§ LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY, on rising to ask the Secretary for the Colonies, Whether he is instituting or about to institute an inquiry into the state of the Administration of the Straits Settlements previous to November, 1873, said, the object of the Motion he before made respecting the Malay Peninsula was to point out the risk of this country being insensibly led on to the conquest of that Peninsula, and to elicit from Her Majesty's Government a declaration in opposition to such a course. He failed entirely; and, in consequence of having made some accessory matters too prominent, only succeeded in eliciting contradictions from the two Secretaries of State, repeated on a subsequent occasion, and sufficient to have silenced him till next Session had he not been sure of the facts of which he had spoken. He had referred to the bad administration of the Straits Settlements incidentally only, and to support his main argument, and not 1055 expecting that would be denied. He made a mistake in twitting the noble Earl (the Earl of Carnarvon) with the appointment of the late Governor, for it was unnecessary, as he mentioned at the same time to their Lordships that the noble Earl was not responsible for that Governor's acts, having quitted office shortly after his appointment. It was also unnecessary, since he was as well aware as the noble Earl (the Earl of Carnarvon) that no motives of private friendship or favouritism had anything to do with that appointment. The noble Earl would perhaps, however, admit—if not to their Lordships, at least within his own mind—that he had some provocation in consequence of his laudation of the affairs of the Straits when speaking of the Gold Coast; and subsequently the noble Earl told their Lordships he had never heard of any dissatisfaction with the Colonial Office in the Straits. He thought the noble Earl had shown by that statement that from the time he left the Colonial Office until he returned to it this year he had not read any of the Straits newspapers. He must protest against the doctrine held by his noble Friend (the Earl of Kimberley), that three years was too long ago to refer back; what political action or circumstances could he mention, the origin of which did not date from a longer period than three years? He must also protest against the doctrine that, if the conduct of a Colonial Governor was called in question, it was the duty of all the Ministers under whom he had served to defend him per fas et nefas, whether he was right or wrong. Such a doctrine would make public interests go to the wall, and a Governor who might have been reproved by the Minister in private would find himself upheld and approved by the Minister in public. If he was told that it was too late, only six months after an Administration had ceased, to call it in question, he urged that had he done so while the Governor was in office he should have been told he was weakening his hands. Though he was prepared for a sharp reply from his noble Friend opposite (the Earl of Carnarvon), since he had, perhaps, brought it on himself, he was not prepared for what fell from his noble Friend (the Earl of Kimberley), against whom he had said nothing, and from whose despatches in the Salangore Blue Book he had read passages in sup- 1056 port of his views; and it was only after the discussion was over, he understood that his noble Friend (the Earl of Kimberley) might have felt that he had been implying that he was in the case of "Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur." After what his noble Friend said, he felt bound to ask for an inquiry into the administration of the Straits up to November, 1873—and in justice to the new Governor, Sir Andrew Clarke, there should be an inquiry into the system, in order that he might start fair. But, perhaps, he was wrong in asking for an inquiry as to the whole of the matters that might be thought to be fit subjects for one, since the Colonial Office might have and probably had already inquired into many of these matters; but what was wanted was that the Colonial Office should publish its own judgment on these matters, either by laying the Correspondence before their Lordships or by ordering the Straits Government to publish them, that the colonial public might know that the Colonial Office had been watchful over its interests. With regard to the question of presents, he would only observe that the defence offered by the noble Earl (the Earl of Carnarvon) merely stated that which was stated in the letter to The Straits Times, which he himself had read to the House; and he did say that if the Government believed that letter to be a calumny they were bound to prosecute The Straits Times, and to clear the late Governor completely; in which case he (Lord Stanley of Alderley) should be anxious to express to him his regret at having brought that letter before their Lordships. He would go further, and say that if the late Governor would tell him in black and white that neither directly nor indirectly had he taken any other presents than these weapons referred to by the Secretary of State, he should be willing to express to Sir Harry Ord his regret for having given him a moment's pain. He could not help feeling that Sir Harry was indebted to him for having given him the opportunity of meeting a charge made in the Singapore papers months before he left the colony, and which it did not appear he had ever denied or noticed. He now came to another matter. In a letter signed "Economist," which appeared in The Straits Times in 1870, this statement was made— 1057
