Lords Sitting of 26 May 1851

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Office of Messenger to the Great Seal Abolition; Appointment to Offices, &c.; Process and Practice (Ireland); Hainault Forest.
2a Salmon Fisheries.

THE PUNJAB BOOTY.
The EARL of ELLENBOROUGH, in moving for the returns of which he had given notice, and for an humble Address to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to lay before the House any papers relating to any steps taken for ascertaining the rights of the Crown over the State jewels and other property taken at Lahore in 1848, and in the campaign in the Punjab, said he would take the opportunity of reminding their Lordships of the debate which took place among them on this subject some two years ago, immediately after the treaty which was concluded between the Governor General and the Maharajah of Lahore.—[See 3 Hansard, cvi. 1234.] He had then asked Her Majesty's Ministers whether it was competent for the Governor General of India to dispose of property taken in the field, and which he (the Earl of Ellenborough) believed to belong to the Crown. The noble Marquess opposite said that he would refer the question to the law officers of the Crown. He (the Earl of El-
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lenborough) had subsequently asked, whether the answer of the law officers of the Crown to that question had been received? and was informed that, without waiting for it, the Court of Directors of the East India Company had determined to give a donation equal to six months' batta, to the Commander-in-Chief, the Generals, and the other officers and soldiers who had served in the campaign. He had then expressed his satisfaction—in doing which he was afraid that ho had been too hasty —that that donation of batta had been made, because he thought that that donation would be greater in amount than the booty which had been taken, and that it would be distributed in a fairer manner to all parties. About two months ago he had called the attention of the noble President of the Board of Control to that subject. He then found that the question which he had formerly proposed had not been put to the law officers of the Crown; and, at his request, the noble Baron subsequently laid before them a case upon the subject. The noble Baron had since communicated to him the opinion which the law officers of the Crown had given, that the arrangement to which he had referred between the Maharajah and the Governor General was legal, and could not be impugned. It appeared to him that the opinion of the law officers of the Crown was wide of the real question, and that, like the Delphic oracle of old, it could be interpreted in two ways, and that it was therefore satisfactory to nobody.
LORD BROUGHTON: I said that the arrangement could not be impugned on legal grounds.
The EARL of ELLENBOROUGHsaid, that what ho desired was merely this, that the case on which the opinion of the law officers of the Crown was founded, should be communicated to their Lordships along with the opinion itself; for he could not but think that the important question which he had raised had not been put to them. Since he had asked that question two years ago, the Court of Directors of the East India Company had, as he had already stated, granted to the Army a donation of six months' batta; and he now took objection to the terms in which that donation was granted:—
"You will therefore forthwith pay to the Commander-in-Chief, the Generals, and other officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates, who served in the Punjab during the compaign, a donation equal to six months' full batta; on the understanding that if hereafter any booty which may

