Commons Sitting of 21 June 1905

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Croydon Corporation Bill; Stockport Corporation Bill. Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Alexandra Park and Palace Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, without Amendment.
Barry Railway Bill [Lords].Read the third time, and passed, with an Amendment.
Clacton Improvement Bill [Lords]; Dearne Valley Railway Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
Metropolitan Railway Bill [Lords]. Read the third time, and passed, without Amendment.
North British Railway (General Powers) Bill. Read the third time, and passed.
Rathmines and Rathgar Extension I and Improvement Bill. To be read the third time To-morrow.
Shropshire, Worcestershire, and Staffordshire Electric Power Bill. Read the third time, and passed. [New Title.]
London County Council (Money) Bill; South Eastern and London, Chatham, and Dover Railways Bill [Lords]. As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Barrymore Estate Bill [Lords]; Donovan's Divorce Bill [Lords]; North Metropolitan Electric Power Supply Bill [Lords]. Read a second time, and committed.
Millport Piers and Burgh Extension Order Confirmation Bill. Read a second time; to be considered upon Friday.
Metropolitan Electric Tramways Bill; Hythe Corporation Bill [Lords]; Stepney Borough Council (Superannuation) Bill [Lords]. Reported, with Amendments; Reports to be upon the Table, and to be printed.
Leven's Patent Bill [Lords]. Reported, without Amendment; Report to lie upon: the Table.
Bill to be read the third time.
Darien Gold Mining Company Bill [Lords]. Reported, without Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time.

PETITIONS.
  EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Abernethy, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL AUTHORITIES (TAXATION AND PURCHASE OF LAND) BILL.
  Petition from Camberwell, in favour; I to lie upon the Table.
  VACCINATION BILL.
  Petition from St. Marylebone, against; to lie upon the Table.
  BRITISH MUSEUM.
  Petition of the Trustees of the British Museum, for grant in aid [presented February 28th]; referred to the Committee of Supply.—(Mr. John Morley.)
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION (IRELAND).
  Copy presented, of Report of the Intermediate Education Board for Ireland for the year 1904 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION (CODE, 1905).
  Copy presented, of Code of Regulations for Public Elementary Schools, with Schedules, by the Board of Education, 1905 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BOARD OF EDUCATION.
  Copy presented, of Order amending Final Order, No. 1130, made under Section 11 (8) of The Education Act, 1902 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  FINANCE ACCOUNTS.
  Copy presented, of Finance Accounts of the United Kingdom for the year ended March 31st, 1905 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 200.]
  CIVIL LIST PENSIONS.
  Copy presented, of List of all Pensions granted during the year ended March 31st, 1905, and payable under the provisions of Section 9 (1) of The Civil List Act, 1901 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 201.]
  PAPER LAID UPON THE TABLE BY THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
  Local Loans Fund. Accounts of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt in respect of the Capital and Income of the Local Loans Fund for the year ended March 31st, 1904, with Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon [by Act]; to be printed. [No. 202.]
  NEW WRITS.
  For Borough of Finsbury (East Division), in the room of Henry Charles Richards, esquire, deceased; County of Stafford (Kingswinford Division), Colonel William George Webb, deceased.—(Sir A. Acland-Hood)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Income-Tax Committee—Publication of Report.
  MR. J. H. LEWIS: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury when the Report of the Committee appointed to consider certain questions affecting the income-tax will be presented.
  (Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) This Report will be laid to-day.

  Scottish Board of Manufactures—Pending Legislation.
  SIR J. STIRLTNG -MAXWELL: To ask the Lord-Advocate whether the Government propose to introduce legislation this session to give effect to the Report of the Committee on the Board of Manufactures.
  (Answered by Mr. Scott Dickson.) A Bill is in course of preparation, and will be introduced this session if the state of business permits.

  Fishery Board Cruisers and Illegal Trawling off the Island of Lewis.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Lord-Advocate if he will state how many Fishery Board cruisers have been engaged this year off the coast of the Island of Lewis in protecting the interests of line fishermen against the depredations of illegal trawlers, and the names of the vessels so engaged.
  (Answered by Mr. Scott Dickson.) There have been four, their names being "Freya," "Brenda," "Ninna," and "Vigilant."

  Erection of Houses on Farm, of Aignish, Island of Lewis.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Lord-Advocate, having regard to the fact that the farm of Aignish, Island of Lewis, has been broken up into thirty-two crofts, will he state when the erection of houses on the respective crofts will he proceeded with.
  (Answered by Mr. Scott Dickson.) I am informed that the work is being proceeded with. On June 8th the foundations of eighteen of the houses had been excavated, and concrete foundations were being put in.

  Delay in Construction of Canton Kowloon Railway.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, seeing that the preliminary contract for the Canton-Kowloon Railway was signed in the spring of 1899, will he state the cause of the delay in proceeding with the construction of the line.
  (Answered by Earl Percy.) As stated in my Answer to the hon. Member on

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  February 10th, †1904, negotiations for the conclusion of the final agreement for the construction of the Canton-Kowloon line were to be postponed until arrangements had been made for financing the Shanghai-Nanking Railway. Since the conclusion of these arrangements, negotiations for the final contract of the Canton line have boon resumed., and His Majesty's Government have urged upon the Chinese Government the importance of an early settlement.

  Progress in Building of Canton-Hankow Railway.
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will state what progress has been made with the Canton-Hankow trunk line of railway.
  (Answered by Earl Percy.) So far as we are aware, no substantial progress has yet been made in the building of the line.

  Woolacombe (North Devon) Water Supply.
  MR. GRIFFITH BOSOAWEN: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the fact that the water supply of Woolacombe, North Devon, has been condemned by the medical officer of health as unfit for drinking and all domestic purposes; whether any arrangements have been made for obtaining a fresh water supply; and whether any warning has been issued or will be issued to the inhabitants.And visitors, pointing out the danger to public health arising from the use of the present supply.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) My attention has been called to the unsatisfactory character of the water supply referred to. The Ilfracombe Urban District Council, within whose limits of supply Woolacombe is situate, propose to construct works in order to afford a new supply of water to that place. They have applied to the Local Government Beard for sanction to borrow money for the purpose, and a local inquiry has been held on the subject by one of the Board's inspectors. The inspector is now engaged
  † See (4) Debates, cxxix., 852,
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  on his report. I am unable to answer the last part of the Question.

  Army Pensions—Case of William Simmonds, late Royal Field Artillery.
  MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that William Simmonds, late No. 1,669 Royal Field Artillery, was enlisted on 8th June, 1858. and served twelve years in the Army and five years in the Reserve; that the Articles of War at that time stated that any soldier serving his first period may, on the recommendation of his commanding officer, at the age of fifty become entitled to a pension of 6d. a day; and that applications by William Simmonds to be recommended for this pension have been refused on the ground that he only served twelve years with the colours; and whether, seeing that Simmonds is now sixty-seven years old and unable to obtain work, he will consider the desirability of granting him a pension of 6d. a day.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) This man's application for a pension was considered by the Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital in June, 1904, and he was then informed that his service did not render him eligible for any pension from Army funds. In order to qualify for a deferred pension the Royal Warrant of 1st July, 1848 (not the Articles of War) required a minimum of fourleen years actual service with the colours, whereas Simmonds gave twelve years one month only. As he took part in no campaign he is not eligible for a special campaign pension, and there is no other class of pension for which he can be considered.

  Government Redistribution Proposals.
  MR. LOUIS SINCLAIR: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can now state the day on which he proposes to introduce the proposals, referred to in His Majesty's Speech from the Throne, for diminishing the anomalies in the present arrangement of electoral areas.
  (Answered by Mr. A, J. Balfour.) In the present condition of public business I fear I cannot appoint a day or introducing the proposals in question.

  The Ministry of Commerce—Government Proposals.
  MR. LOUIS SINCLAIR: To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is now in a position to state when he proposes to introduce the measure, promised in His Majesty's Speech from the Throne, to raise the status of the Local Government Board and the Board of Trade, and to create a Minister of Commerce.
  (Answered by Mr. A. J. Balfour.) I am afraid I cannot at present mention a day for the introduction of this measure; but due notice will be given.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Royalty payable by the Hyderabad (Deccan) Company.
    SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAG-GREE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether the Government of the Nizam reduced the royalty payable by the Hyderabad (Deccan) Company last year from four annas to one anna; and whether, in consequence of this reduction, the royalty fell in 1904 to £2,622, as against £9,727 recovered in 1903, causing a loss to the Hyderabad State of upwards of a lac of rupees; and, if so, will he state if this reduction in the rate of royalty was effected with the concurrence of the officer of the Government of India who advises the Nizam on financial matters, together with the reasons which prompted the reduction in question.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BRODRIOK, Surrey, Guildford): The Nizam's Government informed the Government of India in May, 1904, that they had decided to offer to the Hyderabad (Deccan) Company a reduction of the royalty payable by the company under the terms of the Singareni Coalfield lease to a fixed and uniform rate of two Halli Sicca annas per ton, and that the arrangement proposed had been accepted by the company. The reason given by the Nizam's Government was the lengthy and intricate character of the rules for assessing the royalty which were framed in 1893. I am not aware whether the Financial Secretary
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    to the Nizam was consulted in the matter, nor have I received any report as to the financial effect of the new rate.
    SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAG-GREE: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire if the Financial Secretary's advice was asked?
    MR. BRODRICK: I will inquire.

    Motor-Car Horns and Sunday Services.
    CAPTAIN ELLICE: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware of the annoyance caused to ministers and their congregations in the Metropolis by the constant hooting of motor-car horns during the hours of divine service on Sundays; and whether he will take steps to protect the public from this annoyance.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR, Leeds, Central): I have not received any complaints as to the-annoyance referred to. The regulation, requiring the driver of a motor-car whenever necessary by sounding his horn or bell to give warning, of the approach or position of the car is intended to secure the public safety, and it would be difficult to make exceptions to it. But I hope that motorists-generally will recognise the propriety of avoiding as far as possible the need for sounding a horn in the immediate neighbourhood of a church or chapel during the hours of divine service on Sundays.

    The Military Stores Report.
    MR. WHITLEY: I wish to ask the Secretary of State for War a Question of which I have given him private notice—namely, when the firma of Meyer (Limited) and Wilson & Worthington ceased to be contractors for the military authorities in South Africa; on whose authority the Press censors in South Africa prevented the publication of criticism on the contracts for the sale of supplies; and whether he will at once reappoint Sir William Butler's Committee with instructions to inquire further into all military

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    contracts made in South Africa since the close of the war.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOE WAR (Mr. ARNOLU-FORSTER,): In reply to the first Question, I ask leave to correct the Answer which I gave to a Question put to me yesterday without notice. I find that there are still some running contracts which have not yet been terminated, but I should add that immediately upon the discovery of the unsatisfactory nature of the transactions which have taken place with the firms referred to, I gave instructions that no further contracts were to be made with either of them. As regards the second part of the Question, there appears to be some misapprehension, as all restrictions on telegraphic correspondence to and from South Africa wore removed on July 21st, 1902. In reply to the third Question, I think that, in view of the further inquiry which is desired by the House, and which is contemplated by the Government, it is not necessary that Sir William Butler's Committee should continue its labours. I am confident that the proposed inquiry will be more satisfactory than any which can be carried on by the Committee, and, under these circumstances, I shall discontinue the Committee as soon as a conclusion has been arrived at. Had it not been for the establishment of another tribunal, I should certainly have authorised Sir William Butler's Committee to continue and to complete its work.
    MR. WHITLEY: May I ask further, with regard to the existing contracts with these firms, can the Secretary for War give us the date at which his order was sent forbidding further contracts to be entered into; and with regard to the action of the Press censors, his reply appears to me to refer only to telegraphic communications between the Transvaal and this country, whereas my Question was directed to the prevention of references appearing in the local newspapers in the Transvaal regarding these contracts. It has already been stated by one of the newspapers concerned that they were prevented by the Press censors from criticising as they wished to do these contracts soon
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    after they had been made, in the last three months of 1902.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: The order that no further contract should be made was sent by me on June 1st of this year.
    MR. WHITLEY: This year?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Yes, Sir, this year. With regard to the question of the censorship, I have answered the hon. Member's Question as I understood it. I know of no regulations in Pretoria which could have over-ridden our instructions. It is a fact that all communications were free and open, and no difficulty was experienced in sending any communications by telegraphic or other channels from Pretoria at that time.
    MR. WHITLEY: Were the local papers in Pretoria not subject to a censorship?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I am quite unaware of that fact. If the hon. Member wishes for the information I will ascertain.
    MR. WHITLEY: I will put a further Question.
    MR. PIRIE: Were these contracts of Meyer and Worthington annual contracts or nine months contracts? When did they begin and when do they stop? Are they going on at the present moment?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: They are going on. They were contracts accepted by open tender very early in the year and were for supplying the troops in certain localities with milk and groceries for the year. They were very small contracts.
    MR. PIRIE: Made this year?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Yes.
    MR. WHITLEY: These contracts were entered into six or eight months after the Auditor-General had drawn attention to the nature of the previous transactions with these firms.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Yes; that is so. These contracts with existing firms m South Africa were entered into in the

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    ordinary way locally for current supplies and they were accepted on the lowest tender.
    MR. KEIR HARDIE: When the present contracts expire will care be taken that new contracts are not given to the same persons under another alias?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I think I have given evidence of my views about that. The moment I ascertained that there was any possible charge against these contractors I gave instructions that no further contracts should be given to them.
    MR. LOUGH: Will the Prime Minister say what Cabinet Ministers were primarily responsible for sanctioning the sending of war supplies to South Africa for at least eight months after the war was over and authorising the sale of the supplies accumulated in South Africa and of those that arrived subsequently and the making of local contracts for the supply of the troops? Are these Ministers still members of the Government; does the Prime Minister intend to ask them to resign; and was he personally responsible for any of these matters?
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.): The hon. Gentleman is not a young and inexperienced Member of this House, and is probably sufficiently acquainted with our political system to know that the First Lord of the Treasury for the time being does not add to his multifarious duties that of supervising contracts for meat or milk in connection with military operations.
    MR. LOUGH: No milk was sent out. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Tea."]
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Gentleman asks me whether any other Cabinet Minister was primarily responsible for sanctioning the sending of war materials to South Africa at least eight months after the war had finished and authorising the disposal of supplies in
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    South Africa. To that I can only say that the hon. Gentleman is labouring under a profound mistake if he thinks that precautions were not taken by the then heads of the War Office with regard both to the supplies sent to South Africa after the war and the supervision and sale of those supplies in South Africa. It may not perhaps have occurred to the hon. Gentleman that when a war suddenly comes to a conclusion the machinery for supplying an immense army in a foreign theatre of war cannot be shut down by the mere fiat of any Minister or any Department, The hon. Gentleman talks of sending supplies eight months after the war. The last supply ship sailed from this country, I believe, on July 5th, 1902; and although the hon. Gentleman could not be acquainted with the fact, it is nevertheless true that precautions were taken both with regard to the sale of stores to the South African authorities and with regard to the sale of stores in South Africa to other persons—precautions which, if they have been unsuccessful, do not owe their want of success, so far as I am able to judge, to my lack of care on the part of the Secretary of State for War or any higher officials at the War Office. None of these officials have been examined or had any opportunity of giving 'their opinions or tendering their observations before the Committee which has just sat; and I regret that the hon. Gentleman should have cast aspersions against my right hon. friend and his subordinates at that time, without a tittle of evidence to support it.
    MR. LOUGH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware—to take one item—that forty-three cargoes of oats arrived after June 1st—112,000 tons—and that any of these cargoes might easily have been ordered elsewhere? They kept arriving for eight months.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That is not in the least contradictory to the Answer I have just given. I would remind the hon. Gentleman that when a contract has been entered into and freight has already been paid, it may be an economical, and very often will be an economical, course to allow those stores to be taken to their original destination. That is a

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    matter which must vary in each particular case. Contracts which have been entered into cannot be cancelled without a large pecuniary sacrifice.
    MR. LABOUCHERE: Does not the right hon. Gentleman accept the view of the collective responsibility of Ministers for anything done by one Minister?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have not gone into the question of responsibility at all.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The right hon. Gentleman, I think we understood as a result of the conversation yesterday, would to-day make a statement as to the conclusion he had come to with regard to the proper means of prosecuting the inquiry into these matters.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand the view of the right hon. Gentleman and his friends is that there should be a further inquiry into this matter. That is very strongly the view of His Majesty's Government. It is quite manifest that the inquiry we have had is utterly insufficient to enable anybody to arrive at the truth in regard to this matter, and it must be supplemented by some more efficient machinery. The only question is what that machinery should be As the House knows, I was inclined yesterday to think a Parliamentary Committee would be the most expeditious plan. Two circumstances, however, have somewhat modified that view. The first of these is that I gathered from such sources of information as are open to me that this method was not one acceptable to the House at large. The other is that it is not in accordance with precedent. The most relevant precedent, I think, is when a Commission was appointed to inquire into the charges of maladministration and corruption in connection with bent bayonets and broken swords of which the right hon. Gentleman knows. He was concerned in that matter—I do not, of course, mean personally.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: It was referred to by the right hon. Gentleman yesterday.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That was the transaction I referred to, and it is the most relevant precedent in every way, as far as I can judge. The course which was then taken, with the approval of the right hon. Gentleman, was to appoint a Commission. That was the course taken by the then Government with the approval of the then Opposition, and that, being the most on all fours with the present case, is the precedent we propose to follow. I shall therefore take the necessary steps to appoint a Commission to carry on these investigations which have hitherto been so imperfectly carried out.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I think the right hon. Gentleman has rightly interpreted the general desire and feeling of the House. The desire is that this matter should be further examined into by some body capable of administering an oath and compelling the attendance of witnesses and compelling the production of documents. Yesterday we were led to believe that the right hon. Gentleman favoured a Committee of the House. I think he has been wisely advised—by his own intelligence, no doubt—in altering that view; because, although there is a good deal to be said on both sides, such a Commission as he proposes appears to me to be on the whole the best means of dealing with this question. But that is only a part of the question—an inquiry into the manner in which certain public officers have discharged their duties in South Africa. I have to say that we take a somewhat larger view of the matter, and at all events we separate that branch of the inquiry altogether from another which we consider at least of equal importance, and that is the conduct of His Majesty's Government with regard to these transactions. We think that that is a matter—the facts being admitted and known and requiring no further investigation—
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Which facts?
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: We know sufficient to enable us, as we

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    think, and as I think the country is of opinion, to judge of the conduct of His Majesty's Government; and, therefore, as this is a matter of immediate importance, I beg to say that we shall submit a Motion on the subject without any delay.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Do I under stand the right hon. Gentleman to say that he wants a discussion first and then an inquiry? If so, I can only say that a procedure more totally and absolutely inconsistent with elementary justice was never suggested—
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No, Sir. What we desire is—it will be difficult—to prevent, if we can, the right hon. Gentleman from sheltering himself behind the inquiry. There are two branches of the question—[Interruption on the MINISTERIAL side]—if the Irish Secretary will allow me to speak—
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALTER LONG, Bristol, S.): I never opened my mouth.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNEKMAN: There are two branches of the question, the one affecting the conduct of the officers on the spot in South Africa, and the other affecting the manner in which the Government at home have dealt with the whole question from first to last. They are entirely separate from each other, and it is on the second alone that the Motion I have referred to will be made.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The distinction presented by the right hon. Gentleman seems to me absolutely absurd. Does he really suggest to this House, as the responsible Leader of the Opposition, that we should so frame the reference to the Commission as to prevent it from inquiring into the laches, or the supposed laches, of the Government and the Ministers and officials under it? [OPPOSITION cries of "No."] Very well, you mean to include that in the reference, and to debate it first; a course that is grossly unjust.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The right hon. Gentleman will perhaps remember in the midst of his indignation
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    a little fact, which is that he promised the House a day for the discussion of this subject.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No.
    MR. BLAKE: Will the Commission be set up at the instance of and on the advice of this House, and will the names of the Commissioners be suggested to the House before the Commission is set up, particularly considering the fact that it is intended that the reference shall be wide enough to embrace the conduct of Ministers who themselves are going to appoint the Commissioners?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I hope the House will notice the procedure which has been adopted. I suggested machinery yesterday which the right hon. Gentleman says I was right in abandoning to-day. That machinery would have allowed the House to determine who the Committee should be who were to deal with this question. I have abandoned that in deference to opinions that were expressed, and I am now asked to depart from the ordinary procedure for appointing a Royal Commission, to violate precedent, because, forsooth, the hon. Gentleman thinks that the Government are going to be attacked. All I have to say to it is that we shall rigidly adhere to the ordinary practice in such cases, and shall not depart from it.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I do not gather whether the right hon. Gentleman intends to grant a day for a vote of censure which has been asked.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, who was interrupted by Ministerial cries of "Oh": The Chief Secretary must really control himself.
    MR. REDDY: Order, order! You are not suppressing a meeting in Ireland now.
    MR. WALTER LONG: I have not spoken.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I presume it is a statutory Commission to which the right hon. Gentleman refers?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: Then what is it?
    SIR CHARLES DILKE: I understood the Prime Minister to say that he did not promise a day for the discussion of this question. But is it not the fact that another day in Supply was promised to me in consideration of my not moving an Amendment when the Vote on which this matter would have arisen was before the House. I, in fact, began my speech then by saying I would not go into the matter of the contracts because another day had been promised.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I thought the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was referring, not to a Supply day, but to a day allocated quite outside the ordinary procedure of the House. It is perfectly true that I did say that in consideration of this matter not being discussed on the Supply day in which it would have been relevant, I should take care that another Supply day would be given.
    MR. LABOUCHERE: Does the right hon. Gentlemen intend to follow the precedent of what has been done in the case of the incriminated officers and to suspend the Minister for War?
    SIR HENRY FOWLER: Will the Commission have power to take evidence on oath?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes.
    MR. WHITLEY: May I ask whether the officers who have been relieved of their duties have applied for or been given an opportunity of a Court-martial whereby they may be tried by their fellow officers and cleared or found guilty, as the case may be, of the charges made in the Butler Report?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: No such application has been received. I do believe that a court-martial is the legitimate procedure in the case of an officer, but I also believe, and the House will agree with me, that if the House should
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    insist on another larger inquiry which is to embrace all the matters which would be brought before the Court-martial, nothing but confusion and probably nothing but disadvantage to the officers concerned would result from having the two inquiries Concurrently. If there were to be no inquiry instituted by this House or by the Government I am quite of opinion that a Court-martial would be the legitimate and obvious tribunal for these officers to state their case before.
    MR. WHITLEY: If the House is of opinion that a Court-martial would be the proper course, would not that clear the way for the Commission to deal with the separate question of the responsibility of the War Office?
    SIR HENRY FOWLER: I hope there will be no misunderstanding on this question. The Prime Minister said that one of the advantages of the form of inquiry he proposed would be the power to administer an oath. I should like to ask once again whether there is any power short of an Act of Parliament which would enable a Commission to administer an oath? We were told, I think, at the time of the Parnell Commission it was necessary to have an Act of Parliament in order to enable the Commission to administer the oath.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly, right. I was under the impression yesterday that a Royal Commission could not administer an oath; but I have looked into the precedents, and I find that in the case of this very Commission in 1886, the Commission had power, not derived from statute, but from the terms of its appointment, to administer an oath.
    MR. BRYCE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he has found any precedent for a Royal Commission having power to compel the attendance of witnesses?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, Sir, I do not know that they have that power.
    SIR ROBERT REID: Will the right hon. Gentleman, before committing himself to this course, inquire

