Lords Sitting of 30 July 1857

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1ª Municipal Corporations; Lunatics (Sotland); Land Tax Commissioners' Names.
2ª Boundaries of Land (Ireland); Glebe Lands (Ireland).
3ª Militia Ballots Suspension; Public Health Act (Aldershot).

INDIA.—OBSERVATIONS.
THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: My Lords, when the noble Earl opposite (Earl Granville) read some extracts the other evening, from information which he had received from India, and laid upon the table certain papers on the subject, he stated that if the information which those papers contained should not be sufficient, he would consider any suggestion which any noble Lord might offer on the matter, and would willingly fall into any recommendation that might be made. There is one most important paper which is not contained in the documents that have been laid before the House—namely, the Proclamation of the Governor General in Council of May 16, in which, on the part of the Government, he declares in very strong terms—so far as I remember the purport of the document as it appeared in the newspapers—the determination of the Government to adhere to their former practice of not interfering with the religion of the Natives. That Proclamation is alluded to in a letter from the Court of Directors to the Governor General, and the Court of Directors express their hope that the effect of that Proclamation, which they adopt in all its parts, will be extremely salutary. That Proclamation has not yet been presented with the other papers; but I apprehend that there can be no objection to laying it upon the table. Before the noble Earl answers the question, I wish to recall to his recollection and to that of the House that so far back as the 28th of January,
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General Hearsey communicated to the Governor General that among the Sepoys there was a report that they were to be forced to embrace the Christian faith. On the 11th of February again, General Hearsey says, "We are on a mine ready to explode;" and yet, the cause of danger being the apprehension on the part of the Sepoys that the Christian religion was to be forced upon them, it was not till the 27th of March that the Governor General in Council agreed to a General Order, nor was it till the 31st of March that that General Order was read to the troops at Barrackpore, on the occasion of disarming the 24th Native Regiment; and even then that General Order only went to the extent that the invariable rule of the Government of India had been to treat the religious feeling of all its servants with respect, saying nothing whatever of the future. Then came the proclamation of the 16th of May, which was not issued until after the affair at Meerut. I fear, therefore, that the salutary effect which the Court of Directors anticipated from that Proclamation will hardly be attained. But allow me to call your Lordships' attention to two or three circumstances connected with the papers which have been laid before the House, showing, as I maintain they do, the inefficient manner in which the Government of India has been administered. I find that on the 21st of January, at Dumdum, there was a very strong feeling among the Sepoys that it was impossible for them, consistently with their religious prejudices—as we should call them—or persuasions, to use the cartridges which had been provided for them; and on the 22nd a correspondence commenced on the subject. Eight different letters are written with respect to it, and four days were allowed to elapse before the Government of India and Calcutta became acquainted with that most ominous event, the dissatisfaction upon religious grounds of the Sepoys, which took place within eight miles of the Government House. The Government then began to act. Three more letters were written, and two days more elapse, before it was communicated even at Barrackpore that the objection of the Sepoys was removed, and another day, or nearly another day, must elapse before that communication was made to the Government. On the 28th of January General Hearsey complains of what he considers an improper order, given by the officer commanding the 53rd Regiment, at Fort William, to

