Sitting of 19 July 1866

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBER SWORN—Rear Admiral George Henry Seymour for Antrim.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Report—On Trade in Animals (427).
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolutions reported—Fees (Public Departments); Constabulary Force (Ireland) [Pay, &c.]; New Zealand Guarantee.
Ordered—Fees (Public Departments)*; Constabulary Force (Ireland) [Pay, &c.]*; New Zealand Guarantee *; Parochial Buildings (Scotland) Act Amendment *; Railway Construction Facilities Act (1864) Amendment.*
First Reading — Fees (Public Departments)* [223]; Constabulary Force (Ireland)* [224]; New Zealand Guarantee * [225]; Parochial Buildings (Scotland) Act Amendment* [222]; Railway Construction Facilities Act (1864) Amendment * [226].
Second Reading—Drainage and Improvement of Lands Act (Ireland) Provisional Order* [216]; Courts of Justice* [217]; Public Works, Harbours, &c.*; Public Works Loans (Ireland)* [219]; Paupers (Scotland)* [197]; Court of Session (Scotland)*[204]; Overseer of the Poor (Small Parishes)* [214]; Poor Law Amendment* [221].
Committee*Thames Navigation (re-comm.) [205]; Inland Revenue [209] [R.P.]; Commons (Metropolis) * [84]; County Assessments (re-comm.)* [179].
Report — Thames Navigation (re-comm.) [205]; Commons (Metropolis) * [84]; County Assessments (re-comm.) * [179].

Considered as amended—Oyster Fisheries * 169
; Straits Settlements * [176]; British Columbia * [186].
Third Reading— Hundred Bridges * [178]; Charitable Trusts Deeds Enrolment [Lords] * [199].
Withdrawn—Entail (Scotland)* [45]; Waterworks (re-comm.) * [195]; Merchant Shipping Act (1854) Amendment* [58]; Representation
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of the People [68], and Re-distribution of Seats [138]; Representation of the People (Scotland) * [140]; Representation of the People (Ireland) * [142]; Summary Procedure (Scotland)* [64]; Trusts (Scotland)* [65]; Turnpike Roads* [113]; Capital Punishments within Prisons* [54]; General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act (1862) Amendment (re-comm.) * [206].

THE OUTBREAK IN JAMAICA,

  QUESTION.
  MR. J. STUART MILLsaid, wishing to spare the House the monotonously painful details contained in the Questions of which he had given notice, he would simply ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether any steps had been or would be taken by Her Majesty's Government for bringing to justice those who had been concerned in the commission of various illegal acts in Jamaica?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I should prefer, Sir, that the hon. Gentleman should ask the Questions in detail. I think the Questions which the hon. Gentleman has thought proper in his discretion to address to the Executive should be well known to the House, as many bon. Members have not really had an opportunity of making themselves acquainted with them. Under these circumstances, it is due to the House and to the subject that the hon. Gentleman should address himself now to the House, and let them hear what the Questions are.
  MR. J. STUART MILL: Does the right hon. Gentleman desire me to read the whole?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The whole.
  MR. J. STUART MILL: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether any steps have been or will be taken to bring to trial Lieutenant Adcock, for unlawfully putting to death two men named Mitchell and Hill without trial, and six persons, after alleged trial by Court Martial, on charges not cognizable by a Military Court; for flogging, without trial, John Anderson and others, and authorizing one Henry Ford to flog many men and women without trial, one of whom, named John Mullins, died in consequence: Whether any steps have been or will be taken to bring to trial Captain Hole for hanging one Donaldson without trial; for shooting, and permitting to be shot, various persons without trial; for putting to death by hanging, or shooting, thirty-three persons, after trial by a so-called Military

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  Court, for acts not cognizable by a Military Court, and without observance of the rules prescribed by the Articles of War; for flogging various men and women without trial; and for being accessory, after the fact, to the unlawful putting to death of numerous persons by soldiers under his command: Whether any steps have been or will be taken to bring to trial Lieutenant Oxley, for putting John Burdy to death after a similar unlawful trial, and for permitting the men under his command to fire at unarmed peasants and cause the death of several persons: Whether any steps have been or will be taken to bring to trial Ensign Cullen and Dr. Morris, for putting three men to death without trial, and Dr. Morris for shooting one William Gray: Whether any steps have been or will be taken to bring to trial Stipendiary Magistrate Fyfe, for burning houses of peasantry, putting to death one person without trial, and being accessory to the unlawful putting to death of various others: Whether any steps have been or will be taken to bring to trial Attorney General Hislop, Lieutenant Brand, Captain Lake, and Captain Field, for sitting as presidents or members of alleged Courts Martial, by whom numerous persons were unlawfully put to death: Whether any steps have been or will be taken to bring to trial General O'Connor, for having been accessory before and after the fact to numerous unlawful executions, some of them without trial, and others after the illegal trials already specified: Whether any steps have been or will be taken to bring to trial Colonel Nelson, Brigadier General in Jamaica, for unlawfully causing to be tried, in time of peace, by Military Courts irregularly composed, for acts alleged to have been done before the proclamation or beyond the jurisdiction of Martial Law, and after such trial to be unlawfully put to death, the following persons:—George William Gordon, Edward Fleming, Samuel Clarke, William Grant, George Macintosh, Henry Lawrence, Letitia Geoghan, and six other women, one of them in a state of pregnancy; Scipio Cowell, Alexander Taylor, Toby Butler, Jasper Hall Livingston, and various other persons who had been previously flogged, and about 180 other alleged rebels; and for authorizing the flogging without trial of Alexander Phillips, Richard Clark, and numerous others: Whether any legal proceedings have been or will be ordered to be taken against Mr. Edward John Eyre, lately Governor of Jamaica, for complicity
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  in all or any of the above acts, and particularly for the illegal trial and execution of Mr. George William Gordon: And, if not, whether Her Majesty's Government are advised that these acts are not offences under the Criminal Law?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Mr. Speaker, the House has heard the ten Questions which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster has thought fit to address to the Government, in a form which I think somewhat beyond the boundaries of Parliamentary precedent, because in putting questions in which opinions are also expressed, we are trespassing in some degree upon the liberty and freedom of discussion. It is impossible under such circumstances to discuss a subject, and at the same time we may obtain an answer from the Government, which may lead the public mind to the presumption that those who reply to them agree in the assumed state of facts on which the questions are founded. Now nine of these questions, which are ten in number, inquire of the Government whether any steps have been or will be taken with respect to those lamentable proceedings in Jamaica, which the hon. Gentleman throughout treats as unlawful. But after these nine inquiries, throughout which the conduct of certain individuals is assumed to be illegal, there is a tenth inquiry which comes to this—whether Her Majesty's Government, after inquiry, are of opinion that such conduct and proceedings were illegal? Now, I think that we are all agreed that the Law Advisers of the Crown, from whatever party the Government of this country may be formed, generally speaking, are men most eminent in their profession, and if the hon. Gentleman is of opinion that it is possible that the Law Advisers of the Crown may be of opinion that these acts are not illegal, I think the hon. Gentleman is hardly justified in assuming throughout his inquiries that they are illegal, and he might have made these inquiries without proceeding on that assumption. But it is not merely that the questions are put in a form which, if not noticed, might, perhaps, lead to great inconvenience, that I think the course pursued by the hon. Gentleman objectionable, but so far as I can judge, though brought forward with great apparent precision, they do not appear in their allegations to be as accurate as could be desired. In the first place, throughout these questions the hon. Gentleman seems entirely oblivious of

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  the fact that the proceedings complained of took place during the existence of martial law. That is the first feature which strikes one amid these numerous interrogatories, and there seems throughout a very great confusion in the mind of the hon. Gentleman on the nature of martial law, because we have this remarkable expression—certain persons being spoken of as if their cases were decided without trial or alleged trial by court martial; we have such expressions as "on charges not cognizable by a military court." Then there is another charge that the case was decided "without observance of the rules prescribed by the Articles of War." Then, in a third case, we are told that persons have been "tried in time of peace by military courts irregularly composed," and other allegations of the same kind have been made. But in a state of martial law there can be no irregularity in the constitution of the courts. Martial law supersedes ordinary law, and the hon. Gentleman seems throughout these questions to assume that in a state of martial law courts martial are to be held according to the terms and conditions under which they would be held when the Mutiny Act was in existence. But in a state of martial law the Mutiny Act, like other Acts, would be suspended, so that here, throughout, there is a source of extreme irregularity and inaccuracy in these questions. There are also, so far as I am acquainted with the subject—of course, I am not versed in the complications of it like the hon. Gentleman—inquiries which ought not to have been made in such cases, and which are founded on the assumption of absolutely illegal conduct. In the case of Ensign Cullen and Dr. Morris, for instance, the hon. Gentleman asks "whether any steps have been or will be taken to bring to trial Ensign Cullen and Dr. Morris for putting three men to death without trial; and Dr. Morris for shooting one William Gray?" Now, in the evidence taken before the Commissioners it is particularly stated that this was a charge not proved, and that the evidence for and against was equally conflicting; the Commissioners themselves recommend further inquiry, and I believe that that further inquiry is now taking place. Assuredly, under these circumstances, the hon. Gentleman is not justified in asking whether the Government are going to interfere and to try persons for putting to death men without trial when we have authentic records on the table of the House which seem to
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  point to a different conclusion. Now, there is a very strong charge here with regard to Colonel Nelson, at the time Brigadier General in Jamaica. We are asked "whether any steps have been taken or will be taken to bring to trial Colonel Nelson for, among other things, unlawfully putting to death certain men and women, one of whom was in a state of pregnancy, who had been previously flogged." Now it is patent that in the evidence taken before the Commissioners it has been shown that no one was flogged without trial by Colonel Nelson, and no woman known to be in a state of pregnancy was tried; and therefore I think the hon. Gentleman was not justified in so decidedly pronouncing that a person serving Her Majesty was guilty of crimes which have not been proved. I feel it my duty, as these are questions of a remarkable character, to make these explanations. In the first place, I cannot countenance the hon. Gentleman assuming throughout that these proceedings were illegal. That is at least a question of controversy, upon which there may be a difference of opinion. But throughout these questions the hon. Gentleman takes for granted that these have been illegal acts, and that these proceedings have taken place without authority. Secondly, I think the hon. Gentleman ought to have taken care, in putting these questions, that they should be simply and severely accurate in their allegations. Having made these observations, which I think I am justified in doing, although I do not myself approve long questions being addressed to Ministers, or long answers being given by Ministers—for, generally speaking, when they are requisite, it is more convenient to have a debate upon the matter—yet I hope the House will not think it intrusive on my part if I tell them now what really has been done in these affairs. When these unhappy events took place in Jamaica the late Government thought it their duty to advise Her Majesty to appoint a Commission to proceed to the island, and there, with all the advantage of local inquiry and observation, to investigate what had occurred. I think the late Government took a prudent and proper course. That Commission was formed of eminent men, who possessed the public confidence; and whatever controversy there may be on other parts of this question, I think it will be generally admitted that by their acuteness and assiduity these eminent persons have quite justified the confidence placed in them by the Sovereign and the

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  country. Well, Sir, the late Government, acting upon the Report of their own Commission, considered the case of the Governor, and dismissed him from his post. That appears to me to be conclusive as regards the case of Governor Eyre. He was dismissed. Those who ask that further steps should be taken seem to me to confuse errors of conduct and errors of judgment with malice prepense. But I wholly mistake the House of Commons if they would ever sanction such an opinion. Now, with regard to the subordinate officers, either naval or military, the late Government, after deliberating upon the Report of their own Commissioners, gave instructions to the Admiralty and the Horse Guards to investigate and report upon the conduct of the officers connected respectively with those Departments. The Admiralty, after investigating the subject, decided that no fresh inquiry was requisite, and they approved the conduct of the Admiral on the station. The Horse Guards, as I am informed, have not made up their minds upon the instructions with which they were furnished, and no one grudges them sufficient time to arrive at a decision of so momentous a character. Under these circumstances, I am at a loss to understand why the hon. Gentleman is thus pressing us for information, and why he is so impatient to ask us what steps are or have been taken. If, upon consideration, Her Majesty's Government should feel it their duty to address fresh instructions to the Horse Guards or the Admiralty, we shall do our duty. But our fresh instructions would be of course founded upon fresh information, and we should only act after having taken the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown. The present state of affairs is that the late Government considered the conduct of Governor Eyre and dismissed him. They referred it to the Admiralty and the Horse Guards, under the instructions of the Government, to consider the conduct of the officers employed. The Admiralty did not disapprove the conduct of the Admiral, and the Horse Guards have not yet come to any decision. This being the state of the case, I am not prepared to offer any further information to the bon. Gentleman.

THE COAL COMMISSION.

  QUESTION.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he rose to ask, Whether the Royal Coal Commission is authorized to bore for Coal in different
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  parts of Great Britain, and whether it is understood that expenses may be incurred to an unlimited extent without the previous approval of the House of Commons?
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, in reply, that there was no authority to bore for coal in different parts of the country. It was not usual for expenses of this kind to be incurred without application being first made to the Home Office, who, if needful, might place the application before the Treasury.

  IRELAND—MEDICAL SUPERINTENDENTS.—QUESTION.
  MR. PACK - BERESFORDsaid, he would beg to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, What are the qualifications necessary to hold the situation of resident medical superintendent of a County Lunatic Asylum in Ireland; and had the situation of resident medical superintendent to the Carlow Lunatic Asylum been filled up; and, if so, who has been appointed?
  LORD NAASsaid, in reply, that the office of medical superintendent of the Carlow lunatic asylum had been filled up by the late Government. A person holding the position of medical resident superintendent must be a qualified physician and surgeon.

  INDIA—GRIEVANCES OF INDIAN OFFICERS.—QUESTION.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, Whether the 393 petitions now on the table of the House of Commons from Officers of the Indian Armies for redress of grievances will be taken into consideration before a communication is made to the House on the subject of petitions presented to the last Parliament?
  VISCOUNT CRANBOURNE: Undoubtedly. Not only the 393 petitions now on the table, but all petitions from the Indian army will be taken into consideration before we come to a decision on the subject.

  SCOTCH BURGHS.—QUESTION.
  MR. M'LARENsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department his intention respecting the "Bill (as amended in Committee) to amend the General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act, 1862," in so far as respects the proposed change in the constitution of all the burghs in Scotland which have adopted that Act?
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONreplied, that it was not intended by the Bill in any way to alter the constitution of burghs. It raised a matter of controversy, however, and would not be proceeded with this Session.

  ARMY—ARTILLERY—CAST-STEEL BARRELS.—QUESTION.
  MR. SAUNDERSONsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been directed to the question of substituting cast-steel barrels, bored in the solid, for the iron barrels employed in the manufacture of the Enfield rifle?
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, in the absence of his right hon. Friend (General Peel), he would state that the attention of the proper authorities had been for some time past directed to this subject, and experiments were still in progress which might possibly lead to the substitution of cast-steel barrels for those now employed in the Enfield rifles.

  IRELAND—APPOINTMENT OF MR. BLACKBURNE.—QUESTION.
  MR. MAGUIREsaid, as the right hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Chichester Fortescue) was not in his place, he would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Morpeth, If it be the fact, as was stated on Tuesday night by Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, that Mr. Blackburne, who in his eighty-fifth year has been appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland, had been appointed to the office of Lord Justice of Appeal as recently as three months since; and whether it is within his knowledge when that appointment was really made?
  SIR GEORGE GREY: Sir, I was not in the House when the right hon. Gentleman is reported to have made the statement. I can hardly believe that he made it, because it is notorious that Mr. Blackburne was appointed to the office of Lord Justice of Appeal in Ireland in 1856—ten years ago—immediately after the passing of the Act which constituted that office. I believe it is also perfectly well known that there was an understanding when that Act was passed that Mr. Blackburne having held the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and being quite competent to perform the duties of Lord Justice of Appeal, should be appointed to that office; and the Government acted on that understanding.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: What I intended to say was that Mr. Blackburne was originally appointed to the office of Lord Justice by a Liberal Administration. That was ten years ago. And certainly three months ago he was revising a decree of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Some one told me at the time that there had been an appeal to him from the Lord Chancellor.

IRELAND—INLAND FISHERIES.

  QUESTION.
  MR. BLAKEsaid, he rose to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether the Bill prepared by the late Administration to amend the Law relative to the Irish Inland Fisheries, and which was intended to be introduced in the Lords, will be proceeded with during the present Session?
  LORD NAASsaid, he thought it desirable that the Bill should be introduced during the present Session, but it was not for him to say whether it would be proceeded with during the present Session.

  MERCHANT SHIPPING ACT AMENDMENT BILL.—QUESTION.
  MB. LAIRDsaid, he wished to ask the President of the Board of Trade, If he intends to proceed further with the Merchant Shipping Act (1854) Amendment Bill this Session?
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE,in reply, said, it would not be possible to proceed this Session with that Bill or with the Waterworks Bill, and he therefore proposed that the Orders relating to them both should be read and discharged.
  Orders read and discharged accordingly.

  IRELAND—APPOINTMENT OF MR. BLACKBURNE.—QUESTION.
  SIR PATRICK O'BRIENsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the statement is correct that on the occasion of the Earl of Derby forming his administration in the year 1858 the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland was offered to the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland, the Right hon. Francis Blackburne, and then declined by him on the ground of his advanced age, or some similar reason?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, it is very difficult to remember all the offers of office that were made in the year 1858; but I believe that Mr. Black-

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  burne was then requested by Lord Derby to become Lord Chancellor of Ireland; and I think he declined the offer because he was then in possession of the very dignified and permanent office just referred to by the right hon. Member for Morpeth (Sir George Grey), whereas the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland does not partake of that permanent character. I do not believe that age was alleged as the cause of Mr. Blackburne's refusal; and to what "similar reason" the hon. Member alludes in his question I am totally at a loss to conceive.

  THE COAL COMMISSION.—QUESTION.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department for an explanation connected with the answer he had given to the hon. Member for Aberdeen (Colonel Sykes) on the subject of the power of the Coal Commission to authorize boring. He wished to know, Whether he was right in believing that the effect of the right hon. Gentleman's answer was that the Commission had, in point of fact, nb power whatever to institute boring, and that any matter of that kind was wholly excluded from the power of the Commission?
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, the right hon. Gentleman was quite correct, there was no such power given to the Commission.

INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS BILL.

  QUESTION.
  MR. HANBURYsaid, he wished to ask, Whether the Government will give a morning sitting for proceeding with the Industrial Schools Bill?
  MR. WALPOLEsaid, in reply, that if the Bill could not be brought on by ten o'clock that night he would be willing to make it the second or third Order for the morning sitting on Tuesday, when the Public Health Bill would have the precedence.

  PROPOSED PUBLIC MEETING IN HYDE PARK.—QUESTION.
  MR. P. A. TAYLORsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, to state by whose authority, and under what law, an order signed by Sir Richard Mayne has been issued forbidding the holding of a public meeting in Hyde Park?
  MR. WALPOLE: I wish, Sir, the hon. Gentleman had sent me an earlier notice of his Question, in order that I might
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  have been able to give it a more complete answer. However, speaking from recollection, I think I can give him nearly a complete answer. The order signed by Sir Richard Mayne has been issued under my authority and direction, and I am entirely responsible for it. With regard to the legality of such an order, I wish to remind the hon. Member and the House, if they are not acquainted with the fact already, that notices have been placarded over every part of the metropolis, inviting large assemblages of persons to come from different parts of London, to meet at six o'clock in the evening, and to concentrate their processions in Hyde Park at half past six, for the purpose, as avowed in some of those notices, of making what they call a demonstration. I think I need not point out to the House that the consequences arising from such assemblages of men meeting in Hyde Park might lead, and probably would lead, to riotous or disorderly conduct, and certainly would interfere with the recreation of quiet and orderly people, for whom the parks, the property of the Crown, are open, and not for the purposes of such meetings. Let it be remembered that there is nothing in the notice signed by Sir Richard Mayne to imply that orderly conducted processions are forbidden, or that any of these gentlemen may not hold their meetings at the proper time and in the proper place for the purpose of discussing political or any other matters. But I think that any one who holds the office which I have the honour to hold is bound to attend to the public peace of the metropolis; and if he believes that those parks, which are open by Her Majesty's permission for the benefit of all her subjects, are likely to be employed for any purpose that would interfere with the recreation of quiet and orderly people there, and might possibly lead to riotous and disorderly proceedings. I therefore think I should have been moat blameworthy if I had not directed the issue of such an order as that now in question.
  SIR GEORGE GREY: I may perhaps be allowed to say that the course taken by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Walpole) is exactly in accordance with that which has been pursued on former occasions. Hyde Park is one of the Royal parks; and the prohibition of the holding of meetings there is founded on the reason stated by my right hon. Friend—namely, that the Royal parks are intended for the recreation and enjoy-

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  ment of the people, and has no reference whatever to the abstract right of holding public meetings. Sir Richard Mayne received instructions from me before I left office, when a meeting in Hyde Park had been announced, that it should not be allowed to be held there.
  MR. J. STUART MILL: I wish, Sir, to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether we are to understand that the prohibition which he authorized to be issued as to the contemplated public meeting is based only on the circumstance that the meeting was announced to be held in one of the parks? If so—["Order, order!"]
  MR. WALPOLE: I may perhaps be permitted to say that the notice which has been issued is grounded on the circumstance that the meeting was to have been held in Hyde Park; and I may venture to add, as this Question has been put to me, that I hope the notice which I have caused to be issued will not be interpreted as being intended in the least degree to prevent the holding of ordinary public meetings for political discussion, but simply for the preservation of the public peace.