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    whether a Royal Commission without any statutory authority is a constitutional tribunal endowed with any of the powers referred to—namely, the power to administer an oath and the power to compel the production of documents and the attendance of witnesses?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As I understand the matter, the precedents show conclusively that a Royal Commission has been appointed which has the power to administer an oath and that such a Commission has actually administered the oath. That was the case of the Commission of 1886, over which Sir James Fitzjames Stephen presided. He not only had the power given him in the terms of reference, but he exercised the power and the oath was administered. With regard to the production of documents the same power does not exist.
    MR. BRYCE: The Commission will not have power to compel attendance of witnesses.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, I do not think they have that power.
    LORD EDMUND FITZMAURICE>: What power has a Royal Commission to compel a witness to accept an oath if he declines? I mean could a witness be committed for contempt in consequence by the Commission or by the High Court?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have to remind the noble Lord that this is not a question of theory, but of practice; and as a matter of fact three or four Commissions within relatively recent times have actually been appointed and empowered to administer an oath, and have actually administered an oath. I think that should be sufficient.
    MR. JOHN MORLEY>: Would the right hon. Gentleman recall the circumstances under which what is commonly known as the Parnell Commission was appointed? That was a statutory Commission.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes; but there was a very important question involved in the appointment of the Parnell Commis-
    1224
    sion, which was the power of giving an indemnity to witnesses. That could not possibly be done except by statute, and that. I should imagine, is not either required or desired in this case.
    SIR ROBERT REID: Does the Attorney-General say that there is any authority apart from a statute for His Majesty to appoint a Commission of inquiry into such things as he may think fit, or that he may be advised to inquire into, with the power of administering an oath, and with the consequence of a charge of perjury in the event of that oath being violated?
    THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir ROBERT FINLAY,): I think my hon. and learned friend will find, if he refers to precedents, that there are four since 1860, including that year, 1862, and, I think, 1867, and certainly 1886, where the power to administer an oath was contained in a clause of the Royal Commission itself, and that power has been acted upon.
    MR. LABOUCHERE: Will the Prime Minister agree to lay on the Table of the House all the documents in the possession of the War Office or any other Department tending to throw light on this subject?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: All the documents will naturally be at the command of the Commission itself.
    MR. LABOUCHERE: But we want them here.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Let the House hear this. They have refused a Committee of this House. I think the inquiry should be conducted before one body, not before two bodies, and of course the information will be given to the Commission.
    MR. WHITLEY: May I ask the Prime Minister whether he has taken any steps, in view of the grave statement of the Butler Committee that important documents bearing on this matter have either been lost or destroyed already, to ensure that all documents now in existence shall be preserved for whatever inquiry there is?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I have already taken steps that all documents connected with the inquiry both at home and in South Africa shall be impounded.

  NEW BILLS.
    REVENUE BILL.
    "To amend the Law relating to Customs and Inland Revenue; and for other purposes connected with Finance," presented by Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer; supported by Mr. Victor Cavendish; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 247.]
    JUDICATURE AND DEVELOPMENT GRANT (IRELAND) BILL.
    "To augment the Ireland Development Grant by means of the abolition of two Judgeships and the reduction of the salary of the Lord Chancellor and the transfer of certain accumulations, and to make provision with respect to the application of portion of that Grant," presented by Mr. Walter Long; supported by Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 248.]

    SUPPLY.
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    [Mr. GRANT LAWSON, upon the Motion of Mr. A. J. Balfour, took the Chair as Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1905–6.

    CLASS I.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £22,000, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1906, for constructing a new Harbour of Refuge at Peterhead."
    Whereupon Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Pro-
    1226
    gress and ask leave to sit again"—(Mr. A. J. Balfour),—put, and agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

  MR. SPEAKER'S RETIREMENT (KING'S ANSWER TO ADDRESS, 7TH JUNE).
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  [Mr. GRANT LAWSON (Yorkshire, N.R., Thirsk) in the Chair.]
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the annual sum of £4,000 net be granted to His Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the said annuity to commence and take effect upon the day upon which the right hon. William Court Gully, late Speaker of the House of Commons, ceased to hold the office of Speaker of the House of Commons, to be settled in the most beneficial manner upon, and to continue during the life of, him the said right hon. William Court Gully."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)
  MR. KEIR HARDIE>moved to reduce the sum of £4,000 to £1,000. He wished to make it perfectly clear that he was animated by no personal feeling. Had he been present when the tributes were paid to the late Speaker he could have agreed with every word then spoken and every sentiment given expression to. But £4,000 was too much for one individual, and any sum was too much to pay to an official of that House so long as they could not find any sum, however small, to vote as pensions to aged workmen, of whom there were thousands—to whom the remark made of the Speaker that he had earned his pension by the performance of his duty equally applied. The other day some 500 men marched from Leicester to London in search of work. Out of the number 164 were ex-Army men, for whom no pensions had been provided. If it was to be a question of granting pensions to public servants only as distinct from ordinary civil workmen surely an ex-soldier was entitled to rank equally with

  1227
  an ex-Speaker. Ten years ago, when a similar Motion was made on the retirement of Mr. Speaker Peel, he said at the outset that it was a very disagreeble duty he had to perform. It was equally so that day, but it was a duty that had to be done and which would have to be done more frequently in the future than in the past. In order to mark his opinion that a pension of £4,000 was too much to be paid to an ex-official of that House, so long as working people outside got no pension at all, he begged
  to move the substitution of £1,000 for £4,000.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out "£4,000," and insert "£1,000."—(Mr. Keir Hardie)
  Question put, "That '£4,000' stand part of the Question."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes, 245; Noes, 17. (Division List No. 201.)

  AYES.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Higham, John Sharp

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Hoarc, Sir Samuel

  Allhusen, Augustus Henry E.

  Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

  Hobhouse, Rt Hn H (Somers't, E.

  Allsopp, Hon. George

  Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan

  Hogg, Lindsay

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Denny, Colonel

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. H. O.

  Dewar, John A (Inverness-shire

  Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

  Arrol, Sir William

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Hornby, Sir William Henry

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline Fitz Roy

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Howard, J (Midd, Tottenham)

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Hozier, Hn. James Henry C.

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

  Balcarres, Lord

  Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir Wm. Hart

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r

  Edwards, Frank

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Jones, D. Brynmor (Swansea)

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds)

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Emmott, Alfred

  Keswick, William

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Evans, Sir F. H. (Maidstone)

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

  Fellowes, Rt. Hn. Ailwyn Edw.

  Kitson, Sir James

  Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

  Fenwick, Charles

  Knowles, Sir Lees

  Blake, Edward

  Fergusson, Rt. Hn Sir J. (Manc'r

  Labouchere, Henry

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Lambton, Hn. Fredk. Wm.

  Bond, Edward

  Findlay, Alex. (Lanark, N. E.)

  Lamont, Norman

  Boulnois, Edmund

  Finlay, Sir R. B (Inv'rn'ss B'ghs

  Langley, Batty

  Brassey, Albert

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Laurie, Lieut.-General

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Brown, George M. (Edinburgh

  Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Lee, A. H. (Hants, Fareham)

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Flower, Sir Ernest

  Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Forster, Henry William

  Leese, Sir J. F. (Accrington)

  Bull, William James

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Burt, Thomas

  Freeman-Thomas, Captain F.

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Caldwell, James

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Long, Col. Chas. W. (Evesham

  Campbell, Rt. Hn. J A (Glasgow

  Gardner, Ernest

  Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S

  Campbell, J. (Armagh, S.)

  Garfit, William

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

  Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk.

  Lough, Thomas

  Carson, Rt. Hn. Sir Edw. H.

  Gordon, Hn. J. E (Elgin & Nairn

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Gordon, Maj Evans (T'rH'mlets

  Lucas, Reginald J (Portsmouth

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Cawley, Frederick

  Greene, Sir E W (B'ry S Edm'nds

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Chamberlain, Rt Hn J A (Worc.)

  Greene, Henry D. (Shrewsbury

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Chapman, Edward

  Hamilton, Rt. Hn. Lord G (Mid'x

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Hamilton, Marq of (L'nd'nderry

  M'Arthur, Chas. (Liverpool)

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  Harcourt, Lewis

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh, W

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshir

  Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th

  Malcolm, Ian

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  Marks, Harry Hananel

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Hayter, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur D.

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Craig, Chas. Curtis (Antrim, S.

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Middlemore, J. Throgmorton

  Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark

  Helder, Augustus

  Milvain, Thomas

  Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Mitchell, Wm. (Burnley)

  Montagu, Hn. J. Scott (Hants.)

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs)

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Morley, Rt. Hn. John (Montrose

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Turnour, Viscount

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Valentia, Viscount

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Waldron, Laurence Ambrose

  Mount, William Arthur

  Rose, Charles Day

  Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir Wm. H.

  Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

  Rothschild, Hn. Lionel Walter

  Walton, John Lawson(Leeds, S

  Murray, Chas. J. (Coventry)

  Runciman, Walter

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Myers, William Henry

  Russell, T. W.

  Warde, (Colonel C. E.

  Nicholson, William Graham

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Sadler, Col. S. Alexander

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney

  O'Malley, William

  Samuel, Sir H. S. (Limehouse)

  Welby, Lt-Col A. C. E. (Taunton

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Samuel, Herb. L. (Cleveland)

  Welby, Sir Chas. G. E. (Notts.)

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Seely, Maj. J. E. B. (Isle of Wight

  Wharton, Rt. Hn. John Lloyd

  Pearson, Sir Weetman D.

  Sharpe, Wm. Edward T.

  White, Luke (York, E. R.)

  Peel, Hn. Wm. R. Wellesley

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Pemberton, John S. G.

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Wilson, H. J. (York, W. R.)

  Percy, Earl

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Wilson, John (Falkirk)

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Wilson, John (Glasgow)

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Spencer, Rt. Hn C. R (Northants

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Stanley, Edw. Jas. (Somerset)

  Woodhouse, Sir J T (Huddersf'd

  Plummer, Sir Walter R.

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.

  Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Sullivan, Donal

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Wylie, Alexander

  Purvis, Robert

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H.

  Randles, John S.

  Tennant, Harold John

  Younger, William

  Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne

  Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr

  Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

  Thornton, Percy M.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir

  Remnant, James Farquharson

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Alexander Acland-Hood and

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Toulmin, George

  Mr. Herbert Gladstone.

  NOES.

  Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N. E.)

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Parrott, William

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Richards, Thomas

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Nolan, Col. J. P. (Galway, N.)

  Shackleton, David James

  Crooks, William

  O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid.)

  Delany, William

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

  Donelan, Captain A.

  O'Connor, Jas. Wicklow, W.)

  Keir Hardie and Mr. Nan

  Doogan, P. C.

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  netti.

  Main Question put, and agreed to.

  Resolution to be reported to-morrow.

  EAST INDIA REVENUE ACCOUNTS.
  Order for Committee read.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BRODRICK, Surrey,): I beg to move "that the House do go into Committee on the East India Revenue Accounts." I find myself fortunate this afternoon not merely in the nature of the statement I have to make to the House, but in the time of year at which the opportunity is afforded me. This year is an exception to the custom which has usually obtained of deferring the debate to the close of the session, and I hope this is a precedent that will be followed on future occasions
  1230
  by myself, should it be my good fortune to hold office, or by some hon. Gentleman opposite. Discussion at this earlier period is more likely to lead to useful criticism and efficient administration. The story I have to unfold shows that the revenue for 1904–5 was the largest ever gathered. The Estimates are known to the House. The figures for 1903–4 showed a surplus of £2,996,400 and last year showed a surplus of £3,485,500, the Estimates of August last having been exceeded. Although the whole of the surplus cannot be anticipated for future years, special causes having intervened as regards railway receipts and the opium duty to make the surplus an exceptional one, still the general state of progress and prosperity in the country is indicated by the figures. It is not merely the figures themselves that will most appeal to the House. If

  1231
  the man who takes a comparatively scant or perfunctory interest in the finances and administration of India were asked what were the points upon which, during the last year, his mind had been chiefly fixed by his conversation with others and his reading in newspapers, they would be found to be not the points indicating the exceptional prosperity of the country, but the number of drawbacks from which India has suffered in the past year. There has been a great, and what I fear is a growing, visitation of the plague; scarcity has occurred in certain districts owing to the partial failure of the monsoons, and owing to frost of a very severe character in Northern India during February and March, causing reductions in land revenue; and in April there was the exceptional and wholly unexpected visitation of earthquake which involved some call on the finances of the country.
  Perhaps in passing I may be allowed to say a few words on the visitation of the plague. I know there are Members of this House who have some degree of anxiety as to the amount of care and trouble taken by the Government of India with regard to this matter. I grant at once that if it were possible to apply in India all the remedies which science suggests and good government can afford we might largely decrease the present exceptional and unfortunate mortality. If we had been able to apply to the whole general public of India all those measures which we are able to take with regard to the special bodies of the Indian population who are under our control, for instance, the Indian Army and the prisoners confined in the gaols—if we had been able on all occasions to secure that infected clothing should be at once burnt, that infected buildings should be properly dealt with, that persons travelling from infected stations should be at once segregated, and that all those remedies which have been effectual in much smaller are is should be, applied, I do not doubt that this great mortality might have been to a large extent arrested. Any man in this House who is acquainted with the habits and feelings of the people of India knows that such measures as these could not be
  1232
  universally adopted without an excessive stoppage of all the ordinary operations of trade and travelling, and of the usual avocations of individuals in the State, and that their adoption would excite the utmost suspicion and possibly even active resistance if they were applied without the consent and in opposition to the wishes of the people. It is a lamentable fact that we have not yet been able to educate our Indian fellow-subjects to an appreciation of the dangers which they incur by concealment, and also by the neglect of precautions with regard to the outbreak of this disease.
  I think the statistics with regard to the native troops may be said to be wonderfully good. We have to record the loss of more than a million of human beings throughout India from the ravages of plague. But among over 140,000 native troops we have only to report 115 deaths. That is an infinitesimal fraction. That shows, I think, that a special degree of credit is due to the energy and forethought of those who preside over the sanitary arrangements of the native troops. The House will be better able to appreciate these figures when they read in the Sanitary Commissioner's Report that out of a total of 184 military stations, fifty-seven were situated in or near towns or districts in which plague occurred among the general population, and in these fifty-seven stations only twenty-four had cases among the Sepoys. Having regard to the way in which the Sepoys mix with the general population, that fact reflects great credit on the medical authorities. In the gaols, of course, our path is much easier. The cases discovered in the gaols numbered only thirty-four, of which twenty-three proved fatal, although of the 245 gaols 159 were situated in infected districts. I can assure the House that there has been no indifference on the part of the Government of India or of the local Governments in regard to this important matter, and there has been no neglect. Every reasonable precaution has been pressed upon the people, and we have sent out in the last few months a special Commission to endeavour by systematic scientific research to establish, if they can, further means for the prevention of this

  1233
  disease. I fear it must be confessed that this is one of the cases in which, with the wonderful development of surgery in medical science, there are still departments of medicine in which there are countries, not altogether unexplored, but still to be conquered. I believe we have still much to learn in regard to the sources of this disease. We shall avail ourselves to the utmost of what we may learn from this Commission, who will have at their disposal the whole of the sanitary corps and appliances of the country.
  Then, from the anticipated receipts of last year for land revenue we had to relinquish £618,000 to meet the failure of the monsoon in Gujerat and certain districts of Madras, and from the present year we have to deduct on account of the frost in Northern India, in March, 42½ lakhs of rupees already remitted, and 7½ lakhs suspended, pending the decision as to how far the harvest has been affected. These remissions have been, and will be, promptly given. With regard to the earthquake fortunately the damage done, although the extent of it was most alarming, has not been such as to cast an immense charge on the revenues of India. But there have been very heavy losses to individuals; and I have been in communication with the Government of India and have impressed upon them the necessity of endeavouring, in a matter in which no human control and no prevention is possible, to give liberally to these who have chiefly suffered by the loss of their houses or by personal injure. With regard to the Gurkha regiments, who especially suffered, the Commander-in-Chief has recommended, and the Government of India support, the grant of free passages to England to officers' families or widows who have been obliged to proceed home, a grant of 60,000 rupees to assist in rebuilding the mess houses and private houses, a grant to the band fund, for mess furniture, to the regimental institutions, and other offices, and injury pensions or gratuities to injured officers on the ordinary scale. We propose to exercise our powers under the Royal Warrant in as liberal a manner as possible in order to relieve these
  1234
  officers and men as far as we can of the misfortune they have encountered.
  Having mentioned these drawbacks. I am brought back to the fact that the revenue collected last year was, none the less, the largest ever gathered in India. Trade showed the largest returns, and the expenditure by the poorer classes was on the most satisfactory scale. We are forced to ask ourselves—is this prosperity temporary? Is it simply a flash in the pan? Are we asking this House to deal with an assured surplus, or are we distributing funds which form a fortuitous windfall? I think the best answers to these questions are to be found in the accounts I am not one of those who are inclined to place too highly the stability of Indian finance. I remember always that we are dealing in the mass with a very poor population, and that the sources of Indian financial prosperity have fluctuated in the post. But I venture to ask the House of Commons to believe that the sources of prosperity have been placed, and are being placed, on a more stable basis, the foundation of which we now believe is, thanks to good government for many years past, one from which we may hope for assured returns. We cannot bring all India to such a condition that she may be altogether exempt from these great calamities which overtake her from time to time. By the expenditure of money we may set up irrigation colonies in one part of India, but natural difficulties prevent our establishing similar colonies in another part, say in the Deccan or Bombay. But what we can do is to bring the prosperity of one part of India to the needs of the other.
  Now, Sir, the statistics of trade during this last year are remarkable. In 1902–3 the total trade of India was £143,476,000. In 1903–4 it advanced to £164,000,000. In 1904–5 it advanced again to £174,748,000. That is a steady advance following years of advance. I believe it is largely to be accounted for by the improved condition of agriculture, by the improved arrangements for manufacture, and, above all, by the great extension of railways. Of the £143,000,000 of trade in 1902–3, £62,000,000 was trade directly with Great Britain. Of the trade of last year

  1235
  (£174,748,000), £77,000,000 was directly to and from Great Britain. That is not an inconsiderable item in the trade of Great Britain, and it is a great increase in two years. And if we compare those figures, as some people from different points of view are now occupied in comparing the trade of the Colonies with the trade of India, I could point out that the exports from the United Kingdom to India in 1902, which were £33,500,000, were equal to the exports to Canada, the British Colonies in North America, and to Australia, and last year the exports to India, which had grown to £40,000,000, equalled the whole of the exports from this country to Australia, to Canada, and to Cape Colony combined. I trust I shall carry every Member of this House with me when I say that the trade of India with the United Kingdom tends continually to increase, and that the stake of the United Kingdom in the trade of India and the stake of India in the trade of the United Kingdom are such that we are entitled to claim for India the first place after the United Kingdom on all the discussions that may take place as regards trade within the Empire.
  What are the several sources of India's prosperity? I alluded a few moments ago to the question of railways. In 1905 we had 27,749 miles of railway, of which 623 miles were opened in 1904–5. We had 3,139 miles under construction. Our passengers, who in 1902 numbered 196,000,000, rose in 1903 to 210,000,000 and in 1904 to 229,000,000—an enormous and progressive increase. The tonnage of merchandise, which was 45,500,000 in 1902, rose to 47,500,000 in 1903, and to nearly 54,500,000 in 1904. These figures alone show what has been often put before this House by my predecessor, that there is no expenditure of money which so much adds to the wealth of the Government, while also adding to the material prosperity of the people, as this expenditure on railways in India at the present time. There is another evidence of the continuous prosperity of the year that I ought to mention. It is the absorption of precious metals, the imports of which in 1902 exceeded the exports by £10,500,000, in 1903 by just over £15,500,000, and in 1904
  1236
  by just under £15,500,000. This shows a demand among private individuals, notably among the poorer classes, for the precious metals. The Savings Banks showed a balance of £7,500,000 in 1900, of £9,000,000 in 1903, and in 1905 of £10,700,000. All this evidence tends in the same direction and shows that the Government of India are within their rights in treating the present prosperity as the result of ascertainable causes, and not due merely to fortuitous windfalls.
  The two questions which I would ask the House to consider to-day are (1) whether we are right in the application of the surplus which we have realised, and (2) whether the measures which we are taking outside that surplus for the maintenance and enhancement of the prosperity of India are sufficient and prudent. The surplus with which we have to deal has enabled us to make a further reduction of taxation. It is not a mere statement of profit and loss, but we hope we are making what may be a permanent reduction, or at all events what is a permanent insurance, in this respect. We have not reached our limits in reducing taxation, and the more we can reduce the salt tax the more we know that if, by misfortune or a series of bad years, it becomes necessary at any time to increase taxation, we have something on which, without unduly pressing on those concerned, we may lay our lands for an increased revenue. The salt tax was 2 rupees per maund from 1882 to 1888 and 2½ rupees from 1888 to 1893. It was reduced by my noble friend to 2 rupees in 1903, and we have reduced it this year to 1½ rupees. A great many questions have been raised as to whether this reduction of a tax which is a tax on a necessary of life really reaches the poorer classes. That is a difficult thing to say, but perhaps the best proof is that the consumption of salt has increased. Whether that increased consumption is entirely due to those who had not this necessary of life before being now able to obtain it I cannot say, but I suppose the reduction of the tax means, to a certain extent, that there is a little more freedom in the use of the article. But we have made the experiment; the tax