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the officer commanding the wing of that regiment at Dumdum, and an explanation is asked for from that officer. Eight days elapse before the explanation is received; nine letters are written, the officers being within a mile of Government House the whole time, so that in one hour the whole explanation might have been given and received. Again, on the 6th of February, a very important and menacing event occurs at Barrackpore. The Government are not made acquainted with that event until the evening of the 10th, four days afterwards, the distance between Barrackpore and Calcutta being sixteen miles, which might have been got over in a good gallop. The Government did seem rather astonished at this, and asked how it happened. A sort of explanation is given, for, says General Hearsey, "I have no means of communicating anything to the Government; I have no mounted orderly, no express camels. I must always write by the post, and that leaves Barrackpore at the most inconvenient hour of three o'clock in the afternoon." It is in that way, in a time of danger, that business is conducted, when there are the means of sending half-a-dozen mounted men from Barrackpore to meet half-a-dozen from Calcutta, and of thus conveying despatches in the shortest time possible. Does the noble Earl, does any one suppose that if Lord Wellesley or Warren Hastings had been there these things would have taken place? I know what would have been done. The officer at Dumdum would have written his official letter, but he would have got into his buggy, would have driven to Government House in an hour, would have seen the Private Secretary of the Governor General, would have been taken at once to the Governor General, would have seen the Military Member of the Council and the Inspector General of Ordnance, the Governor General would have set off at once to Dumdum, General Hearsey would have been directed to meet him there, and the whole thing would have been arranged on the evening of the 22nd, and in the presence and by the order of the Governor General. If this delay between the 22nd and 29th had been avoided, I know not what would have been the effect in India, especially if the suspicions of the Sepoys had been removed by the presence of the Governor General. All this correspondence may look like business. It may be very agreeable to the Court of Directors to receive every now and then a very large
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packet and a great many letters; they may be pleased to see the zeal and industry with which their servants in India discharge their duties: but it is perfectly impossible that any Government can be conducted in times of danger, if it be carried on in the manner exhibited by this correspondence. It shows me, and I regret it, that the Government of India is not conducted by the Governor General in person—that it is in the hands of secretaries and clerics; and if it be left in those hands you may depend upon it, the consequences to the public service will be of the most serious character. I notice another important fact in these papers. I think it is impossible for any one who reads them not to come to the conclusion that the objection of the Sepoys to the cartridges was one really founded on religious grounds. I rejoice that it does so appear, because, although undoubtedly in the first instance and at the present time their mutiny, arising from that cause, destroys the confidence which we have hitherto placed in them, it does not preclude the revival of that confidence under more favourable circumstances, when their minds have been brought to a just sense of the real facts. We must endeavour to disabuse their minds, and to satisfy them not only that the Government never did, and that it does not now, but that it never will, interfere in the smallest degree with their religion. In the meantime, no doubt, it is our duty to put down by our arms an armed rebellion in the field. But I must say that a mutiny arising from such causes is, in some measure, to be pitied while it is condemned. My Lords, that confidence we must in some manner restore. I feel satisfied that, take what precautions we may, it is impossible for us to carry on the Government of India unless we can re-establish our confidence in the Sepoy. Our efforts must be to restore his confidence in us; and I do hope that at no distant time we may again rejoice in the possession of an army on whose fidelity we can rely, as we have hitherto relied on the native army of India. My Lords, there are many matters arising out of the telegraphic communication received yesterday upon which I am very desirous of offering an opinion. But I think, considering that in all probability we may obtain further information by this time to-morrow, it will, perhaps, be better to postpone my observations until then.
EARL GRANVILLE: I am unable to

