Lords Sitting of 11 March 1909

UNITED KINGDOM TEMPERANCE AND GENERAL PROVIDENT INSTITUTION BILL [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to order), and committed.
CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
Brought from the Commons and read 1a.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING ACTS AMENDMENT BILL. [H.L.]
A Bill to amend the Acts relating to Electric Lighting — Was presented by The Lord Hamilton of Dalzell; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Wednesday next. (No. 15.)
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Standing Order No. XXXIX considered (according to order), and suspended for this day's sitting.
CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 1) BILL.
Standing Order No. XXXIX having been suspended, Bill read 2a (The Lord Privy Seal (E. Crewe)): Committee negatived: Bill read 3a, and passed.

INDIAN COUNCILS BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACK-BURN):My Lords, I will not trespass on your indulgence for more than a few minutes in moving the Third Reading of this Bill. This Motion brings us, not I daresay to the last, but certainly to a decisive stage in this legislation. The importance of this legislation has been much dwelt upon by noble Lords opposite, and I hope they will believe that no one recognises more fully than I do the responsibility that we all take in passing this Bill. I accept, not the anticipations of noble Lords opposite, but I accept their view that the operations which may follow the passing of this law will be, in one direction
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or another, of a serious character, well deserving of our fullest attention.
I must say that, with one exception, I have no complaint to offer of the tone and scope of the criticisms which noble Lords opposite who are so competent to speak on Indian affairs bestowed upon our proposals. They were, I think, open to a perfect answer; but the true answer, after all, will be found in the events that follow the working of the Act. We, for our part—and when I say we I hope I may be allowed to include not only His Majesty's Government here but the Government of India—anticipate from this Act the most beneficent results. If things should take an untoward turn the responsibility would not lie alone with us. I think the fact that noble Lords opposite did not divide against the Second Reading—with which I have not the slightest intention of taunting them—shows, I think, that they feel that the responsibility of rejecting our proposals would be a very grave and serious responsibility from which in the legitimate discharge of their public and patriotic duty they naturally shrink.
I said there was one exception to my absence of complaint. I am not going to travel again at length over the ground of my complaint as to the rejection of the third clause of the Bill. The other day I said that authorities in India had telegraphed to me that they regarded that rejection as an unfortunate incident. I see in some prints that I ought to have mentioned who those authorities were, and there was an implication that they were authorities of no particular account. The authority—I do not know why I should not mention it—was the Viceroy. The Viceroy's judgment the day after the rejection of the clause took place was that the rejection of the clause was unfortunate, and I have since seen language used by a very important person that it was disastrous.
I have been blamed for bringing again before your Lordships the third clause two or three days after it had been thrown out. I am assured that it was an unusual course in your Lordships' House; but I thought it my duty in fairness to the House that, after they had thrown out the clause, they should know and be guided by the knowledge and, as I hoped, the impression of the result of that proceeding in India.

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It was through no pertinacity or stubbornness, however, to force my own proposal upon the House, because I have felt all through the proceedings since the debate began that this is not the case of an ordinary party Bill, and noble Lords opposite have not treated it in that spirit. I cordially admit that. Of course, Lord Curzon reminded your Lordships and His Majesty's Government that the resources of civilisation are not entirely exhausted by the rejection of the clause in your Lordships' House, and it may be, as Lord Curzon hinted, that another opportunity at a not considerably later date may be given to this House to examine the arguments for that clause and the position in which that proposal stands.
I turn for a moment with great reluctance to a sort of semi-personal point. Language is used in public prints, and I hear something of it even in private conversation, that there has been some mystification on my part, and random and schoolboy innuendoes are thrown out, almost lurid descriptions are sometimes drawn, as to the origin and source of this Bill. I must apologise for taking up your Lordships' time with a matter of this kind, but still it is best, in an important proceeding of this sort, that all who take an interest in this subject—and there must be, I hope, many thousands of people who do take an interest—should know how this matter has proceeded.
What do people mean when they say that reforms were wrung from the Secretary of State by an Indian political leader—a certain Indian political leader well known to some of your Lordships? I ask the House, was it not the business of a Secretary of State or a Viceroy when undertaking a great scheme for improving local government in India, was it not the business of those two responsible Ministers to gather opinion upon proper details of such a scheme from every source, official and unofficial? If you are going to try to improve the administration of a country, is a Minister, whether at Whitehall or at Simla, to shut his eyes and ears to opinion from every source and to the very persons who may be most concerned by the right or wrong, the expediency or inexpediency, the sense or folly of his measures? Is there a single Member of your Lordships' House, however he may doubt the policy of this Bill, who will deny for a moment that the
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business of a Minister or a Viceroy was to hear opinion on every side?
Now, Mr. Gokhale, who is well known as a prominent and responsible spokesman of a very highly important section or branch of Indian opinion, came to see me at the India Office before the Despatch of the Government of India of October last reached this country. I wound up our conversation with a request, which I have made to other people, that he would be so good as to write on sheet of notepaper his views as to the reforms which he and his friends desired, and he did so. Did I stop there? The very self-same process I went through with a spokesman of the Mahomedans. He visited me. I made to him the same request, and he complied in the same way. I do not call that wringing a measure from a Minister; and, if it is worth mentioning, I may say that I never had any communication whatever after that—which, I think, was on some day in September—with Mr. Gokhale until the day before he left this country—after my Despatch had gone—when he called to say good-bye.
What did I do with those two notes? I followed in every proceeding connected with this policy, and especially with this Bill, the ordinary regular official course with one exception, which I will mention in a moment. No proceeding was ever more strictly in order, was ever more above board, no transaction ever went through the not very exhilarating precincts of Whitehall more strictly in accord with ordinary rule and procedure. What happened? Those two notes and a great quantity of other material were laid before a committee. Here was the exception that I made to the ordinary procedure. Before the Indian Despatch arrived I received a summary of its contents from the Government of India, and I appointed a committee from the Council of India, and I was able to invite to that committee as amicus curiœ the noble Lord who sits behind me. They had these communications before them. [LORD MACDONNELL indicated dissent.] I was not present. I was away. Then came the Despatch of the Government of India, and that was discussed in the most strict conformity with the ordinary procedure of the India Office. It was referred to the appropriate Committee. Two or three members from the Council were added to the Committee,