IRELAND—RECORD OFFICE (DUBLIN).

  MOTION FOR A RETURN.
  GENERAL DUNNEsaid, he rose to move for a Return stating the progress made in the works of the new Record Office in Dublin, when it will be completed, and when the Records will be placed there; and when the Government will bring in a Bill for the purpose of the one which cannot be removed without it?
  MR. HUNT,in reply, said, the building was nearly completed, and some of the records would be speedily removed to it; but with regard to others, the sanction of Parliament, would be necessary for their removal.

  HELSTON ELECTION.—REPORT.
  Report from Select Committee considered.
  MR. LOWE,the Chairman of this Committee, having read to the House two paragraphs from their Report to the effect that, although the poll books showed that the number of votes for Mr. Brett and Mr. Campbell were equal, the returning officer had nevertheless returned Mr. Campbell as duly elected, and that the returning officer did not appear before the Committee to offer any explanation Why such a
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  return had been made, said, he might add that the returning officer was served both with a notice and with the Speaker's warrant. The Committee did not attach any blame to that gentleman for not answering to those documents, because he had received a notice from the agents for the petitioners stating that his evidence would not be required. But the Committee thought it right to mention the fact of his not having been in attendance, because they thought the circumstances disclosed before them were so remarkable that it was the duty of the returning officer to have attended before the Committee and explained them. The Committee further found, by investigating the poll, that the returning officer had voted for Mr. Campbell, and they also found that the returning officer was the father of the agent of Mr. Campbell. Under those circumstances, he thought the House would be of opinion that the Committee had no alternative but to call the attention of the House to the facts contained in their Report, in order that the House might take any steps which it thought proper for clearing up the matter. He had since received a letter from the returning officer, and he would read such portions of it as were relevant to the question at issue. The rest of the letter was taken up with excuses, with which it was not necessary that he should trouble the House. The part of the letter to which he wished to call attention was as follows:—
  "In regard to the return which I made I desire to make the following observations:—When I discovered on adding up the poll books that an equal number of votes had been given for Mr. Campbell and Mr. Brett, I felt much difficulty as to the course it would be proper for me to pursue. In all other cases it appeared to me to ho clear that the mayor of a borough when acting in his official capacity had a casting vote, and my strong impression undoubtedly was that I had the casting vote in this instance also. I did not, however, feel certain on the subject, and stated this in the public hall, but that if I had a casting vote I gave it in favour of Mr. Campbell. I was also strongly impressed by the conviction that it was my duty to make a Return of one person only, according to the express requirement of the writ, and that I could not consistently with the writ return two persons. After a long discussion in the public hall I proposed to adjourn my decision to enable me to take the opinion of counsel as to the proper return for me to make. This course, however, was very generally objected to, and I was consequently compelled to decide for myself according to the best judgment I could form. I ultimately determined to return Mr. Campbell, after referring to the only authority I had at hand, and which I believed to be regarded as the best—namely, Rogers on Elections, in which the following pas-

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  sage occurs:— A learned writer considers that if the votes are equal it is a void election, but adds that the returning officer may, without incurring censure, return either all the candidates who have equal numbers, or one only' (p. 291). I conscientiously believe that in returning Mr. Campbell, in whose favour the show of hands had been given, I was properly discharging my duty, having regard to the terms of the writ, the belief that I had a casting vote, and to the authority to which I have referred. I beg, in conclusion, to state to you, and through you to be permitted to state to the House, that in making such return I was influenced by the single desire to do that which appeared to me to be my duty; and I beg that you and the House will be pleased to accept the expression of my regret if the course which I have taken should on mature consideration be deemed by the House to be in any respect incorrect."
  He (Mr. Lowe) did not propose to offer to the House any observations upon the reasons which the writer of the letter gave for taking the course which he had adopted. He deemed it, however, to be his duty to state what the law on the subject was, because the best argument used by the gentleman in question was, perhaps, that he had been misled by the text books upon it. There was, in the first place, the "Bramber case," which occurred in 1703. In that instance two candidates, Lord Windsor and Mr. Middleton, polled an equal number of votes. The returning officer declared Mr. Middleton duly elected, on which Lord Windsor petitioned against the return, and the election was declared void. The returning officer, however, who took upon himself to return only one Member, had done so without incurring censure of the House. Then came the "Horsham case," in 1715 (18th volume of Parliamentary Journals, page 172). The first candidate in that instance was Mr. Eversfield, who polled thirty-six votes, the remaining two, Sir Henry Goring and Sir Arthur Ingrain having polled each thirty-three. The sheriff returned Mr. Eversfield and Sir Henry Goring, taking no notice of Sir Arthur Ingram. The counsel for the petitioner took notice of the irregularity, arguing that the returning officer had been guilty of misconduct in not making a double return. The House, however, although they unseated Sir Henry Goring, took no notice of the returning officer, who escaped all censure. That was all the information on the subject to be derived from the precedents. Since that period—1715—the almost universal practice had been to return both Members in the event of an equality of votes, leaving the question as to which of them should have the seat to be decided by the House of Commons.
  1078
  The circumstances of the present case being such as he had stated, the only point which remained for consideration was what course in reference to it the House ought to adopt? The House had been made acquainted with the excuses advanced by the returning officer, who was, he believed, seventy-five years of age, and not in good health. No good purpose could, he thought, be served by subjecting him to a reprimand for what he had done. He had acted in accordance with what was once the practice; at least, similar conduct had, as he had shown, been allowed to pass un-censured. The practice seemed, so far as he could see, to have been gradually changed by custom without any technical decision of the House. He for one, therefore, as Chairman of the Committee, did not feel disposed to press the matter as against the returning officer any further. If any hon. Gentleman took a different view, it was, of course, open to him to act upon it. It remained to be considered whether it was desirable that the House should place on record any decision on the subject. If it should be decided in the affirmative, he was prepared to submit a Resolution to its notice, or the matter might be postponed to some future day. Circumstances, he might add, had lately occurred which tended rather to complicate the question. A Bill had been introduced which had occupied the day before a considerable portion of the time of hon. Members, and the object of which was to enable the returning officer to give a casting vote in those cases in which the number of votes happened to be equal. It might, therefore, be deemed inexpedient to lay down any law on the subject, when there was some chance that double returns might be altogether abolished. At the same time it was probable, taking into account the period of the Session, that the Bill to which he referred would not pass; and even supposing that it did pass, the Amendment proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Richmond, if carried, would have the effect of limiting the power of the returning officer to give a casting vote to those cases in which he was an elector. We might still, therefore, have double returns, and the necessity for having some authoritative rule on the subject might continue to exist. That being so, the matter was one in reference to which he felt himself to be in a position of some embarrassment. The best course, perhaps, which he could, under the circumstances,

  1079
  pursue, was to move the Resolution to which he had alluded, leaving it to the House to deal with it as it might think fit.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That, according to the Law and usage of Parliament, it is the duty of the Sheriff or other Returning Officer in England, in case of an equal number of votes being polled for two or more candidates at an Election, to return all such candidates."—(Mr. Lowe.)
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I think there can scarcely be any difference of opinion in the House with reference to the first part of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman. The mayor of Helston having cleared himself from any charge of contempt of the House, it would, in my opinion, be undesirable to press the matter against that gentleman any further. With regard to the Resolution moved by the right hon. Gentleman, I confess my impression is that it is one likely to lead to considerable controversy. I cannot help fancying that the best course to pursue would be to defer passing any Resolution until it is ascertained what the House is prepared to do with reference to the Bill of the hon. Member for Honiton, which had been discussed on the previous day.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I entirely agree with what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman opposite; and I must add to what ho has said, that it appears to me it deserves consideration whether this is entirely a matter to be dealt with by Resolution—whether the control of the House on matters within its own precincts extends a jurisdiction to instruct those who conduct the election of its Members in other places as to the mode in which returning officers should construe the law. I mention this as a grave matter involved in the inquiry, and as sustaining the view of the right hon. Gentleman.
  Debate adjourned till Thursday next.

  EAST INDIA REVENUE ACCOUNTS.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  VISCOUNT CRANBOURNE: Sir, it is my misfortune, in moving the Resolution and introducing the financial statement of the East India Revenue, to follow a predecessor who probably, of all those who have ever governed the affairs of India, has had more experience than any other Minister. And, therefore, not only in respect to the
  1080
  great abilities of that noble Lord, but also in respect to the experience which he had a right to claim, I stand at a great disadvantage, and I think if the practice of moving the East India budgets continues for any considerable length of time, while Lord Halifax is placed on record as having moved the Indian budget with the largest amount of experience, I am afraid that I shall be placed on record as having moved it with the least. Under these circumstances, I wish by anticipation that I may be permitted to qualify any opinions, which, in the course of the remarks, I have to make. I shall express such opinions as seem to me to be justified; but I hope that the House will not think that I attribute to them more weight than they deserve. I make them, not in the least degree concealing my inexperience in the office, but for the purpose of raising discussion upon these important questions, and of eliciting the opinions of those hon. Members who will be far better worth listening to than I am. Sir, it is in the knowledge of the House that it is the practice of Indian finance to deal with three years at a time, whilst in English finance we deal with only two years. In dealing with Indian finance, in consequence of the difficulty of communication and the length of time which elapses after the accounts are made up by the Indian Government before they come into our hands, for convenience sake it is the custom to take three years. The first year is the year of fact, in regard to which we are certain of the figures. The next year is the year of mixed estimate and fact, there being eight months of fact and four months of estimate; and the third year is the year of pure estimate. With regard to the first of those years with which I have to deal, I hope you will excuse me if I am short. The last year, 1864–5, which was brought to a close fifteen months ago, will have but limited interest for the House of Commons, and I shall therefore content myself with giving a mere summary of the financial results. The gross revenue for that year was £45,653,000. The gross expenditure £45,846,000, showing a deficit of £193,000. Sir Charles Trevelyan, in moving the budget which came to these results, estimated a surplus of £823,000. By adding to that the deficit of £193,000, it appears that he was about £1,000,000 wrong in his calculations. That error of calculation was due to a loss of £800,000 on the opium tax, and to a further loss on

  1081
  military expenditure, caused partly by the expedition to Bhootan, and partly by the increased cost of the necessaries of life, which was experienced in all parts of India. With these remarks I will pass by the financial year of 1864–5. I will now come to the year—a more important one—which closed on the 30th of April last—the year 1865–6. The gross revenue of that year was £47,041,000; the gross expenditure was £47,021,000; showing the small surplus of £20,000. On this occasion the Finance Minister was nearly as much wrong as he was on the previous one; only on this occasion he was wrong in the right direction. Instead of calculating on £1,000,000 more than he got, he calculated on £675,000 less than he got; and, again, the variation was due to one great variable element of Indian finance, the yield upon the opium crop. The opium crop recovered unexpectedly, and the result was that which I have stated. Now, I shall trouble the House with the details of that expenditure and revenue, and I do so the more that I find on looking back that Lord Halifax has not for many years entered into the details of expenditure and receipts of the Indian budget; and although I am quite conscious of the reluctance with which the House listens to details so little affecting their own constituents, still as it has imposed on the Indian Minister the task of making the statement, I think it my duty to make it tolerably complete. Now, in the years 1865–6 the land and forest revenue was £20,480,000 against £20,439,000 of the previous year, which gives a gain of £41,000. With respect to land and forest revenue there is little to say. The House is aware that the authorities in India have lately been prosecuting a new settlement of land revenue, the object of which is in many parts of the country to give to it a more permanent character, and to a certain extent to cut off from the Government all the gain that would accrue from the increased value of the land. The forest revenue is a matter of comparatively recent institution. It began, like many other good things, with the administration of Lord Dalhousie. Great things are expected from it. It is hoped that it will furnish not only fuel for the railways, but also a great article for export in the commerce of India. But at present its financial result is not hopeful. It yields £414,000 and costs about £250,000 to collect, so that the net result is not at present very attractive. The next item
  1082
  of revenue is the Excise, which yielded in 1865–6 £2,271,000, as against £2,224,000, showing a gain of £47,000. It struck me certainly with surprise, on first looking at these figures—as I think it will strike any one who is not accustomed to hear statements of Indian finance—that the duty on spirits, of which the Excise mainly consists, should yield so small a revenue. The duty on spirits is 6s. a gallon. Now, a duty of 6s. a gallon on 130,000,000 of people is enough to make the mouth of an English Chancellor of the Exchequer water. If we could raise from the Hindoos a spirit duty at the rate at which we raise it from Englishmen that amount of duty would yield about £26,000,000 a year. But in India it only brings in £2,200,000. [Colonel SYKES: Hear, hear!] The hon. and gallant Member for Aberdeen has expressed the opinion that the smaller the amount is the better. [Colonel SYKES: Hear, hear!] But I think it is fair to say something in favour of the Indian Government. There is no Government in the world that is so pelted with moral admonitions as the Indian Government. Everybody regards it as the model of all that is atrocious, avaricious, and grasping. It may be so; but, at all events, in this matter of Excise it is only right to do it justice. We know that there are some European countries in which the people are encouraged to drink for the sake of getting a revenue. No charge of that kind can be brought against us. I do not, however, think that we take much trouble to discourage drinking. I believe that we are well satisfied that Englishmen should drink up to the tune of £10,000,000 a year in the Excise, or £14,000,000 a year including Customs. The Indian Government are, I think, entitled to look down upon the English Government from a pinnacle of moral elevation, because the Indian Government is content with that miserable contribution from its subjects in order to discourage the habit of drinking. The Indian Government actually does what I believe no other Government does—it so frames its Excise laws that its subjects may to the largest possible extent be discouraged from drinking. I confess I was surprised when I learned this, and I venture to record it as an instance of virtue rarely known in Governments. However, virtue is to a certain extent its own reward, and we have got £47,000 more under this head this year than we did last year. The next item to which I will allude is the income tax. The income tax is

  1083
  perhaps another case in which we may claim a certain amount of moral excellence for the Indian Government. We must recollect that when the income tax was first introduced into India it was stated to be for a period of five years only. This intelligence was received in England with a shout of derision. We said we knew what that meant. We had been accustomed to hear our own income tax imposed for a certain number of years only, but we have found it existing up to the present period. But it has actually turned out that the income tax which was imposed in India in 1860 for five years has only lasted five years. The income tax in India has ceased to exist. At the same time, I am bound to confess that this other exhibition of moral elevation may be explained by the fact that the income tax has proved a complete failure in India. Mr. Wilson, I think, went over to India just when the right hon. Gentleman opposite had induced us to bow our necks to an income tax of 10 d. in the pound, and Mr. Wilson induced the Council of India to impose a tax of about 10 d. in the pound in that country, and he appeared at first to be very confident of thus being enabled to relieve the finances of India. But his successor next year—and I know no higher authority existing in reference to India than Mr. Laing—said his first duty was to announce that the income tax had failed. Although the tax was 10 d. in the pound, and though levied upon 130,000,000 of people, it never produced more than £2,000,000. And, accordingly, Mr. Laing reduced it in the course of three years. I am bound to add further circumstances showing its extreme stringency, it being imposed on incomes of from £50 to £20 a year at the rate of 2 per cent. Mr. Laing felt it his duty in the course of two years to abolish it on the lower income, and Sir Charles Trevelyan reduced it on the higher incomes from 4 to 3 per cent, and finally in 1865 the tax was allowed to lapse. It is worth while to give attention to the causes of that failure. I believe that the two most yielding schedules in our own income tax are Schedules A and B. Both of these schedules are crippled in India. The income under Schedule A is derived in this country chiefly from rents, but in India the land is the property of the Government, and the result is that that which is the subject of taxation in England is withdrawn from taxation in India. With regard to Schedule D there is another not so satisfactory a reason. I have already pointed out the
  1084
  superior moral elevation of the Indian Government; but I am compelled to admit that the same standard of moral elevation cannot be claimed for the Indian population. We are accustomed to look at Schedule D as showing the moral elevation of our own population. But everything of this kind is comparative, and we may refer to other nations to see how much lower their notions are in the scale of financial morality than our own. I find that in the North-Western provinces of India of those who have sent in returns of their own incomes only 6 per cent were taxed upon their own returns. In other words, ninety-four out of every 100 were suspected of having told lies. The Government acted upon that suspicion, and on inquiry into the reality of their incomes they surcharged them at the rate of 300 per cent. It is obvious that in the face of those difficulties the income tax could not have succeeded in India. It is impossible to raise the tax but by self-assessment; and we know that if self-assessment fails it is impossible to raise it by inquisitorial proceedings. But still it must be noted that there is a serious blank in the financial system of India. There is no machinery for raising contributions from personal property, and only a very limited machinery for raising it out of that large amount of income which comes under the head of Schedule D—that is, from persons carrying on trades and professions. The consequence is that the revenue of India is at present mainly raised either from land or from the contributions of the poorer classes of the community in the shape of the salt tax. From the salt tax of last year we have experienced a considerable loss. In 1864–5 it was £5,523,000; in 1865–6 it was £5,396,000, being a loss of £127,000. This was due to two causes. It was partly due to the fact that a good deal of salt formerly was procured in the manufacture of saltpetre. But saltpetre being now greatly manufactured in Europe, the Indian saltpetre has lost its market. The consequence has been that less of it has been made. Another cause, perhaps, was, that in consequence of the spread of railways the Bengal Government retired from the manufacture of salt — and now salt is admitted from other countries on payment of a Customs duty. The Customs showed a gain of £88,000, the figures being £2,296,000 in 1864–5, as against £2,384,000 in 1865–6. The opium yielded in 1864–5, £7,361,000, and in 1865–6, £8,638,000, showing an increase of