  1237
  has been reduced 40 per cent. in two years, and I hope we shall have the support of the House in doing so.
  The Government of India also found it possible this year to concede the abolition of the famine cesses which have been levied in the United Provinces, the Punjab, and the Central Provinces since 1878, amounting to £151,000 a year. They have given grants for primary education (which will meet the views of those Members who last year pressed, and pressed very fairly, upon the notice of the House the necessity for increased primary education throughout India), amounting to £350,000, for the increasing of staffs, and the building and setting up of new schools. I do not for a moment contend that this is more than an instalment of the work which is required to be done, but it is a considerable step in advance. We propose to spend on agricultural development, on demonstration farms, and on other agricultural scientific purposes £214,000. The Government of India have given the Local Governments and district local boards for civil works, roads, sanitation, and other services which could not possibly be undertaken out of local revenue, £758,000. There is an increased charge for the police of £405,000. Those Members who have read the Report of the Police Commission will consider that we were well warranted in having reconsidered the whole position of the police. There have been differences of opinion as to whether the Police Commission have given sufficient weight to diversity of rates of pay and diversity of conditions in different provinces; but, after the most careful review, we cannot doubt that, if we are to have what we are determined to have, an efficient and uncorrupt police, we are bound to give a certain rise in pay and improved inspection, and we believe the action now proposed will not only be to the advantage of the Government, but will come home to the individual in every district. We shall have to ask for a further addition next year, but I am sure the House will support the Government of India in the courageous manner in which they have dealt with this question.
  These different items amount in all to £3,120,000. I have dwelt upon them
  1238
  not only because they are necessary to the statement I am putting before the House, but because I desire to make it perfectly clear that these charges, which are charges either for remission of taxation or for civil improvements, have come before us pari passu, and with equal weight, with another charge which we find it necessary to impose for the farther development of our military forces in India. It is my duty this afternoon to ask the House of Commons to increase the charge for military services by something like £2,440,000. Between 1900–01, when the net charge for military services was a little over £15,000,000, and 1905–6, when it has reached a little over £20,500,000, we have made undoubtedly very considerable extra-demands on the finances of India. I believe those finances can bear them. But, a part from that, those of us who listened to the Prime Minister's speech the other day will be aware that the division of responsibility between India and this country is now a recognised division proceeding on lines that, at all events, we can understand. The main reason for which the military forces of this country are now organised is the defence of India. It has been laid down by His Majesty's Government that, while India will continue to reserve the 75,000 British troops and the 140,000 native troops, or thereabouts, which she holds at disposal at the present time in a case of emergency, it is her duty to provide those troops with transport, with all supplies, and with all the material of war necessary to keep them in the field for a year without fresh supplies from home. I believe that to be an absolutely sound provision, and one for which we have a right to ask the continued and constant support of Parliament. On the other hand, the Prime Minister recognised the necessity and responsibility of this country, in case of an attack coming upon us from the only land frontier from which we can suppose a foreign attack, to provide the necessary troops, rather over 120,000 men, to supplement the Indian Army according as the necessities require. It may be said that for India to spend £20,500,000 on army preparations out of a revenue of £82,000,000 is a large strain, while Great Britain is spending only £29,800,000 out of a revenue of £144,000,000. But it must

  1239
  be remembered that the Indian charge contains the whole charge, while the British charge is entirely apart from the Navy expenditure of £33,400,000, of which India contributes only an infinitesimal fraction, and from the charges for military and naval works, which bring up the whole expenditure of Great Britain to £71,000,000 out of a revenue of £144,000,000. Roughly speaking, we may say that, although an absolute comparison would be an impossibility, India is spending one-fourth, while Great Britain is spending one-half, of her revenue on military preparations. I am prepared to maintain the importance of India's carrying out to the full her share of the bargain which has been laid down, on condition that Great Britain is ready to adhere to her share of it.
  The sum we ask for this year is increased by £2,400,000 for Lord Kitchener's reorganisation scheme, and makes up the whole total of £20,500,000. That reorganisation will give us the following advantages—the formation of nine divisions in peace and war, in place of the four divisons previously existing, and an increase of the field army from 80,000 to 140,000 men; it makes provision for mobilisation, equipment, transport, and stores; it provides, out of the £10,000,000, which is the total to which we have provisionally agreed, for the complete re-equipment of the Indian Army with field artillery. I am glad to say that the orders we gave in November, 1903, for the field artillery, which were the first orders accepted, are now beginning to bear fruit. The scheme also provides for the re-grouping of the troops so as to bring them nearer to the North-West Frontier. Further, it provides—and I ask for the special attention of the House to this particular—for the maintenance in India of manufacturing establishments which will make India self-supporting in all the necessaries of war. We opened this year a gun-carriage factory at Jubbulpore; also next year we hope to open a gun factory at Cossipore; a rifle factory at Ishapore, and at Cawnpore a manufactory for horse-shoes as well as harness and saddlery, which are necessary, and which we believe we can provide not merely with equal efficiency, but at a less cost than by exportation from this
  1240
  country. It does not need any speech from me to make it clear that it is absolutely necessary in the early stages of a war for India to be self-supporting. This expenditure is large, but the need is pressing; and although for some years we shall be making a larger demand—still not, I hope in excess of that of this year—than that which has hitherto been made for military purposes, I hope it will be remembered that we do so at a time when the general revenue of India is higher than it has ever been, and when the salt tax is lower than it has ever been since the Mutiny.
  I should like for one moment to pay a tribute to the great work set on foot by Lord Kitchener since he went to India two and a half years ago. I have had a good many Questions to answer as to certain difficulties which have arisen in the Army administration of India during the past and the present years, but I have not been in a position up till now to make a statement or lay Papers on this subject. The despatch which we received from the Government of India in the middle of April met with most careful attention from His Majesty's Government, and our reply only reached India at the beginning of this week. Had it been possible I should have desired to lay this despatch on the Table before this debate, but I hope that it will be distributed before the close of this week. In these circumstances, however, the House will wish me to give a brief summary of the points which are referred to in detail in the despatch. Let me begin by saying that no difficulties that have arisen have arisen in consequence of any obstruction to Lord Kitchener's schemes for the reorganisation of the Army by the Military Department, between whom and the Commander-in-Chief's Department there has been some friction. The officers who, under Major-General Sir E. Elles, administer the Military Department have heartily and patriotically seconded Lord Kitchener's schemes in their main principles. But, having had in view the general situation in India, His Majesty's Government have not been able to conceal from themselves that the position of the Commander-in-Chief has become an anomalous one, and that he does his

  1241
  work under anomalous conditions. The Government of India—the Governor-General in Council—must necessarily be supreme over the Commander-in-Chief as over every person and every department of the Government. But that supremacy in the past, and very recently, has been carried out by means of placing in charge of the Military Department an officer with inferior rank to the Commander-in-Chief, an officer who, though of high standing, is yet necessarily a man with an inferior military position. Every proposal made by the Commander-in-Chief, whether it concerns a technical military point, on which he ought to be the chief, and, as we think, the only adviser of the Government, or whether it concerns a financial or political question, has equally to come under the review of his subordinate in Army matters, the Military Member of the Council. We hold that it is absolutely necessary for the Commander-in Chief and his Department to be under the check of the supreme Government in all matters political and financial; but in regard to technical military questions—whether an army corps shall have twenty-five batteries or twenty, whether a brigade shall consist of six regiments or four—in regard to these questions the advice tendered to the Government of India should be a matter for the Commander-in-Chief alone and not for his military subordinate in charge of the Military Department. But up till now every such proposal made by the Commander-in-Chief has been reviewed by the Department of the Military Member, who first submits the question to the final Court of Appeal in India, the Governor-General in Council, then debates it in Council on a par with his colleague the Commander-in-Chief, and ultimately conveys to his colleague the decision of the Government of which they are both members. That seems to be an anomalous position of affairs, and it is rendered more so by the fact that there is an official, well known to some hon. Members, the Secretary to the Governor of India, in the Military Department, who is also a general officer and also subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief, but who is available for consultation by the Viceroy, and, apart from the Commander-in-
  1242
  Chief, can tender his advice on technical subjects. So there are two subordinate officers between the Viceroy and the Commander-in-Chief, both conversant with technical subjects and both advising upon them. I think the House will see that that system could only be worked by the aid of very great tact and forbearance on the part of all concerned.
  Lord Kitchener's solution of the difficulty was that he should take over all the work of the Military Department, order all the stores, make all the contracts, control the manufacturing departments, and carry out both the services which up to the present have taxed the whole time of men like General Brackenbury and Sir E. Elles. The Government of India, on the other hand, held that no man, however able, could take upon himself such a charge. They also held that the tendency of such a change would be to set up a military autocracy in the person of the Commander-in-Chief, which would militate against the power of the Government of India to exercise the control which they should exercise in all matters. His Majesty's Government have come to this decision. They cannot doubt that the present system has led to friction and delay, would not tend to the effective mobilisation of the Army, and does not sufficiently provide against dual control and overlapping of functions in Army matters. They think it necessary to free the Commander-in-Chief from delays which have been vexatious in regard to the preparation of some of his military measures; and they think also that his mind should be set free for the consideration of questions of military intelligence and mobilisation, without having to undertake the daily routine of the ordering of stores, controlling the manufacturing departments, and such work, which, even though some what military in its character, can hardly call for high military qualities. They propose to make a clear division of duties and to establish two departments in place of the present organisation, an Army Department under the Commander-in-Chief and a Military Supply Department presided over by the Military Member of the Council, which will not be regarded as a military department in

  1243
  the sense in which the present department is so regarded. The Commander-in-Chief will be directly responsible to the Governor-General in Council for the command, the staff, the discipline, training, and distribution of the Army, the Intelligence Department, mobilisation, schemes of offence and defence, peace manœuvres, preparations (excluding the supply of material) for war, and the conduct of war. The functions of the Military Supply Department will be limited to the responsibility for the control of Army contracts, purchase of stores, ordnance, and remounts, the management of military works, the clothing and manufacturing departments, the Indian Medical Service, and the Indian Marine. The recent development of the manufacturing departments, to which I alluded a few moments ago, the Viceroy informs us, will ultimately lead to the employment of from 15,000 to 20,000 artisans, and their control will give sufficient scope for the ability and the energy of the officer in charge. Such a rearrangement will leave the whole of the combatant service under the Commander-in-Chief. It is extremely desirable that the Commander-in-Chief's Department should be specially equipped to enable it to give more time to questions dealing with mobilisation, to which too small an amount of the energy of our Army has been devoted to in the past; and we propose, therefore, to give to Lord Kitchener, in view of his increased duties, a Chief of the Staff, who will undertake the responsibility for those further duties.
  MAJOR EVANS GORDON: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Supply Department will be presided over by a civilian or a military officer?
  MR. BRODRICK: That is a question which on each occasion of the appointment will be settled by those responsible. There is nothing in the department which prevents it form being president over by a civilian; but it is a department in which military knowledge, of course, will be a considerable advantage, and though it may not necessarily be presided over by an officer whose talents are specially in the direction of military
  1244
  service in the field, it should be presided over by an officer of high standing and long experience. But we attach special importance to this point, whoever holds the appointment, that if the Commander-in-Chief is a British officer and not an Indian officer, the officer in charge of the Military Supply Department must be an Indian officer or a Civil servant of considerable Indian experience. I hope my hon. friend would admit the desirability of that. Out of the three officers immediately under the Commander-in-Chief, we provide, when the Commander-in-Chief has no Indian experience, that two must necessarily be chosen from the Indian Army. These decisions have been communicated to the Government of India by His Majesty's Government and will be brought into operation before October 1st next. I trust they will meet with acceptance by those who in the past have doubted whether the present system was adapted to the needs of India.
  MR. BUCHANAN: Will legislation be necessary to make the change?
  MR. BRODRICK: No legislation will be necessary.
  I hope I may complete my review of the details of expenditure which we propose out of the surplus in hand with a reference to the provisions by which we propose, as far as we can, to make more permanent in India the present prosperity. The state of agriculture in India, if not primitive, is capable of an immense amount of development. Those who know that until recently there was no Agricultural Department in India will be glad to hear that the staff in three years has been increased from six to twenty; and that in the Civil Veterinary Department we contemplate the addition, as trained men become available, of about 600 native veterinary assistants in charge of local cattle dispensaries, and of about sixty veterinary inspectors to supervise them.
  With regard to establishing demonstration farms in various districts, although it may be some time before we can make them effective in all

  1245
  districts, we hope that their work is already appreciated. We have a great advance to show in cotton. This year, in addition to experiments in progress under Government management, we have expended £3,000 on a special experiment undertaken in conjunction with the British Cotton Growing Association, the Association finding an equal sum towards the cost. We hope to improve the indigenous types by proceeding on lines directed by modern science; but it is to be remembered that cultivators do not find for the best types of cotton the best market in India, The acreage under cotton last year was 19,000,000, an increase of 1,000,000 acres over the acreage of the previous year. Although we may not be able to compete with some of the Colonies in the supply of cotton for this country, we may perform an important function and the Government of India are doing their best to that end. In regard to other matters of development, I must refer to the extraordinary development of tea plantations in India. In the period of 1870 to 1875, India exported an average of 17,000,000lb. of tea per annum. In the period 1880 to 1885 the average was 55,000,000lb.; in the period 1890 to 1895 the average was 119,000,0001b.; and in the period 1900 to 1905 the average was 183,000,000lb. That immense development has enabled India, with Ceylon, to capture the whole of the British Market; and in little more than twenty years to reduce the use of China tea from 102,000,0001b. to 13,000,000lb. There is surely no more striking example in the whole history of commercial activity of what may be done by energy and enterprise.
  The Government of India have also taken up and put on a solid basis the irrigation schemes of the future. The work of a Commission, admirably done, has provided for the future and has laid down what number of productive works and what number of protective works must be undertaken in India. They propose that £30,000,000 shall be spent in twenty years on these works, divided as follows:—£10,000,000 on productive works, £14,000,000 on protective works, and £6,000,000 on intermediate works. I make no apology for the fact that the amount to be spent on
  1246
  protective works is larger. The profit on productive works is 8 per cent.; and, having regard to their advantage to the public, it is right that we should in those parts of India that are less favourably situated carry out operations which save so much suffering.
  With regard to the railway policy of India, what has been said by many others in this place, and what has been felt by many who speak with far greater authority and experience of the development of our railway policy in India, is that the time has come for us to take a definite step forward. We have this year formed a Railway Board, which has had much greater powers delegated to it by the Government. The board consists of experts—Mr. Upcott, long connected with the Railway Department in India; Mr. Wood, late of the Hull and Barnsley Railway; and Mr. Wynne, who has been connected with the Indian Public Works Department and with the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. India is, with the exception perhaps of China, the only country unprovided with an adequate system of railways, while having none of the difficulties of a new country—the need to wait for population and to create trade. It is not necessary to provide for a long period in which dividends must be paid out of capital while waiting for the ultimate return. You are stopped only by this one fact: that you cannot borrow sufficiently in the London market, or that it may not be wise to pledge to an outside creditor too large a proportion of the revenues of India. The 27,000 miles of railway that we have now in operation in India represent a capital expenditure of £235,000,000, on the whole of which interest is paid at 4·8 per cent, out of actual not revenue when all working expenses have been met. I can imagine that railway shareholders in England will envy such a condition of things. I believe that there is no better security in the world. I was struck by the remarks of Sir Edward Law, who in an admirable address recently was able to show not merely that these railways are paying their way, and that the whole debt guaranteed by the Government of India actually yields a surplus on its present returns, but that the whole assets of the Government of

  1247
  India more than equal their liabilities; that the debt of India is more than covered by its assets in public works; and that the interest is more than provided by the returns of those public works from year to year. That has occurred for the first time in the last two years. No country in the world can boast of a similar position, and it is my hope that this great development may inspire us to continue this work at a much greater rate than in the past. I believe that the condition of Indian finance has only to be appreciated to make it far easier to borrow the necessary money. I should like to double the present rate of railway construction. I believe that by doing so we shall not only add grist, to the mill of the Government, but confer incalculable advantage on the individual.
  In carrying out this change we have endeavoured to take a further step forward this year not only in the establishment of the Railway Board and the Agricultural Department, but also in the establishment of a special Department of Commerce and Industry. The Indian Government, like the Government of all new countries, began by having to employ all-round men. In past ages in the Western hemisphere every man had to practise more than one trade. The soldier was also a sailor, the clergy were also lawyers, the barber was a surgeon, and the trader retailed wares of every description. It is not realised how much responsibility falls on one single man in India even in the present day. Sir William Hunter has described what the district officer has to do. He has to collect the revenue from land and other sources; he is a criminal Judge; he performs locally the whole work done in this country by the Home Department. He looks after the police, the gaols, education, the municipalities, the roads, sanitation, the dispensaries, and local taxation. To perform all these functions he has to be a lawyer, an accountant, a financier, a ready writer, and he must have no mean knowledge of agriculture, political economy, and engineering. No one will deny that there is room for specialisation here now that the Government has so far advanced. When we set up a new department it is not in order to find fresh employment, but to relieve the overworked men where
  1248
  specialised work is required. India, as I have shown, has made great progress in the past. We stand on the, threshold of many developments, and we have been enabled to use the powers of government entrusted to us as a nation so as to avoid great calamities. The time has come when we should endeavour to bring that prosperity nearer home to each individual. We have a secure Government, an uncorrupt Administration. We can bring the advantages of the capital of the West to co-operate with the cheap labour of the East; and I hope that we shall be able to show in the next few years, by building on that foundation, that we are doing something even more substantial than in the past for the welfare, not of one, but of many, among, the varied communities in India that are committed to our charge.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair (for Committee on East India Revenue Accounts)."
  SIR HENRY FOWLERsaid he desired to make a few remarks on general questions before the House proceeded to discuss the various Amendments. Many questions of interest wore involved in the statement which had just been delivered by the right hon. Gentleman; and it was in the interest of the House and of India that there should be a general debate. He wished to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the facts of his statement. They were of a satisfactory character; and he did not think that the right hon. Gentleman in any way coloured his statement. It was fair and just, and satisfactory to the House, and would be also satisfactory to the country. He did not mean that he agreed with all the right hon. Gentleman had said; and he should claim the right to discuss some questions of general administration and also some of the right hon. Gentleman's specific statements. As regarded the financial position, which showed a large surplus for the last three years, and a Budget which contemplated a moderate but considerable surplus, it was very encouraging. The accounts also were improved to a great extent, but he

  1249
  suggested that the items should be in pounds sterling. In the statement which had been presented, the figures were in pounds sterling up to page 7; but after that in rupees. He would suggest that pounds sterling should be maintained throughout the accounts; and that if it were necessary to include rupees they should be put in tens of rupees. He would further urge that the figures in the statement presented to Parliament should be the actual figures not the gross figures, in order that the House might know what was the net burden of the taxation of India, and what was the net expenditure. He gathered that the net revenue last year was £49,688,600, and that the expenditure for the present year was £47,900,000. But the gross expenditure was £88,000,000 or £90,000,000, which included the cost of the railways and other items.
  In dealing with the surplus the right hon. Gentleman proposed remissions of taxation, involving a sacrifice of revenue and improvements in administration. The House had only one opinion regarding the reduction of the salt tax; but he thought it might have been reduced; year previously. He did not consider however, that the reduction had yet reached its proper limit. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the consumption of mustard; but that would not apply to India. Mustard was not a necessary of life, salt was. He thought it was clear that the reduction last year had reached a lower class. What better test could there be than that of consumption? Consumption was larger when the taxation was lower. As regarded police, they could not expect any very stringent reform without additional expenditure.
  With reference to railways, the right hon. Gentleman referred to the enormously increased revenue from railways, and the increase in the number of passengers and in the tonnage of goods carried. His hon. friend, one of the Members for the West Riding of Yorkshire, twelve years age delivered a speech in the House which received attention at the time and which influenced policy. His hon. friend then called attention to the desirablity of increasing railways in India, in the interests not only of India
  1250
  but of this country; and he urged the Government to adopt his policy and secure the satisfactory results which would follow. The policy adopted had been slow, cautious, and conservative; and he had no doubt it was still cautious and conservative. Bat now they had turned the corner. The railway net revenue during the last six years had increased from £600,000 to between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000; and he agreed with the Secretary of State that the time had arrived to embark on a larger expenditure for railway construction purposes. This was a matter which had better been done boldly and not in a parsimonious and penny wise fashion, always, of course, on the assumption that the railways were placed where they would be commercially successful.
  He should like to refer to another matter; he referred to currency. The demand for rupees for trade purposes had enormously increased; and the system appeared to be working very satisfactorily. The Currency Committee recommended that no profit should be made on the coinage of silver. The noble Lord the Member for Ealing at once adopted the recommendation that no increase to the revenue of India in this respect should be permitted. It was put into a separate fund at compound interest in order to provide a permanent gold reserve. Now the whole of that, reserve fund at the end of this year would be £8,478,000. That sum was invested in this country in Government securities. It was an available reserve in case of a crisis. So far from India being depleted by the course adopted, therefore, there was a gold reserve to the amount of £8,000,000, which was a most satisfactory result of the course adopted.
  He did not know if any hon. Member had read the debate which took place in the Legislative Council of the Viceroy on their Budget day. It formed a part of the Blue-book which deserved the careful attention of Members of the House interested in India. In the Viceroy's Council there were the leaders of Indian administration and a large native representation, and in the course of the debate which took place