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and they threshed out the Despatch, and came to the conclusions which ultimately formed the basis of my Despatch of November last. That is the whole story. I only regret that I did not see a great many more Indians. I saw all that I could; I wish I could have seen more. So much for that.
Then we are charged with not paying attention enough to the Government of India. I will not go into the constitutional and statutory relations between the Secretary of State and the Government of India. They are well known. They are beyond cavil and dispute. This is no occasion for opening that subject, and I hope for my own part that no such occasion will ever arise, because there are arcana Imperii which it is not expedient, I think, to make matter of debate in Parliament. The case of the relative rights and duties of the Secretary of State and the Viceroy does not arise, because I doubt if ever there was in the history of discussion between two Ministers, heads of powerful Departments, a discussion such as the Government of India and we have carried on for a great many months, but closely and constantly during the last two months, carried on with a more complete absence of the spirit of contention. I say that—and my words will be open to public scrutiny or the scrutiny of those who know all the secrets, such secrets as there are—without any misgiving or hesitation of the spirit in which we have worked together. The only thing I am going at this moment to read was in my Despatch of November to the Government of India, replying to their Despatch, in which I applauded, recognised, and thanked them for their industry, patience, thought, and candour. And then I say—
"It is a sincere satisfaction to me to find myself able to accept the substantial part of your Excellency's scheme, with such modifications as would naturally occur to different minds"—the Governor-General in Council and the Secretary of State in Council—"handling problems of remarkable difficulty in themselves and reasonably open to a wide variety of interpretation."
That spirit, which animated both myself in Council and the Governor-General in Council, has gone on unabated and unimpaired, and if there are points that we have pressed that they would not of themselves have proposed, there has been no serious demur. If there had been serious demur to such a proposal as, for example, that of the official
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majorities or the proposal to take power to appoint Executive Councils in the great Provinces, I should have been shaken. Therefore I hope that the House will believe that these. I will not say arguments, but these innuendoes—I am not accusing the noble Marquess of stooping to that—of which I hear so much are really random, undeserved, and complete moonshine.
I have no more to say about the Bill except this. It has been admitted all through—the noble Marquess has not denied it, and Lord Curzon expressly admitted it—that we had reason to congratulate ourselves so far on the fact that the introduction of the Bill and the announcement of the policy which it was my fortune to make in your Lordships' House in December have produced a remarkable abatement in the tension which was formerly a source of difficulty and embarrassment to Lord Minto's Government. Without making a boast—it is too early yet—as to the effect of the Bill, I think the House will be interested to know of the account I received on March 6. I cannot reproduce the text, but I hope your Lordships will allow me to convey to you the substance of it. It bears on the Bill and on the public mind in this country in judging the Bill.
"The insinuation that Indian political leaders are still unwilling to denounce outrages is not the case. So I am assured. Immediately after the murder of the counsel [the hateful murder the other day of the prosecuting counsel in the case] an influential native meeting was held in the Town Hall of Calcutta to protest against the outrage. The Moderates are quite genuine in their wish to assist in putting down anarchy. India is not [so I am assured and readily believe, and all the evidence points in the same way] in a state of insurrection. That is not to say that we may not expect further isolated attempts at outrage. The Government of India do not believe them to be instigated by any political party of the least importance. Any further outrages which may probably occur at intervals would in no way indicate widespread sedition or justify a belief in the disloyalty of the political leaders. The position now is really one for police watchfulness. Isolated outrages will not in any way justify [I commend this to any of your Lordships who doubt the policy of the Bill or have misgivings in connection

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with it] the assumption that the general state of the country is dangerous."
I hope the House will think that that is a very satisfactory state of things. Language of that sort could not have been used six months ago. I am not taking credit for that improved state of things entirely to the Bill, but I am very earnest in pressing on your Lordships, as I have done all through the stages of the Bill, this fact—that any interruption or whittling away or retardation of this Bill will do something to impair what is satisfactory in the account I have just had the honour of communicating to your Lordships. I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Viscount Morley of Blackburn.)
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE:My Lords, I am sure we all listened with pleasure to the concluding part of the noble Viscount's observations, in which he was able to give us, on the whole, a reassuring account of the condition of India, and I think the noble Viscount is entitled to take credit to himself and to his colleagues for the fact that the introduction of this Bill did, no doubt, very considerably serve to relieve the position, which was becoming acute, in that country.
I do not propose to take up your Lordships' time with any discussion of the relations of the noble Viscount with Mr. Gokhale, on which he dwelt at some length. I will say this, at any rate, that we all of us must admit that he had not only the right but that it was his duty to gather valuable information from any source where valuable information could be gathered, and personally I have no complaint to make of him for having elicited what information he could from Mr. Gokhale. Mr. Gokhale's complaint, I understand—this I only gather from what I read in the newspapers—is that in those massive Bluebooks that were presented to us there was included an early memorandum, written by Mr. Gokhale at least three years ago, which does not represent Mr. Gokhale's present opinions. Mr. Gokhale, as we understand, has since put in other memoranda which express very different opinions, and naturally enough a good many people would be curious to see what those amended opinions of Mr. Gokhale are like.
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His Majesty's Ministers are rather unlucky in these matters. Whenever they do something very novel or original, if they do such a thing in Ireland or if they do such a thing in India, they are immediately told that they have appropriated somebody else's ideas and that their proposals are merely plagiarisms. I am sure the noble Viscount recollects a passage in Boswell in which it is related that at one time Dr. Johnson was in the habit, I think on Sunday evenings, of visiting the house of a certain Dr. John Campbell. But after a time he came to the conclusion that it was better for him no longer to frequent the doctor's society because he said he was convinced that the shoals of Scotsmen to be found there would, whenever "he did anything well," immediately remark, "Aye, aye! he must have learned that from 'Cawmell.'" I leave the noble Viscount opposite to apply the moral which I seem to detect in that little story.
I am glad to have an opportunity of vindicating, if such a thing is necessary, the conduct of your Lordships' House in dealing with this Bill. We have, on one or two occasions, had to ask the noble Viscount not to hurry us too much in the consideration of it. After all, the Bill has been introduced and has come to the Third Reading in less than three weeks. That is not a very long time. The Bill represents the result of a process of consideration which, the noble Viscount told us the other evening, has lasted for three years. We are parting with the Bill after a study of three weeks. I do not think that is an unreasonable allowance. But we quite understand and realise the force of the noble Viscount's argument when he told us it was not desirable that this matter should remain too long in suspense, and, for that reason, although a great many of us would gladly have wished for further time in which to consider these proposals, we did, in deference to the noble Viscount's wishes, accelerate the different stages of the Bill in a somewhat unusual manner.
I think we may also claim that our treatment of the Bill has not been devoid of forbearance for this reason. We are still almost entirely without information, either from the Bill itself or from the speeches which have been made from the other side of the House, as to several points of cardinal importance. We do not know