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have been captured in this campaign shall be made over to them, there shall be deducted from any share of such prize-money which may become payable to any individual a sum equivalent to the batta paid to him under these instructions, unless such share shall be of less value than that sum; in the latter case, all that will be repaid to our Treasury will be the amount of the prize-money, however small it may be."
That order was at once ungracious to the Army, and injurious to the Crown. It was saying, we give you so much from our own treasury, but we will, as far as it lies in our power, take measures for preventing your deriving any benefit whatever from any act of liberality on the part of the Crown. It was also unnecessary, inasmuch as the most recent precedent on the subject was that which had occurred in Scinde. There the batta was granted without conditions; but when the booty was given to the Army, the amount of the batta was repaid to the East India Company, and the remainder of the booty was divided among the Army. It was also a valueless order, unless we considered that it required an engagement on honour from the officers and soldiers of the Army that they would pay back the batta in case the booty should be assigned to them. He contended that the Court of Directors had no power to deduct a single rupee from the prize-money thus assigned to the Army; for it was the gift of the Crown to the Army, and the Court of Directors had no right to meddle with it. He certainly had not adverted on the last occasion on which he had referred to this subject to a very great hardship which had been inflicted on certain individuals in the higher ranks of the Army, by receiving this money, not as prize-money, but as batta; for instance, the Commander-in-Chief's share in it, as prizemoney, would just have been very many times the amount of that which he received as batta. What he thought upon this subject was this, that the Governor General in Council was not legally qualified to deal with this property at all, as it was property taken as prize from the enemy. It had thus become the property of the Crown, and the East India Company, without law, had no right to dispose of it. If, however, the Crown thought proper to give this property to the East India Company, he thought that it ought to have ascertained the value of that which it proposed to grant, and it was for this purpose he moved for these returns. It was an admitted principle of law, that the Crown never parted with any
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portion of its power, unless it had made a specific grant of that power. Now, in the year 1758 the Crown had by letters patent granted to the East India Company, in all cases where the troops of the East India Company were alone employed, all the booty taken in its wars; but the Crown excepted from that grant all the booty captured in conjunction with its own forces, and had reserved to itself a power of disposing of such property as it might be advised. Now, a large portion of this property had been seized at Lahore in December, 1848, before the actual commencement of hostilities; but so early as the 3rd of October, 1848, the Secretary to the Government of India had written to the Resident at Lahore, intimating that the Governor General in Council considered the State of Lahore "to be to all intents and purposes directly at war with the British Government." A great proportion of the property captured was undoubtedly captured during the progress of hostilities; and' by the 2nd article of the Treaty of the 29th of March, 1849, it was declared that all the property of the State of Lahore, of whatever description and wherever found, was to be confiscated to the East India Company. Now, he insisted that when the Governor General of India and the Maharajah of Lahore came to that agreement, they were both disposing of property which did not belong to them. All property seized from the enemy by Her Majesty's forces, both before and after the commencement of hostilities, became Her property in right of Her Crown. That was a point decided by the late Sir W. Scott, in the course of the last war, who gave it as his judgment that the declaration of war had a retrospective effect, applying to all property previously detained, and rendering it liable to be considered as the property of enemies taken in time of war. "It was rendered enemy's property at the time of seizure," said Sir W. Scott, 5 Robinson, 233, "by the necessary and general retroaction of the subsequent declaration of war." He asked, then, Her Majesty's Government to give in this case the same protection to the rights of Her Majesty's Crown which they would give in an ordinary case to the rights of the humblest subject in the realm. The subject was most important both to the Crown and to the Army. If the Governor General were permitted so to dispose of this booty at the conclusion of a successful war, in favour, of the East India Com-

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pany, so might future Governor Generals; and the rights of the Crown, and the just reputation of the army, would be on future occasions, as now, defeated. The noble Earl then advocated, in strong terms, the claims of the troops employed in the siege and capture of Mooltan to higher remuneration. Their situation was rather a hard one. They had inarched further than any other part of the army; they had been under canvas for eight or nine months, and the booty taken at Mooltan had never belonged to the Maharajah of Lahore; and yet their remuneration was not greater than that of the portion of the army which came up at a much later period of the campaign. If the opinion of the law officers of the Crown were fairly taken on the point which he had raised, or if it were decided after argument by learned counsel—either by the Lords of the Treasury or by the Lords of the Privy Council, which he should prefer, he should be satisfied; and he had no doubt that the troops, whose interests he advocated, would be satisfied also; but until then he should not be satisfied that the East India Company had not taken property which he believed to be the property of the Crown. The noble Earl then moved—
"That there be laid before this House (so far as the same can be given),
"Copy of a Letter from the Directors of the East India Company to the Governor General of India in Council, directing the payment of a Donation, equal to Six Months full Batta, to the Commander-in-Chief, the Generals, and the other Officers, Non-commissioned Officers, and Privates who served during the last Campaign in the Punjab: Also,
"Account showing the Total Sum paid as so directed to the Army, and the Portion thereof paid to Officers and Corps stationed on the left Bank of the Sutlej, on the 17th September, 1848: Also,
"Account showing the Sum so paid to the Commander-in-Chief, and to each General and other Officer, Non-commissioned Officer, and Private, according to their respective Ranks: Also,
"Account showing the Total Sum realised by the Sale of the State Jewels and other Property taken possession of by Brigadier Campbell, C.B., and H.M.'s 53rd Regiment, under the Direction of the Resident at Lahore, on the 17th of September, 1848, and by the Sale of all other State Property and Booty which came into the Possession of H.M.'s Forces, and of the Troops of the East India Company, during the last Campaign in the Punjab: Also,
"Account showing the estimated Value of such of the State Jewels and other Property and Booty as may remain unsold, and the present Disposition thereof: And also,
"Account showing the Manner in which the Sums realised by the Sale of such State Jewels
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and other Property and Booty have been applied, and the Authority under which such Application has been made: And also,
"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to give Directions that there be laid before this House, any Papers elucidating the Steps which Her Majesty may have been advised to take for the purpose of ascertaining the Rights of the Crown over the State Jewels and other Property taken possession of at Lahore on the 17th of September, 1848, and over all other State Property, and the Booty which came into the Possession of Her Majesty's Forces and of the Troops of the East India Company during the late Campaign in the Pubjab."—(Minutes of Proceedings, 59.)
LORD BROUGHTONsaid, that the first part of the noble Earl's speech related to that part of this transaction of which the noble Earl and himself had particular cognisance. With reference to the speech which the noble Earl had made on the 3rd of July, 1849, he had thought it his duty to lose no time in inquiring into the objections which had been made to the course taken by the East India Company and the Government of India. He had that day re-read the speech of the noble Earl, and the noble Earl appeared to him to say, that if the troops engaged in the campaign in the Punjab were given six months batta, they would have no grounds of complaint. He now seemed to regret having said so, and to think that though they had received that amount of batta, full justice had not been done them. He (Lord Broughton) regretted very much that the noble Earl had brought this discussion forward a second time; for, with his experience and knowledge of India, he must know the perilous consequences of what he was doing—he must know that throwing out these doubts as to the justice done to the army, was placing the Governor General, as well as the interests of India generally, in a position of great peril. He denied in toto that any injustice had resulted to the army of India from the course which had been pursued towards it. The sum of money granted to the soldiers of the Indian army was at least as great as that which it would have received supposing the booty of war had been granted to it; and since the year 1849, when the papers relative to the war in the Punjab were laid upon the table of both Houses of Parliament, no complaint had reached the ears of the authorities of India, either at home or abroad, from soldier or from officer, save the noble Earl opposite. Knowing, as he did, how dear the interests of India and those of the soldiers