  1085
  £1,270,000. Public works in 1864–5 produced £588,000, and in 1865–6 £1,016,000, the excess, I believe, being partly owing to the sale of lands in Bombay. It is my duty now to turn to the expenditure of that year. The first item which will strike any one on examining the expenditure of the two years is the enormous amount which is required for the collection of the revenue. It is true that that collection includes what we may call the purchase money of our possessions in India—that is to say, the allowances and assignments under treaties and engagements—£2,000,000 is withdrawn from the whole amount for these purposes; but the whole amount of expenditure for collection of a revenue of £47,000,000 is no less than £8,774,000, which is a diminution of £204,000 on the cost of collection of the revenue of 1864–5, which was £8,978,000. But after deducting such exceptional items as allowances under treaty engagements, I find that the cost is still extraordinarily heavy. The cost, for instance, of collecting the tax upon land and forests is no less than 12 per cent. I have no doubt that a large economy will be ultimately effected in this respect. The army stands nearly at the point at which it was fixed last year—namely, at £13,494,000 in 1864–5, and £13,568,000, in the present year. During the last five years the cost had never exceeded £14,000,000, and had never been under £12,000,000, and as there has been a singular variety of circumstances during that period affecting its cost, we may infer that the average expenditure for the Indian army may be taken at £13,000,000. There are other items of expenditure which the House will hear with pleasure. The expenditure on public works in 1864–5 was £5,131,000, and in 1865–6 £5,352,000, and, if we include stores from England; £5,487,000. For law and justice there is an increase from £2,264,000 to £2,439,000. In police an increase from £2,361,000 to £2,398,000. There is still one more item I will mention, because it is an item to which all those who have taken an interest in the government of India attach the greatest importance. Some years ago there was scarcely anything given towards education, but since 1854 the sum given for that purpose has been constantly rising, and during the past year it has risen from £531,000 to £660,000. Now, that is the statement of figures for the year that has just passed, I will now give the estimate for the year to come.
  1086
  For this year, 1866–7, we are in a less favourable position than we were in last year, when there was a surplus of £20,000. This year we shall have, perhaps, a deficit of £72,800. The items of the expenditure I will briefly state to the House. There is an increase in the revenue from land of £188,000. An increase in the Excise of £220,000; in the Customs, £29,000; in salt, £137,000. But then, on the other hand, there is a decrease in opium of £138,000; in stamps, of £24,000; and in public works, of £37,000; and the consequence is, that we have the satisfaction of knowing that there is the moderate deficit of only £72,800. I wish, however, to draw the attention of the Committee, and those who take an interest in Indian finance and Indian affairs, to the fact that the balance for 1866–7 has been obtained by basing the sales of opium on an amount to which it has scarcely ever reached in any previous year. Last year there was the extraordinary yield of £8,600,000, and this year it is estimated at £8,500,000, Mr. Massey feeling confident, and no doubt he is justified in doing so, that the sales of opium will reach that amount. But we know by previous estimates, that the yield of this uncertain drug has proved fallacious, and if we look to what opium has done in recent years, we shall have reasonable grounds for concluding that the deficit of £72,000 may be increased to a much larger figure. £8,500,000 was a very exceptional yield for this article, which has only once exceeded that sum from 1856 to 1867. If opium should behave during the current year as it behaved two years ago, the deficit will be £1,200,000; if it should behave as it behaved three years ago, the deficit will be £1,740,000. I do not say this in the least degree for the purpose of questioning the discretion of Mr. Massey, or the late Government in approving of what he did in refusing to raise the revenue of India by means of additional taxation; but to draw attention to the necessity of caution in dealing with this head of Indian finance. It is evident that the perfection of our Indian budget, and the attainment of a good balance sheet, depends on our rightly estimating the yield of opium. Some years ago the revenue derivable from opium was considered to be precarious, but since then certain high authorities have stated that it is as certain as the beer and spirit taxes raised in England. Mr. Laing and Sir Charles Trevelyan have so expressed themselves; but I cannot help thinking that

  1087
  these authorities omit, in the arguments they use in support of that opinion, the real danger of the opium trade, and overlook the real argument they have to deal with. They say that the opium revenue depends on popular taste, which is as stable as those in England for gin and beer, and upon which English Chancellors of the Exchequer have not the slightest fear of their anticipations being realized. It is true popular tastes do not speedily disappear, and if that was the whole of the argument I should be disposed to concur in opinion with the distinguished authorities I have named. So far as popular taste goes, probably the Chinese will continue to be as passionately fond of opium as the English will continue to be passionately fond of gin; but the point of danger is not that. If the opium were consumed in our own dominions the case would be exactly parallel, but the danger here is that we are dependent upon another locality. It would be a matter of indifference to an English Chancellor of the Exchequer where the beer and gin came from, provided it was consumed in this country. But it is not so with regard to opium; because if by any accident or change of circumstances the Chinese might be able to get their opium elsewhere, the Indian revenue from opium would be utterly ruined. I think the authorities I have mentioned, and the Indian Government generally, rely too confidently and too exclusively on a source of revenue which is not on a footing with similar English resources of revenue dependent on popular taste, and I look with some anxiety on the statement that the Indian budget depends on the yield of opium not falling far short of the highest rate it has ever yet attained. Another source of danger is, that opium being a monopoly it is subjected to those speculative operations which in the vernacular are known by the name of "a rig," large amounts being bought up for the purpose of influencing prices; and not only is this done by individual speculators, but something of the same kind is done by the Indian Government itself. Mr. Massey states that, as an unusually large quantity was for sale during the present year, the Indian Government resolved to limit the amount for next year; and the result was that the price rose from 850 rupees per chest to 1,487 rupees per chest. It has been inferred that in the ensuing year the price will be about 1,300 rupees per chest. It must, therefore, be obvious that a revenue
  1088
  which is capable of being manipulated in this way—prices raised by holding back the supply—is always liable to accidental derangement from private speculation. I have made these observations in the hope of drawing attention to the state of our Indian revenue as regards its future prospect in connection with the opium trade. At present, it is upon this opium trade that the success of an Indian Chancellor of the Exchequer depends. If there is a good yield, he has a surplus; if there is a bad yield, he has a deficit. It has been said that this is merely a temporary state of things, and that, in course of time, the rising prosperity of other items of revenue will lift Indian finance above this dependence upon opium. I think it was Mr. Laing who in one of his budgets expressed the greatest confidence in the future of Indian finance. I do not say he was not justified on the facts before him in forming that opinion. Undoubtedly that Gentleman deserves great credit for having relieved Indian finance from its desperate condition. From the buoyancy Indian finance seemed to exhibit under his hand he was justified in drawing those favourable auguries, but they have not, as a matter of fact, been justified by the event. In 1861–2 Mr. Laing reduced the deficit to £50,000; in the next year there was a surplus, and in the following year there was a small surplus of £17,000, and there is now a deficit of £72,000, and, from some cause or another, we have not reached that satisfactory state of Indian finance which he foresaw. I will lay before the Committee the percentage of increase in some of the main articles of Indian revenue, to show that we cannot rely too confidently on the buoyancy of our Indian revenue, and that this absolute reliance on the opium tax is at least a measure of doubtful principle. The land tax in India had increased in the five years before Mr. Laing went to India at the rate of 10 per cent, which was an enormous increase, but for the five years since he left it had only been at the rate 2 8-10 per cent. Again, the Customs in his time appeared to show an enormous elasticity, but that elasticity ceases to appear if the comparison is extended over a long series of years. I will take a period from 1858–9 to 1865–6, because in 1859 the Customs were enormously raised, but very much diminished afterwards. Up to 1858 there was a 5 per cent ad valorem duty, but the following year it was raised to 20 per cent, and after-

  1089
  wards diminished to 7½ per cent. And what I want is for the Committee to compare the state of the Customs revenue when it was 5 per cent and what is its yield now at 7½ per cent. In 1858–9 the yield was £1,987,000, and in 1865–6 it was £2,384,000; but there was an alteration in certain minor articles, from which was gained £100,000, and the result was £2,284,000 as against £1,987,000; or, in other words, the rate of duty had increased during seven years from 5 to 7½ per cent, whilst the gross return had only increased £300,000; the duty had increased 50 per cent, but the revenue only 14 per cent. These are not very encouraging figures, and I lay them before the Committee to show that they cannot rely, as in England, on the elasticity of the Indian Customs revenue. Turning to the Indian Excise revenue, we naturally come to the tax on salt. The consumption of wine, spirits, and tea generally increases with the wealth of the population, but I take it that few people consume more salt when they grow rich than they did before, and consequently we must not look upon salt as an article likely to produce any indefinite increase of revenue. The Committee will, no doubt, be inclined to think that I am making an opposition speech to Mr. Massey's budget rather than as Secretary of State for India, but I can assure you that I am not doing so, but putting the worst part of it first, as the fairest way, in my opinion, of dealing with it, and I invite the Committee to discuss the subject, because I want them to make up their minds whether the opium tax ought to be one of the main supports on which Indian finance should rest. There is, however, a very bright side to the question. We have, it is true, a very large expenditure, which we are scarcely able to meet with our income, but then that expenditure contains charges which are not, strictly speaking, within the proper limits of expenditure, because in the current year we have spent £6,394,000 on public works in India. No man who wished to make permanent improvements on his land would do it at the expense of one-seventh of his income, but would borrow the money and charge the estate. Now India does not do that, but spends what is required for public works out of her current revenue, and consequently it is only fair to credit that revenue with the portion so expended, and in that case we shall have not a miserable surplus but a very large one, which has been invested in the best pos-
  1090
  sible manner for the future interest of the population. Probably £1,000,000 or £1,500,000 expended annually in repairs properly belongs to the revenue of the year. The remainder would properly be carried to capital. That is a consoling circumstance, because it is a large amount so expended. Mr. Laing has laid down that there should be large cash balances as part of the reserve. In his time the cash balances amounted to £17,000,000, and he has laid down that no Government ought to have less than £14,000,000. Now, I am sorry that I cannot claim such a balance, because Mr. Massey states that at the close of the next financial year he will not have more than £10,000,000 cash balance, which is not more than is absolutely necessary to meet the working expenses of the Government. Another source of congratulation is the enormous success of railway extension in India, and nothing is more gratifying than the reports that our Indian railways are re-paying their expenditure with extraordinary rapidity. I find that the great Indian Peninsular Railway, although not completed, is paying 7 per cent on its capital, besides setting aside 50 per cent with which to meet working expenses. The East Indian, which is not finished, but which has been so far constructed on a much more expensive principle than the former, having cost at the rate of £22,000 per mile, is already paying very nearly 5 per cent. Of course the Committee will bear in mind that these railways are not open to the full extent contemplated, and that they have at present to rely very much upon goods traffic, but when these great trunk lines are completed, it was reasonable to expect large returns both for passengers and goods traffic. These appear to me to be sources of great consolation, which ought to outweigh even a heavy deficit, and which certainly ought to tell against any uncertainty in the opium revenue which may cause us apprehension. There is in India an enormous amount of wealth which only awaits the opening of her communications, the increase of produce, the employment of industry. When you have done all that can be done in those matters, when the great arteries of communication in the land have been brought into play, there need be no apprehensions as to the ability of India to pay her way. It has been the custom, Sir, of former Indian Ministers, on occasions such as this, to go not only into the financial subjects which are the special business of the budget,

  1091
  but also into those various questions affecting India in regard to which they might have anything to communicate to the House. In consequence, however, of the papers that my predecessor has prepared, and which I hold in my hand, I think it is unnecessary that I should address the House now upon those subjects. I have it here in my hand, but I hardly think it is the wish of the House that I should even dwell in summary upon the contents of this valuable but somewhat bulky mass of information. But at all events, without going into those details, I may take it that the present condition of India is one not of brilliant or rapid, but of steady and real progress. Education is progressing, and not only has the expenditure of the Government under this head been enlarged, but that of private individuals also, who have been ready to extend to others the education of which they have learnt to know the value themselves. As I have shown, public works have progressed, communication has been increased, education is improving, the navigation of the Godavery is progressing, and will be pushed forward with to the utmost extent possible during the present year; the Ganges Canal has been subject to a new survey, and additional means will be taken to make it more capable of performing its enormous office in fertilizing and increasing the communication of the North of India; the Doab Canal has been pushed forward; in short, everywhere in India we find a condition of continual progress which justifies us in believing that the labours and anxieties, and even the apprehensions of former years, have not been thrown away. Sir, it may be expected that I should say something as to what the policy of the Indian Government is to be. If I had no other apology for not doing that than the short period of my tenure of office, I think that would be quite apology enough. But, in fact, our policy in India at the present moment cannot admit of doubt. India is now in a quiet pacific condition, and it is our happiness not to have to produce a policy. To keep peace, and to push on the public works—that is in brief the policy that we have to follow. If we can increase the immense means she possesses for the production of commodities—if we can draw forth the enormous elements of prosperity that lie in the richness of her soil and the teeming millions of her population—if we can impress upon the neighbouring Powers —whether they lie outside her borders or
  1092
  are included in her own dominions—if we can impress upon them that her rulers have renounced for ever the policy of annexation, of territorial aggrandisement, which formerly spread distrust and caused disturbance all around; if we do these things, and if we can spread to all the populations there under our charge the blessings of English civilization and English government; if we can give them the culture which will enable them to appreciate those blessings and to take part in spreading them and in making them effectual; if these things can be done, then this present period of repose and of apparent stagnation will be put to the best use it possibly can be put to. We know that morally as well as physically, a tropical atmosphere is one of terrible uncertainty. We can never tell when the evil day may come, or when this peaceful state of things may be disturbed. Though we cannot see the cloud on the horizon, we cannot predict how far or how near it may be. We can only be assured that if we make the best use of our present opportunities—if we push to the utmost of our power the moral and material improvement of that vast territory and of the teeming nations that people it, we shall then have placed our Empire upon foundations that cannot be shaken.
  MR. LAING,having listened to the very interesting statement that had just been made, said, he was sure that all those who were interested in India might well feel satisfied at the future prospects of that country under the administration of the noble Lord, who had dealt with the various questions affecting the Government and prosperity of that country in such a comprehensive manner. On such occasions as the present it would be useless for Members of that House to discuss an Indian budget, with the same minuteness with which the provisions of the financial statements for England were criticized. The Indian budget was peculiar in its nature; it was agreed to in that country before the particulars of it were known here, and the financial responsibility of the Indian authorities ought to be duly respected and preserved. But, at the same time, it was desirable both for India and for this country that correct and comprehensive views of the real position of affairs over there should be entertained in this country, for her progress and prosperity were influenced, not inconsiderably, by the public opinion of England. The question, for instance, as to whether

  1093
  new and additional taxation ought to be imposed upon the inhabitants of India, or whether the public works ought to be aided by loans, depended upon the feeling that prevailed in England on the subject; and sound opinions could only be the result of accurate and ample knowledge. He might further add that, while deprecating any minute interference on the part of this country with the actions of the Governors of India, yet it might be useful to them to see whether their pulicy did or did not meet with approval in that House and in the country generally. For these reasons, he thought that the noble Lord had set a good example in inviting a fuller and somewhat more comprehensive discussion of Indian questions than was customary on this budget being brought forward. He personally felt considerable responsibility for the present state of the Indian finances, as it was upon his responsibility, in a great measure, that a great many of the taxes affecting the Native population had been repealed during the last year of Lord Canning's Administration, and that thus the apparent deficit now existing was brought about. It was by his advice that the income tax had been reduced. He was also responsible for the licensing system of taxation, which would have affected several millions of the Native population, not being carried into effect. At the time it was doubted whether the course taken by Lord Canning's Government on these points was prudent, and it was said that it was only to be justified by the result proving that the finances of India might be kept in a healthy condition without the aid of these taxes, in which case there could be no doubt upon the policy of repealing them. The real objection to the income or licence tax in India was not only the miserable sum, comparatively speaking, that it realized, but the amount of extortion, and oppression, and irritation to which it necessarily gave rise in attempting to enforce it from the Native population by means of such officials as they were compelled to employ in India. He had no hesitation in saying that for every rupee that might have been obtained by the operation of the licence tax another rupee would have been extorted from the population by the Native officials employed in collecting it. He, therefore, considered it a point of first-rate importance that irritating and oppressive taxes of this description should be abolished, always providing that no financial exigencies made the continuance of them necessary,
  1094
  and he was convinced that Mr. Massey had exercised a very wise discretion in not reimposing them. He should not object to a moderate or modified income tax levied upon the merchants and traders and persons of that class, if Mr. Massey should find himself able at some future period to propose such a tax, but he did not consider that in the present posture of affairs there was any necessity for running the risk of attempting to impose anything like a general income tax. The force of this proposition, of course, depended mainly upon the view which was taken of the intrinsic soundness of Indian finances as they stood at present. On that point the opinion to which he had given expression had been challenged, and he was anxious, therefore, to take the opportunity of showing the Committee the real condition of Indian finance as regarded its past progress and future prospects. For that purpose it would be necessary for him to regard the mutiny as forming, as it did, the era in India of a new system of finance, as well as the beginning of an improved state of things in many other respects. Up to the time of the mutiny India had been engaged in a series of wars, brought upon it mainly by the necessity which existed for the extension of its frontiers to its natural limits. Whether those wars were altogether just or necessary he would not say, but the fact could not be disputed, that from the time when our territory in India was confined to a single fort in Calcutta to the time when, under Lord Dalhousie, it obtained its natural frontiers—the Himalaya Mountains and the ocean—we had on our hands a continual succession of wars, which naturally also brought with them a continual succession of financial deficits. The administration of Lord Dalhousie though brilliant, was remarkable for its wars and its deficits. They would find that during the twenty years preceding the mutiny £50,000,000 were added to the National Debt of India. The mutiny, of course, added to the financial difficulties of the country, and from 1857–60 the annual deficit averaged £12,000,000, adding no less than £36,000,000 in the &three years to the National Debt of India. This brought about such a degree of financial distress in India, as had been truly said went to the verge of bankruptcy. It became necessary, in the last year of Lord Canning's Administration, to adopt a most vigorous means of improving the revenue and reducing the expenditure, and for that pur-

  1095
  pose more sweeping measures were never, he believed, adopted in any country; for upon a total expenditure, open to revision, of scarcely £30,000,000, no less than £6,000,000 were struck off in the course of about twelve months. Thus the equilibrium of Indian finance was restored. The question, therefore, was whether the equilibrium had been so maintained since that period as to hold out a fair prospect for the future. Now, if they took the period which had elapsed since the financial year 1861–2, which was the first year in which the new financial measures were brought into operation and the equilibrium established, they would find that the united surpluses of those six years amounted to £1,905,000, as compared with accumulated deficits amounting to £670,000, showing in the period of what might be called the new era of Indian finance an excess of surplus amounting to £1,235,000. He believed that the fairest way of arriving at an accurate opinion upon this subject was to take the figures for a series of years, because it must not be forgotten that the slightest fluctuation in the opium revenue was sufficient to change a small surplus into a small deficit. The gross revenue during the six years since 1861–2 had increased from £43,829,000 to £47,041,000 a year; and taking into account the surplus in the last year, the whole balance of surpluses over deficits during the six years amounted to £1,235,000, or an average of over £200,000 a year. But the noble Lord bad pointed out to the Committee the reasons which, in the case of Indian finance, rendered a nominal deficit a real surplus. Since 1861–2 there had been a large outlay upon public works and a large outlay for guaranteed interest on railway capital, which was as yet unproductive, because the lines being as yet unfinished no return could be expected. The outlay in these directions had certainly not been less than £2,000,000 or £3,000,000 a year—an expenditure which in any other State in Europe, or in the accounts of any private company, would have been carried to the capital account and not charged upon the revenue. In the last budget of 1866–7 Mr. Massey included an expenditure of £5,770,000 upon public works, a large portion of which would be unquestionably reproductive, though he was inclined to think that the noble Lord opposite had estimated a little too highly the reproductiveness of some of this outlay. But, at any rate, no one could doubt that at least half of this outlay would be really
  1096
  reproductive; and, in addition, it must be borne in mind that in these budgets the very cost of land for the railways was charged to the revenue, although it was beyond doubt one of the clearest charges upon capital that it was possible to conceive. In the same way they would find on the revenue side of the Indian budget of this year not less than £3,000,000 or £4,000,000, which, in any budget except an Indian one, would appear as charges upon capital, and hence the trifling deficit of £72,000 which appeared upon the estimate was clearly, in fact, a surplus of not less than £2,500,000, and possibly of £3,000,000. Now, to discover what was the natural elasticity of the Indian revenue, they ought also to look over a long period before they could arrive at any trustworthy results. In the three years 1854–7, before the disturbing causes of the mutiny came to be felt, the gross revenue of India amounted, in round figures, to £32,000,000. The revenue in 1861–2 —the first year of the new régime amounted to £43,829,000, and at the present period the last returns were, as near as possible, £47,000,000—for the estimate for the budget was £46,750,000, and budget estimates were always somewhat below the actual figures. The result, then, was that in the ten years preceding 1861–2 the gross increase on the revenue had amounted to £14,000,000, but of that amount £6,000,000 were due to new taxes and the acquisition of new territory; so that the increase ought to be regarded as £8,000,000, or a progressive increase at the rate of £800,000 a year. But since 1861–2 the revenue had increased from £43,829,000 to £46,752,000—an increase as nearly as possible of £3,000,000. But that £3,000,000 ought, in reality, to be increased by £2,000,000, the amount which was formerly derived from the income tax when it figured in the budget of 1861–2, but which had been since repealed. The real elasticity of the revenue, therefore, since 1861–2, amounted to £5,000,000, being at the average rate of £1,000,000 a year. The result thus came out as nearly as could be, that for the ten years before 1861–2 the average increase was at the rate of £800,000 per annum, and that for the last five years it had been at the rate of £1,000,000 per annum. Now, they might anticipate that this state of things would continue. It was a highly satisfactory rate of growth, and was certainly as high as he ever contemplated when he made the predictions which had been re-