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what is to be the process of election which is to be resorted to under this Bill. All that we do know is that the Government of India proposed one kind of procedure and the noble Viscount proposed another. I hope that the noble Viscount, when he tells us that he is in close agreement with the Governor-General in Council, will be able to base his proposal as to election upon the very wise words which I find in the Despatch of the Government of India in 1907: they run as follows:—
"No scheme of constitutional reform would meet the real requirements of the present time which did not make adequate provision for representing the landed aristocracy of India, the mercantile and industrial classes, and the great body of moderate men who, under the existing conditions, have no sufficient inducement to enter political life, and find but little scope for the exercise of their legitimate influence."
Another matter as to which we are still quite in the dark is the question of disqualification. We do not know, for example, whether a person who has been deported from India for participation in seditious practices is or is not to be disqualified. Finally, we are left in great uncertainty as to the procedure to be adopted and the principles to be followed in the selection of Indian members of the Executive Councils. Until—to use my noble friend's expression—the blank cheque has been filled up it is impossible for us to know how the new policy will work in certain particulars. But of this we may be perfectly well assured, that the new departure is one of a most serious kind, and that it will mark an epoch in the history of India. Indeed, I think the noble Viscount himself said words admitting very nearly as much when he spoke to the House a few moments ago. We are, I know, told that this Bill is a kind of natural development of the Act of 1892. I must protest against any statement of the kind. The group of measures which is comprised in this Bill and in the steps which will be taken to give effect to it go very far indeed beyond anything you can find in the Bill of 1892. If I may so put it, this Bill is not merely a step forward, it is a plunge forward, and a plunge which will lead us we cannot yet tell where. The noble Earl who leads the House rather took exception to some remarks of ours the other evening, because he said we ought to be satisfied to be guided by the man on the spot. I have already ventured to suggest, and I do so again,
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that the proposals of the noble Viscount are widely different from the proposals which were made to him by the Government of India. To-night he told us, with that frankness which he observes, that there had been points which had been pressed upon the Government of India which they would not themselves have proposed.
VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN:Suggested rather than pressed.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE:The word he used was "pressed." Well, that is certainly the case. This Bill goes beyond the proposals laid before the Secretary of State last autumn in several most important respects. For example, if I may particularise, the proposal of the Government of India dealt with the Legislative Councils only. It dealt, in the second place, with the Legislative Councils in a very much more cautious spirit than the proposals of the noble Viscount. The official majority was retained, the question of the franchise treated in a wholly different spirit, the right of discussion was much more closely limited. But that is not all. The proposals of the Government of India for, so to speak, liberalising the Legislative Councils had alongside them as a counterpoise other proposals for setting up councils of different kinds—councils of the ruling chiefs, mixed councils, advisory councils. The noble Viscount is going to tell me that some of them were dropped. But some of them remained to the last, and are still to be found in the Despatch of August last. My point is this, that those proposals which have now disappeared were the counterpoise of the proposals to be found in the Bill upon the Table.
I would almost venture to put it in this way. The scheme of the Government of India was a scheme which had two limbs to it. There was one limb dealing with the Legislative Councils—a mildly democratic limb; there was another limb dealing with these advisory councils, which were institutions of a distinctly conservative character. Look what happens! In the scheme which is now going forward the conservative limb has been lopped off altogether and has disappeared. The mildly democratic limb has become a great deal more democratic, and to the whole scheme have been added new proposals not put forward by the Government of India, for dealing in what I venture to call an

