Sitting of 24 February 1871

MINUTES.
NEW WRIT ISSUED—For Monmouth County, v. Colonel Poulett Somerset, C.B., Chiltern Hundreds.
NEW MEMBER SWORN—Mitchell Henry, esquire, for Galway County.
SUPPLY — considered in Committee — Committee R.P.

METROPOLIS—ST. JAMES'S PARK.

  QUESTION.
  VISCOUNT ROYSTONasked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether it is his intention, this Session, to open the communication for the public between Marlborough House Gate and Storey's Gate, Birdcage Walk, by the east end of St. James's I ark?
  MR. AYRTON, in reply, said, when the question as to opening a communication between Marlborough House and Storey's Gate by the eastern side of St. James's Park had last been put to him, he stated that no change would be made, unless it could be shown that the change was absolutely necessary to enable hon. Members to obtain access to the House. But, as he had heard no suggestion to that effect, no occasion had arisen for bringing the subject under the notice of the Government.

METROPOLITAN BOARD.

  QUESTION.
  MR. LOCKEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he is aware of the fact that the measure of last Session increasing the maximum borrowing powers of the Metropolitan Board (under the Loans Act of 1869) was introduced into a Public Bill of the Government, and that the three Bills introduced this year for further extending such borrowing powers are Private Bills promoted by the said Board; and, whether the Government, having intimated their intention to introduce a Bill to amend the said Loans Act of 1869, purpose to allow the Private Bills to go to Committee before the introduction of the Public Bill, or defer the Private Bills until the House has the Public Measure before it?
  MR. BRUCEsaid, in reply, that the hon. Gentleman had misapprehended the
  830
  answer that he gave him the other day on that subject. He had not intimated the intention of the Government to introduce a Bill to amend the Loans Act, 1869. What he had stated was that the Metropolitan Board had prepared a Bill, which they were about to submit to the Government; but that it had not yet been so submitted to the Government. The object of that Bill, as he understood, was to explain and amend the Act of 1869, and not in any way to extend their borrowing powers, or their powers of consolidation. As to the three Bills now before Parliament, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, it was not the intention of the Government to interfere with their progress; but he thought the Notice of Motion given that afternoon with regard to those Bills by the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Goldney), was one well worthy of consideration.

ARMY—PROMOTION OF COLONELS.

  QUESTION.
  SIR HENRY HOAREasked the Secretary of State for War, If it is intended after the abolition of Purchase, to continue to mulct each Colonel on his promotion to the rank of Major General in the regulation value of his commission, which would be equivalent to selling the rank of Major General at the price of £4,500?
  MR. CARDWELL: Sir, by the existing regulations, colonels succeeding to the rank of major general, cannot sell their regimental commissions. It is not intended to recognize any new claims to sell commissions, but simply to enable those who, under existing regulations, have the right to sell out of the service, to realize the value of their commissions on their retirement from the Army.

  ARMY—WIDOWS OF OFFICERS OF THE ARMY.—QUESTION.
  COLONEL C. H. LINDSAYasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether, in the event of Purchase in the Army being abolished, the widow, children, or next of kin of an officer, who is either dangerously ill or who has died before he has been repaid the customary price of his commission, will receive the money from the State to which that officer would

  831
  have been entitled if he had lived; and, whether, in the case of an officer being killed in action or on duty, or dying of his wounds, before he has been repaid the customary price of his commission, his widow or children, or next of kin, as the case may be, will receive the money to which he would have been entitled had he lived?
  MR. CARDWELL: Sir, the widow, children, or next of kin referred to in the first part of the Question of the hon. and gallant Gentleman do not receive the purchase money, according to the purchase system, and, therefore, will not be entitled to compensation on the abolition of the system. As regards officers killed in action, the rule expressed in the Warrant G 1,069 will be strictly followed.

DANGEROUS MANUFACTURES.

  QUESTION.
  MR. BROGDENasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he has issued or intends to issue any general instructions for the guidance of Justices in granting licences for places for the manufacture of articles of an explosive nature; and whether he has appointed or intends to appoint inspectors for such workshops or places?
  MR. BRUCEsaid, in reply, that he had directed a very experienced officer some time ago to inquire into the practices of manufactories of explosive materials, and had obtained from him a very valuable Report; but, before any legislative action on the subject was taken, it was desirable that those inquiries should be pursued further. He had directed an analysis of the present Acts, and certain regulations now adopted at the Government factories to prevent danger, to be prepared and forwarded to the local authorities wherever those manufactories were known to exist, with a request that they should be issued to their managers. He had no power at present to appoint special Inspectors for those works; but he would require the Factory Inspectors to see that the provisions of the Act now in force were carried out, and also to suggest such additional precautions as, although not provided by the Act, were really desirable for the security of persons engaged in those establishments.

METROPOLIS—NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, SOUTH KENSINGTON.

  QUESTION.
  MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKasked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether Her Majesty's Government have approved any design for the exterior architectural elevation of the proposed Natural History Museum at South Kensington; whether the approved design is a modification of that by the late Captain Fowke which was selected after the competition instituted by the Right honourable Member for South Hants when First Commissioner of Works, and which Mr. Waterhouse was appointed to execute; whether the approved design is in architectural harmony with the adjacent new buildings of the South Kensington Museum; and, whether he will, as early as possible, exhibit drawings and a model of the approved design within the precincts of this House, for the inspection of Members?
  MR. AYRTON, in reply, said, considerable progress had been made in the preparation of the plans and designs for the New Museum of Natural History proposed to be erected at South Kensington; but it would be some time before they were perfected. Until that was done it would, of course, be impossible to exhibit them, nor had they at present received the sanction of the Government.

ARMY REGULATION BILL.

  QUESTION.
  MR. RAIKESasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he intends, before proceeding with the Second Reading of the Army Regulation Bill, to lay upon the Table of the House the new Regulations regarding promotion and retirement which are to take effect after the abolition of purchase?
  MR. CARDWELL: Sir, I am not yet in a position to promise how soon I can lay any such Paper on the Table, but I will do so as soon as I am able.
  COLONEL ANSONasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it would be possible to divide the Army Regulation Bill into two separate Bills, one dealing with purchase and the mode of its abolition, the other with the remaining objects of the Bill; and, whether there is any objection to Officers of the Army

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  communicating with Members of Parliament and criticizing the Bill on points affecting their pecuniary interests and future prospects in their profession?
  MR. CARDWELL: I think, Sir, the Bill can be much more conveniently considered as a whole. My hon. and gallant Friend is himself a distinguished officer, and I trust he will give no countenance to anything which would prejudice the good order and military discipline of the service. It is quite possible for any officer to communicate with a Member of this House on the subject of the Bill without incurring the reproach of being party to such a breach of discipline.
  MAJOR DICKSONasked the Secretary of State for War, If he has prohibited the promotion by sale in succession in regiments where there are supernumerary Officers, and whether such regulation is not contrary to all precedent and obstructive to promotion in those regiments?
  MR. CARDWELL: Sir, I have not prohibited the sales in question, and everything which has been done has been in strict accordance with the practice pursued when the former reductions were made in 1866. The absorption has always been in the junior rank, in which there was a supernumerary.

  ALLEGED CONGRATULATORY MESSAGES TO THE CROWN PRINCE OF GERMANY.—QUESTION.
  SIR HENRY HOAREasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the statement in the Daily Telegraph is correct—viz., That Captain Hozier has been charged with messages of congratulation from Her Majesty, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Cambridge to the Crown Prince of Germany upon the successes won by his Army?
  VISCOUNT ENFIELD: In the temporary and unavoidable absence of the First Lord of the Treasury, I must ask the hon. Baronet to defer his Question for a short time.
  SIR HENRY HOARE: I beg to give Notice that I shall repeat my Question when the right hon. Gentleman appears in his place.

  SUPPLY.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

CEYLON—ADAM'S BRIDGE.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONErose to call the attention of the House to the necessity of cutting through Adam's Bridge, and thereby obviating the necessity of circumnavigating the island of Ceylon. The subject was one of the greatest commercial importance, and it had been brought several times under the notice of the Indian Government, and in 1862 a Committee, over which he had the honour to preside, was appointed by the House, which recommended that the Indian Government should cut a passage between the island of Ramisseram and Point Tonitory, at the western end of Adam's Bridge, with the view of shortening the present route to and from the Bay of Bengal by 360 miles; but, notwithstanding that recommendation, from that time to the present, no steps had been taken in the matter. That the trade which would be benefited by the execution of the proposed works was not an unimportant one, was shown from the fact that, imperfect as the existing channel was, it had increased from 7,000 tons in 1829 to 200,000 in last year. Having twice visited the locality he was in a position to say that no difficulty whatever would have to be encountered in executing the proposed works. The opening of the Suez Canal had occasioned the Indian trade to be carried on almost entirely by steam vessels, and he believed that, in the course of two or three years, sailing vessels would be engaged in the traffic. This would, of course, greatly augment the utility of the proposed works. The Colonial Government at Ceylon had determined to make a large and deep-water harbour at Colombo, and if the proposed canal were cut there would be a saving of 250 miles between that port and Madras. The navigation of the Gulf of Manaar was the safest in the world, and it appeared from the annual Reports of the Indian Presidencies—which, from the clear and ample manner in which they treated all

  835
  Indian questions, he should be glad to see in the Library of that House—that in the course of last year 2,222 vessels passed through the existing channel through Adam's Bridge, of which, although they were navigated by natives, only two were lost. What he now proposed was that the Indian Government should cut a canal through a promontory in the Madras Presidency, for a distance of two miles and a half, the height of the land being 12 feet, at an estimated expense of £91,000, whereby a magnificent harbour, containing 16 miles of smooth and deep water would be obtained. Last year 117,000 bales of cotton were shipped at very great risk and expense at Tutacorin; whereas if the harbour to which he was referring was constructed ships could load at jetties along the shore, to which the cotton could be conveyed by means of a short branch line of railway. The Province of Madura, in the Madras Presidency, was extremely rich in cattle, sheep, and other produce; but the harbour at Point de Galle was one of the most incommodious that could be found on any coast. Canals were no new things in those parts. The Madras Presidency had already 89 miles of canals, one of nine miles in length having been recently constructed for the purpose of connecting Madras with the great rice-producing district of Pennaar; but the Indian Government would not incur the expense of making the two and a half miles of which he was speaking, because the opening of such a canal would be an Imperial question, and ought, in their opinion, to be defrayed out of the Imperial funds. As the making of the canal would save vessels making the voyage to Calcutta—720 miles of sailing—shipowners would be willing to pay a remunerative toll for the privilege of passing through the canal, and so the work would be self-supporting. His belief, indeed, was that it would pay the Indian Government most handsomely for the outlay. He desired further to say a few words in regard to another question connected with maritime matters on the coast of India. The hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for India in addressing his constituents two or three years ago, took credit for having 40 lighthouses on the coast of India. But the coasts of India extended from the Persian boundary at Beloochistan
  836
  to the limits of the kingdom of Siam at Tenasserim, a distance of 4,000 miles, making about one lighthouse to every 100 miles of coast; but, to his own knowledge, there were 14 points between Bombay and Cape Comorin where lighthouses were so much wanted that ships had to make much longer passages, and to run far greater risks, than would be the case if the shore was properly lighted. Having sailed along 1,200 miles of the coast of India in the course of last year, he could say that there was no civilized country in the world worse off for necessary coast light and harbour accommodation. If the channel he had alluded to had been in the hands of M. de Lesseps, he would have done in nine months what the Government of India had taken as many years to accomplish. By means of the dredges used by M. de Lesseps on the Suez Canal, the great rivers of India might be rendered navigable and useful for the purpose of carrying the inland produce to the coast for shipment during the whole year, instead of during a part of it only, as was the case at present; while the mouths of many of them might easily be converted into good harbours by the appliance of those scientific means which were so well understood in this country. But the science of constructing harbours was so little understood in India that there were not to be found on the whole continent harbour works of equal magnitude with those which had been constructed by private enterprize at Grimsby and many other places on our coast. To sum up his object in bringing this question forward, it was to save the mercantile marine of Great Britain from the expense of 720 miles more of sailing than was necessary in making the voyage to Calcutta, and from the risk of sailing round one of the most stormy and disagreeable promontories in the world.
  MR. J. B. SMITHsaid, no one could doubt the importance of the opening of Adam's Bridge advocated by the hon. and gallant Member. The object of saving a dangerous voyage of 700 miles in going to or from Calcutta was so great that the Indian Government could not, now that the Suez Canal was opened, longer avoid the necessity of looking into it. A proper survey and estimate should be at once obtained, and whether made by the Indian or by the English Govern-

