OBSERVATIONS.

HL Deb 14 March 1876 vol 227 cc1946-2008

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

rose and said: It is with great regret that I have felt it to be my duty to call the attention of your Lordships to the Papers laid on the Table by the Secretary of State for India on the subject of the Indian tariff, more especially because I am afraid that from accidental circumstances the question may assume the appearance of a Party question. Noble Lords who have been at the India Office in this country during late Administrations naturally sit on this side of the House; but it so happens that other noble Lords who have filled with distinction the highest offices in India, and who have formed their opinions from personal knowledge of the country, and who, I am happy to say, agree with me, also sit on the same side.

I have always considered Indian questions to be far above all Party views. When my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and I discussed Indian matters in the House of Commons together, I bear willing testimony to the fact that the noble Earl was careful to do so without any reference to Party considerations, and I trust the noble Earl will readily bear similar testimony in reference to my own mode of treating these subjects.

THE EARL OF DERBY

Hear, hear:

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

The question to-night is not a question between the two sides of the House. It is a question between the line of conduct hitherto happily pursued in reference to the Government in India and Indian interests, and a totally different line of conduct, which these Papers seem to indicate that it is the intention of my noble Friend the Secretary of State for India to pursue.

When, many years ago, I first became Minister for India, the unanimous opinion of statesmen of all Parties, as tersely expressed by Lord Macaulay, was that India ought to be governed for Indian interests and as much as possible in India. Indeed, I consider that proposition so nearly self-evident that it does not need much argument to support it. There was a time when the interests of our Colonies were made subordinate to those of the Mother Country. We have grown wiser; we have established in the Colonies independent domestic Legislatures which govern the Colonies in the interests and in accordance with the wishes of the Colonies themselves. The circumstances of India make it impossible that an independent local Legislature should be established in India; but the same principle of government is no less applicable to India than to the Colonies. The Colonies are able to protect themselves through their own Legislatures, and as the people of India have not a domestic Legislature to protect them, I have always held it to be the duty of the Secretary of State for India to protect their interests against any pressure in this country for English interests.

I object to the policy of my noble Friend because he has departed from the old recognized policy, and, against the views of the Government in India and of the people in India, has given directions for the abandonment of a a considerable and increasing source of revenue, and, further, that in giving those directions my noble Friend has adopted a tone in his despatches little calculated to promote good feeling and harmony between the Government of India and the India Office, or to induce the people of India to acquiesce in our rule with that willingness which hitherto they have generally manifested.

I will take the two questions in order. To any one acquainted with India I need hardly say that the subject which has always caused most anxiety is the financial state of the country. The financial state of England is sometimes a source of anxiety, but I do not hesitate to say that in India it must be a constant source of the greatest anxiety. Why is that so? First, the expenditure of India is almost sure to increase more rapidly than the income; next, part of the revenue is very precarious; and, lastly, it is almost impossible to levy a new tax. A large portion of the income of India is derived from the land revenue, which is not a tax in the ordinary sense of the term. It is rent settled in perpetuity, or for terms of 30 years, and must rise very slowly, as, indeed, is the case with the other sources of income.

Now, as to the expenditure. The Mutiny almost doubled the debt. Of late years a system has been introduced of borrowing largely for public works. If those works should prove reproductive—should the receipts from them be sufficient to pay the interest on the capital—there would be no increase of the public burdens on account of those works; but as far as my experience goes the reproductiveness of those works is both doubtful and slow. The first use to which any surplus should be applied is that of keeping down the public debt. In other respects the expenditure must increase considerably. The whole cost of living in India has risen. We are now improving the condition of the British Army. That improvement must be extended to the troops serving in India, and the cost of so extending it and of improving the barracks must be borne by India. The cost of the Civil administration must increase in like manner. We know what the Civil Service Estimates are coming to in this country; but the necessity for improvements causing greater expense in that service must be much more pressing in a country like India. The expense of the police and the gaols is perpetually increasing. Within the last few months, I might almost say, another source of increased expense to India has grown up in consequence of the diminution in the value of silver. I am afraid that this must result in a very large increase of the public expenditure. The revenue is raised in silver rupees, but the same nominal amount will not be of the same real value, and it may be necessary to raise the salaries of the public servants in India. There can, however, be no question as to the effect on the remittances to England. Nearly £15,000,000 is paid in England by the Government of India. The means of payment will be raised in depreciated silver—the payment must be made in gold. A larger amount of silver will therefore be required, and I cannot put the not improbable addition to the charge on the revenues of India from this cause at less than £1,500,000 or £2,000,000. In this state of things, surely common sense would suggest that, whatever sources of revenue there are, they ought to be preserved unless they were in themselves very objectionable. My noble Friend the Secretary of State denounces the duty on cotton goods as protective and oppressive, and has been reading lectures on political economy to the Government of India, who were free traders long before we were. Let us see how far these duties are protective. Before the Mutiny the ruling rate of duty on articles imported into India was 5 per cent. At the time of the Mutiny, when the Government was in great want of money, that duty was raised to 10 per cent; but in 1861, which was as soon as circumstances admitted of the alteration, the duty on cotton goods was reduced to 5 per cent. while the duty on all other goods imported was continued at 10 per cent. With this reduction and a lower valuation no complaint was heard of protection. It is quite true that circumstances have changed since then, and that in 1873 a steam mill for the manufacture of cotton goods was sot up in Bombay. The number of mills in India has increased up to the present time, and the lower description of goods made in India may have to some extent excluded the same sort of goods made in Manchester, on which the 5 per cent duty is paid. There is, however, another cause operating against the Manchester goods. It is certain that some of the cotton goods sent out to India are of a much inferior description to those manufactured in India, In the former, the quantity of gypsum sent from Leicestershire for the purpose, and introduced with the cotton, is very considerable; whilst a Mr. Robinson, a cotton spinner at Glasgow, who was sent over to visit the Indian mills, reports that from 10 to 20 per cent more cotton than is usual is put into the goods made there. In 1872, 75 per cent of this description of goods sent to Shanghai were unsaleable. This being the case, it is not surprising that a preference is given in India to goods manufactured there over those imported from Manchester. It is very doubtful, therefore, whether the duty on Manchester goods really acts as a protective duty, and, indeed, the noble Marquess himself in his despatch of July says that as against the Lancashire manufacturers the effect of the 5 per cent duty is insignificant. But whatever the amount of protection may be, the imposition of an equivalent excise duty on the goods manufactured in the steam mills of India would remove all cause of complaint against the import duty. Is the duty oppressive on the people of India? It is difficult to prove any tax to be a good thing in itself, but as revenue must be raised, the only practicable course is to choose the least objectionable tax. It is also a maxim of taxation that if you have to raise a considerable sum of money, you must levy it on as large a number of people as possible, and, of course, upon something which they consume. Now, as regards taxation, the people of India are certainly in a very happy condition, because as a people they pay as little taxes as can well be conceived if there is to be taxation at all. The great mass of them—in round numbers 200,000,000—pay no taxes except the import duty on cotton goods and the tax on salt. In this country the man who does not pay duty on one thing pays it on another. The man who does not drink spirits drinks beer or smokes tobacco; but in India there is no item on which the people ever pay duty, except on the cotton goods imported and salt. If their condition improves, they get gold or silver coins, which they manufacture into gold and silver ornaments, but there is no duty on gold and silver. I believe that this tax in the shape of the import duty has been borne willingly by the people, and a duty of £800,000 levied on 200,000,000 of people can scarcely be regarded as oppressive. Indeed, the best witness against the duty being either protective or oppressive is the noble Marquess himself. Having committed himself more than a year ago to the people of Lancashire and denounced this duty, he has declaimed in his despatches against protection, and in favour of the settled free-trade policy of this country; but when he comes to apply these principles to practise, his good sound sense comes into play, and he says, in his despatch of July 15, 1875— If it were true that this duty is the means of excluding English competition, and thereby raising the price of a necessary of life to the vast mass of Indian consumers, it is unnecessary for me to remark that it would be open to economical objections of the gravest kind. I do not attribute to it any such effect. Nothing can be more conclusive. It is not protective because it does not exclude English competition; it is not oppressive because it does not raise the price of a necessary of life. On these grounds, therefore, there does not appear to be any good reason for repealing the tax; and the Government of India taking the same view of it as is stated by the noble Marquess, did not, in dealing with the tariff, make any change in this duty, stating, at the same time, that if it was shown to act as a protective duty, it might be necessary to impose an equivalent excise duty on indigenous mills. They abolished the export duties on many articles of Indian produce, of which the noble Marquess has approved; they lowered the valuation of cotton goods, and reduced the import duty on various articles, and thereby brought the ruling rate of duty on general imports down to the old normal rate of 5 per cent. What is the financial result of what has been done? The total loss of revenue by the reductions is £308,000; of which £173,000 was the loss on exports and £88,000 on the reduced valuation of cotton goods. Those two items make £261,000, of both of which the noble Marquess approves, and which sum, taken from the £308,000, reduces the loss by the decrease of the import duties to £47,000, which the Indian Government, judging from the experience of the reduction in 1864, hope soon to recover.

The Government of India say that they could not spare the amount of revenue derived from the duty on cotton goods; that any substitute was more objectionable; that if it was shown to be protective, the remedy was an internal excise duty, and that it was not felt to be an oppressive tax on the people of India. My noble Friend however thinks that this duty on cotton goods ought to be entirely removed. He has expressed that opinion to the people of Lancashire and he expressed it to the Governor General of India, and repeated the order for its repeal in a despatch dated the 11th of November, 1875. The most extravagant Free-trader could scarcely have used stronger language than my noble Friend used in a despatch in reference to applying to India the recognized policy of England, and after some qualifying words as to guarding the finances of India, concluded in the following words:— The entire removal of the duty should, however, not he adjourned for an indefinite period, but provisions should be made for it within a fixed term of years. My noble Friend has written a Minute to explain what he has written in a despatch, saying that he only ordered the repeal of the duty when the revenue of India could spare it, and that he had not said anything of a new tax. This, however, is inconsistent with the words of the despatch which went to India. If the removal of the duty depends on the condition of the revenue of India, it must be at an indefinite period, for even my noble Friend cannot foresee the time when the progress of revenue will enable the Government to take off the duty. It is, according to the noble Lord's orders, to be taken off, not at an indefinite period, but in a fixed and no very long term of years. As I read the order conveyed in the despatch it amounts to this—revenue or no revenue, the Indian Government must make provision for the repeal of the tax within two or three years. Well, if there is no surplus to supply the place of that duty, of course, there must be another tax. What else can the Indian Government have understood by the instructions sent them from the India Office? There is no qualification in the despatches to India. The noble Marquess denounced the duty to deputations here; in the despatch of July he declared that it could not be permanent; in November, that it must be repealed in a fixed term of years. I can put no other meaning on his words. One other reason my noble Friend has assigned for the repeal of the duty on cotton goods. Having clearly expressed his opinion that it was neither protective nor oppressive, he says, in his despatch of July, that there is a political reason why it should not be permanent—namely, lest it should raise a feeling of animosity on both sides by putting the interests of England in antagonism with those of India. Now, I should like to know how a feeling of antagonism is to be raised by this duty. There can be no feeling of antagonism entertained by the people of India on account of it, because they are contented with it. On the other hand, as the noble Marquess has stated that it has not the effect of excluding British manufactured goods from India, why should it raise any feeling of antagonism in the minds of the people of this country, or even of the manufacturers of Lancashire? I am afraid that what my noble Friend has done by his despatch is far more likely to produce a feeling of antagonism than a retention of the duty. How stands the case? The Government of India, the commercial community of India, and the people of India are of opinion that it is for the interest of India that the duty should be maintained, rather than that another tax should be imposed. My noble Friend is of opinion that provision should be made for the repeal of the duty within a definite time. In fact there is the opinion of the Government, the mercantile community, and the people of India on the one side, and the opinion of the Secretary of State for India and the Manchester Chamber of Commerce on the other. I do not see how antagonism can be more strongly marked. I will not use any words of my own to describe such a state of matters. I will quote the words of Mr. Laing on this subject, addressed some years ago to a committee of gentlemen at Manchester, who urged the repeal of these duties. Mr. Laing was a thorough Free-trader, he had been Finance Minister of India, and understood the financial state of India, and he had reduced the duties on cotton goods in 1861 from 10 to 5 percent. Mr. Laing afterwards came home to this country, knowing the state of India and of its finances thoroughly, and he went to Manchester and had an interview with a body established there to promote the entire repeal of those duties. After he left Manchester Mr. Laing addressed a letter to that body, in which he says— The import duty is scarcely felt at all, while the direct taxes involved an inevitable amount of oppression, extortion, evasion, alarm, and discontent which made them intensely unpopular. If India is to be retained in peaceful and loyal allegiance to the British Crown, these matters must he looked upon in an Indian as well as an English point of view, and the interests, the wishes, and the feelings of 150,000,000 of inhabitants must be the primary consideration in deciding how to raise the necessary revenue. I believe the Indian Government and the whole Indian community would oppose it, and I cannot for a moment imagine that any Secretary of State would think of sending an order to India for a purely English object, overruling in such a manner the unanimous wish of India. If he did, he would deserve to be impeached, for it is perfectly evident that he would be a far more formidable enemy to the British Crown than Ferozeshah or Nana Sahib. I turn now to the other branch of the subject. My noble Friend opposite has not only ordered the Government of India to do that of which they and the whole Indian community disapprove, but he has given orders and treated the Government of India in a way which I must say is not calculated to promote harmonious feelings between the two Governments, or to reconcile the people of India to our rule. In his first despatch the noble Marquess directs that drafts of Bills, with their objects and reasons, should be transmitted to him by the Indian Government for his consideration. I have no objection to the purport of this despatch. In July, 1863, the Government of India itself passed a resolution, directing that drafts of all Bills to be submitted to the Governor General's Council, with their objects and reasons, should be transmitted to the Secretary of State; and in December, 1863, I expressed my entire approval of the course then adopted, and desired that it should be continued. I cannot say that every Bill, whether of little or of much importance, was so transmitted; but I have no doubt that the practice has been continued by the Indian Government in pursuance of its own wish and intention. My noble Friend, however, appears to have found out in about a month after he came into office that they did not do what they had always done before. Surely it would have been enough simply to desire them to revert to the usual practice. Instead of that the noble Marquess sent the most peremptory orders, extending the rule even to Amendments that were proposed to be made in Bills by the Council of the Governor General. Some liberty was however left to the Governor General, and he, was not required, in an urgent, ease, to send the Bill home. Of the urgency he was left himself to judge, and surely this was no unreasonable liberty to leave to a person in so high and responsible a position as the Governor General of India.