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almost revolutionary spirit with the question of the Executive Councils. I say that this House has shown much forbearance because in spite of all this your Lordships' House has given a very temperate and indulgent consideration to the Bill.
We have, indeed, insisted upon one Amendment, and one Amendment only. I am not going to take up the time of the House by repeating the arguments in favour of the Amendment which we carried, but I do wish to say one word in reference to a remark which fell from the noble Viscount just now when he told us that he had ascertained that the Viceroy and his Council were entirely in favour of the proposals to be found in Clause 3. That was not our point at all. Our point was that the Viceroy himself in his Despatch had explained as clearly as possible that in his opinion it was necessary that there should be in the first place experience of the new Legislative Councils, and that after that there should be full consultation, not with his own Council, but with those high authorities who were best able to advise him. Our case is that that experience has not been had, and that consultation has not taken place.
I am bound to say that the serious misgivings with which I have regarded this Bill from the first have not been removed by anything which has been said in this House. And I venture to say that those misgivings are very widely shared. I do not think they are entertained only by persons whom the noble Viscount would probably regard as bureaucrats of a rather hidebound description. I believe that if the noble Viscount and I could compose a kind of Indian panel, consisting of, let us say, fifty or 100 Indian experts—men who are now in high position in India, men who have held high position in India during the last twenty years—I believe if you referred these proposals to them you would get from a very large majority a verdict that the proposals, taken as a whole, are of a kind calculated to weaken the hands and impair the authority of the Government of India, to embarrass very seriously the Indian Civil Service, and, I am afraid, to sacrifice the interests of those millions of people for whom we are trustees to the demands of a relatively small minority—I certainly would not say a negligible minority—but a minority of which a very large section desires these
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radical changes in the Indian Constitution because they regard them as the first step to undermining and eventually overthrowing our authority in that country. These are the considerations which I venture to lay before your Lordships, and I could not part company with this Bill without telling the House exactly my feelings with regard to it.
THE MARQUESS OF RIPON:My Lords, I hope your Lordships will allow me to address some remarks to you at this time, because I have hitherto been unable, through illness, to be present, either in Committee or on the Report stage, and I did not see that I was in any way called upon to intervene in the important debate which took place on the Second Reading. I confess that I have been greatly struck by the difference of tone in the speech of the representative of noble Lords opposite from that which was displayed on the Second Reading of the Bill. On the Second Reading your Lordships appeared to be under the glamour, if I may be permitted to say so, of the great speech of my noble friend behind me; and I do not think I have often witnessed in this House a greater success than that was. To-night that spirit has disappeared, and we have heard criticisms of a different kind and offered in a different spirit.
I should be the last one to accuse my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition of desiring to introduce party spirit here or elsewhere into the consideration of this measure. I cannot conceive anything more disadvantageous than the dragging in of a spirit of that kind into these Indian discussions; and it is on that ground for one, that I deprecate constant legislation in Parliament upon Indian questions, because I earnestly wish that the people of India should know that, when we come to consider their affairs, we desire to deal with them solely in their interests. I should be sorry to say that noble Lords opposite approach this Bill in any other spirit.
My noble friend who has just sat down alluded to the Bill of 1892. I remember that Bill very well, and I gave it such support as I could, approving, in my own mind, if not in speech, the course then adopted, which in the circumstances of the time in India and England required all the courage shown by my noble

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friend Lord Cross in introducing that Bill. But neither Lord Cross nor myself supposed that Bill was going to be regarded as a law of the Medes and Persians which never could be changed, and I venture to claim that in the further advance which my noble friend behind me has now made, he has been acting in the spirit of the Act of 1892. I do not intend at this moment to discuss the details of this measure, neither am I physically able to do so; but I do desire to give my most complete assent to the proposals of my noble friend behind me, who, dealing with circumstances of great difficulty, has adopted, as it seems to me, the truest policy in such cases, on the one hand firmly putting down every attempt at sedition or outrage, and on the other hand bringing forward this measure, which in his view is calculated to lead to necessary reforms.
The position of my noble friend opposite is different; he is filled with a dread of these reforms and he thinks the proposals made in this Bill go a great deal too far. I confess that if I entertained the opinion which I understand my noble friend opposite to entertain of the possible results of this legislation, I should have been not less but more inclined to resist it; but surely my noble friend knows enough of India—he knows a great deal more of India than I do, for he was there for a longer time and had very full experience of it—surely he knows enough of India to know that there is not really a dangerous condition of affairs there. It is a condition of affairs showing, on the one hand, a spirit of outrage and conspiracy and violent hostility to the Government which I believe to be without parallel hitherto in that country, but showing, on the other hand, a desire for moderate improvement and moderate advance which I also think has only of late years grown up. The legislation which my noble friend has offered to Parliament on this occasion is framed for the purpose of opening to the people of India a larger share than they have hitherto had in the administration of their own affairs. I believe that to be a reasonable and a proper object. I believe that it will tend to satisfy the ambitions and desires of reasonable men, and that it will tend more than anything else that the Government could have done to place British rule in India on a novel footing, no doubt, but a firmer and more certain foot-
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ing in the days in which we live than that on which it has hitherto stood.
When I was in India I was greatly struck by the strange state of things, as it seemed to me, which had been created by our system of education contrasted with the means of public employment which were open to the natives we were educating. Something was said on the question of education on the Second Reading, but I do not think we have heard of it since then. It is a question of the greatest possible importance. I am not going to discuss it now, and I should be very sorry if my allusion to it were to be supposed to imply any desire for the abandonment of the sound and just, principles laid down in Lord Macaulay's policy; but at the same time it cannot be denied that it is a difficult and, I think, a false position to be turning out year by year hundreds of young men with the highest education of European University without opening to the ambitions which such a training must raise up in them any means of legitimate satisfaction. It is because the proposals in this Bill tend to a certain extent to meet that difficulty that they will receive from me such support as it is in my power to give.
I rejoice that your Lordships are about, as I understand, to pass this Bill without further opposition. I think it was the noble Viscount opposite who said what seemed to me a very wise thing in his speech on the Second Reading. He said, as I understood him, that we must recollect in dealing with this Bill that we are not in the position of persons who were constructing an Indian Bill ab initio, but that we had to deal with a scheme already in existence; and it is, therefore, exceedingly desirable that Parliament should be very careful in all that it says and does upon this matter. Parliamentary proceedings are probably a dark enigma to most of the natives of India—they are not, indeed, always very intelligible to ourselves—and I am quite sure that if it should once be thought that this House or the other House had anything in view except what was best for our children in India—if I may use the word—they would become confirmed in the doubt and hesitation as to the nature of our rule with which some of them appear to be beset, and would abandon the belief, confirmed by the statement of my noble friend, that they may look to this country in these