  1251
  there were two or three remarks which he thought bore somewhat on the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. The first that he had marked for notice was a remark made by a Minister with reference to the plague. The right hon. Gentleman had discussed that matter at some length, and no doubt the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Ilkeston would deal with that. But there was a distinguished member of the Council who made a few remarks which the House would be pleased to hear read. That gentleman said—
  "The excellence of a Budget does not in my humble opinion consist in showing large surpluses, but in the manner in which they are utilised, and I am glad to say the Budget before us possesses that characteristic. My Lord, six successive years of large surpluses is an event of unique occurrence in the financial history of British India, this being the sixth year in your Lordship's rule in which a Budget showing a large surplus has again been laid before this Council. This is the more remarkable as at the commencement of your Excellency's administration the country was passing through a famine characterised as the greatest famine of the century. Under your Excellency's regime not only have the finances of India been brought to a satisfactory condition without the imposition of any fresh taxes, but a policy of giving financial relief to the people by the remission of taxation has been inaugurated—a state of things which has been quite unknown to Indian taxpayers during the two decades preceding the year 1902–3."
  After alluding to details that member continued—
  "The further reduction of duty on such a necessary of life as salt will give a much needed relief to a class of people who most urgently required it."
  Then the largest landowner in Bengal, a member of the aristocracy of India, said—
  "The proposals of the Government had met with universal approbation."
  On the other side, the Opposition side as it might be called, there was an extremely interesting speech by Mr. Gokhale. That gentleman said the statement of the Finance Minister was—
  "Remarkable alike for its grasp of principle and its mastery of detail, and for lucidity of exposition it will rank with the best statements that have ever been presented to this Council."
  He then said—
  "The salt duty was reduced to 8 annas last year and the measure of relief was received with deep gratification throughout the country.
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  The reduction might, however, be carried still further without any inconvenience. The salt-duty question in India is essentially a poor man's question, for it is the poorer many and not the richer few who eat more salt when it is cheap and less when it is dear. The soundest policy in the matter, even financially, would therefore seem to be to raise an expanding, revenue on an expanding consumption under a diminishing scale of duties."
  There was considerable objection to the expenditure on military works. The right hon. Gentleman had announced as the policy of this country that the main object of the Army in India and in this country was the protection of the North-West Frontier of India. Many policies as to the Army had been laid down and the House one day would perhaps-know what the true policy of the War Office was, but the policy laid down today was clear enough. He took exception to the doctrine it contained, because there was no satisfactory proof that such a policy was necessary. We were bound, to protect India, and we had protected her, but he believed that India was less liable to an aggressive attack now than she had ever been during the last fifty years. This policy of increased Indian Army expenditure had only been brought before-the House sectionally, but it was a policy which ought to receive the most careful consideration of the country as a whole. The question was whether we were called upon to impose on the taxpayers of Great Britain and Ireland the heavy additional taxation which was now foreshadowed for military expenditure, and which had now reached a point it had never attained before. He did not wish to leave India defenceless, nor did he grudge expense for the defence of India. For in his opinion the military expenditure in India had been conducted much more carefully than the military expenditure in this country, and he much preferred the methods and administration of the War Office of India to those of the British War Office.
  With regard to the question of there being two Military Members in the Viceroy's Cabinet he wondered what would be said if in this country in addition to the Secretary of State for War there was another Military Member of the Cabinet. Friction was always bound to arise when there were two strong men in the Indian Cabinet representing

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  the Army. The right hon. Gentleman's proposal was that these two members of the Council were to remain in the Cabinet, connected with the administration of military affairs but with distinct and separate functions. One, he hoped, was to be a civilian who would have the control of the expenditure, the other the Commander-in-Chief. The theory in this country was that the Army was to be under the financial control of a civilian and not of a military officer. It was very desirable that the Indian military expenditure, as in this country, should be under civilian control. Expenditure meant the imposition of taxation, the imposition of taxation involved a iburden upon the people, and also the policy of the Government, and the view he was endeavouring to put was that there was nothing in India essentially different in principle as compared with England, where civilian control was exercised over expenditure, and the military authorities were presumably left to settle military matters. The respective positions of the Military Members in Council the Government had now condemned, and he presumed the despatches to be published would show the final view of the Government of India and Lord Kitchener upon the decision of the Government.
  MR. BRODRICKsaid there would be nothing more recent than the Government's own despatch of May 31st.
  SIR HENRY FOWLEKtook it for granted that the right hon. Gentleman would let the House know as soon as possible what the view of the Indian Government was. He would have liked them to say at once and definitely that the financial head of the Supply Department should be a civilian.
  With reference to military works, he did not like to say he differed from the Indian Finance Minister or the Viceroy, but he did differ from their complete repudiation of borrowing for military works of a permanent character. The Secretary of State could not object to such borrowing, as he himself was the founder of the fund raised in this country
  1254
  for the erection of barracks. For recurring expenditure money ought not to be borrowed, but for permanent works several members of the Council held that the expenditure would put an unnecessary burden upon the taxpayers, and that it might be spread over a limited number of years. The financial policy with reference to these new military works had not been completely explained, but he assumed the object would be to defray as much as possible out of revenue. The Indian Government would wish to do that, without precluding the possibility of executing works which could not be paid for out of revenue He could conceive works extending over a long period of years, the expenditure upon which it might be desirable to arrange upon a distinct basis, so that only £1,000,000 or £2,000,000 should be taken annually out of revenue. But perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would make, the point clear later in the debate.
  The Secretary of State had referred to the wonderful progress of India during the last year or two, and to the trade existing between this country and India. On this point he would quote briefly from two speeches in the Indian Council. Mr. Cable, who, he believed, was a great financial authority, said—
  "In the fiscal controversy now in progress at home we observe an increasing number of references to this country. But we look in vain for any practical suggestion under which India could join in the proposed new departure. On the contrary, it is becoming increasingly evident that the policy to clearly and firmly enunciated in your Excellency's de-patch of October 22nd, 1903, is the right policy for this country to adopt, viz., full liberty for India to trade with the whole world upon such terms as may suit her best, and to develop her industrial resources unfettered by engagements with other countries."
  Then Lord Curzon alluded to the stand which the Indian Government most properly made against the heavy charge of £750,000 imposed upon Indian revenues for increased pay in the British Army—
  "About which we were not consulted, and with which we did not agree. We protested more successfully against the placing upon, Indian revenues of the charge for the entertainment of the Indian guests at the Coronation in London. We were also successful in resisting the suggestion that India should pay £400,000 per annum for a call upon a portion of the

  1255
  British garrison in South Africa. We have now finally established the principle (disputed till a few years ago) that when we lend troops from India, … every rupee of the charge from embarkation to return should be defrayed by the Imperial Government."
  Upon the question raised by Mr. Cable, the fiscal question, Lord Curzon said—
  "I may name one more respect in which the Government of India have, I think, faithfully championed the interests of the general community. I allude to their attitude on the fisca, question. I observe that the hon. Mr. Cablel speaking to-day on behalf of the commercial community, has most strongly endorsed the correctness of the position which we took up in our despatch of October 22nd, 1903. A little while ago it was stated with some authority in England—"
  that was rather too vague; it was a great authority.
  MR. BRODRICK: What authority?
  SIR HENRY FOWLERsaid he believed it was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham.
  "…. it was stated with some authority in England that that despatch had been drawn up by us in a hurry, and that we were believed to have modified our views. There is no foundation for any such statement. We composed the despatch with full deliberation. It represented our matured opinions. We have not departed from them in any particular: and, if the Government of India were invited to enter a conference, those I am confident would be the instructions with which our delegates from this end would proceed. Our claim is not merely that India should have a voice in the settlement of the question—that none will dispute—but that in any Imperial scheme there should not he imposed upon us a system detrimental to our interests and repugnant to our strongly entertained and unanimous views."
  The Secretary of State had referred to the position of the trade of India, and those quotations gave the Indian view upon that point. In reference to Indian immigrants in South Africa, Lord Curzon complained very bitterly of what many thought was the unfair attitude assumed by one of the South African Governments to British-Indian natives residing in Natal. But a greater question arose, with which Lord Curzon dealt as follows—
  "Soon after the country (South Africa) came under British administration we addressed the Secretary of State for India, and urged that the opportunity should be taken to remove the restrictions and disabilities in-
  1256
  spired by the Boer Government on British-Indian subjects. In the course of the correspondence which ensued, we were asked to agree to a scheme for the employment of 10,000 Indian labourers on the construction of Government, railways in the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies; and recognising that the need for Indian labour thus displayed might prove a powerful lever in our hands for securing better treatment for Indians generally in South Africa, we expressed our readiness to consider the proposal if it was likely to lead to substantial concessions in favour of Indians not under indenture. We said that the least that we could accept would be (1) that Indian languages should be included in the literary test applied to new immigrants; (2) that residence in locations should be compulsory only upon those Indians in whose case the restriction is desirable for sanitary reasons; (3) that Indian traders who had established themselves under the former Government should be granted licences permitting them to retain their present places of business; (4) that all Indians of superior class, including all respectable traders and shopkeepers, should be exempted from the Pass Law and the curfew system, and from the other restrictions imposed on the non-white population. The Transvaal authorities declined to concede these declined in full, and we have therefore refused to establish a system of emigration of indentured labourers to that Colony."
  It was now known for the first time, from Lord Curzon himself, what was the real state of affairs—that, as they on that side of the House had maintained, the Indian Government would not allow Indian subjects to go us coolies to Africa on the terms proposed. On the whole he congratulated the right hon. Gentleman on his statement, which financially was thoroughly sound. The ideas of the Indian Government, both in reference to income and expenditure, and improvements were on the right lines. He believed we were approaching a period of further progress and development, and he cordially agreed with the right hon. Gentleman's railway policy, which he hoped would be carried out. As to the new division of authority he hoped the matter was not finally decided, but that it would receive further consideration, and that once and for all the conflict between the military and the civil management of the Army in the Indian Council would be settled.
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton that the speech of the Secretary of State for India was so full of interest that it was desirable that they

  1257
  should have some general discussion upon that subject before they dealt with the Amendment, which would limit the debate within its four corners. He congratulated the Secretary of State for India upon his speech, and there was no part of his right hon. friend's speech to which he listened with greater pleasure than that in which he described the attitude he proposed to take as regarded the trade and commerce of India. His right hon. friend pointed out that Indian trade and commerce formed by far the largest part of the external trade of the Empire sent to these islands, and he rightly said that nothing should be done in connection with any fiscal proposals which did not give the fullest consideration to the interests of India. He rejoiced to note that the views of the Indian Government on the fiscal question were now identically those which they held when he was in office, and he was also glad to notice that, so far as he could judge, there was very little difference between the views of the present Secretary of State for India on the fiscal question and those of his predecessor. [OPPOSITION laughter, and an HON. MEMBER. In this House.]
  The statement which his right hon. friend had made was an astonishingly satisfactory one. There was not a single nation in Europe that could produce as good a financial statement or show as satisfactory a balance sheet as the one that had been placed before the House by his right hon. friend. As the right hon. Gentleman opposite had pointed out, the assets which India obtained by the investment of money in reproductive works balanced her liabilities; and he thought, therefore, his right hon. friend was perfectly right in arriving at the conclusion that, inasmuch as India was now deriving such an enormous benefit from the continuous policy of reproductive expenditure, he was fully justified in removing the limits which he had imposed on this expenditure. He would add just one word of; caution. The Return on page 20 of the Secretary of State's Memorandum I showed that, while the net result of the major irrigation works was a surplus of £985,000 for the present year, the result of the minor works was a loss of £823,000. Enthusiasts upon irrigation thought they could not spend money in India without
  1258
  getting a good return, but these figures clearly showed that a considerable amount of this expenditure had not been worth incurring. Therefore, he hoped his right hon. friend, if he did largely increase his railway expenditure, would be very careful that he did not include works that would not be reproductive. Subject to this one criticism, he entirely endorsed all his right hon. friend had said in connection with his proposed railway policy; and, as railway expenditure had been the main cause in enabling them to reduce taxation, he thought it might reasonably be argued that, if this expenditure were increased, it would be possible for the Government, more rapidly in the future than in the past, to reduce the taxes which were now in operation.
  He heartily congratulated his right hon. friend on the courage of the Indian Government in making a further reduction of the salt tux. When that tax was reduced some three years ago, the estimated loss by that remission was calculated at nearly £1,000,000 sterling. He noticed that half that loss had been made good by increased consumption, and they might fairly conclude that, with the further reduction of 20 per cent., there would be a still further enhanced consumption. If that occurred, he agreed with his right hon. friend that, in a time of emergency, they had upon that increased consumption a ready source of gaining additional financial assistance.
  There was one subject on which his right hon. friend did not say anything, though it was germane to a considerable part of his speech. He spoke, as other Ministers had spoken, about the defence of the North-West Frontier, but his right hon. friend said nothing about the renewal of the agreement with the Am,r of Afghanistan. He considered that renewal an integral part of the defence of the North-West Frontier. He had been for so many years habituated to the idea that it was within the bounds of possibility that Russia might invade India by Afghanistan that, perhaps, he was less apprehensive of that contingency occurring than were some of his late colleagues who had only recently taken to studying that

  1259
  question. He thought they were unduly apprehensive; but he quite agreed that our military arrangements should be made with a view to dealing with that emergency. At the same time, he did not think it was wise policy to make that idea absolutely dominate our whole Indian policy and military establishments. All who had gone thoroughly into this question had become more and more impressed with the enormous difficulty of moving any big army across Afghanistan. But our most important defence was the character of the people who lived in the centre and the East of Afghanistan. They were born fighters, they loved fighting, and they were magnificent shots. A good many of his friends had been somewhat disappointed at the terms of the renewal of the agreement with the Amir—they looked upon the old arrangement as one based on inequality. We gave a great deal more than we obtained, he quite admitted it; but at the same time he held that his right hon. friend and His Majesty's Government were perfectly right, if they found that the Amir had strong objection to any alteration of the terms, in renewing it as it stood. He had always felt that so far as the North-West Frontier of India was concerned political considerations dominated military considerations. If our political relations with the tribes were good we could, if it was necessary, move a force forward, and with their co-operation our lines of communication would be perfectly secure; but if we were on terms of friction with the tribes, and if they looked upon our proceedings with alarm and were disposed to regard us as an invader rather than a defender, then every yard we went outside our frontier increased our difficulties and dangers. If the Amir and the Afghans had a very strong objection to the introduction of railroads and telegraphs, the benefits of which we appreciated, he held that the Home Government acted wisely in continuing the arrangement, as it stood, which was made with His Highness's father. He admitted there might be difficulties, but he held it, above all, to be of prime importance that we should remain on good relations with the Afghans and the tribes on the North-West Frontier.
  1260
  That brought him to the military proposals which Lord Kitchener had laid before the Government, and to which they had assented. These, he understood, would result in largely increasing the effective fighting force of the Indian Army. He thought it was perhaps time that the distribution of our troops should be reconsidered. The old barracks were built in 1860, and the distribution of the troops was based on considerations arising out of the Mutiny; but that danger had passed away; and therefore he thought Lord Kitchener was justified in reconsidering the distribution of troops with a view to their being more efficiently located in case there should be any disturbance on the North-West Frontier. He only made two comments on the changes in the Indian Army. One was that he was sure his right hon. friend would remember that the fighting races of India could not be reorganised on the mathematical lines on which, perhaps, a European administrator would attempt to organise a conscript army; and the second was that he thought they ought to recollect that there were still elements of disorder in India, and that, if there was anything like simultaneous co-operation at the time of war, considerable trouble might occur in the interior. Therefore, he thought, they must not altogether disregard the garrison work which our troops would have to perform if we were engaged in a great war on our frontiers.
  Perhaps the most interesting part of his right hon. friend's statement was that relating to military re-arrangements. So far as he could gather, the result of the changes was that the Military Member of Council was shorn of all his old duties, and had little connection or touch with the combatant part of the Army, and the Commander-in-Chief had absorbed a good many of the duties which the Military Member previously discharged. It seemed to him rather a patchwork arrangement, and he doubted whether it would stand the test of time. His right hon. friend had said that the position of the Commander-in-Chief in India was somewhat anomalous. He held that the position of Commander-in-Chief in time of peace under modern military conditions was an anachronism.

  1261
  No great military country had a Commander-in-Chief in time of peace. Every great military country had tried to separate the administrative functions from the executive functions of the Army. One of the reasons why the administration of the British Navy was far superior to that of the Army was that 200 years ago the office of Lord High Admiral was abolished, and a distinction drawn between the executive duties and the administrative duties of the Navy. For that reason he rejoiced that the position of Commander-in-Chief had been abolished here. He would like to see the post of Commander-in-Chief in India abolished also. He did not wish to get rid of Lore Kitchener. He believed the term of office of the Military Member of the Council would shortly come to an end, and he would like to see Lord Kitchener made Minister for War in India with a seat in the Council. What did we want Commander-in-Chief for? Only twice since he had been in public life had a serious war broken out on the Indian frontier. One was the Afghan War, and the other was the rising of tribes in 1897, but in neither case did the Commander-in-Chief go to the front, because there happened to be officers in the Indian Army whose experience better qualified them for that particular duty. If, however, we had a dual system during a period of stress, there was certain to be friction. He thought it essential that there should be a Military Member permanently on the Council of India, and always close to the Viceroy, and for that reason he thought they could not abolish the post of Military Member. If that member was accurately described as more or less a civilian in charge of certain civilian branches of the Army, he would practically be unable to give that advice in connection with the military part of the Army which was the sole cause of his having a scat on the Council, and, therefore, although, he dared say, the present arrangement might satisfy Lord Kitchener for a time, he earnestly hoped it was not the last word the Government would have to say on the subject. It was essential in an Army that one person should be the head, and it was also clear that the men who discharged administrative functions must be over the men who
  1262
  discharged executive functions. Although he could understand the motives which induced His Majesty's Government to make the, concessions they had made to Lord Kitchener, he did not think that if the change was made it would last. Something more drastic was required, and he hoped, therefore, that the proposal which was now made would not be of such a character that when they wished to reconsider it and ask for further alterations they could be met by the answer that the present changes were final.
  As to the Budget he thought his right hon. friend had made an effective reply to the section of public opinion which had declared that British administration was starving India to death. He thought it was to the credit of our race that British administration had conferred such enormous benefits on races outside these islands. Since India was handed over to the Crown, British financiers had converted the old, unstable, profitless, Oriental revenue into a progressive and stable revenue. Lord Curzon had put the coping stone on the edifice, but the credit for the results which had been attained was not due to him alone, but was shared by those who had laid the foundations of Indian finance deep and true. However the credit for India's financial position might be distributed, it redounded to our reputation as a nation that we had been enabled to confer incalculable Benefits on the races entrusted to our charge.
  MR. HALDANEsaid the noble Lord in the concluding part of his speech had touched on an element of great importance, to the Government of India—the element of continuity. It was impossible for any Viceroy of India to take credit, as credit might be taken under any Party system when policy might be subject to violent fluctuations. Policy might fluctuate in India, but it fluctuated within very defined limits, and the reason for that was that India was a country which stood to us in a very peculiar relation. To begin with, the external political questions of India did not concern India

  1263
  alone, and probably they would not exist if India stood alone. They were questions which arose in relation to the fluctuations of our external policy, and, therefore, we were in a peculiar degree responsible for the finance of India, and for Indian external affairs. Then, again, no one section of the public could speak for the whole. The immense population of that country was divided into races which varied in habits and religion, and the result was that there were divergencies from the point of view of the people themselves which were not to be paralleled elsewhere. These things had had their outcome in the form of government. The Indian Budget was discussed somewhat sparingly once a year, and one of the reasons for that was that it had not been thought expedient to subject Indian affairs to the immense freedom of discussion to which other affairs were subjected in this House. While it might be a question whether more time should be devoted to the discussion of Indian affairs, it was satisfactory that the debate this year took place on an earlier day in the session than usual. The beneficial result of that change was reflected in the tone and temper of the debate. Instead of a wearied and jaded House examining these things near the close of the session, they had had a very calm discussion. In the speeches of the Secretary of State for India, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, and the noble Lord the Member for Ealing, they had reflected a good deal of the spirit in, which the Government of India was carried on.
  He thought the Secretary of State for India was to be congratulated on the favourable way his statement had been received. They were all agreed with him about railways and the salt tax, but he was not sure that when they knew more than they knew now they should be so much with him about the new arrangement between the Commander-in-Chief and the Viceroy's Council. It might be that some of the cogent remarks of the noble Lord who spoke last had their point of application there. He himself owned that there was great difficulty in putting a man of Lord Kitchener's stature in the position of Commander-in-Chief in India. It might
  1264
  be that that inevitably gave rise to friction in a country where personalities counted for much more than they did here, and where constitutional restraints operated very much less. There was another reflection which this Budget had excited in his mind with reference to the military expenditure. It had increased to £20,000,000, and that he regarded as a very alarming figure. It was quite true that India was in a, prosperous condition. Be that as it might, it only showed the greatness of our responsibility in regard to the whole question of the government of India.
  He read the other day a report of a meeting which took place in St. James's Hall in the middle of last month, at which a very strong attack was made on the system of government in India, and particularly on Lord Curzon's administration. Lord Curzon was said to have Russianised India. Now it was perhaps the out come of the absence of representative Government in India that these meetings were held and that these denunciations were made; and he thought that the moral to be drawn from them was that we should be extremely tolerant, careful, and patient in the opportunities of dealing with these people. The Government of India was necessarily bureaocratic because of the mixture of its races and the great variety of political complications. It was, therefore, inevitable that there should be a large number discontented, that some of them should have grievances, and that they should come here and make strong speeches. It was equally inevitable that the Viceroy should be made the target of those attacks. Speaking for himself, and for a large number of hon. Members on that side of the House, he must say that he did not agree with those attacks on Lord Curzon. The noble Lord went out to India as a strong Party man, but he had administered India in a thoroughly non-Party spirit, and had thereby carried out the real traditions of Indian government. He was not sure that his Lordship had not reversed the policy of his predecessors in attacking and subduing the frontier tribes. He left the frontier tribes pretty much to themselves

  1265
  and to act as a buffer to foreign aggression. There was another thing which Lord Curzon did for which they were always grateful. He showed himself a strong man when a question arose between the action of the British Army and justice to the native population. There were two cases—one of them of very brutal murder—in which Lord Curzon allowed nothing to stand in the way of getting at the aggressors; and when he could not find the aggressors he punished those who ought to have found them. He showed that spirit which, however much complaint it might have raised in the minds of some people, would make his character stand out as one who was perfectly fearless when justice had to be administered. Then there was a third thing which Lord Curzon had done for which they were grateful to him; because not only the noble Lord, but the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State himself, did not disguise that it was Lord Curzon's very emphatic declaration that free trade was the proper policy for India. Therefore, from the Opposition side of the House, they did not take the view that was taken at the meeting to which he had referred, that Lord Curzon had altogether Russianised India, and that his policy ought to be the subject of some violent reversal.
  The right hon. Gentleman did not allude to the question of higher education in India. The House knew that there had been a very strong attack on the Viceroy of India for sanctioning what was called the University policy in India. Up to 1901 there were five examining Universities in India, and the preparation for those Universities was carried out by colleges of which there were a great number with no fewer than 23,000 students; and yet their functions in many cases were little more than examining institutions. But the Ministry and Lord Curzon himself came to the conclusion that the state of higher education in India was very unsatisfactory, and they proceeded to work out a new policy which consisted not in the Government taking over the higher education, but in the Government arming the Universities with more power to control the teaching colleges.
  1266
  He thought that policy was altogether right and that it was working very well But Lord Curzon had been denounced up hill and down dale for adopting it. It was said that his Lordship was acting in a retrograde fashion. It was quite true that changes had been made in the governing bodies of the Universities in order to help them to do their work more efficiently, and he believed that that process had been for good. Then, again, there was the famous speech of Lord Curzon about which there was great criticism. Lord Curzon used that expression, which he himself would not have used, about the standards of morality in India. Although it might be said that some of those expressions were superfluous, there was nothing in that address which really amounted to fault on his part, or which amounted to anything more than a laudable desire to raise the tone of the morality of India as far as possible. It was rather like a rectorial address. But be that as it might, the whole educational policy in recent times in India seemed to him to have been for good.
  Then there was another thing about which a great fuss was going on, namely, the proposal to partition Bengal—to take the north-eastern part off it, and to have Assam and Deccan administered by a, separate Government. He had always thought of late years that the necessity for making a change in the arrangements of the administrative government of India was becoming more and more apparent, and he should, therefore, be disposed to stand very closely to the proposed partitioning of Bengal. There were always some people disappointed—Civil servants and military men—but that showed the necessity of scrutinising the way in which the government of India was carried on. On the other hand, they must remember that the Government of India was not a Party Government. He did not wish it to go forth that there was any section in that House who were disposed to identify themselves with criticisms which he thought went far beyond what was legitimate or right. On the other hand, he did not wish it to be thought that they were otherwise than vigilant in keeping a watchful eye on things which

