HL Deb 19 December 1934 vol 95 cc590-7

VISCOUNT FITZALAN OF DERWENT had the following Notice on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government whether their attention has been called to a memorial to the Viceroy of India from the inhabitants of Tangasseri now in the Trimwelly district of Madras against a rumoured proposal that they should be handed over to the neighbouring State of Travancore; whether the 2,000 inhabitants of Tangasseri are not almost entirely members of the Roman Catholic Church; whether for about 500 years they have not been under the rule of European nations and for the last 140 years enjoyed the protection of the British Government; whether there is any precedent for the British Government handing over a purely Christian community against the wishes of the people to a Hindu State, and what, if the alleged intention of so doing is true, is the motive inspiring such a proposal; and to move for Papers.

The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I am afraid your Lordships may feel that you are suffering from rather a surfeit of India, but I must explain that my Question was put down for a much earlier date, and I postponed it to suit the convenience of the House. I have made the Question very full. I think it covers most of the points. Tangasseri is a romantic spot, I understand, and appeals to our imagination. It covers only ninety-nine acres. It is absolutely and entirely British territory, and though I have in my Question put the population as 2,000, I understand from the statement made in the House of Commons by the Under-Secretary of State for India that it is, to be exact, 1,733. I take it that there have undoubtedly been intrigues going on between certain Tranvancoreans and Tangasserians with regard to this matter, and no doubt it originates with questions connected with trade. According to the Under-Secretary of State, this question has been cropping up at different periods ever since 1860. He alludes to 1860, 1882, 1884 and 1897, so it is an old story.

I do not want to suggest for a moment that the present position is due to the situation of the whole Indian question. I have no doubt, from what I have been told, that the administrative difficulties of managing this small isolated tract of land are rather considerable, and our nearest government post is something like seventy odd miles from this territory. But I want also to point out, à propos of an expression used by the Under-Secretary to the effect that he did not think the Christians in Tangasseri had much grievance because there were several of their fellow-Christians in Travancore, that that is no doubt true, in fact, I am sure it is, for this very reason. According to the evidence I have received, there is no doubt whatever that Christians in Travancore are losing their jobs, but I do not say that they have been persecuted because of their religion. The reason, I understand, is this. As we all know, there is in India a great deal of nepotism and a great deal of employment given because of caste. As I understand, in the last year or two there have been in Travancore changes in caste management and in some of the industries there, with the result that the Christians have been turned out wholesale. But I repeat that that is not on account of their religion.

I have no evidence whatever that there has been any persecution of Christians in Travancore on account of their religion, and I do not know to what denomination these Christians belong. I have no evidence to show that they belong to my own denomination. But in this little place, Tangasseri, they apparently all belong to the Catholic religion. I was very relieved by the statement made by the Under-Secretary in another place that he was quite certain that we might rest assured that the people in this small territory would not be handed over to another State against their will. I hope my noble friend below me (Lord Halifax) will re-echo that statement. I should like to quote words which, I am sure, are most familiar to him, and no doubt to your Lordships—words taken from King Edward's Proclamation of 1908: No man amongst My subjects has been favoured, molested, or disquieted by reason of his religious belief or worship. Those words might be interpreted as applying to the past, but I submit they apply also to the present and to the future for all time. It is quite impossible to believe that any Government could hand over this community, no matter how small the population may be, no matter what their religious denomination may be, to a Hindu State if they object.

I hope that the Papers which the noble Viscount will be able to lay will give us some explanation of the history of this question, and that he himself will give an absolute confirmation of the forecast issued by the Under-Secretary in another place. The only criticism I have to make at the moment about this question is, to use a term which I think is rather familiar to my noble friend at this moment— "dilatory"—I think the Government have been very dilatory in obtaining information on this Question. They have had plenty of time; my own Question has been down long enough. Madras is a long way from Simla and from Delhi, but I really think a little more expedition might have been shown in obtaining information on the matter. I beg to move for Papers.

LORD AMPTHILL

My Lords, I hope you will forgive me for intervening for a moment on a trivial matter. It is only a matter of a misprint. It is stated on the Paper that Tangasseri is in the "Trimwelly" district of Madras. There is no such district in the Madras Presidency. It is undoubtedly the Tinevelly district which is referred to. I think the first five letters should be "Tinev" instead of "Trimw." I think it is a pity to have a misprint of this kind included in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

VISCOUNT FITZALAN OF DERWENT

I am obliged to the noble Lord. I have no doubt it is my mistake.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (VISCOUNT HALIFAX)

My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, for correcting the printer's error. As we have had experience in another place, such errors sometimes exercise a deleterious influence upon the proceedings of Parliament. As a matter of fact, while correcting the printer's error, the noble Lord said the first five letters should be "Tinev." Should I not be right if I corrected him and said that the first five letters are "Tinne"?

LORD AMPTHTLL

I accept the noble Viscount's correction.

LORD PONSONBY OF SHULBREDE

I do not intend to move the adjournment.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

I am extremely glad that the noble Lord opposite has relieved any apprehension I might have otherwise entertained. That point being settled, I am at liberty to turn to the point of greater substance that my noble friend has introduced to our notice. He has introduced it, as always, with the lucidity and conciseness that your Lordships have learned to expect. He began by saying that this place, Tangasseri, is one of considerable romance. It is indeed a place that perhaps exhibits as well as any other the quality of that mosaic which is India, that is responsible for a great many of the difficulties that your Lordships have had in mind during the four days' debate on Indian Constitutional Reform. It is quite true that it is only ninety-nine acres in size, but both by its history and by its present geographical position it has an interest all its own. Perhaps your Lordships will allow me to tell you, if you do not already know it, that it was formerly a Dutch and Portuguese settlement, and was acquired by the East India Company from the Dutch at the end of the eighteenth century when Cochin was captured, and has therefore been a British East-Indian territory since 1795.