  837
  ment, such tolls might be levied on ships passing through the canal as in a few years would be sufficient to pay the cost, after which a very small toll would be all that would be required to keep it in repair.
  MR. EASTWICKsaid, he was surprised that so little had been done by the Government to carry out the recommendations of the Committee of 1862 in reference to this among other Indian questions. He could not explain to himself why it was that the Government had failed to undertake a work, the expense of which was so small, and the advantages so great and certain. One of the great advantages of carrying out the recommendations of the hon. Baronet was that it would encourage the coasting trade; it would also enable the mariner to avoid a circuitous route, and a most dangerous place to touch at, Point de Galle, often attended with loss of life. But the chief advantage of all was the securing a good harbour. Indeed, having been himself nearly lost in the passage going from Calcutta to Madras, he could fully appreciate the advantage of a good harbour on that coast. There was this further Imperial advantage—that the construction of the new harbour would be found of almost incalculable advantage in case of war breaking out in that part of the Queen's dominions.
  COLONEL SYKESsaid, he had no doubt of the advantages of the proposed work. It could be made, and it would save the dangers and loss of money and time in making the voyage round the island of Ceylon. The East India Company had annually, for many years, devoted a sum of money to deepening the channel; but owing to the difficulty of excavating the rock under water, the progress had been comparatively slow and ineffective; the rocky barrier, however, could be removed by the employment of diving bells and competent excavators.
  MR. GRANT DUFFsaid, he did not doubt the advantage of having a deep-water channel all through the strait between Ceylon and the coast of India. Such a channel would add considerably to the commercial facilities of the world. But admitting, for the sake of argument, that such a channel could be made, who was to make it? The Government of Ceylon had not hitherto considered that its subjects were sufficiently inte-
  838
  rested in the matter to expend any very considerable sum of money in carrying into effect any such proposal as that which had been advanced by the hon. Baronet. Was it, then, to be the Imperial Government? The Imperial Government refused to do anything of the kind. The Admiralty said that ships coming from the Red Sea would, no doubt, be very glad to save some hundred miles by using a deep-water channel through Palk Straits, if one could be made; but they would think twice before paying the toll which it would be necessary to exact. As for ships of war, they would continue to go round the outside of Ceylon, and touch, as they have been long accustomed to do, at Trincomalee. Was it, then, India that must make the channel? Well, but India was making it to the best of her ability. For 42 years the Indian authorities had been paying considerable sums for improving the water way, and a large amount of Indian shipping now went through what was known as the Paumben Channel. If Government were now to alter its plans and adopt the new channel proposed by the hon. Baronet, the whole of the money that had been spent in improving the Paumben Channel would be thrown away. He (Mr. Grant Duff) had been arguing on the assumption that what the hon. Baronet proposed was not impossible; but the information laid before him by persons acquainted with those seas, and familiar with the soundings, amounted to this—that the Paumben Channel had been greatly improved, and would be still further improved; but that, when all had been done that could be done, neither it nor any of the other channels which had been proposed could be made available for large ships, the water being very shallow for a long way, both in the Gulf of Manaar and on the other side of Adam's Bridge, so that both the north and south entrances of the proposed channels would be unapproachable by large vessels, unless an expenditure altogether disproportionate to the object to be attained was incurred. Passing from that subject to the much larger question to which the hon. Baronet had referred—the question of lighthouses and other maritime improvements on the Indian coast—he (Mr. Grant Duff) was very far from denying that there was an immense deal to do on the Indian coast; but when

  839
  the hon. Baronet compared the harbour works of India with the harbour works of this country, he should remember the very different amount of capital that was available for such purposes in England and in India. He could not give the hon. Baronet much hope of anything being done for the particular project which he had recommended for improving the water way between Ceylon and the mainland; but he could assure him that the Indian Government was quite alive to the importance of improving harbours and creating more lighthouses around the shores of India.

TREATY OF PARIS (1856)—DECLARATION OF MR. ODO RUSSELL.—QUESTION.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. DISRAELI, in rising to call attention to the provisions of the Treaty of Paris (1856) as to the Black Sea, with reference to the statement on that subject lately made by the Prime Minister, said: Sir, in the remarks—the few remarks, and the fewer inquiries—I am about to make respecting the Treaty of Paris of 1856, it is not my intention, or my wish, to enter into any discussion as to the great principles of policy involved in that subject. A more important theme could not engage, in my opinion, the attention of Parliament; and on a right appreciation of all the circumstances connected with it I would venture to say that the future power of this country greatly depends—and, more than that, the fortunes of no inconsiderable part of the globe. But a subject of that kind is not to be treated in a casual and desultory manner. An hon. Member has already given Notice of his intention to bring the whole question before the House, and I have no doubt that the House will then enter into the discussion with that interest and attention which the gravity of the question requires. The remarks that I am about to make are rather preparatory to a discussion of the matter. They will divest the theme of some controversial details, which, if not now treated, would only embarrass that greater discussion of policy which is involved in the Notice that has been given. Among other points which I should like to decide to-night would be to ascertain, for example, the avowed object of the Conference that is now sitting in London. That subject seems involved in an
  840
  atmosphere of ambiguity. The reasons which have been given by persons in authority for that Conference appear to be perplexed and, in a certain degree, contradictory. The whole matter seems to be mixed up with so much mysterious inconsistency, that I thought no time should be lost in order that the House of Commons should more precisely and accurately ascertain the state of affairs with respect to it. I therefore took the earliest opportunity I could of giving Notice on that subject last Friday; but I was not so fortunate as to be able to bring the matter before the consideration of the House.
  I had occasion to advert to the subject of the Treaty of Paris of 1856 in some remarks I made on the first night of this Session, on the meeting of the House. They were necessarily of an imperfect character, and the view from which I then took, it was not possible for me to enter into any detail with respect to that particular Treaty. I had one object, and only one object, in making those remarks on the first night of our meeting. I thought that, considering the great events—almost unprecedented in importance—which had occurred in the interval since the Prorogation, it was not inexpedient to draw the attention of the House to their great consequences. I wanted to impress upon the House that in the interval, in consequence of those events, there had been a great revolution in all our diplomatic relations—that all the principles and traditions with respect to external affairs had become obsolete—that the balance of power in Europe was destroyed—that in consequence of that balance of power being destroyed there had been a repudiation of treaties by several States, and that of all existing countries the one which would most suffer by any diminution of diplomatic morality and any violation of public law would be our own. That was the object I had in making those remarks, and as they necessarily extended over a variety of instances, it was not possible for me to dwell in any minute detail upon any particular treaty. Nevertheless, with regard to the Treaty of 1856, I did venture to make more than one observation as to its character. I said distinctly, with regard to that Treaty, that Russia, in repudiating the conditions of the Treaty which referred to the neutral character of the Black Sea, had, in fact, repudiated

  841
  the very gist of the whole subject—the essence of the Treaty; and that, in fact, that was the question for which we had struggled and made great sacrifices, and endured those sufferings which never can be forgotten. Sir, I did not think it necessary to enter into any demonstration of such a position, even if I had the opportunity. I knew well that I was speaking to a House of Commons, of which even now a majority of the Members were Members of Parliament during the Crimean War, and were perfectly acquainted with all the circumstances which preceded, accompanied, and terminated that great struggle. The House, therefore, I assumed, was perfectly aware that after that war had been waged one whole year, Russia intimated her desire to come to some understanding with her opponents. The Government of Austria in 1855—the Government which, when I described as neutral, the right hon. Gentleman disputed the accuracy of that definition, but which I find mentioned in official documents of 1855 as a Government friendly to both parties, to the Allies and to Russia—the Government of Austria interfered with a view to bring about a pacification. I will treat the circumstances with extreme brevity; but it is necessary that I should place them clearly before the House. After some communications it was ascertained that peace might probably be successfully negotiated on four points—those celebrated Four Points which hon. Gentlemen may still recollect. The first point referred to the government of the Principalities. The second to the free navigation of the Danube. The third point was that some means were to be invented for terminating the naval supremacy of Russia in the Black Sea. The fourth point referred to the future protection of the Christian subjects of the Porte. A Conference was held at Vienna — Russia having intimated that she was prepared to negotiate on these four points—that is to say, having admitted the principle which these four points embodied. The result of the negotiations was shortly this—The first two points, as framed by the Allies, were, after discussion, admitted by Russia. The fourth point, which referred to the protection of the Christian subjects of the Porte, was never brought under formal discussion at the Confer-
  842
  ence; but Russia privately intimated that she would accede to that fourth proposition, and so no difficulty arose in that case. But with regard to the third point, when the Conference had to decide upon the means by which the naval supremacy of Russia was to be terminated in the Black Sea, great difficulties arose. It appears that Russia having admitted the principle of the third point, the Allies, with great courtesy, and I think wisdom, suggested that Russia should herself propose the means by which that result should be attained. But, after waiting for instructions from St. Petersburg, the Russian negotiators declined to do that; and, therefore, the proposition of the Allies for establishing the neutral character of the Black Sea was brought forward, and that proposition, after considerable delay, and after waiting again for instructions from St. Petersburg, was utterly rejected by Russia. The state of affairs, then, was this—Russia had consented formally to the two first propositions, and privately to the fourth. The government of the Principalities, the free navigation of the Danube, the due protection of the Christian subjects of the Porte not by one Power, but by all the Powers—these points were all conceded; and the point upon which the negotiations for peace were broken was the neutral character of the Black Sea. A great responsibility, therefore, rested upon the negotiators of the Allies, and especially upon the English Government, which took so eminent a lead in these negotiations. Was the war to be continued? Was immense treasure to be further expended, and great sacrifices of human life to be incurred for this unsettled point—the neutralization of the Black Sea? It was an awful responsibility, no doubt, to decide on this point; but responsibility in a free State is not, or should not be, a source of annoyance to individuals, but rather of honourable pride; and it would be well for the House to remember, so far as this country is concerned, who were the statesmen upon whom this great responsibility peculiarly devolved. The Prime Minister of this country then was Lord Palmerston; who, however some of his last feats of foreign policy may be questioned, must be admitted by all to be a man who had a most vigorous perception of what were the interests and duties of this country, and who at that

  843
  time was unquestionably in the full exercise of his powers, and with no apparent diminution of that decision and that spirit with which he had always conducted our foreign affairs. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was that distinguished nobleman whom the right hon. Gentleman. (Mr. Gladstone) invited more than two years ago to assist him by his experience—Lord Clarendon. The negotiator who represented this country at Vienna was a nobleman who was a Member of this House for nearly half a century—who has the largest experience of public affairs of any individual of our time, who has occupied every office, from Paymaster of the Forces to President of the Council, and who had been for seven years Prime Minister of England — Earl Russell. These were the men upon whom, so far as this country was concerned, peculiarly devolved the responsibility of deciding whether, under the circumstances, the war should be pursued. They did not hesitate, in order to obtain the neutrality of the Black Sea, as it is expressed in the Treaty of Paris negotiated, the following year, to recommend their Sovereign to prosecute the war, and not to cease until the Allies had effected a settlement similar to that which Russia had rejected. Well, the war continued another year:—and the House and the country have never forgotten the circumstances—great glory and honour to the Allies and to Russia also, much exhibition of heroic conduct on both sides, and on both sides, no doubt, unprecedented suffering. In the course of another year Russia was exhausted, and the Treaty of Paris was negotiated. And what was that Treaty? Russia was exhausted; but the Allies, victorious and triumphant, though they had incurred immensely increased expenditure, and endured aggravated sacrifices of life, did not demand from Russia the Crimea, which they might have restored to Turkey. They did not demand any indemnity for the expenses of the war. All the points in that Treaty, except the neutrality of the Black Sea, had been offered by Russia at Vienna in the preceding year, and therefore had been obtained by our negotiators in the first instance; but as a full satisfaction, as a settlement that completely justified the great exertions and sacrifices that had been incurred, as a settlement which
  844
  they believed would secure the peace of the world so far as that portion of it was concerned, they insisted that the neutrality of the Black Sea should be accomplished.
  Now, Sir, having touched—I hope accurately—upon these important facts, and recalled them I trust not without convenience as regards future discussion, I would venture to ask was I not justified in my statement the first night of the Session that the neutrality of the Black Sea was the very basis and gist of the Peace of Paris of 1856—that it was the main object of the war, the great result for the accomplishment of which this country and France and their Allies made the vast sacrifices of life and treasure now so freely acknowledged? That being the case, I asked myself, had we any reason to believe that the policy of England had ever changed? I believed myself it had not changed—I believe that it cannot change. But when I spoke the first night of the Session we were not in possession of Papers which have since been placed on the Table. Now, what do these Papers show with reference to this policy? We find in those Papers a despatch from the Queen's Ambassador at St. Petersburg; and what does he say? Sir Andrew Buchanan writes to the Secretary of State, Lord Granville, and mentions that he had long foreseen that Russia would attempt a revision of the Treaty of 1856, and that he had frequently expressed that opinion to his Lordship and to the late Earl of Clarendon. From these Papers it appears that what Sir Andrew Buchanan had long foreseen did at last occur, and though he had for some time avoided touching on the subject with the Russian Minister, he is at last obliged to encounter the disclosure which he had so long dreaded. And what were the expressions which were used on that occasion by Sir Andrew Buchanan to Prince Gortchakoff? He stated to the Russian Minister that he had the most serious apprehensions as to the light in which the report would be viewed by Her Majesty's Government, and that he should expect to receive orders immediately to ask for his passports and to quit St. Petersburg. Now, I ask the House to bear in mind that Sir Andrew Buchanan is one of the most experienced members of the diplomatic service. He