  1267
  were constantly going on in India. But when they came to the frontier policy, and to the military expenditure which that frontier policy necessitated, then he did think these were questions to which the very closest attention should be given. Although it was well that they should on this occasion have had this debate thus early, still it was not satisfactory that a single day in the session should be given up to the discussion of matters of such momentous magnitude. He hoped the time would come when the very force of public opinion would make them adopt a better way of doing things. He did feel that those who held these meetings and who complained that sufficient attention was not given to Indian affairs had a grain of truth on their side. India had not got representative government—and he did not say that the time had come when India should have representative government—but the very fact that there was no representative Government, and possibly no prospect of it, ought to make the obligation on our part all the more to see that these things were scrutinised and watched. He thought the right hon. Gentleman who had presented that day so admirable a record of successful policy would have conferred another obligation not only on the people of India, but on the people of Great Britain, if he succeeded in introducing the useful precedent of getting more time devoted to the discussion in Parliament of Indian affairs.
  MR. CATHCART WASONsaid that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for India showed how India had prospered under our rule. But the question which ought to be asked by hon. Members was whether India was contented with our rule, and whether it had reason to be contented. Now, he thought there was a good deal to be said on the other side. He believed that India at the present time was not in that satisfactory condition which the right hon. Member attributed to it; and that there was a large amount of discontent in that country which did not find expression. Time was when India was the happy hunting ground of adventurers who
  1268
  exploited the country in their own interest. The result was the Great Mutiny. After the Mutiny we might have held the country by force and prevented the spread of western civilisation. Or we should have striven to govern the country according to Indian ideas and through Indian chiefs. But we had followed I neither course. We had opened up the country, and broken down the barriers of language and of distance. We had done everything we could to encourage the spread of education. They had I Indian Gentlemen in the House who might make or unmake Ministries, and yet they had no say whatever in the government of their own country. That was both an anomaly and an anachronism.
  SIR J. FERGUSSONsaid that one of the Gentlemen referred to had been Commissioner of a Native State.
  MR. CATHCART WASONsaid that he had nevertheless no share in the general government of his country. The Native States were in a semi-civilised condition. The Secretary of State said that a Commissioner should be a Judge, a lawyer, and have a variety of other knowledge; and in such circumstances it was impossible that a native should have any important share in the government of his country. The Secretary for State also said that they were on the eve of great changes. He sincerely trusted they were. He did not think that this country had very much to be proud of in connection with the government of India, except the material matters alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman. The chief point to which he desired to direct attention was what was called the great Charter of Liberty in the time of William IV., which was as follows—
  "That no native of the said territories nor any natural-born subject of His Majesty resident therein, shall by reason only of his religion, place of birth, descent, colour, or any of them, be disabled from holding any place, office, or employment under the said company."
  If Indians had a voice in the administration of their country, and if their grievances were fairly considered, they would not have the treatment now given them meted out in Australia and South Africa. Had any protest been made against this

  1269
  scandalous treatment? Indians were not allowed to undertake the meanest employment; and ships were not even allowed to carry the Australian mails because they had coolies aboard, after all, His Majesty's faithful subjects. Was that in accordance with the solemn treaty entered into at the time of the Mutiny? Could anyone maintain that the position of Indians in South Africa was at all reasonable or just? Their position was far better before the war. Then they were admitted to the country; now they appeared to be absolutely shut out. Indeed, the British Government themselves instructed counsel to appear against the Indian contention in South Africa; and a British Indian, no matter what his status or qualifications might be if he were not a refugee, could not possibly enter the country. This country was solely responsible for this measure of injustice which was meted out to fellow subjects of the King; and it was the duty of hon. Members to raise their voices against such action as had been taken in Australia and South Africa, and a strong Government would have let Australian and South African millionaires have had their opinions freely and roughly.
  They had heard much about the prosperity of India; but the right hon. Gentleman did not allude to one class which comprised between 80 per cent, and 90 per cent, of the population, viz., the class which depended on agriculture for a living. It would be well if they could hear more of the wants and desires of this class through the medium of, say, village communes. These people were poor to an intolerable degree. Famines were constantly arising, but not through any scarcity of corn. There was plenty of food in the country; but the people had no money with which to buy it. Very much of the poverty which existed was caused by the excessive taxation which was imposed, the burden of taxes on the land in relation to gross produce being higher than in any other country in the world. It ran, he was informed, up to something like 20 per cent., and if that statement were not true it ought to be contradicted. The Secretary of State, in reply to his hon. friend the Member for Ross-shire, stated that in Madras in 1900–1 there were 15,000 evictions,
  1270
  the total amount realised being 25s for each home. The people who were unable to pay the Government taxes were evicted, and thrown out to pick up a living as best they could. Few hon. Members could spend more than a month or two in India, and their knowledge was painfully limited. India was the most important portion of His Majesty's dominions, and it was in tolerable that Indians should not in some way or other be entitled to bring forward their grievances, and also whit they thought of the great fiscal change with which the Empire was threatened. They knew the opinion of the Viceroy, but it would be well to know what was the opinion of the great minds of India. He begged to move.
  MR. SAMUEL SMITHsaid before proceeding to discuss this Motion he would like to congratulate the House on the excellent Budget laid before it, showing a surplus of £3,500,000 sterling for last year and almost as much for the coming one. But most of this future surplus was most wisely given back to the people by the remission of 25 percent of the salt tax, by large grants for local purposes, and primary education. He adopted as his own the languages of Mr. Gokhale of Poona, the ablest Indian member of the Viceregal Council, and a man universally respected in India. That gentleman said—
  "There is but one feeling throughout the country—and it is a feeling of deep and unalloyed satisfaction as to the manner in which the Government of India have decided to apply about 3¾ crores to measures of remission of taxation, administrative improvement, and the general well-being of the people."
  For six years the Indian Exchequer had had continual surpluses amounting to over £20,000,000 sterling, and if we added the large sum accumulated as a gold reserve fund, the total came to over £30,000,000. The main cause of this was the adoption of the gold standard and the artificial raising of the rupee from 1s. 1d. to 1s. 4d., which reduced the loss by exchange enormously; but for this the rupee would have sunk to 10d., and the Government would have been almost driven into bankruptcy. But one of the greatest grievances of the agricul-

  1271
  tural population was that it greatly added to the burden of their debts to the money-lenders, and also to the weight of their assessment. They had to pay in rupees worth 1s. 4d. instead of rupees worth 10d. or 1s., and for this cause the universal feeling of India was that the Government was bound to give compensation to the ryots, who numbered three fourths or four-fifths of the whole population, for this grievous burden imposed upon them.
  It would be unfortunate if the fulness of the Indian Exchequer misled the British people as to the condition of that vast population. Might he tell the House the impressions he derived from attending the twentieth Indian National Congress which met in Bombay last December. For three days they listened to a series of most able speeches delivered by delegates from all parts of India; the language was English, often eloquent, always moderate and respectful, and the arguments were weighty and often convincing. He could not conceive a greater tribute to English education than this great assembly of more than 1,000 delegates and 10,000 spectators as orderly and decorous as any assembly that ever met in England, There was now in India a body of intelligent opinion, upheld by a native Press, which they must deal with sympathetically if they wanted to escape great trouble in the future. He was glad to have this opportunity—perhaps the last he would have—of voicing the grievances and aspirations of the Indian people whose interests he had tried to serve since his first visit to India, forty-two years ago.
  There were two great classes into which Indian grievances may be divided— the first might be called political, the second economical. The educated classes of India, many of whom had been trained in this country, were dissatisfied at the very small share they had in the administration of their country—they held extremely few appointments in the higher grades of service. He should say that, roughly, nineteen-twentieths of all the appointments of £1,000 a year and over were held by Europeans, also the great bulk between £300 and £1,000 a year. A very few Indians entered the Im-
  1272
  perial service by examination in England, and those alone rose to high appointments. The provincial service intended for Indians to enter by competition was now reserved for nomination, and this caused great dissatisfaction. The Government of India was as purely bureaucratic as that of Russia, the only difference being that our officials were honest and capable, and sincerely desirous of doing their best for the people. But the time had come when the ablest and best of the Indian people should be associated with ourselves in the government of the country. Local government was slowly growing in India and was training the people in self-government; the legislative councils were most valuable means of eliciting Indian opinion, but the official members outvoted the elected, and the various Governors could overrule their decisions. Our system of administration was perhaps the only one practicable at first, but it could not go on permanently, and the time had come to overhaul it, and to give India some moderate form of representative government. He believed that most of the British residents in India knew that this must come sooner or later. Many were not averse to it if it were brought about gradually. It was the only means by which India could be kept loyal, and we were bound by all our national traditions to bring it about gradually. He was certain that if we went on the reactionary lines that had been in favour of late years we should alienate the sentiment of the people and prepare great difficulties and even dangers in future. This was not a question which could be settled in India. The bureaucracy there would not voluntarily surrender their power; officials clung to power all the world over. According to Walter Bagehot—
  "The trained official hates the rude, untrained public he thinks they are stupid, ignorant, reckless, that they cannot tell their own interests. Bureaucracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official power, official business or official members rather than leave free the energies of mankind, it overdoes the quantity of government as well as impairs its quality."
  We had one of the best bureaucracies in India which the world ever saw, yet it partook of these faults, and it was

  1273
  necessary that we should gradually create a more healthy form of government.
  He would venture to commend to the Government some moderate reforms which might safely be conceded at once. Why should we not place three or four eminent natives of India on the London Council which advised the Secretary for India? The Indian Secretary had no means of knowing what the 300,000,000 of India desired. He was usually a statesman who had not visited India, he was surrounded by British officials and ex-officials whose interests were not identical with those of the people; and, unknown to himself, he was biassed against Indian opinion; and he ought to have the opportunity of knowing first hand what the Indian people thought. We might have escaped the two Afghan Wars and the Tibet Expedition, and perhaps even the Indian Mutiny, if the Home Government had possessed councillors like Sir Salar Jung, or Sir Madhavo Rao or Professor Gokhale. These delegates from India should be elected by the legislative councils and would be drawn from the elite of the Indian people. He would also recommend that the Governor-General should have at least one eminent Indian gentleman in his executive council, that was to say, his Cabinet where all great decisions were taken. It would be deeply appreciated by the Indian people and they deserved this mark of confidence. Lastly, he would suggest that three Member should be elected to this House by the electorate of the three Presidencies that now returned the members of the Legislative Councils of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. Parliament would then hear at first hand the voice of India which it could not do under existing arrangements.
  The second great reform required in India was economical. Much was heard about the prosperity of India. When he visited the country forty-two years ago he was much struck by the extreme poverty of the people. He went there again last year, expecting to see a great improvement, but there appeared to be the same picture of half starved, half-clad people, the same miserable mud huts, end the same dirty villages as there were forty years ago.
  1274
  The agricultural population, some four-fifths of the whole, was steeped in poverty and hopelessly in debt. In the districts scourged by famine they could barely-live, even in good seasons, and in bad seasons they would starve wholesale unless fed by Government. The ground was over-cropped and exhausted, manure was used for fuel, and the yield was miserably poor. Most of the ryots paid interest, never less than 12 per cent., sometimes 36 per cent., to the moneylenders; they were virtually their serfs, and would never extricate themselves except by Government help. He believed that in many districts a composition of debts could be carried out voluntarily if the Government advanced even one-third of the amount. The money lenders knew that their advances were irrecoverable, and they would accept a moderate compensation. He believed if the Government advanced £50,000,000 it would clear from debt the greater part of the Indian peasantry, and they could borrow this for £1,500,000 per annum. They had paid off £20,000,000 of debt in the last few years, nearly all the railways in India would become Government property in fifty years, and they might undertake this immense reform even without charging the peasantry anything except interest. It would be full compensation for the cruel suffering caused by raising the rupee when the gold standard was adopted. It would also be needful to exempt from seizure for debt the homesteads and farm stocks in the future, so as to prevent a fresh pile of debts being reared; and also to start village or co-operative banks like those in Germany, Denmark, and other Continental countries. Irrigation should also be encouraged in every possible way, for water was the life of India as of Egypt, and wonderful results had been recently obtained in the Punjaub and Seinde. The Report of the Scott-Moncrieff Commission should be pressed on as fast as possible. Then a considerable remission should be made of the assessment on Bombay, Madras; and the Central Provinces, where it was much too high.
  There was no need to spend so much on the Army now that Lord Kitchener had so largely increased its

  1275
  mobility. Russia had lost power and prestige in Asia to an enormous extent, and when the war was over, as it seemed likely to be very soon, she would need several years of peace for internal re form. The Indian Government had a rare opportunity, with a full Exchequer, first-rate credit, and assured peace, to undertake great domestic reforms. It was many years since they had had such an opportunity, and let them now use it to the full. But there was one more branch of improvement that was essential—he meant the growth of industries. Except in Bombay and a few manufacturing centres there was virtually no industrial development. The people were too poor and too ignorant of mechanical science. Capital was too scarce and the rate of interest far too high. He failed to see how India could be made prosperous without availing herself of cheap foreign capital and skill. She would have to do what the United States did in its early stages, and what the British Colonies and the South American Republics were now doing, for all these countries had been developed by foreign capital, and all were prospering. Yet the feeling of the Congress party in India was strongly opposed to it; they thought it drained away the wealth of the country; they pointed to the excess of exports over imports, which was fully £20,000,000 a year, as a proof that it impoverished the country. They failed to see that even a greater excess of exports existed in the United Stales, Australia, the Argentine, and Brazil. Yet these were the most thriving countries in the world. The, United States exported £100,000,000 more than she imported, yet she was the most prosperous country in the world. There was one point, however, where Indian sentiment must be respected or great evil would accrue. The Government must beware of giving foreign syndicates concessions similar to those of South Africa. There was vast mineral wealth in India, and it mutt be opened up, and probably it could not be done without foreign capital; but the greatest care must be taken to prevent oppression of coolie labour. All the contract labour, such as existed on the tea plantations, must be disallowed, and the State must reserve its full rights as a ground landlord. An far as possible preference should always be
  1276
  given to the people of India in granting concessions.
  Another suggestion he would make was that technical education and industrial training must be spread all over India. The education now given produced pleaders, clerks, and journalists, but it did not produce engineers or mechanics or chemists, and this was one cause of the extreme poverty. Why was it that the late M. Tata's splendid gift of twenty-five lakhs for an institution of research was still unused? It caused much unfavourable comment in India. The last subject to which he would refer was the demand "that periodical Parliamentary inquiries into the administration be revived." These occurred every twenty years in the days of the East India Company and were most useful. In the year 1886 a similar inquiry was proposed by Lord Randolph Churchill when Secretary for India, and was included in the Speech from the Throne. Mr. Gladstone commented on it as follows—
  "I am of opinion that Her Majesty's Government are eminently right in asking the House to appoint the Committee. I trust that it will be a carefully selected Committee and that it will be efficient in proportion to the greatness of the subject; and that it will devote itself to the subject with a zeal and diligence such as we have known in former years and former generations."
  It was quite impossible adequately to discuss Indian affairs in that House They were full of complexity, and very few Members of the House had a personal knowledge of India. An exhaustive Parliamentary inquiry would be invaluable. It would lead to organic changes in the Government of India which were now fully ripe, and which we dared not delay except at the risk of ultimately losing that country. He would conclude by quoting the words of one of the greatest of England's pro-Consuls, Lord Cromer, spoken before he left India, twenty years ago, when he acted as Finance Minister to Lord North brook—
  "No one who watches the signs of the time in India with even moderate care can doub that we have entered upon a period of change. The spread of education, the increasing influence of a free Press, the substitution of legal for discretionary administration, the progress of railways and telegraphs, the easier communication with Europe and the more ready influx of European, are beginning

  1277
  to produce a marked effect upon the people. New ideas are springing up. New aspirations are being called forth. The power of public opinion is growing daily. Such a condition of affairs is one in which the task of Government, and especially of a despotic Government, is beset with difficulties of no light kind. To move too fast is dangerous, but to lag behind is more dangerous still. The problem is how to deal with this new-born spirit of progress, raw and superficial as in many respects it is, so as to direct it into the right course, and to derive from it all the benefits which its development is capable of ultimately conferring upon the country, and at the same time to prevent it from becoming, through blind indifference or stupid repression, a source of serious political danger. It is only what ought to be expected by every thoughtful man that, after fifty years of a free Press and thirty years of expanding education, with European ideas flowing into the country on every side, and old indigenous custom, habits, and prejudices breaking down, changes should be taking place in the thoughts, the desires and the aims of the intelligent and educated men of the country which no wise and cautious Government can afford to disregard, and to which they must gradually adapt their system of administration if they do not wish to fee it shattered by forces which they have themselves called into being, but which they have failed to guide and control."
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out from the word 'That,' to the end of the Question, and add the words considering the great importance of Indian questions and the desire of the Indian people to lay their grievances before Parliament and to ask for improvement in the administration of their country, it is absolutely necessary, in the interests alike of India and the United Kingdom, that periodical Parliamentary inquiries into the administration of India be revived, that the salary of the Secretary of State for India be placed upon the British Estimates, and that greater opportunities be given for the Parliamentary discussion of Indian affairs."—(Mr. Cathcart Wason.)
  Question proposed. "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MAJOR EVANS GORDONsaid that as one who had, for twenty years of his life, served in India in many capacities, and who had continued to take a very deep interest in Indian affairs, he should like to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for India on the admirable statement he had made to the House—both as to it manner and as to its substance. The right hon. Gentleman had shown that there was an increasing and abundant prosperity in every department of Indian affairs—a state of
  1278
  things which was wholly incompatible with the pictures which had been drawn as to the condition of India by hon. Gentlemen opposite who had moved and seconded the Amendment. Both these hon. Gentlemen had covered a great deal of ground, and the tendency of their remarks was that the people of India were in a starving, destitute, and ignorant condition.
  MR. SAMUEL SMITH: I did not say that the whole of them were in that condition, but that a large part of the agricultural population were so.
  MAJOR EVANS GORDONsaid that seeing the agricultural population of India was 80 per cent, of the total population, it was wholly impossible that these should be starving and, destitute under the conditions of prosperity which existed, and as was shown by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for India. The fact was that, without entering into details, the hon. Gentleman and those who thought with him, had taken his opinion from the statements made in what was called the Indian Congress. The value of these opinions was very much to be discounted. The hon. Gentleman opposite had just told the House that it was the opinion of that Congress that the investments of British capital in India were bleeding the country to death! He maintained that people who held such au entirely erroneous and ridiculous opinion as that must be listened to with the greatest caution when they spoke on other economic questions. Both the mover and seconder of the Amendment said that it was a grievance that Indian natives had not a larger share in the government of the country. These hon. Gentleman insisted that there should be a progressive increase in. the number of native Indians who should take a share in the government. But what had that progressive increase bean during the List twenty years? The number of natives employed in all branches of administration had steadily increased until now all the subordinate positions in every department of public life were filled by natives, while the number holding higher appointments was being steadily

  1279
  increased—even in the case of Judges of the High Court itself—a position higher even than that of a Lieutenant-Governor of a province. The hon. Gentlemen who moved and seconded the Amendment said, "Let us consult the wishes of the people of India," He could assure these hon. Gentlemen that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the dumb multitudes of India—not frothy rhetoricians of the Indian Congress— would far prefer to see Englishmen in responsible administrative positions in India rather than anyone belonging to their own faith or nationality. He believed that if a plebiscite of the Indian people were taken, fewer native Indians would be employed in administrative posts than at present. The confidence reposed by the natives of India in the English Indian Civil servants had always been high indeed; and they would rather entrust the administration of their affairs to Englishmen than to people of their own race and faith.
  The hon. Gentleman the Member for Flint Boroughs argued that the debt of the agricultural population should be liquidated by the Indian Government. Steps in that direction had been taken under the Deccan Ryots Act, and other efforts of that kind had been tried with more or less success; but to suggest that the Government of India should liquidate the debt of all the agricultural population of India was the wildest proposition ever made within the walls of that House. If the debts of these ryots were paid off to day, they would instantly begin to borrow on the morrow, and the position of the people would not be improved. The only position which would be improved was that of the money-lender, who was an admitted evil in the country. Money for funerals and Weddings would be certain to be borrowed. He regarded the demand in the Amendment for constant Parliamentary inquiry into the administration of India as very mischievous. To drag Indian affairs into the Party arena would be a great misfortune; and these frequent Parliamentary discussions would not lead to the better government of India in any way, or benefit the people of that country. If that were the policy of hon. Gentlemen
  1280
  opposite, he doubted whether they would ever find a Viceroy willing to represent them in India under such conditions. The present prosperity of India had been brought about in spite of great calamities and difficulties by a wise and statesmanlike policy of development, which had made it possible to withstand such visitations as famine and plague. He himself nursed one of the first cases of plague in India, and he could endorse what his right hon. friend had said about the superstition which prevailed. He had been through many great epidemics, and he knew the extraordinary unwillingness of the natives to take precautions. But in spite of all these terrible disasters, which would have paralysed India in former times, they found prosperity increasing and taxation decreasing. That had been arrived at by steady administration, by the extension of railways and irrigation works which had enabled the country to withstand these great shocks. He went to India in 1877, the year of the great Madras famine; the position of affairs was very different then. Millions of people were dying of starvation, not because there was no money or grain in the country, but because means of communication were so bad that food could not be conveyed to the people. India was now in a permanent position to withstand the great national calamities with which it was threatened.
  The arrangements proposed with regard to the military administration he approved of; but he should view with great alarm any proposal to abolish the office of Commander-in-Chief, which had an immense personal importance in the eyes of the Native Army. He should look with very great regret to the abolition of an office which had been held by many distinguished officers. To the Native Army the Commander-in-Chief was known as the "War Lord," and his office and person were held in the highest respect. He was glad that this old controversy as regarded military administration which had lasted for many years was to be ended. The arrangement proposed by his right hon. friend appeared to him to be sound; and, in the main, wise, statesmanlike, and scientific. He was not quite sure what the position of

