Lords Sitting of 7 July 1856

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Church Building Commission; Parochial Schools (Scotland); Militia Ballots Suspension; Deeds (Scotland); Charities.
2a Isle of Wight Steam Bridge and Approaches; Metropolitan Railway; Severn Navigation Improvement Commission; Drainage (Ireland); Distillation from Rice; Court of Exchequer (Scotland).
3a Small Debts Imprisonment Act Amendment (Scotland).
ROYAL ASSENT.—Industrial and Provident Societies; Seamen's Sayings Banks; Annuities Redemption; Stock-in-Trade Exemption.

NAWAB OF SURAT TREATY BILL.
On the Order of the Day for the Second Reading of the Bill,
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid, that before moving that the Bill ho read a second time, he should be glad if the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) would inform the House what course the Government proposed to take with regard to the measure?
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, he was rather surprised at the question of his noble Friend, who, he understood, had taken upon himself the duty of moving the second reading of the Bill as a Private Bill. He was anxious, therefore, to hear what were the grounds upon which his noble Friend recommended their Lordships to adopt this course; and he should certainly wait until he had heard those reasons, and the Chairman of Committees had given his opinion upon the expediency of taking such a course, in reference to such a subject,
384
before he should be prepared to state the course which the Government meant to pursue.
THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHsaid, the Bill materially affected revenues which the East India Company only held as trustees for the Crown; he wished to know, therefore, if the noble Duke was prepared, with the approbation of the Government, to give the assent of the Crown to it?
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLagreed with the noble Earl that the Bill did affect the revenues of the Crown, and he was not empowered by the Government to give the assent of the Crown to it.
LORD REDESDALE,as Chairman of Committees, thought that this, being a Bill which affected the public revenue, ought not to be treated as an ordinary private Bill. It had come before him as an ordinary unopposed private Bill, and he could not take upon himself the responsibility of stopping it; but on every ground he felt that it was a measure which ought not to be treated as an ordinary Private Bill, and so strongly was he impressed with this conviction, that at the fitting opportunity he should move as an Amendment that it be read a second time that day six months.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEhad as much reason to express surprise at the course the noble Duke had taken as the latter had to express surprise at the course he (the Marquess of Clanricarde) had taken. The noble Duke had himself volunteered on Friday to tell the House tonight what the Government intended to do with regard to the Bill.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLexplained. He was entrusted with a petition for presentation to their Lordships on Friday night from the East India Company, praying to be heard by counsel at the bar against the Bill; and in presenting it, he merely stated that on Monday when the measure came before the House he should call their Lordships' attention to the subject matter of that petition. He stated nothing more, and certainly stated nothing as to the period of the evening when he should make the statement. When his noble Friend had moved the second reading, he should be quite ready to state the course which the Government were prepared to pursue with reference to the Bill.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEthen proceeded to move the second reading of the Bill and said, that no doubt this Bill affected a portion of the revenues of the empire; but the Government did not

385
seem disposed to treat it as its importance demanded. He agreed with a noble and learned Lord (Lord Lyndhurst) that the Bill was one upon which the law officers of the Crown ought to have been consulted, and that the Government ought to not in accordance with their opinions. The Solicitor General, however, had spoken in favour of this Bill in the other House, and he had, therefore, a right to assume that, so far as the law officers of the Crown had been consulted, their opinion was favourable to this Bill. He asked the House merely to do justice. The President of the Board of Control had begged the other House to consider this matter judicially, and he made the same request to their Lordships. It was said that this Bill ought to be treated as a public measure. He was informed that the promoters of the Bill wished it to be treated as a public Bill, and he saw no reason why it should not have been so considered. But the Speaker of the House of Commons Lad objected to Mr. Pollock's Bill, and now to resort to this objection at the present stage of the Bill seemed to him to be an evasion of justice and a course unworthy of the Government and of the East India Directors. All that the parties interested