  845
  has been engaged to my knowledge for 40 years in posts of important trust; for I recollect that when I was in Constantinople in 1830 he was, if I mistake not, Secretary to the Embassy; and he is a man of ability and sagacity, as well as of discretion. Can it be doubted, then, that, having frequently expressed to Lord Granville and Lord Clarendon his apprehension of the danger which he foresaw, those distinguished statesmen had furnished him with instructions as to the tone he should adopt when the disclosure was made, and the language which he should use? And that the language used by Sir Andrew Buchanan was language strictly in accordance with the instructions which he received, no one who knows him can for a moment doubt. That is a proof, therefore, in these Papers, that the policy of England, with reference to this question, had not undergone a change. But they furnish us, on that head, with another proof. Her Majesty's Ministers, in the difficult position in which they were placed through the repudiation by Russia of the condition of the Treaty of Paris which refers to the Black Sea, took a step which, on this occasion, I will not criticize — I reserve any such criticism for that larger debate which is impending—but I may now at least observe that it seems to me to be one of the most remarkable steps ever taken by a Government. They resolved on sending a special envoy to Count Bismarck. Now, I am not quarrelling with the Government, because, in a position of great difficulty, they decided on sending a special envoy to what may be called the Prussian Court. I can easily conceive adequate reasons why Her Majesty's Ambassador at Berlin should not leave the seat of his labours. Nor am I here to quarrel with the selection made by the Government for the post. It is said that one of the tests of competency to fill the office of Prime Minister is the capacity for fixing on the right man for any public appointment, and I do not challenge for a moment the propriety of selecting Mr. Odo Russell in this particular instance. He may not have the experience of Sir Andrew Buchanan, and for a reason with which I am sure he will find no fault — because he is a younger man. But Mr. Odo Russell has, nevertheless, had great experience in diplomacy. He has had questions
  846
  entrusted to him at a post where they were both critical and delicate; and, so far as I am acquainted with his conduct, has, upon all occasions, proved himself to be a man to whose judgment and knowledge might be safely committed the interests of his country. Mr. Odo Russell, moreover, was not abroad — and that was an additional reason why he should be selected as a special envoy to Versailles. He had been re-called from his diplomatic appointment, and promoted to a post in the Foreign Office of the highest trust and importance. He was the right-hand man of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and was in daily communication with his chief. Now, hon. Gentlemen must see at once of how much consequence it is, when you have a special envoy who is to execute, under extraordinay circumstances, business of the most difficult and delicate kind, he should be a man with whom the Minister is in personal connection, so that he should not have to depend merely on written instructions prepared for the special occasion; but an envoy who—fresh from frequent intercourse with the Secretary of State and the head of the Government—should set out upon his mission thoroughly impressed and impregnated with their policy and their views, and thoroughly acquainted with their resources to meet all contingencies. Under such circumstances, we could hope and expect that its interests would be faithfully represented and attended to. Now, what happened in the case of Mr. Odo Russell, our special envoy under such favourable circumstances, and personally so well qualified as he was for the post? He left England late in November, and it was some time before he succeeded in arriving at Versailles, owing to the difficulties of travelling through the seat of war. He, however, arrived at Versailles at last, and lost no time in placing himself in communication with Count Bismarck. There is, in these Papers, an interesting narrative of what occurred on that memorable occasion. Mr. Odo Russell was twice closeted with Count Bismarck in the course of the day. He saw him in the morning, and in consequence of what then passed Count Bismarck communicated with St. Petersburg. He saw him again at 10 o'clock in the evening, and was closeted with him until midnight. Now, Mr. Odo

  847
  Russell having, after much trouble and pains, obtained the interview which he sought for, did, I have no doubt, full justice to his mission, and spoke with that adroitness and judgment which became the representative of the interests of this country, instructed by the highest authorities of the State. Well, what did Mr. Odo Russell say to Count Bismarck? He pressed for a settlement of a question which, as he informs us, he had frankly proved to Count Bismarck was of a nature, in its present state, to compel us, with or without allies, to go to war with Russia. I ask the House again, was I not justified in the statement which I made on the first night of the Session, that the question of the Black Sea was the real question which was involved in the Treaty of Paris? Have I not proved to the House that this was the view of eminent statesmen like Lord Palmerston, Lord Clarendon, and Lord Russell, who were engaged in the negotiations at Paris and Vienna? And have we not primâ facie evidence that on the 22nd of November last this was the confirmed policy of the English Cabinet—the policy of such men as Lord Clarendon and Lord Granville? I was, I must confess, astonished to learn, having these Papers before us, from the highest authority, that Mr. Odo Russell made the representation to which I have just referred to Count Bismarck without the sanction of the Government. I have heard many remarkable things this Session, which, although it has but just commenced, promises to be rife with interest. We heard last night, for example, that on Monday next a Secret Committee is to be moved for, in order to discover for the Government how to govern regenerated Ireland. How to govern regenerated Ireland! when we thought that we had employed the last two Sessions in perfecting that exalted and sublime legislation which was not only to cure the evils of the past, but which even anticipated the remedies for the future! It seems to me, I must confess, that our Irish legislation is somewhat like our Crimean Treaties, which assume a different character to that contemplated when they were originated. I heard also this Session—and I look upon it as one of the most remarkable things of which I have any recollection—that a functionary who sought to publish a correspondence connected with his Department, which he not only believed to
  848
  be necessary to vindicate his character, but to be of the greatest interest to the country, received permission to do so, provided he altered the dates. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Hear, hear!] Yes; that was a thing that certainly surprised me, and I am glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman agrees with me at least on that point. Secret Committees and such frank permissions are certainly surprising things; but I cannot help regarding it as more surprising still that a special envoy should be selected at such a critical moment — himself admirably adapted, as nobody will deny, for the post, and with the immense advantage of being fresh from interviews with Ministers of State and of receiving in person instructions from his chief—and that he should be sent on one of the most trying occasions not only in the history of his own country, but of Europe, not further than Versailles, and should, the very first moment he encounters the great opponent with whom he had to deal, immediately take a course which his instructions did not justify. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I never said that.] The right hon. Gentleman will, perhaps, by-and-by notice the observations which I am making. I heard what fell from him on a former night, and I was certainly under the impression that—to use a phrase which, though vernacular, is perhaps scarcely fit to be employed within these walls—Mr. Odo Russell was "thrown over" by the right hon. Gentleman. If it be a mistake, I believe it is a mistake which was shared by both sides of the House. I understood the right hon. Gentleman distinctly to say, in answer to a distinct inquiry, that Mr. Odo Russell had no authority to make that representation. There is one observation I wish to make with regard to Mr. Odo Russell. For a special envoy to declare to a foreign Minister that, with or without allies, we were prepared to go to war for a particular object, is one of the most decided announcements ever made upon political affairs. Admit that he had no authority to make the declaration—an admission which is overwhelming in its incredibility—why was no despatch written by the Secretary of State to contradict the declaration? Why was no printed record made with the frankness becoming an English Government, so that the indiscretion of the special agent should not be concealed from us? Why do we not learn that, at the moment when Her

  849
  Majesty's Government heard of such an announcement, the special envoy was told by a flash of lightning that he had exceeded his authority? Sir, there is not a line—not a scrap—not a jot to this effect; and until the inquiry was made, and the answer given by the right hon. Gentleman, no one doubted for a moment, looking to the character of the official Papers, that the declaration was made by authority, and that Mr. Odo Russell was sent to Count Bismarck to make it.
  I have now, Sir, placed before the House these remarks, the object of which is to show, first, that I was entirely justified in the description I gave of the condition relating to the neutrality of the Black Sea in the Treaty of Paris on the first night of the Session—that it was the cardinal point of British policy; that it was always so considered; that for it, and for it alone, the war was continued and the greatest sacrifices made. I think I have also shown, from the Papers furnished us by the Government, that until within a brief space—which we shall probably hear more about on another occasion—the Cabinet was faithful and firm to this policy, and that men of the vast experience of our Ambassador at the Court of St. Petersburg and the great ability of our special envoy at the Court of Versailles were instructed—and, I think, admirably instructed—how to treat such a violation of the Law of Nations and of public morality. And now, Sir, having, I hope, placed this matter fairly before the House, let me advert to the remarkable manner in which my observations upon that head were met by the right hon. Gentleman on the first night of the Session. I had endeavoured to recall to the recollection of the House the vital importance of the neutralization of the Black Sea. I did not enter into any proof of a policy which I believe was supported by the people of this country, and by the majority of the House, and upon which it appeared to me it was then far from necessary to enter into any controversy. I was content to confine myself to an opinion as to the vital importance of the neutralization of the Black Sea? What said the right hon. Gentleman? Lest I may be accused of inaccuracy, I avail myself of a memorandum containing, I believe, an accurate report of the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman. He entirely joined issue with me. As for the vital importance of the neutralization of the Black Sea, he said—
  850
  "That was never, as far as I know, the view of the British Government." The right hon. Gentleman said—
  "In this House, in the year 1856, I declared my confident conviction that it was impossible to maintain the neutralization of the Black Sea. I do not speak from direct communication with Lord Clarendon; but I have been told since his death that he never attached value to that neutralization. Again, I do not speak from direct communication, but I have been told that Lord Palmerston always looked upon the neutralization I as an arrangement which might be maintained and held together for a limited number of years, but which, from its character, it was impossible to maintain as a permanent condition for a great settlement of Europe."
  Now, Sir, upon these startling observations of the right hon. Gentleman I will make one or two remarks. And, first, when the right hon. Gentleman says the vital importance of the neutralization of the Black Sea was never, as far as he knew, the view of the British Government, and that he had declared his confident conviction in 1856 that it was impossible to maintain it—I would observe that the right hon. Gentleman—unintentionally, of course — conveyed an erroneous impression to the House by allowing himself to mix up his own individual opinions with those of the British Government. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No; I do not admit it.] Does the right hon. Gentleman complain of the accuracy of the report? Of course, I shall take any explanation which the right hon. Gentleman has to offer, and if he said exactly the reverse of what is attributed to him, no one will congratulate the House and the country more sincerely than I shall. But, Sir, when the right hon. Gentleman talks of the views of the British Government and brings forward himself as an authority, allow me to inform the House—because some time has elapsed, and we fortunately have a good many young Members among us, and some old ones—that when the right hon. Gentleman made this speech against the importance of the neutralization of the Black Sea in 1856 he was not a Minister of the Crown, nor was he the Leader of the Opposition. The right hon. Gentleman was connected in this House with a minute coterie of distinguished men, who had no following in the country at the time. They were condemned by the country on account of their conduct with respect to this very question of the Black Sea and Turkish affairs generally. Rightly or wrongly—I will not enter into the

  851
  question now—the country was convinced that the Crimean War was occasioned by the lukewarmness and the hesitation of this small body of distinguished men. But of these distinguished men the most unpopular in the country was the right hon. Gentleman; because, when war was inevitable, and was even declared by the Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen, the right hon. Gentleman at that time having the control of the finances, it became necessary that he should propose the Ways and Means for carrying on the war, and the country was of opinion that the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman were not adequate to the occasion, and were not such as the honour and the interests of England demanded. The people of England remembered a celebrated item moved by the right hon. Gentleman in Committee of Supply—namely, a Vote proposed by him, in a spirit of ironical finance, for the despatch of Her Majesty's Guards to Malta and back again. They never forgot and never forgave that item. They foresaw then, with an instinct of Englishmen which it is impossible to deceive, that we were about to prosecute a war in a spirit which must bring calamity and disaster upon the country. Such was the position of the right hon. Gentleman; and, therefore, the House must not be influenced by his statement of the views of the British Government at that time. He did not represent the British Government. He represented no party in this House and no party in this country. I come now to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman about Lord Clarendon and Lord Palmerston. It was a very responsible thing, I ventured to say, to advise the continuance of the war in 1855. But almost as responsible a thing, in my opinion, is it to impute to statesmen of great eminence, and now unfortunately departed, opinions not only which they did not hold, but which were contrary to their convictions, which contradicted their whole policy, and which would intimate that public men of the highest distinction who proposed a policy, in enforcing which the treasure of the country was expended without stint, and the most precious lives of the country were sacrificed, were laughing in their sleeves at the excitement of the nation. I would make one remark respecting those extraordinary quotations of the opinions of Lord Clarendon and Lord
  852
  Palmerston as to the neutralization of the Black Sea. Nothing can be more inconvenient and injurious to the privileges of this House than such quotations by Ministers of the private opinions of their Colleagues—and especially if those Colleagues are deceased. Why, we are so punctilious on these matters that a Minister is not even permitted to quote from a despatch without laying it upon the Table! There would be an end to all freedom and force of discussion if it were in the power of a Minister to get up and say—"You have taken such and such a view of affairs, but your facts are wrong," and thus to carry away the House by some declaration of which we had no proof whatever. Everyone must feel that we cannot be too rigid in the application of our rules on such matters; and even if the right hon. Gentleman was convinced that these were the private opinions of Lord Clarendon and of Lord Palmerston, he was not justified in referring to the private conversations of Ministers who are since dead. I am not here to vindicate the honour either of Lord Clarendon or of Lord Palmerston. There are those in this House connected with Lord Clarendon by blood, and who, moreover, resemble him in his capacity of conducting public affairs. An eminent Relative of Lord Clarendon has a seat in this House, and upon him should devolve the duty of defending the noble Earl's memory from such misstatements. Nor am I here to vindicate the honour of Lord Palmerston; but I may make one observation with regard to that distinguished man, because it may throw some little light on these painful disclosures which have agitated, and surprised so many persons. We have also had it stated in "another place" that Lord Palmerston made some light observation to a diplomatist who spoke to him on the subject of our policy with regard to the Black Sea. Now, everyone who knew Lord Palmerston well knew this of him—that with a smiling countenance he often evaded inconvenient discussions on serious affairs. Lord Palmerston was a man who, when most serious, availed himself very often of the weapon of banter, and not merely the diplomatist in question—and I do not seek to inquire who he is—but many diplomatists, if they would only acknowledge it, would confess that when they have wearied Lord Palmerston