Was not the office of Assistant Colonial Secretary created by the recommendation of Sir Harry Ord? Did not Sir Harry Ord put into it his own private secretary, Mr. Plow, already the holder of two offices, to keep the place warm for the gentlemen appointed by the Secretary of State? Did he not authorize Mr. Plow to draw the full pay of the new office (£600 to £800 a-year, I believe) in addition to his own two full pays? Did he not even authorize him to receive it after Mr. Irving had been appointed to the office at home, and was entitled to half the salary? Lastly, was not the office a perfect sinecure all last year, and did not Mr. Plow resign it because the present Colonial Secretary, Captain Shaw, insisted on his doing some work, or, at least, attending for some time at the office? If these questions cannot be answered in the negative, one more has still to be asked. Is it to the 'Colonial system,' or to Lord Granville, or to Sir Harry Ord, that this happy disposal of the Colonial Funds is to be attributed?The Colonial Office did take action in this matter by redressing this financial irregularity, and it might be fairly assumed that it blamed the Governor, and conveyed its approval to the Treasurer, who had been upright, and had upheld the rules and regulations of the service. He challenged the Colonial Office to produce this Correspondence, and he challenged his noble Friend (the Earl of Kimberley) to ask for its production, that their Lordships might judge whether he was justified in stating that the Governor had always acted with perfect fidelity. He must remind their Lordships that the Straits Settlements under the India Office had been perfectly-peaceful, but that shortly after the transfer to the Colonial Office every portion of the community was in arms against the Governor; and the London merchants connected with the Straits were driven to found an association to oppose a course of what was described as reckless and selfish expenditure; for a colony that had a revenue of less than £300,000 saw in three years some £50,000 spent in building a palace for the Governor, and some £60,000 more for buying and keeping up steamers. The complaint also was generally made that these steamers were not used for public purposes, but that they served too much the purposes of pleasure yachts; and the item of "travelling expenses" in the Colonial Budget was one which required the attention of the Colonial Office. But it was not merely the large sums thus taken from the public purse for private purposes which attracted attention and ex-cited universal reprobation—there was 1058 the manner in which it was done. The Legislative Council was first told that the amount for the Government House was not to exceed £22,000. This was soon exceeded by some £5,000 or £6,000. Then, a further sum of £9,000 was obtained on a misrepresentation of what was already voted. He believed that not only the colony, but the Colonial Office was misled on this point. Then the French system of virements invented by M. Janvier de la Motte was resorted to, so that money voted for a different purpose was applied to the Government House. So as regarded steamers—representing to the Legislative Council that the cost of a steamer and a steam launch would not exceed £16,000 or £17,000, Sir Harry Ord got a vote passed authorizing him to buy these vessels. The vote made no mention of the limit, a copy of it was sent home to the Colonial Office, and they ordered a vessel which was to cost £23,000 at home, and, perhaps, £2,000 more to send her to the colony. Fortunately, the Straits Association interfered, and the Colonial Office prevented the construction of the vessel, and sent out a cheaper one. But what was his noble Friend's (the Earl of Kimberley's) opinion of the pecuniary administration of this public servant, whom he proclaimed the other day as faithful? In a despatch of August 15, 1871, he said:—The expenditure of the Colony does not appear to me so satisfactory. I have noticed in the two last quarterly returns, as well as in the details of the Supplementary Estimates of previous years, that the Estimates are not drawn with as much care as is desirable; and that, while in ordinary services, there has been a constant and considerable increase, no great work of public importance, with the exception of the Government House at Singapore, has been yet undertaken. It should be borne in mind by the officer of your Government that a prosperous revenue furnishes no reason for lax or injudicious expenditure, and that these Colonial Governments which have presumed on a temporary