LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK, in rising to present a Petition from Her Majesty's European, Hindu, and Mussulman subjects in the Presidency of Madras, praying that the duration of the annual transfer of the Indian Government to the Hills may be shortened; and to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to prescribe a limitation to the residence of the Supreme Government and of the Presidency Governments in India at the Hills? said, the Petition which he had the honour to lay upon the Table was something more than of usual importance, and that would be seen in the character and object of the Petitioners. It had its origin at a public meeting of Europeans, Hindus, and Mussulmans of the City of Madras; and it was the first occasion on which such a meeting had been held in Madras for the redress of a public grievance. The meeting was representative of all classes, races, and religions in the Presidency; and they co-operated with unusual harmony and cordiality for the same purpose. The grievance of which 1346 those excellent citizens complained was, that they saw too little of their Governor, and the remedy which they proposed was that he should be instructed to live more among them. The meeting was presided over by an Indian statesman of undoubted fidelity and loyalty to Her Majesty. At that meeting a resolution was adopted—after being supported by a number of gentlemen holding distinguished positions in the Presidency—reporting the protest of the meeting against the removal of the Government; and it was further determined to present a Petition to their Lordships' House. This movement had received the sanction of 25 local Associations in the different districts and municipalities of the Presidency; and he believed that the sentiment embodied in the Petition would be substantially approved of by the members of the Civil Service and the officers of the Government generally. The prevailing opinion of those classes was, he thought, that the Government and Council should have their abode in the places where the citizens spend their days, so that they should share in the labours of their common duties. In fact, the Petition was a genuine and natural expression of the views of a numerous, loyal, and intelligent community. In 1869 the Government of Madras gave their attention to the question of the seat of Government, and their views were embodied in a Minute drawn up by the Governor. The object of the Governor was that all the Members of the Government should take their recreation and leave of absence at the same time, in order that there might be no suspension of the regular transaction of public business, and that all should resort to the same place. The Governor proposed to limit the absence to 10 weeks or three months, and this movement was to cost nothing. These proposals became the basis of a communication to the Viceroy and the Secretary of State for India, and were sanctioned by the latter, and became the rule under which the Governor of Madras acted. They remained in force for three years; and during that period he was not aware that any complaint was made. Fifteen years had now elapsed since those proposals were made; and he believed the absence of the Government had now been extended to six, seven, and even eight months in the year; and, in addition to that, a very 1347 considerable expenditure had been incurred where no expenditure had been originally intended. The Petitioners complained not only of the removal of the seat of civil administration, but of the removal of the seat of military administration also. If the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief had been transported to Bangalore he could have understood the change, for Bangalore was the principal garrison and arsenal of Southern India; but what reason could there be for transferring the military headquarters to a place where Her Majesty's arms had previously only been represented by a soldiers' convalescent hospital? In Madras itself the accommodation for the Government was ample; consequently, the expense incurred in providing accommodation for it in the Hills seemed to be hardly justifiable. He had been told that a sum of nearly £70,000 had been expended in providing the Governor of Madras with a residence in the Hills. He would ask the noble Earl the Secretary of State for India (the Earl of Kimberley) whether he was not surprised at the expenditure of such a large sum for such a purpose, and that it should lead to some discontent, particularly when there were other things—roads, public works, and irrigation—upon which expenditure was so necessary, and which were standing still for want of funds to carry them on? He contended that the whole of this expenditure had been cast away, and that the money might have been applied to more justifiable works. A permanent transfer of the seat of Government to the Hills would be likely to inflict injustice and hardship upon Native public servants, who would be compelled either to take their families at great expense to the Hills or to separate themselves from them, and such separation would be exceedingly distasteful to Natives, especially to Hindus. The withdrawal of the seat of Government from the plains caused great inconvenience to those among the Native community who had grievances to bring forward or proposals of public benefit to make, for, instead of finding easy access to the source of justice and power, they were compelled to take a journey to a remote station at a considerable sacrifice of time and money. Another objection to the removal of the seat of Government to the Hills was, that while the Governor 1348 resided there he lost touch of all the chief industries of the country, excepting only the planting industry. He hoped the answer of the noble Earl the Secretary of State for India (the Earl of Kimberley) would go far to satisfy and to relieve the apprehensions of those whom he had the honour to represent on that occasion.