Lord Northbrook, availing himself of that permission, passed the Tariff Bill at Simla. I admit at once that, as a general rule, this is an objectionable proceeding, except under special circumstances.

Let us see then if the circumstances were such in this case as to justify the proceeding. The noble Marquess has found fault with Lord Northbrook for having so done upon two grounds. The first ground is, that he had acted without the advice and knowledge of persons possessing other than official experience, and that it was exceedingly desirable to have the assistance of mercantile councillors in such a matter, who, as the noble Marquess seems to think, are only to be found at Calcutta. If, however, we examine the circumstances under which the measure was taken, we shall find that this objection actually amounts to very little. How did the question originate? The Government of India, in order to carry out some views expressed to them by my noble Friend as to the valuation of goods, appointed a Tariff Committee, and the measure which was ultimately passed was passed, in fact, upon the recommendation of that Committee, which consisted of men as competent to represent the views of the whole commercial community of India as any men well could be. The Committee included, with others, two Members of the Legislative Council, one of them a merchant, the collector of Customs at Calcutta, and the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in Bengal. The Chambers of Commerce at Madras and Bombay did not think it worth while to send one of their members, but communicated their views fully in writing. The Committee agreed unanimously except upon some details as to the amount of duties, and the Tariff Bill embodied their recommendations. The Governor General's Council comprised 16 members; 10 were actually present, and 12 had expressed their approval of the proposal. Though the Council did not sit at Calcutta, it had before it the opinions of the non-official Members, and it also had in a shape, far better than it could have had them from the outside opinion of Calcutta, the views of the whole commercial community of India as represented in that Committee, and since confirmed by the unanimous assent of the people of India. The other ground of blame was that the urgency of the case was not such as to justify the course which was taken; but the truth is that the stagnation of trade, in consequence of the uncertainty as to the intentions of the Government, and urgently represented by memorials from Calcutta, and the necessity of dealing with the valuation, were grounds enough for the proceeding; and the Government of India further remark—in which my recollection confirms them—that it never has been the practice to send home from India Bills on the subject of duties to be levied in that country. I think, therefore, that there is no foundation for blaming the proceedings of the Government of India.

Having disposed of the two grounds on which the noble Marquess has blamed the Government of India, I come to the general directions which he has given.

Nobody can have a stronger opinion than I have of the necessity of the fullest and most unreserved communication between the Government at home and that in India. It is essential to the harmonious working of the Government of India. But I confess to having a strong opinion in favour of its being mainly carried on by unofficial correspondence. Views are in this way more easily and fully developed, differences are more easily adjusted than in formal despatches. When the Secretary of State, with his Advisers here, and the Governor General, with his Advisers in India, have come to an agreement, then a public despatch should record the decision. It is most undesirable that controversies between two Departments should be carried on in public despatches, and that differences which disappear in the end should meanwhile have been brought before the public. It lowers the authority of the Government, and that should be especially avoided in India. During the time when I was Secretary of State, and Lord Canning was Governor General, most of the great measures of re-organization after the Mutiny were passed, some in Parliament, some in the Governor General's Council in India. On looking over my correspondence with Lord Canning at the time, I find that Lord Canning communicated his opinion on my measures, and I communicated my opinion on his measures in the most open manner, and the result was a complete understanding and agreement between us.

The noble Marquess's despatch of November requires that even in the case of an emergency the Governor General should in the first instance communicate with the Secretary of State by telegraph. It is almost impossible that the Governor General should be able to state in a telegraphic despatch all the circumstances and all the reasons for the conduct he proposes to pursue; and any instructions which the Secretary of State may give to the Governor General as to the course he should pursue on the receipt of such a despatch would most probably be founded on imperfect information. A more dangerous course I can hardly imagine, even if, in all cases, it should be possible.

Taking the two despatches together, and the tone in which they are couched, they seem to me to reduce the Governor General to the position of a mere tool of the Secretary of State, and instead of a general superintendence of the government of India, to transfer the administration of Indian legislation from the Government of India to the Secretary of State in Council. I do not question the power of the Secretary of State to do so: he must in the ultimate resort be supreme, and nobody has stated more highly than I have done the power of the Secretary of State. I did not obtrude such opinion on the Government of India; they asked me what I considered my power to be, and I could not decline to answer them. The question arose out of a very exceptional case. In 1864 a Bill was introduced into the Indian Legislative Council by a Civil servant, not himself a lawyer, to amend an admirable penal code which had been framed by a Commission composed of very able men and accomplished jurists in this country, who had devoted their time and labour, without fee or reward, to the framing of that Code and other legal measures for the benefit of India. It was a question of general law, and not one in which local Indian knowledge was of much avail. Some of the Members of the Commission remonstrated against their work being so altered, and, thinking them perfectly right, I wrote to the Government of India, desiring them to consult the Judges of India on the subject, and to send to me the opinion of the Judges, together with their own, that I might communicate with the authors of the Code; and suggesting that, in the meantime, they should suspend their legislation on the subject. The Government of India took that opportunity of raising the question—what was the power of the Secretary of State? In reply, I told them that I conceived that the Executive Government of India was as completely under the control of the Secretary of State as it had been under the old Court of Directors, and that it was bound to obey any directions given by him. But I added— I have always abstained, however, from giving any direction upon such subjects; I have confined myself to suggesting the course which I thought desirable; and it seems to me that this is a course altogether unobjectionable. Your despatch refers to the power of the Secretary of State to disallow any Act passed by the Governor General's Council when assembled for purposes of legislation; but surely it is more courteous, and more calculated to maintain the character and dignity of the Council, that the Secretary of State should suggest to the Executive Government to suspend, and even to withdraw a Bill, than leaving them to proceed without any intimation of his opinion that he should ultimately disallow it. In the course which I have taken on this and on former occasions I have always been anxious that the communications between the Home Government and the Government of India should be so conducted as to insure the most harmonious action between them. It is obviously most conducive to a good understanding that extreme claims should not be put forward on one side or extreme rights enforced on the other; and I cannot entertain a doubt but that with an earnest desire on the part of the various bodies among whom the different parts of the Government of India are distributed to maintain harmonious action, the well-being of that vast and important Empire may best be promoted. I do not think that I could have written in a tone more courteous or more calculated to promote harmonious action between the Government at home and the Government in India. I grieve to say that I cannot think the tone of the noble Marquess's despatches calculated to promote such harmonious action. I confess that on reading them, a painful question arose in my mind as to the effect which would have been produced by them on some of the great men who have ruled India. Our Empire there has been formed and maintained by distinguished statesmen, who never shrank from responsibility in times of difficulty and danger. Without going further back, what would have been the effect on Lord Dalhousie, Lord Canning, or Lord Elgin, three men who had been Cabinet Ministers here, and had shown themselves in India and elsewhere fully capable of government? What would have been the effect on my noble Friend behind me (Lord Lawrence), to whose resolution and energy we owed the safety of Upper India, and the capture of Delhi, which was the turning point of the Mutiny?

I say nothing of Lord Northbrook. He is a personal friend of mine. I do not know what his opinion may be, for I have not heard a word from him on the subject. Fortunately for himself he had resigned before he received the despatch of November; but I can hardly doubt of his being glad to escape from so humiliating a position.

Again, what a discouragement such a proceeding must be to such men as ought to be sent out to govern our Indian Empire? Men of high position and character would shrink from exposing themselves to such treatment.

But beyond even this, it could not but have a most prejudicial effect in lowering the position of the Governor General in the eyes of the Princes and people in India, and in teaching them to look to England and not to the Government in India. We must never forget the anomalous character of our Empire in India, where a few thousand Europeans rule more than 200,000,000 of the Natives of the country. Upon the whole the people look up to our officers as their friends and protectors; but it is most essential to maintain the character of those officers and especially of their head, the Governor General, the impersonation of British rule in India.

Here the people look up to the complex machine which constitutes the Government, but to the Oriental mind of the Native the Government is the person whom he sees. His fear, or reverence, or love, is to the person. If the Ruler is discredited, the influences which produce loyalty and cheerful obedience are weakened. If he is known to be powerful, and believed to be kindly disposed, he is cheerfully obeyed, and looked up to with a kind of superstitious reverence.

In one instance, I acted without previous communication with Lord Canning. I increased by a few thousand pounds the allowance to some native Princes. Lord Canning, who was not a vain man, or tenacious of his position, thought that I had impaired the authority of the Governor General. He recorded a public Minute, of which I will read a short extract— I am convinced that to hold India well in hand the influence of the Governor General ought to be increased, and not diminished in the eyes of the natives, and that weakness will result to the Government of India by attracting their attention and their hopes from. India to England. In private he wrote more strongly and told me that I had shaken the authority of the Governor General in the eyes of the people of India.

If he thought the evil effect so great in a very small matter, what would he have said on the receipt of such despatches as the noble Marquess has now addressed to the Governor General, and which will be known through all India?

