Lords Sitting of 29 July 1912

BARONY OF FURNIVALL.
Petition of Etheldreda Mary Baroness Petre, widow and relict of Bernard Henry Philip, fourteenth Baron Petre of Writtle in the County of Essex, deceased, as mother and next friend of Mary Frances Katherine Petre, commonly called the Honourable Mary Frances Katherine Petre, an infant, and also of the said Etheldreda Mary Baroness Petre, and of Oswald Henry Philip Turville-Petre, of Bosworth Hall, in the County of Leicester, Esquire, and of Joseph Francis Lescher, of Boyles Court, in the County of Essex, Esquire, as Guardians and Trustees of the said Mary Frances Katherine Petre, for leave to lodge their printed case; read, and ordered as prayed.
NORTH KILLINGHOLME (ADMIRALTY PIER) BILL. [H.L.]
Committed for To-morrow.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (TRAMWAYS AND IMPROVEMENTS) BILL.
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.

METROPOLITAN RAILWAY BILL.
GLASGOW CORPORATION (WATER) BILL.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL.
FYLDE WATER BOARD BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

GLASGOW BOUNDARIES BILL.
Bill read 3a, with the Amendments.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE): I think I ought to explain that there is a further Amendment in addition to the Amendments of which notice has been given. It comes from the Inland Revenue, and as it only reached the promoters at 1.30 p.m. to-day it has been quite impossible for them to give proper notice if the Bill was to be read a third time to-clay. The proper course would be to postpone the Third Reading in order that the usual notice might be given. This, however, is an agreed Amendment between Somerset House and the promoters,
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and it affects nobody except Somerset House and the promoters. The result of delaying the Bill would be to cause the promoters to lose a valuable twenty-four hours in getting their Amendments through the other House, and I therefore suggest that your Lordships would do well not to insist on the strict rigidity of the rules of the House on this occasion but allow this Amendment to be inserted.
Further Amendments made: Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

KENT AND BELA FISHERIES PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 133.)

ARBROATH CORPORATION GAS ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
BISHOP'S DIVORCE BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.

LONDON TRUST COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments considered, and agreed to.

EXE FISHERIES PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (GAS) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 4) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 7) BILL.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.
MIDLAND RAILWAY BILL.
BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION BILL.
ASHBORNE URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL (GAS) BILL.
BARRY RAILWAY BILL.
EDGWARE AND HAMPSTEAD RAILWAY BILL.
GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY BILL.
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments, agreed to.

ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.
Moved, That the Order made on the 24th day of April, last "That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Thursday the 4th day of July next" be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2a (The Lord Granard) (E. Granard); agreed to: Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed for To-morrow.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 14) BILL.
Moved, That the Order made on the 24th day of April last, "That no Provisional Order Confirmation Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Thursday the 4th day of July next" be dispensed with, and that the Bill be now read 2a (The Viscount Allendale); agreed to: Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed for To-morrow.

GAS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 2) BILL. [H.L.]
PIER AND HARBOUR ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 4) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 1) BILL.
SEA FISHERIES (LYNN) PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

CLYDE VALLEY ELECTRICAL POWER ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Read 2a (according to Order), and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899) deemed to have been reported from the Committee, and Bill to be read 3a To-morrow.

PROTECTION OF ANIMALS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
[SECOND READING.]
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD SAYE AND SELE: My Lords, it will be in your Lordships' recollection that about this time last year a Bill was brought up to this House and eventually became law for the consolidation and amendment of enactments relating to this subject. Scotland, however, was omitted from that Bill owing to the difference of procedure in vogue in that country. The Bill to which I am now asking your Lordships to give a Second Reading is almost a facsimile of the Act for England, and therefore I do not think it will be necessary to occupy much time in describing it. There are, however, one or two points in respect of which this Bill is different from the English Act. Clause 4 not only provides for compensation for damage done by cruelty to an animal, but also provides the machinery for collecting it, and there is further on in the clause a provision that a person shall not be ordered to pay arty sum as compensation under this clause unless he has had reasonable notice of the application to be made by the person aggrieved, including notice of the amount claimed. Clause embraces the whole of the knackers legislation for Scotland, and imposes a penalty of £5 for keeping or using any building or place as a knacker's yard without first taking out a licence for that purpose. Clause 7 gives a wider defence than in the English Act to any person putting down poisoned grain and flesh. In Clause 9 the words "or any snare" are added after "spring trap," and it becomes necessary under this clause for any one who sets a spring trap or any snare to inspect or cause some competent person to inspect the trap or snare at least once every day between sunrise and sunset. Clause 12 differs slightly from the English Act in that it gives further protection to the person against whom proceedings are taken for an act of cruelty, he not being the owner; and it provides that reasonable notice should be given to him. With those few exceptions this Bill is exactly similar to the English Act which your Lordships passed into law last year. It has come from another place without any opposition being taken to it, and I ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading today.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Saye and Sele.)
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
First Report from the Select Committee considered (according to Order), and agreed to.