  1097
  ferred to. But, then, the important question arose, how far could the opium estimates in the Indian revenue be relied upon? Now, no doubt the figures under the head of opium varied a good deal from year to year; but still, on the average of the last twenty years, since opium had been an important part of the budget, the return on the whole had been steadily increasing. There had been no one year of total failure, but there had been variations in price, which had arisen by curtailing the production in order to obtain a higher price. When the price rose, then the Native opium of China came into competition. But still the increase of the revenue had been steady on the whole. Taking the net returns, which was the proper course, from 1861–2, it appeared that the revenue from opium in that year was £4,910,000; in the next year it was £6,199,000; in 1863–4, £4,525,000; in 1864–5, £4,993,000; in 1865–6, £6,702,000; and the estimate for 1866–7 was £6,738,000—so that, taking the last six years, the average net revenue from opium had been £5,676,000, and the last two years had been the most productive. He believed that the opium revenue depended entirely upon the consumption in China, which tended steadily to increase. He had occasion some time ago to look into the figures, and he found that some fifteen years ago China was spending about £6,500,000 a year on Indian opium, while she was now spending no less than £13,000,000, or double the former amount. The calculations which gave that result might be relied on, because the number of chests and the price were known. That showed a steady progression in the taste for Indian opium in China. The noble Lord had expressed some apprehension that there might in future years be some loss of revenue under that head in consequence of other sources of supply being opened. That, he (Mr. Laing) believed, was a point upon which the noble Lord's apprehension would probably be corrected by experience. There was nothing more natural than such a supposition at first sight. If there was such an enormous profit from the sale of opium, was it not likely to be grown elsewhere, and how then could we retain the monopoly we possessed? But those who were practically acquainted with the subject were aware that opium was no more of uniform quality or flavour than claret. Several districts in India had a superiority in regard to opium, just like the superiority of Château Margaux and Lafitte with re-
  1098
  spect to claret. The best test was that of facts. About 1860–1 the production of opium had been greatly diminished, partly owing to the Mutiny, and consequently the price ran up to an extravagant height—some 2,400 rupees per chest, about double the ordinary rate. Encouragement, of course, was given to any possible competition, and Native Chinese opium did enter more largely into the market. And here he would remark, in passing, that it would be a great mistake to suppose that no opium was grown in China, and that we were the only poisoners of the Celestials. On the contrary, the production of Native opium in China was very considerable, but it was an inferior article. Whether owing to peculiarity of soil, climate, or cultivation, it never fetched above half the price of Indian opium in the same market, and nothing but the exorbitant price of the latter could bring the Chinese product into competition with ours. But the moment the price went down to a reasonable sum Indian opium resumed its place, and had maintained it ever since. He believed, therefore, the opium revenue was as secure as the revenue from gin and whisky in this country, provided we followed a prudent course and did not, by greatly limiting the production and forcing up the price, kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. It was always possible to make a single good financial year in India by adopting an imprudent policy. What we ought to keep in view was, during a series of years to get the largest possible revenue out of the article, and that would be done by such a production of opium as might keep the price varying from 1,000 to 1,200 rupees per chest; but if we went beyond that sum there was danger of the Chinese product intervening. He would not enter into the moral aspect of the question, but he believed himself that the effects of opium were very analogous to those of gin and whisky. He believed that taken in excess it led to very deplorable results, but that the great bulk of it was consumed by the mass of the Chinese population with no greater injury than was done to our countrymen in Scotland and Ireland by the consumption of a good many gallons of whisky. He had shown the state of things to be an average progression of Indian revenue at the rate of £1,000,000 a year. The next great question was as to expenditure, because though the revenue might have increased at the rate of £1,000,000 a year, if there should be an unavoidable ad-

  1099
  vance in expenditure at a higher rate we should be in a bad state. Comparing the last year, respecting which we had full and complete Returns, 1865–6, with that of 1862–3, which might be taken as the model year, when the maximum of diminished expenditure in every department was reached and the great reductions of the last years of Lord Canning's Administration came into full play, and there was a surplus of £1,800,000, the total expenditure in 1862–3 was £43,316,000, and last year it was £47,377,000, or an increase of £4,000,000 in four years—that is, at the rate of ££1,000,000 a year, or almost exactly at the same rate as the increase of revenue. Now, it was important to make some analysis of that increase in order to see how far it was Unavoidable, and whether it depended upon causes which were likely to continue in the future. The noble Lord referred to the large amount of fixed charge in the cost of collection of revenue in India. It was quite true the amount was large, but it should be borne in mind, that in the cost of that collection were to be included the charges for manufacturing such important articles as opium and salt, to which there was nothing of an analogous kind in the English budget, and which amounted to upwards of £2,000,000. Now, as to the fixed charges on the revenue. First, there was the dead-weight, including the interest of the debt, the allowances under treaties, and pensions and superannuations. These charges were fixed, and could not be touched. They amounted to £10,700,000 in 1862–3, and to £10,300,000 in 1865–6; so that it was nearly stationary. The saving arose from a decrease in the amount of railway guarantees, which more than balanced the increase in other directions. The manufacturing charges for salt, opium, post office, the mint, telegraphs, &c., had slightly diminished. They were £3,360,000 in 1862–3, and they had fallen to £3,200,000 in 1865–6. The cost of collection proper, for the laud tax, Customs, and such like, had increased within the two periods from £2,760,000 to £3,230,000. So that the dead-weight of fixed charges was nearly the same, having been £16,820,000 in 1862–3, and £16,830,000 in 1865–6. In each case it appeared that only about £30,000,000 out of £46,000,000 was susceptible of economy. The main items of increase were on the army and public works. The budget of 1866–7 gave the Estimates for
  1100
  the army at £13,900,000, but the expenditure on stores was now entered separately. These, however, were military stores, and ought to be added to the cost of the army. The army expenditure had therefore really increased from £12,764,000 in 1862–3 to £14,640,000 in 1865–6—an increase of about £2,000,000. A great part of this increase might be accounted for by the fact that we had since been engaged in two small wars—the war on the North-West frontier, and the war in Bhootan. He had expressly guarded himself, in looking forward to the future income and expenditure of India, by the reservation that no wars should occur; but notwithstanding these two wars, the nominal balance was almost exactly equal, although £2,000,000 more were now spent upon the army. Some portion of this increase was inevitable, because the price of provisions and supplies had risen so much in India that the Government could not, in justice to the men, continue their allowances at the same standard. They were also obliged to make allowances in the shape of batta and otherwise to the officers of the Indian army. Still, he must express a hope that if a tight hand were kept over the military expenditure, the Government might be able to reduce the excess of £2,000,000 to an excess of £1,000,000. He should be satisfied if the increase over the military expenditure of 1862–3 did not exceed £1,000,000. It seemed to him that the "irregular" system, which practically meant having Sepoy regiments with very few European officers, was one that was fraught with very great danger. They had got on well at present, because they had a large reserve of Indian officers of the old army to fall back upon when they wanted them, and who could be added to any Native regiment going on service. But the authorities might find themselves in a position of great embarrassment and danger if they had no more European officers available for the Native army to fall back upon than were supplied by the "irregular" establishment. So long as we kept 70,000 European soldiers in the country we were tolerably safe; but the time would come when it would be impossible to keep that large European force, and then a great deal would depend on the organization which had been given to the Native regiments. Intimately connected with this subject was the constitution of the police force. The expenditure upon the police was, in 1862–3, £2,141,000;

  1101
  in 1865–6, £2,398,000; and by the budget, £2,435,000, being an increase of £300,000. He wished to advert, not so much to the question of increase in cost as to the danger that this force might become a military force. It was laid down by Lord Canning that any police force in India ought to be a mere constabulary with staves in their hands, and not soldiers with muskets. He (Mr. Laing) feared that this excellent rule was infringed upon in many cases, and the noble Lord would find that there was a great tendency in this direction, because the civil officer liked to have a little military force that he could lay his hands on, and such a force added to his importance. There were cases in which an armed police acted beneficially, because more promptly, than the regular army in the suppression of disturbances. The danger of arming these men was, that the number of Native police was so great, and the proportion of European officers was so small, that in case of insurrection they might become like Sepoy regiments with one European officer, and that was a most dangerous state of things. This was the opinion of Sir Bartle Frere—a member of the Council of Lord Canning, who had charge of this department, and directed his attention to the organization of the new police. Next to the increase of expenditure upon the army and police, came the increase on public works. The expenditure on public works in 1862–3 was £4,400,000; in 1865–6, £5,250,000. So far from complaining of this increase, he should be happy to see it even larger. He believed that the Government would do most unwisely to adhere to the rule to do nothing for public works except what they could effect out of surplus revenue. The increase under the items of law and justice had been from £2,074,000 in 1862–3 to £2,398,000 in 1865–6, and in the budget to £2,607,000. The outlay upon education had increased from £400,000 in 1862–3 to £660,000 in 1865–6, and in the budget to £763,000. The practical result of the whole budget was, that there had been for four years an average rate of increased expenditure of £1,100,000 a year, which about corresponded with the yearly average increase of revenue. He trusted that the whole of this increase would not be maintained, because the present military expenditure might, he thought, be reduced by about £1,000,000 a year. His object in these remarks was to endeavour to prove that the general state of the Indian finances,
  1102
  under the new system inaugurated after the Mutiny, was on the whole not at all unsatisfactory. Even although there had been a large expenditure on public works. which had been charged to revenue and ought to have been charged to capital, the last six years showed a surplus of £200,000 a year. The revenue was still increasing, and the expenditure ought at least to be proportionate to that increase. He had arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Massey did quite right not to propose hastily the imposition of new taxes because there was a small nominal deficit this year; and we ought to be very cautious in this country of urging upon the authorities in India the imposition of new taxes which they did not quite see their way to adopting. At the same time he admitted that if they could advise a kind of modified income tax upon a fixed scale, something like our licence taxes for attorneys and others, it might be desirable to adopt it. Whether that were done or not, there was nothing in the position of the finances of India that ought to interfere for a moment with the carrying out of great works of public importance. He agreed with the noble Lord that "Peace and Public Works" ought to be the words inscribed on the programme of the Government of India. The satisfactory results that had followed the construction of railways ought to be an encouragement to proceed further in that direction. Much remained to be done in the construction both of the arterial system and of branches. Both on commercial and political grounds the main line along the valley of the Indus ought to be completed, so as to connect the Punjaub with Kurrachee; and, this line meeting that from Calcutta at Lahore, the railway communication from east and west ought to be prolonged to Peshawur. A line of railway between Peshawur and Lahore might at some time be of as much importance to us as one to Sebastopol would have been to Russia during the Crimean War. Hyderabad and the Nizam's territory ought also to be opened up by a railway. There were other important provinces, such as Oude, in which railways would pay if they were economically constructed. There was, indeed, ample scope for the expenditure of £20,000,000 or £30,000,000 on Indian railways during the next few years. No time ought to be lost in placing the existing lines in a position to carry the immense traffic which was ready for them. Many of them required doubling and an increase of rolling stock. The expenditure

  1103
  that was so imperatively required ought not to be delayed by taking time to consider whether it should be incurred by companies under a guarantee or directly by the Government. No doubt it might be cheaper in some instances for the Government to do the work, either by employing its own engineers, or directly entering into contracts, but if Government called for a large loan a good deal of the money was kept idle until it was expended, while a company, whose capital was in shares, could raise the money by calls as it was required. Although the guarantee system might have cost the Government something, it had been the salvation of Indian railway works, which must have been suspended or stopped if it had not been for that system. It might be adhered to in the main, and at the same time the Government could do something on its own account, either by constructing minor lines or undertaking portions of trunk lines. The same observations applied to works of irrigation, for which there was more urgent need. There was every inducement to proceed rapidly with public works, whether railways or works of irrigation. On the railways £60,000,000 had been expended; the guaranteed interest was only £500,000, and that charge was almost certain to disappear in two or three years. This was an encouragement to spend £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 more. In conclusion, he expressed his satisfaction that on this occasion there was a better opportunity than former years had presented for the full discussion of Indian questions.
  MR. STANSFELDsaid, that the House was bound to recognize the remarkable ability with which his successor, at such short notice, had submitted the Indian budget, involving as it did, the complications of the accounts for 1864–5, the "regular Estimate" for 1865–6, and the budget Estimate for 1866–7, not to mention the comparison of the accounts for 1864–5 with what was laid before the House as the "regular Estimate" for that year. The accounts for 1864–5 showed a net deficit of £193,000, and the regular Estimate for last year a deficit of £263,000—a difference in favour of the accounts of £70,000. The difference was the result of the much larger difference on the side both of revenue and of expenditure. A comparison of the accounts with the regular Estimate showed a reduction of £631,000 in revenue and of £701,000 in expenditure. Even these
  1104
  amounts, large as they were, were the balances of larger differences both of increase and of diminution on both sides of the account. There was reason to expect that, owing to improvements made in keeping the accounts, these differences would not be repeated in future years. having referred to the budgets, regular Estimates, and accounts of the last three years, the hon. Gentleman said that not only with regard to those three years, but to recent years generally, there were observable not only those characteristics to which his hon. Friend had alluded, but a gradual and unavoidable increase in what might be called the Civil Service Estimates of India — that was to say, in the expenditure upon good and improved government. But the question more particularly before the house that night was whether the budget which the noble Lord had brought under their attention and the budget which Mr. Massey a few months ago sent from Calcutta was to be received, on the whole, as a sound and satisfactory budget. It ended in a deficit of £72,000, although there was a high estimate taken for the opium revenue, and although in the expenditure for the army there might not be all the saving effected that was expected. Yet it did not follow that Mr. Massey's policy was not a sound policy, and, for his own part, he thought Mr. Massey's budget was a sound one and justified by the circumstances of the case. He did not think that it would have been advisable for Mr. Massey in the first year of his administration to enter upon any new or speculative system. Nor was it necessary for him to do so; for, on the one hand, he had provided for an increased expenditure of not less than £1,000,000 for public works, and on the other he had, on his own estimate of the probable requirements of the Indian Treasury, an available excess of £2,000,000 of cash balances on which he could, if necessary, fall back. The growth of the revenue might, under judicious management, be made to keep pace with the growth of the expenditure. The income derived from opium was naturally watched with some anxiety, as it varied considerably from year to year, and was a rather precarious source of revenue; and he agreed with the noble Lord in not looking upon it with entire trust and confidence. Another disturbing element in Indian finance was the expenditure

  1105
  upon public works. The question had been mooted whether some of these works might not be carried out by private enterprize or by means of loans; and the principle of a loan had, indeed, been accepted by Lord Halifax and some other authorities. It was almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of public works of a remunerative character. It might be doubtful whether by making roads, for example, and levying tolls upon them, they could obtain a good return upon their outlay; but still, they could not on that ground alone say that road-making was necessarily an unproductive expenditure of public money. He (Mr. Stansfeld) did not object, therefore, to a loan; but before they entered upon financial operations of that kind they ought to look also at the condition of the revenue, and feel satisfied that it was likely to be sufficient to cover any portion of their outlay which could not, in the strictest acceptation of the term, be referred to a capital account. It was a very tempting thing to spend money that they raised on loan; but it was admitted on all hands that, however objectionable an income tax might be in India, there were wealthy classes there who did not contribute their fair proportion to the public exchequer; and he was disposed to think that, if there was to be an extensive and vigorous prosecution of public works, it was desirable that it should be accompanied — and he imagined that Mr. Massey was not unlikely to attempt it in following years—by some well-devised financial scheme, which would add to the revenue of India, and place it on a sound footing. Adverting to the speech of the Secretary of State for India, he concurred with the noble Lord that the period of conquest and forcible annexation was passed, and that we had entered upon a totally different period which ought to be characterized by the improvement of civil government, and by efforts to promote the contentment, prosperity, and the material, moral, and intellectual progress of the people confided to our charge. If that were the policy of the present Administration, as the noble Lord had announced, it would lead to a two-fold financial result — namely, the keeping down of the military expenditure, and an increase in the Civil Service Estimate. Our old policy had been abandoned, and the time had arrived when we could and ought to con-
  1106
  centrate all our energies on the civil government and expend more money on flaw, justice, and education. He was delighted to find that that was the policy of the noble Lord, and felt certain he would be supported by the present Viceroy and the military and civil servants of the Crown. For his own part he should give his hearty and earnest support to such a policy, fully believing that it would gain for the present Government the gratitude of the people of India.
  MR. SMOLLETTregretted that a little longer notice had not been given of the noble Lord's intention to bring forward his budget. He used formerly to say that the bringing forward of an Indian budget at the very fag end of the Session, and with the attendance of only eight or ten Members, was something like a solemn farce. That expression, however, could not be used this year, for the budget, in his opinion, had been brought forward in a very statesmanlike and judicious manner. A great deal of information had been given to the House, and the debate was calculated to do a considerable amount of good. It used to appear to him that hon. Members took less and less interest every year in the affairs of India, and that the incapacity of the House to discuss Indian matters was very conspicuous. The reason was, that most of the men who were able to supply the requisite information were excluded from the House. At the present time Members of the Council of India were disqualified from sitting in the House of Commons, though formerly many of the Gentlemen who formed the Board of Directors were also Members of the lower House of Parliament. These Gentlemen were fully qualified to discuss any question that might be brought forward on the subject of India. At the present day there was no one in the House, except the Secretary of State for India, and the Under Secretary, if he happened to sit in the House of Commons, who knew what was going on in India, and they were extremely reticent and took care not to let anything ooze out which might lead to any troublesome result. Consequently the Secretary of State for India had become, as it were, an autocrat, and held in his hand the liberties of 150,000,000 of people. He could not give a more pregnant illustration of the ignorance prevailing in this country with reference to Indian affairs than by pointing out what had occurred during the

  1107
  present Session. Hon. Members had talked about the age of annexation having gone by, but he ventured to deny that. From papers which were placed upon the table of the House about a month ago it appeared that during the last two or three years the Secretary of State had been conspiring to annex a principality in India. Everybody was aware that a proclamation under the Sign Manual was addressed to the people of India in 1858, when Lord Derby was in power, and when, he believed, Lord Stanley was Indian Secretary. That proclamation said—
  "We hereby announce to the Native Princes of India that all treaties and engagements made by them with the authorities of the Hon. East India Company are by us accepted, and will be scrupulously maintained, and we look for a like observance on their part. We do not desire any extension of our present territorial possessions, and while we will not permit any aggression on our dominions or rights to be attempted with impunity, we shall santion no encroachment on those of others."
  Now, there was in Madras a little principality called Mysore, which was held by the present Prince under the guarantee of two treaties. He had always been looked upon as the hereditary possessor of that territory; but the idea went abroad that he intended to bequeath his dominions to the British Government on his demise. The Rajah of Mysore, however, never had, he believed, any such intention. He had an adopted son and heir, in accordance with vice-regal sanction and regal precedent in India, but he was at once informed by the Secretary of State for India that the Government would take no such circumstance into consideration at all. They at last made the discovery that the treaty was merely a personal treaty; that it was framed merely for temporary purposes; that those purposes had now been fulfilled, and it had been resolved accordingly to annex the territory as soon as the Prince should die. Now, the power of acting in that way was one which, in his opinion, no Secretary for India ought to possess, and he mentioned the fact to show that we had not yet done with the policy of annexation. It would be well, then, he thought, that there should be some Members of the Indian Council in that House, from whom information giving timely notice of such tricks might be obtained. As to the financial position of India, he must say he thought it was very satisfactory. The material comforts of its people were never, he was happy to say, greater than at the present moment.
  1108
  The reason was that the prices of all sorts of produce in India had been doubled or tripled within the last few years, while the rent of the land had remained stationary. The revenues which we derived from the land in that country was £23,000,000 sterling per annum, the entire revenue being £47,000,000. The expenditure, which kept pace with the revenue, was this year nearly £47,000,000, but in the last year of Lord Canning's administration it amounted only to £34,000,000, so that between 1856 and the present time the expenditure had increased by £13,000,000, and had more than kept pace with the revenue. We spent nearly £16,000,000 annually, including the charges in England, on our army; and £5,500,000 on public works, which were supposed to be neglected. Now, £13,000,000 in ten years was a monstrous increase of expenditure, and we must, he thought, look not to income taxes or licences in order to make the two ends meet at the close of the year. He had not the slightest doubt that the expenditure might be diminished to the extent of £2,000,000 or £3,000,000 annually, and he hoped economy would be the rule at the Indian Office. He should in the next place proceed, with the permission of the House, to say a few words with reference to reproductive works in India, although the views which he was about to advance would not, he was afraid, be palatable to some Gentlemen in that House. The subject of works called reproductive had received very little attention in that House until within the last ten years. In 1856 Mr. Vernon Smith, now Lord Lyveden, the Minister for India, noticed with great approbation in his Budget speech some reproductive works in the Madras Presidency. He stated that those works gave returns of from 50 to 700 per cent per annum from irrigation alone, admitting at the same time that no works of irrigation in any other part of India produced anything like such results. There was no doubt that was the case, for the returns on which Mr. Vernon Smith relied were not true. The Presidency of Madras, however, which had attained such notoriety, had ever since been engaged in endeavouring to maintain that pre-eminence by manufacturing accounts and making imaginary profits. He could state that on his own authority, having been himself a collector of a district and engaged in the species of manufacture to which he referred. He had not manufactured accounts of his own accord, for he had always dissented from the