wanted, and all that he asked on their behalf, was that the question should be sent before some tribunal capable of investigating the justice of the claims to which it related; and whether that tribunal were the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council or any other competent body was a matter upon which the promoters were indifferent. The Bill arose upon the construction of a treaty entered into by the Indian Government in the year 1800 with the Nawab of Surat. The whole matter of it turned upon the construction of the words of the treaty, and whether the Government were bound to pay to the heirs of the late Nawab the sum of £15,000 a year. The answer given to the claim by the Directors was a long story about matters which occurred in 1750, and a reference to the instructions given by Lord Wellesley to the political agent, as a commentary on the construction of the treaty; but you must look to the treaty itself, for it was by that you were bound, and not by anything which might have taken place before it was made. The meaning of the word "Nawab" was an officer employed under the Mogul empire, and when that empire fell into decline many of the Nawabs usurped the power which they
386
originally held by delegation. Such had been the case at Surat; and, so far from our establishing the first Nawab, we went there with the intention of putting another man in his place, but found that the Nawab in possession was too strong, and then, instead of disturbing, it was thought better to enter into treaty with him. The Nawabship was always considered hereditary, with this chance incidental to it—that a weak prince was very likely to be set aside by a strong one; but the Nawabs were not elected like the former kings of Poland or emperors of Germany, neither were they appointed by the English Government. They succeeded from father to son and to grandson by right of inheritance. It mattered nothing, however, what were his rights or lineage, because, if in 1800 the East India Company stipulated by treaty to pay a certain annuity to the heirs of the then Nawab of Surat so long as that race lasted, they were bound to pay it. It was contended on the other side that as the heirs male of that Nawab had failed in 1842, and he had no successor to the Nawabship, that the annuity had ceased. The question then arose whether the annuity was not granted not to his "successors" in the Nawabship, but to his heirs, which would include heiresses. On the death of the last Nawab, neither Sir George Arthur, Governor of Bombay, nor Mr. Elliot, Resident at Surat, who were directed to make inquiries, ever expressed any doubt as to the annuity being payable; the only question mooted was, to whom was it to be paid. It had been asked why had not the petitioner applied to a public tribunal in India; but the answer was that the petitioner could not do any such thing, as the questions in dispute would involve the construction of the terms of a treaty—a power which courts of justice in India did not possess. The petitioner could not apply to the Privy Council, as no Court in England had original jurisdiction in Indian cases; neither could he appeal to a court of law. Therefore he had adopted the only course open to him, and appealed to the high Court of Parliament—the tribunal to which every subject of Her Majesty had a right to come when they could not obtain justice in the ordinary courts of law. He (the Marquess of Clanricarde) quite agreed that it would have been desirable had this matter been settled out of that House, but the petitioner had no means of obtaining justice elsewhere. It was stated that

387
great constitutional questions were involved in this matter, and he (the Marquess of Clanricarde) admitted it; for what could be a greater constitutional question than the good government and administration of justice to an immense population? There was another and a distinct part of the Bill before the House, which related to the real and personal property of the late Nawab, respecting which a decision had been pronounced by the Governor of Bombay in Council, and against which all parties were anxious to appeal. They found, however, that they had no appeal to the Privy Council; for, upon making the experiment, the Privy Council declared itself incompetent to entertain the appeal, as it had not been referred to them by the Queen. Another plausible objection had been raised in the petition which had been laid upon their Lordships' table, that the Bill affected the rights of different parties who had received no notice and were resident in a distant country. The fact was, there was not one interested person who had not full notice of the Bill, and was not fully cognizant of its progress. Every party had appealed from the decision of the Governor of Bombay. The Bill itself was propounded last Session, and had been intended to be considered as a public Bill. But the highest authority in the other House—the Speaker—decided that it could not be introduced as a public Bill. The noble Lord, the Chairman of Committees, now said this was not a subject for a private Bill. The applicant did not care whether it