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days to afford to them a means of taking a part in that kind of political administration which most countries are now enjoying.
The late Sir Robert Peel, after the passing of the Reform Bill, once in the House of Commons alluded to the difficulty of carrying on government under an ancient monarchy, a proud aristocracy, and a reformed House of Commons. I venture to say that the difficulty of carrying on government in India in face of the democratic movement to-day is at least as great, and that the dangers connected with it are at least as serious; and it is because I believe that my noble friend has done something to meet these difficulties and to avert those dangers that I give to this Bill my heartiest support.
I must say one word about Clause 3. I am not going to re-open that question. I merely wish to say that I much regret what happened in Committee. If I may be excused for saying so, I think your Lordships were wrong in rejecting that clause. The question is not a new one. It has been discussed many times for many years, and it has been discussed on the one side and on the other by some of the ablest men who have been connected with India. Opinions may differ upon it; it is just the sort of question upon which men, according to their idiosyncrasies, would be likely to differ. Had your Lordships been asked to create Executive Councils in all the Provinces at once without regard to their differences, I could have understood hesitation; but you were only asked to give power to the Government of India to do so in any Province it thought fit for the purpose, and that you should have refused that power I think is a mistake.
As I read the speech in Committee of my noble friend opposite, he appears to think that nothing would be easier than some years hence to bring in another Bill to confer this sort of constitution upon any of these Councils that we might think fit. I am one of those who recognise with the greatest satisfaction that the constitution of India rests upon Statute, that it does not rest upon Indian legislation, that it does not rest upon the will of the Indian Government, but that it rests upon a British Statute. But when I say that I do not mean that I have any desire that the question of Indian legislation
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should be constantly before Parliament. There is nothing I believe which would be more injurious to the interests of India than that. I believe rather that you should have given the power asked for, which you know perfectly well would have been exercised carefully and judiciously, and I trust that when the Bill comes back from the other House, if that clause should be replaced in it, as I hope it may, your Lordships will see fit to no longer insist on your Amendment.
LORD MACDONNELL OF SWINFORD:My Lords, with your indulgence I should like to offer a few remarks at this stage of the debate. As the noble Viscount the Secretary of State has told you, he did me the great honour of inviting me to assist the labours of the special committee formed out of his Council for considering the proposals of administrative reform in India. I was very willing and indeed glad to respond to that invitation, because, as many of your Lordships know, the greater part of my life has been spent in India and I owe to India the deepest debt of gratitude. I was therefore only too ready to fall in with the request of the Secretary of State. I think the noble Viscount will bear me out when I say that in nearly all the proposals which had been placed before us I was certainly not the least forward in making liberal recommendations. I associate myself with the proposals to increase the Executive Councils of Madras and Bombay. I associate myself with the proposals to increase the Legislative Councils, both Imperial and Provincial. I associate myself with the proposal to withdraw the official majority—indeed I think that was my own proposal.
VISCOUNT MORL OF BLACKBURN:No
LORD MACDONNELL OF SWINFORD:I also associate myself with other proposals, which have not appeared in the Bill, in connection with the internal administration of India. I think I may say that, with the exception of the proposals to which I have not agreed in this House, I was in general harmony with the feeling of the committee, and that the recommendations were not unacceptable to the Secretary of State. It has been to me a source of great regret that I have, through circumstances with which your Lordships are familiar, found myself in conflict upon any

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point with the noble Viscount. It will always be to me a subject of great regret, but I felt that I had a duty to discharge to your Lordships' House and to the country, and therefore I took strong exception to the proposal to appoint a native member to the Viceroy's Executive Council and to the proposal to create Executive Councils in Provinces administered by Lieutenant-Governors. My feeling was that the change on the latter head was far too momentous to be taken without previous experience and trial, and it was my hope that the addition of natives to the Councils of Madras and Bombay would give that experience and enable you later on to take a step forward if that was necessary. I went a step further, and, in my desire to remove what I felt was a source, and a persistent source, of discontent in Bengal, I ventured to suggest that if any way could be seen of bringing the whole of the Bengali-speaking people again under one administration I should be prepared even to give a Council there. In reading the debates which took place in 1868—or rather the discussions between the members of the Viceroy's Council in that year—I was struck by a remark made by one of the members that it would be a safe and useful thing to try an Executive Council in Bengal Proper, though not elsewhere. The Executive Councils under discussion then were entirely different from the Councils under this Bill. The Council which at that time it was proposed to create in Bengal was a Council on the Madras and Bombay model—a Governor assisted by two members, experienced officers chosen from the Civil Service of the Crown in India. That is an entirely different thing from the proposal now made, which is not only to have a Lieutenant-Governor with two official members but also two non-official members. who need necessarily have no experience of administration. It seemed to me that that was taking a very serious step, as to the results of which we had no experience, and I thought it would be better to proceed slowly to see what would be the effect of the enlarged Legislative Councils in Madras and 'Bombay, what would be the effect of the greatly extended power of interpellation, and what would be the effect of the criticism of the Budget now being granted in extended form. Notwithstanding all I have heard, I still adhere to the view that it is wiser to go slowly, and if we find that the great powers which are now being conferred are wisely
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exercised then I am sure nobody will be more ready than your Lordships to go forward in the same way. In my experience of India I have never drawn any distinction between the interests of the British Government and the interests of the people. I have always felt, and always shall feel, that whatever is injurious to the interests of the British Government must necessarily be injurious to the mass of the people, and therefore when any great question comes up, I look, not merely at the reasons, often specious and plausible, which are put forward from the popular side, but I also ask myself will there be any weakening at the centre or at the extremities in that control which, if it cannot be effectively exercised by the British Government in India, will certainly lead to great suffering and numberless embarrassments to millions of people.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON:My Lords, an appeal was addressed to us a few moments ago by the noble Marquess, whose reappearance in debate I am sure was extremely gratifying to members on both sides of the House, that we should not, if possible, allow this Bill to leave your Lordships' House accompanied by any spirit of discord. That appeal was in the same tone as one addressed to us at the outset by the noble Viscount the Secretary of State, and I should like to say that we on this side are by no means insensible to the force of that appeal. Indeed, I think that, although it has been our misfortune to differ in some respects from the noble Viscount, we have shown throughout a desire as far as we can to come into line with his proposals.
The noble Marquess concluded his speech with a suggestion that this Bill will probably be returned from another place with the clause reinstated to which exception has been taken, and to which objection the noble Lord who has just sat down has added the force of his authority. If we are asked for a consensus we must at the same time be supplied with the material for a consensus. Throughout the speech of the noble Marquess there was the idea that the Secretary of State and the Viceroy acting together had placed certain proposals before us, and that those proposals had met with objection here. The noble Marquess's speech breathed on this occasion that broad spirit of toleration and trust in the people for which