I have no fear for our Government in India—our military power has been shown in the Mutiny—but we ought to neglect nothing which tends to keep up our visible supremacy, and to maintain that mixed feeling of awe, reverence, and affection for the Representative of the Sovereign of England, which may go far to render unnecessary any recourse to extreme measures in India.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, the noble Viscount has called in question the two despatches of the 11th of November and of the 31st of March, 1874, issued by the India Office, and also the policy and the points of procedure indicated by those despatches. I think it would be convenient if I were to follow his example in taking them in a separate form; and therefore, putting aside for the moment all those comments upon my conduct with which I will deal hereafter, and the conduct of the Governor General in Council, I will deal simply with the policy of the Indian tariff, which was called in question by the despatch of the 11th of November last, The noble Viscount has very judiciously avoided dealing with one of the most important matters relating to this subject. He tells us that we have condemned the policy of the Governor General in too severe terms; and that that policy was based upon the Report of a Committee representing all the commercial communities of India:—and in proof of that assertion he cites in his favour the authority of the collectors of Customs at the out-ports. I never heard before that the collectors of Customs were the representatives of the commercial communities of India. But the noble Viscount has entirely omitted to notice one enactment of the Governor General of vast importance, and which, if it stood alone, must have called for the disallowance of the India Office, it having been universally disapproved by every voice that has spoken in India, and in behalf of which I have not heard one voice raised in England. Among the measures which the Governor General passed was one imposing a 5 per cent duty upon raw foreign cottons—in order, as he said, to protect Manchester from the possible competition of Indian mills with regard to the finer cotton goods. I venture, on behalf of the Manchester manufacturers, of whom the noble Viscount appears to have so poor an opinion and in depreciation of whom he appears to have devoted so large a portion of his speech, to say that they do not want that protection. To adopt such a system would be to reverse the entire policy of this country, and would be an attempt to abandon the principle which has been carried into effect by almost every foreign country of late years. I say that that course was adopted without the sanction or the advice of the mercantile community; and it remains a glaring instance of the gross impolicy of legislation on subjects of this character in violation of all the usages by which the Legislative Council of India has been guided. Had it been proposed at Calcutta instead of at Simla, it never would have been passed into a law. The noble Viscount having judiciously evaded the question of imposing duties on raw cotton, proceeded to deal with the duties upon cotton goods. And here I must complain that he has been most persistently setting up his own adversary for the purpose of knocking him down. He has urged that it is very wrong to adopt a course that will result in a deficiency in the Indian finances; that it is very dangerous to impose new taxes on the population of India. He entirely ignores the fact that we never hinted at new taxes, and that in the most earnest language we have warned the Government of India against any conduct that would involve the Indian finances in a deficiency. On this point I must be allowed to read my own words, and I will ask your Lordships whether they do not clearly sustain what I say as to the subject of avoiding a deficiency. In my first despatch, I say— These considerations will I doubt not commend themselves to your Excellency's mind the policy of removing at as early a period as the state of your finances permits this subject of dangerous contention. And in my second despatch, I say— This abolition should be gradual, and, in deciding upon the mode in which it should be effected, the period which will be necessary for its completion and the accompanying measures which may be requisite, the paramount importance of guarding the Indian Treasury from financial embarrassment must be borne in mind. Is it possible to state in stronger language than I have done the importance of guarding the Indian Treasury from exposure to financial deficiencies? The noble Viscount has laid down as a maxim of State that you should keep every tax you can hold. But what have his friends been doing? The most striking part in the sudden change in the tariff was flashed upon us, to our surprise, on the 5th of August by a telegram stating that £400,000 of taxes had been repealed. The noble Viscount has accused me of intending to levy another new tax. I can only say that no such intention either exists or has existed, and that to assume any such intention on the part of either the Government or myself is perfectly gratuitous on the part, either of the noble Viscount or any other person who expresses an opinion on the subject. If any other tax had been suggested in lieu of the cotton duty, I should have expressed my strong objection to it; but no such suggestion is made in either of the despatches which are now under consideration. Reference has been made to the dissent of Sir Erskine Perry; and on that subject I can only say that I was not aware of the existence of such dissent until my attention was called to it by the Under Secretary, and I then, following custom and precedent, entered a Minute of the dissent in the usual record. In proposing to deal with the cotton duties we warned the Government against running into a deficiency, but we gave no hint of raising a new tax. It may be asked how the cotton duties are to be removed in the course of a series of years?—and in answer to that question I would say that for many years past the revenue of India has been rising. Since the noble Viscount left the India Office, for instance, the revenue has risen to the extent of about £5,000,000, or £500,000 a-year. I find from Lord Northbrook's account of the various surpluses that in 1871–2 the surplus was £3,000,000; in 1872–3 it was £1,700,000; and in 1873–4 it was £2,071,000; in 1874–5 it was£ l,800,000. It is obvious, therefore, that, with a rising revenue and a fair allowance of time, a tax like that on cotton can be abolished without either creating embarrassment or rendering it necessary to levy any new taxes. We have, therefore, pointed out to the Indian Government our views of the manner in which their surplus revenues should be applied, our opinion being that the application should be in the direction of reducing or abolishing those taxes to which, on fair and reasonable grounds, the strongest objections could be made. What, then, is the objection to the tax? And in answering this question I must take exception to the way in which the noble Viscount has quoted from me. He imputes to me a statement that the effect of the 5 per cent tax is insignificant. What I actually said was that, in presence of other circumstances affecting the trade, it was an exaggeration on the part of the Lancashire manufacturers to imagine that the falling off in their trade was mainly due to the 5 per cent duty. If the noble Viscount had quoted another passage in my despatch, he would have seen that I asserted in very distinct terms that the tax was on general principles liable to objection as impeding the import of an article of first necessity, and as tending to operate as a protective duty in favour of a native manufacture. Notwithstanding this, the noble Viscount has informed your Lordships that I described the tax as not being a protective duty—and I can only say that if an adversary's despatches are to be dealt with in this way, he can be made to say absolutely anything. I must say, further, that I am not a little surprised to find this protective duty defended by noble Lords on the other side of the House. It is surprising to find the interests of English manufacturers treated as matters of small account; but I am the more surprised to find the noble Lords who so treat the matter desiring that no steps should be taken to check India, which at some unknown period was the Apostle of Free Trade, when she wanders in the direction of Protection. The noble Viscount repeated over and over again that he was expressing the opinion of the people of India:—but I should like to know how he has ascertained that opinion. The fact is, that the vast majority of the population of India are politically dumb, and that what my noble Friend describes as the opinion of the people of India is simply the opinion of the Bombay millowners, who are strongly in favour of a protective duty. The Bengal Chamber of Commerce, which may be taken as a fair representation of Anglo-Indian thought among the mercantile community, have declared themselves opposed to Protection, and have stated that they would gladly see the time when the state of the finances would allow of the total abolition of the import duty on cotton goods. I do not know what the result of a plébiscite would be, because it would not be easy to convey to the minds of Indian peasants refined principles of economic science; but I have no doubt as to what the result would be if it could possibly be made clear to such persons that the effect of the tax is to increase the cost of their few necessaries of life. It has been suggested that the tax on salt should have been chosen as the one to be partially remitted: but on that subject there is much to be said. The total income derived from the tax on salt is so large that a remission to the extent of £800,000 would not benefit the consumers to any appreciable extent; and, further, the duty on salt is not protective, by reason of the fact that it is the same whether the salt be imported or produced in the country. On these grounds, therefore, it has been thought that the import duty on cotton is the one which should be remitted or reduced. Thus far—although I will not consent to look upon Lancashire interests with the contempt with which they are regarded at the other side, although I cannot admit that in dealing with an Empire we are entitled to disregard the interests of any portion of that Empire—although, to my mind the Empire is one, and if any part of it suffers every part must suffer, and equal justice must be meted out to all—still I think that this is more an Indian than a Lancashire question, and that it is the Hindoo, the first necessities of whose life you will make cheaper, and not the Lancashire manufacturer, whom you will principally benefit by a remission of this duty. But is there no greater—no more Imperial reason? What has been the course of your diplomacy? Are not your diplomatists everywhere struggling with tariffs—every where maintaining a difficult and unequal fight? The only weapon we have to use is that we have tried the system, and that we have found it to answer; that it has given to us prosperity, and that we heartily confide in it. But if foreign Courts are able to say, "You come to us with an untrue pretence. When the popular feeling is in favour of Free Trade you undoubtedly adopt it; but when you are not so certain of that result—when, in fact, your condition is like ours—then you, like us, maintain protective tariffs." Would not that inevitably destroy our moral authority and weight when we urged on the removal of those protective and prohibitory tariffs which do so much to check the prosperity of producing countries? My Lords, this consideration has led me to feel that those are wrong who treat this as merely a local question. To say that it ought to be left to merely Indian authorities is, in my opinion, a mistake. It is an Imperial question of high importance, and ought to be dealt with on Imperial grounds. The noble Viscount referred, my Lords, to another reason which is urged in my despatch, which I dealt with at length there, but will dismiss briefly here. I could not help being impressed with the rapid growth of those mercantile communities in India—and in all I did I may say I spoke for myself and my Council too; for in this policy we were unanimous.—could not help feeling that if those communities increased with the rapidity which appeared to be probable, and if they grew up strongly attached to protective duties, which duties the manufacturing communities of England would be bound by their interests as well as by their economic faith to resist to the uttermost—then there was reason to apprehend that when those small communities became great, a difference of opinion would arise among men of white race which might lead to danger. I believe there is no object of more importance in the eyes of the Indian statesman than the removal of grounds of difference and contention between the White rulers and those vast millions of subject races, who, while they are united, will undoubtedly submit to us, but whose allegiance may be doubtful if the ruling English race were riven in two by some deep and dangerous difference on policy. If ever there is a danger to the English rule in India—a subject upon which some friends of the noble Viscount appear to dwell with more satisfaction than he does—if ever there is such a danger, you may depend upon it it will not be from any resistance from the subject races, but from divisions in the race which rules. On this ground, my Lords, I felt that it was important while it was yet time—while the communities in India were yet young—to remove from them a cause of division, which, if once swept away, they will be the first to appreciate, but which if left might cause them to grow up with perverted views. And now we are, on the ground on which I and my Council unanimously in July last agreed, to recommend to the Government of India, that at the earliest opportunity consistently with the state of their finances those duties should be swept away. And now, my Lords, for the question of procedure—the circumstances under which the despatch of the 11th of November was written. As your Lordships know, the Government of India had been instructed in March, 1874, to send home to us information of any important and non-urgent Bill which they intended to introduce. I will not now stop to ask whether that instruction was a wise one or not. It is sufficient that it was received without protest by the Government of India, and whether wise or not they were bound to act upon it. Well, what happened in August was this—The Government of India knew what the policy of the Government was, for it had been announced on several occasions. The ordinary practice was for the Budget to be brought forward in March or April in Calcutta. For that there are two reasons. Parliament has thought fit to entrust the legislation of India to the Government of India, joined to certain additional Members, who are selected for that purpose; and it is provided that half of these must be non-official—the clear intention of Parliament being that the Government of India should have a large amount of non-official assistance and advice in dealing with questions in reference to which they could not be expected to have had experience themselves. Of course these men live in Calcutta. Simla is a mere excursion ground—a shooting lodge of the Government of India. I mean to say it is not a recognized home of Government. We have never recognized Simla other than as merely a residence of the Governor General of India—a small place, lofty and inaccessible. It is two long days journey from Calcutta. If not actually foreign territory, it is surrounded by foreign territory. Well, the Budget statement had been drawn up at Calcutta; and when it had been published the Government went to Simla. We had no idea that any intention to remove taxation or to revise the tariff was at hand. My noble Friend (Lord George Hamilton) was on the eve of making his statement to Parliament as to the Budget arrangements as they existed. We had conveyed no orders to the Government of India on the subject of taxes, because we trusted to the instruction that all legislation which was non-urgent and important should be communicated to us. Well, early in August, without the slightest intimation, public or private, to us or to the people of India, that such a thing was in contemplation, the Legislative Council was assembled; all the non-official members being naturally absent; the Standing Orders were suspended, and on the same day the new tariff was read a first, a second, and a third time, and passed into law. Now, the noble Viscount has been pleased to condemn the language in which I spoke of that Act; but is it possible to conceive anything more unseemly, or more calculated to bring the Government of India into contempt—is it possible to conceive anything more likely cause a general distrust than such legislation? It is said that this tariff was an urgent matter, because the Bengal Chamber of Commerce had said that their interests were suffering from the revision of the tariff being delayed. Well, I will read what the Bengal Chamber of Commerce said, in order to show how wholly without foundation that assertion is. They say— The Committee considered it necessary to advert to the passing of the Tariff Act, an Act which so extensively affects the non-official community at Simla, where the non-official members of Council could not make their voices heard; and they learnt with regret that their repeated applications for a revision of tariff values, which needed no new legislative measure, but could have been effected by a simple notification of the Governor General, had been construed into acquiescence of a procedure which not only nullified any representative character the Legislative Council may possess, but which was also at variance with the rules for the conduct of business in the Council laid down by the Governor General in February, 1873. Now, my Lords, the noble Viscount used strong language as to the phraseology of my despatch. It is impossible to dispute with the noble Viscount upon a question of style; but I commend those who care to solve such a controversy to read my despatch in comparison