surplus have, in many cases, been severely inconvenienced when unexpected circumstances called for summary retrenchment. In such cases, the first to suffer and to complain have been the officers of the Civil Administration, through the laxity of which disorder has arisen.There was another matter which should become the subject of inquiry, and that was the opium-farming. The late Governor renewed the opium farm for three years, though the lease had not expired, instead of leaving this to be done by his successor. He desired also 1059 to request the noble Earl the Secretary for the Colonies to turn his attention generally to the subject of opium-farming by the British Government, as opium in the Straits and in Hong Kong required restriction and regulation still more than liquor in England; and the conduct of the British Government in this respect had been very severely commented upon by French writers. Now, in all that he had said he had merely repeated what had been matter of public fame for a long time in the Colony, and among colonial men at home; and he trusted that he should not be met again by remonstrances against making charges and raking up old stories. In his opinion, these who would screen the late administration of the Straits from a thorough investigation, or who would refuse to produce the Correspondence and Papers which could throw light upon it, merely pleaded guilty for it. To say they would have no inquiry, meant that the late Straits Administration was unable to face one. To say, it was too late now, was to say, that after six months' retirement a Governor might plead the Statute of Limitations. If that was the answer he was to receive it would be a significant one, and he should be quite satisfied that the complaints as to the state of things which exasperated the Straits Settlements for the last six years were not imaginary, but only too well founded. He now came to a complaint which was one which specially required inquiry into, and the result of the inquiry should be laid before their Lordships. He referred to the flogging of Chinese rioters. This flogging was quite unnecessary; it was contrary to public policy to establish severer punishments for one class of Her Majesty's subjects than for another. While we objected to certain Chinese punishments as barbarous, we ought not to set such a bad example to the Chinese. If the Government set the example of flogging, it was no wonder that the planters should follow it, and that recently two planters had been sentenced to only three and four months' imprisonment for flogging two coolies to death. The Kong Sis, or Chinese guilds, were not, as was stated the other evening by the Secretary of State (the Earl of Carnarvon), secret societies; but no accusation of secresy ought to have weight against these Chinese guilds in this country, where so many Englishmen belonged to 1060 a secret society—that of the Freemasons—without that fact being thought blame-able by these who belonged to that body. Colonel Cavanagh did him the honour to ask his opinion, many years ago, about these Kong Sis, or beneficent societies and trade unions, and he recommended him to give an official position to their head men and make them responsible for keeping the peace. He learnt later that this had long been the practice in the Philippine Islands and in Java, where it had met with complete success. The flogging in the Straits Settlements had consisted of legal and illegal flogging. A law was passed in the Straits to sanction flogging of Chinese rioters, and it was a pleasure to him to be able to state that his noble Friend (Earl Granville) refused his sanction to it. After that, flogging took place, he believed, illegally. Later, a law for flogging was again passed—and he did not know whether it received the sanction of his noble Friend (the Earl of Kimberley) or not. If he did not sanction it, then all the flogging which undoubtedly occurred was illegal, and required inquiring into. If he did sanction it, it would be for him to explain the grounds on which he sanctioned it, after his predecessor had refused to do so:—and, it must be remembered, that no change had occurred in the circumstances of Singapore. Their Lordships would, probably, be inclined to prefer the course taken by the late Secretary for Foreign Affairs to that taken by the late Secretary for the Colonies. It would be necessary for the Colonial Office now to inquire into this matter, and consider whether it could continue to give its sanction to such a law, and could justify it. Another law, authorizing the summary expulsion of Chinese from the Straits, was also passed, and gave rise to much dissatisfaction at the time, and required inquiry in order that the Government might decide whether it should continue to sanction or should abrogate it. He would now conclude by asking his noble Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether he was instituting, or was about to institute, an inquiry into the state of the administration of the Straits Settlements previous to November, 1873?