came on in the shape of a private or of a public Bill, or whether any other remedy could be proposed for his grievance. It was because he (the Marquess of Clanricarde) was anxious to know whether the Government intended to propose any other remedy for an admitted wrong that he had ventured to ask the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) whether the Government had arrived at any conclusion upon the subject. The noble Duke could not deny that a wrong had been done. It had been admitted in the other House by the President of the Board of Control; it had been admitted by the Solicitor General, who voted for the Bill entirely upon grounds of justice. The Government could not venture to set aside a claim which was supported by such high authority. The Bill was referred to a Select Committee of the House of Commons, which was composed chiefly of lawyers eminent for their ability and knowledge of the law, among
388
whom was Mr. Butt and Mr. Napier, lately Her Majesty's Attorney General for Ireland; not one of whom but was not at the present moment qualified to take his seat on the judicial bench. These four lawyers were appointed to inquire into the subject, and the Committee was presided over by Mr. Cardwell; and would any man deny that that right hon. Gentleman, by his intellectual powers, attainments, and habits, was not as able to enter into a legal argument as any man in either House of Parliament? Thus, then, they had a tribunal fit to try any case, and that tribunal reported unanimously in favour of the Bill; but they at the same time stated that there were considerations of policy which might be involved in the question which they did not think it their duty to report upon. The Bill was passed by the House of Commons by a large majority, and was supported by every lawyer in the House, except one hon. and learned Gentleman, who, though undoubtedly not retained to speak against it, it could not be denied had been for many years one of the leading counsel of the East India Company. Every man who had examined into the facts of the case had said that injustice had been committed which required redress by Parliament. He did not ask their Lordships to decide the question upon his mere advocacy; but he did implore their Lordships not to shut the door against inquiry to a person who had brought a case before them so sustained. Let it not be said that there were wrongs that might be committed by a powerful corporation, and that Parliament would not attempt to remedy those wrongs. Were their Lordships to sanction such a principle, they would be taking one great step towards shaking the allegiance of the people of India and of endangering the whole of our Indian empire. All, therefore, that he entreated their Lordships to do was, not to send back to India these persons who asked for a hearing until their case had been heard and fairly and impartially decided. The noble Marquess then moved, that the Bill be now read 2a.
Amendment moved, to leave out ("now") and insert ("this Day Three Months").
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, he should support the Motion of his noble Friend the Chairman of Committees, that the Bill be read a second time that day three months. Undoubtedly his noble Friend made that Motion on a question of form; but, although in coming to that vote it might practically be one on a point of form, yet

389
he hoped to convince their Lordships that they would not be doing any injustice to the merits of the case. But before he proceeded to the question itself, he trusted he might be allowed to say a single word upon this point of form. Among the functions belonging to that House, there were few more important than those connected with the private Bill legislation of the country. Directed as those Bills professedly were to private ends, and the promotion of private interests—supported as they often were by an active personal canvass—they yet frequently affected the most important public principles. It was essential, therefore, for the interests of the country that the parties connected with those Bills should be required to observe the rules laid down by Parliament in respect to the passing of private Bills. Finding, then, the Chairman of Committees repudiating this Bill as a private Bill, he thought it was a strong presumption that the Bill was illegitimate in its nature, and that it dealt with its subject in a manner which ought not to be tolerated. The Bill had been referred to the Standing Orders Committee, and the Committee had reported that they had minutely inquired into this Bill; and they found that none of the standing orders which were applicable to private Bills previously to the second reading were applicable to this Bill. What did this mean? It meant that no such case was made out by the parties as was contemplated by the Committee when those orders were made. That the Bill affected the public interest was beyond question, for it dealt with the revenues of the Crown to the extent in capital of half a million sterling; and as regarded private rights, he must maintain, in spite of the argument of his noble Friend, that one part of the Bill would have a most injurious effect upon the private rights of several individuals who were totally un-represented in this country, and who, so far as they knew, had no knowledge of such a measure being in contemplation. Under these circumstances, it was not a mere matter of form that their Lordships should strictly adhere to their standing orders. He should be ashamed to make this appeal to their standing orders if he thought it would be a denial of substantial justice to the parties; but he maintained that no substantial injustice had been committed in this case. The Bill itself concerned mainly two questions—one a question respecting the disposal of a perpetual annuity,