with some despatches which were published at the same time as my noble Friend's own. But I will say this with respect to the language of those despatches—I do not wish to put away from myself any responsibility—I am responsible for them; but I appeal to the opinion of experts. The Council of India, if they know anything, know the language of official letters. They have passed their lives in writing them and receiving them, and it is perfectly impossible that anything which they have carefully considered should escape their notice if it was a breach of official propriety. Those despatches were considered by them in the ordinary deliberate manner. They were examined by the proper Committee of the Council, who suggested such alterations as they thought fit. They were considered sentence after sentence in the Council, and never from the time they were drafted to the time they were sent to India did I hear it suggested that they were in the least degree uncivil or unseemly in manner. The question of style is no doubt of some importance. The noble Viscount may have been accustomed to use such sweet and delicate language that no other style can be borne by him. I have, however, heard whispers of what used to be said at the Council table of Lord Canning when the noble Viscount's despatches arrived. I will not, however, rake tip old stories of that kind. What I want to insist upon is that these despatches passed before those who were quite competent to correct them if they were wrong, but that no suggestion of the necessity of any alteration was made by them. I wish to know whether you are really going to lay down the principle that whatever the Governor General of India does the Secretary of State is not to blame him? If the Secretary of State is only to write an official echo to all that the Governor General says—if he is to approve all that he does—then you are laying an undue burden on the finances of India by maintaining the India Office at all. It would be much better to enact that the Governor General is a Sovereign and independent Power, and that he is to do precisely what he thinks fit; and then he might keep some representative at this Court and inform my noble Friend the Foreign Secretary what measures he has adopted. You must have either one theory or the other. You cannot have the doctrine that the Secretary of State controls the Governor General unless you at the same time admit that the Secretary of State may blame him when he is wrong. Of course it is done at some risk when the Governor General is the political friend of those who sit on the other side of the House. Now, my Lords, I have been further blamed by the noble Viscount, not only for reproving the Governor General without cause, but also for sending that despatch of March, 1874, which directs that all measures brought before the Legislative Council shall be sent home to the Secretary of State for India to be examined. I do not think that your Lordships or the public know the precise state of things which made that direction necessary, and out of which it arose. The present legislature of India is imperfect and fragmentary. Originally an India Law Commission was appointed, whose duty it was, sitting in England, to prepare a body of substantial law, which was afterwards sent to the Governor General and the Legislative Council to enact. Of course the existence of this body reduced the functions of the Legislative Council to very humble dimensions. The new Indian law was prepared by the India Law Commissioners in England, and only matters of minor importance were dealt with by the Legislative Council of India. From the first, however, these two halves of the legislative machine could not go on harmoniously, and there was always a difficulty in inducing the Legislative Council to enact the law sent out to them. That difficulty occurred in the time of the noble Viscount himself, and then the prerogative of the Secretary of State in regard to legislation was laid down in language so strong and stringent that anything I have said could not go so far. What says the noble Viscount?— The action of the Government in this country, in respect to what is called a Government Bill, is perfectly well known and recognized. It is introduced with the authority of the Government, is carried on, or postponed, or withdrawn on the responsibility of the Government, and the action of the Government in this country in respect to a Bill introduced by any Member of Parliament is guided by the same rule. I apprehend that the action of the Government of India must be considered in precisely the same light, and that the control of the Secretary of State extends to this, as to every other action of that Government. Now, the noble Viscount made a great deal of the fact that he never used this power; but I do not understand the use of an abstract power which is never to be employed. I do not say it should be frequently used, but the mere assertion of a power that is never to be employed appears to lead to an idle termination. But although the noble Viscount did not use the power, his Colleague the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) shortly afterwards did so. When the noble Duke was in office the same difficulty arose. The India Law Commission prepared a body of law which was sent out to the Legislative Council, and which they were requested to pass. But the Legislative Council had something to say for themselves. It was a very formidable law that was sent out, because it raised again that old question of the Indigo riots, which had always inspired the Government of India with apprehension. That Government said that these provisions were dangerous, and sent them back. What did the noble Duke say— You will receive back the chapter from me in the shape in which I think it desirable it should be finally passed into law, and (unless in case of strong unforeseen objection arising in your mind, which I will not anticipate, but which must then he dealt with according to your discretion as circumstance may require) I shall expect that the measure will be introduced by you into the Council when assembled for making laws and regulations, and discussed there in the stages and according to the forms usual in like cases. And while under consideration by the Council, I shall further expect that you will employ all the usual and legitimate means to secure its passing as a Government measure. Now, it is impossible to be more peremptory than that. Well, the Government of India resisted. They sent a fierce rejoinder, in which they said— It is enough to say, as to such a course, that it would reduce us to the alternative of either publicly stating that the Bill was introduced, not on our responsibility, but in obedience to your positive orders, or else of defending it by arguments which we did not believe to he sound. Either course would be totally inconsistent with our position as a Government. The India Law Commissioners resigned. They declined to be made the shuttlecock between two such ferocious battledores. But the noble Duke was not satisfied with that. Although the champion retreated, he delivered a passing volley at the enemy. He said— Neither can I admit that it makes any real difference in the case, if the directions issued by the Imperial Government relate to what may be termed legislative as distinguished from executive affairs. It may he quite as essential, in order to carry into effect the views of the Imperial Government as to the well-being of Her Majesty's Indian dominions, that a certain measure should he passed into a law as that a certain act described in common language as executive should he performed. But if it were, indeed, the case, as your argument would represent it to he, that the power of the Imperial Government were limited to the mere interposition of a veto on Acts passed in India, then the Government of the Queen, although it could resist the passing of an injurious law, would be helpless to secure legislative sanction for any measures, however essential it might deem them to be for the welfare or safety of Her Indian Empire. The India Law Commission resigned, as I have said, in the middle of this conflict, and the matter was hung up for a considerable time. There was a new Governor General and a new Law Member of Council. But when I came into office I found that a part of the Indian Legislature had disappeared, and there seemed to be no means of influencing from England the legislation of India, except by the peremptory measures indicated in the despatches of the noble Viscount and the noble Duke. In the time of the India Law Commission there was a constant communication between that Commission and the Secretary of State, and every measure was subjected to careful examination in England. But that state of things passed away, and that which Parliament had never contemplated was taking place, and the Indian Legislative Council was left in a state which practically amounted to entire independence of England. I then made a suggestion which was, I think, a moderate one, and certainly far less peremptory than the action of the noble Viscount and the noble Duke. I requested the Government of India, before they introduced a measure, to send it home first, in order that they might hear what suggestions I had to make upon it. In that there was no dictation; I did not indicate an intention to force them to accept any measure; I merely desired that I might know what it was, and that I might offer any suggestions which the experience of my Council, or which English and Imperial considerations might make it necessary to suggest. If, indeed, I had used that power for the purpose of ordering them to pass measures which had been arranged in the India Office, that would have been undoubtedly undertaking in England the legislation of India; but nothing of the kind was ever done or intended. It was only intended we should have an opportunity of offering our suggestions on any particular part of a law before that law was passed and was sent home for disavowal or approval. In the interests of scientific legislation that course was a wise one, because the wise habit of the Government of India had been to pass laws in large blocks as codes; and, of course, if it had become necessary to veto any code when it was sent home the practice of codifying must have been given up. It is not only no encroachment on the power of the Government of India, but it is a much more simple, courteous, and dignified course to have the opportunity of pointing out to the Government of India what portions of a law you might object to, than to wait until it is passed, placed on the statute book, proclaimed in India—and then when it comes home to disavow it. Surely that way of waiting and then disavowing is a mode of bringing the Government of India into contempt, and of bringing into sharp relief the superiority and the supremacy claimed by the Home Government. If there is any doubt whether I was right or wrong I may remove it by reading a few words from an authority the noble Viscount will recognize. On the 31st of March, 1865, Sir Charles Wood wrote— Your despatch refers to the power of the Secretary of State to disallow any Act passed by the Governor General's Council when assembled for purposes of legislation, but surely it is more courteous, and more calculated to maintain the character and dignity of the Council, that the Secretary of State should suggest to the Executive Government to suspend, and even to withdraw a Bill, than leaving them to proceed without any intimation of his opinion that he should ultimately disallow it. This is what the noble Viscount said in 1865; this is what I am blamed for, and called all the names the Parliamentary vocabulary permits, because I did it in 1874. I believe the noble Viscount is perfectly right; it is the only mode in which collision between the two Governments can be avoided. I am sensible of the difficulty and delicacy of the problem we have to solve in adjusting what must be the supreme power of the Government of England to the requirements, position, and dignity of the Governor General of India; but that adjustment is not to be found in abdicating the power of the Government of England. You cannot, as some people have essayed to do, set up a parody of the Home Rule cry in India; you cannot treat the Legislative Council of nominees with the kind of respect with which it is said we shall some day have to treat an assembly which is to meet on College Green. But language so strange has been held in respect to this matter, and indications of a Home Rule cry are so strong, that I will venture to read a few words written by one who is now dead, but who was closely identified with the East India Company, Mr. John Stuart Mill— From the necessity of the case its power must be exercised by delegation, but the governing country has not the moral right to delegate its power without reserving its control. It cannot discharge its conscience of the responsibility for the good government of India, and charge that responsibility on the consciences of its delegates. It cannot hand over its sacred trust to a few despots, armed with the whole power of the stronger country, but carrying with them no more than they themselves choose of its wisdom or its good purposes. And in a previous part of the same Minute Mr. Mill said— There are several modes of governing a dependency. The governing country, by its constituted authorities, may itself govern the dependency through agents responsible to it, and bound to obey its instructions. Or, it may allow the dependency to govern itself, under such conditions and with such reservations as may seem to be required either by the circumstances of the dependency, or by the policy of the Empire. In some cases the former of these systems-of government is necessary or desirable, in. others the latter, in others some combination between the two; the Government being shared in various proportions between the representatives of the governing country and the representatives of the governed. These, however, are not the only modes in which a dependency may be governed; there is a third mode; but this third seems to be the very ideal of badness, the one among all imaginable arrangements of the matter in question which no circumstances could justify, or could render otherwise than preposterous—viz., that the governing country should neither retain the government in its own hands nor resign it, or any part of it, to the people of the dependency, but should make it over to a small number of individuals sent out from the governing country, to be exercised at their discretion, under no control or responsibility except the power of recall. These are wise words which deserve to be remembered at this time. You cannot, if you will, dissociate responsibility from power. If you complain of anything in one of our colonies which has constitutional government, my noble Friend will answer he has no responsibility, because you have handed over to the colonies the decision of their own affairs. But suppose I in this House or my noble Friend the Under Secretary in the other were to make a similar answer when the Government of India was called in question, we should be laughed to scorn. Neither House would ever accept such a reply as a conclusive answer. Both Houses would say—"You are responsible for what the Governor General of India does." Take this question of the cotton duties. If we had not repealed them, if we had not touched them, but had allowed the Government of India to have its own way, and had sent out a polite echo of the Governor General's despatch—which, according to the noble Viscount, appears to be the first duty of the India Office—we should have been met with a Motion in the House of Commons declaring that it was desirable to repeal the cotton duties in India. We could not have resisted a Motion we think right; it would have been passed by a large majority; and you would have been brought face to face with the fact that the supreme power is here. Responsibility necessarily lies upon the Queen's Government, because they are in the presence of Parliament, and where you have responsibility you must concede power. I do not find the adjustment of this question in any diminution of the power which must be accorded to the Queen's Government in England; I rather find it in the practice of constant and abundant communication. The noble Viscount says private communication is better than public; I am not fastidious on that head; but there must be communication of some kind, so that every measure may be examined in the light of English as well as Indian experience; and the communications need not be public until the two Governments have by explanations arrived at views on which they are able to act in common. That I believe to be the real secret of the successful government of India. But for this end it is absolutely necessary that the Indian Government should not spring surprises on the Home Government. It must not wait till the Home Government has avowed its policy, and then without giving notice, without sending even a telegraphic intimation, without an hour's delay, and in a single day, pass a legislative measure which sets that policy at naught. If such things as that are done, the machinery must be thrown out of gear. I wrote that despatch, and I adhere to it, because I believe that in it lies the principle upon which the successful government of India depends—constant communication on the part of the Government of India to the Home Government of. all that they intend to do. That is the secret on which the harmonious action of the two depends. If you adhere to that principle—if the Governor General gives to the Home Government the fullest notice of all the Indian Government intends to do, either in its executive or legislative capacity, you may be quite certain that, on the one hand, all Indian interests will be fully represented, and, on the other hand, English opinion will be fully heard, and all Imperial considerations, such as were present in the case before us, will be properly borne in mind; and then you may be confident you will solve, quietly and in harmony, without friction or collision, the difficult problem of reconciling the supremacy of the Home Government with the dignity and authority of those who serve it abroad.