  853
  with their grave assiduity, or have attempted to pump Lord Paknerston with their practised adroitness, he has often unsheathed his glittering foil and has soon disarmed and disabled inconvenient opponents. Lord Palmerston was a master of banter and disliked discussion of grave matters when not in his Cabinet or in this House. But I cannot refrain from recording my solemn conviction that the policy of Lord Palmerston with respect to maintaining the neutrality of the Black Sea never wavered for a moment, and that nothing but securing that great condition of the Treaty of Paris would have reconciled him to the comparative leniency of the other terms.
  Now, Sir, I hope I have vindicated myself from the charge that I was not authorized in the description which I gave the first night of the Session of the importance of the neutrality of the Black Sea; that I was not justified in saying that it was the cardinal principle of the settlement of 1856; that those were the opinions of Lord Palmerston, Lord Clarendon, and Lord Russell; that they broke up the negotiations at Vienna; and that the war was renewed, or rather continued, solely with the view to maintain that condition. I think I have shown, that the policy then adopted by Her Majesty's Government was the policy not only of Lord Clarendon, but that it must also have been that of Lord Granville up to a very recent period. Now, Sir, I have only one observation to make upon the Conference. Why a Conference was called is to me a matter difficult to comprehend, and I hope we shall learn clearly to-night what its object is. I think myself that, under any circumstances, a Conference would have been a mistake. But if the Conference had been called to vindicate the honour and the rights of England and of Europe, I should have thought it, though a hazardous, at least a bold and loyal course. But why a Conference should be called—a Conference which Russia did not require—for Russia only really initiated an abstract outrage of public morality, and only theoretically violated a treaty, and, therefore, it was quite unnecessary to do anything, even if you felt you were not prepared to resist her when she put her policy into practice—I say why, under such circumstances, a Conference should be called merely to
  854
  register the humiliation of our country passes my understanding. But there was one declaration made by the Secretary of State which may, perhaps, have some light thrown upon it by that consummate master of language who has several times contradicted me in the course of this speech, and who will very likely follow the same course when he rises on his legs. The declaration was made by a Secretary of State who was at one time ready to go to war with or without allies, but whose policy changes in a moment, and the policy being changed, a satisfactory and plausible reason is offered to the British people. The Conference is to be held, but on this understanding—there is to be no foregone conclusion on the subject. That statement was generally accepted. What was the weight and value of that condition I will not now attempt to ascertain; but, at any rate, it meant something. If it was not to influence events, still there was a semblance of dignity about it. And now, if the Conference was to be held without any foregone conclusion by any of the Powers upon the question of the neutrality of the Black Sea, I want to know how the right hon. Gentleman reconciles that position with the statement which he made the first night that Parliament met, in which he proved that there was a foregone conclusion—a foregone conclusion in the mind of the Prime Minister, and that, a foregone conclusion against the honour and interests of this country?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, in the remarks which the right hon. Gentleman so studiously announced as intended to be very few and very brief, his anxiety for brevity in the course of his hour's speech led him to refer to two subjects outside the circle of discussion. One of those was—and I am sorry to be compelled to follow the irregularity of the right hon. Gentleman in referring to it —a Notice given by my noble Friend near me (the Marquess of Hartington), that on Monday next he would move for an inquiry into a dangerous conspiracy existing in a certain spot in Ireland, and I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman's regard not merely for the ordinary propriety of this House, but for the principles which govern public order—and which it is necessary to observe for the security of life and property—would have led him

  855
  to refrain from an illusion intended to prejudice the Motion of my noble Friend near me on a subject of gravity so extreme. The right hon. Gentleman is the judge—I make my protest against that reference. The right hon. Gentleman then referred to a subject of much slighter moment, and condescended to taunt me with having told Sir Spencer Robinson that if his Minute were dated on the day after his resignation of the Lordship of the Admiralty it would remove all formal difficulty as to its production. Why does the right hon. Gentleman condescend and stoop to take up this paltry and contemptible accusation? ["Oh!"] Hon. Members opposite cry "Oh!" ["Hear, hear!"] I see the hon, Member for Stamford. [Sir JOHN HAY: Hear, hear.] Yes, very good. Well, if not contemptible, it is a most grave accusation, and I challenge the hon. and gallant Gentleman to put this accusation into words and make it the subject of a Motion. There is nothing I would desire better, as far as I myself am concerned; and if the House thinks fit that it should be discussed, by all means let it be brought to an issue. Sir, I now come to the main subject—which is a more important subject—of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks. The right hon. Gentleman has studiously confounded in the course of his speech matters which are entirely and absolutely disconnected. In the first place, he says I denied that the subject of the neutralization of the Black Sea was of vital importance in the Treaty of 1856. Sir, what I did was this—I challenged the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that it was not only of vital but of exclusive importance—and by exclusive importance I mean paramount and central, such as he has described it to night. Now, Sir, that I hold to be totally untrue. The great object of the negotiations, and the great object of the peace, was to put an end to that system of interference in the affairs of the Turkish Empire, grounded on real or alleged treaty rights, which enabled Russia at her will, through the medium of Turkey, to disturb the peace of Europe. Russia had those rights in a pacific form in the Principalities; she likewise had them, or was supposed to have them, with regard to the Christian subjects of the Porte; and it was the power of thus interfering between Turkey and her sub-
  856
  jects which gave to Russia her standing ground in the Ottoman Empire; and it was at the total abolition of that system that the war and the negotiations were aimed. Therefore, when I spoke of the neutralization of the Black Sea, and objected to the extravagant statement of the right hon. Gentleman, this subject was totally overlooked and passed by, and this power of interference on the part of Russia in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire was treated as a matter of no account. I never denied that, even in my own opinion, and much more in the opinion of the British nation and Government, the matter was one of great importance at that time. "But," says the right hon. Gentleman, "it has been the policy of the British Government to treat this question of neutralization as a question which formed the whole pith and substance of the Treaty of 1856; and so it was until the 22nd of November; but on the 22nd of November we find, from the course that was taken, so different from what the language of Sir Andrew Buchanan led us to expect, and from the course taken with respect to Mr. Odo Russell, that the importance of neutralization was forgotten, the policy of the Government was reversed, and the honour of the country was compromised." The right hon. Gentleman—I have no doubt without any intention — has entirely misrepresented the sentiments of Sir Andrew Buchanan. He has given it to be understood that the alarm of Sir Andrew Buchanan, the pointed representations which he made to the Russian Government, and the apprehensions which he expressed that he would have to send for his passports, turned upon this — that there was a question as to the neutralization of the Black Sea. Sir Andrew Buchanan never used one of these words with respect to the question of the mere policy of the neutralization of the Black Sea. The language of Sir Andrew Buchanan had reference to the Note of Prince Gortchakoff; the intimations which Sir Andrew Buchanan threw out were intimations which left perfectly open the question of the neutralization of the Black Sea, and had exclusive reference to the Note of Prince Gortchakoff, involving the principle that a single Power, having been bound by its signature to a treaty, had a right, at its own option, to release itself from this obligation. And it is impos-

  857
  sible to conceive a more gross misconstruction, a more absolute misapprehension, a more pointed misapplication than the right hon. Gentleman has made in his speech, founded upon my speech of a fortnight back, and carefully hatched during that fortnight. What is the page of the despatch? [Mr. DISRAELI: Page 45.] No; it is page 13. The right hon. Gentleman has misrepresented the meaning of Sir Andrew Buchanan. I did not think he would have been so consistent as to misstate even the page of the despatch. Sir Andrew Buchanan says—
  "I regret to say that I have reason to believe the Russian Government have decided to open the question of the Treaty of 1856 in a way which may prove embarrassing to Her Majesty's Government. I have long foreseen that a proposal on the part of Russia for the revision of the Treaty would not be long delayed, and I have frequently expressed this opinion to your Lordship and to the late Earl of Clarendon. I confess, however, that I was not prepared for the manner in which, if the report which has reached me be authentic, it is proposed to carry out this intention."—[Correspondence, No. 16.]
  He then goes on to describe his expectations that despatches either had been, or would be immediately, forwarded to the great Courts of Europe, communicating to them that Russia would not acknowledge hereafter the obligations she had contracted under the Treaty of 1856. It was upon these expressions that Sir Andrew Buchanan founded his intimation that he expected he would have to send for his passports; and it is upon that passage that the right hon. Gentleman leads the House to believe that this intimation was founded upon the sense which we entertained of the value and importance of the neutralization of the Black Sea. So much for Sir Andrew Buchanan. I do not think we shall hear much more on that subject. ["Oh!"] We shall see. I now come to Mr. Odo Russell. And there, again, I must complain that the right hon. Gentleman made an uncandid and most inaccurate reference to my language. The question was put to me—I am speaking from memory of what occurred—the question was put to me, as I understood it, whether Mr. Odo Russell made a particular statement by the authority of Her Majesty's Government—that is, by the direct authority or instruction of Her Majesty's Government. I answered that I imputed no blame whatever to Mr. Odo Russell for the statement, but that he
  858
  did not make it by the authority or instruction of the Government. And then the right hon. Gentleman comes down and says that I declared that the statement was not justified. I never said anything about its being justified; but the right hon. Gentleman chose a word insinuating a meaning that he did not think fit openly to express. I will now call the attention of the House to what Mr. Odo Russell says, and will point out that again the right hon. Gentleman has studiously employed the very same artifice. The language of Mr. Odo Russell has been handled in the same way as the language which Sir Andrew Buchanan used with reference not to the neutralization of the Black Sea, but exclusively to the Note of Prince Gortchakoff, and the principles which that Note asserted—twisted by the right hon. Gentleman into a reference merely to the neutralization of the Black Sea. Here are the words of Mr. Odo Russell. Now we have got to page 45—
  "The Chancellor authorized me to telegraph to London that if your Lordship consented he would willingly take the initiative"—
  I beg the House to follow me closely—
  "of proposing a Conference for the purpose of endeavouring to find a pacific solution to a question which I had frankly proved to him was of a nature in its present state to compel us, with or without allies, to go to war with Russia."—[Correspondence, No. 76.]
  I am bound to say in construing this sentence, and exercising the same liberty of opinion which every Gentleman who hears me is at liberty to use, that these words appear to me not to be the words of Mr. Odo Russell himself—this is not a vital point of the case — but I conceive that Mr. Odo Russell is reciting words which Count Bismarck had used. ["Oh!"] I will read them again, that hon. Gentlemen may see if I am right—
  "He authorized me to telegraph to London that if your Lordship consented he would willingly take the initiative of proposing a Conference for the purpose of endeavouring to find a pacific solution to a question which I had frankly proved to him was of a nature in its present state to compel us, with or without allies, to go to war with Russia."
  That I understand to have been the language of Count Bismarck, repeated by Mr. Odo Russell. ["Oh!"] I should be glad if hon. Gentlemen had this book before them, in order that they might observe whether I am right or wrong. But about that I am comparatively in-

  859
  different —what I want to point out is that Mr. Odo Russell never conveyed upon any construction of these words—or that Count Bismarck, if the words were his, as I believe they were, never implied—that the question of the neutralization of the Black Sea was a matter which would compel us to go to war with or without allies. What becomes, then, of the pretended policy which, according to the right hon. Gentleman, remained fixed until the 22nd of November, and then dissolved like an airy vision? Whether the language were that of Mr. Odo Russell—which I do not think it was—or that of Count Bismarck, what was said was this—that the question was of a nature in its present state to compel us to go to war. What was "the present state" of the question? One in which a solemn State Paper was before us, emanating from the Russian Chancery, and in our opinion maintaining and asserting, on the part of Russia, a right to liberate herself from one or all of her treaty engagements; and that was the principle, and not the neutralization of the Black Sea, which Count Bismarck judged was one that would compel us, with or without allies, to go to war. Well, you may say, why did we not correct Count Bismarck? If Count Bismarck had spoken with regard to the neutralization of the Black Sea, there might have been some necessity for such a course; but, while he kept to the Note of Prince Gortchakoff, it would have been very wrong in us to give instructions for any such purpose to Mr. Odo Russell. We never said that the policy involved in the Note of Prince Gortchakoff was not a matter that might lead to difficulties between the two countries—even, possibly, eventuating in war. We never said that it would; but we never compromised our own liberty on the subject. And that, I say, was the wise and rational course to take, although it has laid us open to the ungenerous and torturing process of language practised by the right hon. Gentleman, who has endeavoured to show that we were speaking of neutralization when our words had reference to the "present state of the question," and the present state of the question alone—in which we had before us a Russian document that appeared to us — rightly or wrongly is not now the question—to assert, on the part of Russia, a right and
  860
  intention to release herself, at her own mere will, from any treaty obligations whatsoever. I hope I have shown that these two great pillars of the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman with respect to the policy which we maintained up to the 22nd of November have entirely crumbled away. He has furnished no foundation whatever for the policy which he attributes to us. What our policy was with reference to neutralization I will now proceed to state, but a little more carefully, in combination with the retrospection of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the language which I used a fortnight ago; he has examined it at great length, and with the advantage of collateral lights thrown upon it by discussions reported to have occurred "elsewhere," which he has brought in aid of his own ingenuity. The right hon. Gentleman has anatomized the language which I used on that occasion. I will go over the points to which he has referred. The right hon. Gentleman has said that I misled the House by causing it to suppose that I was a Member of the Government in the year 1856. Now, it is not altogether pleasant to have imputed to oneself accusations which imply a degree of childishness and a degree of ignorance unworthy of the lowest boy in a National School. The right hon. Gentleman, having studied a report of my speech in the newspapers, thinks it worth his while to state that I implied to the House that I was a Member of the Government in 1856. Now, Sir, I refer confidently to what I did state, and I affirm that, in addition to the words reported in the newspaper, I used on the 9th of February preparatory words, carefully distinguishing between what referred to the Government and what referred to my own personal position. Before I went to the graver part of the case, I said that even as respected myself there was a personal difficulty—namely, that in 1856 I had objected to the neutralization of the Black Sea. Therefore, I do not require the obliging reminder of the right hon. Gentleman that I then had no following, that I was not in the Government, that I sat in an undistinguished post, and was the most unpopular man in the country. All I know is that I was trying to do my duty, and I do not care a pin whether I, or the right hon. Gentleman, or anybody else