FACTORY AND WORKSHOP (No. 2) BILL. [H.L.]
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, in moving that this Bill be read a third time I should like to ask the noble Lord who represents the Home Office whether he has had an opportunity of considering the point winch was under discussion on the last occasion when the Bill was before us. It arose on an Amendment of mine, which I am going to move again directly, to include "other clerical work" in the schedule. On that occasion I asked the noble Lord whether the Government would accept the Amendment, or, in the alternative, whether they would consent to a Departmental inquiry on the point. If your Lordships desired, I could proceed to state the case in favour of the Amendment in more detail. But if I have an assurance from the noble Lord that he is willing to accept the Amendment or will grant a Departmental inquiry, or an inquiry in any form which the Home Office wish, then I would not trouble your Lordships with a speech.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD STRACHIE): As regards what the noble Marquess has just said, I have to state that while not committing themselves to it in any way the Government will not oppose the noble Marquess's Amendment.
On Question, Bill read 3a.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: As the Government do not oppose my Amendment, I will not trouble your Lordships with a speech, but will content myself with simply moving it.
Amendment moved—
Schedule, page 4, line 29, after ("typewriting") insert ("and other clerical work").—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to: Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

UNIFORM TIME (IRELAND) BILL. [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

SANITARY SERVICE OF INDIA.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON VISCOUNT MIDLETON rose to ask the Secretary of State for India whether he can make any statement as to the reform in the Sanitary Service of India which has recently been under consideration; what will be the position of the head of the Sanitary Service under the new conditions; and when he will be in a position to lay Papers on the subject.
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, in asking the Secretary of State for India the Question which stands in my name, I do not propose to occupy your Lordships' time for more than a minute or two. It would be impossible, of course, to speak on the subject of sanitation in India without speaking at considerable length. The subject is a very difficult one, and I am afraid I must confess that I think it is one in which there are considerable arrears of administration to be made up. There is one point on which I specially hope that the Secretary of State may be able to reassure us, and that is with regard to the position of the head of the Sanitary Department in India. As your Lordships are aware, for many years the head of the Army Medical Department was also head of the Sanitary Service in India. The duties now discharged by the head of the Army Medical Corps are of a very wide character, and the immense improvement in the health of the troops is largely due to the measures which have been taken by successive heads of the Army Medical Department; but it has long been realised that it is beyond the power of any human being to discharge all these duties with regard to nearly 200,000 troops and at the same time carry on the whole Sanitary Service throughout India. It is therefore to be hoped that the change which was made by which the head of the Sanitary Department obtained an autonomy of his own may be restored. In recent years the head of the Sanitary Service in India has been placed for administrative duties under the Education Department of all others, and I confess that I think the time has come when that arrangement, which is difficult to understand on the face of it, should be modified, and when a status should be given to the head of the Sanitary Department equivalent to the vast duties which he has to discharge. I do not move for Papers, but I hope that the noble Marquess may be able to tell us that we may hope to see Papers before long on the subject.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (THE MARQUESS OF CREWE): My Lords, I Will deal somewhat briefly on this occasion with the matter raised by the noble Viscount, but I shall be able, I hope, to satisfy him to some extent by saving that we hope soon to lay tolerably full Papers on this subject, and it is possible that when the noble Viscount has read them he may desire to go somewhat more fully into this interesting and important question of the Sanitary Service of India. Your Lordships will remember that one of the Directors or Inspectors-General whose office it was proposed at one time to abolish was the Inspector-General of Sanitation. The noble Earl who is not now in the House, Lord Curzon, included this officer in the remonstrance which he addressed to us last year in respect to the proposed abolition, and I was able—I think it was at the beginning of November last year—to reassure the noble Earl and those who agreed with him that we did not propose to carry out the complete amalgamation of sanitation with the Indian Medical Service. I accordingly addressed a Despatch to India not long before I left for that country last autumn, in which I stated that we had decided to retain an independent Sanitary Commissioner, but that his precise relations with the Director-General of the Indian Medical Service would have to be a matter for future consideration.
It may be remembered that one of the particular objections taken to the system as it has existed for the last five or six years was that it was found that more and more divorce was beginning to exist between the research side and the clinical side of the Sanitary and Medical Service. Many of the younger medical officers who were employed for research purposes found that they were losing touch with an important part of their duties in having little or no opportunity of watching cases. We have now reached a conclusion which I hope the noble Viscount will consider to be a satisfactory one. The Sanitary Commissioner will be in future relieved from a great body of office work which fell upon him when he was the independent head of a separate Department, and will have, therefore, more time for touring and for inspection in different parts of India. The research and bacteriological side, which was formerly under the Sanitary
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Commissioner, will now be placed under the direct authority of the Medical Director-General, but on all purely technical sanitary matters the Sanitary Commissioner will be not a subordinate but an independent officer. He will be able to correspond on such subjects directly either with the Provincial Governments or with the Government of India itself; but on matters of administration, questions of appointments and of personnel, he will be in the position, as it were, of chief of the staff to the Director-General of the Medical Service. We believe that this compromise between the complete abolition of the post of Sanitary Commissioner and its retention as a purely independent post is one which will be found best to suit the peculiarities of Indian conditions.
It is not possible, in our opinion, altogether to divorce the Medical from the Sanitary Service in India, however possible or desirable it may be to do it elsewhere. The Local Governments have naturally to retain a considerable degree of independence in sanitary matters. In the first place, it is they who find practically all tine money. And then in India there is the fact, which is not found, at any rate to the same extent, elsewhere, that a close association exists between sanitation and politics. As noble Lords who know India well are aware, it is possible by unwise or excessive insistence upon sanitary improvements to run counter to deep-seated beliefs and prejudices of the population in many parts of the country, and on such subjects it may be presumed that the Local Government is the best guide that could be found. Consequently there will remain a great deal of local control, and for many purposes the Inspector-General will therefore not be an officer who gives orders so much as an inspecting and advising official, but his position, as will be clear from what I have already said, will be one of no little importance and dignity. On this subject I shall hope to be able to submit Papers before very long, and also I hope at the same time further Papers dealing with the important question of the local sanitary services.
After a great deal of discussion between the Government of India and the Local Government; a scheme has been prepared which was submitted to us at the India Office this year and which has been