THE DUKE OF ARGYLL

My Lords, the noble Marquess who has just sat down (the Marquess of Salisbury) can hardly be said, I think, to have made a conciliatory speech. The noble Marquess has said one thing which tomorrow morning he will regret having said. My noble Friend near me (Viscount Halifax) disavowed any personal or Party feeling in the speech he made, and surely it would have been in accordance with the usual courtesy of Parliament to have accepted a declaration of that kind, considering the long connection my noble Friend has had with Indian affairs, and that he represented the India Office for many years in the other House of Parliament. I never heard it suggested that in regard to the affairs of India he ever said a single word that was coloured by Party or personal feeling, and I must say it was unworthy of the noble Marquess to have cast at him the taunt that it was because Lord Northbrook was a member of our Party he had been influenced to make the speech he has made tonight. For myself, I can say, so far as any personal feeling is concerned in regard to Lord Northbrook, I do not know of any. If he did not accept the despatch so much complained of as a very gentle and amiable expression of opinion, at least, I know nothing to the contrary; he has not communicated one word to his political Friends. As a matter of fact, his intended resignation was known long before that despatch was written, and therefore neither personally nor officially has Lord Northbrook anything to do with the complaint which has been made on this occasion of the conduct of my noble Friend. Will he allow me to disavow any personal or Party feeling? I believe I have had the honour of addressing your Lordships since the dissolution of the late Government only upon two subjects. On one of them I was a hearty and strenuous supporter of the measure which Her Majesty's present Government proposed; and on the other occasion, last Session, I do not think anyone can say I acted the part of an unfriendly critic. It is with the deepest personal regret I take any part in animadverting on the conduct of the noble Marquess. During the many years in which I have watched the progress of Parliamentary discussion on. Indian affairs, I have come to the conclusion that in nine cases out of ten Parliamentary animadversion on the conduct of the India Office is generally connected with some job, or some crotchet, or some political interest. But, my Lords, in saying this I refer to cases when attacks are made on the Indian Government acting conjointly in both its branches. When the India Office itself scolds and taunts the Government of India, and takes up against it the tone and attitude of Parliamentary opposition—then, I do not say the presumption is against the India Office, but, at least, it will not be denied that the action of the Secretary of State then becomes a legitimate subject of Parliamentary discussion. My noble Friend first of all referred to what is most important—the constitutional question as regards the power of the Secretary of State. I do not think that the despatch of the noble Marquess of March, 1874, was conceived in terms objectionable to the Government of India, and it laid down a rule that may be of great use in the conduct of his Department. In fact, as my noble Friend (Viscount Halifax) explained, it was merely enforcing a rule that was volunteered by the Indian Government many years ago, and which was practically to a large extent acted upon during the time I was in office, and, I believe, also under other Secretaries of State. I believe it was a wise rule, and that, on the whole, it will operate for the benefit of the Government both at home and in India. But I must complain of the noble Marquess when he quoted my noble Friend and myself as to the doctrine we had laid down relating to the power of the Governor General in respect to legislation. The noble Marquess read from the despatches of my noble Friend and myself, but he took care not to read the passages which throw a wholly different light on the doctrine that we laid down. Let me explain the particular occasion on which those two despatches were written, and also the occasion on which that Minute by Mr. John Stuart Mill was written which has been quoted by the noble Marquess. It was a case in which a great and powerful body of jurists had been appointed in this country to draw up a substantive code of Law and of Procedure for the Indian Empire. That was a work which could only be done here, and which could not be done in India;—the materials for it were there wanting. If such a code was to be adopted at all, it must first be passed at home. That was the occasion on which both of the despatches were written, and it had reference to the abstract power of the Secretary of State in such an extreme and peculiar a case as that. But I did not lay down the doctrine without qualification. The words I used were these— I need hardly say that I am speaking of a question of abstract right—not of a question of ordinary procedure. And again— Such power and control as are hero claimed for the Secretary of State must, indeed, be used with great deliberation and on the rarest occasions. Now, our complaint is that a power which ought to be exercised on the rarest occasions, the noble Marquess has set up as one that ought to be exercised in the ordinary course of business. [The Marquess of SALISBURY expressed dissent.] It is all very well for the noble Marquess to repudiate it; but he has sent out two despatches, the one interpreting the other, under which it will become the rule, as may almost be said, for the initiative of legislation to be transferred from Calcutta to Downing Street. I complain that under those despatches the doctrine will be established that the initiative of legislation, which Parliament certainly intended to place in India, shall be transferred to the Secretary of State, and that nothing can be done in the ordinary course of business in India without previous authority from Downing Street. That we hold to be a most dangerous doctrine; and, moreover, we hold that if it were possible to single out a case in which the danger of that doctrine should be more clearly exposed than in another, it is the case in which the noble Marquess has exercised that power on the present occasion. I refer first to the directing and then to the scolding despatch; and I reiterate my noble Friend's expression of opinion, that if you push this power of the Secretary of State to the length of taking away from the Government of India the usual initiative in all legislative matters, you will emasculate it and deprive it of that character which has constituted its great value in our system of Imperial government. Hitherto India has been a nursery of great men—of men who had the power to "take occasion by the hand"—and it is India which has made men great who never would have been great except for those opportunities which the noble Marquess intends to extinguish. A still more important consideration to remember is, that the initiative which you destroy there you will not really be able to assume here; it will be destroyed altogether. It is physically and morally impossible that this initiative can be exercised with effect from Downing Street. You will simply smite the Government of India with impotence; for this power, I repeat, is not one that can be exercised here. And look at the effect of this policy in another point of view. The Legislature of India sits in the presence of a vast community—not quite so politically dumb as the noble Marquess supposes, but now represented by a powerful, a free, and I am afraid I must say a licentious Press. No action of the Government escapes the most hostile criticism, the most jealous watchfulness; and I know as a fact that it is one of the most common and popular imputations on the Government of India in regard to any measure that is unpopular with that Press, to say that they are acting as mere puppets of the Government at home, and with a view not to Indian but to English interests.

Now, I ask the House to look at the perfect example of all the theoretical evils of this new course which is given by the particular policy adopted by the noble Marquess. In the first place, the subject on which the noble Marquess issues an order is the subject of taxation. If there is one subject more than another on which it is desirable, and I think absolutely essential, that the initiative should be left in India it is the subject of taxation. It has never been the custom for the Indian Government to send home their Tariff Bills to the Secretary of State for previous consideration; and if the people of India are to have ground to suspect that the Government at home is to order from time to time, as various interests may fill Downing Street with deputations, remissions of taxation in India and the imposition of the new taxes which those remissions may render necessary, the evils and dangers of your Administration will be aggravated tenfold. I happened to have a difference of opinion with Lord Northbrook before I left the India Office on a question of taxation. I need not go into its details, but I differed from him as to the conclusions to which I knew he was about to come on a question of taxation. I represented to him in a full despatch or letter all the arguments which occurred to my mind against the course that I believed he was likely to take; and after placing all the arguments before him, left the final decision to him, saying "The Viceroy is the man who has his hand on the pulse of India. Do what you may think to be best after considering all the arguments of the case, and I will support you." I maintain that to be the course which in reference to taxation ought on all accounts to be taken by the Secretary of State. But, in the second place, look at the particular order that was given by the noble Marquess. The noble Marquess singles out a particular tax, and says—"You are to expend the first surplus you have in the repeal or the gradual extinction of that particular tax." Now, my Lords, it may be laid down as a maxim, which I think will be assented to by every reasonable man, that when you are dealing with taxation you must never deal with individual taxes, without considering them in relation to the whole system of taxation of which they form a part. No man in his senses would say of a particular tax—"You must devote every shilling you have to spare to the repeal of that tax," without looking to other taxes, to which, perhaps, there is the same or greater objection in a political and economical point of view, and which may be practically pressing much more hardly on the people. And yet this is the step taken by the noble Marquess when he issues an absolute order on the subject of taxation which ought to have been left to the Government of India. And then, in the third place, not only does the noble Marquess order the repeal of a particular tax, but it appears that when he does so he admits that the objections to it are certainly exaggerated and might be altogether delusive. The noble Marquess complained of the noble Viscount behind me (Viscount Halifax) for having misquoted his despatch on this point—and I am not surprised that he should seek to invalidate that quotation, because there is a wonderful difference between the despatch and the language we heard tonight. In the despatch, the noble Marquess virtually says to the Government of India—"You are to repeal the tax on the importation of Manchester goods, although the objection to it is to a great extent a delusion." But in his speech to-night he has adopted and fathered all the exaggerations and delusions which he had himself exposed. Such are the exigencies of debate. I will read to the House the passage in the despatch of the noble Marquess, in which he confesses that the objection to the cotton duties is founded on delusion. In the third paragraph of the despatch, the noble Marquess enumerates the natural causes in operation which are giving and will probably secure to the Indian manufacturer a monopoly in a certain class of fabrics, and then in the fourth paragraph he proceeds thus—"In the presence of influences so powerful, the effect of the 5 per cent duty is probably insignificant." And again, in the fifth paragraph, he says— If it were true that this duty is the means of excluding English competition, and thereby raising the price of a necessary of life to the vast mass of Indian consumers, it is unnecessary for me to remark that it would he open to economical objections of the gravest kind. I do not attribute to it any such effect. Here is the distinct confession of the noble Marquess that he was ordering a great sacrifice of revenue for the sake of an objection which he admits to be founded on delusion. Nor is this a mere casual admission. It is the result and conclusion of a careful argument. If the noble Marquess and his successors are to take into their hands the initiative in legislation and taxation for India, I ask him, and I ask the House, are these the principles upon which his Budget is to be constructed?

But this is not all. When Lord North-brook, after consulting with his Executive Council at Simla, in which all the interests of India had been represented, came to consider the Indian Tariff, he found a series of export duties on articles in which India had no monopoly. The noble Marquess is a tremendous convert to the most abstract doctrines in political economy, and I presume he will admit that there may be politico-economical objections to such duties. The political and economical objections to export duties on articles in which India has no monopoly are at least as valid as the objection to an import duty which practically had no protective effect whatever. But yet the noble Marquess does not give even a choice to the Indian Government to get rid of these export duties. He does not only a highly impolitic thing; he reverses the advice which previous Secretaries of State had given to the Government of India. I pointed out to Lord Northbrook that the export duties would require the earliest attention of the Indian Government, whenever they had the power of remitting taxation. Let us consider for a moment what these export duties actually were, and remember that, if the noble Marquess had been obeyed, these are duties which would have been now left on the people of India. First of all, there was the export duty on cotton goods—that is to say, the native weavers of India had a duty upon them limiting their trade and preventing them from exporting to other countries. There was an export duty upon dressed hides of Indian cattle, to the discouragement of the agricultural interest of India. And here let me say that if there is one interest more than another which we ought to free from such injurious imposts it is the agriculture of India, on which the great mass of its people depend, and on which we levy, I fear, an oppressive land tax. Again, there was a very heavy duty upon another valuable class of Indian agricultural produce—namely, oil seeds, thus weighting India in her competition with other countries. There was also an export duty upon grain. I understand there was also a very considerable duty on sugar, and this in the form of one of the most abominable inventions that could be named—namely, an inland revenue upon the transit of sugar, one of the primary necessaries of life.

The noble Marquess speaks of this Tariff Bill as having come down upon him like a clap of thunder; but, at any rate, along with the thunder there was a flash of lightning which lightened the noble Marquess, and made him see for the first time that there were at least some taxes which it was the prior duty of the Government of India to repeal, rather than to devote the first shilling they had to spare on the repeal of the duty on Manchester goods. The noble Marquess said in the despatch he wrote about the Tariff Bill, that the provisions which diminished the burden of export duties appeared to him to be judicious. Well, then, I say that is a self-condemnation of his previous order, because if that order had been obeyed not one of these export duties could have been repealed. Surely the noble Marquess must admit that this was a strong argument for allowing free action to the Government of India. But this is not all. There were other import duties which pressed more heavily than the cotton duties upon the people of India. The objections to them were no delusions. There were import duties on about 50 articles in the Tariff which were still subject to 7½ per cent duty, and the Government of India stated distinctly that there had been a diminution in the revenue on those articles in the four previous years of £90,000. These duties not only reduced the trade, but diminished the revenue of the country. The objections then which I bring against the policy of the noble Marquess in exercising the new power which he has assumed to exercise are these. I object, in the first place, that he gave an order with regard to taxation which I think is most impolitic; secondly, that he singled out of our extensive system of taxation one single tax, and kept that alone in view; thirdly, that he excluded from the Governor General of India—or, at all events, he would have done so had his despatch arrived in time—the consideration of the comparative claims of other taxes to remission; and, lastly, that he excluded the consideration of those claims in favour of another tax, the objections to which he himself admits are, to a large extent, delusive. If these are not solid and rational objections to the course adopted by the noble Marquess, I cannot conceive any that could be stronger against any given course of fiscal policy.