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid that as his noble Friend (Lord Stanley of Alderley) had referred to several matters 1061 which occurred when he was at the Colonial Office, he thought it would be well if he made a few observations before his noble Friend the Secretary for the Colonies rose to reply. His noble Friend who had just addressed the House somewhat misunderstood him the other evening, when he understood him to say that they could not go into the transactions to which his noble Friend had called attention because they occurred three years ago. What he said on the occasion was that the Correspondence relating to these transactions was presented three years ago, and that he thought, therefore, his noble Friend might have challenged the conduct of the Straits Government at an earlier period than the present. Again, his noble Friend seemed to have understood him as holding that Sir Harry Ord had never made any mistakes. He had not taken up any such position. He thought his noble Friend had attacked Sir Harry Ord rather unfairly, but so far from saying that he had made no mistakes, he said he had failed on some occasions, though, on the whole, he had done good service. It was of but of few Governors of Colonies it could be said they had made no mistakes. His noble Friend had referred to the case of the double appointment in which Mr. Plow was drawing the pay of Colonial Secretary when he ought not to have been doing so. When the matter came under his own notice as Secretary for the Colonies it at once appeared to him that there was not the least doubt about the matter; and believing that Mr. Plow was not entitled to draw that pay, he ordered an inquiry into the matter, and, as the result of that inquiry, he directed that the money so drawn should be refunded. Then, as regarded the finances, in a Despatch which he sent out to Singapore he called attention to the fact that the management of the finances was not satisfactory. The matter was considered and discussed at Singapore and in the Colonial Office, and in certain respects improvements were suggested. He was in hopes that the suggestions of Her Majesty's Government had been productive of good effect, and he could see no objection to the production of this or of any other Correspondence on this subject. Then came the question of flogging. In a Peace Preservation Act sent over here for approval it was proposed that the punishment of flogging might be inflicted for illegally 1062 carrying arms. Lord Granville objected to that, but subsequently another code was prepared, and in it that punishment was proposed for certain offences. He was not enamoured of the punishment of flogging. He thought we should be very cautious in giving it our sanction, and that it should be inflicted only in cases of great brutality. It was inflicted only in such cases under the general code to which he had just alluded; but it was proposed that it should also be inflicted in the case of rioting, but only under peculiar circumstances. The Peace Preservation Act of the Settlement provided that in certain cases of rioting the magistrates might by proclamation acquire larger powers of dealing with the rioters. When at the Colonial Office he came to the conclusion that in these very serious cases, and after the place had been put under proclamation, flogging might be inflicted on the rioters. The noble Lord seemed to be of opinion that the Chinese Guilds in Singapore were harmless societies. That was not so, these guilds were a source of considerable embarrassment to the Government. It was true that their actions were not directed against the Government; but they quarrelled among themselves to such an extent, that the trade and peace of the place were seriously disturbed by their riots, and in these conflicts lives had sometimes been sacrificed. The Governor had informed him that in these serious cases flogging was approved by the whole of the European population, and he thought he had informed him that it was approved by the Chinese residents also. If his noble Friend the Secretary for the Colonies saw no objection to producing the Correspondence referring to these several matters, he for his own part should be glad of its production; but if it were produced he should not think his noble Friend would be able to lay grounds for an inquiry, now that Sir Harry Ord no longer held office, and that the Governor was Sir Andrew Clarke, than whom there was no abler servant of the Crown.
THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, he thought his noble Friend who had just addressed the House had disposed of nearly all the topics touched upon by the noble Lord (Lord Stanley of Alderley). For himself, he (the Earl of Carnarvon) must demur to the remarks made by the noble Lord at the outset of his speech as 1063 to his not having made a sufficient study of the Colonial newspapers. Having regard to the number of our Colonies and the number of newspapers published in them, it would be impossible for anyone to find time to read them all. The noble Lord had spoken of the expenditure under Sir Harry Ord in reference to building the Government House, which he said was not of a character warranted by the revenue of the Colony. It was true that Sir Harry Ord did lay his plans for that house on a larger scale than the circumstances of the Colony warranted; but he was blamed for that by his noble Friend (the Earl of Kimberley), and also for allowing the building of that house to take precedence of the other works of the Colony. It must, however, be borne in mind that the expenditure for Government House was sanctioned by the unofficial Members of the Governor's Council, and it must also be remembered that he left the Colony, not only free from debt, but with a very considerable surplus. The case of the steamers was this:—When the Straits Settlements were handed over, the steamers previously in use were worn out. Sir Harry Ord, with the consent of his Council, made a requisition for a steamer to cost £10,000; but by additional fittings the price was brought up to £23,000. He was directed to strike that sum out of the Estimates, and a steamer which costless than £16,000 was sent out. The noble Lord spoke of the transfer of unexpended balances from one head of expenditure to another. It was true that the practice was not restricted as much as it ought to have been at Singapore. He did not like the system, but it was not peculiar to the Straits Settlements. It prevailed in this country till within a few years ago, and, subject to a Minute in Council, it still existed in Australia. As to the case of Mr. Plow, had Sir Harry Ord attended to the Colonial Rules he would have known that such appointments, if not actually prohibited, were discountenanced by these Bales; but as his noble Friend (the Earl of Kimberley) had explained, the disapprobation of the Colonial Office had been expressed in that case. With respect to flogging, the noble Lord asked whether Her Majesty's Government would continue to give their sanction to the flogging ordinance which had been passed 1064 some five or six years ago. There were two Colonial Acts which contained provisions respecting flogging—the Peace Preservation Act, and the Penal Code. The offences for which the Penal Code of the Straits Settlements provided flogging, were these which were of a brutal nature and were analogous in their character to these for which flogging was inflicted in this country. The question of that penalty in these cases had been very fully considered in the Colony, and certainly he was not prepared to advise any alteration in the law. The Peace Preservation Act provided flogging for rioting with deadly weapons. The conditions under which the punishment could be inflicted were strictly defined, the district must be proclaimed before the Act could be applied, and the number of lashes was specified. Although flogging might be repugnant to our modern notion, it might be said to be almost indigenous in the East, and considering the circumstances he had stated, he saw no reason for recommending its abolition, in these rioting cases. There had been no Petition or remonstrance on the subject, and he had not heard any abuse alleged until the noble Lord stated that two coolies had been flogged to death and that the person who inflicted the flogging had received only four months' imprisonment. He should like to have further particulars, if the noble Lord could furnish them, for there was no account of the case at the Colonial Office. The inquiry which the noble Lord now asked for would be almost without precedent. It could be justified only by a conviction on the part of the Colonial Secretary that serious abuses had occurred. He did not think such abuses had occurred, and, therefore, he could not hold out to the noble Lord the slightest expectation that an inquiry would be instituted. The case was one of a Crown Colony. There had been mistakes; his noble Friend the late Secretary for the Colonies had expressed his opinion on these mistakes, and that in a very unsparing manner; but it would be very unjust to Sir Harry Ord if the Government gave any grounds for the belief that they thought an inquiry into his conduct was necessary. No Petition or Memorial asking for such an inquiry had been addressed to the Crown, and in his opinion not the slightest case had been made out for it. During Sir 1065 Harry Ord's Governorship the expenditure of the Colony never reached its income; no new tax was imposed; the value of land increased largely; the trade of the settlement increased 27 per cent; the increase of shipping entered was to the extent of 40 per cent. and that of shipping cleared to the extent of 45; and when revenue and expenditure were taken—though it was difficult to make an exact comparison in consequence of the transfer of various items—the result was that a Colony which commenced its career without a balance had a credit at the commencement of the present year of nearly $700,000 Before producing the Despatches referred to by his noble Friend (the Earl of Kimberley) it would be necessary to look through them; but as far as the Colonial Office was concerned there was no objection to their production.