390
given by treaty by the East India Company in the year 1800 to the person claiming to be the heir and successor of the late Nawab of Surat; and the other a question respecting the distribution of the private estate of that Nawab. He should confine himself mainly to the first question. In the year 1800 the late Nawab of Surat died. Lord Wellesley was at that time Governor General of India. The East India Company felt themselves entitled to take into their hands the Government of Surat; and Lord Wellesley accordingly sent down an agent with instructions not to allow the person claiming the Nawabship to assume the Government of Surat, except under the terms of a treaty to be entered into. He would read to their Lordships the terms of that treaty, on which the whole question depended. The preamble of the treaty ran thus:—"Articles of agreement between the East India Company and their successors and the Nawab of Surat, his heirs and successors." It was perfectly true that, in what might be called the enacting clauses of the treaty, the word "successors" was dropped, and the word "heirs" only was used; but it would presently be seen what interpretation this word was to bear. Immediately after the death of the Nawab, in 1842, upon whose death without male heirs this question had arisen, Sir George Arthur, then Governor of Bombay, drew up a Report upon the question, and said that on the whole he was inclined to come to the conclusion that the Company were bound to continue the annuity of £15,000 a year to the personal heirs and family of the Nawab of Surat. Governor Duncan, in his private diary, also spoke of the pension continuing until the Nawab's heirs became extinct; but from other parts of this diary, where it was declared that the Nawab and his family should be secured in constant succession to the Nawabship, he gathered that in the treaty, as well as when Governor Duncan spoke of the heirs becoming extinct, "heirs" were under-stood as meaning heirs to the Nawabship. The decision of the Governor of Bombay was in due course referred to his noble Friend opposite (the Earl of Ellenborough), then Governor General of India, who, having before him the minute of Sir George Arthur, the diary of Governor Duncan, and all the evidence which the claimant could bring before him, decided that with the title and office of Nawab expired all claim to the

391
money which the British Government engaged to pay annually by the treaty of 1800. That money, said his Lordship, was clearly to be paid as the surplus of the State revenue, after defraying all charges; it would be paid to the Nawab as Nawab; it was not made private property, to be severed from the State when the heads of the State failed. This was the decision, not of the Court of Directors (who, he feared, were at the present moment exceedingly obnoxious, and who had incurred a great deal of public odium in this matter), but it was the interpretation put upon the treaty by the then Governor-General of India, under the guidance and advice of the able men whom he had with him in Council at that time. This very minute was signed by Mr. Thomason, one of the very ablest men in the East India service, and whose administration as Governor of the North Western provinces had been the subject of such just eulogy. Surely the House would be satisfied with such authority. It was not usual for Parliament to interfere with the construction of treaties unless some injustice had evidently been done by the constituted authorities, and he called upon any independent Member of their Lordships' House to say whether there was such a primâ facie case of gross injustice as would justify Parliament in interfering in this question either by a private or a public Bill? As to the decision of Sir George Arthur, he strongly suspected that that decision was not so much founded upon a strict construction of the treaty as upon the opinion he entertained that it would be an act of liberality on the part of the East India Company, failing male heirs and failing the nawabship, nevertheless to continue the pension, as a matter of grace and favour, to the members of his family. He was very much confirmed in this impression by a minute drawn up by Mr. Anderson, then a member of Sir George Arthur's Council, who said he doubted if, at the time the treaty was entered into, the lapse of the nawabship was thought of; he believed the pension was intended for those who filled the nawabship. Mr. Anderson's opinion was that the annuity was to be tied up with the title, and in another minute Sir George Arthur said he was glad Mr. Anderson's opinion coincided with his own. He (the Duke of Argyll) thought, then, he was justified in assuming that Sir George's decision with regard to the pension was not founded upon the