§ Petition offered to be presented.
§ LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY, in supporting the Petition from Madras and the noble Lord who had presented it, said, that it would be well first to eliminate that which, judging from the Indian Press, was not considered a grievance in this matter of the annual resort to the Hills. Firstly, there was no complaint made in the Bombay Presidency against the Government going to Mahabaleshwar, which was only about 24 hours from Bombay; the only complaint made there was one that was general all over India, that too much money was spent on the macadamized roads round these summer resorts and round cantonments, while too little was spent on roads required for traffic. With regard to the Government of Calcutta, the complaint was not so much against the Governor General, the Executive Council, and a few Secretaries going to Simla, as against all the subordinate officials who now imitated the Supreme Government and flocked to Naini Tal and other places. The complaint was that the Supreme Government was away too long—the usual period being eight months, to which another month must be added for journeys and packing and unpacking of documents. The Supreme Government might be absent without its absence being injurious, as was that of the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal and the Governor of Madras, and other subordinate officials who required to be in daily contact with the people whose affairs it was their duty to administer. Moreover, there was an advantage in the Supreme Government being absent for a time from Calcutta, where it was liable to fall too much under the influence of the Anglo-Indian unofficial element. The evil of this excessive resort of so many of the officials to the Hills was not so much the expense to which they put the country, and the discontent caused by this increase to salaries already too large, since they had been fixed in 1349 consideration of the officials having to endure the heat of the Plains; the chief evil was that the officials became more and more separated from the inhabitants of the country, and more ignorant of their wants and feelings. Also it gave an appearance of decay in the English race, since the present officials are, or profess themselves to be, unable to endure such slight hardships as Englishmen formerly eudured cheerfully. A short time before the Crimean War Prince Soltykoff published his travels in Persia and India; and he inveighed against the luxury of the British Army in India, and said that those troops would be victorious which could best endure the climate, and had not lost their power of marching. In the Madras Presidency there was an additional ground of complaint against the long time the Government remained in the Nilghiri Hills, on the part of the Madrassee clerks and other Natives of Madras who might be obliged to go there on business, on account of their sufferings from the cold when obliged to go to Ootacamund, where they said that even the English required fires. He knew from personal experience in Ceylon that people accustomed to the heat of the Plains would suffer from the cold in these mountains. It was not the expense of removal to the Hills alone that the people of Madras complained of. According to a Madras paper, the expenditure last year at Ootacamund for the Government House and other buildings for officials amounted to Rs. 770,381; while the Madras Government had declared at short intervals its inability to provide funds for important public works. It was also intended by the Government of Madras to have removed the Military Accountant's Office to Bangalore, to a fort claimed by the Maharajah of Mysore; but this project was stopped by the Calcutta Government on receiving the remonstrances of the people of Madras. Now, the statement in the Petition concerning expenditure was based upon, and confirmed by, a speech of Mr. Grant Duff's at the opening of the Madras Drainage Works on June 30 last. Now, in accordance with the Notice he had put down upon the Minutes, he would ask the noble Earl the Secretary of State for India (the Earl of Kimberley), whether he or the Supreme Government had given a previous sanction for 1350 the expenditure by Mr. Grant Duff for repairs of the Government House at Ootacamund, and for furniture and silk hangings; and, if not, why had they not fulfilled the office of what Mr. Grant Duff calls "financial demons," or, in Parliamentary language, that of strict supervisors of the way the money of the taxpayers of Southern India was expended? It was generally stated that £6,000 of this money had been expended on silk hangings for the Governor's House. He (Lord