  1109
  views of the Government on the point. He had acted under orders. Returns had been sent to him to fill up, and he had declared, in sending them back, that the profits were imaginary. He would briefly explain the way in which those profits were really made. Everybody was aware that laud in India depended entirely in many instances for its productive power on irrigation. That irrigation frequently was procured from reservoirs, which, in all probability, cost a very large sum in the first instance to construct. Now, if one of those reservoirs happened to be breached, owing to a tempest, and the water, as a consequence, escaped, the land was allowed to remain barren, and the loss of a revenue of £10,000 a year might be the result. A reservoir had, for example, been breached by a storm in 1850, and had continued in that helpless condition for two or three years, until the necessary repairs were effected. During those three years there was a loss of some £3,000 of current revenue in the aggregate; but in 1853 an engineer repaired the damage done to the reservoir, probably at a cost of £500. In a few years afterwards he prepared his accounts, and they were cooked thus:—The Returns from irrigation in 1850, 1851, and 1852 were set down at nil, while the Returns for 1853, 1854, and 1855 were set down at 10,000 rupees, as the result of a total expenditure of £500 in 1853, and the profits in that way calculated at 200 per cent. Profits made after that fashion were, however, merely imaginary gains; for, in truth, by the outlay nothing had been obtained except the original rent of the soil; but it was in the manner in which he described that accounts were cooked when he was in Madras, and they were, he believed, cooked in the same way up to the present moment. In 1851 the Government of India appointed Commissions for each Presidency in India to report on the state of public works in the several Presidencies. The Commission for Madras consisted of three persons. At its head was Mr. Bourdillon, a civilian, who was assisted by two military men. Mr. Bourdillon was a gentleman of considerable talent and a capital penman, and he wrote a most readable report, but one which he regretted to say was wholly unreliable. He and his brother Commissioners accepted as gospel all that was told them by the Engineer officers, and they inserted one chapter in their book to show that the works which had been devised by the Government Engineers' Department during the previous ten years — though
  1110
  some undertakings were acknowledged to have turned out failures—had each produced an aggregate profit of 100 per cent per annum. Now, that was absolutely impossible. He would take the case of one great work of irrigation which was at the time being carried out by the Government for the purpose of watering part of the district of Rajahmundry. That undertaking had been in progress from 1848; some most expensive masonry work had to be constructed, which occupied the engineers for a period of two years, and the Commissioners declared in their Report that the work already yielded 70 per cent on the outlay. In 1854 the profit was represented to be 70 per cent, but the account was accompanied by a statement that such a dividend was only a small amount of profit, for in a few years the Commissioners asserted that the undertaking would yield a net return of £300,000 a year to Government, and a clear gain of £3,000,000 to the peasant proprietors. That statement was made by the Commissioners, and circulated over the world; and the Government allowed it to go forth as if it were true, though it was a perfect fabrication. Being on the spot, he set himself to work in order to discover whether there was the smallest ground for the statement of those imaginary profits—and he found that they were entirely fabulous—in point of fact, the weir across the river Godavery was only commenced in 1847. The channels and canals for irrigation were opened in 1851 and 1852: the profits could only commence from that date; and the public accounts proved that the rents in the district had not increased more than £4,000 a year in 1853 and 1854. There had been considerable inquiry into his charges; they were found to be true, and the facts were suppressed; but if any one doubted his statement he was ready to move for any inquiry as to whether those accounts had not been fabricated. In 1858 certain works were planned in connection with the Madras Presidency, of which Sir Arthur Cotton was the projecting engineer. A company was formed in London to carry them out, and it was proposed to raise £2,000,000 of capital, and to carry on the works on a great scale, solely on private account. A deputation from the company went to the India Office, then presided over by the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley), who received them with great courtesy, and assured them that he felt a lively interest in the success of their

  1111
  suggestions. The noble Lord not only gave them a concession in India that they might have an opportunity of commencing their works, but he gave them a guarantee of 5 per cent on £1,000,000 of their capital. On the faith of this guarantee they raised £1,000,000 of capital. In the years 1859, 1860, and 1861 money was plentiful and easily obtainable; the amount was paid at once into the Indian treasury, and £300,000 of interest had been paid under the guarantee, the works not yielding the smallest return. In 1866 the first £1,000,000 was expended and more money was wanted, but not 1s. could be got on the credit of the undertaking itself—and why? The reason was that the monied interests in England did not believe a word of the statements put forth by the projectors of cent per cent profits. Under these circumstances, the company had recently come forward as supplicants for a loan; they had recently asked the India Board to lend them £600,000, and he believed the Government would lend it. If so the money would be thrown away. The works would go on; for the directors received good salaries, and there was a profit to be got by employing their friends as engineers. In fact, the £600,000 would be good money thrown after bad. The same company in 1861 originated other public works. They obtained a concession to join the Mahanuddy river with Calcutta, by means of a canal. The nominal capital was £3,000,000; they had raised a considerable sum of money, under the representation that everything in India would yield cent per cent. But their shares were at £5 discount on £13 paid up, and he believed they would go down to zero: when that took place the company would get up complaints against the Government, and the Indian authorities would, to get rid of them, repay the whole outlay and take the works on public account. Such was the history of some of our public works. There was one more he would mention, the Great Ganges Canal. When in India he examined many of the great works, and found them to be great swindles. The engineer calculated on the works yielding 12½ per cent. Lord Dalhousie spoke of it in the highest terms as likely to be beneficial to the country, and he highly eulogized the engineer, who was made a Grand Cross of the Bath, and was provided with a seat in the Indian Council. Now the scheme was a total failure. General Sir Arthur Cotton condemned the scheme, and proposed one
  1112
  of his own, which in turn was condemned by a body of engineers to whom it was referred. In the face of these enormous failures there was a plan in contemplation by the Indian Government of gigantic magnitude. Colonel Strachey had written to the Governor General, and proposed to make works for irrigation and navigation in all the Presidencies on a lavish scale. Sir John Lawrence approved the scheme; and asked the Government at home to borrow for it £20,000,000. Was this to be done? Were works of this costly nature to be entered upon while neither the Ganges Irrigation Company nor the Madras Irrigation Company yielded a profit? Colonel Strachey said he should not be surprised to see the works productive in ten years. Well, in ten years many of those now present would not be here to see whether the prophecy was fulfilled; and by that time also he was well assured the gallant projector would have retired from the service with a handsome competency. Did the Government mean to support this? If they did he would early next Session move an Address against any borrowing of money for these purposes, without the sanction of Parliament was first obtained.
  MR. CRAWFORDsaid, that he would not occupy the attention of the House for any long time, because he thought the whole question of Indian finance had been explained to the House in a very clear manner by the noble Lord the Secretary for India (Viscount Cranbourne), by the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing), and by the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), whose speech made one regret that the House had not long had the benefit of his talents in the transaction of Indian business. The hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Smollett), who had just spoken, had told the House that he, as a Government officer in India, was engaged in cooking accounts.
  MR. SMOLLETTsaid, that perhaps he had not fully explained himself. What he meant to say was, not that he had committed any fraud, but that the Returns to which he had referred were drawn up in a way to show a profit of 7 per cent, which, in his opinion, was not realized.
  MR. CRAWFORDwas glad that he had given to the hon. Member an opportunity of explaining, but he should rather be disposed to wait for the statements of others before he took for granted all that the hon. Member had asserted in disparagement of

  1113
  everything connected with the public accounts in India. He thought that the conclusion which every Member must come to was, that the finances of India were in a very satisfactory state. No doubt that, while the revenue of the country was flourishing, the charges were considerable; but, regard being had to the large amount of money expended on public works, it appeared that there was virtually a very considerable surplus for the public in India. The noble Lord hardly seemed to estimate sufficiently the advantages which would result to the public revenue from the completion of Indian railways, which he ventured to say would have the effect of causing no inconsiderable addition to the revenue of India. The two great Indian railways would connect one side with the other, from Bombay to Calcutta, with a communication from both places to Delhi. Before half-a-dozen years he anticipated an income of 10 per cent on these lines. There was another point connected with the railways and the revenue of India. One effect of the increase of the railway communication in that country would be the greater consumption of salt. Now, the noble Lord when speaking of the falling off of the revenue had mixed up salt and saltpetre, which were two things having no relation one with the other. When the duty was placed upon saltpetre it was believed that the effect of this course would be to incite the inventive minds of the people in this country and various parts of Europe to discover a substitute; and already this had been done to a considerable extent. The noble Lord wa also in error in regard to the public sales of opium in Calcutta. He spoke of private sales, but it should be understood that those sales were entirely in the hands of the Government, who put up such a quantity as they chose, the public having nothing to do with it. He entirely concurred in what had been said by the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing), not fearing any considerable reduction in the revenue on account of the falling off of the sales of opium in Calcutta. It had been said that the Chinese were increasing their supply of this article, but they could only do so when prices were high, and then the taste of the opium of India was preferred to that of China. Reverting to the subject of railways in India, he wished to notice the statement of the noble Lord that the East India Railway had cost more per mile than the Great Indian Peninsula Railway itself. In the case of the latter line great natural diffi-
  1114
  culties bad to be encountered in the shape of mountains to be traversed; but, on the other hand, the East India Railway had to pass over several mighty rivers, and the bridges constructed for that purpose had cost more than the cutting through the mountain passes of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. On the East India line there were bridges approaching a mile in length, the materials of which had all been sent out from this country, and the whole of those structures bad cost more than £1,000,000. The company had also suffered in various ways from the Indian mutiny, and the total loss they had incurred on that account was estimated at about £2,000,000. He mentioned those facts for the purpose of removing any impression which might prevail that the business of the East India Railway had been wastefully and imprudently conducted. He had every reason to believe that those Indian railways had been conducted in a manner which would do credit to any country in the world, and that they were in every respect equal, and in many respects superior, to our own first class railways. There was another point on which he should be glad to obtain some information from the noble Lord. It was understood that the introduction of a gold currency into India was exciting the attention of the Indian Government. He understood that a Commission had been sitting upon the subject, and that a Report had been already made to the Government. Now, it was a matter of considerable interest to the merchants of this country that the result of the inquiries of the Commissioners should be made known as soon as possible; and he hoped that if Parliament were not sitting at the time their Report arrived, the noble Lord would take care that the public should at once be made acquainted with its purport. The noble. Lord would, perhaps, also inform them whether instructions had been sent out to India to send to this country the accumulations of gold which had taken place in the Indian Treasury. Those accumulations were suffered to amount to from 500,000 to £1,000,000, and the arrival of such an amount of bullion would, under present circumstances, be a matter of some importance in this country. He had to observe that he thought the hon. Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Smollett) had done some injustice to Colonel Strachey. That gentleman had for many years been connected with public works in India; and he (Mr. Crawford)

  1115
  believed that there was no other officer in that country to whom the Government, the public, and, in particular, all persons interested in railway enterprize, were under greater obligation.
  LORD WILLIAM HAYsaid, that as he had spent many years in India he hoped he might be allowed to take an humble part in the discussion. The noble Lord the Secretary for India had expressed some surprise at the small amount of revenue yielded by the Excise duties in India; but the noble Lord seemed to have forgotten that, unlike Europeans, neither Mahommedans nor Hindoos drank intoxicating liquors of any kind; and, indeed, looked upon the tendency of our rule to give encouragement to the use of such drinks as one of the evils by which it was attended. As to the income tax it was most desirable that it should be abolished, not only because a distinct pledge had been given by the Government to that effect, but because it was a tax most unsuited to the country. The noble Lord referred to the excessive percentage of incorrect income tax returns furnished by the Natives of India, and said that they contrasted most unfavourably with similar Returns in England. But he would suggest that if the Returns obtained in England were scrutinized, as in India, by foreigners bent on realizing as much as possible, a very different view of their accuracy might be the result. The noble Lord had said that this was a time when peace and prosperity reigned throughout India, and that there was little to do but to develop the resources of the country, and raise the moral and intellectual character of the people. The great improvements which had taken place in the communications with India and in India by means of railways, roads, and otherwise, had on the other hand not been altogether without danger to our rule, because they had made the Natives better acquainted, not with our strong points only, but also with our weak points, and it was a great mistake to suppose that either the Hindoo or Mahommedan would be content, without another struggle, to see the power which they once exercised pass away from them. Our obvious duty was, therefore, to take measures to render our position more secure, and that could only be done by placing our military defences on a proper footing. He would ask what had been done to protect the ports of Calcutta, Bombay, and Kurrachee? These import-
  1116
  ant seats of commerce were undefended, and he did not believe there was a single gunboat on such rivers as the Ganges and Jumna. But the point he wished to draw particular attention to was the gradual increase of the force known as the police force, which the hon. Member for Aberdeen (Colonel Sykes) last year said amounted to no less than 154,000 men—an armed force, dispersed throughout the country, and at liberty to do what they pleased. Upon that the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. A. Kinnaird) remarked that if they were armed it was the exception, not the rule; and the Secretary for India said that the police did not in most cases carry arms. Now he (Lord William Hay) had himself seen so many of these men carrying arms that he could not place much confidence in these statements; and having written to a friend in India, an excellent authority on the subject, he could state that the account that he had received was totally inconsistent with these official denials. His correspondent—one of the most distinguished officers in India —said that the Indian police force was in reality a Native army in disguise, that they were constantly seen drilling with muskets in their hand, and that for the purposes of a police force they were quite a failure. If the police were unarmed and scattered through the country little danger could arise from them; but, believing that they were armed, he thought they were more dangerous scattered all over the country than if collected in regiments at stations, where they might be controlled by the European forces at our disposal. But the police was not only dangerous on account of its military character, it was also a very expensive body, and there was a most extraordinary difference in its cost in the different Presidencies. For instance, in Bengal, with a population of about 40,000,000, the cost of the police was only —12,000 per 1,000,000. But in Burmah, with a population of 2,000,000, the cost was —119,000; whereas, in proportion to the population of Bengal, it should be —24,000. In Madras, the cost of the police was —353,000; but, according to the Bengal proportion, it should be no more than —276,000. In Bombay the contrast was still more striking, the cost of the police being —390,000; whereas, according to the Bengal proportion, it should be only —144,000. He thought the charge under the head of "Forests"

  1117
  required attention. In 1864–5 the expenditure was £187,000, whereas in 1865–6 it was £300,000. Some reason should be given for this. The increase in the revenue was very small, but the increase in establishment was very large. The hon. Member for London seemed to think that what are described in India as "forests" are tracts of land on which timber trees are exclusively grown; the fact being that in many forests nothing is grown except shrubs, low trees, and brushwood, fit only for fuel. The importance or rather the indispensable necessity of preserving these forests will be readily conceded when it is remembered that many thousands of people and many hundreds of miles of railway must for years to come depend for fuel on the wood grown in them. Hitherto there had been no system whatever in the management of these forests. For the most part they were intrusted to doctors having a knowledge of botany, or military men skilled in sporting; but no attempt was made to introduce a real system of forest management. In Germany, Switzerland, and France, forest management was reduced to system and taught in colleges. It would be the greatest possible benefit to India if persons so educated were sent to India and placed in charge of these forests, instead of their being left in the hands of amateurs. The increase of pauperism in India also demanded serious consideration. He referred to those European vagrants who were now found wandering all over India, many of whom had been soldiers, but whom their comrades were glad to get rid of—a set of ruffians whose violence and misconduct made them a terror to the population, and whose influence on the Natives was an especial source of danger. It would be interesting to know what steps had been or would be taken to remove this great and growing evil. With regard to the amount spent on public works of a remunerative character, there had been a good deal of exaggeration. Many of these works undertaken were indispensably necessary for the defence of the country against internal and external foes; and it would be found, if a calculation were made, that after all very little money had been spent on any other account. Nor did he regret this. It was certainly desirable that in improvement works the initiative should be taken, as far as possible, by the Government; but when they became remunerative Government should dissever itself from them. It had
  1118
  been said that the annexation policy had resulted in the greatest harm to India, but his experience induced him to form a contrary opinion. When he went to India, more than twenty years ago, the Punjaub had not been annexed; it was filled with Native soldiers, armed and trained by Europeans—Frenchmen and Italians—of great energy and ability, and if it had not been taken possession of our position in India would, at this moment, be most insecure. Annexation was, in his opinion, a necessity; it was the policy of the late Lord Dalhousie, to whom England owed the security of her position in India. In conclusion, be would venture to express the opinion that if the Government of India would mainly devote its energies to strengthening the defences of the country, to placing the army and the police on a sound and well-organized basis, and to improving the means of communication both by land and water, the further development of the resources of India might safely be left to English capital and to private enterprize.
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONsaid, the short time he had been in office, and the inferior knowledge he possessed on Indian subjects compared with other lion. Members in that House, made him somewhat delicate in expressing his opinions upon this question. Some things, however, had been said in the course of this debate which he thought ought not to be allowed to pass without some remark. The hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing) was one of the most friendly of critics, for he had taken a more favourable view of the financial prospects of India than even his noble Friend (Viscount Cranbourne) had done. He (Sir James Fergusson) should not have referred to the remarks of the hon. Member for Wick had he not fixed on the policy pursued since the year 1861 as the cause of India's prosperity. Those who were acquainted with the history of India must admit that its present increasing revenue, its improved condition, and its internal tranquillity were owing very much to the energy and money expended during the years preceding 1861. Though unproductive at the time, the policy pursued in those earlier years had resulted in present benefits in accordance with the expectations of its promoters. The vast drains upon the National Exchequer previous to 1861 were consequent upon the carrying out of great public works in India, rivalling, and in some cases ex-