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he has always been distinguished; but we must not therefore be asked to assume that, that spirit being equally in the minds of others, their conclusions have been the same.
The Memorandum which accompanied Lord Minto's Despatch of last year contemplated a certain increase in the Legislative Councils; it contemplated discussions on the Budgets; it contemplated also rules with regard to the position of the presidents of the Councils. All the points of difference have come into the Bill since. Not merely has there been a great increase in the power of discussion in the Legislative Councils, but we have had the proposal to introduce into the inner sanctum, into the Executive Council, members whom the Viceroy has urged us to leave out until, by the process of time, we may see whether the working of the Legislative Councils justifies it. What we have urged on the noble Viscount throughout has been that he should give us material for coming to terms with him in a consensus of opinion—that he should give us the opinions of those in India in whom we may have confidence. At the present moment we are in this position, that, owing to the necessity of meeting a serious agitation and of recognising the great progress of education, we are asked to make one by one various concessions. Each concession taken alone does not seem so serious, but the whole of them taken together have a cumulative effect which we have never been able to get the noble Viscount to deal with from the point of view of their cumulative effect. When we approach that question the noble Viscount draws us off, without explaining how the misuse of those powers which may result is to be met by those in authority in India.
I cannot but hope that we may appeal to the noble Viscount not to raise the question of the Executive Councils again, and not to bring this House into collision with the other House of Parliament, unless he can at some time provide us, from those who have experience in the provincial Executive Councils, with some measure of support for the proposal that he presses upon us. I do not think that is an unreasonable demand. We have on this side five or six noble Lords who are entitled to speak upon, and who have spoken unanimously against, this
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particular provision of the Bill. There are on the other side, I think, three noble Lords who have held somewhat similar positions in India, and two of them have spoken in the same sense. Before the Bill comes up again I hope the noble Viscount will make his contribution to the unanimity which we all desire. We appreciate the appeal of the noble Marquess, knowing as we do the effect in India of divisions on this subject in Parliament, and knowing also that those divisions will be taken advantage of, and that after a proposal has been made by the Secretary of State the rejection of that proposal may be sometimes almost more dangerous than the passing of it, though the passing of it may be against conviction and experience.
LORD AMPTHILL:Will your Lordships allow me to make a correction? I did not like to interrupt the noble Viscount when he was speaking, but he claimed unanimous support on this side for the elimination of Clause 3. If I count at all, that was not strictly correct, for I voted with the noble Viscount the Secretary of State for India, and I owe it to the noble Viscount to say that I am still entirely with him on that subject as I am in regard to the rest of his reforms. Nothing that I have heard in this debate has shaken my faith in the wisdom, the necessity, and the prudence of that which he is proposing. My prejudices would, perhaps, naturally be another way, but my convictions and my opinions are with the noble Viscount the Secretary of State.
On Question, Bill read 3a.
Drafting Amendments made: Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS AND HIGHWAYS.
EARL FORTESCUErose to ask whether the attention of His Majesty's Government had been called to the serious damage lately caused to a main road in Devonshire by the laying of an underground telegraph line and by excessive traffic in connection with work carried out on behalf of the Postmaster-General; whether they were aware that heavy charges had been thereby imposed on the ratepayers of the county; to enquire what steps the Government proposed to take by way of compensation; and to move for Papers.