Stanley of Alderley) knew that Mr. Grant Duff's Predecessor had left the Government House in good tenant-able condition. Last year, when he complained in that House of Mr. Grant Duff's treatment of the prisoner of Palconda, and of his following in the footsteps of Sir Frederick Adam, he had mentioned instances of Sir Frederick Adam's maladministration of justice in the Ionian Islands. Besides that, Sir Frederick Adam had built for himself at the public expense three residences in Corfu and Zante, in addition to two palaces already provided for him. Here, again, Sir Frederick Adam's bad example had borne fruit, and Mr. Grant Duff had been as lavish on himself as his remote Predecessor had been. In his speech of the 30th of June last Mr. Grant Duff quoted a long extract from one of his own magazine articles, written 15 years ago, giving his ideal of our duties in India. The ideal is excellent, but the practice falls very far short of it. Mr. Grant Duff, however, deserved the commendation bestowed upon him by the noble Lord who had just sat down, for his industry in visiting all parts of the Presidency. Rather more than 30 years ago, there was a long correspondence at the Colonial Office with a Governor who, without authorization, had put up a pump. That might have been an excess of red tape; but there appeared to have been an excess the other way in the case of the silk hangings at Ootacamund.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY, in reply, said, that the noble Lord who had introduced the subject spoke with such great authority on questions of this hind, from his connection with the Government of Madras, and knowledge of India, that it was with great regret he was unable, in the main, to agree with the views the noble Lord had expressed. In point of principle, he did not see any difference at all between the Supreme Government 1351 and the Local Governments taking relaxation in the cooler regions of the Hills. So far as there was any public opinion in India, it was quite as adverse to the removal of the Governor General as it was to that of the Local Governments; and in principle he was unable to separate the one from the other. As the subject was one that had been much discussed of late, he would remark that the chief author of the migration to Simla was a Governor General who, of all others, was not the man to shirk work or to spare himself—he meant the late Lord Lawrence—the amount of work he did in India was astonishing, and his opinion was exceedingly strong on the necessity of the Supreme Government going to Simla. An interesting correspondence on the subject took place between the then Secretary of State for India—Sir Charles Wood — and Lord Lawrence, and a part of it was printed in The Life of Lord Lawrence. In a letter to Sir Charles Wood, written in 1864, and given in volume 2, at page 426, Lord Lawrence, speaking of the migration to Simla, said—
I do not, however, think that a better arrangement is to be made. The work now is probably treble, possibly quadruple, what it was 20 years ago; and it is, for the most part, of a very difficult nature. Neither could your Governor General and his Council really do it in the hot weather in Calcutta. At the best, as you say, they would work at half speed. … This place, of all Hill Stations, seems to me the best for the Supreme Government. Here you are with one foot, I may say, in the Punjab, and another in the North-West Provinces. Here you are among a docile population, and yet near enough to influence Oude. Around you, in a word, are all the warlike races of India, all those on whose character and power our hold in India, exclusive of our own countrymen depends.The authority of Lord Lawrence seemed to him to be almost conclusive on the subject. When the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Salisbury) was at the India Office he wrote a despatch, the effect of which was to prescribe a limit to the stay at Simla. As regarded what were termed the additional Members of the Viceroy's Council, there was no doubt it was more convenient, and in every way better, that the consideration of Bills should take place in Calcutta. With respect to the Petition from Madras, he was sure the noble Lord who presented it would not make himself responsible for all its statements, some of 1352 which were of an exaggerated kind. The apprehension that the Government was about to fix itself permanently at Ootacamund was altogether unfounded. Nor was there any intention to abolish the Board of Inland Revenue, although there were proposed reforms of it under consideration. Very exaggerated statements had been made as to the evil consequences of the Madras Government leaving