  861
  was the most unpopular man in the country. It may fairly be asked—"Why did you indulge in egotism—why did you quote your own insignificant words in 1856?" My reason was this—Although they were the words of a person who at that time had no official responsibility, yet they had been quoted and printed in St. Petersburg during the present year as words very convenient to be used by the Russian Government in its negotiations with the Government now in Office. That is my apology for having referred to myself. Then comes the question of my conduct as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and my insufficient proposal with regard to the Russian War of sending the Guards, or a certain number of men, to Malta and bringing them back again. Has the right hon. Gentleman looked at dates, and does he know whether that was done in the war or not? Not having the power of reference at the present moment, I cannot be certain; but, to the best of my recollection, it was a very early and preparatory measure taken by us, and had no connection with those operations into which the war subsequently developed. What is the nature of the charge made by the right hon. Gentleman? He seems to be so ill-acquainted with the relations of Cabinets in which he has often sat, that he thinks it is in the power of the Chancellor of the Exchequer of this country, after the country has entered into an European war, to limit its cost and fix its scale. Such a charge to be made by the right hon. Gentleman is perfectly absurd. Surely any man who has learnt his A B C in political matters must know that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he had the power of doing such a thing as that, would not be Chancellor of the Exchequer alone, but would absorb in himself the entire power of the Government, while the rest of the Cabinet would be reduced to mere ciphers. I am sorry to say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer in this country has not power enough when war breaks out. When a war breaks out in Germany, the old principle of parsimony and good thrift is not forgotten, and in the wars of Napoleon every franc which was spent had been as carefully considered as if it had formed part of a grant to the Louvre Gallery. In this country, however, the case is different, and from the moment war is contemplated, the Chancellor of the Exche-
  862
  quer becomes a cipher. His responsibility and his control, which are real in time of peace, are entirely absorbed, and the whole of his mind is directed towards providing Ways and Means for carrying out the plans framed by others, and in respect to which he can only give his opinion, like any other Member of the Cabinet. As regards war expenditure, I do not know whether it is to the interest of the right hon. Gentleman to provoke discussion on that subject, but if he chooses to return to it another night, I shall be most happy to follow him. The right hon. Gentleman enlarged on the subject of Lord Clarendon and Lord Palmerston, and the iniquity of my referring to their real or supposed opinions. The right hon. Gentleman is loud in their praise. How generous he is in his praises of the dead! I have heard him eulogize the late Sir Robert Peel and many others who have passed away, and I cannot but think it would be as well, if with that liberality for the dead, he mingled a little equity for the living. The right hon. Gentleman has treated this matter as if I had professed to give accurate information. In point of fact, I was careful to state that I spoke on indirect information; but I take the first opportunity of stating that though, from the character and position of the person who principally informed me about Lord Clarendon, I thought I was justified in mentioning what I did mention, I now have reason to believe that that information was erroneous, and I have no intention of saying anything about Lord Clarendon and the neutralization of the Black Sea. With regard to Lord Palmerston, however, the question stands differently. The right hon. Gentleman speaks as if I had made some imputation on Lord Palmerston. He objects to my referring to anything that Lord Palmerston said or did which is not recorded in an official document; and next he regards it as an imputation on the character of Lord Palmerston, to say he looked on the neutralization of the Black Sea as being of temporary rather than of permanent value. With regard to the first of these objections, I want to know on what principle the right hon. Gentleman can snow that it is an offence against our cardinal rules to mention something I have heard related in regard to what is matter of history—namely, the opinion of Lord Palmerston.

  863
  Why, the right hon. Gentleman himself, in his speech delivered on the very same evening, entertained the House for a quarter of an hour with a statement—void, as I believe, of the slightest foundation—of what he had heard and what he had gathered with respect to a tour of Lord Clarendon on the Continent, and all manner of political plans and schemes then arranged between him and the Ministers of Foreign States. With regard to the alleged imputation, was it an imputation on Lord Palmerston? My proposition was that Lord Palmerston—and I asserted it as a fact not actually known, but rationally believed—looked on the neutralization of the Black Sea, not as a thing insignificant, not as a thing unimportant, but as a provisional arrangement, which could not be permanently maintained. That was the whole of my argument. I never said the neutralization of the Black Sea was not important in the view of the Government; I never even denied it was important in my own view, though I thought the difficulties of maintaining it so formidable that they might in time become insurmountable. Lord Palmerston took the just and rational view that, for a time, the neutralization of the Black Sea could be maintained, and that, if it were maintained for a time, Turkey would be afforded that opportunity of effecting internal reforms and improving her organization, on the right use of which the possibility of her maintaining her place among the Powers must ultimately and substantially depend. Now, with respect to the right hon. Gentleman's references to my language, I may remark that it was used in reply to him; and those who think it was wrong in me to accumulate evidence on the subject of the neutralization of the Black Sea should consider what charges had been made against the Government on the first night of the Session. The right hon. Gentleman said—
  "Now, when Russia repudiated the Treaty of 1856 I do not think the course pursued by Her Majesty's Government was a wise one. I admire the reasoning by which Her Majesty's Secretary of State showed to the Russian Minister the fallacy of his position; but I think that the inference he drew from his own premises was lame and impotent. Our proper answer to the first Note of Prince Gortchakoff should have been to protest against it, and to have said at once that Russia roust take the consequences of such a step. In that case I doubt very much whether at this moment we should have heard any more about it. But that was not the course
  864
  adopted by Her Majesty's Government. The plan of a Conference on the Treaty of 1856 which France could not attend was not politic, and the inability of France to take part in it was alone a sufficient reason in refusing to listen to any such project."
  The right hon. Gentleman had condemned our policy. He had said—"You ought not to have had a Conference; you should have intimated to Russia that she must take the consequences of the step she has unhappily been induced to adopt." In other words, with one great quarrel and controversy raging in Europe, in the midst of blood and fire, the right hon. Gentleman would have recommended us to keep open another, and not to take any means to arrive at an amicable solution of the question. We were to say—"No, we will not negotiate; we will stand on our treaty rights, and refuse all modification of them; and if you act in the way you point out you must take the consequences." This is what the right hon. Gentleman recommended. This is the sort of policy by which he seeks to maintain the honour of England. He recommended that at a moment when France was prostrate—when it was known that France had long ago expressed her willingness to modify the Treaty of 1856 with regard to the neutralization of the Black Sea — when Austria had actually taken the initiative in proposing some years ago the abrogation of that part of the Treaty—and when Russia had made known to us that she would not abide by the Treaty as it stood. The wisdom, the policy, and the resources of the right hon. Gentleman suggest to him nothing more than this in such a state of European sentiment and feeling. When Russia uttered this announcement, we should have merely said—"Very well, you must take the consequences;" thereby at once placing ourselves in a position of estrangement from that important Power at a time when we thought we had one most sacred duty to discharge—namely, to keep together, if possible, in harmony and co-operation, the neutral influences of Europe, in the hope, that in some happy moment we might be able to contract that range of misery and destruction which we had long seen extending. And then, Sir, he is sad and melancholy about the honour of his country, and he thinks there was a foregone conclusion when the Conference was held. Certainly there was

  865
  foregone conclusion to the extent that I stated on February 9th, and to the extent that had been stated in the gracious Speech from the Throne; a foregone conclusion to this extent—that it was hoped that the principles of public right and the general policy of the Treaty would be upheld, and that the Powers would co-operate cordially in the revision of some of its conditions in a fair and cordial spirit, and would accept the results of that revision. The right hon. Gentleman asks—"What is the object of the Conference?" I would rather have said nothing about the Conference, which we might have discussed with very much greater advantage possibly in the course of a few days, now that we have, I am happy to say, a French Ambassador in London, and there is a prospect of peace being restored; but as the Conference has been dragged into debate, I will say that the object of the Conference is to receive, in a manner compatible with, and conformable to, public international law, the representations that Russia may have to make; to give to those representations a fair, candid, and friendly hearing; and to consider, renovate, and, if need be, fortify any of the other provisions of the Treaty of 1856 against which it may be found by the Conference any reasonable objection can be raised. Now, Sir, I believe I have met the allegations of the right hon. Gentleman, though, I am afraid, not in a manner satisfactory to him. I need not go back upon his recital of the Four Points, and the different matters which, I have no doubt, are to be found in the Annual Register of that day, of which he gave us a copious, interesting, and, I have no doubt, an accurate account; but with regard to the fundamental fallacy that ran through the whole speech of the right hon. Gentleman—namely, his continually representing the question of public law raised by the despatch of Prince Gortchakoff as being simply the question of the policy of the neutralization of the Black Sea, and with regard to the intentions of the British Government, I trust I have succeeded in showing the House there is not the slightest shadow of foundation for the charges he has made.

  ALLEGED CONGRATULATORY MESSAGES TO THE CROWN PRINCE OF GERMANY.—QUESTION.
  SIR HENRY HOARE: I wish to put the Question to the head of Her Majesty's Government, which I previously addressed to the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs—namely, Whether the statement in the "Daily Telegraph" is correct—viz., that Captain Hozier has been charged with messages to the Crown Prince of Germany from Her Majesty, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Cambridge, of congratulation upon the successes won by his army?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I cannot answer the Question without expressing my very deep regret that such matters as the personal communications between august persons nearly related in blood, and, of course, feeling that relationship the more closely from the painful and dreadful circumstances of the day, should become the subject of scrutiny in this House. I even venture to hope that there may be some caution exercised in the Press with regard to the printing of matters of that description, unless after the greatest care to ascertain the accuracy of what is printed. I know not whether I should make an appeal to my hon. Friend himself, if I say I am very sorry such a Question should be put in the House of Commons—which, indeed, I am. Still, my hon. Friend might reply that this statement has been published, and as it has been published, and may do mischief, it is well that an opportunity of contradiction should be be afforded. At the same time, there are limits to the doctrine which I sometimes see adopted by the Press—that any gentleman who is charged with something criminal and disgraceful ought to be very much obliged to those who print it, because it gives him an opportunity of contradicting it. I can only express a hope, with regard to those exalted personages who have not the same powers of self-defence that we employ, that great caution will be used in the publication of matters of this kind. When I saw this Question, I doubted whether the House would wish to have such a subject dragged within its sphere unnecessarily, and it was for some time a doubtful matter with me whether we ought to take cognizance of the Ques-

  867
  tion. However, upon the whole, as it would give me the opportunity of expressing a respectful, but very earnest tope that such things will not come up again, I thought I had better make a full answer to my hon. Friend. When I read the paragraph referred to, I had the fullest conviction that there was no foundation for the implication—rather than information—conveyed in it—namely, that anything had passed between Her Majesty, or between the other exalted personages mentioned, and any of those at the head of the German Army, of a nature in any degree to compromise the character of this country, or to go outside of what lies strictly within a neutral's duty; and upon making examination into the matter, I have not the slightest hesitation in saying I feel myself authorized to say that the inference or assertion, be it what it may, that congratulations have been conveyed, or any message or communication has been conveyed, of a nature to imply the taking of sides in this war—for that is the point of my hon. Friend's Question—is totally and absolutely void of foundation. Do not let it be supposed that in saying this I make any imputation upon anybody; I make none. There is a little game which is sometimes played when eight or ten people are sitting round a country fireside, and having nothing else to do. One sets the ball rolling by telling a little anecdote to the friend next him, and who keeps the game alive by narrating it to the next, who passes on the tale to his next friend, and so on until it has gone round the circle from one to another, and returned to the one who began the game, who then tells out aloud what he has just heard from his last neighbour, when it invariably falls out that the story in the process has lost all resemblance whatever to the form in which it was originally given; and I believe that is something like what has happened in this case. That Captain Hozier is a gentleman of discretion and ability I am confident; he was entrusted with the duty of conveying certain messages to persons in exalted situations; they, gratified by the kindly expressions of feeling they had received, communicated them to persons of their own rank, and they to others nearly as exalted; thence they filtered down to aides-decamp, then became the subject of conversation in the Army, and from that
  868
  source they were picked by Special Correspondents, anxious to cater for the English public, and well versed in that sort of innocent cookery which gives additional interest to statements of this kind. The message sent by Her Majesty requires to be no matter of secresy at all. It was simply to say everything kind to the Emperor, the Crown Prince, and the persons with whom she was related; everything kind, that is, from friend to friend, from relative to relative, with respect to their condition of health, after the trying scenes they had been going through, and with no regard whatever to the political interests of the war which has been carried on. I will not weary hon. Members by going more or less into details with regard to the other illustrious personages—the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge; but I will assure them, in the same way, of my entire conviction that there was not a word sent from them which could by possibility be supposed by any fair person to convey opinions upon the war. Indeed, I am not able to make out that anything was said relating to military matters in any way or form whatever. I am sure my hon. Friend will be as satisfied as anyone at receiving this answer; but I hope the matter will be duly weighed, and I trust we shall not be subjected to a repetition of such Questions.
  Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.
  SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

  EAST INDIA REVENUE ACCOUNTS.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  MR. GRANT DUFF*: When I addressed the Committee upon the financial position of India in August last, my Statement was founded upon three documents—upon the Actual Accounts of the year ending the 31st March, 1869; upon the Approximate Accounts of the year ending the 31st March, 1870, technically described as the Regular Estimate; and upon the calculations and conjectures of the Governor General and his Council for the year now passing over us, the year ending the 31st of March, 1871.