  1119
  ceeding, in greatness the works of the old Indian princes, and these until very recently had produced no return. As to the process of annexation which had been referred to, and which had, happily, been discontinued, he regarded it as having been forced upon us and pursued from high and imperative motives if not in self-preservation. Then, the great work of uniting the various provinces of India produced its fruits in these later days; at our greatest need the greatest of our recent acquisitions had proved the means of recovering the rest; and in every direction they were reminded that, although the more recent policy pursued in India had been wise and fruitful, those who laboured there in former times should not be refused their meed of praise. The hon. Member for Wick referred to some of the public works that were going on in India of an unproductive character, and amongst those he had classed expenditure for barrack establishments. But though in one sense barracks were unproductive, there was no description of works by which a more desirable saving might be effected. One of the great expenses connected with the Government of India was occasioned by the large casualties among the British troops. It should be recollected that it cost the country £100 to place a soldier in India, and anything that tended to reduce the mortality of our troops there must be looked upon as a work of a reproductive character. Statistics showed that while ten years ago the mortality among European soldiers in India reached 69 per 1,000, the ratio was reduced last year to 21 per 1,000. No better proof of the advantage of such expenditure could be given. The hon. Member for Wick referred to the police establishments in India, but the fact was that the substitution of a less disciplined force for the regular military was only the change of one army for another. In particular districts where there existed circumstances of peculiar danger the police were armed with muskets. But that state of things might be taken as an exception to the general rule. They were at first armed with cutlasses, but these weapons were being gradually substituted for batons, with which they were now generally armed. If they had been a great expense to the country, it would, at all events, be gratifying to know that good results had arisen from their maintenance. From papers which had been recently presented to hon. Gentlemen, it would be seen that in Bengal
  1120
  the police force numbered 26,591 men. That was doubtless a large number, but the returns stated that it was necessary, particularly in Calcutta, to increase it, inasmuch as it was found that the existing force was insufficient to hold the criminal and riotous Europeans in check. Great fault had been found with the old village police, and a disposition had been shown to substitute this more efficient and better disciplined body for the old and uncertain force. In the North Western Provinces the new police force had already shown itself superior to the old force, and especially in what used to be its weak point—the detection of crime. It had also improved in its morale, the complaints of corruption being now exceedingly rare. Measures for the detection of crime were now more effectual, and numerous captures had been made. To whatever cause the increase of crime might be attributable it certainly did not arise from the insufficiency of or deterioration in the police. In the central provinces the number of convictions for burglary and ordinary theft had increased. The proportion of apprehensions and convictions, as compared with the number of cases charged, exhibited a great improvement, although the detective ability of the force seemed still to be rather deficient. The force was rather popular than otherwise among the people, and, with strict supervision, it proved a very valuable body. In British Burnish their discipline was improved and their conduct steady, and, on the whole, the police force of India was looking well, but it was necessary to have strict supervision over it. The hon. Member for Wick had referred to an important question—that of the army—and said that he looked upon the Indian army as containing one of the few elements of danger with which this country was threatened. He (Sir James Fergusson) would not now enter into the question of the organization of the officers of the Indian army, which would have the serious attention of the Secretary of State, and no time would be lost in promulgating the result which might be arrived at. The question formed one of those difficulties the existence of which must involve many complaints; but he was convinced that there had always been a desire to deal fairly with the officers of the army, as with all ranks of the service, and one more attempt was being made to reconcile the differences which existed, and he hoped it would be attended

  1121
  by better results than those which had attended previous attempts. He felt sure —and that was his reason for touching upon this point—he felt sure that no complaints which the officers had made, and no discontent which they might feel with their lot, would ever cause one element of danger to Her Majesty's Indian Empire, or make them less ready than they had hitherto been to do their duty, or to enforce discipline and loyalty among their men. With regard to the question of public works, his hon. Friend the Member for Dumbartonshire (Mr. Smollett) had made statements which ought not to pass unchallenged, alleging that the public money had been expended upon unproductive works. It was not to be doubted, nor was it disputed, that in some cases the works had not realized the expectations of their projectors. In some cases they had been failures, and in some cases they were unfinished; but to say that the public works of India with regard to communication—the hon. Member had not, however, said anything against the railways—to say that those works had not conferred a great blessing upon our Indian Empire, was to say that which was entirely inconsistent with the facts of the case. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the Godavery River. In consequence of the allegation of his hon. Friend when resident in that country an inquiry had been held under the Board of Revenue with respect to the work done there, and one of the results of that inquiry had been that a picture had been drawn comparing the state of the country before those works commenced with the state in which it was placed after they were completed, showing that a district which was before a wilderness had grown into a garden. To procure the irrigation of this district a weir of 3,950 yards had been constructed. The hon. Member referred to that work, and seemed to think that the money expended might as well have been thrown into the river.
  MR. SMOLLETTdenied that he had said that. What he had said was, that up to the year 1855 that work, on which £300,000 had been expended, was said to have yielded 70 per cent of profit, and that in a few years it would yield £300,000 of profit, whereas up to the year 1855, it had never returned more than £204,000, and that was only £1,000 more than the amount of the permanent settlement fixed fifty years before.
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONsaid, it
  1122
  was not his province to defend the Reports of 1855, but to show the state of the country at the present time. The district was intersected by canals, and altogether 780,000 acres of land were irrigated. As to the Ganges Canal, it was true that, on account of the channel having too great an inclination, the work had not fully realized the expectations that were entertained; but measures were determined on to remedy the defects of construction. It had conferred incalculable benefit on the country that was irrigated by it, as was proved by the revenue derived from it, which in last year alone increased by £21,000. The irrigation works on the Kistnah were in a forward state for a considerable distance. His hon. Friend laid great stress on the Madras Company having as yet got no return, though they constructed the work under the guarantee of the Government, but it would be very odd if they got any before it was completed. Bridges and other extensive operations were being carried out, and there was a provision in the agreement that, if not finished by 1871, the work should be made over to the Government, who would be able to make a good use of it, even if the Company did not previously do so. Her Majesty's Government had been blamed in past years for not having expended more money on such undertakings, but they were certainly not liable to this reproach now. Their grants, however, were made with due regard to economy, and the strictest supervision was exercised. He believed the works now in progress were not unworthy of a great nation, and would prove extremely beneficial to India. In reply to the question whether a loan of £20,000,000 was about to be opened by the Government, he was happy to say that there was not the slightest chance of the Secretary of State rushing into the market with any such alarming project. The policy pursued by the Government was to consider each measure by itself, and when one was determined on to take such steps as might be necessary to carry it out. With regard to road making, he need hardly point out that this was perhaps the most remunerative of all public works in India, for the reason why the traffic on some of the railways was insufficient to yield any return was, that roads to communicate with them were not made fast enough. The noble Lord the Member for Taunton (Lord William Hay) had referred to the defences of India, and he

  1123
  could assure him that measures of defence for the harbours and rivers were being considered, and would, he hoped, be carried out. In conclusion, he defended the character of Colonel Strachey from some observations that had been made, remarking that that officer was devoted to his profession and to the public service, and that no works under his supervision could be either extravagant or ridiculous.
  MR. J. B. SMITHcomplimented the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India upon the able statement he had made to the Committee after only being a fortnight in office. He suggested the propriety of bringing forward the Indian budget earlier in the Session. He saw no reason why the accounts should not be presented to Parliament on the first day of the Session, so that there would be ample time for discussing their details before the pressure of business became too great to permit hon. Members to go minutely into them. It was a matter which had long engaged the attention of hon. Members interested in Indian affairs, and he hoped the noble Lord would adopt that course in future. He hoped this would be the last time they would see the affairs of India brought forward in that House on the eve of the whitebait dinner. It was a mistake to suppose that between three and four millions of money were expended annually on reproductive works in India. Out of the sum of £5,131,000 put down as expended for public works in 1865, he found that £1,358,000 only was for reproductive works—such as bridges and canals—all the rest being for military barracks and similar works. The erroneous and wasteful practice of the East India Company he regretted to see continued by the Government of India—namely, the execution of great public works out of surplus revenue only. A public work, when commenced, should be finished with as little delay as possible, but the Indian Government had a variety of works on hand to which annual grants were made out of surplus revenue, if any, and consequently they remained for years unfinished, in the end costing two or three times as much as they would have done if completed at once. He was glad to hear that the Government had at length decided upon opening out the river Godavery, a work which he had urged during the last ten years. This river is the Mississippi of India, and will become the highway to the riches of Central India. He hoped, in the execution of this work, there would not be
  1124
  a repetition of the folly of past times. As an example of the way in which public works were made, he would mention that in 1859 the engineer of the Godavery, being in England, obtained a grant of £7,000 for the purchase of tools; but when they arrived in India they were of no use, as he had no means to employ men to use them. It was not until November, 1860, that he received a communication that £30,000 was granted to proceed with the works. It was difficult to meet with suitable workmen on the spot, and some had to be obtained from a distance of 200 miles. He had scarcely begun to set his men to work when an inquiry came from the Treasury whether he had spent the £30,000, and stating that the grant was only made for the financial year ending in April, and the balance unexpended must therefore be returned to the Treasury. He had spent in the five months only about £7,000, and the remainder he had to return: the consequence was, he had to dismiss the men he had with so much difficulty engaged. As soon as Lord Canning heard that the works were suspended, he ordered the grant to be renewed; but the engineer found great difficulty in engaging fresh workmen at 20 per cent increased wages. If the Government will persist in the folly of executing public works out of the public revenue, it should finish one thing at a time, and not give a little to one and a little to another and be twenty years before the whole were finished. Public works ought to be executed by means of loans, and not out of revenue. From a return he had obtained, he found that some of the Madras irrigation public works had paid as much as 200 to 300 per cent per annum, arising probably in these cases from the repair or the completion of old works; but the average return of all the works was 40 per cent per annum on the whole sum expended. Be thought that was an encouragement to proceed with others. It was now found that there were some defects in the engineering part of the Ganges Canal, but it was probable they might be remedied. It would appear that there were two schools of engineers in India pitted against each other—namely, the Madras and Bengal engineers. The Ganges Canal was constructed by the Bengal engineers, and a great controversy had taken place upon the subject. It appeared to him, from reading both sides, that Sir Arthur Cotton, one of the Madras engineers, had the best of the argument.

  1125
  Sir Arthur Cotton had been to the canal, and suggested certain means for remedying the defects, but the Bengal engineers demurred to it, and the Government appointed Major Crofton to decide between the rival engineers. Major Crofton and Sir Arthur Cotton also differed, and the Government then appointed a Commission composed of several other engineers to proceed to the works and report. Sir Arthur Cotton objected to this appointment, on the ground that where there was a difference of opinion it should be reported on by a superior engineer, and he contended that the persons who had been selected had never executed similar works themselves. Major Crofton was to accompany the Commission to the works, and point out what he considered was necessary to be done, and Sir Arthur Cotton complained that he also ought to have an opportunity of showing the Commission what he considered were the defects of construction. The matter was so important that he (Mr. J. B. Smith) suggested that a Royal Commission or a Committee of the House should be appointed to examine into all the circumstances out of which the dispute arose. He saw with regret that there was no decrease in the amount of the military expenditure, and he would suggest to the noble Lord that if the army were armed with breech-loading weapons the number of soldiers might safely be materially reduced. It appeared to him that the best defence of India was founded upon a just government of that country, and he was glad to find that the noble Lord intended to base his rule upon the royal proclamation issued by the present Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Lord Stanley)—a proclamation which was received with acclamation by the people, and regarded by them as the Magna Charta of India.
  COLONEL SYKES: Sir, at this late hour I will not discuss financial details; but, in the interest of England and India, I will make some observations on the military policy of the British Government since the extinction of the political authority of the East India Company. The East India Company had a local European army, of artillery, cavalry and infantry, latterly exceeding 20,000 men; three of the infantry regiments had been continuously 100 years in India from the battle of Plassy, and the artillery of that army, whether in science or discipline, was equal to that of any western Government. Regimental reliefs were not required, and
  1126
  time-expired men very generally re-enlisted, owing to the prospects of employment in the civil branches of the ordnance, commissariat, or public works; influenced also very much by many having married Native wives, and looking to a permanent residence in India. The Native regiments were effective and sufficiently officered when they took the field; because at that time all staff officers were obliged temporarily to vacate their staff appointments and join their regiments while on the field. The officers and men were attached to each other from long association. Such was the system under the East India Company—efficient and comparatively inexpensive. And now, Sir, I will point out to the House the amalgamation military policy which, since February 1861, has been substituted for this system, and its effects. From a Return which I hold in my hand, and which was ordered to be printed in February 1865, but a copy of which I only obtained yesterday, the number is shown of deaths, time-expired men, invalids, regiments relieved from India, recruits sent out annually, and the regiments sent to India as relief of the Royal troops, together with the cost of transit in the years 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863 and 1864. In those five years the total vacancies of officers and men from all causes have amounted to 40,523, inclusive of 1,041 officers, or at the rate of 8,105 annually; and the cost of the passage money of the time - expired men and invalids (officers and men) has exceeded £500,000, and more than another £500,000—£526,485—has been spent in bringing entire regiments home, consisting of 848 officers, and 21,136 men. The coat of sending out 18,620 recruits and 525 officers, was £232,845. Reliefs of regiments only commenced in 1863 and 1864, and in those two years 465 officers and 10,000 men were sent at a cost of £141,246. An important feature is developed in these two years. The vacancies by deaths, time-expired men, and invalids, amounted to 13,757, including 467 officers; and their places were only supplied by 5,812, including 217 officers. The deficiency in the supply of numbers by deaths and invalids of 7,945 men, was partly made up by sending out stronger regiments than those relieved—namely, 10,465, including 465 officers, against 6,036, including 259 officers, leaving, however, 3,716 vacancies by deaths, &c., unfilled. Sir, I have brought the policy of maintaining an overwhelming

  1127
  European force in India to that point when it must be evident, if the official figures be trustworthy, that we do not supply the vacancies which annually occur in that force, and that it is highly impolitic to attempt to do so, as it is a dangerous drain upon the youthful blood and sinew of our people. In fact, we have 31,000 European troops in India more than the East India Company maintained, including the Royal contingent before the Mutiny, and that number is more than our present relations with the people of India require. And now, Sir, a few words on the subject of our military policy in respect to the Native troops in India. For 100 years past the three Native armies of India have fought our battles, with rare instances of defeat. Their regimental organization and discipline generally equalled that of European troops; and I speak from long experience as a Sepoy officer. The individual cost of the Sepoy was from one-eighth to one-fourth of the cost of the European soldier, including their pensions. They were contented, respectful, and efficient; and the command of a regiment occasioned less trouble than the command of a company of Europeans. Our fatal policy of 1861 has sadly altered this state of matters. Our folly in outraging the religious prejudices of the high caste veterans of the Bengal army, Brahmins and Rajpoots, and bigotted Pathan Mahommedans, occasioned the lamentable mutiny of six - eighths of the Bengal army; but the Native armies of Bombay and Madras remained loyal, and their loyalty saved us from being driven to the coast. The panic, however, occasioned by the Mutiny, occasioned a general distrust of the Native soldiery. It was resolved to diminish their numbers and their efficiency. The veterans were degraded into irregulars, armed with the old musket; and an effectual mode was adopted of weakening the efficiency of Native troops in the field by limiting the number of European officers to each regiment to six instead of fifteen or twenty; for all officers who have served with Native troops know that their serviceableness in the field depends upon the number of their European leaders. The regimental organization of the European officers has been abolished, and they are posted to do duty with regiments with which they have never served, and with the men of which they therefore cannot have any community of interests or feeling.
  1128
  The result of this hasty and blind policy is universal discontent and distrust in the Government by officers and men, the more so as the loyal Native armies of Madras and Bombay feel themselves unjustly punished for the misconduct of the Bengal Native troops. Sir, I have felt it my duty to give this expression of my opinion of the military policy which has been adopted since 1860; and I feel assured that the noble Lord's means of reducing the present enormous military expenditure in India, and reviving the old attachment of the Native soldiery, will only be in the ratio of his approximation to the successful system of the East India Company—namely, a local European force and a properly officered Native army.
  MR. LIDDELLcomplained that though the Indian budget was not brought forward till so late a period of the Session, the Department had not yet furnished Members of the House with the papers on the subject. The information they contained—to which his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for India had made so much reference—were really the only official sources of information open to hon. Members, and it was therefore a fair ground for complaint that the House should be called on to discuss the affairs of India, and to exercise its supervision upon the policy of the Indian Government, before those papers had been distributed. Ho had heard with great pleasure the declaration of his noble Friend that evening, that the policy of the Government would be to push forward the public works to the utmost, but he desired to ask his noble Friend an important question in reference to this subject. He held in his hand the opinion, signed by Sir John Lawrence, and, he believed, by all the members of his Council, that "no reliance can be placed on the ordinary revenue of India for giving effect to this class of works (irrigation works), so essential to the wellbeing of the country." His noble Friend had shown such ability and power in mastering details within a short period, that a subject of this grave importance was not likely to have escaped him. If the ordinary revenue could not be relied on for carrying into effect a proper system of irrigation, what did he propose to do? One of these schemes of irrigation involved no less an ultimate expenditure than £29,000,000, and as much as £20,000,000 within the next ten years. This scheme had received the sanction of the Governor General and the greater part of his Council, and had

  1129
  been sanctioned also by Lord Halifax: it must be considered to have reached a certain degree of maturity, and it seemed to him that it was of so much importance that the House was called upon to express its opinion in reference to it, and not to leave it to be adopted or rejected by the Secretary of State for India. Still, he congratulated his noble Friend upon the success which had attended the inauguration of his policy in the House. He felt that, as an independent Member, he was justified in inquiring of his noble Friend in what way he contemplated carrying out that policy. A very significant speech had been made in the course of the debate by the noble Lord opposite (Lord William Hay), that as soon as the public works in India became remunerative the Government ought to abandon them. But that would be the strongest reason why the Government ought not to undertake them. India was often described as a great trust, and, undoubtedly, it was the greatest trust which Providence ever committed to one nation. It was on behalf of India, then, that he raised this question. While engineers were discussing the merits of schemes, and while Governments were hesitating, the people of India were starving. A remarkable illustration of this was furnished by the fate of the project for the irrigation of Behar. Lord Canning had before him a project for irrigation works in that province, and invited tenders for their construction. But the scheme fell through, and the province had since suffered severely from famine. In fulfilling, therefore, the trust which had been committed to us, these great and indispensable works must not be delayed. How did his noble Friend propose to push them on? By a loan, or out of the revenue of the year? This revenue was declared to be totally inadequate for the purpose, and it seemed to him, therefore, that there was no choice but to proceed by way of loan. The expense of permanent works ought not to be borne by the present generation. The benefit was a permanent one, and part of the cost should be borne by posterity. These works could not be carried out upon the scale and with the rapidity which was necessary, except by loans, and it would be requisite also that competent men should be provided in this country, seeing that in India the staff of engineers would not be sufficient to superintend the construction of such works. His noble Friend had shown such a capacity for mastering in a very short time the de-
  1130
  tails of a difficult and complicated subject that he hoped he would be able to give an explanation on this subject, and that it had not escaped his attention, notwithstanding the brief period during which he had held office.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that the great amount of mental labour which the Secretary for India bad already bestowed upon this subject led to the hope that the noble Lord would not follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, and suppose that nothing should be done to improve the administration of India, and that that administration was perfect. He could not help inferring from an observation which had dropped from the noble Lord that he was about to enter upon a very useless proceeding—namely, to invite the House to put upon its journals the very dull and uninteresting historical fact that on the 30th of July, 1865, the revenues of India amounted to a certain sum, the expenditure to another sum, leaving a certain balance. What was the use of the House of Commons resolving itself, into a Committee about a state of things existing a year ago without expressing any opinion upon the subject? We had by law transferred the administration of the finances of India to an authority there with power to legislate upon them, and in the early part of the year a financial statement was made in India. That statement was not laid upon the table of the House of Commons, and therefore the noble Lord had been quoting from a document of which they knew nothing. When we handed over Indian finance to an independent authority in India, we might very well dispense with all reference to the matter here. We might as well deal with the affairs of the reign of Queen Anne as with the Indian finances of 1864–5. What the House of Commons ought to deal with was a very grave matter—namely, that a Minister of the Crown should have power to expend millions without being under the control of that House. When he recollected the sort of contracts late Secretaries of State for India bad been entering upon for the building of ships and other matters, he felt that it was high time to put an end to such a system. He ventured to submit to the noble Lord, who had taken up this business with ingenuousness and frankness, that it would be better to put an end to the farce of late years, and to submit to the House of Commons a statement of the finances for the ensuing year.