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of India were to the noble Earl, he could not understand what earthly reason had induced, him to bring this Motion forward. The noble Earl had told them that he wanted the rights of the Crown to be preserved, both as to the past and the future operations of war. Now, it seemed to him (Lord Broughton) that if Her Majesty had not considered the rights of the Crown to have been duly protected in the Treaty of Lahore, She would not have granted a higher honour in the Peerage to the Functionary who signed it. The noble Earl had not only accused in his speech of that night the authors of that arrangement, and those who approved it, but had also declared that they had not done justice to the officers and soldiers who achieved those great victories; and the noble Earl had also said, that the army, if it had got its share of the booty, would have got a larger sum of money than that it received in batta. Now, he did not know on what authority the noble Earl put forth that assertion; but this he did know, that the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gough, had made no public complaint of that kind, nor had any other officer. He must correct a mistake into which the noble Earl had fallen, when he said that the siege of Mooltan had no reference to the campaign of Lahore. He must remind the noble Earl that Mooltan and its citadel belonged to the State of Lahore. [The Earl of ELLENBOROUGH: I know that.] Why, then, had the noble Earl endeavoured to draw a distinction between the army in Lahore and that before Mooltan?
The EARL of ELLENBOROUGHsaid, that all he had stated was, that the property in Mooltan did not belong to the Maharajah as Sultan of Lahore.
LORD BROUGHTONobserved, that instead of troubling their Lordships with any opinions of his own, he would now proceed to inform them what was the question which he had submitted to the law officers of the Crown, and to three other legal gentlemen of high standing in the profession. That question referred entirely to the arrangement made at Lahore, on which depended the whole merits of the case. He might as well inform them, in the first instance, that the case drawn out for the Queen's Advocate, the Attorney General, and the Solicitor General, was drawn out in such a manner as to contain the whole of the noble Earl's speech before referred to, as also a private letter which
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the noble Earl had addressed to him on the subject. It was perfectly true that the other three gentlemen did not see the case with the private letter in it; but he happened to know that that letter was read to them by one of the law officers of the Crown. The question asked at the conclusion of the case was—
"Whether the arrangement of the 29th of March, 1849, concluded by Lord Dalhousie with Maharajah Duleep Singh, and ratified by the home authorities, could be impugned on any legal grounds?"
And the reply was—
"We are of opinion that the arrangement of March 29, 1849, concluded and ratified as stated in this case, cannot be impugned.