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approved. It embodies some of the recommendations of the Plague Committee of 1898, and it also deals with some of the recommendations which were made to the noble Viscount opposite when he was Secretary of State by the College of Physicians, if I remember rightly in the year 1905, when he received a deputation on the subject. The object is to strengthen, if possible, the local sanitary staffs. It is proposed to add, among superior officers, nine Deputy Commissioners of Sanitation, and for those posts Indians will be eligible as well as Europeans. It is proposed also to strengthen and enlarge the sanitary staffs of big towns. It is hoped that all the more considerable towns in India in clue course will have a Health Department presided over by a really capable officer, which will place them in these matters on something of the same level as the great urban communities in this country and in other countries in Europe. It will, I am sure, have occurred to the noble Viscount that these things will cost money and that provincial funds are not easily forthcoming even for such excellent objects as these. Therefore it has been arranged that the Government of India will come forward with money to a certain extent pro rata to that which is locally provided, and in that way, as I should hope, no little improvement will be possible.
The Papers, I think, will also touch on the malarial conferences which have been held, one in Bombay and also others, for dealing with this terrible scourge which still devastates India to so great an extent, and, as I hope, for continuing to educate the people of India in the methods of combating the pests through which malaria is spread. As noble Lords are aware, there are many facts in Indian conditions which make the destruction of the malarial mosquito a greater difficulty in India than it has been found to be in some other parts of the world, such as, for instance, in the West Indies or in West Africa. On the other hand, there have been some notable successes in Bombay and other places, and it may be trusted in time that steps will be taken all over India to diminish to a great extent, although it may not be possible quite to eradicate, this painful and disabling disease of malaria.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: I am much obliged to the noble Marquess for his
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statement. Might I ask when we may hope to have the Papers in our hands, and also whether there will be any sanitary representative on the Commission of which we heard last week appointed for the examination of the Civil establishments in India?
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: As regards the first question, I am afraid I am not able to give the noble Viscount the precise date for the laying of Papers, but it will not be long deferred. We have at command all the necessary Papers, and it is therefore only a question of obtaining the final agreement of the Government of India and the actual selection of the Papers. I am not sure that I quite apprehend the full meaning of the noble Viscount's second question. I understood him to be referring to the Royal Commission, the appointment of which has been approved by His Majesty's Government, in relation to the Indian public services. It was on that Commission, I think, that the noble Viscount asked whether a sanitary expert would be placed.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: I did not mean to imply a sanitary expert necessarily, but a medical or sanitary representative.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I am not in a position to give the names at this moment, but I think the noble Viscount will find that the arrangements by which the Commission will work and the manner in which it will be formed for the purpose of taking evidence in relation to particular subjects will meet the point he has raised.

