§ THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHpresented petitions from British and East Indian Merchants, Traders, Bankers, Clerks, and uncovenanted Civil Servants of Her Majesty, and others residing in India, and from Europeans and Eurasians residing at Simla, complaining of the Arms Act passed by the Legislative Council last year, and praying for relief. By this Act Europeans and Natives were placed on the same footing, and were equally required to deliver up the arms in their possession to the magistrates. The British residents maintained that under the Bill of Rights they were entitled to possess arms for their own protection, and that the Indian Government had not authority to take them away. It was right to add that in a circular issued by the Governor General the objectionable features of the Act were done away with; but he was, nevertheless, bound to express his sympathy with the petitioners in the indignation which they expressed that they should not have been specifically exempted in a Bill which was passed in haste at a time of great popular ferment.
EARL DE GREY AND RIPONsaid, the Governor General of India entertained the opinion, in which he was cordially supported by the Home Government, that it was impossible with fairness and justice to make a distinction in an Act of the Legislature between Her Majesty's Native and European subjects. It was not thought advisable to make the distinction in the Act itself; but in the Act as it passed the Council power was given to the Governor General to exempt from its operation such persons and classes as he might think it unnecessary to bring under its provisions. A circular letter was accordingly issued, in which it was stated that the European residents ought properly to come under the exemption, not being persons from whom an improper use of these weapons was to be apprehended.
§ THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHcould not appreciate the distinction drawn by the noble Earl. If it were wrong to place Natives and Europeans on a different footing in an Act of Parliament, could it be right to do so in a Proclamation by the Governor General.
§ Petitions ordered to lie on the Table.