392
legal merits of the case, but was merely a generous concession made upon a liberal consideration of all the circumstances of the case. The noble Marquess had endeavoured to cast odium upon the Government of India, as directed by the East India Company, with regard to this matter; but, in point of fact, he could only find that two documents had been sent by the Board of Directors bearing upon the case, and both were to the effect that larger pensions than had been awarded by the local Government should be granted to the family of the late Nawab. The Government of Bombay, acting upon the general instructions of the Board of Directors, had appointed an agent to inquire into and report upon the circumstances of the case and upon the pensions allotted to every member of the family of the late Nawab. The result of that report had been that the Board of Directors had informed the local Government that the pensions which had been allotted were not sufficiently large, and, in fact, £11,000 out of the £15,000 claimed was distributed among the family by their order. Was it, then, fair to take advantage of a passing feeling of hostility against the East India Company in order to bring charges of such a character against them? For his own part, he was prepared to maintain that the East India Company had behaved well towards the family of the late Nawab of Surat, and he hoped that the noble Marquess would not suspect them or the Government of wishing to behave shabbily towards that family. As regarded the course which Her Majesty's Government proposed to pursue, he was not prepared to say that the Government might not refer to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council a question arising out of this case for their decision; but, even if they did, it was difficult to determine what course it would be expedient to pursue, whatever might be the decision of the Judicial Committee. But, notwithstanding that difficulty, he wished to impress upon their Lordships that the Government in rejecting the present Bill, and in calling upon the House to reject it, by no means precluded themselves from such reconsideration of the case as the circumstances of it might appear to require. Great odium had been cast upon the East India Company with regard to this transaction; but he would bring the attention of their Lordships to some of the facts of the case. Their Lordships were aware

393
that it was one of the privileges of high rank in India not to be subject to local jurisdiction, and there was a special agreement with the Nawab of Surat that he should be exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts of the country. When the late Nawab died a question arose as to the disposition of his property, and, on the suggestion of Mr. Arbuthnot, a special Act was passed to appoint an agent to inquire into and decide upon the subject, and providing that against that decision there should be no appeal, and to that Act the claimant, in the present case, was a consenting party; and not only was he a consenting party, but he objected that under the second clause of the Act, as it was originally drawn up, the agent was not entitled to deal as freely with the property as he ought to be, and he suggested a clause giving the agent fuller power; and that clause was the very one against which he now protested. It was preposterous that the claimant in the present case should now come before Parliament and represent that he was precluded from appeal when he had himself acquiesced in that exclusion. It would be impossible for the Government to consent to have the case re-opened as this Bill attempted to re-open it, when a number of persons, many of them comparatively poor, had for several years been in possession of this property, under the conviction that the matter had been finally decided. The Government were not taking advantage of a mere question of form. They denied the justice of this person's claim, and they thought it would be unjust to the Government of India and the parties concerned to reopen the question, either by a public or a private Bill.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLEsaid, he coincided with what had fallen from the noble Marquess respecting the Government, for, on a question relating to India, there was the old juggle of a double Government—at one time it was the East India Company, at another the Board of Control—and the consequence was a mere jumble and confusion. As for the petition of the East India Company—what was the Company?—why for thirty-three years it had been a board subordinate to the Government—a part of the Executive—and he did not know what right they, as a subordinate part of the Government, had to be heard at the bar against the rest of the Government. The Treasury or the Admiralty might just as well apply to be heard against their superiors.