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explain why the Proclamation alluded to by the noble Earl was omitted from the printed despatches; but I am quite sure there can be no objection to furnish it, and I will make it my business to present it as early as possible. With regard to the criticism passed by the noble Earl upon the mode of conducting business in India, of course I cannot pretend to such authority on this point as he possesses. But of this I am clear, that whether at times of crisis or not, the duties of the Governor General are best discharged at the seat of Government, and that no good purpose would be attained were the Governor General to make it a practice to move about the country to support the military authorities, and to remove any suspicions that might be entertained by the Native troops As to the statement just made, that the Government of India is now carried on by secretaries and clerks and not by the Governor General, I am truly at a loss to know upon what it is founded. I can only say that all the information I have received leads me to believe that the Governor General is watching in the most vigilant manner everything which is taking place. And what is better even than the assertions made by a noble Earl well acquainted with these matters is, that if I have seen one I have seen a dozen letters from different parts of India, written by persons most competent to judge, who one and all, without a single exception, say that Lord Canning has risen immensely in the estimation of the whole European community in India, and is regarded by all as having proved himself fully equal to the emergency.
THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: I drew my conclusions from the papers on the table, and from those alone. Dumdum is only eight miles from Calcutta, and the whole thing might have been arranged in an evening drive.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: My noble Friend, owing to the pressure of other business, has not perhaps been able closely and critically to examine these depatches. I took some pains to look into them this morning, and my impression certainly is that the noble Earl has very much exaggerated the importance and extent of the delay which took place on this occasion. On the 22nd of January, Lieutenant Wright, the officer commanding this small firing party at Dumdum, first reported to his immediate superior, that there was, not a mutinous spirit, but a feeling of uneasiness
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among the men, with respect to the grease used in their cartridges. Major Bontain reported to General Hearsey, who was at Barrackpore, and he reports to the Supreme Government at Calcutta. He suggests to the Governor General that the men should be allowed to purchase their own grease in the bazaars—that the cartridges should be served out without any grease, so that the men might be perfectly sure as to the ingredients it contained; and he further suggests that as the feeling seems to be increasing among the men the Governor General should telegraph to the stations in Upper India, recommending that the same measures should be taken there. Well, my Lords, on the very day on which that letter was received, Lord Canning returns an answer, desiring General Hearsey no longer to issue greased cartridges to the men, but to allow them to purchase their own grease. Not only that, but he telegraphs instantly on the same day to the Adjutant General at Meerut—the very place where the mutiny subsequently broke out—and also to Umballah, as far as the electric wires extend, ordering the same precautions to be observed there. In all these proceedings a delay of four days only takes place. The Governor General is known to be a man of very active, businesslike habits; and I must say that in asserting that the Government of India is carried on now through clerks and secretaries, the noble Earl is making a very unfair imputation, and is doing something—although I am sure that it is not his intention—to diminish the power and authority of the Governor General at a most difficult crisis.
THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGH: All I referred to was the manner in which this correspondence seems to have been conducted, and the delay which took place. The communication was made from Dumdum on the 22nd; three or four letters passed. General Hearsey's letter was written on the 23rd, the letter of the Governor General on the 27th, and it is not until the morning of the 28th that General Hearsey receives permission to do that which he recommended in his letter on the 23rd. The probability is that the contents of the Governor General's reply were not known at Dumdum until the 29th, but certainly not until the 28th; and I do think that that delay, the stations being only eight miles apart, is one which ought to have been avoided by any Government under any circumstances.
LORD PANMUREobserved, that it was all very well for the noble Earl opposite to say that business should be done as rapidly as possible, but business and especially military business, should be always done in order. The Report from the officer in command of the party at Dumdum was made, as it ought to have been made, to his commanding officer, who had reported it to the General of Brigade, General Hearsey, who not thinking it of pressing importance, waited to communicate to the Government by the post. He could have sent his aide-de-camp. If that had been done, the whole business would have been conducted in a strictly military way. In the present state of their knowledge, it was premature to come to any decision; but it appeared to him that if any strictures were to be made they should rest on General Hearsey, for not having sent his aide-de-camp on to Calcutta. Certainly the Governor General was not to blame.
THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHsaid, the noble Baron would find that under the present system letters had to be written by eight different persons before any thing came to the knowledge of the Governor General.

REFORMATORY SCHOOLS BILL.