"JOHN DODSON.

"A. E. COCKBURN.

"W. P. WOOD.

"FREDERIC THESIGER.

"FITZROY KELLY.

April 30, 1851.

"LOFIUS WIGRAM."

The EARL of ELLENBOROUGHobserved, that he did not like to refer to what had passed between the noble Baron and himself in private; but he had understood the noble Baron to say that his letter and speech of 1849 were inserted in the case as originally intended to be submitted to the law officers of the Crown, but that afterwards the Court of Directors asked to be permitted to intervene, and a case was prepared to which the opinion placed in his hands by the noble Earl was the answer; but, as he understood, his letter and speech were not in the second case placed before the law officers.
LORD BROUGHTONsaid, he had told the noble Earl just what he had told the House—namely, that the first case did contain the private letter and speech of the noble Earl; that though the other three counsel had not had the private letter submitted to them, they had the advantage of knowing the contents as well of that letter as of the noble Earl's speech.
The EARL of ELLENBOROUGHhoped that as the first case had been produced, there would be no objection to produce the second.
LORD BROUGHTONwould now address himself to the main point of the speech made by the noble Earl that evening. The noble Earl had said that the Governor General in Council had no right to appropriate this booty to the Treasury of India, as it was the property of the Crown. Now, he should like to know what difference existed between this case and two others, which he would take the li-

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berty of recalling to the recollection of the noble Earl. The first was the noble Earl's own transaction with respect to Gwalior, in which his practice did not seem to have been essentially different from that of Lord Dalhousie.
The EARL of ELLENBOROUGH: There was no property in that case except the guns taken in the field.
LORD BROUGHTON: But it was property won at the point of the bayonet as much as that won at Lahore. By the 5th article of the Treaty with Scindia, of the 13th of January, 1844, it was stipulated thus:—
"Whereas there is now due to the British Government the sum of 10 lacs of rupees on the score of charges of the contingent force, and a further sum of 1 lac on account of advances, and the charges of the present armament of the British Government may be estimated at 10 lacs, and a further expenditure of 5 lacs will be incurred by the British Government in affording compensation, it is further agreed that His Highness shall pay to the British Government the sum of 26 lacs of rupees within 14 days from the date of the treaty."
Here was a specific sum of money extorted from a prince who was a minor, at the point of the bayonet, and almost on the field of battle, yet there was no hesitation in applying that sum in discharge of debts due to the British Government and of the expenses of the war. The destination of the sums extorted from Gwalior and from Lahore was precisely the same; and the Gwalior money was as much, or more, the produce of the battle of Maharajpoor as the Lahore jewels were the produce of the battles in the Punjab. The other case which he wished to recall to the attention of the noble Earl occurred under the government of the noble Viscount opposite (Viscount Hardinge). Lord Hardinge, in his treaty with Lahore, of March 9, 1846, demanded, "as indemnification for the expenses of the war," payment of one and a half crores of rupees. It is true that he commuted two-thirds of this sum for a cession of territory; but such commutation would seem to make no difference if there were an inherent right in some other body than the Government of India to have all money acquired by force of arms. It would be unfair to defeat such a right by such a commutation. But, at any rate, Lord Hardinge demanded in cash one-third of the abovementioned sum, or 50 lacs of rupees, towards the expenses of the war; it was given neither to the Queen nor to the soldiery, but was taken as an indemni-
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fication to the Government of India for the expenses of the war, and for money which was due to it; and why should a distinction be drawn between that case and that then before the House? Lord Dalhousie then followed these examples; and he should like to know who had a better right to this money than the people of India, for it was they who received it, when it was paid into the Indian Treasury, and the East India Company had no interest in it whatsoever. With respect to the returns for which the noble Earl had moved, he did not know whether the noble Earl really wanted them, or had only moved for them to raise a discussion; but if the noble Earl really wanted them, he must tell him that there was some portion of them he must withhold, as they could not be given with due regard for the public service; others could not be given without previous communication from India. As to producing the case submitted to the lawyer, he was precluded from producing communications which were confidential, and which could not indeed be legally granted, for the 34th section of the East India Company's Act contained a special reservation, which rendered inviolate all communications between the East India Company and their officers at home. He was ready to produce all that he could with propriety produce; but he hoped the noble Lord would not press the Motion.
The EARL of ELLENBOROUGHreplied, that he should feel much more satisfied if the noble Lord, in addition to stating the substance of the first case prepared for the law officers of the Crown, had had the goodness to inform him whether the question with which it concluded was the same as that with which the second case concluded. With respect to the precedent to which the noble Lord had referred, he must observe that the treaty with the Maharajah was made with a prince who had been practically a prisoner for many months; he was a mere child, and those who acted for him found it was for their own interest to adopt the course of proceeding proposed to them. The Gwalior case was entirely different from the Lahore case; in the former case the army had defeated the enemy in the field, but it had yet to get possession of a place defended by 9,000 or 10,000 men supported by a strong citadel, and it was necessary to make such arrangements as should avoid another battle; the arrangement made in the Gwalior case was made between two States, and not between a State and a