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The noble Earl said: My Lords, a little more than eighteen months ago the Post Office made a contract for delivery of cable at certain points on roads in Devonshire, and we very soon had occasion to find that serious damage was being done both by those employed by the Post Office and by the contractor. So far as the latter is concerned, the county is suing him now for the damage done by him, and I shall not say any more on that subject except to express the hope that the noble Earl who will reply for the Post Office will be able to give an assurance that the contractor will not be allowed to plead the privilege of the Crown in extenuation of the charge we shall bring against him of extraordinary traffic.
Dealing with the damage done by those who were acting for the Post Office, I have to state that within a month or less of their commencing operations the district surveyors were reporting that some of the drains under the roads had been altered so as to prevent the proper flow of water, that the trenches in which the cable was laid had been overfilled and were six inches higher than the proper surface at many points of the road. Two months later the trenches were still reported to be very bad in several places. It was also reported that county bridges had been seriously damaged by the ends of arch stones being broken off, that the cable pipes were not fully laid in concrete as they should have been, and that some culverts had been partially blocked up, the cable being taken under them in a manner which interfered with the flow of the water. The superintendent engineer, on behalf of the Post Office, wrote, in July of last year, on the question of a contribution being made by the Department towards the repairs, admitting thereby that his Department were at fault.
Nearly a year after the work had been completed our county surveyor, on the suggestion that the damage done had been made good in a satisfactory manner, reported that the filled in trenches were still left too high, and that an obstruction had been created on one of the county bridges by the placing of the cable against a parapet and casing it in with concrete in such a manner that it projected eighteen inches or thereabouts. The correctness of these complaints was substantially admitted at the end of last year in a letter from the
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Department, in which proposals were made in regard to the bridges and the manner in which they had been repaired. There are two or three points in which I think the proceedings of the Post Office are legitimately subject to complaint and criticism. My noble friend has been good enough to supply me with a copy of the contract made with Messrs. Siemen for the delivery of the cable, and I observe that, although there were in the contract provisions to secure the taxpayer from anything that might be done to his detriment in the way of the quality of the goods supplied or the like, no consideration whatever was given to the interests of the taxpayers who are also ratepayers in the localities affected. There was no suggestion of inquiry being made of the county authority as to when the work could most conveniently be done, and the manner in which what was necessary could be carried out with the least damage to public property; and there was nothing in the contract to compel the contractors to use the railway rather than the road where possible, even though it might be a little more expensive. The Department is very much to blame in that respect, for, to effect a saving of a few pounds on the contract, they have allowed damage to the extent of hundreds of pounds to be done to the roads, liability for which they have hitherto repudiated.
I shall no doubt be told that there would have been nothing to complain of had our roads been up to the mark; but the roads are good enough for the ordinary traffic, and I am not aware that it is any part of the duty of a local authority to maintain their roads in a condition good enough to carry the excessive weight of a cable, which is put down perhaps once in a generation. Unless I am very much mistaken, the War Office have admitted that principle in their dealings with local authorities, inasmuch as they have on various occasions given contributions in aid in respect of serious damage caused by heavy traction in connection with manœuvres and the like. The Department in this case have not recognised the obligations imposed upon them by 26 and 27 Vict., cap. 112, in which it is laid down that a company—and, I presume, a Government—which opens or breaks up a public road shall, with all convenient speed, complete the work, fill in the ground, make good the surface, generally restore the road to as good a condition as it was in before, and carry away all the rubbish.

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They are also bound to pay all expenses for keeping the road in good repair for six months, so far as such expenses may be increased by the opening or breaking up of the roads. The line taken, I believe, by the Department is that our allegations with regard to the damage done to the roads are exaggerated, if not untrue, but they have had to admit the truth of these allegations in regard to the damage done to the bridges, culverts, and drains, and I think it is rather too much to assume that our district surveyors and highways committee are conspiring to make false statements on one point although their statements on others have been admitted by the Department to be correct.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH:My Lords, before the noble Earl replies, I should like to ask whether he can give us any idea as to the saving made by the Post Office upon this contract as compared with the cost if the railway had been used where-ever possible. In many cases this cable was carried for thirty or forty miles along the road when it might just as well have been conveyed to various points on the railway and brought from there. The saving of a few pounds in this way on the contract has entailed upon the local authority an expenditure of many hundreds to put the roads right. It would have been very much cheaper, not only in this case but in others, for the local authority to have paid the difference between the two prices than to have to repair the damage done by this heavy traffic along roads which it was never contemplated would be used for this purpose, and which, without an enormous expense, are absolutely unsuited to it.
THE EARL OF GRANARD:My Lords, this matter has been in dispute with the county council for the last eighteen months. We have been constructing a cable direct from London through Devonshire in connection with the Western Cable Company. We invited tenders in the usual way, and that of Messrs. Siemen and Company was accepted. This firm contracted to supply us with cables at different points throughout the route. The contract was made in the usual terms of all Post Office contracts. There was no specification requiring the cable to be taken by rail or road. The noble Earl mentioned that the roads in question were unsuited to this heavy traffic, and there can be no doubt that at a time of the year when the weather is wet
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the harm done to the roads by this abnormal traffic is certainly great. As regards the liability of the Post Office, I do not think it would be fair that they should accept responsibility for the actual work done by the contractor, who, I am legally informed, is entirely responsible for any damage he has done, and if proceedings are taken against him in the usual way he will be liable for that damage. The noble Earl stated that a great deal of damage had been occasioned by the actual laying of the cable, irrespective of that occasioned by the contractor. As far as that is concerned, we have sent down engineers on many occasions and done our best to meet the county council in the matter. I have in my hand a report received from the two superintendent engineers of the southern district and also from Mr. Stubbs, assistant engineer in chief, who was specially sent down in December last, to go into the matter. Mr. Stubbs reports that the whole of the roads of the council have been carefully inspected, and that, speaking generally, the pipe track is in excellent order, except where in a few places it has been torn up by carriages going down hill with locked wheels. He says there is no justification for the Post Office being called upon to carry out any further work, except to smooth down the trenches in the few places where they have lately been disturbed by the traffic, and adds that the other complaints made by the county council as to the weakening of the structure of their bridges by these operations are without foundation. As far as the Postmaster-General is concerned, he is willing to make good anything that is wrong with the surface of the road; in fact, only the other day I asked my noble friend whether it would be any use sending down another engineer to view the road, and he wrote to the chief clerk at Exeter, who replied that the road was now in proper order again and there was no necessity for sending the engineer down. I am informed that the roads of Dartmoor are not up to the usual standard. I may mention that we have run a cable from London to Edinburgh without any similar trouble arising, and it is only in this small section of road in Devonshire where difficulties have occurred. As to the question put to me by Lord Clifford, the point is rather a large one and I am not in a position to give him an answer at the moment; but, if he wishes it, I shall be glad to apply at the office to-morrow and to furnish him with