  1281
  the Adjutant-General was to be under the new arrangement; but he had no doubt Lord Kitchener would settle that. There was one point to which the Secretary of State did not refer.
  The Papers which had been laid before Parliament seemed to justify the conclusion that our relations with Afghanistan were at least no worse than they had been for many years past. The British Mission under Sir Louis Dane was hospitably received at Cabul, and returned in safety. At Cabul a brief treaty was formally negotiated, and it renewed with the present Amir the political engagements which had subsisted for more than twenty years between the late Amir and the Indian Government. The gist of those engagements was that so long as the Amir shaped his foreign policy in accordance with our views, the integrity of Afghanistan against Russian aggression was guaranteed by the British Government, and a very large subsidy was paid from Indian revenues to the Afghan ruler. There appeared to have been no advance whatever beyond this position. The point which he ventured to urge upon the attention of the House was that this position, although it might not indicate in itself any change for the worse, was, nevertheless, most unreasonable, unsatisfactory, and full of dangerous possibilities.
  It was a matter of common knowledge that Russia was rapidly completing her railway communications and massing large forces along the Afghan frontier in Central Asia, and that Herat lay at her mercy. We were absolutely bound as a matter both of honour and expediency to defend the Afghan frontier which we demarcated in conjunction with Russia. Yet the ruler of Afghanistan, our ally, would not make, or allow us to make, a yard of railway or even of telegraph line within his country. We had been told by high authority that it was fatal in dealing with Oriental potentates to try and force their inclination. He would be the last to dispute the general correctness of this view. But Oriental potentates had a keen eye for their own interests and their own safety, and he could not believe that it was beyond the resources of diplomacy
  1282
  to convince the Amir that his safety lay in allowing us at least to establish telegraphic and railway communication between Quetta and his remote exposed frontier in the Herat province. He submitted that the Indian Government should leave no plan untried of gaining these moderate concessions, or rather these moderate signs of co-operation, from our ally, and that until they had been gained our relations with Afghanistan must be regarded as dangerously unsatisfactory. It must be remembered that if it suited Russia to do so a pretext could easily be found for an advance upon, and a "temporary" occupation of Herat. Without telegraphic communication a considerable period of time would elapse before any news of what was going on in the Herat province could reach this country. A move of this kind on the part of Russia, if not probable, was perfectly possible, and if it were to take place, had the Government considered the answer that they would make to it? A railway could no doubt speedily be laid to Kandahar and the army of the Amir could be reinforced in that direction. But this would not suffice, as it would be essential to remove the shock of a collision as far from the Indian frontier as possible and to prevent the establishment of Russia in the rich Herat province. Without better means of communication than at present existed this operation would be attended with great, if not insuperable, difficulty, and he trusted that matters would not be allowed to rest where they were, and that in his own interest the attention of the Ameer would be steadily called to the dangers of the present situation. He remembered the days of the Durbar between the Amir and Lord Dufferin, when it was believed they were on the brink of war, and when the doors of the Indian Treasury were opened, and the rupees were poured out in what might be truly called a silver stream to provide for the operations preliminary to a conflict. That was an utterly wasteful procedure, and he rejoiced to think that Lord Kitchener, the Indian Government, and his right hon. friend were taking time by the forelock and making their preparations now. The –2,500,000 which it was proposed to spend this year might prove to be a great economy in the end.
  MR. HERBERT ROBERTSjoined in the congratulations to the Government for having given so early a day for the discussion of Indian affairs, and expressed the hope that the practice now initiated would be rigorously adhered to in coming years. The object of the Amendment he now supported was to enable the dumb millions of India, to whom the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down alluded, to make their views known in this House. The Motion emphasised what would be generally admitted on all sides, namely, the desirability of the mind of the House being better informed and the people of this country becoming more deeply interested in Indian affairs. Everybody who took an interest in the matter was amazed at the magnitude of Indian affairs. Every problem that could interest politicians and administrators was to be found in India. In regard to this matter there were two schools of thought—that of the rulers and that of the ruled. With regard to the rulers he desired to emphasise the opinion expressed by his hon. friend the Member for Flintshire in that House, namely, an admiration for the splendid past services of those who had been called upon to govern that great dependency. He himself felt that the administration of India had in many ways been an arena in which the best qualities of our race had been shown, but on the other hand there were the views of the governed, and it was of supreme importance that those views should be recognised. Western civilisation and education must in time make a difference in the relations between the governed and the governing classes, and it was the duty of every Member of that House to acquaint himself with the facts, and endeavour, as far as he could, to meet the problems which arose in the Indian situation. The Indian National Congress represented the educated native opinion of the country; as far as public opinion in India could be expressed politically it was declared by that body, and that being to it was a great mistake for any Government to take up a hostile or unsympathetic attitude towards it.
  What was the peculiar function of Parliament in the government of India?
  1284
  He submitted that so long as India was governed, as at present, an active participation of the Imperial Parliament was essential. He remembered the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton once declaring that every Member of that House should regard himself as a Member for India. Constitutionally the Secretary of State was responsible to that House for the Government of India. That was the foundation principle of the statute upon which the Government of India was built up, but, owing to Parliamentary developments at home and to administrative changes in India, it had practically ceased to exist. With reference to the Motion before the House, the first suggestion was that there should be a periodical Parliamentary inquiry into the affairs of India. That was simply a revival of the inquiries that were held up to the time of the transference of the Government of India from the East India Company to the Secretary of State. Every one of those inquiries was followed by useful and beneficent results. The inquiry of 1817 practically established the principle of free trade in regard to the commerce of India; that of 1833 produced the declaration of the right of Indians to be eligible for every office under Government; and the inquiry of 1853 led to the abolition of patronage in the Civil Service. It might be said that a great change had come over the situation since 1858. That was obviously true. But with the growth of the power and efficiency of the Government of India it necessarily followed, especially having regard to the changed conditions of the Parliamentary machine here, that the Secretary of State was guided in the main by the opinions expressed by the Viceroy and his Council in India. The suggested inquiry was really in keeping with the trend of affairs throughout the world in the direction of the consolidation of the Empire. The underlying idea of Colonial Conferences was from time to time to bring the mind of the self-governing Colonies in touch with the mind of the mother country on important questions affecting their respective interests. Up to the present India had been left out of account in connection with these Colonial Conferences; but he submitted that if it was desirable that

  1285
  the self-governing Colonies should have these discussions every five years, it was much more necessary that India should every twenty years have an opportunity of making her views known by means of a Parliamentary inquiry.
  The second suggestion was that the salary of the Secretary of State should be placed upon the British Estimates. He had himself moved a Resolution in that direction, and would now merely remind the House that the Indian Expenditure Commission specifically recommended that that should be done.
  And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, the debate stood adjourned until this Evening's Sitting.

  EVENING SITTING.

    EAST INDIA REVENUE ACCOUNTS.
    Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Amendment to Question [21st June], "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair (for Committee on East India Revenue Accounts)."
    Which Amendment was—
    "To leave out from the word 'That,' to the end of the Question, and add the words, 'considering the great importance of Indian questions and the desire of the Indian people to lay their grievances before Parliament and to ask for improvement in the administration of their country, it is absolutely necessary, in the interests alike of India and the United Kingdom, that periodical Parliamentary inquiries into the administration of India be Revived, that the salary of the Secretary of State for India be placed upon the British Estimates, and that greater opportunities be given for the Parliamentary discussion of Indian affairs."— (Mr. Cathcart Wason.)
    Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question,"
    MR. HERBERT ROBERTS (continuing his speech)said when the House adjourned he was referring to the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Indian Expenditure that £50,000 should
    1286
    be placed on the British Estimates. The paragraph ran—
    "This contribution may be made the subject either of a charge upon the Consolidated Fund or an annual Vote on the charges of the establishment of the Secretary of State for India."
    On a previous occasion when this matter was debated, the noble Lord the Member for Ealing, then Secretary of State for India, replied that the recommendations of the Royal Commission had been carried out by a deduction of £50,000 from the annual sum paid by India to this country. But it was evident that the intentions of the Commission were that this charge should be placed upon the British Estimates in order to give the House an opportunity to discuss the administration of India on the Vote for the salary of the Secretary of State. By that means they would get another day's discussion on Indian affairs, and many important consequences would follow. The circumstances of India had greatly changed since 1858, and it was very desirable that there should be no distinction made between the position of the Secretary of State for India and the Secretary of State for the Colonies. If anything occurred in the Colonies to which public attention ought to be drawn, the matter could be brought up and a discussion raised on the salary of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and it was very desirable that this right should be accorded to the Indian people.
    With regard to the employment of Indians in the public service, special attention had been called to the matter in the Council of India on the debate on the Indian Budget by Mr. Gokhale, whose ability, high character, and lofty ideals were generally recognised. In the previous year the Viceroy had made a statement of the two principles governing this matter, and that statement was followed by executive action which created considerable feeling throughout the country, and that made it necessary to emphasise the point on this occasion. As he understood, what the Viceroy said was that the pledges given on that question had been fulfilled, and that there had been a progressive increase in the number of appointments. Lord Curzon said, also, last March, that the Commission which

    1287
    sat in 1887 to consider this question made certain recommendations which had been more than carried out. But that Commission sat in 1887, and it was now highly desirable that a further inquiry should be held as to these questions by a Committee or Commission absolutely independent of the Government of India, who were bound to have special interest in the finding. What gave rise to the feeling in India upon this question was the fact that while in such a department as that of Public Works, for instance, there were sixty-one higher positions with salaries of from 1,200 to 3,000 rupees a month, all of which positions were held by Europeans, and in the Police Department there were sixty-eight higher positions with salaries of from 900 to 3,000 rupees a month, also held exclusively by Europeans, it was an entirely new practice to allow positions carrying from forty to sixty rupees a month to be filled by Europeans, because it had always been regarded that as far as possible these should be given to Indian candidates. Yet the following notification appeared in the Calcutta Gazette in May last as the latest enactment of the Bengal Government—
    "In the office of the Board of Revenue, Lower Provinces, 30 per cent. of the appointments on pay of forty rupees and upwards will also be reserved for Europeans and Eurasians."
    It was not strange that it was feared that this step was the beginning of new policy in regard to opposition. Another matter which had been regarded with apprehension for many years from the Indian standpoint was the administration of Excise in India. There had been during the last thirty years a steady growth of the revenue obtained from the taxation of liquor in India. In 1874–5 £1,753,000 was obtained from this source. In 1894–5 it was £3,965,000, and in 1904–5 it would amount to £5,254,300. He was, of course, fully aware that the taxation of liquor had increased greatly, but it had not, in his opinion, increased sufficiently to account for so great an increase of revenue. It had been claimed by the Finance Member in his speech in the council in March last that there had been a reduction of 30 per cent. in the number of liquor shops in the last twenty years, but the almost universal testimony of missionaries and other residents of India was
    1288
    that drinking habits in India were increasing year by year. And, whilst desirous of giving the Government full credit for the reform which had been recently instituted, it was evident that the drink-problem in India demanded constant and serious consideration. Although it was said that very little good came from discussing Indian affairs in that House, he might remind the House that a Resolution moved by the hon. Member for Flintshire, in April, 1889, in connection with the liquor law of India, resulted in a despatch being framed upon the subject which had largely regulated Excise administration ever since; and that on another occasion, when the attention of the House was called to the drink evil on the tea plantations of Assam, the result was an inquiry, at the instance of the Indian Government, which in due course resulted in a Report, which led the Indian Government quite recently to introduce a number of very useful reforms. Those facts showed the utility of bringing the mind of Parliament to bear on these questions, which deeply affect India. Another fact that ought to be remembered at the present time was the deep impression made by the victories of Japan on Indian opinion. They did not know what the ultimate effect of the new situation would be, but of this he was certain, that the present time was an opportune moment for this country to show a special interest in the task of administering India, and for Parliament to consider the most pressing grievances put forward by the people of India. If such a Motion as this were to be favourably received by this House he thought it would be bound to have a beneficial effect on the administration of India.
    SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREEsaid the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had placed on that part of the Amendment now under discussion which provided for the holding of periodical Parliamentary inquiries a construction which was not apparent on the face of it. He confessed he had considerable sympathy with the Amendment, and rejoiced to think that the fact of their being engaged in the discussion of the Indian Budget so early in the session was in itself a proof that this

    1289
    House was to have in the future a better opportunity than it had had in past years of considering Indian affairs. He had often pleaded for the appointment of an earlier day for that purpose than the very fag end of the session when it had become customary for many years past to discuss the Budget, and just before the Easter adjournment he placed a Motion to that effect on the Order book. He congratulated the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for India on having been the means of establishing a precedent which he fervently trusted would be adhered to in future years, and thanked them for having responded to the wishes not only of those hon. Members who took an interest in the affairs of the Indian Empire, but of the people of India generally, for the grant of an earlier day in the session. In the sense that it furnished a better opportunity for discussing those affairs, it answered to the last part of the Amendment to a certain extent.
    As regarded the demand for placing the salary of the Secretary of State on the Estimates, if that could be done consistently with reserving a special day for the Indian Budget as heretofore, he should agree to the suggestion with pleasure, for the simple reason that that arrangement would enlarge the Parliamentary opportunities for the consideration of Indian matters. But if the acceptance of the suggestion involved the withdrawal of the special day, he failed to see what good would result from the change, and would prefer the maintenance of the present arrangement, which, at all events, secured a full day for India. The remaining portion of the Amendment, which sought to secure "periodical inquiries into the administration of India," was the most important and debatable part of it, and required elucidation. It assumed the existence of "grievances" against that administration, which evidently were to be the subject of the periodical inquiries. The hon. Member who had just sat down had, however, construed it differently. He said it was meant to secure to India some such opportunities for the discussion of important matters relating to her as were secured to the self-governing Colonies by the conferences held by the Colonial
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    Secretary with the Premiers and representatives of the Colonies. If that were so, he would certainly support that part of the Amendment also.
    MR. HERBERT ROBERTSexplained that what he meant to say was that the suggested inquiries would serve the same purpose for India as the Colonial Conference did for the Colonies, and would also embrace an investigation into grievances or complaints.
    SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREEsaid that would mean the institution by the Imperial Government of a sort of impeachment and trial of the administrators of Indian affairs appointed by themselves. It was true there were periodical inquiries instituted by Parliament against the East India Company; but the circumstances were quite different to those of the present day. Then India was practically under the rule of a private company, and when it required the renewal of its charter, Parliament was bound to see that the stewardship of the affairs of the large Empire committed to its care had been properly discharged. The commercial rights and monopolies enjoyed by the company wore also a source of irritation and possibly of just grievance to the mercantile and trading communities of Great Britain and India, and there was room for investigation as to the way the company had exercised its privileges. All such causes had disappeared, and any periodical inquiry, now, into the administration of India would only reduce itself to an investigation of charges levelled against those who had been entrusted with it. That would certainly affect the prestige of British rule, and do no good whatever to the people of India. What was most desirable for the welfare of that country was the steady fostering of a sense of contentment and confidence in her Government, affording a stimulus to the people to work out their salvation by a diligent pursuit of the paths of reform and progress, and by development of industries. The institution of a system of periodical inquiries with the idea of investigating

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    into complaints against their administrators would act quite in a contrary direction, raise hopes doomed to disappointment, and, without resulting in any practical good that could well be imagined, tend to the straining of relations between the people and the Government. Unless those who advocated the Amendment could show that the inquiries suggested were meant to serve the purpose of friendly conferences like those held with colonial representatives, he was afraid he could not vote for it. But before leaving this subject, he should like to impress upon the Government the desirability of including in future Colonial Conferences one or more representatives from India, as there were many questions considered at them, such, for instance, as the military and naval obligations appertaining to different parts of the Empire, with which India was deeply concerned, and in respect to which she should have proper representation.
    The time occupied in the discussion of the Amendment curtailed the opportunity they had on a night like this of considering the important features embodied in the financial statement laid before the House by his right hon. friend, and he proposed to pass over some of them in as brief review as possible. It was gratifying to note that the large surpluses of the past six years had been continued during the year to which the statement referred, but really the most salient feature of the Budget was the application or use made of the surplus. The further reduction of the salt tax by 8 annas deserved special recognition as making another stride towards the entire abolition of it, which he had advocated in the past. Last year he dwelt at some length on the reasons which impelled him to suggest that the tax should finally disappear. It was a burden on the poorer classes of the people, which, besides being oppressive and injuriously affecting the consumption of a necessary article of food, had the more serious disadvantage of impressing upon them the nation that because they were under a foreign Government they were compelled to pay a tax from which they would otherwise be immune. It was worth while removing such an impression even at a great
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    financial sacrifice. He also welcomed the abolition of the famine cesses. These began to be levied in 1878, and in their incidence were equivalent to 2 per cent. on land revenue. They were gradually discontinued in certain provinces and now their total removal would, to his mind, benefit the cultivators as well as the landlords and tenants in the districts concerned. The grants of 35 lakhs of rupees for primary education, and 20 lakhs towards the development of agricultural instruction and experimental farms, and the establishment of a college, were pleasing signs of the recognition by the Government of India of the necessity of spreading education among the masses suitable to their needs, although it must be remarked that these contributions were but as drops in the ocean to what was needed. Another noticeable allocation of the surplus was the grant-in-aid afforded to district and local boards. All these contributions, together with the creation of a Department of Commerce and Industry, the establishment of a Railway Board, the extension of irrigation, and reorganisation of the police, were performances of the Government of India during the twelve months under review of which they had just reason to be proud.
    He could indicate, if time permitted, some other equally important matters to which that Government might devote its next surplus and earn in a larger degree the gratitude of the people, which he was glad to note had been accorded to them for their wise use of the spare funds of the past few years. But as one of the most pressing reforms which had been delayed on the plea of want of funds for a long time past, and which he believed called for adoption without longer delay, he would particularly mention that of the separation of the judicial from executive functions. He had dwelt at length on this topic in his speech a few years ago from these benches, and he should content himself now with remarking only that this reform had had acceptance and advocacy from many eminent men experienced in the administration of India. The combination of judicial and executive functions in the same officer must lead imperceptibly to

    1293
    his being influenced in the discharge of his judicial duties in dealing with matters which he had had to deal with in his executive capacity, such, for example, as municipal offences. Even if this were not so, the popular mind was naturally imbued with the idea that this could not fail to be the case, and its confidence in the impartiality of judicial decisions was shaken. And as among the main titles of British rule to the confidence of the people in India was their belief in the impartial administration of justice under that rule, he should regard it as an act of wisdom on the part of the Secretary of State if he were to invite the Viceroy to give his early attention to the question of this reform.
    When he was last in India, and indeed for a long time past, his attention had been drawn to the increasing tendency in local administrations to withhold appeals submitted over their executive decisions to superior authority by the parties concerned. In order to ascertain the accuracy of this allegation, he asked his right hon. friend recently to give a Return of the number of appeals and other representations forwarded to him from India, together with the number withheld. This Return was published yesterday, and from it he found that the allegation was well founded. It showed, in a steadily increasing ratio, a disposition in recent years to withhold these appeals in India, based upon discretion left to the local authorities under the rules governing the submission of appeals. This discretion was meant to be used sparingly, and only in respect of certain appeals which violated the rules. That the discretion was not wide, or meant to be wide, was fully apparent from this resolution of the Government of India, dated September 24th, 1880—
    "The Governor-General in Council considers that the discretionary power of withholding petitions under Clause 8, Rule XIII. (since renumbered Clause 7, Rule XII.) of the rules for the submission, receipt, and transmission of memorials and other papers of the same class addressed to His Majesty the King, Emperor of India, or to the right hon. the Secretary of State for India, by private persons or by officers of all civil departments should be used with caution, and only after full consideration of the facts in each case. Having
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    regard to the constitution and character of the Indian subordinate services, dismissal of Government officials often involves serious distress, if not actual ruin, to them, and it is right that, under such circumstances, every opportunity should be allowed to them of making themselves heard. Further, when, as sometimes happens, their representations reach the Secretary of State through non-official channels, it is convenient that he should be in a position at once to deal with them; instead of being obliged, as may now be the case, to refer for information to this country. Such petitions, therefore, should not be withheld when there is any reasonable prospect of difference of opinion as to the order passed on them by the Government of India, or when they contain anything to which the attention of the Secretary of State is likely to be especially directed."
    In spite of this injunction, it would appear from the Return that the discretionary power had been exercised within the past few years with increasing freedom. Ten years back, in 1894, of the petitions addressed to the Secretary of State, seventy-two were forwarded to him and forty-eight withheld. Since then every year the proportion of those forwarded became increasingly smaller, until, in the last year given in the Return, 1904, the numbers were twenty-three forwarded and 140 withhold. So that, whereas in 1894 the proportion of those sent was about two-thirds accepted to one-third rejected locally, ten years later it was one-sixth accepted and five-sixths rejected. This was a somewhat serious matter, and practically amounted to a denial of justice in many cases. The petitions were generally appeals against the acts and decisions of the very authorities with whom the discretion to withhold was left. He did not want to allege that they withheld these representations from any actual desire to prevent justice being done to the appellants. It was more likely that they were induced to hold them back on the ground that the interests involved in the appeals were trivial. They might be so to a high official, or even to one not concerned with the matter under appeal, but to the person appealing that same matter might be of vital importance. So long as the people were permitted to have the right of appeal—and it would be highly imprudent to curtail chat right, so great