LOCAL AUTONOMY IN INDIA.
LORD INCHCAPE LORD INCHCAPE rose to ask the Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the alleged differences in statements made by members of His Majesty's Government with regard to the Government of India's Despatch of August 25, 1911, on the subject of the changes announced at the Delhi Durbar.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is within the knowledge of your Lordships that some difference of opinion appears to exist as to the views expressed by a member of the Government in another place and by the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India in this House in regard to the

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Despatch of the Government of India of August 25 last. The subject has been mentioned, I think, in your Lordships' House. It has also been frequently referred to in the Press not only in this country but in India, and I venture to submit that if the noble Marquess has no objection it might be convenient if he would give your Lordships a statement as to what the views of His Majesty's Government on that Despatch really are.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: My Lords, I fear that I may appear to be taking up too large a portion of this afternoon's sitting, but nobody, I am sure, will say that too large a portion is being given or could be given to Indian affairs. The particular Question put by my noble friend deals with a subject which has become, unexpectedly to many of us, of no little importance as a subject of discussion both here and very widely in India itself. The whole matter arises out of the third paragraph of the Despatch which the Government of India wrote to me in reference to the Delhi change—the Despatch which, with my reply to it, was published as a White Paper on December 12 of last year. About that Despatch and subsequent allusions to it and comments upon the particular paragraph a series of Legends has grown up to which my noble friend has drawn attention in his Question.
The legends have taken some such form as this. In the first place, the Government of India is supposed in that third paragraph of its Despatch to have pointed to what is known in India as swaraj, self-government or home rule for India, as the aim and object of the policy of which the change of capital formed a part. The matter was alluded to in this House on February 22, and the legend proceeded that I had endeavoured, apparently without much success, to put a gloss upon the Despatch and altogether to minimise its meaning. The third chapter of the legend was that a few days later the Under-Secretary in my Office, Mr. Montagu, had made a speech at Cambridge in which he threw over my interpretation of the Despatch and reiterated the reading of it which the public had already ascribed to the Government of India's words, and that in speaking again in the House of Commons on April 22 Mr. Montagu repeated the same performance. Then on June 24 Lord Curzon
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alluded to the matter in this House, and my reply was stated, according to the legend, to have represented a second inadequate attempt to misinterpret the views of the Government of India. The whole of this legend is absolutely baseless. There has never been any difference in meaning or intention between the Government of India and myself, between Mr. Montagu and myself, or between Mr. Montagu and the Government of India. As regards Mr. Montagu, so little did I conceive on reading his excellent speech at Cambridge that he had said or desired to say anything different from what I had said here that. I never even called his attention to the particular passage in his speech, which, of course, I should have done if I had placed any such interpretation upon it.
The Government of India are of opinion that this misinterpretation or, as it has undoubtedly been in some cases, misrepresentation of our meaning is due to their use of the word "autonomy" in their Despatch. The actual passage is this—
"The only possible solution of the difficulty would appear to be gradually to give the Provinces a larger measure of self-government, until at last India would consist of a number of administrations, autonomous in all provincial affairs, with the Government of India above them all and possessing power to interfere in cases of misgovernment, but ordinarily restricting their functions to matters of Imperial concern."
The word "autonomous" possesses four syllables, and may therefore be regarded as comparatively unintelligible. I remember a story of the late Lord Sherbrooke, who at some period, either when he was residing at Oxford or later when he was in Parliament, came into collision with a corporation or other local authority, who addressed him a letter of severe remonstrance. Mr. Lowe, as he then was, as I have heard wrote them a long reply couched entirely in words of one syllable. It is fair, I think, to assume that his main and not uncharacteristic object was to exhibit by that means his opinion of the intellectual standard of his correspondents, but the result probably also was to make his meaning to them entirely clear. It may be that the rise of the word "autonomy" has caused some of this confusion.
But the opinion of the Government of India, which I entirely share, is that British policy in India should have three