  COMMITTEE.
  House in Committee, (according to order).
  Clauses 1 to 11 agreed to, with verbal Amendments.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVON presented Clauses, the object of which was to prevent the evils and inconveniences which would arise from the association of children of different ages in reformatory schools. The managers of reformatory schools objected to receive under the same roof boys of nine, ten, and eleven years of age and young men of nineteen and twenty. They disliked to receive boys, indeed, of a greater age than fourteen, and thus boys between fourteen and sixteen were practically excluded from the benefits of these institutions. The effect of his clauses would be to extend the age of admission from sixteen to twenty, but not to alter the age of detention. The second clause would prevent boys of different ages from associating with each other. Reformatories were growing up for the senior class of juvenile offenders, and they were greatly wanted. About 25 per cent. of the offences against property were committed by young persons between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. Great allowances ought to be made for these youthful offenders, because they had arrived at an
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  age when the influence of home were at the weakest, and when the temptations that surrounded them were greatest. The consciences of offenders of this class were not hardened, and their minds were more impressionable and more easily influenced by kindness and exhortation than at any period of their lives. He did not propose to establish adult reformatories, which was a question of a different character, but only to make some alterations in the internal arrangements of these reformatories. The noble Earl concluded by proposing the clauses in question.
  THE EARL OF HARROWBYsaid, that the reformatory system had been somewhat misunderstood by the noble Earl. Reformatory schools were voluntary institutions, and the managers being aware of the inconvenience of admitting young men to associate with the boys frequently refused to admit those who were above sixteen years of age. It might be desirable that the doors of reformatory institutions should not be shut against young men of sixteen and upwards, but the managers of reformatory institutions could not be compelled to admit them. It could not be said that young men of sixteen and upwards committed crimes in ignorance of the law, and the prison arrangements of well-managed gaols were expressly framed with a view to their discipline and moral improvement.
  Amendments negatived.—Amendments made; the Report thereof to be received on Tuesday next.

ESTABLISHED CHURCH (IRELAND).

  PETITION.—ASSAULTS ON SCRIPTURE READERS IN IRELAND.
  VISCOUNT DUNGANNON,in pursuance of notice, presented a petition from the Protestant Inhabitants of St. Nicholas Without, in the city of Dublin, agreed to at a very large meeting of the parishioners, and signed on their behalf by the ministers and churchwardens, praying that legal Protection may be given to the Protestants of Ireland for the free execise of their Religion. The noble Lord said, the Petitioners sought to be protected from mob violence, and that their ministers, Scripture-readers, and school children may have awarded to them the protection of British law, and that magistrates and the police force may be compelled to an impartial discharge of their duty. The noble Viscount said, that for some considerable time the parties to the petition had been exposed to repeated

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  insults, and even to absolute personal injuries and assaults at the hands of the Roman Catholic portion of the inhabitants of the parish; and that on the evening of the 12th of May last, in particular, a very large body of Roman Catholics assembled together and committed assaults upon a number of persons who were on their way to the Protestant schools as teachers. Amongst the individuals so ill-used he regretted to say there were several ladies of the highest character and respectability; and when the police were called upon and entreated to interfere, they not only declined to do so, but seemed, by their gesticulations, rather to give encouragement to the mob in their lawless proceedings. The petitioners represented that it was with no ill-feeling towards their Roman Catholic neighbours that they approached their Lordships' House, and that all they asked was that the same extent of protection should be granted to them that was granted to the Roman Catholics of Ireland; otherwise, as they certainly not without justice said, Roman Catholic emancipation would be the means of bringing about Protestant thraldrom. Now these occurrences, as he had before remarked, had taken place not once or twice, but repeatedly; and on the 12th of May, not merely were various persons injured, but the houses of the parents who sent their children to the Protestant schools were broken open, ransacked, and the furniture torn to pieces, whilst outrages were committed even upon the Church of St. Nicholas itself, and the Protestant minister of the parish was constantly subjected to outrage and annoyance on his way to the union. It was much to be lamented that any necessity should have arisen for placing a petition of this description upon their Lordships' table. It was much to be regretted that even-handed justice was not dealt out to all parties in the sister country, and that the constabulary, who had been appointed to maintain order and preserve the peace, had utterly neglected to do their duty when there happened to be any matter at issue between Roman Catholics, of which persuasion many of the police were, and per sons of the Protestant persuasion. Unfortunately also, in other parts of Ireland, the same feeling had been exhibited by Roman Catholic magistrates in deciding upon cases in which persons of their own communion and Protestants were concerned. No petition that had ever been presented to their Lordships' House was couched in more
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  moderate terms than this. All the petitioners asked was the freedom of attending public worship and giving instruction in their own schools. And the petition was a reasonable one; for if the Roman Catholic population were to be allowed to have their schools and bring up their children in the faith they believed to be right, the same privilege ought not to be denied to Protestants. In presenting this petition he could not avoid expressing the opinion, that, however little attention such complaints might receive at the hands either of the Government in Ireland or of the Parliament in this country, the time would surely arrive when neither the Government in Ireland nor the Legislature in England would be able longer to turn a deaf ear to them. Such acts as he had described were disgraceful both to the Executive and the Legislature, and he did hope the matter would be seriously considered by her Majesty's Government here; that means would be found of pulling an end to these disgraceful proceedings; and that the Protestants of Ireland might have secured to them what every British subject had a right to claim, the free exercise of their religious worship without being liable to molestation, injury, insult, and brutal violence.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that those who had only heard the speech of the noble Viscount would form a very erroneous impression as to what had taken place. He would not trouble their Lordships by reading the papers which had been put into his hands, but he could assure them that much blame attached to both the parties which had been concerned in this unfortunate affair. But the same accusation had been made on each side with regard to the partiality of the police to the other, and the same sort of application to the Government, professing a desire for peace, but insisting upon having everything their own way. For the purpose of preserving the peace the police were directed to keep near the schools, and they did so in considerable force day and night. The result of their exertions was, that various persons had been taken before the magistrates, charged with being concerned in the outrages which had been committed, and sentence had been passed upon these persons. Upon reading the papers before him, it was impossible not to see that the Government of Ireland had acted with the firmest determination to maintain order and prevent the recurrence of these outrages; and what was more, the