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the actual details. I have nothing further to add except to say that, so far as the Post Office are concerned, they are perfectly willing to make good any damage which they may do to roads or bridges, but as regards damage done by contractors, it is expected that the county council will take action against them.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW:My Lords, the grievance
felt by local authorities is not confined to the Post Office but extends to other Departments, more particularly to the War Office. The noble Earl who raised this question said that, so far as he was aware, there was always a readiness in the case of the War Office to meet extraordinary expenditure caused by extraordinary traffic; but I am afraid that is not the experience which obtains in other counties. I happen to live within a short distance of Aldershot. Very large building operations are from time to time conducted in that neighbourhood on behalf of and under contract with the War Office, with the result that the roads are very seriously damaged indeed, and the County Council of Surrey have been trying for some years to get redress from the War Office, without that measure of success which I think they were entitled to expect. The noble Earl who represents the Post Office says that liability rests entirely with the contractor, and that the remedy of the County Council of Devonshire is to proceed against him. That is not what the War Office say. They apparently think that the contractor is absolved under Section 12 of the Locomotives Act, 1898; at any rate, those who execute contracts under the War Office put forward the words of that section, which provides that the liability rests upon—
"the party by or in consequence of whose orders the extraordinary traffic has taken place."
It cannot be denied that that party is not the contractor but the person under whose orders the contractor acts. Therefore it is the Government Department which is liable; but your Lordships are well aware that there can be no legal liability upon a Government Department because it can always plead privilege of the Crown. I do not for a moment say that any of the Departments of the Government would endeavour entirely to escape from their just obligations on such a plea as that, still less do I say it of the War Office. In the case
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I have in mind the War Office sent down and made inquiries into the amount of damage done to the roads, and were advised by their own surveyor that in this particular case there was damage done to the extent of £700, the amount necessary to restore the roads to the condition in which they previously were, and that an expenditure of £656 would be required to strengthen the roads for such traffic as was likely to be put upon them in consequence of the new buildings which the War Office had erected. The Department expressed their willingness to pay the amount necessary for restoration, not under legal liability but because they recognised that they had a moral obligation towards the county council, but said they must go to arbitration on the question of the amount necessary for the strengthening of the roads. I do not know whether that arbitration has been conducted or when it is going to take place; but what I do say is that when a Government Department admits that an expenditure of this kind is necessitated, and in respect of which they have a moral obligation, the sum ought to be paid to the county council. The Government Department ought to stand the racket of the arbitration, and, if the arbitration goes against them, so much the worse for them. But there is the expense incurred, and I think the Government Department ought to make it good to the county council. Therefore I hope that when the Government go into this matter they will consider it as a whole, not in connection with the Post Office alone, and that they will not seek to shift expenditure from the lightly-burdened taxpayer on to the shoulders of the overburdened ratepayer.
THE MARQUESS OF BATH:My Lords, I am certain that if there is one member of your Lordships' House who will thoroughly sympathise with all that has fallen from Earl Fortescue it is my noble friend opposite (Lord Fitzmaurice), who has in past days done such service to his own county in negotiations with the Government of the day on the road question generally. I wish my noble friend Earl Fortescue joy if he adopts the advice given to him by the noble Earl who replied for the Post Office and begins to go for the contractors. We have ourselves tried to do it in our county on more than one occasion, and I do not think I have ever come across more slippery customers to deal with in regard to the damage they do to the roads. I would

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urge that this question deserves most serious consideration at the hands of the Government, especially with regard to the large concentration camps, whether at Aldershot or on Salisbury Plain. When a Government contractor in carrying out work for the benefit of the country at large, does considerable damage to the roads, it is extremely unfair on the local ratepayer that practically the whole of that burden should be thrown on his shoulders. I submit that it should be a national charge. I may be told that we get a contribution in lieu of rates, but in the county to which I belong we have just had an example of the manner in which that works. In this case the War Office suddenly came down on a district council with a request to take over a number of roads which were really private roads, and when they demurred the answer they got from the military authorities was—
"Very well, we will withhold our contribution in lieu of rates."
So that although we are told that we receive contributions in lieu of rates, as a matter of fact the weapon is always held over us and we are bound to do exactly what we are told and to comply with any demand made, on the threat that if we do not do so we shall get no contribution. This is not only a Devonshire and a Wiltshire matter; other counties are affected as well; and the time has come when the question of Government contributions should be taken into consideration and when the local ratepayers should no longer be charged for what are, after all, works for the national benefit.
THE LORD STEWARD (EARL BEAU-CHAMP):My Lords, I rise only to refer, in the absence of my noble friend the Under Secretary of State for War, who has been obliged to go to Edinburgh on business connected with his Department, to the special matter mentioned by the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees. Not having received any notice of the special instances referred to by the noble Marquess who has just sat down, I am afraid I cannot offer him any explanation as to the roads in Wiltshire to which he referred. But with regard to the question of the roads in Surrey, I am afraid that,
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on behalf of the War. Office, I can hardly accept the interpretation of the Locomotives Act as applied to this matter which was given by the noble Earl. The War Office insert a clause in all their contracts by which they throw upon the contractor the liability for damage caused by extraordinary traffic. It was on the strength of that clause that the War Office repudiated any liability, and agreed finally to take the matter up with the contractors themselves. That matter is now being raised; the proceedings are being taken by way of petition of right, which is brought by the largest firm of contractors for the payment of the balance due on the contract. There is a sum of money due to them from the Crown which we are withholding pending the result of these proceedings. Meanwhile the point at issue has been referred to arbitration. I was sorry that the noble Earl was not pleased with the action of the War Office in referring this matter to arbitration. These questions have also arisen in the case of five or six other local authorities, but there has been no objection on their part to accept arbitration as a means of solving the difficulty, and I am sorry that the noble Earl the Lord Chairman, on behalf of Surrey, should not see his way also to regard arbitration as a very suitable solution of any controverted question of this kind.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW:I should like to explain that I took no exception to arbitration. My point was that I thought the War Office ought to pay what their own valuer admitted was the damage done, and then rely upon recovery by arbitration from the contractor.
EARL BEAUCHAMP:Has the Surrey County Council asked for that?
THE EARL OF ONSLOW:Yes.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
First Report from the Select Committee considered (according to order), and agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty minutes past Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.