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objects in view. The first object, which we believe will be assisted by our recent policy as explained in this paragraph in the Despatch, is, where possible, to devolve upon local and provincial Governments as many of the functions of government as can safely be entrusted to them. The second object of British rule in India should be, and is, to employ as many Indians in the public service as can reasonably be employed there. The third object is to combine the pursuit of the two first with the maintenance and permanence of British rule in India, because we believe that the maintenance and perpetual continuance of British rule in India is the best way of securing the happiness of the Indian people. There is, of course, some difference of opinion between various persons as to the extent to which provincial devolution or autonomy is possible. Even in the ranks of the Civil Service in India you will find men who by a rough analogy from the United States would be called Republicans, and other men who would be called Democrats—men, that is to say, who in the one instance believe in the predominance of the Central Government, and who in the other case believe in the importance of government by local divisions—and there is room, of course, for doubt or difference of opinion as to what may be meant by the words "local autonomy." On the last occasion when we were mentioning this matter I pointed out that Lord Curzon had spoken of provincial autonomy in matters of finance. We may be quite sure that he did not mean, when holding out the prospect of provincial autonomy, that the Provinces ought to be allowed to raise as much revenue as they pleased in any way they pleased and to spend it as they pleased. What the then Viceroy obviously meant was that a larger share of public expenditure should be left to local collection and to local expenditure on a defined principle; and therefore when we talk in this connection again of provincial autonomy it is reasonable to suppose that certain limits, which need not be narrow or tightly drawn, are intended to exist as between the Provinces and the Central Government.
Then there has been, I think, a second misunderstanding, this time founded on a monosyllable—that is, in the use of the word "goal." This is confusing the lines on which the Government of India desires to work—that is to say, the road along which
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the Government of India desires to travel, with a supposed or intended termination of that road at which an entirely new form of Government would be found to exist—for there is, I venture to lay down clearly, no final and permanent condition which the Government of India ought to have in view. It cannot have in view what some Indians describe as swaraj, and therefore although it desires to advance along the road of including in the government of India as many of the native inhabitants of India as is possible it does not speak, and I do not believe it will ever speak, of a final goal which it desires to reach. I do not know whether any of your Lordships have ever read the observations of a man who was probably the most thoughtful and the best informed of all the unofficial writers about India in the last half century—I mean the late Mr. Meredith Townshend. He took a pessimistic view of this very question which we are discussing to-day. He founded himself on a belief that England was losing the power of governing other races. He believed that Englishmen were beginning to doubt whether they had a moral right to rule anybody, rather than thinking of ruling justly. He believed that in the ultimate future all the offices of India would be handed over to Indians, with the final result, in his words, that—
"India will re-emerge as she was, shortly to be reduced to the condition in which we found her."
He believed that the distinct genius of the two Continents, Europe and Asia, forbade any real union between them, and he held that the uneffaceable difference in the morale of Asia from that of Europe made the genuine assimilation of Western ideas by Asia altogether impossible. We need not attempt to dive so deep into the future, and even if we do we need not adopt so pessimistic a form of prophecy as that in which Mr. Meredith Townshend indulged.
It has to be borne in mind, as I mentioned the last time I touched on this subject, that the dream which some Indians love to hold—and, for all I know, some Englishmen cherish it too—is a dream of a form of complete self-government for India within the British Empire. I repeat categorically what I said last time, that there is nothing whatever in the teachings of history so far as I know them, or in the present conditions of the world so far as I