394
The petition stated that this was the first private Bill which had ever dealt with a subject of this kind. But in 1833, when a case of similar character occurred, the complainant, Mr. Hodges, obtained redress by means of a private Bill. As to the fourth paragraph of the petition, he said he never knew a greater number of statements not borne out by the truth disgrace any petition. The petition stated that the treaty of 1800 was negotiated by the Marquess of Wellesley; that the first of the family of the late Nawab had been raised to the musnud by the East India Company in 1759; and that the Company had always refused, up to 1800, to treat the dignity as hereditary. The facts, however, were that that treaty was concluded by Governor Duncan; that the first of the line of the late Nawab gained possession of the country in 1748, and kept it till he was turned out in 1758, but he became Nawab again the same year without the agency of the Company; and that, in 1798, which was before 1800, the claim of the then late Nawab's son was recognised as hereditary. There were two kinds of Nawabs—the one was a viceroy, the other possessed a merely titular dignity. Before 1800, the late Nawab was a viceroy, and afterwards was reduced to the dignity of the title—he became as it were a Nawab in partibus. But the noble Duke argued that, if there was a failure of male heirs, there must be a failure of the title. Why, John, Duke of Marlborough, received the manor of Woodstock and a pension of £5,000 a year; and did any one believe that, in case of a failure of male heirs in that family, the manor and the pension would be resumable? He, at all events, did not think they would. A member of a Dutch family—the De Ginkell—came over to this country with William III., and was created Earl of Athlone. The last male representative of that nobleman had lately died, and the title became extinct, but the estate was now enjoyed by his daughter. That was a case analogous to the present. Again, the Stanleys, Earls of Derby, had been the Kings of Man, and all their sovereign rights descended to a female. He had said enough to show that no reliance was to be placed upon the petition of the East India Company.
THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHthought that the noble Duke had gone so satisfactorily into this question that it was not necessary for him to detain their

395
Lordships at any length. He had been on many occasions compelled to differ from the Court of Directors of the East India Company, but he was satisfied that in the present case they had done their duty as representing the interests of the people of England and of India. The question now before their Lordships was not one between the promoters of this Bill and the East India Company, who had no personal interest in this matter; the question was one between the promoter of this Bill and the people of India, whose money he desired to take away for his private purposes, as he (the Earl of Ellenborough) believed wrongfully; and therefore he opposed the Bill. As far back as the year 1800 a negotiator had made a treaty, in which, like a recent diplomatist, he had not expressed himself with sufficient precision. He had no doubt that the idea of the continuation of the pension, guaranteed to the Nawab and his female descendants, never could have occurred to Governor Duncan as the possible construction of the treaty. He never could have supposed that the descendants could claim anything that was not part and parcel of the nawabship. The Government consulted with Mr. Thomason, who was, perhaps, more competent than any one else to give an opinion on this subject, and who was not only an able and thoroughly conscientious man, but intimately conversant with Eastern habits and Eastern customs and with Mahomedan law. The present question, indeed, seemed to him to be one, not so much for English as for Mahomedan law. The treaty was an Indian treaty, contracted between Indian potentates; while our lawyers had construed it as they would have construed an English deed, giving an annuity to the descendants of an English nobleman. The treaty came under the consideration of the Indian Government in 1843. The documents must have been in the possession of the President of the Board of Control (the Earl of Ripon) in November of that year, and it was for him, if he thought that an erroneous impression prevailed, to call for the opinion of the law officers of the Crown. He (the Earl of Ellenborough) had done that at the Board of Control whenever he had doubts as to the legality of any Indian decisions, so that the law might be corrected if it were erroneous. That decision had been adopted by two Indian Governments, and had been adhered to by three or four Presidents of the Board of Control. Would
396