  1131
  In such a case as that they would be sitting there to some purpose, for the House would then be charged with a responsible duty, whereas under the present system, when hon. Gentlemen were called upon to attend to a mere historical fact, it was highly creditable to them that they declined to do so, and walked out of the House. A great part of this discussion had turned upon the proceedings of the Government in India with respect to public works. But that was a phrase which was evidently calculated to mislead those who were accustomed to a different state of things in this country. In India what were called "public works" included everything in the nature of expenditure. Now, there was no combined account of the whole income and expenditure of the different departments in India under the several heads. The consequence was there was no accurate statement of the financial condition of India, no correct balancesheet. That circumstance had been admirably illustrated by the various statements that had been made in the course of the discussion of the military expenditure of India for the year. The noble Lord might say that there was at least a detailed account—that there was the expenditure of the army in India and the military charges connected with that army in England. And yet both together did not make up the whole. Though they might have £13,500,000 for the army in India, and a certain specified sum for military expenses in England, there was £800,000 besides in another part of the account to be added for barracks and other military buildings. The noble Lord ought to consider whether he could not produce a complete balance-sheet showing the whole expenditure. It was in vain to discuss the expenditure on public works, for there was no organization at all in India with reference to those works. The whole state of affairs was a perfect chaos in that respect, and no one was responsible. The Council of India was originally of a limited character, and when its defects were brought under the notice of Parliament it was thought right first to appoint a person of legal attainments in connection with it, and afterwards a Minister of Finance. Two great departments were thus placed under the supervision of distinct members of the Council; but they had got no further. The want of responsibility was one of the main causes of that grievous misapplication of the public money which had been so often
  1132
  described, but which was only a small part of the blundering connected with the public works of India. Until they had in the Council of the Governor General persons specially charged with responsibility in reference to the duties of commerce, agriculture, and other particular interests of the country they would have a repetition of the blundering which had been going on year after year, and which had wasted not merely hundreds of thousands but millions in India. If the noble Lord wished to see a real improvement, he must begin by reorganizing the Indian Council and placing it on a footing commensurate with the present condition of affairs. Another defect in the Indian Council was this—according to the law the Governor General was compelled to act by the decision of his whole Council, and everything was to be done with every member of it; but that had become an impossible mode of conducting the business of India, which must be divided into distinct departments, so that the Governor General should have the power of acting with the person charged with each particular department. When the former Government of Lord Derby brought in a Bill putting an end to the old Court of Directors, it was not proposed that the members of the new Council should hold office for life, but, unfortunately, the Committee yielded to a suggestion of Lord John Russell, and appointed them for life, and the Government of Lord Derby, in the circumstances in which it was placed, was almost compelled to accept the suggestion. The noble Lord ought to review this matter, and if he would promise to legislate next Session so as to limit the office of Member of the Council of India, he would be certain to receive support from that side. The time had come for infusing new life and energy into the Council which was falling into decay from extreme old age. If new life were infused into it, he felt certain that, combined with the noble Lord's own energy, business would be conducted with much greater satisfaction to the people of India. At present it was deplorable to have to transact any business with the Secretary to the Council, or with the Indian Government. He had been told that it was impossible to get a letter answered by them under twelve months. At present vast resources in India were locked up from the incapacity of the Government. If they were opened up he expected to see a great and permanent increase in the agriculture and commerce of India; but until they

  1133
  struck at the root of the evil, things would go on as they had done for the last few years.
  MR. H. D. SEYMOURmust congratulate his noble Friend the Secretary for India upon the success which had attended his statement to-night, and also upon the liberal policy which he had announced on the part of the Government. He wished to ask him whether he had taken steps to have the Indian accounts made up at an earlier period—say the 31st of December —so that they might be printed in time for the meeting of Parliament. He was glad to hear from the noble Lord that the new Ministry were not in favour of the policy of annexation. He understood that an unquiet feeling existed in India on this subject, that there were officials in high places who had designs upon Sindia and Holcar, and that even the past services of the princes of the Rajpoot States were in danger of being forgotten. In Mr. Massey's able statement a doubt was expressed as to the best mode of carrying out public works—whether it should be by private or by public enterprize. It was said that the Indian Council were divided in opinion on that point, and that higher authorities were for doing away with private enterprize for such works. Yet these men had been themselves the servants of a joint-stock company which had first conquered and then governed India. There was no policy so dangerous as that of erecting a great bureaucracy in India for the exclusive execution of all the public works. He approved the expenditure for public works, but he was informed that the department was in a most disorganized condition. There was a want of supervision, and ho doubted whether the sum of £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 was spent as profitably as if the same sum were employed by private enterprize. The education department was increasing, but there was reason to believe that a large and increasing proportion went in high salaries to officers and a very small proportion in the real education of the people. Could the noble Lord give the House any information about the department of public accounts? Lord Halifax told them that two gentlemen had been sent out from England to put the accounts in a better state. Unfortunately, they both succumbed to the climate and died shortly after their arrival. He rejoiced to hear of the liberal policy of the Government. It was an ominous fact, and one that ought to be explained, that the reve-
  1134
  nue from Customs was not increasing, and there was reason to fear that in India, as was once the case in France, large masses of silver were buried in the earth. If the Natives could be induced to invest their wealth in the development of agriculture, there was no reason why the progress of India should not equal that of the United States.
  VISCOUNT CRANBOURNEacknowledged the friendly spirit in which his statement had been received by all who had taken part in the debate, and especially by the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), and said that so many questions had been addressed to him that it would be impossible for him to weld his replies into a consistent whole. He did not know how much harm might result if he were not to repudiate the terrible idea broached by the last speaker, that there was some notion of dethroning the rulers of Sindia and Holcar; but he did not know what foundation there could be for it unless the hon. Member had received a private telegram from Sir John Lawrence. Towards all the Native princes with whom we were on terms of amity the Government earnestly desired to continue the moderate and friendly policy inaugurated by Canning. There was no foundation for the tragic tale that two Treasury officials who had gone out to India to arrange the accounts had died in the attempt. On the contrary, it appeared from the statement laid on the table of the House by his predecessor that the two gentlemen had returned and presented their final report of the measures adopted. He sympathized with the complaints made as to the way the public works were entered in the accounts. It was impossible to determine with accuracy whether public works ought to be charged to capital account or to revenue account; but the alterations that were necessary for obviating this difficulty might easily be made. He would not renew the controversy as to the buoyancy of the Indian revenue, of which the hon. Member for Wick (Mr. Laing) was a better judge than himself; but the hon. Member misunderstood his argument, which was that the admitted increase arose from articles upon which we could not permanently rely. He sincerely hoped that the view of the hon. Member would prove to be the accurate one. He was anxious to correct the impression, not shared by the hon. Member for Halifax, that he censured the course Mr. Massey had taken. Under the

  1135
  circumstances he admitted that Mr. Massey had no choice but to refuse to raise any further taxes. It was obvious that the state of affairs in India and the condition of the money market would have made it exceedingly inexpedient to impose new taxes. Considering, too, the large amount he was placing to the credit of public works, there could be no doubt he would not have been justified in throwing additional burdens upon the inhabitants. No one could doubt that a railway to Peshawur was a necessity, but it was a question of money; it would cost five or six millions, which was not easily obtained. With respect to the questions whether he would carry on public works out of taxation or by loan, he would be sorry to pledge himself not to ask for a loan, or not to submit any scheme that Parliament would support and that ought to be adopted. At present, however, a loan was simply impossible, and would only damage the credit of the railway on account of which it was asked for. It seemed to be imagined that if money were found public works would of course advance, but labour was not always to be had, for, large as the labour supply of India was, it had been taxed enormously, and in some places wages had been quadrupled. After such a rise it was clear that there must be a limit to the expenditure in labour. The difficulty in the way of concentrating expenditure was that labourers could not be brought together, and money was necessarily expended upon separate public works, because it was expedient to utilize the supply of labour which existed in different parts of the country. As far as he could ascertain, it was a mistake to suppose that the existing railway companies had not at their disposal sufficient means to provide the necessary rolling-stock. This was one of the first matters he inquired into, and he believed that the only limit to the supply was the ability of those from whom it was ordered to furnish it. He should have been thoroughly ashamed of the mistake imputed to him by the hon. Member for the City of London that he had confused salt with saltpetre; but the hon. Member himself could hardly be aware that a certain amount of chloride of sodium, or common salt, was produced in the manufacture of saltpetre; and, therefore, the production of saltpetre and the salt increased or diminished together, and the two trades were correspondingly affected. With regard to the question of a gold currency for India, it had been
  1136
  referred by the Governor General to a Committee, which had not yet made its Report; but when the Report came home he hoped it would be acted upon as rapidly as circumstances would permit. A good deal of anxiety had been expressed to have the financial statement for India made at an earlier period of the Session, and in India they had changed their financial year so that it should end on the same day as the financial year in England—namely, the 31st of March. That would enable the accounts to come home in the middle of April instead of May; and then it would be open to the Indian Minister, if he could secure a day for the purpose, to bring forward his budget when he pleased. But the difficulty as to making the Indian statement earlier in the Session did not arise with the Department but with that House. It was not easy to get the House of Commons to take an interest in Indian affairs, and when he heard the hon. Member for Stockport's complaint on that subject he could not help thinking of the epitaph to Sir Christopher Wren, Si monumentum quœris circumspice. The array of green benches while that discussion was proceeding best explained the reason why the Indian budget was not brought on earlier in the year. If he were to ask the Leader of the House to grant him a much earlier day for that purpose, he was afraid his application would be futile; and he had rather that the hon. Member for Stockport himself should make such a request to his right hon. Friend. With respect to the suggestion of the hon. Member (Mr. Ayrton) for the immediate execution of the Indian Council, he confessed that he did not feel the moral courage requisite for the operation; and he was bound to add that he did not see the necessity for it. He did not himself admit that they were a decaying or stagnant body, but, as far as he had seen, they were an able and active body; and if the hon. Gentleman were only present at the Council to-morrow lie would see a much more lively scene than was witnessed in that House that evening. Whether the entire Constitution under which India was now governed was ono that was to be approved in all respects he would not then discuss; but he must protest against any proposal to alter that Constitution which was founded on any want of activity or of fitness on the part of the gentlemen forming the present Council. He had now only to thank the house for the indulgence it had extended to him.
  MR. KINNAIRDurged the propriety of making increased grants for education in India if we desired to leave behind some traces of our beneficent rule in that country.
  Resolved, That the total Revenue of India for the year ending the 30th day of April 1865 was £45,652,897; the total of the direct claims and demands upon the Revenue, including charges of collection and cost of Salt and Opium, was £8,978,504; the charges in India, including interest on Debt and the value of Stores received from England, were £30,473,716; the charges in England were £4,802,401; the Guaranteed interest on the Capital of Railway and other Companies, in India and in England, deducting net Traffic Receipts, was £1,591,797,—making a total charge for the same year of £45,846,418; and there was an excess of Expenditure over Income in that year amounting to £193,521.
  House resumed.
  Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

  THAMES NAVIGATION (re-committed) BILL.
  (Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Monsell.)
  [BILL 205.] COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 63 (Prohibition of sending Sewage &c. into River where not so sent at passing of Act).
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that that clause did not carry out what the metropolitan Members understood to have been the intention of the Committee upstairs—namely, that all sewage flowing into the Upper Thames might be stopped by the new Board of Conservancy, on their giving notice to do so; for, as he read the clause, all drains now in existence through which sewage flowed would continue to be legalized by the Bill.
  MR. MILNER GIBSONsaid, that the first clause regarded the future, and the second the present. He was at a loss to understand the objection of the hon. Gentleman. There were two ways of bringing the sewage in future into the Thames; one by making new sewers, and the other by using the existing ones; and the clause provided that the existing sewers should be stopped after notice.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, that the first of the two clauses prohibited for the future the conveyance of any new
  1138
  sewage into the Thames, while the second was intended to give power to the Conservators to stop all sewage at present flowing into the river. It having been pointed out that there was some ambiguity in the language of the 64th clause, be should propose additional words for the purpose of making it quite clear that power was given to stop the existing sewage.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that upon that understanding he should be willing to allow the clause to pass.
  MR. HENLEYsaid, that taking the two clauses together, their effect would be to prevent the flow of sewage from any individual cottage or farm house into any tributary within three miles of the Thames. He thought that would operate as a hardship in many cases in which there was no nuisance whatever, and pointed out that in the case of the overflow of the river it was almost impossible to prevent the return water from carrying off a portion of the existing sewage. He hoped the clause would be modified.
  MR. LOCKEsaid, that it was obvious that the clauses applied to new sewage works. The Conservators were aware that some sewage now flowed into the river, and Clause 64 could not apply to sewers that were legalized and now in existence. He did not see why there should be any difference made in the case of those who lived higher up the Thames and those who had houses lower down. The main drainage system had been created at the cost of £4,000,000, and the restrictions which were to be made should apply equally to all.
  MR. SHAW - LEFEVREsaid, this clause was much opposed by the town which he had the honour to represent.
  SIR CHARLES RUSSELLdrew attention to the fact that the river which ran past Aldershot into the Thames received the drainage of the Camp, and yet water was taken from this river for the use of the Camp. He thought that the Government should at once cease to pollute the Thames in this way.
  MR. HENLEYpointed out that the proprietors of the small cottages and farm houses to which he referred could not possibly avail themselves of the main drainage system. The small amount of drainage issuing from those houses did not create any nuisance whatever, even in the tributaries into which they drained, much less in the Thames. He repeated, that unless there was some modification made in the clause great hardship would be created.
  MR. LOCKEsaid, if the existing cesspools were not deep enough they ought to be made deeper. At any rate, it would be a great nuisance if they were allowed to be emptied into the brooks.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 64 (Notice for Discontinuance of existing Sewerage Works).
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEmoved the insertion, in the thirteenth line, after the word "case," of the words—
  "Whether any such sewage or other matter aforesaid has or has not been so caused or suffered to flow or pass before the passing of this Act."
  It was desirable, he thought, that the principle should be laid down in the broadest manner, that the Conservators should have the power of putting a stop to all such nuisances as that to which the clause related. There was, at the same time, no reason why they should not exercise a discretion in those cases where the inconvenience to the individual whose drain might be closed by their order would be very great, while the nuisance of allowing it to continue open might be, as far as the public was concerned, very trifling. To introduce any further relaxations into the clause would be, he thought, greatly to mar its beneficial effect. A Bill would probably be introduced next year dealing with the powers of the Conservators below Staines, and it might be possible to have inserted in it words to meet the case of small occupiers.
  MR. HENLEYcontended that the privilege of having drains in connection with their houses, unless a nuisance to the public was thus created, was as much the right of the small occupiers in question as any other which they possessed. Where a nuisance was proved to exist he was perfectly willing that it should be put an end to, but the case was entirely different where no injury to others was done. The result of the operations of the clause would be to drive people to make filter-beds, which would create pestilence in their immediate neighbourhood, while as large an amount of objectionable matter would be conveyed into the river as at present. The principle embodied in the clause was one, he might add, which the Government dare no more try to carry out in the North of England than they dare fly.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clauses 65 to 67, inclusive, agreed to.
  Clause 68 (Right to prosecute to be in Conservators only).
  MR. AYRTONmoved, as an Amendment, the insertion of words with the view of giving the Metropolitan Board of Works also the power of instituting a prosecution.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEhad no objection to the Amendment. He did not see any object in the clause, inasmuch as he thought no one should be prevented from enforcing the Act; but if it was to be retained he thought the right to prosecute might be extended to "any local Board," as well as to the Metropolitan Board of Works.
  MR. MILNER GIBSONsaid, the object of confining the right of prosecution to the Conservators was to prevent malicious prosecutions and divided jurisdiction. The matter was one with which the Metropolitan Board of Works had nothing to do.
  MR. YORKEthought that either the clause ought to be omitted or the right to prosecute extended.
  Amendment negatived.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clauses 69 to 76, inclusive, agreed to.
  Clause 77 (Collateral Security on Conservancy Fund).
  MR. AYRTONasked whether it was intended to give the Conservators unlimited borrowing powers?
  MR. MILNER GIBSONexplained that it was not so intended. The Conservators might borrow from the Public Loan Commissioners, provided the Commissioners were satisfied of the security they offered.
  MR. GLADSTONEsuggested that some clause should be added, either when the Report was brought up or when the Bill was re-committed, imposing some limit upon the borrowing powers of the Conservancy.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, that he would undertake to bring up a clause to limit the borrowing powers.
  MR. CANDLISHsuggested that the clause should be postponed.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEcould see no reason for postponing this clause, seeing that the amount the Conservators should be allowed to borrow could be discussed and determined afterwards.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clauses 78 to 82, inclusive, agreed to.
  Clause 83 (Power for Conservators to redeem existing Debt).
  MR. AYRTONsaid, he did not know whether the construction he put upon the clause was correct. He understood that the tolls levied upon the shipping and steamboats at the port of London were to be applied to the liquidation of the debt of £88,000 contracted by the Commissioners.
  MR. MILNER GIBSONstated that this was what the framers of the Bill intended.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 84 (Clause S. Additional Payments to Conservators).
  MR. AYRTONobserved, that the Commissioners ought not to have made the demand here stated, and he contended that the sum now paid to them was sufficient.
  SIR GEORGE BOWYERexplained that the additional money would not go to the present Commissioners, but to the five new Commissioners for the appointment of whom the Bill provided.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 85 (Clause T. Compensation for Loss of Emolument).
  MR. AYRTONasked how it was possible to give remuneration out of an insolvent undertaking, for unless the money came from without it would be impossible to do so. There had been no receipts, and nothing to do, yet those people who had brought the Thames into its present state wanted to be compensated for their mismanagement. It was the most impudent proposition he had ever known, and he could only account for it by considering that his right hon. Friend must have been in that state of good nature that he was sometimes seen in when he would give himself away to gratify the persons who asked.
  MR. NEATEsaid, that these gentlemen had done all that they could do to keep the Upper Thames in good order, and as they would lose their emoluments by this Bill they would be entitled to some compensation.
  SIR GEORGE BOWYERthought it would be very unjust not to compensate those who had lost their offices.
  SIR FRANCIS GOLDSMIDdid not think they had any claim to compensation, considering the way in which they performed their duties.
  MR. LOCKEwas opposed to compensation in this instance.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEbelieved this clause was agreed to in Committee. There was great force in the
  1142
  argument of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets.
  MR. MILNER GIBSONconsidered that when persons were deprived of their offices under circumstances like those presented by the present case, they had a right to have their claim for compensation considered. That was the general rule when persons holding offices for life were deprived of them.
  MR. HENLEYwished to know to whom the term "officers" applied. Would it comprehend lock-keepers?
  MR. CHILDERSthought it would be desirable to define the word "officers" in the interpretation clause.
  SIR GEORGE BOWYERsaid, as there were only two officers—the clerk and the surveyor—it would be better to insert those words in the clause.
  MR. NEATEsubmitted that the word "officers" ought to include the lock-keepers, and that if compensation was given to the higher class of persons it ought to be given to the lower also.
  Clause negatived.
  Clauses 86 to 88 agreed to.
  Clause 89 (Application of Capital).
  Mr. AYRTONhad an Amendment on the paper and rose to move it, but before he had the opportunity of doing so,
  The CHAIRMANhad put the Question that the clause stand part of the Bill, which was carried in the affirmative.
  MR. AYRTONsaid, that it was the first time in his experience since he had been in the House that the Chairman had put the Question when a Member had risen to address the House for the purpose of moving an Amendment. It was extremely inconvenient.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Did the hon. Gentleman move an Amendment?
  MR. AYRTON: Yes; but the Question had been put, and there was no opportunity of my putting it.
  MR. CHILDERSmoved a clause making it lawful for the Commissioners of the Treasury to inquire whether any and what compensation was due, and also to determine out of what fund such compensation should come?
  New Clause (Treasury to determine compensation,)—(Mr. Childers,)—brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made, and Question put, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
  The Committee divided: — Ayes 62; Noes 24; Majority 38.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

  INLAND REVENUE BILL— [BILL 209.]
  (Mr. Hunt, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Childers.)

  COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, it was quite a novelty to pass a Bill of this nature affecting trade and revenue without any public statement being made.
  MR. HUNThad thought the Bill would be received with common consent, but after the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman he consented to postpone the Bill.
  House resumed.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again on Monday next.

REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL [BILL 68], AND RE-DISTRIBUTION OF SEATS BILL— [BILL 138.]