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conquered enemy. He had said nothing which could justly be thought to cast reflection on the Governor General of India. He adhered to the expression he used in 1849, that the Governor General had acted inadvertently, that he had acted under the error of supposing that he was the representative of the Crown, whereas, in fact, he was the representative of the East India Company only.
The DUKE of WELLINGTON: My Lords, having had the honour of serving in the East Indies, and having some knowledge of transactions of this description, I must say, my Lords, that from experience of the station of Governor General in Council, I had conceived a very different opinion from that which has now been given by my noble Friend behind me, who, I think, has a more practical knowledge of the subject than I can possibly have. But I talk only of my own experience. The Governor General in Council is the representative of all British authority in the East Indies, and exercises all British authority in the East Indies. I have served in an army to which the Governor General in Council has granted booty on the part of the Crown; he has taken upon himself to assume, or, if the noble Lord pleases, to usurp the authority of the Crown in granting booty. But I say I have myself partaken of booty thus granted by a Governor General. It is true, my Lords, that he is appointed by the Court of Directors of the East India Company; but by the law of England he exercises every British authority in the East Indies, and he assumes to himself the power of the Crown to grant booty in the possession of the Crown. My Lords, that assumption of authority must be confirmed, and I have no doubt it was confirmed, at least I have never heard otherwise than that it was confirmed, and would be, I conclude, in every instance; but this is what I insist upon, that the Governor General in Council in India does exercise every power of every description on the part of this country, and that by law he may usurp authority with which he is not strictly invested at the moment; but that is a matter to be settled between the Crown and the authorities that appoint him, namely, the East India Company. The Crown subsequently confirms that assumed authority, and the matter there remains as between the Crown and the East India Company. I am speaking of that which I know from experience is the case.
The LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that
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whatever observations fell from the noble Earl who had brought forward the Motion would be received with the most profound respect; and if the noble Earl propounded the opinion that injustice had been done to the military in the case to which he had adverted, the opinion was one which could not fail to excite the deepest attention. The noble Lord at the head of the Board of Control having called his attention to the notice given by the noble Earl, he had made himself master of the facts of the case, and believing that neither the facts of the case nor the state of the law applicable to them were properly understood, he should tender some explanations on the subject. It was material first to get at the exact facts of the case to which the question applied. The noble Earl had considered the question as being whether the property referred to belonged to the Crown; yet they were not to consider the question as lying between the East India Company and the Crown simply; for if the property belonged to the Crown, it was a question whether the army might not expect to derive benefit from it, to which they could not properly be entitled if the property belonged to the East India Company. By a treaty made in 1846, Lahore was to be occupied by certain troops of the East India Company, who were to receive a payment of 22 lacs of rupees a year, and the affairs of the Maharajah were placed under the management of a British Resident. After this treaty of 1846, things remained quiet until 1848. In 1848 no war had arisen between the Maharajah of Lahore and the British Government in India; but certain subjects of the Maharajah rebelled against their Sovereign, and the British Government interfered to protect him. It interfered as an ally and friend, not as an enemy, of the Maharajah. On the 17th September, 1848, in consequence of certain transactions which had taken place at Mooltan, the Resident at Lahore, conceiving the Maharajah's person to be in danger, and also the property of the State, and considering that a rebellion of an alarming extent was then in progress, thereupon, as a friend and an ally, and on the ground of protection, and not as an enemy or by military force, removed the Maharajah, who was taken under the protection of the East India Company, and the jewels and property in question were placed in the citadel under the guard of a force of the East India Company's troops. Did that property