As to the remarks of the noble Marquess with reference to the place of legislation, I object altogether to his statement that the location of the Indian Government at Simla during certain times of the year has never been recognized by the Home Government. So far from that being the case, during the five years that I was in office Lord Mayo was in the constant habit of performing the most important functions of his Government and of passing the most important laws at Simla. On this subject, I may mention a curious fact. When I first came into office the Council of India was full of men of great distinction, who, although advanced in years, were magnificent specimens of humanity, and were remarkable for the remaining vigour of their physical and mental powers. I could not but observe that one of the strongest feelings which they entertained was an antipathy to Simla. I remember it being urged in Council that the Government should be prohibited from spending so much time at Simla. It was in vain that they were reminded of the advantages that railways afforded, and of the benefits to health that resulted from accommodating ourselves to the modern system. In reply, I was told that Lord Hastings used to spend his whole time in Calcutta, always transacting business in full uniform, even in the hottest weather, an example which excited the utmost admiration and approval of some of my older friends. I resisted this tendency as far as I was able, and I reminded them that we really could not expect that the Government of India would refrain from recruiting their health and saving their lives by resorting to a more congenial climate during the great heats of summer. Indeed, Lord Mayo looked forward to the. time of his going to Simla as a time specially favourable for the consideration of the gravest questions—as a time when he could give more undivided attention to subjects of legislation and government, than in the hurry, pressure, and stifling atmosphere of Calcutta. Therefore, I say that it will be an unwise policy to prohibit the Government of India from occasionally transacting its business at Simla. I admit that the re was one occasion, and one only, on which I was obliged to complain of the conduct of Lord Mayo in passing a measure at Simla, an Act affecting a change in the law relating to the succession of Hindoo property; and I did so, because I thought it was wrong to pass such a measure of that kind when no native Councillor was present. As the noble Marquess has dwelt upon this point, I will, with the permission of the House, read the following passage in my letter to Lord Mayo of May 4, 1871, which is as follows:— There is one matter connected with this Act which has attracted a good deal of attention here—namely, that an Act of this kind, affecting so nearly the interests and feelings of the Hindoo population, should have been passed at Simla, when few or none of the native Members were or could he present. Their presence might have made no difference. But I cannot think it wise to expose the legislative action of the Government to such invidious remarks. I think that in general, unless in cases of urgency, measures affecting the Native laws and customs ought to he discussed and decided when the Legislative Council is sitting at Calcutta. That instruction, however, was confined to laws affecting Native customs and usages, which I thought should not be altered at Simla. But as regards this particular question now before the House, the noble Marquess, however unintentionally, has misrepresented to the public and to Parliament the whole material facts as regards Lord Northbrook's legislation at Simla. I was astonished to hear the noble Marquess state that he had received no information, either public or private, that a revision of the Indian Tariff was in contemplation. It is evident from the Papers that are before the House that a revision of the Indian Tariff, with a view to re-classification, was ordered to be made from home. That revision was also demanded by the commercial community of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras with a view to re-valuation, and I cannot conceive how their demand did not come to the knowledge of the noble Marquess. Is it possible that the noble Marquess was not aware that Lord Northbrook had appointed a Committee to consider the re-classification and the re-valuation of the Tariff of India, and that the members of that Committee were at the same time directed to consider whether they could advise any of those taxes to be remitted? The noble Marquess may have forgotten the fact; but from documents which were in the India Office he must have had ample opportunity of becoming acquainted with it. Then the noble Marquess said that Lord Northbrook must have acted at Simla without adequate advice of his Council. The noble Marquess, however, has given an entirely erroneous account of what occurred at Simla. I understood the noble Marquess to say that this revision and re-classification of the Indian Tariff was done without the knowledge of the commercial men of India; whereas the truth is, that the whole commercial community of India were carefully consulted by the Committee which was appointed to deal with the question, and in the constitution of that Committee itself the Chambers of Commerce were directly represented. I heard with astonishment the noble Marquess refer to-night to the commercial men of Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras as not fair representatives of the Indian commercial community, but only of "certain outports." Surely it must be admitted that they are the representatives of the greatest centres of Indian commercial industry. Under these circumstances, I ask whether it is fair that the noble Marquess should hold out to Parliament and to the country that Lord Northbrook acted in this manner without due consultation with the commercial community of India? As to the constitution of the Council at Simla, of which the noble Marquess has complained, out of the 16 Members of which the Council consists 10 were actually present, while two more who had been Members of the Committee appointed to consider the Tariff were informally present—leaving only four absentees, of whom two were Native Rayahs, who only take an active part in Native affairs. There is not the smallest reason to suppose that the action taken by Lord Northbrook was not fully approved by his Council, even by the only four members who were not actually present. Quite the contrary. In taking the step he did Lord Northbrook stated—and no man is more accurate in his facts—that although enlarging somewhat the recommendations of the Committee, he was proceeding exactly in the direction and line of the policy they laid down. The statements that have been made to-night with reference to Lord North-brook's conduct in this matter are therefore entirely inaccurate.

Now, my Lords, I cannot help asking myself what is the secret of this extraordinary course which the noble Marquess has thought fit to take? There must he something behind all this. It cannot be supposed that the getting rid of a mere delusion on the part of the cotton interest at home is a matter of such vast importance as to render it necessary to destroy the initiative power of the Government of India and to violate every principle upon which fiscal legislation ought to be conducted. I am not going to deal in any inuendoes upon this subject; but I will tell the noble Marquess and the House what I believe to be the explanation of this singular course of conduct, and of all this irritation towards the Governor General of India. Last year the noble Marquess was entertained at Manchester, and on a platform in that city he made a speech which, if it did not absolutely commit him to this course of policy, placed him in a very awkward position if the policy was not adopted. Being entirely ignorant of everything going on in India—not having heard a word from Lord North-brook, and not knowing that there was any difference of opinion between the noble Marquess and him, I was told by a friend of my own, in the course of last autumn, that a state of tension had arisen between the Secretary of State and the Viceroy of India. I said I was very sorry to hear this; but, I added—"When the Secretary of State for India goes on the stump in the provinces, it is not very likely that the Viceroy will be able to shape his policy according to the dictates of the speeches that may be made. I cannot conceive anything more liable to place the Secretary of State and the Viceroy in a false position." The friend who told me of this was a friend rather of the Secretary of State than of the Viceroy, and he told me he thought Lord Northbrook's conduct had been quite enough to raise feelings of irritation in the mind of the Secretary of State. I said—"Do you really mean that the Viceroy of India, in considering the taxes which are pressing most hardly upon the industry of a people poor with a poverty of which we have no conception, is to shape his policy, not according to his own views of what is demanded by Indian finance—not even according to official despatches—but according to platform speeches delivered by the Secretary of State for India in provincial town halls, speaking in an unofficial capacity, and which the Viceroy may see for the first time in the columns of The Times? "He said he thought it was very hard that a policy dictated or announced by the noble Marquess opposite should be immediately contradicted by Lord North-brook. But this language, which astonished and even horrified me at the time, is very much supported by certain remarks which fell from the noble Marquess the Secretary of State to-night. He said Lord Northbrook was aware of the policy of the Government. But I would like to ask how he could possibly have had any knowledge of the subject? Your despatch is dated July 15, and it could not possibly have reached Simla before the 5th of August. I should like to know whether Lord Northbrook was to gather your policy from the columns of The Times and from reports of speeches delivered at Manchester? Further, let me remark that the course pursued by the noble Marquess affords an admirable opportunity to the Indian Press, which is always liable to be licentious. I hope the noble Marquess will not believe me capable of suggesting that he had any political object in going to Manchester. I do not for one moment suppose that he would sacrifice the interests of the people of India to any political considerations in this country; but Manchester is the head-quarters of one of the great political schools in this country, and I would ask the noble Marquess whether he thinks he could go there and make speeches without the Indian Press saying that he had pledged himself to the policy of the cotton interest, and would insist upon the Viceroy accepting that policy, apart altogether from the interest of the Indian people, in the remission or retention of import and export duties? I cannot conceive a more dangerous weapon than this to place in the hands of the Indian Opposition, which is ubiquitous over the whole face of the country. And now I must advert for a moment to another subject. I do not know that newspaper reports of the proceedings at deputations to Her Majesty's Ministers are always correct.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

said, the report of the particular deputation to which the noble Duke was about to refer was incorrect.

THE DUKE OF ARGYLL

I am very glad to hear that statement. If it is offensive to speak of the Government of India in the manner ascribed to the noble Marquess in the report I hold in my hand, it is still more offensive so to speak not to, but at, them in the presence of persons urging their own interests in possible opposition to those of the people of India. It certainly went forth that the noble Marquess spoke of the Government of India "obeying" his orders, and so conveying an insinuation that at some period Lord Northbrook had disobeyed them. I am glad, as I said, to know that the report is in this respect inaccurate; for I cannot conceive any public man of high principle and legitimate independence continuing in the office of Viceroy of India after such language was addressed to, or, rather, spoken of him, to a deputation which waited upon a Secretary of State. There is only one other subject on which I wish to say a few words. The noble Marquess and his Colleagues have chosen Lord Lytton for the Viceroyalty of India. Lord Lytton is a man of great ability, of very high accomplishments, and, as I am told by everybody who knows him, of the greatest possible charm of personal character. He is already a distinguished, and I trust he will return an illustrious man—the illustrious son of an illustrious father. But there is one circumstance connected with Lord Lytton's education which seems to me not unconnected with the debate we are now conducting. Lord Lytton's early education has been that of a diplomat, and that is a profession in which the first duty of a public official is to represent accurately and faithfully, without exaggeration and without diminution, the Minister and the Government whom he represents. He is to be the alter ego of the Minister at home—and it requires great talent to do this under varying conditions. I am not disparaging that great profession or its duties. But, my Lords, this is not the position of the Viceroy of India. He is not to be the mere supple instrument—the mere echo and duplicate of the Minister at home. It will be his first duty to consider the benefit and the interest of the people of India from an independent point of view; and, although the new Viceroy may serve a somewhat imperious master, I cannot doubt that even the noble Marquess the Secretary of State will, in his calmer moments, support the independent opinions which it will be Lord Lytton's duty to give him in regard to questions of taxation. I rejoiced to see that before Lord Lytton went out he took an opportunity of explaining to the public, in a most able diplomatic speech, that he had not had direct orders to repeal the tax on cotton goods, unless it could be afforded by the revenue. This is well: but it is not enough. You have not bound him to repeal this tax unless it. can be afforded. But have you left him free not only to consider whether he could afford it, but whether there are not other taxes still standing with prior claims to remission? Have you left Lord Lytton power to consider, for example, whether the Salt Tax, which tells so severely upon the people of India, may not be reduced, or have you bound him—as you tried to bind Lord North-brook—and, I am happy to say, without success—to spend his first sixpence—no matter how much more grievous other taxes may be—on this Manchester delusion? Soon after I came into office I was called upon to consider the incidence of the Salt Tax, and was shocked by the evidence brought before me, which showed that at least in certain parts of India the tax was most oppressive upon the poorest of the people, and levied upon one of the very first necessaries of life. I therefore ask the Government—Have you left Lord Lytton free to deal with that tax? My Lords, all I can say is, whether the noble Marquess answers the question or not, that I trust Lord Lytton will assert his indisputable right as the holder of the greatest office in the Empire of the Queen to deal with this question from an independent point of view, and sure I am that even if he is not supported by the noble Marquess he will be supported by the English people.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, the noble Duke who has just sat down commenced his speech by making a charge against my noble Friend the Secretary of State. He accused my noble Friend of having said it was just possible that in bringing these charges against the Indian Government, those who brought them might not be uninfluenced by the consideration that the late Governor General of India was a political friend of those who sat on the Opposition side of the House. I do not stop to consider whether that charge was or was not well founded; but this I will say, that if it was as well founded as the noble Duke supposed it to be, he has repaid the accusation with Indian interest; for he has made two charges against my noble Friend and Her Majesty's Government the most odious, I will venture to say, that I have ever heard broached within these walls. The last is one the echoes of which have scarcely died away. If the noble Duke's words have any meaning—and he rarely speaks without a very decided meaning—they charge the Government with having appointed Lord Lytton Governor General of India, not from any considerations as to his fitness for the office, but because they thought that the habit of obedience to orders derived from his previous and early training as a diplomatist would naturally fit him to be the alter ego of the Secretary of State as Governor of India. My Lords, the last accusation of the noble Duke was quite upon a par with the first. The noble Duke said he had discovered the secret of what he terms the irritation of the Secretary of State for India and of the despatches which have been addressed to the Government of India, and the discovery made by the noble Duke is this—that the Secretary of State—charged with the responsibility of the Government of India charged with the duty of forming and expressing his unbiassed opinion as to the measures which he considers most desirable for the welfare of India—on this occasion did not act on principles of that kind, but addressed despatches to Lord Northbrook, in order, to use the noble Duke's words, "to extricate himself from the false position in which he had placed himself by a speech made in Manchester." And, my Lords, the noble Duke himself gave the best test of the odiousness of that charge, for he related to your Lordships a conversation which he says he lately had with a friend of his who had made a somewhat similar suggestion as to the conduct of Lord North-brook as Governor General. The noble Duke says he addressed to his friend these words—"Do you mean to say that Lord Northbrook, charged with the duty of considering what course of taxation or remission of taxation is best for the interests of India, would be regulated not by what he considers to be really for the benefit of India, but by a wish to square his policy by that of the Secretary of State at home?" If that was an odious charge to make with regard to Lord Northbrook, I wonder what the noble Duke thinks his suggestion means—that my noble Friend regulated his policy in order to extricate himself from a false position in which, as the noble Duke contends, my noble Friend had placed himself by a speech at Manchester?

Now, my Lords, I do not rise to continue the discussion upon the question of finance—I am quite content to leave that as my noble Friend has left it; and I must say I do not wish to enter upon the subject of the particular mode in which this particular Act of legislation for India was passed at Simla—not because I have any difficulty in referring, as the noble Duke thinks, to Simla—I am quite content to acquiesce in his views of the advantage of Simla as a place of recreation and health for those who are charged with the transaction of important duties in India. I do not understand that my noble Friend said anything more than that it was not a place to pass legislative Acts which directly and largely interested the public mind at Calcutta, and as to which the opinion of the officials at Calcutta would be extremely beneficial; and, indeed, I gather from the noble Duke that he had himself given to Lord Mayo directions of precisely the same kind. But this I say, that I think no person who has heard the narrative of what occurred at Simla would desire to see it repeated. It is a proceeding which I look upon with the deepest regret. I am sure it was adopted inadvertently by Lord Northbrook; and I own I was surprised to hear a public man who himself has been Secretary of State, in his place in your Lordships' House justifying the course which was taken with regard to that Act. The noble Viscount who began the discussion (Viscount Halifax) did not take that course—I understood that he regretted and deprecated the mode in which the Act was passed.

