House; but they were taxed by a despotic Government; and he thought it was not desirable that that House should exercise such power as was now proposed in making India pay the expenses of her troops. As this was an Imperial war the expense ought to be borne by this country, and he should vote for the Amendment.

MR. GLADSTONE

Sir, it seems to be quietly assumed that I have departed from, or am ready to depart from, speeches I have previously made; and the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Macfarlane) makes the charge that I consider that Gentlemen out of Office are entitled to make all sorts of speeches. If there is one view which I more thoroughly abhor than another, it would be that view. Therefore, I wish to say that I adhere to what I have written and said on this matter. The hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Onslow) said he had quoted from Hansard. I have great respect for Hansard, but no man is to be bound by Hansard when he has no connection with reporting his own speech. The hon. Member said, it was nonsense, but still it was my speech. What I say is this—unless I am very much mistaken my contention was that the Afghan War was an iniquitous and guilty war, and I wish I could in any degree efface the language I used in disapprobation of that war; but I cannot do it. It was monstrous to charge that upon India. That is a contention which I still maintain, and the whole question is whether this is a right and justifiable proceeding. The second question is whether it is one in which India has a substantial interest. If India has a substantial interest, then, as has been explained by my right hon. Friend, we make a proposal which, if effected, comes to this—that India shall pay one-fifth of the charge, so far as we can estimate that charge, subject to what we may hear from India. We hold ourselves perfectly free to alter our view; but we do not wish the House to commit itself to the extent to which we hold ourselves committed. All our anxiety is to obtain from the House that which will give to our position and action full legality. We are compelled to proceed upon what we believe to be the law, and to defray the charges under the sanction of Parliament; but without committing Parliament to the ultimate charges to be met. With respect to the most fanciful connection established by the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton), between the Egyptian Correspondence and the Commercial Treaty with France, there is an old story of a connection between Goodwin Sands and Tenterden Steeple. People did say there was a connection, though remote, between the Sands and Tenterden Steeple, because the monks were so busy building the steeple that they forgot to fence in the Goodwin Sands. The two things are totally disdinct. In the Egyptian Correspondence there are complications and difficulties, but in the Commercial Treaty we had nothing to do but to take our stand upon principles and abide by them. While the Egyptian Question is one of the most involved we ever had to deal with, the Treaty Question is one of the most simple. I have been glad to repeat these admissions, as they are called, but they are not admissions; and what we would desire to put forward is that, in view of our future action, Parliament shall give us legal powers and place beyond all doubt the perfect legality of our proceedings.

Mr. ONSLOW

said, he had not used a word as to the legality of the position of the Government. He had agreed to the employment of troops, and he would accept the proposed Amendment. He was perfectly prepared to withdraw his Amendment, on the condition that the Resolution adopted by the Government did not pledge the Indian Government ultimately to spend one halfpenny towards the expenses of the war. The Amendment proposed by the Secretary of State for War would not pledge the House to call upon the Indian Government to pay an iota of the expenses of this expedition; and, therefore, he should be happy to withdraw his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed, after the word "shall," to insert the words "subject to any future decision of Parliament."—(Mr. Secretary Childers.)

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, put.

The House divided:—Ayes 140; Noes 28: Majority 117.—(Div. List, No. 303.) Resolved, That, Her Majesty having directed a Military Expedition of Her Forces charged upon the Revenues of India to he despatched for service in Egypt, this House consents that the Revenues of India shall, subject to any future decision of Parliament, be applied to defray the expenses of the Military operations which may be carried on by such Forces beyond the external frontiers of Her Majesty's Indian Possessions.