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understand them, which makes the realisation of such a dream even remotely probable. We have tried the experiment of a worldwide Empire of members of our own race. All the chapters in that experiment have not been felicitous. One broke down in 1776, when the American Colonies declared for independence. Since then we have learned some wisdom. We have succeeded in weaving into the Empire the French of Canada and the Dutch of South Africa. Now in an Empire which includes both those different European races we are trying to face and to solve the tremendous problems of general imperial defence and of giving to the component parts of the Empire some share in the shaping of Imperial policy. Can anybody conceive any similar solution of imperial problems for hundreds of millions of men of different races and all of absolutely different races from our own?
Is it conceivable that at any time an Indian Empire could exist on the lines, say, of Australia or of New Zealand, with no British officials, no British troops, no tie of creed or of blood which takes the place of material bonds? I am far from saying that the idea of such an Indian Dominion, cherished by many high-minded men whom I respect, is an ignoble idea, or that those who hold it ought to be described as in any way disloyal. There are some such who believe that it is possible to secure in India the continual presence, the continual influence, and the continual service of men of British blood with no prospect of any violent rupture between the two races and the different countries. To me that is a world as remote as any Atlantis or Erewhon that ever was thought of by the ingenious brain of an imaginative writer. I believe that on the lines which I laid down as being those on which the Government of India ought to work and desires to work there is ample scope both for service and for distinction for men of Indian birth and of the different races. I see wide fields, fields which will grow wider still, for the full play and exercise of the remarkable and special qualities of Indian intellect. It is true I can imagine that there are gifted and most estimable men who may be loth to abandon the idea that either they or somebody like them in future years may be Prime Minister of an Indian Dominion or Commander-in-Chief of an Indian Army. But I venture to think that it is only those who think
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less of service and more of distinction who would lose heart if they braced themselves altogether to set aside this vision and were willing to settle down to more co-operation and closer co-operation with this Western race, to which they can teach much and from which they can learn much—cooperation for time moral and material bettering of the country to which they are so deeply attached and of which we are so proud to be the governors.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: My Lords, I doubt whether when we came down to the House this afternoon any of us anticipated that we should have had the pleasure of listening to so important a deliverance as that which has just been uttered by the noble Marquess. It was a deliverance which dealt at some length, not only with the principles upon which the Government of India should be administered, but the principles upon which the affairs of the whole British Empire might be conducted in the future. I hope the noble Marquess will not think me a little uncharitable if I suggest that his speech showed a slight undercurrent of uneasiness as to the effect produced upon the public mind both in India and in this country, in the first place by the memorable paragraph in the Government of India's Despatch which he quoted, and next by the interpretation placed upon it by the noble Marquess's Under-Secretary.
Let me once again remind your Lordships of the terms in which the Despatch was couched. It was therein explained that the ultimate solution to which His Majesty's Government looked forward was to be one under which India would—
"consist of a number of administrations, autonomous in all provincial affairs, with the Government of India above them all and possessing power to interfere in cases of misgovernment, but ordinarily restricting their functions to matters of Imperial concern."
I venture to suggest to your Lordships that that paragraph describes a condition of things wholly different from and inconsistent with the Government of India as we know it at present and as we are likely to know it for a long time to come. But the noble Marquess explained that the Despatch was merely intended to indicate what he called the "trend and tendency" of things in India. He evidently preferred that the

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Despatch should be taken as pointing to a somewhat remote future. But that was not the language of Mr. Montagu. Mr. Montagu spoke of the "goal towards which His Majesty's Government proposed to travel," and then he used these remarkable words—
"At last, and not too soon, a Viceroy has had the courage to state the trend of British policy in India and the lines on which we propose to advance."
It was clearly suggested by Mr. Montagu that this was a new departure, something which had not yet been dreamed of by any Government either in India or in this country. In another speech he said the Government were there—
"to develop India on a plan which had been thought out by those who had been advising the Secretary of State."
Those are words which did not point merely to the trend of the policy observed towards India at the present time. They pointed to some new conception of Government which had been elaborated by the present Government of India and by His Majesty's present advisers. The noble Marquess will not have forgotten the manner in which these announcements were received in India. My noble friend Lord Curzon, when he last dealt with the subject in this House, quoted the comments of the Indian Press. The Indian Press unquestionably took this announcement as indicating a new departure, not a mere following of a gradual path of development, but something new which had not yet been dreamed of and which was being promulgated to the people of India in connection with His Majesty's visit to that country. The noble Marquess has endeavoured to reconcile all these inconsistent declarations, and he gave us at the beginning of his speech the broad outline of the policy which in his opinion should be followed in dealing with the affairs of India. I am bound to say that so far as I was able to follow the noble Marquess's statement I heard nothing in it which at all shocks my feelings or indicates that there is in contemplation any very abrupt departure from the policy to which we, have been used in the past.
I gathered—the noble Marquess will correct me if I am wrong—that these were the three cardinal points of the policy which he and his colleagues desire to advocate in dealing with the Indian Empire.
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He suggests that we should devolve on the Local Governments as many functions as can be safely entrusted to them. I think that has been very much the policy of the Government of India in the past. The whole question, of course, is what functions can you safely devolve on the Local Governments, and as to that there may, of course, be differences of opinion. The noble Marquess's second point was that we should employ as many natives as could be reasonably employed in the public services. The noble Marquess knows what an immense number of natives are already employed, some of them in very responsible positions, in the public services in India, and what an infinitesimally small minority of public servants in India are of British origin. It has always been the desire of successive Governments to recognise merit amongst Indian servants of the Crown and to advance them so far as that could be safely done consistently with the public interest.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: I have no reason to suppose that the noble Marquess does not realise that I meant that in my opinion both those processes might continue to increase to a considerable extent.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: Certainly, we all of us realise that there must be a gradual broadening of these concessions. The noble Marquess's third point was that we should see to the permanent maintenance of British rule in India. That, I take it, is a proposition which no one will controvert, and which no Government of India in the past has ever allowed to be called in question. All those seem to me, if I may say so, sound and salutary principles, and really everything must depend upon the tact and the patience, and, above all, the caution, with which these principles are applied. I do not think I am wrong in gathering that, so far in, the noble Marquess is concerned, those principles will be applied with proper caution. I am glad that he has made his statement to the House, because I think some statement was necessary in order to dissipate the apprehensions and misgivings which, beyond all question, were created both by the terms of the Despatch and by some of the official comments that were made upon it.
LORD COURTNEY OF PENWITH: My Lords, we are, I think, in the presence of a very great problem and very deep specula-