    1295
    was their confidence in the decision of an appellate authority—they thought, and he believed rightly, that the tendency to withhold appeals in such largely increasing numbers was intended to take away in practice a valuable boon which had been accorded them in theory. He trusted he had demonstrated to his right hon. friend that this matter was worthy of his serious consideration, and hoped he would see the desirability of sending out instructions to India for a more sparing use of the discretion left to local Administrations with regard to the forwarding of appeals to higher authorities.
    He asked the permission of the House to refer to a pleasant matter which had not been alluded to by speaker, but which had aroused deep interest in India. To judge from the views expressed in many parts of the country, they might feel confident that a very hearty welcome would be extended to their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, during their forthcoming visit to the Indian dominions of His Majesty, a welcome as splendid and sincere as that which greeted King Edward VII. when, as Prince of Wales, he visited that land. He believed the Royal visit would tend further to draw the hearts of the people of India to the British throne. It would be wise to signalise that event by some gracious act which might appeal to the imagination of her princes and peoples, and therefore he was tempted to suggest to his right hon. friend that he should consider if he could not revive a project formulated by Lord Lytton at the Imperial Assemblage held at Delhi on the New Year's Day of 1877, where Her Majesty the late Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India. In Lady Betty Balfour's work on Lord Lytton's Indian Administration there occurred a reference to this scheme in these words—
    "Lord Lytton desired to take the opportunity to establish an Indian Privy Council, forming a distinct and separate institution, restricted, at all events in the first instance, to the great chiefs, and empowered to consult with and advise the Viceroy from time to time on general matters of State. Occasions might arise on which such sympathy and
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    counsel would be of extreme importance. … The opposition, however, of certain authorities at home proved too strong for the schemes to be carried out in the way the Viceroy had planned them, and they were finally reduced to an association of some of the leading native princes, with the principal advisers of the Indian Government as 'Councillors of the Empress,' thus forming a nucleus for a future Privy Council."
    The motive for the project was expounded by Lord Lytton in a letter to Lord Salisbury, dated May 11th, 1876, in which he said—
    "Look at the mistake which Austria has made in the government of her Italian provinces. They were the best governed portions of Italy … Fearing the native noblesse, she snubbed and repressed it. … But the Indian chiefs and princes are not a mere noblesse. They are a powerful aristocracy. To secure completely, and efficiently utilise, the Indian aristocracy is, I am convinced, the most important problem now before us."
    If he recollected aright Lord Lytton not only enunciated the scheme, but actually appointed some chiefs as Imperial Councillors in 1877. Since then, however, nothing had been heard of it. He submitted that the forthcoming royal visit should be made the occasion for its revival. Among the now generation of native rulers that had come into existence since 1877, there were many well-educated, intelligent chiefs capable of giving advice to, and worthy to be taken into consultation by, the Viceroy on masters of State. Some such scheme as that conceived by Lord Lytton would give the Government of India an opportunity of securing the opinions of that class of men who, by the large stake they held in the safety and welfare of our Indian Empire, and by virtue of their representative and responsible positions, were clearly entitled to be taken into confidence and consultation by the paramount Power.
    Copious reference had been made by previous speakers to that part of the proceedings of the meeting of the Legislative Council of the Viceroy where the Budget was discussed, which dealt with the attitude adopted by the Government of India in regard to our present fiscal controversy. In the course of their remarks

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    some of his hon. friends expressed an apprehension that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham would, if it rested with him, force India, against her will, to join in any scheme of fiscal reform which was adopted by Great Britain. He could not share that apprehension, for he held in his hand a letter received from the right hon. Gentleman in reply to one he addressed to him in November, 1903, in which he distinctly said—
    "I do not think under any circumstances that India could be forced to join unless there were general assent on the part of the Indian authorities."
    He considered that to be a full assurance on the part of the right hon. Gentleman that India would be left complete freedom to pursue her fiscal policy in such a way as suited best the promotion of her own economic and industrial interests, and he trusted no change of circumstances or modification of the words just quoted would be allowed to alter the spirit of that assurance.
    He begged to be permitted at that stage to refer to the subject of the Motion which stood in his name, on the ground that for want of greater opportunities for the discussion of questions relating to India it had not had adequate consideration this session, and also because, as the Amendment now before the House would be divided upon, he was precluded from asking hon. Members to pronounce their definite decision thereupon. He was, however, convinced that there was not, nor could there possibly be, any division of opinion among hon. Members, whether they sat on his side or the other, as to the terms of the Motion or the object embodied in it. The Motion ran as follows—
    "That this House regards with disapproval the degrading and harsh measures adopted in respect of His Majesty's Indian subjects in several of the British Colonies, notably in South Africa, considers them to be inconsistent with the reasonable claims of the people of India as subjects of the British Empire to fair treatment, and is of opinion that the Government of India should adopt every means within its power to protect the rights and interests of the people of India in all parts of the British
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    Dominions, and invoke the intervention of the Imperial Government to that end."
    The particulars which he had to lay before the House in support of this Motion shaped themselves into one long dismal tale of woe, and constituted a gross violation of some of the most solemn pledges given by the Crown to the people of India, as well as of premises and guarantees vouchsafed to them within recent times in several parts of Africa itself for fair treatment. As long back as 1843, a proclamation issued by Sir George Napier in view of the annexation of Natal contained this pledge—
    "That there shall not be in the eye of the law any distinction or disqualification whatever founded on mere distinction of colour, origin, language, or creed, but that the protection of the law in letter and in substance shall be extended impartially to all alike."
    Under the Conventions of 1881 and 1884 with the Boer Government the rights and privileges secured for British residents in the Transvaal were understood to apply to British Indian residents, and, about ten years ago, when the South African Republic contended that that was not so, at the instance of the Colonial Office it was referred to the arbitration of the then Chief Justice of the Orange Free State. His finding was adverse to the case presented on behalf of the British Indians, whereupon the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham addressed a despatch to the High Commissioner, dated 4th September, 1895, in which he stated—
    "In conclusion I would say that whilst desirous loyally to abide by the award, and to allow it to close the legal and international question in dispute between the two Governments, I reserve to myself the liberty later on to make friendly representations to the South African Republic as to the traders, and possibly to invite the Government to consider whether, when once its legal position has been made good, it would not be wise to review the situation from a new point of view and decide whether it would not be better in the interests of its own burghers to treat the Indians more generously, and to free itself from even the appearance of countenancing a trade jealousy which, I have some reason to believe, does not emanate from the governing class in the Republic."

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    Then followed the war, justified by several misdeeds of the Boer Administration, among which its treatment of British Indian subjects was held up by Minister after Minister, and quite rightly, as one of the most revolting. Lord Lansdowne, then Secretary of State for War, speaking at Sheffield in November, 1899, uttered these memorable words—
    "A considerable number of the Queen's Indian subjects are to be found in the Transvaal, and among the many misdeeds of the South African Republic I do not know that any fills me with more indignation than its treatment of these Indians. And the harm is not confined to the sufferers on the spot; for what do you imagine would be the effect produced in India when these poor people return to their country to report to their friends that the Government of the Empress, so mighty and irresistible in India, with its population of 300,000,000, is powerless to secure redress at the hands of a small South African State?"
    He could quote many other responsible utterances to show that the people of India were guaranteed fair treatment in South Africa as the result of the replacement of Boer by British rule, but what he had quoted amply proved that contention. After the war was over, and while British administration was being organised there, he repeatedly urged upon the Colonial Secretary to ameliorate the condition of British Indians by repealing the Boer regulations, and time after time promises were made that that should be done, that consultations with Lord Milner during his visit to this country would be held, and so forth. The first positive indication, however, that these expectations were futile was not long in coming, for in April, 1903, the local Transvaal authorities under Lord Milner issued a notification strictly enforcing the old Boer Location Law. This, be it remembered, was the same law against which our Colonial Office had protested so strongly to the Republic, and which in consequence had remained a dead letter. Next followed regulation after regulation the tendency of which was to make the status and condition of British Indians much inferior and worse under the new British regime than it was in Boer times. Old Dutch regulations, most of which were never enforced before, were dug up
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    and put into effect in their strictest sense. He had fully given them in detail in an appendix to a letter which he addressed to the Colonial Secretary at the end of 1903, giving a full narrative of the deplorable situation to which British Indians were reduced under British domination. That letter was forwarded to Lord Milner by his right hon. friend in a despatch which, he was pleased to say, was sympathetic. The replies, however, which that despatch evoked from Lord Milner and Sir Arthur Lawley, were most unsatisfactory, and, while indulging in vain regrets at the situation, substantially justified the hideous rigour of the treatment to which British Indians were subjected under their immediate administration, on the plea of the intense hostility of the so-called white population, and the necessity of protecting the new territories against the apprehended invasion of Indian traders. Instead of holding out any hope of alleviation, they asked permission for the legislation of more rigorous measures, but the Colonial Secretary discountenanced the demand to some extent, although not so completely as he could have wished or the justice of the case demanded. In one portion of his despatch of 20th July, 1904, he was actually driven to remind Lord Milner and Sir Arthur Lawley that—
    "His Majesty's Government hold that it is derogatory to national honour to impose on resident British subjects disabilities against which we have remonstrated, and to which even the law of the late South African Republic, rightly interpreted, did not subject them."
    At a meeting of the Legislative Council of the Transvaal held after the receipt of this despatch, Sir George Farrar moved a resolution—
    "Urging on Mr. Lyttelton to appoint a Commission of influential persons in Great Britain to visit the country," etc.
    With the idea of securing an impartial consideration of the whole question. Believing fully in the strength and justice of the cause he had had the privilege of advocating on behalf of the 3,000,000 of their fellow-subjects in India, and in the full faith that a Commission composed of eminent Englishmen could not possibly go so far wrong as not to recognise the

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    legitimate demands of a considerable portion of British subjects for fair treatment, he addressed himself to the Colonial Secretary urging him to appoint such a Commission.
    In reply to this he was informed that further communication from Lord Milner was awaited by the Colonial Secretary before coming to a final decision with regard to the appointment of the Commission. That was last October, and he had heard nothing more about it since. It seemed to have gone the way of many other references to the Transvaal Administration, and he was sorry not to see his right hon. friend in his place, as perhaps they might have known from him that night if he still intended to appoint the Commission. He had brought up to date in the merest outline the narrative of the failure of the Transvaal authorities to ameliorate the condition of British Indian residents within their jurisdiction, showing that, in spite of repeated pledges and promises to secure that object, they had, by various measures and regulations, reduced these people to a much worse plight than they were in during the Boer regime Lord Milner's deliberate assurance that, at all events, those among them of a "superior class" would be exempted from the application of these disabling and degrading provisions, had not been fulfilled. He said in his letter of May 11th, 1903—
    "It is the intention of the Government to be liberal in granting such exemptions. We have no wish to subject respectable British Indians, or civilised Asiatics generally, to any disabilities."
    He would like to know in how many cases, and in respect of how many of the harsh measures, such exemption had been granted. This retrograde legislation, passed in a new colony when still under the immediate government of the Colonial Office, had, moreover, been the means of furnishing an incentive to the self-governing Colonies, such as Natal and the Cape, to reduce the already restricted rights and privileges enjoyed by the British-Indian residents there. In fact, everywhere in the oversea possessions of the Crown a relentless crusade was being carried on against
    1302
    the very existence of British-Indian subjects resident there, and it was now high time the Imperial Government regarded this state of things as a matter of Imperial concern calling for drastic treatment. They could not but realise that Lord Milner had failed to bring about relations of amity and concord between two great outlying parts of the Empire, as he might have done by showing some firmness and discountenancing the "intense hostility" of the European residents in the Transvaal against British-Indian settlers. Even this "hostility" plea, so often put forward by him and his subordinates to cover their helplessness or unwillingness to grapple with the difficulty, was hardly tenable, for he was informed that the real opposition to Indians did not proceed from British colonists of the better class, but was mainly led by a low class of aliens, Polish Jews and such like, who were permitted rights and liberties denied to the Indian subjects of the Crown. This was fully borne out by the fact that a large number of respectable European firms in the Transvaal were so scandalised at the oppressive measures adopted against British Indians that they actually submitted a petition to the Lieutenant-Governor against the curtailment of their rights and liberties. In it they said—
    "It is evident the Indian supplies a felt want because the general public support him."
    They describe them as—
    "an orderly, law-abiding, and useful section of the community, quite equal in honesty and sobriety to others who are not British subjects and yet enjoy full trading and other rights."
    This most valuable testimony from a body of independent European gentlemen of position was a complete negation of the "hostility" excuse, and yet Sir Arthur Lawley, in his reply to his (Sir Mancherjee Bhownaggree's) representation to the Colonial Secretary, explained it away by saying that the petitioners thus expressed themselves as they were in a position to ignore the competition of the Asiatic traders. That reply from top to bottom was one long untenable apology for the harsh treatment of the British Indian, and the strange arguments or special pleading on

    1303
    which it was built up reached their culmination in this remarkable sentence—
    "If the redemption of the pledges upon which Sir M. Bhownaggree depends both in letter and spirit means that in fifty or a hundred years this country will have fallen to the inheritance of the Eastern instead of Western populations, then from the point of view of civilisation they must be numbered among promises which it is a greater crime to keep than to break."
    The assumption about the country falling to the inheritance of Eastern nations was gratuitous, because nobody had urged such an absurd proposition or could believe in the possibility of it, and the "crime" of keeping solemn pledges of the Crown suggested here by a British pro-Consul sounded grotesque in juxtaposition to these words proclaimed by the good and great Queen Victoria in 1858—
    "We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligations of duty which bind us to all our other subjects, and those obligations, by the blessing of Almighty God, we shall faithfully and conscientiously fulfil."
    The fact of the matter was that the Transvaal Administration had deplorably failed in doing what they ought to have done to secure some amelioration of the condition of the British Indian since our rule was there established. On the other hand, it was only too evident from the tone and temper of Sir Arthur Lawley's letter that they had encouraged, passively at all events, some of the low classes of residents there in their hostility against, and jealousy of, British Indians. And thus the sympathetic promises of the late and present Secretaries for the Colonies and for India, for some reasonable solution of this difficult question, had remained unfulfilled. Lord Curzon, too, had well championed the cause of British Indians, but without avail. He knew if it rested with them they would not lose five minutes in putting an end to this intolerable state of things. But mere sympathy, after all, was not a substantial remedy for a grievance of this magnitude. The time had arrived for the Secretary of State and the Government of India to represent to the Cabinet that this most degrading and oppressive
    1304
    treatment of the people whose rights and liberties they were bound to protect in the colonial possessions of the Crown, must be regarded as a matter of Imperial concern and that a solution must be found at any cost. The plea of non-interference because of tin self-governing Constitution of some of the Colonies might be convenient but was not convincing. Self-government carried with it privileges, responsibilities, and obligations to respect the pledges of that Imperial Power from which the right of self-government was derived. If and when the exercise of its authority deliberately ran counter to the generally accepted principles of the main Constitution, invalidated its solemn pledges, and trailed into dust its noblest traditions, it became the imperative duty of Ministers to advise the Crown to annul and to veto the measures which operated to such ignoble purposes. He submitted, therefore, that his right hon. friend should urge strongly upon the Prime Minister and his other colleagues to intervene with the colonial authorities to secure within their jurisdiction a recognition of the reasonable claims of the people of India to fair and honourable treatment. If the people in the Colonies could not be persuaded by conciliatory means to recognise this duty which they owed to the mother country, and were determined to strike at the very basis of the unity of the Empire by spurning the friendly advances and legitimate claims of millions of their fellow-subjects under the same flag, and thereby degrading them in the sight of other nations as unfit to enjoy the elementary rights and liberties of British citizenship, then he went to the length of saying that the Government of India should be called upon to adopt measures of retaliation. They had been talking loud and long about commercial reciprocity and retaliation. He asked with certainly much greater justification for reciprocity in the treatment of human beings. A kiss for a kiss, and a kick for a kick was, after all, a sound principle to go upon, and although any legislation by the Government of India against colonists might not have much practical operation, still in so far as the real sting of the colonial legislation against British Indians consisted in lowering them in the

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    sight of other peoples of the globe, let there be placed upon the Statute-book of our great Indian Empire corresponding measures which might show in turn that if colonials despise Indians, Indians hate colonials. He had to apologise to the House for engaging so much of its time, and thanked hon. Members for the extremely sympathetic hearing they had accorded to his feeble advocacy of a cause which affected the honour and interests of a vast number of their fellow-subjects. He had dealt with it not merely from the standpoint of India, but in its larger Imperial aspect, in the hope of cementing a deplorable breach between the peoples of the outlying parts of the British dominions, which, so long as it endured, made impossible that unity of the Empire which they all so fervently desired.
    SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had made a powerful appeal for a cause in which he would find universal sympathy on that side of the House of Commons, but the latter part of his speech was a singular contrast to the earlier part in which he said he could not support the Amendment.
    SIR MANCHERJEE BHOWNAGGREEsaid if the intention of the Amendment was simply to bring under the consideration of the House and the Colonial Secretary such grievances as those to which he had referred he would support it, but when it was a matter of subjecting the Indian administration to periodic inquisitions he could not.
    SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid the hon. Gentleman had talked about alleged grievances, and it seemed to him that that phrase tended to discount the real grievances which had been brought before the House. One part of the Resolution came down from the days of the late Professor Fawcett, who believed—as many of them still believed—that these periodic inquiries which used to be held, were essential to the proper treatment of Indian grievances; and that there was a closer touch in the past with
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    the Indian people under the old East India Company than in recent times. The main object of this Amendment was to give the people of India opportunities of placing their grievances freely before the House of Commons, and the latter part of the hon. Member's speech was the best proof of the necessity for the Amendment.
    Optimistic utterances had never been more strongly marked than in the course of that debate. Prosperity had been the burden of almost every speech. But the fact that India was the only country in the world in which plague had become endemic discounted these statements about prosperity in India. Plague was a disease essentially caused by poverty, and it could only be removed by removing poverty. The prosperity was a prosperity of trade accounts. Those who, in the interests of the Empire, were opposed to preferential trade within the Empire could congratulate themselves on the Indian financial accounts. It was the unanimous opinion of the Government of India, as placed before them in these accounts, that the main cause of the prosperity of India in her financial accounts was her financial system, which was rootedly opposed to a system of preferential trade within the Empire. If there had been more frequent opportunities of bringing Indian questions before the House of Commons, would it have been possible for the Indian Government to have settled one of the most vexed and disputed questions—the financial control of the Indian military expenditure and the relations between the Commander-in-Chief and the Indian Minister of War, who was the Military Member of the Council—would it have been possible for the Government to have settled that question out of hand without consulting Parliament? Yet, without consulting Parliament, they had settled this question in a manner which, in the long run, could be no settlement at all. It was obviously a compromise to keep these two great men who were unable to agree, and whose disagreement had made the system unworkable. Under that system Lord Roberts and General Sir George Chesney managed to get on perfectly, and General Sir George Chesney brought that system before the

    1307
    House, with the support of the present Secretary of State for War, as a model system for this country. The highest military authorities and almost everybody on both sides of the House agreed that that was a model system. Yet in a moment, because Lord Kitchener and the present Military Member of the Council did not agree, the whole system had been blown to the winds, and the Government had attempted to settle it (by a settlement which, he thought, was no settlement at all) behind the back of Parliament. That showed how incomplete was the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India.
    MR. BRODRICK, who was indistinctly heard, was understood to say that that was rather a curious expression to use in view of the despatch which had been laid on the Table of the House.
    SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid there was friction between the Commander-in-Chief in India and the Military Member of the Council, and the Government met the difficulty by a compromise, and that compromise was a new military system for India to which neither the House of Commons nor the House of Lords had had a word to say. That was what he called behind the back of Parliament.
    There was another Question he would like to ask. How did we stand with regard to what was called Lord Kitchener's redistribution scheme? India was already convulsed by this redistribution scheme. All that had been done behind the back of Parliament and of the people of India. Nobody knew anything about it—even the Viceroy's Council did not know. There was a large expenditure of money in these accounts for carrying out the details of this redistribution scheme, the most curious item being a sum for the purchase of land for native troops along the scientific frontier of India in the new province. But they were fighting over the details of the scheme, and had not settled where all this money for land was to be spent. There were two kinds of questions which should be discussed here. The military expenditure had reached this year, not
    1308
    £20,500,000, as the Secretary of State had said, but at least £21,000,000, the figure named by the Finance Minister. That enormous expenditure was largely swelled in the present year by the fact that the Government of India had deliberately adopted the policy of paying out of revenue the whole of the permanent charges which in this country would be put to debt charges. In India exactly the opposite principle in regard to debt charges was adopted from that in operation in this country. They were always told that India was a very poor country. Salt was taxed at from twelve to sixteen times its value, and the whole system of taxation told frightfully on the poorest people in the world. And yet we had always made India pay military charges which we could not afford here. We had been able to screw the people of India to the uttermost farthing for military charges, with the result, he admitted, of great millitary efficiency, but this principle was pushed rather far when, without the slightest consultation with this House, they had it laid down as a general policy that there were to be no loans for military purposes in India.
    MR. BRODRICKasked where this policy was laid down.
    SIR CHARLES DILKEreplied that it was laid down in the debate in the Legislative Council. It was argued by the Finance Member of the Council and by Lord Curzon himself. It was laid down that the purchase of land for Lord Kitchener's redistribution scheme was to be paid off in four years. There was, in the case of India, a great division in the conveyance of information to the House between the War Office and the Indian Government. Last year and the year before, the policy was announced, against which many of them protested, of throwing the whole of the charge of the rearmament of the artillery upon India for the first two years. He noticed with amazement, after all that was said about the pressing and inscant necessity of this policy, that there was a shortage in the guns supplied to India. He had asked before Whitsuntide, and he had asked again that day, what the shortage was,

    1309
    and he got an Answer which was no Answer. And here they were, in a debate on India, without knowing what that shortage was. Another question which they had not been able to discuss in the House of Commons was the recent Mission to Afghanistan. There had been a debate in the House of Lords, however, which brought out the fact that the Mission pressed on behalf of India for all sorts of conditions which did not exist before, and which they did not succeed in obtaining. A whole series of speakers in the Lords pointed out conditions which Sir Louis Dane was asked to obtain.
    MR. BRODRICK: What speakers?
    SIR CHARLES DILKEasked would the Secretary of State deny that the Government in the two Answers given in the debate admitted that Sir Louis Dane had been unsuccessful in the results of his Mission—that was to say, that he had asked for a number of things which he did not obtain.
    MR. BRODRICK: I entirely deny that the speakers on behalf of the Government in the House of Lords said that Sir Louis Dane had been unsuccessful in his Mission.
    SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid their language was open for anyone to read, and it had been universally read in India as meaning what he had read it as meaning. Lord Ripon, in winding up the debate, put that construction upon it, and no reply was given to what he said. He had no doubt himself that Sir Louis Dane was directed by Lord Curzon to press on the Amir certain conditions which, as he himself thought, were unwise and dangerous conditions, and that happily those conditions were refused by the Amir.
    MR. BRODRICK: If the right hon. Gentleman desires an Answer to be given he should state what the conditions were which Sir Louis Dane was told to press on the Amir and did not succeed in obtaining.
    SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid he would give one class of conditions, which was suggested in the House of Lords debate; he meant railway facilities into Afghanistan for military purposes. That was a specific statement. It was made in the House of Lords, and it was not contradicted; on the contrary, the whole tone of the Answer went to show that it was a true statement. He gave this as another example of the class of questions which the House ought to have frequent and free opportunities of discussing. Another question was that which had been dealt with so ably by the last speaker—the treatment of British Indians in South Africa. The worst sufferers were the Indians in Natal, whose treatment was peculiarly mean in view of their great services in the war. A hundred British Indians had subscribed a large sum, and had obtained the services of the thousand British Indians who acted as bearers throughout the war and performed magnificent service, especially at Spion Kop. That added to the peculiar meanness with which these British subjects were treated in Natal and the Transvaal. A further question which ought to be discussed was the position of India in relation to the fiscal question and the Imperial Conference. His right hon. friend had read out the declaration of Lord Curzon in which occurred the words "those would be the instructions with which our delegates would proceed." In view of that declaration, what became of the free and unfettered conference? Surely this was a question which should be probed to the bottom in the House of Commons. The Indian Government had emphatically declared against preference, and the people of the United Kingdom seemed to be of the same opinion. Therefore the only part of the British Empire which substantially contributed towards the defences of the Empire and which this year had contributed over £21,000,000 towards the support of the forces of this country was the Indian Empire, and it had declared itself unanimously against Imperial preference. How, then, could a conference on the question be free and unfettered when this country and the only other part of the Empire that contributed fully to the maintenance of