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thereby become the property of the British Crown? Certainly not. Under what circumstances would it afterwards become the property of the Crown? If the property were seized in anticipation of hostilities, and by way of precaution, and the hostilities which had been anticipated followed, the principle stated by the noble Lord was applicable. The subsequent declaration of war operated on the property previously seized, and it became the property of the seizing Power; but he submitted that it was distinct law that property not seized hostilely, not seized in anticipation of hostilities with the sovereign to whom it belonged, a subsequent declaration of hostilities did not affect. The general principle had been discussed in a case which had occurred at the Cape of Good Hope. The property seized on the 17th of September, 1848, was seized for the purpose of protection, when the person of the Maharajah was also taken under protection by the Indian Government. He believed that at the time the Queen's troops had not entered Lahore at all; and it was not till the 20th of October following that there was any statement made with reference to general hostilities in the documents he had seen—documents which went to show that the steps which were taken were taken for the protection of the Maharajah. If possession had been taken of the property, not in anticipation of hostilities, but in the way now described, and if hostilities had subsequently arisen, would that property belong to the Crown, and could any army be entitled to have it awarded as booty? Certainly not. Therefore the material question was to ascertain whether the property was taken possession of hostilely or not with reference to the Maharajah. If not, there was an end to the question altogether, because no subsequent declaration of hostility, or subsequent hostility, would affect that property. The Maharajah, with his council, then, entered into a treaty of this nature: He found he had not strength enough to maintain his sovereignty against his rebellious subjects; he therefore proposed to resign his sovereignty and all the rights belonging to him (not that the surrender was a matter of choice, but that was the form). The treaty into which he entered was one in which he assumed to be what in every view of the case (he the Lord Chancellor) conceived the Maharajah to be, the owner of that property taken for protection on September 17, 1848; and the Maharajah resigned the sovereignty, to-
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gether with the property, in consideration of the East India Company engaging to allow him so many lacs of rupees a year, and making certain arrangements with respect to his future condition. It was clear, therefore, that this property, being taken possession of before any hostilities, and not by force, did not become booty by any subsequent declaration of war, and therefore was not divisible among the army as booty. The property in question never was taken possession of under such circumstances as would deprive the Maharajah of his character as owner; and, consequently, there was no ground for the supposition that the army had any claim on the property, for the property never belonged to the Crown by any right which could give the army a claim to it. If it could be shown that the Maharajah had lost the right to the property, the case might have been different. It seemed to him that there was no ground whatever for supposing that injustice had been done to the army, for that property never belonged to the Crown, nor had the Crown any right which could give the army any claim to booty. Unless it could be shown that the Maharajah had lost his right to the property, there could be no ground for the view suggested by the noble Earl. In a former speech the noble Earl had suggested that the Maharajah was incapable of entering into a treaty, insomuch as that ho was not a free agent; but there were few treaties in which both parties were perfectly free agents, and it would be a new doctrine to state that a party should not be bound by a treaty because his will had been fettered at the period of entering into it. Such an idea was founded on the total mistake of applying the municipal law to political transactions. For these reasons he differed from the view which the noble Earl had taken of these transactions.
The EARL of ELLENBOROUGHsaid, that as far as possible, in arguing this question, he had put the army in the back ground, and he had rested the issue upon the rights of the Crown. If it was thought expedient to make grants of this description on the part of the Crown to the East India Company, let it be done. All he said was, that since 1846 property had been taken from the Crown unlawfully, and he only desired that it should pass lawfully into the hands to which it belonged. If the noble and learned Lord on the woolsack had ample time and opportunity to bestow upon the