  869
  On this occasion I must base my Statement upon two documents only, as anything corresponding to the third document which I used last year does not yet exist—that is to say, I must base it on the Actual Accounts for the year ending the 31st March, 1870, and on a telegraphic summary of the Approximate Accounts for the year now passing over us, so far as they were known to the Viceroy and his Council on the 21st February—that is, last Tuesday—an abstract, in other words, of the Regular Estimate for the year 1870–1, which will, after undergoing, perhaps, some correction, be laid before Parliament, according to law, in the month of May. Hon. Members will be good enough to observe, that this abstract gives the figures in round numbers.
  I am all the more glad to make the Indian Financial Statement at the beginning rather than at the end of the Session, because I have not to be now, as I was on the 3rd of August, 1869, and on the 5th of August, 1870, a Job's messenger. On the first of these occasions, I had to announce that the Actual Accounts of 1867–8 showed that India was about £1,000,000 to the bad; and, on the second occasion, I had to announce that India was nearly £2,800,000 to the bad. Now, however, I have to announce that India was, in the year ending on the 31st March last, nearly £120,000 to the good, and that, so far as the information which we have received up to the present moment extends, but making all the reserves necessary, there is every probability of her being, in the financial year now drawing to a close, fully three-quarters of a million to the good. In short, we have reason to believe that we shall this year have almost, or altogether, the surplus which we think we ought to have, and for which the Secretary of State has laid down that the Governor General and his Council ought to arrange—that is a surplus of between half a million and a million.
  The Regular Estimate for 1869–70, which was presented to Parliament in May last, showed an estimated excess of expenditure over income, excluding, of course, public works extraordinary, of £563,495. The Actual Accounts show an excess of income over expenditure of £118,669. The result shown by the Actual Accounts is, therefore, more fa-
  870
  vourable than the Regular Estimate by £682,164. It will be in the recollection of some Members of the Committee, that I prepared them for this agreeable result by communicating to them the substance of the information which we had received from India by telegraph up to the 16th of July—that is, up to a date three months and a half later than the day on which Sir Richard Temple made his Budget Statement, the 2nd of April, 1870. On the 5th of August I used the following words—
  "We have assurances that the Actuals will turn out better than Sir Richard Temple believed when he made his Budget Statement. The substance of the information telegraphed by the Viceroy on the 18th of July was that the accounts of 1869–70, adjusted up to 16th July, were better than Sir Richard Temple expected on 2nd April by about £700,000, so that we may expect, as at present advised, a small surplus, or at least an equilibrium, thanks to the prompt and decisive action which was taken in the autumn of last year by the Viceroy and his Council assembled at Simla."
  It is satisfactory to observe that almost every head of receipt has been a little more productive than was anticipated. I will not burden my Statement with the figures, but hon. Gentlemen will see them by looking at the Papers which they have in their hands.
  So much for the comparison of the Actuals of last year with the Regular Estimate. Let us now look at the figures of the Actuals of 1869–70 as compared with those of 1868–9. These two will be found comforting from various points of view. First, let us look at the total receipts. The total receipts of last year exceeded the total receipts of the year before by no less than £1,638,390. Then let us see how this increased receipt was made up. £1,161,848 came from land revenue, the most important, the oldest, and the most satisfactory of all our sources of income. This increase is largely attributable to the fact that the land revenue of the year 1868–9 was, as I mentioned six months ago, unusually depressed by a bad season in Madras and the North-West Provinces, and to the coming into play in 1869–70 of a new settlement in Oude, and a re-settlement in some of the non-regulation Provinces of Bengal. The increase of about £600,000 under assessed taxes arose from the income tax, which it will be remembered was augmented in the second half of the year 1869–70 from 1 to 2 per cent. The increase of £300,000

  871
  under salt arose from the fact that the salt duties in Madras and Bombay were also raised during the last half of the year 1869–70 from 1 rupee 8 annas to 1 rupee 13 annas per maund—that is by 7½ on 82 lbs. These are the increases of gross receipt which it is most important to notice. On the other hand, there were some important decreases of gross receipt. For instance, customs in the year 1869–70 brought in less than they did in the year 1868–9 by over £263,000, thanks to the generally depressed state of Indian trade. Opium, again, brought less in last year than it did the year before by about £500,000. The general result, however, was, as I have said, highly comforting. Our Revenue was better in 1869–70 than it was in the year before by £1,638,390, and hon. Members may possibly recollect that the receipts of 1868–9 were themselves better than those of 1867–8 by £728,000.
  Now let us look at the Expenditure. The Expenditure in 1869–70 was less than the Expenditure in 1868–9 by £1,254,309. This result was arrived at chiefly by a very large reduction in public works ordinary—that is to say, works of comfort and convenience not directly remunerative. A small but important saving in India of £160,000 was obtained by a diminished Army expenditure; and the charge for guaranteed interest on railway capital, less net traffic receipts, was £153,406 lower than that of the previous year, thanks to the large increase in the net traffic receipts during the year 1869–70, an increase which amounted to nearly £400,000. On the other hand, there were some considerable increases in gross expenditure in India, of which perhaps the most worth mentioning were £72,000 under post office, £143,000 under marine charges, owing to the debts of the Port Canning and Calcutta Port Funds having been written off as irrecoverable, and £235,000 from the loss by exchange on bills on India. As I have said, however, the total diminution of expenditure in India and England chargeable against income in 1869–70, as compared with the previous year, was £1,254,309.
  Such are the more noticeable features in the receipts and disbursements of the year 1869–70.
  I come now to the year 1870–1, the year just drawing to a close. The one great fact of the year, which is already
  872
  certain, is that opium has come to the rescue. When Sir Richard Temple made his Statement in April last, nothing-could be much more gloomy than the prospect of the opium revenue for the financial year which had just begun, and although in the month of August I was able to say that the prospect was somewhat better, yet even then we felt anything but comfortable about the ultimate result. From almost all quarters came prophecies of evil, and the prophecies from China were the gloomiest of all. The very able man who lately represented Her Majesty at Pekin even went to Calcutta to confer with the Governor General about the increased growth of the poppy in China. Owing to some cause, however, which we cannot in the least divine, all anticipations have been for this year falsified. Sir Richard Temple took the price of the chest of Bengal opium for the year at 975 rupees, whereas the average by our latest advices has been 1,113 rupees. This is another illustration of the truth that, after an intercourse of some hundred years, Europe really knows very, very little indeed, about the circumstances of China—that marvellous country, one of, whose functions seems to be to force the nations of the West again and again and again to re-consider generalizations, in religion, in politics, and in social economy. In spite, however, of the favourable results of this year, I dare not venture to unsay anything I have said about the extreme care with which we should watch our opium revenue. Considering the enormous extent of country, even in Asia alone, where the poppy can be grown with fair success, it is really almost too much to hope that the Indian drug will continue to be so distinctly preferred by those who can buy it, as to enable us to lighten by many millions every year the price which India pays for civilized government; for whatever some Gentlemen may have to say against the opium revenue, let them never forget that hardly any of it comes out of the pocket of our Indian fellow-subjects, and if it were done away with, India would not be lightened of an impost, but robbed of a splendid estate.
  To return, however, to the telegraphic summary of the Regular Estimate for the year 1870–1, which hon. Members have in their hands. In round numbers, the Regular Estimate for that year—that

  873
  is, the Estimate founded on about eight months' Actuals and four months calculations and conjectures—shows that India's income for this year will be about £51,000,000, and her Expenditure, including no less than £1,800,000 for guaranteed interest on railway capital, will be somewhere about £50,000,000, the probable result being accordingly a surplus of nearly £1,000,000. Hon. Members may be surprised that I do not say more about this year 1870–1, but I do not dwell upon it, advisedly, because we have given them all the information we possess ourselves, and have in fact, fallen under the curse of Voltaire—"Woe unto him who says all he knows upon any subject." We see the figures, we can form conjectures about them, but the usual explanations of details we cannot give. There are disadvantages and difficulties in corresponding by telegraph about the affairs of an Empire.
  The Committee will, I hope, do us the justice to remember that we are making this Statement at a time anything but convenient to us, under the impression forced upon us by an experience of many years, that Parliament will only give up a whole night to India, I mean, of course, in perfectly peaceful and easy times, either at the very beginning or at the very end of a Session. We should like to make our Financial Statement each year somewhere about the 15th or 20th of June; but when we have made a feeble effort in that direction, all Governments of all parties have always treated us as amiable children who asked for the moon.
  Such, then, are the facts of the year that is completed, and the probabilities, so far as they are known to us, of the year which is now in progress. As to the year to come, I can say little, because we have not yet received, and cannot for some time receive, the plans of the Government of India for meeting the outgoings of 1871–2. There are two points, however, as to which I am in a position to make some explanations. First, there is the income tax of 3⅛ per cent, or, say, 7½d. in the pound. To that income tax the Home Government consented with considerable reluctance, and I am glad to say that, unless some very unforeseen and quite extraordinary emergency arises, in the next few weeks, it will certainly be reduced. It can be shown, no doubt, that, even at 3⅛ per
  874
  cent, the income tax hardly redresses the balance of taxation as between the higher and the lower classes. In India the poor man certainly pays quite enough, and the rich man as certainly pays too little, but, unhappily, the masses are still not sufficiently educated to know their true interests. The classes affected by the income tax are the classes who can make themselves heard not only by the Government, but by the people; and it would not be difficult to bring evidence to show that this very income tax, which, if it could be used as we use it in England, might enable us to adjust the burden of taxation with almost scientific accuracy — is really unpopular to some extent with the very classes whose burdens it lightens. Populus vult decipi, and as usual it obtains its wish; nor must it be forgotten that the income tax has been sometimes used by unscrupulous Native collectors as an engine for the oppression of their own countrymen. The Native in power is too often, in ours as in all previous ages of Indian history, apt to use his position for his own pecuniary advantage.
  The other matter on which I am in a position to give some explanation is the long discussed question of financial decentralization. It will be in the recollection of the Committee that I dwelt upon that last August as upon an expedient which ought to be tried. Well, we are going to try it. The proposal to which the Secretary of State in Council has given his sanction will be best explained by reading an extract from a Resolution of the Government of India, dated December 14th, 1870—
  "The Governor General in Council is satisfied that it is desirable to enlarge the powers and responsibilities of the Governments of Presidencies and Provinces in respect to the public expenditure in some of the Civil Departments. Under the present system these Governments have little liberty, and but few motives for economy in their expenditure; it lies with the Government of India to control the growth of charges to meet which it has to raise the revenue. The local Governments are deeply interested in the welfare of the people confided to their care, and not knowing the requirements of other parts of the country, or of the Empire as a whole, they are liable, in their desire for administrative progress, to allow too little weight to fiscal considerations. On the other hand, the Supreme Government, as responsible for the general financial safety, is obliged to reject many demands, in themselves deserving of all encouragement, and is not always able to distribute satisfactorily the resources actually available. Thus it happens, that the Supreme and local Governments regard from different points of view mea-

  875
  sures involving expenditure, and the division of responsibility being ill defined, there occurs conflicts of opinion injurious to the public service. In order to avoid these conflicts, it is expedient that, as far as possible, the obligation to find the funds necessary for administrative improvement should rest upon the authority whose immediate duty it is to devise such measures. This is the more important because existing Imperial resources will not suffice for the growing wants of the country. The Supreme Government is not in a position to understand fully local requirements, nor has it the knowledge necessary for the successful development of local resources. Each Province has special wants of its own, and may have means of satisfying them which could not be appropriated for Imperial purposes. A tax adapted to the circumstances of one part of the country may be distasteful or inapplicable elsewhere, and everywhere rates may be proper for provincial or local purposes which could not be taken for the Imperial revenue. … …."
  It would have been satisfactory had his Excellency in Council been able to propose the enlargement of the power and responsibility of the local Governments, without charging upon local resources any part of the existing Imperial expenditure. This cannot be done, but it has been determined to make as small a demand upon these resources as possible. At the same time it should be remembered that the relief of the Imperial finances has been a principal object in the discussion of such measures on former occasions.
  "The Government of India is accordingly pleased to make over to the Governments, under certain conditions to be presently set forth, the following Departments of the Administration, in which they may be supposed to take special interest, and to grant permanently from the Imperial Revenue for these services the sum of £4,688,711, being less by £330,801 only than the assignments made for the same services in 1870–1,—gaols, registration, police, education, medical services (except medical establishments), printing, roads, miscellaneous public improvements, and civil buildings. Unless some fiscal misfortune, such as a heavy loss in the opium revenue, or national disaster, such as war or severe famine, occurs, the Governor General in Council will maintain for the future the assignments for 'Provincial Services' at the amounts now fixed. They will not, in any case, be reduced without previous consultation with the Governments. The actual permanent Imperial assignments for 'Provincial Services' will be as follows:—

  £

  Oude

  206,948

  Central Provinces

  261,263

  Burmah

  275,332

  Bengal

  1,168,592

  North-West Provinces

  640,792

  Punjaub

  516,221

  Madras

  739,488

  Bombay

  880,075

  £4,688,711"