    1311
    the Imperial forces were rootedly opposed to the idea of preference? In such circumstances it was a delusion and dangerous to the fabric of the Empire to tempt the great self-governing Colonies into a conference on the question. The whole idea was blown into the air.
    SIR J. FERGUSSONsaid he differed from the right hon. Baronet opposite as to the object and the effect of this Amendment. The speech of the right hon. Baronet had been mainly directed to matters which had come up in the debate, and he had dealt with them very ably. One thing which the right hon. Baronet had laid stress upon was a charge that the Government of India had taken upon itself to settle very important matters behind the back of Parliament. He thought it would be a great mistake to lower in any way the position of the Commander-in-Chief in India. It was a position that commanded the highest respect with the Native Army. The work of that officer was very heavy indeed, and he could understand that it had been contemplated to appoint a Chief of the Staff who would relieve the Commander-in-Chief of a great deal of his executive duty in regard to discipline and distribution of troops. The system had worked well in South Africa, where Lord Kitchener himself had acted as Chief of the Staff. He did not think that those Members of the House who had been soldiers would have much difficulty in understanding how that scheme would work. The right hon. Gentleman said that under a former military system there had been no such trouble even with the present distribution. The House was aware of the case of Sir Charles Napier, who resigned the position of Commander-in-Chief because he was not allowed a sufficiently free hand in the management of the Army. The right hon. Gentleman had complained that money had been paid for the purchase of land for military purposes and that they were not told where the land was. That was not an uncommon thing to do in this country. Frequently a Vote was taken for certain portions of land.
    SIR CHARLES DILKEsaid he did not complain of all, because he was
    1312
    rather in favour of the system. What he said was that this question had been settled in one sense in India and in exactly the opposite sense in this country at the same time.
    SIR J. FERGUSSONsaid that in spite of a large reduction in taxation India had been so blessed with prosperity of late years that the Government had been able to carry out very important reforms. He wished to point out that the Post Office carried out works out of revenue which in other departments would be charged to capital and would be raised by loan. He had listened with great pleasure to the speech of his hon. friend the Member for Bethnal Green, who had spoken with such force and so well for his fellow-countrymen in India The hon. Member knew so well how to put the matter in the most forcible manner, and with good taste, and he hoped what he had said would have a permanent effect upon the Government, and that the House would not tolerate such treatment being accorded to our own fellow-subjects any longer.
    He thought that they had in many respects strayed from the precise terms of the Amendment. He did not think, moreover, that the arguments of the mover and seconder of the Amendment established a case showing the beneficial effects which would flow from frequent Parliamentary debates in relation to the government of India. It would be most dangerous if the House put pressure on the Government of India in relation to policy on grounds which revealed little knowledge of the real circumstances of the country. In opposition to the statements of the mover of the Amendment, he maintained that the methods of government in India were most sympathetic to the native population. In no country in the world were the governing classes so much brought in contact with the people, the vast majority of the Civil Service being natives, though, of course, as long as England governed India the higher offices, must be kept in British hands. It was altogether untrue to say that the natives were not admitted to a fair share of the

    1313
    appointments in the Civil Service, and the most rudimentary acquaintance with the Government of India would show that such a charge was totally without foundation. He should be glad, however, if the Government could see their way to enter upon a more liberal and less restricted expenditure in regard to railways, because railways had been the salvation of India. Before any of these railways were made, the cost of carriage of the valuable produce of India on the backs of animals to the seaport was so great that as soon as the railways were made even the highest railway rates charged enabled the produce to be brought to market at a reduction of 50 per cent. upon the former carriage. With regard to the great difference in the manufacturers' prices and the prices at which articles were purchased by the people, hon. Members should not forget how great a part was played in this transaction by the cost of carriage. When salt had to be carried hundreds of miles on the backs of animals naturally its cost must be greatly increased to the consumer. Railways and roads were now being made in order to cheapen the cost of salt to the people. The making of branch railways and roads would have the same effect upon India as they had had in France, for they would increase the prosperity of the country and still further increase the revenue.
    MR. BRODRICKsaid he thought it would be generally agreed that there was no ground for the Amendment before the House, despite the efforts that had been made by some of its supporters to give a depressing look to things in India which really wore the most cheerful aspect. The demand for periodical inquiries was really an invitation to go back to what, in the case of India, were the dark ages. The last instance of such an inquiry was in 1833, but one hon. Member had delighted the House by carrying us back to the advantages gained by the inquiry in 1813 under totally different conditions. It was also asked that greater opportunities should be given for the Parliamentary discussion of Indian affairs. It was not desirable that the House should interfere in details with the Government of India. Questions of principle, such as he had brought
    1314
    forward that day, might very properly be made the subject of criticism, but the main government of India must be conducted in India; and, indeed, it was to the infrequency of Parliamentary discussion of Indian affairs which must be attributed the fact that the government of India was conducted with so little Party conflict, to the great advantage of the country. But there was no real lack of opportunity for the discussion of Indian questions. The question of the treatment of Indian natives in the Transvaal might have been raised on the salary of the Colonial Secretary. As for the fiscal question, that question had been discussed six or eight times during the present session, and he remembered only the barest incidental reference having been made to the case of India.
    His noble friend the Member for Ealing was kind enough to say that there was very little difference between the views of the late and the present Secretary of State with regard to the fiscal question as it affected India. If he were to ask his noble friend to educate the people of this country up to the standard of conduct which ruled the Indian Government in fiscal matters he would be said to be playing into the hands of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham. Why? Because, first, the Indian Government had a free hand in fiscal matters which was not the case in this country, or at all events we had not been in the habit of using it; and secondly, they had a general revenue tariff, which was the bugbear of hon. Members opposite. They had exactly that freedom for which the Prime Minister contended, no more and no less. All he could say was that the general tribute which had been paid to the Indian tariff position of the Indian Government to-day, and the evident desire of his noble friend the Member for Ealing that they should all go into the same lobby in support of that position, was one of the most salutary symptoms he had seen in the course of the long discussions during the last two years, and showed the absolute correctness of the position taken up by the Prime Minister on this subject.
    He regretted that the lateness of the hour precluded him from dealing in detail

    1315
    with the various suggestions which had been made. With regard to the attempt of the hon. Member for Flint to show that the people of India were in a position of destitution, ignorance, and starvation, that had been admirably dealt with by his hon. and gallant friend the Member for stepney, who, speaking from his Indian experience, showed conclusively that the observations of the hon. Member for Flint were of a partial character. He did not propose to follow that argument, but he should like to say a word with regard to the proposal to place the salary of the Secretary of State on the Estimates. Personally he had not the slightest objection to that, for, having had experience of that ordeal in a less peaceful atmosphere, he had ceased to dread it. But, at the same time, he deprecated it as a Member of Parliament, and particularly as the Member specially responsible for the affairs of India. The salutary and hitherto generally accepted position taken up in respect of the affairs of India was that they should be kept out of the domain of Party polities. That, however, would be absolutely impossible if they put the Secretary of State's salary on the Estimates, for that salary would then be made the subject of Party attack. It was so continually in regard to every other office, and it would become so undoubtedly in regard to India. He had done what he could to give an opportunity for the discussion of Indian subjects this year by inducing his right hon. friend the Prime Minister to give an earlier day, and if there were ever a prominent Indian subject which had escaped the notice of Parliament, he should be among the foremost Members to press that a special opportunity should be provided for its discussion. But he honestly confessed he was driven back, and not forward, by the picture drawn by the right hon. Member for the Forest of Dean, whose evident desire it was to bring every administrative question in India under the notice of Parliament and to secure for it previous discussion in the House of Commons. That seemed to him an extremely vicious interpretation of the system of government which had hitherto prevailed, and had enabled them to put forward so excellent a picture of the finances of India.
    1316
    He regretted, too, that the right hon. Member should have displayed less than his usual candour and accuracy in the statements he made in respect of the opinions of the Government of India, and also of the recent negotiations with Afghanistan. With regard to the former, he asked the right hon. Baronet on what ground he complained that an injustice had been done to the Indian taxpayer by its being laid down that money should not be borrowed for military works.
    SIR CHARLES DILKEdenied that he said it was an injustice to the taxpayer. On the contrary, he was favourable to the system. What he complained of was that one system was adopted in India and exactly the opposite here, and they were defended on opposite grounds.
    MR. BRODRICKpointed out that it was by no means laid down as a policy by the Finance Minister; it was simply stated not to be necessary to borrow at the present moment, but if necessity arose he would do so. With regard to Afghanistan, the right hon. Gentleman had made some very startling statements. It was not the case that the negotiations had resulted in failure. As stated by Lord Lansdowne, the main objects of our negotiations with the Amir of Afghanistan were, first, to renew the agreements entered into with the late Amir, and, secondly, to have friendly negotiations with him with regard to a number of subsidiary points. The first object was achieved by an agreement that covered all the engagements entered into by the Amir Abdurrahman. We also arrived at a thoroughly friendly understanding with the Amir on a number of subsidiary points. He thought the Amir understood our point of view and that we understood his. The Government had every reason to be satisfied with the conduct of the negotiations by Sir Louis Dane and also with the attitude assumed by the Amir on these various questions at the close.
    He would not trouble the House by giving more than a general Answer to the criticisms which had been made with regard to the treatment of Indians in

    1317
    South Africa. He fully realised that it was the duty, as it was the desire, of the Government to secure for British-Indian subjects in any British colony the fullest opportunities they could for peaceful employment in their various trades and professions. On the other hand, it was perfectly well known that the peculiarities of climate which preserved us in this country from the competition of an unlimited number of Asiatics did not exist in some of our Colonies. There was a good deal of objection to that competition in some Colonies, and his Majesty's Government had not the power to compel our self-governing Colonies to admit their Indian fellow-subjects to the same advantages as they enjoyed themselves. The Government could only bring to bear the greatest pressure in their power, and they exercised their influence wherever they could. He believed the time would come when the objection to Indian labour would not be so strongly felt in South Africa as it was now, and that it would then be possible to insist upon proper terms. In the meantime we must exercise patience. He trusted that as a definite Motion had been submitted to the House they would be permitted to take a division on it before the sitting closed.
    MR. EMMOTTcontended that this country already possessed the same freedom that India enjoyed, and with the leave of Parliament could retaliate if it desired to do so. He reminded the House, however, that the Government of India had issued a Blue-book carefully analysing what the effect of retaliation would be upon the Indian Empire if they adopted the principle of colonial preference. That Blue-book went through country by country, and showed that India had much to lose and little to gain by any attempt at retaliation. The Prime Minister, on the other hand, was pretending in regard to this country, that he could do much by retaliation. If the Board of Trade would only present a similar Blue-book, showing how much this country would lose by adopting a plan of retaliation, it would do an inestimable service both to the House and to the country. Instead of getting the
    1318
    Board of Trade to do that, the Prime Minister was attempting to make the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham think, and was also inducing the whole country to think that he was really in favour of protection. The Secretary of State had not at all met the case put by the right hon. Baronet with reference to a Colonial Conference. India had debarred herself from taking part in a free and unfettered conference. Would the Prime Minister make a similar declaration with regard to this country?
    As to the actual Amendment before the House, its wording was undoubtedly open to criticism, but its general spirit being that we should discuss Indian questions more fully, and pay more deference to Indian opinion, he should vote for it. Considerable difference of opinion had been expressed as to the prosperity of India, but the statements were not so irreconcilable as they might at first sight appear. Members on the one side were talking rather of the poverty of India as compared with other countries, while the Secretary of State and his supporters were speaking of the comparative prosperity of India in her national finances. India was unquestionably prosperous in the latter respect. In this country the national finances were much worse than they appeared, inasmuch as we pretended to be paying off debt by the Sinking Fund, whereas, in reality, we were doing nothing of the kind. But in India, during the last seven years, there had been a surplus of £21,000,000, largely used in reproductive work. In addition, £8,000,000 profit, not shown in the accounts, had gone to the gold reserve fund. In the year 1904–5 a surplus of £3,500,000 was anticipated; £1,137,000 extra was paid for Army services; a crore of rupees or £67,000 was given to the Presidencies of Bombay and the Punjaub in connection with settlement, and there was a profit of £1,750,000 on the coinage. Therefore, if the Estimates had been adhered to there would have been a surplus of £7,000,000, or one-third of the total taxation. He believed, however, that these enormous surpluses were a danger to the Indian people, inasmuch as they tended to extravagance. During the last twenty years much extra taxation had been levied and had not yet

    1319
    been removed. The salt tax was certainly lighter, but a whole series of import duties levied ten years ago had not yet been removed, and he thought the time had come when an effort should be made to secure their removal, which would be a real step in the direction of free trade. The revenue in past Budgets had been purposely under-estimated. He was glad to see that this year there was a much less under-estimate, as it was not right that the people of a country like India, already so heavily taxed in proportion to their wealth, should be asked to pay more than was necessary, and to provide large surpluses which tended to extravagance and to unnecessary military expenditure.
    MR. WYLIEsaid the policy of India had been largely in the direction of fiscal reform, and much of her prosperity was due to the fiscal reforms which had been carried out in that country, especially in connection with the Currency Act of 1897, the principal features of which were the abolition of the free dumping of silver in the mints and the establishment of a gold standard. Then in 1895, in connection with the cotton duties, countervailing excise duties were imposed for the purpose of giving a fair field and no favour to products principally from Lancashire, and the Lancashire Members without exception supported the proposal. But in 1899, when a similar proposal was put forward in connection with the production of sugar in India, many of those same
    Members on the Liberal side opposed the policy, which, when it was for the encouragement of their own manufactures, they supported, as being in their opinion contrary to free trade. The fiscal policy of India afforded a good example, and he concurred in the view of the Secretary of State that it was a similar power that the Prime Minister was seeking for this country. While fully agreeing with the admiration which had been expressed for the railway system of India, he would point out that since 1878 the policy of the Indian Government had been to encourage the railway system and starve the irrigation works. It was true there was an improvement to the extent of 50 per cent. in the present Budget, but it was really a miserable addition, seeing that the amount expended on railways up to March 31st, 1903, was £196,000,000, whereas only £26,000,000 had been spent on major irrigation works, while even in the present Budget over £9,000,000 was being devoted to railway purposes against £2,000,000 for irrigation works. He regretted that time would not permit of his going into the subject; he would merely say that if more opportunity was allowed by the Government of India for private capital to enter in connection with all kinds of useful works it would be better for the country.
    Question put.
    The House divided. Ayes, 116; Noes, 65. (Division List No. 202)

    AYES.

    Allhusen, Augustus Henry E.

    Carson, Rt. Hn. Sir Edw. H.

    Fellowes, Rt. Hn. Ailwyn Edw.

    Anson, Sir William Reynell

    Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.

    Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r.

    Arrol, Sir William

    Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

    Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

    Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

    Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

    Finch, Rt. Hn. George H.

    Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir H.

    Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A (Worc

    Finlay, Sir R. B. (Inv'rnssB'ghs

    Bagot, Capt. Joseeline Fitz Roy

    Chapman, Edward

    Fisher, William Hayes

    Balcarres, Lord

    Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

    Forster, Henry William

    Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r

    Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas

    Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk.

    Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

    Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow

    Gordon, Hn J. E. (Elgin & Nairn

    Balfour, Rt. Hn. G. W. (Leeds)

    Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

    Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

    Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

    Craig, Chas. Curtis (Antrim, S.)

    Greene, H. D. (Shrewsbury)

    Banbury, Sir Frederick George

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Guthrie, Walter Murray

    Banner, John S. Harmood-

    Dalrymple, Sir Charles

    Hall, Edward Marshall

    Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

    Davenport, William Bromley

    Hamilton, Marq of (L'nd'nderry

    Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.

    Denny, Colonel

    Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford

    Bignold, Sir Arthur

    Dickson, Charles Scott

    Heath, Arthur H. (Hanley)

    Blundell, Colonel Henry

    Douglas, Rt. Hn. A. Akers-

    Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.

    Brassey, Albert

    Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir Wm. Hart

    Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

    Brodrick, Rt. Hn. St. John

    Egerton, Hn. A. de Tatton

    Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

    Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

    Morrison, James Archibald

    Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

    Jeffreys, Rt. Hn. Arthur Fred

    Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

    Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

    Jessel, Captain Herb. Merton

    Mount, William Arthur

    Smith, H. C (North'mb. Tyneside

    Keswick, William

    Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

    Smith, Hn. W. F. D. (Strand)

    Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

    Murray, Chas. J. (Coventry)

    Spear, John Ward

    Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

    Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath)

    Stanley, Rt. Hn. Lord (Lancs)

    Lee, A. H. (Hants., Fareham)

    Nicholson, William Graham

    Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

    Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

    O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

    Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

    Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S

    Percy, Earl

    Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

    Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

    Pierpoint, Robert

    Tritton, Charles Ernest

    Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth)

    Platt-Higgins, Frederick

    Turnour, Viscount

    Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

    Plummer, Sir Walter R.

    Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H

    Macdona, John Cumming

    Pretyman, Ernest George

    Warde, Colonel C. E.

    MacIver, David (Liverpool)

    Purvis, Robert

    Whitmore, Charles Algernon

    M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

    Randles, John S.

    Wilson, John (Glasgow)

    M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

    Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

    Wylie, Alexander

    Martin, Richard Biddulph

    Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

    Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H.

    Milvain, Thomas

    Robertson, Herb. (Hackney)

    Montagu, Hn. J. Scott (Hants.)

    Rothschild, Hn. Lionel Walter

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir

    Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow)

    Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

    Alexander Acland-Hood

    Morrell, George Herbert

    Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

    and Viscount Valentia.

    NOES.

    Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N. E.)

    Helme, Norval Watson

    Schwann, Charles E.

    Ainsworth, John Stirling

    Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

    Seely, Maj. J. E. B. (Isle of Wight

    Allen, Charles P.

    Higham, John Sharp

    Shackleton, David James

    Bell, Richard

    Holland, Sir William Henry

    Shipman, Dr. John G.

    Bolton, Thomas Dolling

    Hutchinson, Dr. Chas. Fredk.

    Slack, John Bamford

    Bright, Allan Heywood

    Jones, Leif (Appleby)

    Smith, Samuel (Flint)

    Brown, George M. (Edinburgh)

    Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)

    Sullivan, Donal

    Burt, Thomas

    Lamont, Norman

    Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe

    Buxton, N. E (York, N. R, Whitby

    Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

    Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)

    Caldwell, James

    Layland-Barratt, Francis

    Tomkinson, James

    Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

    Levy, Maurice

    Toulmin, George

    Cheetham, John Frederick

    Lewis, John Herbert

    Villiers, Ernest Amherst

    Cremer, William Randal

    Lough, Thomas

    Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

    Delany, William

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    White, Luke (York, E. R.)

    Dilke, Rt. Hn. Sir Charles

    M'Crae, George

    Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

    Dobbie, Joseph

    Markham, Arthur Basil

    Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

    Doogan, P. C.

    Nannetti, Joseph P.

    Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R.

    Duncan, J. Hastings

    O'Brien, K. (Tipperary Mid.)

    Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

    Ellice, Capt, E. C. (S Andrw's Bghs

    O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

    Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.

    Emmott, Alfred

    O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

    Eve, Harry Trelawney

    Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

    Findlay, Alex. (Lanark, N. E.)

    Rickett, J. Compton

    Cathcart Wason and Mr.

    Hardie, J Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

    Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

    Herbert Roberts.

    Main Question put, and agreed to.

    Considered in Committee:—
    (In the Committee.)
    Resolved, That it appears from the Accounts presented to Parliament that in 1903–4 the Revenue of India amounted to £83,756,155, the Expenditure charged against Revenue to £80,759,755, and the Capital Expenditure not charged to
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    Revenue to £5,043,003.—(Mr. Secretary Brodrick.)
    Resolution to be reported.

    ADJOURNMENT.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, ''That this House do now adjourn."—(Sir Acland-Hood.)
    MAJOR SEELYsaid he desired to ask a Question of which

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    he had given private notice to the Prime Minister and the legal advisers of the Crown—who, however, had not thought fit to be present to reply—namely, whether the Commission which was proposed to inquire into the stores scandal in South Africa could or could not compel the attendance of witnesses, and could or could not compel the production of documents. From inquiries he had made he believed it could not do either. If that were so, the result of such a Royal Commission must be, to speak quite frankly, under the circumstances, a farce. It could do nothing but throw dust in the eyes of the public, He did not say it was intended to do so, but that must be its effect. What would be the effect on the guilty parties—some of them, perhaps, officers and some of them contractors? The Royal Commission could compel officers to attend as witnesses or to produce documents, because if they refused they could be cashiered, but the other parties referred to in Sir William Butler's Report could and probably would, snap their fingers at the Royal Commission. His Majesty's Government must have known that that was the state of the law, and no worse tribunal could be found for investigating the matter. The Parnell Commission was a statutory Commission, and it was set up in order to be able to compel the attendance of witnesses, to have the authority of one of His Majesty's Judges, to have power to commit for contempt, and presumably to have power to punish for perjury. None of these things would be possible to the Royal Commission now proposed. Was it to be supposed that these contractors and others would obey a summons without any authority behind it? The result would probably be that those who had been foolish would
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    suffer, while all the knaves escaped. The Government had acted either with the intention of deceiving the House, or without due consideration of the course they had proposed, and he respectfully asked that some information should be given to the House before a final decision was taken on the matter.
    MR. WHITLEYurged that some Answer should be given, although the Prime Minister was not present. It used to be the custom for the Prime Minister to attend the adjournment of the House in order that he might answer Questions on important public business, and the House was certainly entitled to some measure of respect.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Sir A. ACLAND-HOOD, Somersetshire, Wellington), in reply, said that he merely waited to see if any other Members desired to ask Questions. He would certainly place the subject before the Prime Minister, but he assured the hon. Member that there was no desire on the part of the Government to deceive the House or the country. He suggested that the Questions should be deferred until Question time.
    MR. MARKHAMhoped the Patronage Secretary would convey to the Prime Minister the strong feeling of the House that the proposed Royal Commission would be wholly inadequate for the purpose, and also as to the necessity of the Prime Minister's being in his place on such an occasion.
    Adjourned at twenty-two minutes, after Twelve o'clock.