Now, my Lords, I come to what I think is of more importance, and as to which I must join issue with the noble Duke. But, fortunately, I may narrow the issue by an admission of the noble Duke himself, because he frankly and fairly said he did not object to any of the principles contained in the despatch of the 31st of March, 1874, or to the language in which it was expressed. Well, if your Lordships will take that admission at the outset, I think you will have little difficulty in answering the other question which has been raised. What did that despatch treat of? Your Lordships heard the noble Duke say over and over again that the policy of my noble Friend had entirely deprived the Government of India of the initiative in legislation—that it has changed that initiative and taken it away from India. I altogether demur to that conclusion from the despatch. I understand it to do exactly the very opposite. It calls upon the Governor General in Council to initiate the measures which he thinks desirable, carefully to consider them, and send them home to the Secretary of State in the form in which he thinks them most desirable. Is that initiating legislation at home? I should term it in the clearest way initiating legislation in India, according to what the Government in India sees to be best for the necessities of India. But what are to be the exceptions? There are two—the one as to cases of legislative measures which are of trifling importance; the other as to cases of moderate importance which are not urgent. Now let me consider how important it was that that course should be taken. I cannot conceive anything more inconvenient, more undesirable, more calculated to produce evil results than this—that a measure should be presented by the Governor General in Council to the Legislative Council, that it should be publicly discussed and occupy the public mind in India, should pass through its stages without any communication with the Secretary of State, and should then be sent home to the Secretary of State as a measure already passed, and as to which the only alternative he has is to allow it to take its course or to disallow it by his veto. Nothing is more calculated to create mischief, and in many cases even scandal, than a proceeding of that kind. But those evil consequences are avoided by the policy of that despatch. And there is another evil it avoids—namely, that of a great number of subjects and provisions being tied together in one legislative measure and coming home to the Secretary of State as a whole, so that, if the Secretary of State should approve nine out of ten of these, he must disallow all in order to reject the one he disapproves, or he must accept that which he disapproves to save the other nine. But it is unnecessary to pursue the subject further; for I find that in a despatch of the noble Viscount (Viscount Halifax), dated March 31, 1865, he expressly approves a like policy— It is," said Sir Charles Wood, "more courteous and more calculated to maintain the dignity of the Council that the Secretary of State should suggest to the Executive Government that they should suspend, and even withdraw a Bill, than leave them without any intimation of his opinion that he should afterwards disallow it. The policy, therefore, recommended is, that a Bill intended to be passed should be sent home to the Secretary of State and laid before him, so that he should not be driven to the ridiculous alternative of allowing it or disallowing it after it has passed. But how did Lord Northbrook's Council view it? Did they regard it as an entire and serious innovation—a course of policy which could not be approved, and which would change the initiative of legislation? On the contrary, they entirely approved of it.

THE DUKE OF ARGYLL

I referred to the second despatch.

THE LORD CHANCELLOR

The noble Duke referred to the second despatch, and I will come to that; but we must first understand the policy which was inaugurated by the first despatch. As I have said, the reply of the Governor General in Council approved of the policy of the despatch. They saw no difficulty, they said, in carrying out the wishes of the Secretary of State. Your Lordships then have a despatch which is perfectly clear as to the course which it proposes to the Government of India. It is a course which does not shift the initiative of legislation, and which relieves the Secretary of State from the painful position of vetoing a measure which had already passed, but of which he had only learnt by hearsay. It saves him from that painful alternative.

Now, my Lords, let me next proceed to that second despatch which the noble Duke was anxious I should consider. There were two exceptions made in the first despatch of my noble Friend—one in the case of measures of trifling importance and the other of cases of urgent importance. Now, was the measure of trifling importance? No one has suggested that it was. Was it one of urgency? Or was it to come under that exception of which we have now heard—namely, because it was a measure of taxation? What is the proof that it was a measure of urgency? I can find none in the statement of the Governor General, except the assertion that if the measure, being one of fiscal taxation, were known at home, there was no security that it would be kept secret. Now, it appears to me that if there is one class of measures more than another as to which it ought to be known when they are first proposed whether they will meet with a veto from the Home Government, it is a measure of taxation. Observe the circumstances of the case. You are launching in Calcutta a measure which may revolutionize the whole system of your trade and commercial policy. The merchants there must be entitled to assume that, when such a scheme is once put forward by the Governor General in Council, it will pass into a law. They would make their arrangements in accordance with that legislation; and they would be justly aggrieved if, after it had been published in India, it should receive when it came home the veto of the Home Government, and should not, after all, pass into law. You are, therefore, reduced to this dilemma, and you must take your choice of two alternatives. You must either say that on a matter of taxation the Governor General in Council is supreme and that the Home Government has no voice at all; or else that the opinion of the Secretary of State must be expressed at an early stage and before the plan is promulgated, and not at the latest moment. The question lies in a nutshell, and I am amazed that it can be gravely maintained that a measure altering the whole fiscal duties of a country may be proposed, may be agitated and allowed to pass in India, and that afterwards no real veto shall be exercised by the Government at home on the measure. You can establish no more dangerous proposal for the government of India, nor one, perhaps, more palatable to a Secretary of State. For these doctrines of the noble Duke strip the Secretary for India of all responsibility to Parliament. We will suppose that the Governor General in India proposes a measure on taxation to which objections are entertained, the force of which is admitted by public men at home. What is the position of the Secretary of State for India? He may have the most serious objections to the measure; but the matter threads its way at Simla or Calcutta, it obtains the consent of four or six Members of the Council, and it becomes law. Both Houses of Parliament may be known to disapprove the new policy, for it may be a reversal of all the principles which the country has adopted in its legislation. Is the Secretary of State to say that the Home Government had strong objections to it, but that it had passed through all its stages in India. Is he to say—"I have been told by those who preceded me in office that the initiative must begin in India, and that I must not interfere, and must not even ask that a taxing Bill must first be sent home to me for my knowledge and approval?" The Secretary of State may feel that there were the greatest objections to such a Bill; but is he to say that when he came to consider the enormous inconveniences of reversing the policy upon which the Government of India had been acting for the last 10 months, he had thought it better to sacrifice the policy which was dear to this country and give way to that which had been done abroad? Was he to tell Parliament—"Although I am the responsible Minister of the Crown for India, I have no responsibility at all, but you must apply to the Governor General of India?" Yet that was the doctrine of the noble Duke, and if he were right it was impossible that the Secretary of State could govern India as a Minister responsible to Parliament.

LORD LAWRENCE

said, that when he was Governor General of India he received from the Secretary of State great assistance in legislative and administrative matters, and that at a time when the communications of the Secretary of State on fiscal matters always came as suggestions and not as positive instructions. When there was a division of opinion the views of the Secretary of State had their full influence upon the Legislative Council; but when the Council had come to a determination upon any question, he could not call to mind any case in which the Governor General in Council adopted a policy of which the Council did not as a body approve. The real question was, which was the better system; and after giving due weight to the authorities, he was inclined to think that it was better to allow the Governor General and the Legislative Council to pass a law, and to leave to the Secretary of State the power of interposing his veto. He said unhesitatingly that if he had been placed in the position of Lord Northbrook he should have refused to repeal the import duties under the circumstances of the case—the Viceroy could not carry out instructions which he totally disapproved without being disgraced in the eyes of his colleagues and before the whole country; and it would be impossible for him honourably to remain in his place under the circumstances. The course of legislation prescribed by the Secretary of State to do nothing with the draft of a Bill until you received instructions from home was one which would practically place the initiative in all legislation in the hands of the Secretary of State, and take it out of the hands of the Indian authorities. He did not recollect a single instance when Governor General even in the discussion of a change in the tariff in which this course had been adopted, or suggested. He admitted that it would in itself be a great evil if a Bill which had been formally passed in India should be vetoed by the Secretary of State; but nevertheless it would be a lesser evil to run the danger of that veto than it would be to force the Governor General to wait for the consent of the Home Government before he could initiate or forward legislation. He admitted that the language of the despatch was somewhat severe; but he was not thin-skinned, and if he had been in Lord Northbrook's place he would not have taken displeasure at its language and tone so much as at the instructions that were embodied in it. The last two lines seemed to bind up the Governor General in the most absolute and complete manner to get rid of these import duties on cotton; and there could not be a doubt it would be most impolitic to do so altogether, because they were a valuable and elastic source of revenue. And besides, so far from being obnoxious to the people of India, they would probably rather quadruple than abolish them, because they believed that the import of English goods had in many instances destroyed those of Native manufacture. The import duties were raised largely by Mr. Wilson to meet the financial difficulties which followed the Mutiny, and gradually lowered as the financial difficulties were got over; and the very fact that they had been so reduced showed that there was no disposition to keep them up beyond what the necessities of the case required. It might be that the revenue of India was increasing, but the expenditure was increasing pari passu; and while there was no margin of income over expenditure, it was unwise to get rid of import duties which were not oppressive or vexatious to those upon whom they fell. If the people of India were consulted he believed they would say almost with one voice—"Maintain the import duties, and for God's sake keep away from us direct taxes!" The expenditure on public works in India had been reduced; and yet, taking into consideration all the sources of revenue on the one hand, and all the heads of expenditure, ordinary and extraordinary, on the other, there was a large deficit. They knew, moreover, that at this moment the loss on exchange against the Government of India was something like £1,800,000 per annum. Some of the Departments also were now more or less undermanned, and more or less underpaid. Was that, he asked, a state of things in which they should propose to get rid of the import duties? He was not one of those who would blindly follow even the wishes of the people of India; but he thought that what the people of India liked in this matter was exactly what seemed to him to be the right and proper policy to pursue.

LORD WINMARLEIGH

, having represented for many years in the other House of Parliament the county of Lancaster, where those duties possessed an especial interest, desired to make a few remarks. The noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) had unjustly accused his noble Friend the Secretary of State for India of "stumping down to Manchester to find a policy;" but, for his part, he hoped the time would never come when a Minister in this country would think it beneath his dignity to go down to a great centre of manufacturing industry in order to learn what were the real interests of the principal centres of our manufacturing wealth.

THE DUKE OF ARGYLL

I did not use the expression "stumping for a policy," although I spoke of the noble Marquess being "on the stump at Manrchester."

LORD WINMALEIGH

said, that expression gave an utterly untrue idea of what he knew was his noble Friend's endeavour to ascertain the feelings of the people of Lancashire. Moreover, never in all his experience had an explanation given by a Minister to a deputation been more misrepresented than had been his noble Friend's statement to the deputation which he had introduced to him at the India Office. His noble Friend, while he said he made the repeal of the duty a main point in his recommendations to the Government of India, yet gave his hearers to understand, in the most open manner, that this would only be done subject to its not interfering with the financial arrangements of India. Taking the explanation given of the matter by his noble Friend, he hoped that eventually it would not interfere with the financial policy of that country. His noble Friend had distinctly stated that what he relied on was the increasing revenue of India, which might enable him at some future time to recommend the remission of the import duty. He was astonished to hear the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) twit his noble Friend with now being and ardent advocate of free trade; but surely it was more surprising to find the noble Viscount opposite (Viscount Halifax) devoting a considerable part of his speech in arguing that a duty of 5 per cent was of no importance whatever to the commercial transactions which it affected. He thought he remembered the noble Viscount in former times being associated with those who fought hard for the removal of an impost of 2 per cent, on the ground that it had a serious effect upon the commerce of the country. It was urged that this was a fight between the Secretary of State with the Manchester Chamber of Commerce on the one side, and the Government and people of India on the other; but from his knowledge of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce he could say that no statement was more contrary to the fact than that the Chamber was desirous of seeing anything done that could be detrimental to the best interests of India. With regard to the duty now in question, there were some very peculiar reasons why it should be looked upon with some suspicion by everybody engaged in the cotton manufacture of Lancashire. In England the price of labour had greatly increased; whereas in India there was no restriction on the hours of labour, and labour there was cheap to an almost incredible degree compared with labour in this country. Then India produced cotton in the immediate neighbourhood of their factories, which enabled them to compete on advantageous conditions with the manufactures of this country. The manufacturers of Bombay were carrying away some of our most valuable operatives to superintend the factories there, which were increasing. The manufacturers of Lancashire were not afraid of competing with the manufacturers of India; all they wanted was a fair field and no favour. They objected to being overweighted in the competition with which they had to contend. On the part of the county of Lancaster he begged to tender to the noble Marquess thanks for the expression of his intention with regard to the duty on cotton imported into India, and for the interest he had taken in the prosperity of that country.