  BILLS WITHDRAWN.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, in rising to move that the Orders of the Day for going into Committee on these Bills be discharged, I have to say a very few words in explanation of the course that I have now finally taken with reference to them. I did not on the resignation of the late Government, at once move that the Orders should be discharged, under the conviction, which I shared with my Colleagues, that it was our duty to allow those Orders to stand until our successors had taken their places, in order that they might have an opportunity of stating either their general intentions or any special matter connected with their views in relation to the Bills, or to the subject of Reform. But the declarations made by various leading Members of the Government in another place, and likewise in the country, have satisfied us that it is not their intention to take any steps in reference to these Bills. And I beg it, Sir, to be understood, that I by no means make that circumstance a subject of
  1144
  complaint against them in the present state of facts. We, however, hereupon determined to propose that the Orders of the Day should be discharged, and the Bills dropped. But in making that proposal, I did not think it right to treat the dropping of these Bills as a matter of course; and, therefore, I gave previous notice of my intention to move that the Orders be discharged, so that any Members of the House might have an opportunity of expressing their opinion as to the Bills, and as to the question whether any attempt ought to be made by the present Government to deal with them. It being now two hours past midnight, I will not long detain the House at such a period of the sitting; nor, indeed, would I have detained you, Sir, long at an earlier hour, upon this subject. I do not think that, under the circumstances in which I am placed, it would be advisable for me to attempt any further proceeding with these Bills; but, after all that has happened, it may be expected that I should say one word with respect to the future. The great subject of the amendment of the representation of the people is not any longer primarily in my hands, nor in the hands of those with whom I had the honour to be associated. It is of course to Her Majesty's Government, in the first instance, that the country will look for its decision with respect to this important matter. I do not press the Government upon the question; I do not make any complaint against the Government for having declined to give any definite opinion upon it immediately on their assumption of office. I shall only say with regard to our successors in office, that it will be a matter of great satisfaction to myself and my Colleagues when the Government shall feel themselves in a position enabling them to deal with this question in an effectual manner. I do not ask from them, nor am I prepared to give on my own part or upon the part of those with whom I have the honour to act, any pledge with regard to the particulars of these Bills or either of them, or with regard to any particular provisions in these or any other Bills dealing with Parliamentary Reform. This is not a time when the matter should be so handled; but I may say thus much; we shall in the future be glad, irrespectively of all narrow and selfish considerations, to support any measure which we may deem to be at once prudent and effectual, if such a measure should be introduced by those who may be more successful than we have been in the attempt to settle a great Im-

  1145
  perial question. We shall sincerely congratulate them upon a result so happy for the country. At the same time, I also feel it my duty to say, without reflecting in any way upon those who have been opposed to us, that we shall feel bound to resist to the utmost of our power any illusory or reactionary measure. Beyond what I have now briefly stated, we only desire that our intentions with reference to Parliamentary Reform should be estimated from what we have already said and done during the past Session; and whatever course we may feel called upon to take with regard to any Bill which may be introduced by the Government, we trust it may be found consistent with the spirit of our previous conduct. With these few words I beg leave, Sir, to move that the Orders of the Day for going into Committee on the Representation of the People Bills be discharged.

  FEES (PUBLIC DEPARTMENTS) BILL.
  Resolution reported;
  "That it is expedient to make provision for the collection of Fees in Public Departments and Offices by means of Stamps."
  Resolution agreed to: — Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. DODSON, Mr. HUNT, and Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 223.]

  CONSTABULARY FORCE (IRELAND) [PAY, &C.] BILL.
  Resolution reported;
  "That it is expedient to empower the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to authorize an increased rate of Pay and Superannuation to the Constabulary Force, out of any monies that may be provided by Parliament for that purpose."
  Resolution agreed to: — Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. DODSON, Mr. Hear, and Lord NAAS.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 224.]

  NEW ZEALAND GUARANTEE BILL.
  Resolution reported;
  "That it is expedient to guarantee the liquidation of Bonds issued for the repayment of Advances made out of Public Funds for the service of the Colony of New Zealand."
  Resolution agreed to: — Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. DODSON, Mr. HUNT, and Mr. ADDERLEY.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 225.]

  PAROCHIAL BUILDINGS (SCOTLAND) ACT AMENDMENT BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. WALDEGRAVE-LESLIE, Bill to amend and explain the Act of the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth years of Victoria, chapter fifty-eight, relating to Parochial Buildings in Scotland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. WALDEGRAVELESLIE, Mr. WILLIAM MILLER, and Sir WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 222.]

  RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION FACILITIES ACT (1864) AMENDMENT BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. WHALLEY, Bill to repeal so much of the Act of the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth years of Victoria, chapter one hundred and twenty-one, intituled "The Railway Construction Facilities Act (1864)," as prevents the Board of Trade from proceeding, on the application of Promoters, in cases where any Railway or Canal Company affected in any way by the proposed undertaking may give notice of opposition, ordered to be brought in by Mr. WHALLEY and Mr. LOCKE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 226.]
  House adjourned at half after Two o'clock.

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—First Report —Office of Clerk of the Parliaments and Office of the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Extradition Treaties Act Amendment (200); Local Government Supplemental (No. 2)* (201); Local Government Supplemental (No. 3)* (202); New Forest Poor Relief * (203); Rochdale Vicarage * (204); Oyster Bed Licences (Ireland) * (205); Colonial Clergy Disabilities * (120).
Second Reading—Sheriff Court Houses (Scotland) Act (1860) Amendment * (57); New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land Government * (195); Revising Barristers' Qualifications (196).
Committee—Pier and Harbour Orders Confirmation * (185).
Report—National Gallery Enlargement * (171); Dean Forest (Wetmore and the Bearce Commons)* (178).
Third Reading — Glebe Lands (Scotland) * (139); Carriage and Deposit of Dangerous Goods* (159).
Withdrawn—Masters and Operatives (59).

EXTRADITION TREATIES ACT AMENDMENT BILL.
(The Lord Chancellor.)
BILL PRESENTED. FIRST READING.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I venture to engage your attention for a short time while I propose for your consent a Bill which is of very great importance, and of urgent necessity. It is a Bill for the Amendment of the Law relating to Treaties of Extradition. Your Lordships are no doubt aware that we have had for some years a treaty of this description with France, and you have probably heard that in consequence of some dissatisfaction which has been felt by the French Government as to the mode in which this treaty has been dealt with by this country, notice was given by them in the month of December last, under the stipulations of the treaty, for its discontinuance at the expiration of a period of six months. Her Majesty's late Government were alive to the importance of this treaty; and accordingly they entered into communications with the French Government upon the subject. I believe they were met in the most friendly and cordial spirit, and the French Government agreed to extend the notice for six months longer—so that the notice would not expire until the 4th of December—while, at the same time, they intimated pretty plainly that unless some alteration of the law were made by which effect would be given to the treaty, which they considered had been almost a dead letter, they should feel themselves compelled to abandon it at the end of that extended time. The noble Earl the late Secretary for Foreign Affairs immediately directed a Bill to be prepared, which I believe, but for the change of Government, would have passed through both Houses of Parliament by this time. That Bill was found in the office, and was approved of by the present Government; and I am now introducing it to your Lordships' attention, it being considered by us to be one which will exactly meet the exigencies of the case. I will briefly explain to your Lordships the circumstances under which legislation becomes necessary upon this im-

1055
portant subject. The law of extradition in this country only dates from the year 1843. In that year two treaties were entered into—one with France and the other with the United States—and Acts of Parliament were passed to give effect to them. It certainly is an extraordinary circumstance, considering the importance of treaties of this description to a commercial country, that these should be the only ones into which we entered until the year 1862, when a similar treaty was concluded with Denmark. But these three treaties—with France, with the United States, and with Denmark—are the only Extradition Treaties in existence between this country and foreign nations; while France has no less than fifty-three treaties of this description, and I believe she has found no difficulty whatever in carrying them into effect with other countries. But with respect to this country, it is a most remarkable thing that for twenty years—from 1843 to 1863—not a single criminal has been delivered up when demanded by France. This has arisen partly from the view which was taken of his duty upon these questions by the magistrate who then presided at the Bow Street Police Court. He thought that he ought to inquire into the guilt or innocence of the party who was accused, instead of confining himself strictly to the question, whether there was on the depositions a sufficient case to warrant the sending of the accused to be tried. The French Government having been repeatedly baffled and disappointed in their attempts to obtain their fugitives, it is much less to be wondered at that they should have given notice of the discontinuance of the treaty, than that they should have borne disappointment so patiently. They had another ground of complaint with regard to the interpretation put upon the Extradition Treaty, as to the proof required of the different documents transmitted for the purpose of establishing the case. The Legislature felt that it would be most inconvenient, and would occasion considerable delay, if the foreign Government were compelled to send over witnesses for the purpose of establishing the case against the party accused; and therefore, by the provisions of the Act of Parliament, copies of the depositions certified by the Judge who issued the warrant were to be admitted as evidence of the criminality of the accused. If the provisions had stopped there no complaint could have arisen; but in addition to that proof, the Act of the 6th and 7th of the
1056
Queen provides that those depositions shall be proved to be true copies by the witnesses who brought them over. Now, the way in which documents of this kind are transmitted from France is this:—The depositions are sent over accompanied by a certificate authenticated by the official seal and signature of the Minister of Justice; and undoubtedly that proof ought to be sufficient to warrant the reception of the document. The French Government naturally feel that it is a great indignity to require them, in addition to this solemn verification, to send over a witness for the purpose of proving that he had examined the copies with the originals, and that they were true copies. It is most extraordinary that this should be required, because under the law with regard to proving documents from foreign countries in our Courts of Justice, any judicial proceedings, or any documents emanating from a Court of Justice, can be proved by the production of copies of those documents purporting to be sealed with the seal of the Court, or with the signature of the Judge of the Court accompanied by a statement to the effect that the Court had no seal, without any proof whatever of the authenticity of the signature or of the seal, or of the judicial character of the person who affixed the seal or the signature, or of the truth of the statements contained in the documents. If, therefore, those documents were produced in a Court of Law, verified in the way I have stated, there is no doubt whatever that they would be perfectly good evidence; and there can be no reason why a difference should be made in the mode of proof with regard to the transmission of documents from France under the Treaty of Extradition. The present Bill, which was prepared by the late Government, proposes to amend the law in this respect, and to allow documents in cases under the Extradition Treaty to be verified in the way that is customary in the Courts of Law. I believe that if this Amendment of the law is adopted—though it should not be entirely satisfactory to the French Government—it will go a very considerable way to reconcile them to our law upon this subject, and to induce them to abandon their intention of discontinuing the treaty.
My Lords, I wish to take this opportunity of removing a misapprehension which appears to prevail upon this subject with regard to the objects of the French Government. It has been supposed that they are extremely desirous upon political

1057
grounds of continuing the treaty in order that they may, by charging criminal offences against particular individuals, get possession of these criminals, and then try them for political offences. Now, there cannot be a greater mistake than the notion that any such law prevails in France. On the contrary, the French law is so strict upon that subject that where a person is delivered up under an Extradition Treaty, he can only be tried for the offence stated in the extradition warrant; and, if he is acquitted of that offence, although he may be charged with twenty other offences, he is allowed to quit France and to return to the place from which he was sent, and he cannot be put upon his trial on any other charge. A striking instance of this was furnished in the case of the Extradition Treaty between France and Belgium. A man was charged with a rape; he escaped to Belgium; he was delivered up by the Belgian authorities; he was tried for the offence and acquitted. It was then proposed that he should be tried for an indecent assault, which of course was included in the greater offence; but so strict were the French authorities in the interpretation of their law that they refused to try the man for that offence, and he was discharged and sent back to Belgium. There is one other matter to which I wish to advert. It is supposed that the French Government are extremely anxious to have their fugitive criminals, who have been convicted, delivered up. Now that must be explained. There are two modes of conviction in France—one after trial in the presence of the accused, and the other par contumace. Persons who have escaped and are convicted par contumace, as it is called, if they are delivered up to France, are not sentenced upon that conviction, but are again put upon their trial, and they are then of course exactly in the same position as a person who has merely had a charge preferred against him, and has fled from justice, and the conviction par contumace has no effect whatever. Treaties of this kind are of the greatest possible importance to a commercial country; and 1 think it is very much to be regretted that the offences comprehended in our Extradition Treaty with France should be so limited. They only extend to murder, attempt to murder, forgery, and fraudulent bankruptcy. It would be very important indeed to the commercial world if the treaty were extended to other offences which are of frequent occurrence, and which at present easily
1058
escape punishment from our facility of communication with France. But these are matters for future consideration. At present all I ask your Lordships is to assent to this Bill, which will amend the law in a slight particular, apparently, but in one which will give effect to the intentions of the Legislature when it passed the Act of 1843. The measure will, I think, conciliate the French Government, with regard to that treaty; it will show our desire to carry that treaty faithfully into effect, and to meet them in the same fair and just spirit in which they have always met us upon these subjects. Under these circumstances I ask your Lordships to give a first reading to the Bill.
THE EARL OF CLARENDON: It is unnecessary for me to trouble your Lordships at any length after the very full and clear statement of the noble and learned Lord in presenting the Bill; but I wish to say a few words on this subject. Her Majesty's late Government thought the intimation of the French Government, given in the month of December last, not to renew the treaty, was rather a hasty proceeding; but, at the same time, it did not much surprise me, because not a single person had ever been delivered up to them under the treaty. This result was brought about, not because the English magistrates were unwilling to give effect to the treaty, but because the evidence adduced was considered by them to be insufficient. Nevertheless, I thought it would be much better to have kept the treaty in existence, for though it might not be in active operation, still it hung in terrorem over the heads of offenders, none of whom could be absolutely certain that he would not be delivered up under its provisions. It is quite right that there should be such a treaty between two great countries like England and France, which are only separated from each other by a few miles of sea. I am aware that a jealousy exists on this subject, and that we have only concluded three treaties of this kind. For my own part I thought it was preferable to retain the Treaty of 1843, making it operative, instead of asking Parliament to sanction a new treaty; and therefore, I had recourse to Sir Thomas Henry, the chief magistrate at Bow Street. I mention his name because it is mainly owing to his intelligence and ability, and the zeal with which he conducted the negotiations which took place, that we are saved from a position of some embarrassment and some discredit; for the French

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Government have always attributed what they considered our indifference to the working of the treaty and our supposed indisposition to amend our law to our mistrust of their good faith, and our fear lest they should misuse the treaty for political purposes. Now, there was not the slightest cause for any such apprehension. Lord Cowley was able to confer on the subject with the legal authorities in Paris, and to state to them what were the intentions of Her Majesty's Government, and what concessions they were disposed to make with the view of making the treaty operative. Sir Thomas Henry subsequently went to Paris, and was received with great goodwill by the French authorities. The result of those negotiations was that I was enabled to prepare the Bill which has now been introduced by the noble and learned Lord. Its object simply is to admit, under abundant safeguards, public documents, and authorized copies of them, as evidence in cases arising under the treaty. I think there is every reason to believe that this will satisfy the French Government, because it will make the treaty operative, and go far to conciliate them. If it is sanctioned by Parliament and found to work well, I hope that the category of crimes will be extended in the way suggested by the noble and learned Lord.
Motion agreed to.
Bill for the Amendment of the Law relating to Treaties of Extradition read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a Tomorrow. (No. 200.)

MASTERS AND OPERATIVES BILL.
(The Lord St. Leonards.)
(NO. 59.) BILL WITHDRAWN.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD ST. LEONARDSsaid, that when he laid the Bill on the table at the beginning of the Session, he announced that it was not his intention to propose the second reading unless he found that the measure met with the approval of both masters and operatives. Since the Bill had been read a first time he had put himself in communication with both parties, and it appeared to him there was a general desire on the part of the operatives that the Bill should be passed into law, while there was no such desire on the part of the masters to have any such Bill passed. At a meeting of delegates who, as he was informed,
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represented 100,000 operatives, a long discussion took place, and a resolution in favour of the Bill was carried. A number of those delegates had an interview with him for the purpose of receiving an explanation on some points; and he found that those men seemed well disposed to act in a harmonious manner with the masters, and they, in their representative capacity, expressed an entire approval of the Bill. But, on the other hand, in his communications with the great builders of London they told him that they thought the Bill would do them no good, although on a previous occasion, after an interview with him, they were desirous that such a Bill should be passed. He, therefore, did not ask their Lordships to read the Bill a second time. He had had considerable correspondence with both sides, and he had taken a great deal of trouble to effect what he thought would tend to the public advantage, and he had discovered that both masters and operatives were desirous that a Bill should be passed which would provide for the regulation of future wages. Now, the Bill which he had introduced carefully provided that the Council of Conciliation should have no such power, and he had expressed his opinion to the effect that he bad no intention of ever presenting a Bill to that House which should give Courts of Conciliation absolute power over wages; and, at all events, not unless confined to a very limited period. His purpose now was to move the discharge of the order for the second reading. Next Session he would introduce again the same Bill; and if the operatives and masters after reconsidering the Bill should petition the House in sufficiently large numbers he would do what he could to effect its passing. It was a permissive Bill, no man being bound who did not choose to be bound by it; and he had not the slightest doubt of its working well if it were to be passed. He moved that the order for the second reading be discharged. Its future progress would depend upon the masters and operatives themselves.
THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, it was but justice to the noble and learned Lord to state that the Bill had been received with considerable favour by a large number of operatives in all parts of the kingdom. Indeed, some such measure was required in the times in which we lived. Disputes about wages and other matters would necessarily arise, and unless something were done there would be perpetual strikes, and the ten thousand evils which

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usually accompanied them. He had been anxious to learn the opinion of the operatives in regard to the present Bill, and he had received a letter from the chairman of a large body of working men, to whom the Bill had been submitted. The writer of the letter believed that the Bill, as a whole, was a wise one, and likely to have beneficial results. He also stated that he was apprehensive of strikes, and desired to avert them; and that the establishment of Councils of Conciliation, as proposed by the Bill, would in many instances prevent disputes, and generally foster a better understanding between employers and employed. It was a matter to be regretted that such a Bill should be withdrawn, but he trusted that next Session come such Bill would be passed into law.
Order discharged.
Bill (by Leave of the House) withdrawn.

REVISING BARRISTERS' QUALIFICATIONS BILL—(The Lord Chancellor.)

  (NO. 196.) SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that under the law as it at present stood Revising Barristers were disqualified for holding any other office under the Crown; but several of those gentlemen had been appointed Commissioners to inquire into corrupt practices at recent elections, and the Bill before the House was to enable them to retain both offices. He moved that the Bill be read a second time.
  Motion agreed to: Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.

SEWAGE AND POLLUTION OF RIVERS.

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  THE EARL of SHREWSBURYsaid, that the subject of disinfecting sewage and preventing the pollution of rivers was one of great importance, and he hoped his noble Friend at the head of the Government would sanction the appointment of a Committee to inquire into the matter, and if there were ground for it, and he believed there would be, he trusted the Committee would be renewed next Session.
  Moved, "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the Means suggested by Mr. Dover of disinfecting sewage and preventing the Pollution of Rivers."—(The Earl of Shrewsbury.)
  THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, no one could dispute the great importance of pre-
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  serving rivers free from pollution, and few could have more practical experience with reference to the matter than himself, since he lived in a country where every stream and brook was to a great extent polluted. But as a Royal Commission had begun an inquiry into the whole subject, commencing with the Thames, he thought it would be most inexpedient for their Lordships to appoint a Committee to examine into the value of any particular scheme of purification. He had heard Mr. Dover's patent very highly spoken of; but whatever its merits—and he would not detract from them—he thought if their Lordships consented to inquire into this one patent they could not, in justice, refuse to inspect and report upon the merits of the patent of any other inventor who chose to offer his plans for their inspection. Besides, the Committee could not hope to furnish the House with a trustworthy Report upon the subject unless they had some better means of testing the quality of the patent than the small model it was proposed to offer them. As it was most unlikely the labours of the Committee would lead to useful legislation, he thought that rather than waste the time of the noble Lords who would form the Committee it would be better not to appoint it.
  LORD DENMANwas understood to support the Motion for a Committee.
  LORD REDESDALEsaid, there was no doubt Mr. Dover's invention was very ingenious, and that his model worked very well; it seemed to purify the water very readily, and Mr. Dover made good use of the deposit which came from the water; but, at the same time, he agreed with the noble Earl that it was impossible to appoint a Committee to examine and report upon every invention brought under notice. No good could come of an inquiry into Mr. Dover's scheme unless Parliament were prepared to order that it should be tested on a large scale at the public expense; but although he objected to the appointment of a Committee especially to inquire into the merits of Mr. Dover's invention, he had no doubt, after what had fallen from their Lordships, that the Royal Commissioners would be induced to examine it themselves.
  THE EARL OF SHREWSBURYsaid, he admitted the force of the objection, and had no wish to persist in his Motion; but as to the remark that a Royal Commission had been appointed to inquire into the whole subject, he feared that the scope of

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  their inquiry was too great to permit them to make an examination as to the merits of any particular scheme; while a Committee appointed to inquire into the one subject would give it particular attention.
  THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, he had no power to direct the Commission, but he had very little doubt that, considering what a very favourable opinion had been expressed on the experiments which bad been made with Mr. Dover's patent, the Commission would be willing to receive evidence on the subject.
  Motion (by Leave of the House) withdrawn.
  House adjourned at a quarter past Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.