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tions as to the future, and I think it is necessary to be extremely cautious in entering into any part of the discussion which has been raised by the Question addressed to the noble Marquess by my noble friend below the Gangway (Lord Inchcape). I would fain leave it alone, but I confess I am under the impression that one word at least should be added—a word of deprecation almost of the discussion itself. An attempt has been made to solve a great mystery. That mystery had better be left to solve itself, to work itself out in a fashion as to which I venture to think no member of your Lordships' House and no one outside, however deeply engaged in the affairs of Government, however profoundly attentive to the issues of the present time and the movement of events here and elsewhere, is competent to pronounce a final judgment.
This discussion has been raised because of three apparently different expressions of opinion on the part of the Government in India and the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary at home. The noble Marquess the Secretary of State now tells us that the Government in India have never differed from himself, that he has never differed from the Under-Secretary, and that the Under-Secretary has never differed from the Government in India. Then he proceeded to describe what was the one thing on which they are agreed. I confess that the expressions of the three authorities do show such a dissimilarity that it, is very difficult to make out absolute agreement at the bottom; and the attempt to describe what is the nature of their agreement and what is the future on which the efforts of those who direct the government of India are bent does not impress upon me at all events a feeling that it can be accepted as final or exhaustive. It has been supposed apparently that the local autonomy which it was suggested in the famous Despatch might be given to Provincial Governments meant entire self-government by something like representative bodies brought into existence as representing the different inhabitants of the particular Province. The phrase does not necessarily mean that. It only necessarily means a restricted independence of the Provincial Government in ordinary matters of local concern.
But the language of the Under-Secretary did describe a state of things in which a
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greater measure of independence might be reached, and the Secretary of State proceeded here to deprecate the suggestion that there could ever be complete independence of British control in India. The noble Marquess affirmed, not only that that could not be foreseen or could not be aimed at, but that the perpetual maintenance of British control is the thing to which all must look forward. I do not see myself the end of that control; I do net see what would take its place; but I venture to deprecate the suggestion that it could not come to an end and that some other order might not arise. May we not be content with the further carrying on of the process of development of which Lord Lansdowne, has spoken, the further enlistment of natives in the government of the country, and the further advance of authority within India itself without speculating on the complete and entire withdrawal of British government, still less British influence, from India? "One step is enough for me" was the utterance of a great and wise man, and it seems to me that in this matter that utterance might be appropriated by tire Government. I do not think I ant violating any confidence when I recall that only the year before last a very distinguished Indian servant, one universally honoured but who has passed away, speaking on the subject of the future said to me—
"It is not impossible that the twentieth century may see the complete withdrawal of Europe from Asia";
and in view of what has happened, in view of the extraordinary revivification of Japan and in view of what is going on in China and what may happen there, it is surely unwise to put the limit of impossibility on the development that may occur in India.
It is very difficult to conceive added to the vision of the union of the self-governing Dominions and the home country the vision of a self-governed India participating in that Imperial union. But with respect to all this I am only impressing on your Lordships the suggestion that, however comfortable it may be to ourselves to attempt to dismiss these speculations, we cannot get rid of them. They will be worked out in some fashion probably independently; and it is enough for the moment, at least, if we persevere with what has been the wise policy for some time past