Madras and going to the Hills. An arrangement was made in 1869, sanctioned by his noble Friend (the Duke of Argyll), that the Government of Madras should go to the Hills for three months in each year; and no doubt that arrangement had since been set aside. How this was first set aside he could not trace; but it appeared that when Lord Hobart went out he obtained permission to go to the Hills for a longer time, and since then it had become the uniform practice for the Governor to pass something like six months on the Hills. In this the Governors of Madras were only following the example of the other Local Governments. Opinions in the Indian Service had much changed on this subject. When the practice was first introduced, the older members of the Service condemned it; but further experience had changed their opinions, and the practice was now regarded as advantageous. Europeans, it was seen, could do their work much better if, during the hot season, they sojourned in cooler districts. Mr. Grant Duff had personally no objection to Madras. He said he had no particular desire to go away from Madras for six months; yet he was strongly in favour of the practice of doing so. No doubt, if the Governor simply perched himself on the Hills and did not descend into the Plains, the practice would be most undesirable; but, during his absence from Madras, it was Mr. Grant Duff's practice to take advantage of the opportunity to make journeys into the surrounding districts, to come into contact with the various communities, and to make himself acquainted with the working of the Civil Service in those parts of his Presidency. This was a very important point, and must be regarded as of great advantage, for unless the Governor saw these servants and knew how the work was being done, his administration could not be efficiently conducted. It must also be remembered that the Governor's residence on the 1353 Hills was only 24 hours' journey from Madras, and that he was, therefore, in constant communication with Madras. The Army headquarters had also been removed to the Hills, and with the strong approval of General Roberts. The proposed removal of a certain part of the military offices to Bangalore, which had been alluded to, was connected with certain changes in the arrangements of the fort at Madras; but the proposal had been given up. He (the Earl of Kimberley) did not desire to undervalue the importance of having the Governments in contact with the Europeans and all those who lived in the capitals. It was, no doubt, advantageous that the Governors should move about the country; but it would not do for them to lose touch of those who lived in the capitals. He quite admitted that; but, without saying anything derogatory of those who had raised this question in India, he thought they had, owing to their personal feelings in the matter, been led somewhat to exaggerate the inconvenience of the Governor's absence from Madras. It was very much a question of degree. It might lead to considerable difficulties if a Governor were absent unduly long; but Her Majesty's Government would take care that this did not take place. Reference had been made to the expenses of the Governor's residence on the Hills. The expense of building and furnishing that residence certainly had been large; but it would be unjust to lay this to the charge of Mr. Grant Duff, for it was in an advanced state when he first went out. It was, therefore, necessary to complete it and furnish it. The attention of the Government of India was first called to the erection of a Government House at Ootacamund in 1878, when explanations and estimates were asked for from the Madras Government. A revised estimate was sanctioned in 1882, and a final estimate in 1883. In answer to an inquiry from him as to this final estimate the Government of India explained that the expenditure was incurred by the Madras Government without their authority, under a misconception of which the origin must be traced many years back. The construction of the building entailed a corresponding expense in furnishing it; and when the matter first came under the cognizance of the Government of 1354 India the work had proceeded too far to justify any interference. As to the hangings mentioned by the noble Lord (Lord Stanley of Alderley), Mr. Grant Duff, when he arrived at Madras, found that the house, which had been begun some years before he left England, required to be finished and furnished, and the silk hangings, about which he (the Earl of Kimberley) had no special information, were, he concluded, part of the furniture considered necessary. He had no reason to believe that they had cost more than silk hangings usually did.
§ THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM AND CHANDOSsaid, as one who had tried the power of doing work in India, and been able to watch the progress of work in the plains as compared with that on the Hills, he bore his testimony to the fact that there was a very material diminution, notwithstanding the high pressure at which they were working at the time, in the work that was got through during the five or six months of the hot weather in the Plains. He therefore fully endorsed the statement of his noble Friend the Secretary of State for India (the Earl of Kimberley), that a very much greater amount of work was got through by the Government in the Hills. There was one other point to which he wished to advert, and that was the marked difference of position between all Members of Council and other officers of the Government. The former, whatever amount of recreation they might have had on the Hills in former days, had now to work just as many hours in the Hills as in the plains. It must be remembered that during those five years during which a member of the Civil Service, after 21 years' service in India, served as a Member of Council he got no leave whatever, except by illness, from his regular duties; while every other officer could, if he found it necessary, cut himself adrift from business altogether for a month, whether he went away or not. That was an important difference, which could not be overlooked in the consideration of the question. During the time he had the honour to be in Madras he certainly came to the conclusion that it was for the interest of the Government that a reasonable time of change of climate should be spent by the Members of Council and the Governor all together upon the Hills.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, that it was his privilege to appoint Lord Hobart; but he had not the slightest recollection of the arrangement which his noble Friend the Secretary of State for India (the Earl of Kimberley) had said originated with Lord Hobart; but he had no doubt that his noble Friend was quite accurate in stating that the change of extension of leave began in his time. He had a very distinct and vivid recollection of discussions on many occasions in the Council here when he was Secretary of State for India with reference to the Supreme Government of India. At that time, however, the Council was full of old, hardened men, some of whom were the finest specimens of humanity he had ever seen—such men as Mr. Prinsepp, Sir James Hogg, and Mr. Currie, all men who had spent 30 or 40 years in India with hardly any leave. They used habitually to quote to him the example of Lord Hastings, who never left Calcutta and always conducted his business sitting in the very stiffest of chairs, and dressed in the very stiffest of uniforms. That might be all very fine for men of such constitutions as his (Lord Hastings), and his (the Duke of Argyll's) view was simply this—that times had wholly changed since the days of Lord Hastings. The work was enormously greater, railways had been invented, and the distance from Simla was now comparatively nothing. His noble Friend (Lord Napier and Ettrick) had brought the matter forward with his usual ability and with great clearness; but, in his (the Duke of Argyll's) opinion, the balance of argument was largely against him.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, it was only fair, since Lord Hobart was unfortunately no more, to state that he had merely mentioned that he had been told that an extension had been made in Lord Hobart's time; but he had no certain authority for the statement. He wished to add that in 1882 the question of the longer stay of the Governor of Madras was before his Predecessor in Council; but the Secretary of State in Council did not then think it necessary to take any notice of the change from three to six months.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, that, as far as he remembered, Lord Hobart did make some kind of understanding upon the subject of a longer 1356 stay in the Hills. That strong objection to the residence in the Hills was just dying away when he (the Marquess of Salisbury) was succeeded by his noble Friend opposite (the Duke of Argyll) as Secretary of State for India. Just then the stern Romans who had formed the bulk of the Council were beginning to resign, and it fell to his lot to fill up the vacancies; and all the younger men who were appointed fully believed in the value of the extension of the time in the Hills. Men like Mr. Prinsepp and Sir James Hogg looked upon the migration as the beginning of the decadence of the Indian Empire. He believed that the change of practice that had been brought about was due to increased facilities of locomotion, and where they existed it was impossible to resist the tendency to move. Before determining whether or not the Supreme Government should remain permanently at Calcutta, they ought to consider whether it was desirable that that Government should always be subjected to the Anglo-Indian influence, which made itself felt there, or whether that influence was not better exercised in a more intermittent manner. There was a time when it was thought that the influence in question should be exercised continuously; but recently that view had been modified. On the ground that the Government of India gained a certain independence, which might make itself felt in its decisions by an occasional absence from Calcutta, a great deal could be said in favour of its repairing to the Hills for a time. It would, however, be most unfortunate if a practice were to grow up of staying at Hill Stations during the whole of the time allowed to Government officials for such vacations. Formerly the Government used to treat the vacation as a precious opportunity for visiting various parts of the Dominion in order to come into contact with Native potentates and populations. Such visits, though expensive, conduced to the welfare of the country generally. Subject to these considerations, he thought it would be very unwise to compel officials to live throughout the year in places where at certain times the full power of their minds could not be exercised, especially when the tendency was to appoint to high places in our Eastern Empire men who had grown up in European politics rather 1357 than men having an exclusive experience of India.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, that there was an informality in the Petition, inasmuch as it had no signatures attached to it, the signatures being on separate sheets. He would be extremely sorry, however, if the Petitioners should have the notion that it had been rejected. It was, no doubt, a bonâ fide Petition, and, though technically it could not be received, it should be understood that it had been before the House and discussed; and he hoped that the Petitioners would not entertain any feeling of disappointment.
§ Petition (by leave of the House) withdrawn.