  876
  These amounts for works of comfort and convenience, and local purposes of many kinds, are as large as we can afford, but they are not really very large, much less extravagant. Let us see what they amount to, if we use Colonel Chesney's convenient scale of comparison with countries nearer home. Oude, which is about as large and as populous as Holland and Belgium united, will receive from the Imperial Government for its works of comfort and convenience, and other things which have more or less of a local character, an allowance of something over £200,000. The Central Provinces, which are about as large as Great Britain and Ireland, but rather sparsely populated, will receive about £260,000. Burmah, which is about three times as large as Scotland, will have about £275,000. Bengal, or say the Austrian Empire, will have nearly £1,200,000. The North-West Provinces, about equal in area to Great Britain, and more densely peopled, will have £640,000. The Punjaub, or say the Kingdom of Italy, will have about £520,000. Madras, which is rather larger than Great Britain and Ireland, and about as thickly peopled as France, will have £739,000. And Bombay, which is somewhat bigger, will have £880,000. All local services and works, not directly remunerative, that cannot be paid out of these allowances, will have to be paid out of taxes raised by the authority of the local Governments within the area under their rule, and, presumably, to be benefited. I need not say that the imposition of these local taxes will be subject to regulation by the supreme authorities.
  By this arrangement the Central Government will save in 1871–2, as will be apparent to the Committee, about £300,000 on the low Estimates of 1869–70, and prevent the growth of some terribly expansive items of expense. On the other hand, income tax will bring in a smaller amount, and, although there will doubtless be some reduction under various heads of Expenditure, there will be increase under others; but beyond this I can form no conjecture which would be worth laying before the Committee as to the finance of the year 1871–2. The Home Government, as has been truly said, controls, but does not direct, Indian finance, and., in the nature of things, cannot do so. Of one thing, however, we may be certain, and that is,

  877
  that there will be the usual difficulty in making the ends meet. "But why should there be a difficulty," some one may say, "in making the ends meet?" For many reasons, of which the two chief are—first, that we discharge the most expensive duties of sovereignty for 200,000,000 of men with a revenue derived from 150,000,000 of men; and, secondly, that we discharge the duties of sovereignty after a scientific and civilized manner, with resources which would better become an uncivilized and unscientific discharge of them. "But why should you continue to do these things?" it may be asked. To that question I reply, after the manner of my country, by putting two others. My first question is — Are the objectors really prepared to adopt the short and easy methods of ridding themselves of treaty obligations which have been sometimes put forward? My second question is—Are we to go back on our steps, and to administer India as a whole, after the old rough-and-ready unscientific system which is still excellent for certain outlying districts? In this matter, the Government occupies a middle position between two extreme views. On the one side, you have the view which was well set forth by a very distinguished Native statesman, speaking to an Anglo-Indian statesman, a year or two ago—
  "You English," said this eminent person, "make a great mistake. All this improvement of the country, about which you talk so much, is mere moonshine. Leave the country alone. Instead of the immense taxation which you levy to give us roads, and canals, and railways, and schools, and improved courts of law, and what not, let these things be. Levy much smaller taxation, and, instead of spending the money on improving India, spend it in helping out the English Revenue, or anything else you please. You will be extremely popular, and your rule will continue long in the land."
  The latest apostle of the diametrically opposite view is an hon. Friend of mine, whose maxim, is—"Pay; for God's sake, pay, with both hands open. Borrow money right and left from all who will lend it. Do not be such purists as only to raise loans for expenditure which you believe will be directly remunerative. Raise loans for all those objects which you are satisfied will be indirectly remunerative. Increase, in short, the wealth of the country, and you will be at the same time increasing your own."
  878
  Now, to the first of these, the Native critic, the Government answers—Even if we wished to adopt your policy, English public opinion would not allow us to adopt it. Various views prevail in England as to the moral right or wrong of our original acquisition of our Indian Empire. Some think that it was forced upon us by circumstances; others, that it was a justifiable exertion of superior power; others, that it was an unjustifiable exertion of such power. Some say that our rule in India must continue as long as the world endures; that while the Native improves in arithmetical, the Englishman will improve in geometrical ratio; and that the stronger race will always be necessary to the weaker, as guide, philosopher, and friend: others hold an opposite opinion, and say that even now, in the year 1871, we should be admitting more and more the Natives of India into the higher posts of the government, with the distinct and defined intention of some day abandoning India. But all the holders of all these antagonistic opinions agree in insisting that, while we hold India, we must endeavour to improve India according to our lights.
  To the second of our critics, to my hon. Friend, the Government replies—We wish we could take your sanguine view, but we do not find that the increase of the general wealth of the country shows itself anything like so rapidly in the increase of our wealth as you suppose. The great source of our income is the land revenue. That land revenue is fixed, and must be fixed, for long periods, and it is only very slowly and at distant intervals that we can increase it. India is the most conservative of countries, and no sooner do we try a new experiment for getting some increase to the resources of government than there is a shriek from some quarter or other. This year the shriek has been, on account of the income tax. Another year it will be on account of another tax, and so on ad infinitum. We must disregard these clamours to a certain extent, but we dare not disregard them as much as would be necessary to carry out your views; and we should end in sheer bankruptcy and confusion, to say nothing of the moral guilt we should incur by tempting capital from England, which might be properly expended at home or elsewhere, to be, as we in our

  879
  heart believe, unprofitably expended in doing things for India which should not, in our opinion, be done by capital at all, or in doing things which should one day be done by capital, but for which the country is not yet ripe. Well, but if we do not try heroic remedies for our chronic impecuniosity, like those of which I have been speaking, we are thrown back upon expedients—and expedients we have been trying one after another ever since the Mutiny. First came Mr. Wilson, keenest and most clear-headed of men, exactly the kind of man whose appointment a large party is, or was, lately clamouring for as a panacea for Indian financial evils. Well, what were Mr. Wilson's expedients? First, reduction, especially military reduction. That was excellent; but, remember, he had a military expenditure of £23,000,000 to reduce, while we have now one only of about £16,000,000. Second, an income tax; and third, revised or partially enhanced customs duties. As to the income tax, which I think a very good tax, especially in its improved and later form, it is the very central grievance which is put forward in all the complaints which we receive about the financial policy of Government; and as to the enhanced customs duties, which seem to me a less good expedient, how long did our own manufacturers allow them to continue? Then came Mr. Laing, and what is the burden of his song? It is—
  "No Government in Europe and no private company ever thinks of charging to current revenue such things as extraordinary public works and interest during construction on unfinished railways, &c., which in India are so charged, and create the deficit."
  In other words, he maintains that there is no deficit at all. Then came Sir Charles Trevelyan. He was followed by Mr. Massey, to whose reign belong the license tax and the certificate tax, which are really only income taxes affecting portions of the population. Last of all came the crisis of September, 1869, to which belongs the sudden enhancement of the income tax and the salt duties. But the upshot of the whole, is that the principal expedients that have been hitherto tried to fill the deficit, always excepting the obvious expedient of reduction, have been three—some form of income tax, some form of revised and increased customs duties, and the enhancement of
  880
  the salt duties. "But," someone may say, "this shows a great poverty of financial resource. Might you not try many other expedients? Have not many persons advised you to tax tobacco, to tax successions, to tax Native marriages?" Yes, all these expedients have been suggested to us, and have had powerful advocates; I will not commit myself against any one of them. Nothing is more possible than that, sooner or later, in Indian history one or other, or all of them, may be tried, either by the Central Government or by one or other of the local Governments in this or that part of India; but there are, certainly, a great many considerations which would have to be most carefully weighed before any one of them was adopted, and which have hitherto prevented their adoption. "But," I am told, "you are at least sure of your present sources of revenue, and these are highly expansive." Expansive they are, no doubt, but hardly highly expansive; and as to our being quite sure even of them, that I doubt too. The salt tax in some parts of India is confessedly too high, and will, sooner or later, in the exceptional districts, have to be reduced. I have again and again pointed out that under the head of opium we may have great disappointments; and the retention of the few export duties which remain to us under the head of customs must be defended rather on the ground of necessity than of principle.
  Is, then, our chronic impecuniosity to be mended, by saving? Yes, to some extent; but, as I have pointed out on former occasions, our margin for reduction is not, after all, enormously great. We must always have a very considerable British force. The British soldier in India is a fearfully expensive instrument, and one not likely, I fear, to become cheaper. By the last Returns we had 61,481 European officers and soldiers in India, and 133,229 Native officers and soldiers. Add these together, and it gives you about one man for every thousand of the population of British and feudatory India. That is not an overwhelming force, though it might be very rapidly raised, in the very improbable event of trouble ever assailing India from without, to be an overwhelming force. Then consider the endless auxiliary expenses which the maintenance of even this moderate force re-

  881
  quires, and it will be understood that, though we are in the course of making reductions, neither these nor any possible civil reductions will go very far to put us at ease in our circumstances in India.
  The position of the Indian financier is altogether different from that of the English one. Here you have a comparatively wealthy population. The income of the United Kingdom has, I believe, been guessed at £800,000,000 per annum. The income of British India has been guessed at £300,000,000 per annum. That gives well on to £30 per annum as the income of every person in the United Kingdom, and only £2 per annum as the income of every person in British India. Even our comparative wealth will be looked back upon by future ages as a state of semi-barbarism. But what are we to say of the state of India? How many generations must pass away before that country has arrived at even the comparative wealth of this; and how long will it be before the rulers of India can feel that they can in an emergency very largely increase the taxation? No; I am afraid we must make up our minds in India to have as much to do with our money as we can well manage. The bright side of Indian affairs will not, I fear, in any time to which we can look forward, be the purely financial one. But as long as we keep our debt within moderate limits, so as to make it absolutely certain that we can always keep faith with the public creditor, and so long as we are conscious that every year's end shows a steady advance in the civilization and well-being of the country, we must be content, I fear, to remain, as a Government, very far from rich. As I said last autumn, the Indian financier must make up his mind for many a long day to sail between Scylla and Charybdis—the Scylla of doing too little by public works and improved administration for a country, the physical and moral conditions of which, require great expenditure on public works, and an administration which must be progressively costly as civilized supersede semi-barbarous ideas of polity—the Charybdis of too large a debt, damaged credit, and financial embarrassment.
  I am not forgetting the various alleviations of our burdens to which I have alluded in former Statements; the fact that our debt is relatively small; the fact
  882
  that we shall get rid in 1874 of a charge of about £430,000 a year on account of East India Stock; the fact that the receipts from the railways will gradually improve; the probability that the sale of waste lands will slowly grow larger; the certain, though far from rapid, increase of our land revenue; and the not unnatural expectation that the improved material prosperity of the country will enable it to consume more taxed articles; I am not, I say, forgetting these things, but, nevertheless, I should think that I was doing very wrong if I left on the mind of the Committee the impression that I thought our pecuniary prospects were couleur de rose. If, however, we look away from the mere bare question of our annual balance sheet—the question whether we have, or are likely to have, a wide margin of yearly income over yearly expenditure, and ask whether in the immediate past India has not been prospering and rapidly improving, if perhaps just a little too rapidly for her purse, the answer must be a most agreeable one.
  For more than two years we have had profound peace. Since the conclusion of the Frontier Campaign in 1868, hardly a shot fired in anger can be said to have awakened the echoes of even the wild North-West, and the very last news which I have seen from that quarter—a letter written on Christmas Day by Sir Henry Durand, the distinguished Lieutenant Governor of the Punjaub, who met his death in so melancholy a way—was to the effect that one of the most intractable of the intractable tribes who look down upon our frontier posts from their crag castles beyond the Indus, had been showing a very marked desire for the elements of education—the three R's at least. There has been a little uneasiness at the opposite side of the Peninsula, where our people have had some annoyance from the Looshais, who form one section of that great company of barbarians who fill up the angle between our Province of Assam, and the dominions of the King of Burmah, and amongst whom there have lately been many symptoms of disquiet, the causes of which are by no means clear. Everywhere, however, except on the very uttermost fringe and outside edge of our possessions, there has been deep quiet, a fact which should not, however, be allowed for a moment to make us forget that, in that mighty Continent which we call India, there are

  883
  many elements of unrest. The agitations that have disturbed several of the countries which fall within what may be called the influence of India's political attraction, have not required anything more on our part than an attitude of friendly but absolutely passive observation. The Coast of Oman has been the scene of a prolonged conflict, but the peace of the Persian Gulf has not been disturbed; and the civil conflict in Affghanistan has had no direct result upon us, except to postpone the lending of our assistance to the Persian and Affghan Governments in arriving at a friendly and permanent understanding about certain disputed questions of boundary.
  I will say nothing as to what we are doing with regard to public works, irrigation, state railways, and so forth, because, the year being incomplete, I have no figures which I can properly lay before the House later than those to which I referred in my Financial Statement of the 5th of August, 1870, and to those contained in Mr. Danvers's Railway Report, which was circulated towards the end of last Session; but they have been progressing as rapidly as circumstances would permit. It is well known to the Committee that the present Viceroy has a very keen and strong interest in all matters of this kind. I may add, with reference to a caution that fell from the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) in 1869, that the attention which is being given to railways and irrigation is not making us forget the importance of harbours, and that, especially at Kurrachee, and in the Hooghly, much good work has been lately done.
  In one respect fortune has conspicuously favoured us of late, for we have not, during the last two years, suffered from any of those sudden and overpowering physical disasters which so often confound human sagacity in India. Bad seasons there have been, as I have had occasion already to mention, but nothing sudden and overpowering, like the Orissa drought, or the cyclones and inundations of some former years. Against calamities of that sort man is powerless, at least, in the present state of his knowledge; but we are doing what we can to fight against preventible calamities—witness the very remarkable monograph upon cholera which has recently been published under the autho-
  884
  rity of the Government of India. Nor are there wanting agreeable indications that our efforts in the direction of sanitary reform are beginning to find favour with the Native mind. An opinion has lately been given, by very high Brahminical authority, in favour of using the water supplied to Calcutta by European agency, a fact which has been described, not unjustly, I think, in an Indian newspaper, as a real social victory.
  The Trigonometrical Survey, the Topographical Survey, and the Geological Survey are progressing satisfactorily, and extending the network of our knowledge all over the peninsula.
  Some want of organization having been observable in the efforts to preserve and to describe the architectural treasures of India which were set on foot in 1867, we have sent out, at the request of the Government of India, one of the most distinguished of Asiatic archæologists, General Cunningham, to give to the Archaeological Survey that definitiveness of aim and regularity of procedure which seemed to be wanting; and a cognate duty, with regard to the preparation of a complete Gazetteer of India, has been intrusted to Dr. Hunter, whose book on the Annals of Rural Bengal attracted so much and such deserved attention two or three years ago.
  The lamented death of Mr. Hayward, on his way to explore the Pamir Steppe, has excited great indignation and pity throughout India. Mr. Forsyth, a Government officer sent by Lord Mayo to the Court of the Ataligh-Gazee, the stronghanded Chief who rules in Eastern Turkestan, met with but moderate success in his diplomatic capacity—the ruler whom he sought being far away from his capital, warring in the north. Still Mr. Forsyth brought back a certain amount of commercial and other information, which will not be without its uses. In another part of our frontier we are anxiously looking for the day when it may be possible to re-establish a friendly commercial intercourse with Thibet, which has been too long interrupted by irrational jealousies. Still further, on the extreme north of Burmah, we are trying to foster into renewed existence the old traffic between South-Western China and the sea-board, to which an end was put, some years ago, by the Mussulman insurrection in Yunan.