their Lordships allow him to bring the question into Europe, and to place it more palpably before them than if it were an Indian question? Let him imagine the possibility that the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which now acknowledged the suzerainty of the Porte, and paid to it a certain sum, desired to relieve themselves from their nominal suzerainty, and that they were permitted to do so, upon the condition that they contracted to pay a certain annual sum to the Sultan and his heirs. Was there any man in that House or in Europe who would say that, if the dignity of the Sultan were extinguished the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia would continue after the decease of the Sultan to pay the money to the Pashas who had married his daughters? Why, such an interpretation would be repudiated by the common sense of mankind. In any public treaty it would be the common understanding of European nations that the annuity applied only to heirs male. In India there was no knowledge of heirs female, or of any suzerainty as attached to them. He could not attach great weight to the opinion of a purely English lawyer upon a matter of Mahomedan law; but, considering the knowledge of Eastern habits and Indian law possessed by Mr. Pemberton Leigh and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, he should feel satisfied if the true construction of the treaty were submitted to that body. What he desired was, to get the matter out of that House and out of Parliament. The Bill was a bad precedent. Already he knew of two or three similar cases, which were only awaiting the decision which their Lordships might come to; and he would caution their Lordships that if they took this first step they would find it very difficult to stop. He deeply regretted that it should have been necessary for the Privy Council to decline to entertain the appeal. It had been done, and there was no remedy; but the conclusion which would be most satisfactory to him would be for the promoters of the Bill to be placed exactly where they would have been if the Privy; Council had been able to entertain the appeal. He thought that, as regarded the most important points on which rested the claim of the petitioners, the view taken had not been that of a judicial mind, and that, most probably, the decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council would reverse it. He earnestly desired to submit to that tribunal the question whether,

397
by the treaty of 1800 the annuity granted to the Nawab and his heirs was descendible to heirs general, or only to heirs male.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEsaid, the noble Duke had been grossly misinformed with respect to the personal property of the late Nawab, as not one sixpence of it had, as yet, gone into the hands of his heirs, as the distribution of it was still sub lite. He had, however, such confidence in the noble Duke, that when he said the case should be placed before the Judicial Committee, and their decision carried into effect, he had no doubt justice would be done to all parties. But he trusted that when the matter had been thus inquired into, steps would be taken to carry the decision of the Privy Council into effect, even although a special Act should be required to enforce it. He had been accused of doing that which he had not done; but he would now earn some portion of that accusation by declaring his opinion that the conduct of the Court of Directors was very bad, very unwise, and open to great reproof, which reproof they had received for the litigation with which they persecuted the people of India; and they were now unpopular, because the people of this country thought that they were guily of great injustice to the Indian people.
After a few words from Lord DENMAN,
On Question, that ("now") stand part of the Motion, Resolved in the Negative; and Bill to be read 2a, on this Day Three Months.

CONVOCATION.
LORD REDESDALE presented a petition from certain Members of the Convocation of the Province of York, praying the House, before preceding with the Church Discipline Bill, or any measure specifically affecting the clergy, the same may be submitted to the clergy of both Provinces in their Convocations now lawfully in being under the Royal writs addressed to both Archbishops respectively. He thought it unjust that one set of proceedings should be adopted with regard to the Province of Canterbury, and another mode of proceeding with respect to the Province of York. He entertained a strong opinion that if the Convocation of the Province of York was put upon a proper footing much good might result from it. He thought the manner in which the proceedings in Convocation of the Province of Canterbury
398
were conducted showed that all those apprehensions which had been entertained by parties as to their dangerous character were altogether unfounded. Of course, in all public assemblies they must expect differences of opinion, and when discussions took place they were not always conducted in the manner in which it could be wished they should be; but because matters of difference might occur that was no argument against such assemblies altogether. It was very desirable that the Church should represent itself. At the present moment the Church was abused for many things for which it was really not responsible, and it was unjust that it should not be allowed to express its opinion as to what should be done in reference to such questions. At the same time, some improvement ought, he thought, to take place in the constitution of the bodies to which he was referring, and the first and most obvious improvement was the fusion of the two Provinces. Nothing, he was aware, could be done now beyond calling public attention to the matter, but he hoped some attention would be given to the subject of the petition, and that the same privileges would be given to the Convocation of one Province as were enjoyed by the other.
Petition to lie on the table.
House adjourned till To-morrow.