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  measures adopted had been perfectly successful. The noble Viscount had spoken as if he represented the entire body of Protestants in Ireland, instead of the Dublin Protestant Association. The noble Viscount said that the petitioners were actuated by the kindest feelings towards their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects; but if they were so, the language they had used elsewhere was certainly not calculated to lead to that conclusion; for in a placard which had been published by the Dublin Protestant Association, they compared themselves to the Apostle Paul, and Roman Catholics to the worshippers of the "unknown God." Surely that was not the language to be used by persons who were conscientiously desirous of promoting peace and good will. He must remind the noble Viscount who was so active in bringing forward these cases, that, while the Government had no difficulty in quelling this particular riot in Dublin they had had great trouble with most serious riots in Belfast, which had owed their origin to those Orangemen of whom he condescended to be the patron; and he thought that the noble Viscount was one of the last persons who ought to charge the Government with persecuting the Church of Ireland.
  VISCOUNT DUNGANNONsaid, he had not stated upon what party the greatest blame was to rest, but he ventured to say that he was no patron, as the noble Earl appeared to assume, of any party who would resort to such irregularities. Although he had a connection with the Orange institution in Ireland, and held high office in it—namely, that of Grand Master of the county of Antrim—it had been his invariable practice, previous to the occurrence of any anniversary, to issue a circular, cautioning the members of the institution over which he had control cave-fully to abstain from anything that might tend to a breach of the peace or a violation of the law. He could assure their Lordships that he would be the last man in the world to encourage the display of any violent feelings towards those who differed from him in creed. He was in no way responsible for any expressions which had emanated from the Dublin Protestant Association, inasmuch as he had never been a member of that Association. He had always abstained from connecting himself with institutions of that description; because, happening to be a landlord of both Roman Catholics and Protestants, he considered that his beat course was to steer clear of societies which had for their object
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  the conversion of their Roman Catholic countrymen, and he had never sanctioned the use of any sort of expression which disturbed Christian feeling, or showed a want of charity towards those who professed a creed that differed from his own. Nothing was further from his intention than to charge the Government with persecuting Protestants. True, he thought that Protestants had not had that even-handed justice dealt out to them which they had a right to demand; but, he repeated, he should be the last person in the House to encourage or sanction, on the part of the Protestant body, anything that might partake of an unchristian feeling, or an absence of charity towards those persons of another persuasion.
  Petition to lie on the table.
  House adjourned at Seven o'clock till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.