§ VISCOUNT HALIFAXMy Lords, I rise to ask my noble Friend the Secretary of State for India a Question of which I have given him private Notice. It is in reference to the removal of Mr. Oliphant from his appointment as Secretary to Sir Salar Jung. In the Indian papers of last autumn a statement appeared that Mr. Oliphant, then in the service of Sir Salar Jung, one of the co-Regents of the Deccan, had been removed from that service by order of the Government of India. Mr. Oliphant is the son of Colonel Oliphant, an old Indian officer, who served many years in India, and who became afterwards a Director and Chairman of the East India Company. When I was President of the Board of Control I was in frequent and friendly communication with him, and I naturally take an interest in his son. I am not aware on what grounds Mr. Oliphant was removed. There may be good reasons for it—and I am willing 1925 to believe that the Government of India would not have undertaken a step involving such serious consequences to the son of an old Indian officer, except on grounds which seemed to them to render necessary so strong an exercise of the power which, I am ready to admit, they must possess. My noble Friend will be able to state the reasons for this removal, which, I presume, he considers to be adequate; but what I am very anxious to hear from my noble Friend is that the grounds of removal, whatever they may be, are not of such a nature as to affect Mr. Oliphant's character as a gentleman and a man of honour, or to afford any reason against his being employed in any fitting situation in the service either of the public or of a private individual.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYI entirely concur in the regret which my noble Friend has expressed that the Government of India should have found it necessary to remove Mr. Oliphant from the post he held under Sir Salar Jung. Mr. Oliphant is the son of a gentleman who held the highest office in the East India Company, and who, in the discharge of his duties, did excellent service, and Mr. Oliphant himself is a man of ability and of unblemished character. The Government of India had come to the conclusion that he could not be suffered to remain in the post he occupied without serious injury to the public interest, and Her Majesty's Government have seen good cause unreservedly to support the Government of India in that decision. It is not convenient that I should enter into the political grounds which made that action necessary; but I am glad to have the opportunity, which my noble Friend has afforded me, of saying that they imply no imputation on Mr. Oliphant's character, nor anything that would unfit him for an office of trust either in the public service or under a private individual.