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—a policy which received considerably freer development under Lord Morley as Secretary of State, and which apparently is entering upon a new stage and another length of road under the operation of the Despatch which accompanied the ceremonial at Delhi and the changes then brought about. I repeat that it is unwise to predict what may or may not be the final result. Let Indian dreamers dream, if they will, a dream which it appears to me can do us no harm. Let us persevere, as is our duty, in doing all we can for the better government of India and making British influence as authoritative, as influential, as it can possibly be through its own merits, and then we may leave the future, whether it be dim or distant or whether it be near, where it is—on the knees of the gods, beyond our power to do anything more than slightly to influence its course.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWE: May I say one word in explanation, as I think it is possible that my noble friend behind me (Lord Courtney) may have misunderstood my object in saying what I did. It was no desire of mine and no part of my intention to indulge in positive prophecy about the ultimate future of India. It was, indeed, less my object to indicate what our policy is than what it is not. My noble friend may not be aware to what an extent it has been assumed that the present Administration in India is actively pursuing a policy which is intended to end in self-government; and though I quarrel with no man, Indian or other, for the dreams in which he may indulge, I strongly object if my friends and I are stated as sharing those dreams when we do not share them. It is, of course, quite true, as my noble friend has said, that the future remains on the knees of the gods, and it is unwise to attempt to look too far forward. The writer whom I have already quoted, Mr. Meredith Townshend, said somewhere that Asia, which survived the Greek and the Roman, would also survive the Teuton and the Slay. I have no desire, I can assure my noble friend, to engage in any kind of prophecy of the ultimate future; but I did think it desirable, in replying to my noble friend who raised this question, to state clearly what is not our view, in order that our aims and intentions in making, as I hope we shall continue to make, advances in the direction with which my noble friend has sympathised may not be misunderstood.

PUBLIC OFFICES (SITES) BILL.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Earl Beauchamp.)
THE EARL OF MEATH: Before your Lordships go into Committee on this Bill, I desire to ask His Majesty's Government whether, in the building operations which they propose to undertake on Whitehall Gardens, there is any danger of so diminishing the amount of open space lying between Whitehall Gardens and the Thames that some future Government or some future London County Council will find it very difficult indeed to extend the public gardens which are now upon the Embankment, and which add so much to the beauty of our metropolis and to the health and happiness of the people.
THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (EARL BEAUCHAMP): I think I can reassure the noble Earl on the point he has raised. This Bill was fully considered by a Committee in another place and here, and every opportunity has been given to those interested in open spaces to make any appearance they desired before the House of Commons Committee as well as before the Committee of your Lordships' House. The provisions which were inserted in the Bill in the House of Commons have, I think, in every way satisfied those who were anxious in regard to this matter. I may tell the noble Earl that we are not allowed under the Bill to go beyond a certain line which is even not so far forward as a continuation of the line of Whitehall Court. Therefore there will always be in front of the new buildings room for a garden quite as large as that which is now there, and to which the noble Earl referred in terms of appreciation with which I should like to associate myself.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
Bill reported without amendment, and to be read 3a To-morrow.

RIFLES FOR NAVY PRACTICE.
VISCOUNT MIDLETON: I beg to ask the noble Lord who represents the War Office the Question standing in my name on the Paper—namely, whether it is a fact that four of the recently converted rifles out of forty recently supplied to the Navy for practice have had the breech blown out; whether the ammunition employed has been withdrawn; and whether he can state the amount of this ammunition which is at present in store.
LORD HERSCHELL: In answer to the noble Viscount I have to state that it is a fact that about 190 rifles were lent by the War Office to the Admiralty for use at Bisley, but these rifles were not of the recently-converted type but were the long charger loading type such as are at present in use by the Territorial Force. According to the information supplied by the Admiralty, no breeches of these rifles were "blown out"; but—and this is probably the foundation for the noble Viscount's Question—four bolt heads broke off on extraction after the rifles had been fired. The ammunition which was used was the ordinary Mark VI., which, of course, is the only ammunition that could be used in these
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particular rifles owing to the sighting, and there is no reason to suppose that the breaking of the bolt heads was in any way connected with the ammunition which was used. The rifles will, I may say, be thoroughly examined before they are again issued for use.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: The reply of the noble Lord is very interesting, but even the bolt heads of rifles do not burst for no reason at all. I suppose that, under the ordinary practice which prevails in the Service, a board of officers has sat to find out the cause of the breaking. It would be interesting if the noble Lord could tell us the cause.
LORD HERSCHELL: I am not sure whether the rifles have even come back yet. When they do the matter will certainly be examined into. But the point is that there is no reason for supposing that there is any connection between the breaking of the bolt head and the ammunition.
House adjourned at Six o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.