The noble Viscount asks whether His Majesty's Government are aware of the Memorial that has been submitted to the Viceroy by the inhabitants of this place against the rumoured proposal that they should be handed over. The answer is that we are aware of that Memorial being submitted. The next part of the Question is whether the population is almost entirely composed of members of the Roman Catholic Church. I am not able to give him precise figures, but I am inclined to think, on the information available, that the majority of them are members of the Orthodox Syrian Church, but there are a great many of his co-religionists among them, and he is quite correct in saying that the population is almost completely Christian.

The difficulty is that to which he has quite fairly called attention—namely, that this little enclave is now administered as part of the Tinnevelly district, but the headquarters of that district are some seventy miles away as the crow flies, across the intervening territory of the State of Travancore. The present administrative arrangement is that the State of Travancore, by a system of annual leases, controls the manufacture, import, and sale of liquor, opium, and, I think, salt, and handles the Customs, but the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the place remains in British hands. The quite evident inconvenience of that arrangement has given rise, as the noble Viscount told us, to various proposals in past years for the cession of this enclave to the State of Travancore. I was rather sorry to hear the noble Viscount suggest that the emergence of this question again was due to intrigues going on because, if that is so, intrigues have been going on for the last three-quarters of a century.

VISCOUNT FITZALAN OF DERWENT

That is exactly what I meant. I did not mean that there was anything particularly novel in the situation. I did not mean intrigues by the Government but by the two populations.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

As to that have no information, and I was only concerned to make it plain, what indeed I hope was not in the noble Viscount's mind, that there was nothing in any way peculiar about the raising of the question at the present time which had not been implicit in its emergence at all these various intervals to which he alluded during the last seventy-five years.

VISCOUNT FITZALAN OF DERIATENT

I specifically said so.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

I accept, of course, entirely everything the noble Viscount says. When the question was raised on one of these occasions—in 1882, I think—the Secretary of State used these words, which are perhaps worth quoting, in a Despatch to the Government of India: The inhabitants of Tangasseri object strongly to the proposed transfer, and although your Government have made inquiries and have apparently satisfied yourselves that they would suffer no substantial hardship thereby, I am unable, in the fare of their distinct opposition, to assent to the measure proposed. In 1927 the matter was raised again, and was very strongly argued, but on that occasion again the Government of Madras did not feel able to give any support to the request of the Government of Travancore, having regard to the same considerations that had influenced the Secretary of State—namely, the strong objections likely to be felt by the inhabitants. That, therefore, has been in the past the position of the Government, although, I think, it would be true to say that the Government of India, certainly when I was there and the question was raised in 1927, was inclined to agree that there was a very strong case on every administration ground for the transfer, and we are inclined to think that the apprehensions of the inhabitants might in fact be groundless, having regard to the fact that the noble Viscount mentioned, to which perhaps I should attach greater importance than he did, of the very large percentage of Christians among the total population of the State of Travancore. I believe I am right in saying that the Christian population totals something like a quarter of the total Indian Christian population in India.

The proposal was renewed by the State of Travancore this year. I think my noble friend Lord Hastings, when he was in India on the States Inquiry Committee, was made aware that the State of Travancore intended so to renew it, and it has been renewed on substantially the same grounds as have been prayed in support of it on all these previous occasions. The Government of India have not, as yet, had the views of the Government of Madras upon it, and I do not think it is entirely reasonable on the part of my noble friend to reproach His Majesty's Government here of being dilatory when I am sure he would be the first to recognise that it is quite impossible for my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for India to express an opinion on a matter of this kind without having before him the considered views both of the Government of Madras and the Government of India. Therefore it is not possible for me to answer the last Question of the noble Lord's on the Order Paper without further knowledge.

As far as I am aware there are no precedents for the British Government handing over a purely Christian community to a Hindu State against the wishes of the people concerned, and I can only repeat to him quite definitely what was said by the Under-Secretary to the India Office in the House of Commons, that although, as I have tried to make plain I think, there is a very strong case indeed on grounds of administrative convenience for the cession, and although I personally hope, from my own knowledge of the question, that on further examination the inhabitants may not feel it incumbent upon them to maintain their attitude of opposition, yet, if that opposition is ineradicable, I am quite sure my noble friend may rest content that neither this Government nor any other would wish to insist upon any transfer being made.

VISCOUNT FITZALAN OF DERWENT

My Lords, I am much obliged to my noble friend for the answer he has given. I want to make it quite clear—I do not think he understood; I dare say it is my fault—that I made no suggestion or insinuation whatever that the present suggestion or attempt to hand this small population over to a Hindu State was due to the present controversy about India. I thought I had made that quite clear. At the same time I want to repeat what I said, that in Travancore itself not only great dissatisfaction but great unhappiness and discomfort are being caused to the Christians by the fact that they are losing their posts in some of the big public works in that territory. My noble friend has assured me that in no circumstances whatever will this small population be handed over if it is quite clear that it is against their will. I admit what he said, from what I have been told and have learned, that the administrative difficulties are considerable, and I quite understand that from the administrative point of view it might be a popular move to hand these people over, but it would be an absolutely impossible thing to do, I repeat, against their wishes, and I am very glad to learn from my noble friend that that is his opinion too.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

My Lords, with the leave of your Lordships may I say in one word to my noble friend that if appeared to misinterpret anything he had said I would ask him to allow me to express to him my regrets and apologies?

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

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