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question, he (the Earl of Ellenborough) would as readily rely upon his opinion as he would upon the opinion of any other noble and learned Lord whom he knew; but he believed the noble and learned Lord had been instructed only as to one-half of the case, entirely overlooking the other half. The noble and learned Lord's argument turned upon the seizure at Lahore; but there was other property seized at Mooltan and elsewhere, and there was property which was seized not only before the war, but during the war. Besides, the declaration of hostilities had a retroactive operation, and hence the whole of the property seized at Lahore same within the same conditions as the property subsequently captured. The noble and learned Lord argued also that the Maharajah continued to be a friend of our Government, and had the property in his possession in September, 1848. Now, a letter of the Governor General in Council, dated October 3rd, 1848, stated that his Excellency considered the State of Lahore to all intents and purposes to be directly at' war with the British Government. The seizure was effected on the 17th of September previous, and the declaration of the 3rd of October operated retroactively on the property seized at Lahore. The noble Earl then referred to the last war for authorities as to this retroactive operation, and in particular he cited a case which occurred in 1804, with regard to some property belonging to certain merchants in Demerara. It was reclaimed on the ground that, at the time of the seizure, the owners were not the enemies of England, and that it had been seized a month before the declaration of hostilities. Sir William Scott decided against the claim, because the declaration had a retroactive effect, applying to all property previously detained and belonging to persons liable to be considered enemies in time of war.
LORD BROUGHTONsaid, he should like to ask the noble Earl opposite this question—whether the East India Company were not trustees for the Crown? If they were trustees, he would ask whose servant was the Governor General? He was the servant of the trustees of the Crown, and, therefore, he represented the Crown.
The EARL of ELLENBOROUGHsaid, the noble Lord himself was a servant of the Crown with regard to the affairs of India; but he would seriously warn him
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against taking the dangerous ground that the East India Company represented the Crown.
The MARQUESS of LONDONDERRYexpressed his painful regret at seeing two noble Lords of high character, and both deeply conversant with and experienced in the affairs of India, so much at variance on a question of such a nature as that now before their Lordships.
On Question, Motion for Papers, &c, agreed to, and ordered accordingly.
On Question, Motion for an Address, Resolved in the negative.

SALMON FISHERIES BILL.
The DUKE of ARGYLL The DUKE of ARGYLL moved the Second Reading of this Bill. The Bill embraced two objects: it proposed, in the first place, to render compulsory the cessation of net-fishing from the 1st of September, instead of the 14th of that month, thus giving the salmon a fortnight's longer run than they enjoyed under the present law. He proposed also that the "Saturday's Sabbath," during which the fish were allowed to run up the courses of the river without let or impediment of any kind, should, instead of beginning at sunset on Saturday, and ending on Monday morning at sunrise, as was enacted by the old statute of 1471, commence at eight o'clock in the evening of Saturday, and terminate at six o'clock on Monday morning. He need not remind their Lordships that the salmon fisheries of Scotland were of great importance; and it had been shown by the evidence of Mr. Hogarth, several years ago, that the value of the salmon imported in boxes into London from Scotland, amounted annually to a sum of between 200.000 l. and 300,000 l. He trusted, therefore, that their Lordships would give the Bill their careful consideration, so that there might be some chance of its passing into law during the present Session of Parliament.
The DUKE of RICHMONDsaid, that he was personally interested in salmon fisheries, but he should not divide the House against the Bill. Ho hoped, however, that the noble Duke would give time, before the Bill went into Committee, for the proprietors of the salmon fisheries in the north of Scotland to become acquainted with the fact that there was such a Bill before Parliament. He was not prepared to say that his noble Friend was wrong in wishing to close the net-fishing on the 1st of September, because he be-

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lieved that the best-informed fishermen on the Spey did not fish after that period; but he did not see why there should be a clause permitting rod-fishing, which he looked upon as a bribe to the upper heritors.
The DUKE of ARGYLLobserved, that it ought to be remembered that it was in the waters belonging to the upper heritors alone that salmon could propagate their species, and ho did not think that it was too much for them to ask for a fortnight's or three weeks' rod-fishing after the season for fishing with nets had closed, since that would be the only time when they would catch any fish. Besides, it was but a trivial boon after all; for the number of salmon caught with the fly were but a drop in the bucket compared with those caught in nets and traps.
The EARL of MINTObelieved that the Bill was calculated to do good as far as it went, and it should, therefore, have his support. In his opinion, however, the most important part of the Bill was that which regulated the "Saturday's Sabbath."
After a few words from the DUKE of ARGYLL and the Earl of YARBOROUGH,
On Question, agreed to.
Bill read 2ª accordingly.
House adjourned till To-morrow.