EARL GREY

said, in the course of the debate some of the most material facts on which their judgment ought to be founded seemed to be admitted on both sides of the House. He understood that even the noble Marquess did not deny that it was of the greatest importance to maintain the revenue of India—that India was a country in which taxation was a matter of extreme difficulty, that many public works were urgently required in India, and that money for those purposes was wanting in the public Treasury. He believed also that his noble Friend had not attempted to deny that part of the revenue of India was extremely precarious, and was exposed to the risk that either an increasing cultivation of poppies in China, or a change in the taste of the Chinese as to opium, might destroy that important branch of revenue which was derived from opium. "Was it wise, then, to give up the tax on cotton goods which produced so large a sum in proportion to the total revenue of India as between £800,000 and £900,000? for that was the simple point. The noble Marquess objected to this tax on the ground that it operated as a protective duty, and pointed out that the burden of a protective duty was not to be measured by the amount it brought into the Treasury. That was true—the burden of a tax was to be measured by the way in which the whole produce of the article taxed was raised in price, and not only that which was imported. That was a principle of political economy which he would be the last person to contest, but what they had to consider was whether it really applied to the question before them. Could it be made out that this duty upon cotton imported into India did practically produce bad effects and raise the price of home-made cottons in India as well as of imported cotton? There was an important fact bearing upon this question which he believed was not disputed—that practically there was very little competition between Indian cotton and English cotton of any one particular kind. The Indian cotton manufactures were mainly confined to a low quality of cotton, which England sent only to a very small extent to the Indian market. The Indian cotton goods of this low quality could only be raised in price by the tax imposed upon English manufactures, if the latter met them in the market or were only kept out of it by the duty. But this was not the case. The proportion of English goods of the lower kinds imported was so small as to have but very little effect upon the Indian cotton trade, and he believed it was admitted that even if there were no duty it was not likely that English goods of this particular description would take the place of those produced in India. On the other hand, the finer cottons consumed in India were almost entirely imported, so that the duty levied upon them yielded a large income to the Treasury without being open to the objection that it imposed a further burden on the consumer by raising the price of goods produced at home. If this were so, the duty must be regarded as an unobjectionable one so far as the interests of India were considered, and in this case the arguments of the manufacturers of Lancashire as affecting their interests should have very little weight, because the subject could be considered entirely from an Indian point of view. He would ask any of the noble Lords who had listened to this debate whether there was the slightest reasonable doubt that those duties which Lord Northbrook had repealed were not the first that ought to have been remitted? He was convinced that the policy of Lord Northbrook was sounder than that of the noble Marquess. He could not sit down without expressing his entire concurrence in the opinion of those who sat around him—that, whatever objection might be taken to the policy of Lord Northbrook, it was a great mistake to overrule it in the high-handed manner that the noble Marquess had thought fit to adopt. In his opinion, the action of the noble Marquess in this case was unwise, and was calculated to do infinite mischief. The speech of the late Governor General of India (Lord Lawrence) upon this point was most conclusive; and he had shown the great danger of treating the Governor General of India with too high a hand. Nothing would be more calculated to imperil our supremacy in India than to allow it to be supposed that the Governor General, instead of being an independent authority, was a mere repeating instrument of those who held the reins at home. The Governor General should receive a large measure of support from home, for he had better means of forming an opinion on the spot than the Government at home could possibly have; and he might be influenced by circumstances which it would be impossible to communicate by letter, still less by telegram. It was all very well for the Secretary of State to lay down certain rules and principles of policy that were to guide the Governor General in his conduct; but the method of carrying out those rules and principles should be left to him entirely. He could not help thinking that the state of things which he so much regretted had its origin in the Manchester speech, by delivering which his noble Friend committed the India Office to the remission of a particular tax before opportunity had been afforded for a full discussion of the matter by the Indian Government and for consultation between the authorities at home and those in India. This was a new and a dangerous practice, and one which was likely to render the work of government more difficult than there was any necessity for it to be. He objected also to the practice which had grown up of exposing the inner machinery of government to the public eye. If this was to continue and spread, it also would increase the difficulty of governing the Empire and its Dependencies with the energy which was necessary for the public good.

THE EARL OF CARNARVON

said, the discussion had come to be one in which certain noble Lords recommended a particular tax for remission and certain other noble Lords differed from their view. He should pass over this branch of the question and make a few remarks in reference to the light which the debate had thrown upon the delicate, and at the same time conflicting, relations which existed between the Imperial Government at home and the Government in India. In this connection it was impossible not to ask what was the real control exercised by the Secretary of State, and whether it was for the advantage of India that the control should be so exercised. He had heard with regret statements to the effect that the control had been exercised with reference to questions of detail and in a vexatious manner; and his regret had been due mainly to the fact that the speech of his noble Friend the Secretary of State had shown that nothing was further from his intention than to act in such a spirit. The object in view was to control the legislative rather than the executive department of the Government, as was shown earlier in the debate by that noble Lord who had occupied the position of Viceroy, and by checking legislation in its earlier stages to prevent the adoption of Acts which would have to be revoked. As his noble Friend had pointed out, a Law Commission was appointed during the period in which the noble Viscount (Viscount Halifax) who had raised the discussion was Secretary of State for India, and it was a fact that the Commission—the Indian Law Commission—which sat in England had more communication with the Imperial than with the Indian Government, and actually prepared the draft of a Bill which subsequently occupied the attention of Parliament. Subsequently there was no longer any proper channel of communication between the law-making power for India and the Secretary of State. In fact, his noble Friend as Secretary of State in 1876 was in a worse position as regarded his knowledge of Indian legislation than was the Secretary of State in 1867, for he was in total ignorance of the legislation which was prepared for India. Under these circumstances, the Imperial Government was placed in a wholly new position. The Secretary of State was vested with a control, and that control he was bound to exercise. As to the Governor General, he occupied a position of more importance than many of the crowned Heads of Europe, and anything which interfered with his proper dignity would be a dangerous and impolitic act. In former times the Governor General occupied a far more independent position than a holder of the office could do at present. Then India was remote from England and communication rare: now England and India were brought into close relations; and it was the duty of the Secretary of State to find out how far he could bring English feeling and English opinion to bear upon India, while at the same time maintaining untouched and secure the great fabric of our Eastern Empire. If the Secretary of State did not exercise those functions he abdicated his duty and was untrue to all parties interested. It was of first and prime importance that they should have undivided counsels—that the Government at home and in India should act as one undivided authority. But then it might be said that disagreement might arise. That must be so in the nature of things. But how was that disagreement to be got over? In one of two ways. The one was by the process adopted in the despatches of the noble Viscount who introduced the debate and by the noble Duke, of giving orders and commands to carry out such and such measures; the other was by the process adopted by his noble Friend by communication with the Governor General, by endeavouring to adjust matters so as to arrive at a common conclusion. By which of those two modes was friction and disagreement most likely to be avoided? Surely, by that of his noble Friend. His noble Friend who had been Governor General of India (Lord Lawrence) claimed practical independence for the Governor General in Legislative Council, as contradistinguished from the Executive Council. To him that appeared to be a very unreasonable distinction. It was in matters of legislation that the Secretary of State had not only a right, but was bound to express his opinion. On the other hand, it should be remembered that the Legislative Council consisted of two elements—the official and the non-official, the latter of which was necessarily independent; and if the claim were allowed, the actual governing power would pass into the hands of the Governor General in Legislative Council. Nothing could be more foreign to the idea of Parliament. When the Constitution of India was re-cast it would be useful to consider what the practice in our Crown Colonies was. He saw every week a greater disposition on the part of Colonial Legislative Councils to accrete to themselves fresh powers, and the abler those bodies, the greater their desire to obtain those powers. In the case of the Crown Colonies the practice was this—the Governor sent to the Secretary of State his suggestions as to what he desired, and the Secretary of State issued his instructions, and sometimes sent out drafts of the proposed measure. If in Council the Bill underwent modifications, they were reserved for the consideration of the Secretary of State, and they were not adopted without his sanction. All those Councils were composed—as was the Indian Legislative Council—of the official and the non-official element, and in every case the official element was in the majority for this reason—that the power of the Crown might be maintained. In the Crown Colonies the Crown had retained the power of legislation and action by means of Orders in Council. The precedents were, therefore, on the side of his noble Friend's contention. Whether in India or in the Crown Colonies, and in every case except those of responsible Governments, the Crown must be the governing principle, and until the day of responsible government came for India she must be governed on the same principles as every other part of Her Majesty's dominions—namely, under the authority of the Crown.

EARL GRANVILLE

said he had heard no sufficient answer to the arguments advanced on that side of the House with regard to the financial policy of the noble Marquess; nor any real defence of the course adopted by him in pressing for the abolition of these duties in preference to any others. He thought, indeed, it would be admitted that the grounds on which the noble Marquess had proceeded had been torn into shreds by the various speakers in this debate, and that the only answer given by the noble Marquess was that it was good policy to insist on the abolition of this particular tax, to which he himself admitted he could not attribute a protective character. The noble Marquess asserted that his noble Friend (Viscount Halifax) had written a despatch claiming the right of the Secretary of State to an absolute despotism over the Governor General, and that the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) had written in a similar sense. But, on the other hand, both his noble Friends had pointed out how seldom this power was to be used, how little it was to be strained, and how harmonious ought to be the relation between the Governor General and the Home Government. No one knew this better than the noble Marquess two years ago, as might be found in his despatches, where, while he asserted the responsibility of the Secretary of State to the fullest extent, he maintained also the desirability of treating the Governor General with respect. But he (Earl Granville) defied any impartial person to sum up this debate without admitting that, while noble Lords opposite agreed as to the authority the Governor General ought to exercise, the noble Marquess had strained the power of the Home Government to the fullest extent, and that he had not acted in a manner to maintain the dignity of that office or encourage a feeling of due responsibility in the Viceroy of India. He thought that some little explanation was due as to sending out Sir Lewis Mallet to India, because it seemed as if the Government were treating the Viceroy rather too much like the Khedive when Mr. Cave was sent to Egypt to put the finances in a satisfactory state. He believed that the effect of this debate would be to convince the public that the Government had commenced a policy of strict and exclusive government from home, which would be most injurious to India. Already a general opinion prevailed in India that the Governor General was no longer the high functionary he had hitherto been esteemed, but that he was to be in future under the immediate and constant direction of the Government at home. He quite agreed as to the merit of the noble Lord who had just been sent out (Lord Lytton); and no doubt, if this policy was to be continued, we might get young men of great ability and charming manners to go to India as Governors; but he was quite sure we should not get men of really high position in this country—men of experience who had formed opinions for themselves on Indian questions—if they were to go out with the feeling that no responsibility and no discretion was to be left to them; and with a younger man, however clever, we should destroy his power of making himself useful, inasmuch as we should take from him the feeling of decision and responsibility which ought to be called into play at times of emergency and in crises when it was impossible to meet the difficulties of the situation by despatches, or even by telegrams, from home.

THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON

said, the noble Earl reminded him of the Chorus in a Greek play, when he so frequently rose to say that none of the arguments put forward on his own side had been answered by the other. The arguments of the Opposition tonight recalled those which were used by the defenders of the protective system in this country, and it was interesting to hear them resuscitated and affirmed by those who had formerly answered them. In saying that a great deal must be left to the Governor General of India, that India must be governed according to Indian views, and that those in India were the only judges of what was good and proper for that country, it seemed to him that great injustice was done to the distinguished body of men who formed the Council of the Secretary of State. He could hardly reconcile the statements of the noble Lord who had been Governor General of India as to the course adopted now by the Secretary of State with what occurred when the noble Lord was Governor General, and when the noble Viscount, who was then Secretary of State, attempted what appeared to be a more direct interference with the freedom of the Indian Government than that now complained of—he referred to a despatch conveying a request that the consideration of a certain Bill might be postponed by the Governor General in Council; which request the noble Lord had accepted as a suggestion, and not as a positive requirement which might lead to embarrassment in the Council in the conduct of legislation. He (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon) could not conceive anything more despotic—to use a word which had been employed in that discussion—than the rule laid down and the course taken by the noble Viscount opposite himself on the occasion referred to in that despatch. No doubt the noble Viscount felt that he was justified in so doing; but he quite concurred in the observation made by several' speakers that night to the effect that if a veto was to be put on any Act of the Government of India, it would be far better that it should be done before that Act had been passed and had come home to this country. The veto would assume a much milder form in the earlier stages of the proceeding than it would do if the Secretary of State had to exercise a really despotic power by putting an end to a Bill that had been passed by the Indian Council. He believed, therefore, that the course which had been pursued by his noble Friend the Secretary of State for India was a constitutional course, and far less arbitrary than the one which had been adopted by the noble Viscount and the noble Duke opposite.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

made a few observations in reply which were not heard.