  885
  The Franco-Prussian War has interrupted the training of our forest students at Nancy, but there is every reason to hope that the interruption will not continue long after the conclusion of peace.
  We have not yet succeeded in getting a satisfactory machine for working up the Rhea fibre, to which I alluded last August, and the time for sending in machines on trial has been extended.
  We have sent out six more cotton gardeners, and are enlarging the area of our experiments in the production of this most important article.
  The sudden death of the distinguished Indian botanist, Dr. Thomas Anderson, has not prevented our continuing the arrangements, of which he had charge, for naturalizing the Ipecacuanha, to which, as I mentioned last year, in the interest of the abatement of human suffering, we attach some importance.
  We are not unmindful of the hints which we have received from my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield, and others, about silk, to which the Madras Government has of late been giving special attention.
  As little have we failed to play into the hands of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, who wants his constituents to have facilities for giving English salt a fair chance of competing with the cheap salts of Madras and Bombay; and we are not without hope that we shall make a reasonable profit, as well as confer great benefits upon the neighbouring districts, by the manufacture of salt at the Sambhur Lake, which has been leased to us by the Princes of Jeypore and Jodhpore.
  I had hoped to have been able to announce that the new Department of Revenue—Agriculture and Commerce—had begun its work, but the arrangements are not yet quite completed. The creation, however, of such a Department has been sanctioned by the Secretary of State in Council, and only matters of detail remain unsettled.
  It seemed that the great war which has been raging in Europe was going to exercise a very unfavourable influence upon our trade; but the fears at first entertained have turned out to be exaggerated, though not unfounded. In a very excitable population, like that with which we have to deal in many parts of India, the occurrence of such a world-catastrophe as we have been witnessing of late
  886
  must, of course, cause a great deal of what I may call political feverishness, and there have been rumours and speculations, without end, in the bazaars; but nothing has occurred in any way to excite uneasiness, and the scare at Allahabad, which was telegraphed to Europe in the autumn, and produced some momentary surprise and discomfort, turned out to be the offspring of mere delusion.
  Our relations with all the Princes of India, and all the independent States around and near our borders, are perfectly friendly.
  The administration of justice is steadily improving throughout the country, and there is no department of affairs for which intelligent Natives seem to show more aptitude than for this. Of these intelligent Natives more and more are coming to this country; a few to compete, sometimes very successfully, at the examinations for the covenanted Civil Service, the majority to qualify for various professions.
  It is to be hoped that the death of the two Natives of India of the highest rank who ever left their country for Europe—the Rajah of Kuppoorthulla, on his way hither, and the Rajah of Kholapore, who was present and took a most intelligent interest when we last discussed Indian affairs in this House, but who died on his return journey—may not prevent the resort to England of many persons whose names are as closely connected as theirs with the history of India. I am sure if they are as amiable and as sensible as the Rajah of Kholapore, whom many of us came to know, they will be welcome from considerations altogether independent of political expediency.
  The extension of education amongst the higher and middle classes shows increasingly satisfactory results, and the Government has been giving very special attention of late to extending the facilities for elementary education—that potent engine for the working out of all good, as well in the East, as in the West. It is probably known to some hon. Members that India is to contribute her share to the Exhibition, which is to be opened in the month of May, at South Kensington, and, I think, that there can be little doubt that if the local authorities act in the spirit of the very sensible Memorandum which has been circulated by the Home Office at Calcutta, the educational part of that Exhibition will

  887
  be more instructive than many Blue Books—
  "Competition with other countries in educational appliances is," it has been truly said, "not our object. To this we cannot hope to attain; but we can offer an illustration of a rise and progress in education such as no other country can offer; an illustration of the task which a European Government has to perform when, with limited resources, and in opposition to deep-rooted prejudices and irrational suspicion, it attempts to introduce and carry out over an enormous area, containing a vast variety of nations and tribes speaking languages or dialects, many of which have hardly yet been systematised in writing, those views upon popular education which have guided the civilized countries of Europe and America."
  India is also to send many contributions to the part of the Exhibition which is to be devoted to the illustration of what the world can now do in textile fabrics, and various other branches of manufacture. And in connection with this, I will venture to ask, whether it would not be extremely desirable, alike for the encouragement of manufactures in India, and for the education of taste at home, if some systematic attempt were made by persons of capital in this country to open in London a depôt, on something like an adequate scale, for the sale of the artistic products of our Eastern Empire? Anyone who will visit the Museum at the India Office, wretchedly accommodated as it is, will go away wondering why in this metropolis, which is in close communication with all parts of India, it should be impossible to purchase almost any of the beautiful works with which those rooms are filled. It seems to me a very real evil, because I am convinced that, if society in this country could have the picturesque side of India forced upon its notice, the name of that country would cease to exercise upon all sorts and conditions of men here, not directly connected with it, that narcotic spell with which we are but too familiar.
  Even the exaggerated ideas about the wealth of India, which used to prevail in England, and which still linger in France, were not without their advantages; they struck the popular mind and attracted attention to it, by investing it with a halo of romance. We know that these were dreams; but we also know that if India is not as rich in gold and gems as was believed, if her soil taken as a whole is not equal in fertility to that of England, yet that the patient application of science to the cultivation
  888
  of that soil, and a minute investigation of its products, organic and inorganic, will illustrate the old story of the field beneath which a treasure was said to be hid, and will make India, if India remains peaceful and progressive, one of the most important factors in the prosperity of mankind. We know that the investigation into the history of the most venerable of her languages has been important not only from the actual addition it has made to human knowledge, but as putting into the hands of the student a key for the unlocking of a thousand secrets in the history of religion, of philosophy, and of society. We know that if we can once thoroughly penetrate India with all that is best in European civilization, it will not be India alone, but the whole of Asia, or at least the whole of Asia south of the great central ranges of the Continent, that will be benefited; and that when we ask our people to take an interest in India, we are asking them to take an interest in something much wider and deeper than the mere fortunes of a British dependency. I cannot help thinking that if the public mind were once thoroughly possessed of the idea that, in addition to being a great European, a great African, a great American, a great Australian, and a great Oceanic power, we are incomparably the greatest Asiatic power, we should get rid of that foolish self-conseiousness which makes us perpetually fuss about what we are pleased to call our prestige and our position, and should make up our minds simply to do our duty as a cosmopolitan power according to our lights. I beg, Sir to move the Resolution which I have placed in your hands.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That it appears by the Accounts laid before this House that the total Revenue of India for the year ending the 31st day of March 1870 was £50,901,081; the total of the direct claims upon the Revenue, including charges of collection and cost of Salt and Opium, was £9,230,823; the charges in India, including Interest on Debt, and Public Works ordinary, were £32,293,859; the value of Stores supplied from England was £1,379,052; the charges in England were £6,331,614; the Guaranteed Interest on the Capital of Railway and other Companies, in India and in England, deducting net Traffic Receipts, was £1,547,064, making a total charge for the same year of £50,782,412; and there was an excess of Income over Expenditure in that year amounting to £118,669; that the charge for Public Works extraordinary

  889
  was £2,599,614, and that including that charge the excess of Expenditure over Income was £2,480,945.
  MR. STEPHEN CAVEsaid, the hon. Gentleman had made, as on former occasions, a very clear, able, and comprehensive Statement on a very difficult and intricate subject. He regretted very much that his right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for India (Sir Stafford Northcote), owing to his absence, as the House knew, on an important mission, could not give the Committee the result of his great experience, for he felt how far less worthy of attention would be the few remarks he should endeavour to make than those which would have fallen from him. The Committee discussed an Indian Budget under great disadvantages, because, while the statement of the Minister embraced three years, hon. Members only had the opportunity of considering one of these with the requisite information before them. Taking the last three years of which they had a precise account, it seemed to him that the Revenues of India were, on the average, nearly stationary, while the Expenditure was steadily advancing. The year 1869–70, the subject of the Resolution now before them, showed rather a better account than the two years immediately preceding; but it contained the seeds of increased annual expenditure in charges for guaranteed railways and in interest on loans for reproductive works constructed by the Government, and at the same time relied too much on the apparently diminishing and questionable opium revenue, while the receipts from excise, customs, and stamps, as well as those from land, appeared to rise but little in proportion. No one, he imagined, would consider this a satisfactory condition—ordinarily a serious deficit, nearly £2,000,000 a-year for three years; sometimes a small surplus, so small that a very trifling mishap or miscalculation would suffice to throw the balance on the wrong side. The telegraphic Budget which had just been placed in their hands, showed, it was true, a larger surplus. He hoped it might be so; but they had heard occasionally of amended Budgets, and in this case also the hon. Gentleman had used the ominous phrase, that opium had come to the rescue. Surely this was not a result on which the Minister could congratulate himself,
  890
  or which could be satisfactory to the people of this country, who, in addition to the general interest they must feel in so magnificent a dependency, were becoming more and more personally interested in the prosperity of India on account of the capital which flowed from them for the construction of her public works. Was there any hope of inaugurating a more prosperous era? He need hardly say that this could only be done in two ways—either by reducing the Expenditure or by increasing the Revenue. Could the Expenditure be reduced? It was generally allowed that this could not easily be effected. True, it might be that here and there charges might be cut down for what might appear to economical reformers to be unnecessary pomp and ceremony. But all people did not see with our eyes, and we were told on excellent authority that it would be unwise and impolitic to bring down our establishments in India to Spartan simplicity. The Army was enormously expensive; but an Army so situated must be costly. We heard indirectly of reductions in the artillery. He hoped this arm might not be reduced so far as to be inconsistent with safety. It might be that some reduction was possible in the Madras Presidency. But, as the Navy was scarcely powerful enough, no material diminution could be looked for in the charge for defence. The other items were by no means excessive, and that for the collection of the Revenue — about 10 per cent — was moderate. Perhaps he might except the charges for stores supplied by this country, according to requisitions. Some experience as a West India proprietor convinced him that the object of those who made out such lists was to ask for at least enough; and, though the hon. Gentleman might say, and say truly, that these items were carefully examined and some even disallowed, he (Mr. S. Cave) had gone through that ceremony in West India accounts, and generally found that those articles which he struck out were discovered afterwards to be absolutely necessary, and were purchased at a much higher price on the spot. He did not know how the guarantee fund to be paid in 1874 was invested. [An hon. MEMBER: In Consols.] But it had been proposed to lend it to Indian railway companies, and so to obtain a higher interest. There was

  891
  one way, indeed, in which a diminution might be made in the present charge. The small surplus of the year 1869–70 was obtained by carrying to capital account the expenses of extraordinary public works—that was, of reproductive works—of irrigation, railways, &c. To this no one could object. But there was no reason on principle why such charges as that for barracks should not be spread over a series of years. These were permanent works, designed to last for many years. They were works like stations, which would be placed to capital by auditors of a railway without hesitation, or like the fortifications which we had been paying for by loans. He said, then, that there was no reason, on principle, why this course should not be taken; but they were told that the credit of India would suffer if we borrowed so freely. That was a valid argument. The credit of England did not assist that of her dependencies, except in a few rare instances. He thought, indeed, that those instances might be extended with care and judgment, and that one of the most legitimate and safest ways of assisting rising Colonies was to enable them to borrow money for reproductive purposes at a cheaper rate by endorsing their bills. But until this was done he could not advocate straining the credit of India by borrowing for non-reproductive works, especially as we were told that these barracks, constructed at so enormous a cost, were eminently unfit for their purpose. Repetitions, probably, of the costly mistakes in the West Indies, where the barracks used generally to be built in the most unhealthy situations, one of which, now abandoned, he was told, was constructed of bricks from England, carried up mountain-paths on mules' backs, and costing 1s. 6d. each before they arrived at their destination. If, then, there could be no material reduction of Expenditure, what prospect was there of raising a larger Revenue? Take first the customs—export and import duties, both of which were, or ought to be, regulated by circumstances over which the financier had no control. Export duties were usually the most impolitic of taxes, as, unless the country had an entire monopoly of the article, the price was not increased by the duty, which, therefore, fell upon the producer. In India this was essentially the case, as
  892
  the largest amount of export duty was levied on grain, especially on rice, and it was evident that this commodity must go into the markets of the world unduly weighted. He should rejoice to see the abolition of the export duties, or their reduction to a mere registration fee. No increase on that head could be expected or desired. Could the import duties be increased? He was not one of those who had any great objection on principle to tax the necessaries of life. It could not be avoided in many instances. If a man used necessaries only, and could not be taxed directly, you were unable to touch him in any other way. He (Mr. S. Cave) should have to enlarge a little on this presently. Nor was he much influenced by what was called the Manchester School, who thought that the end and aim of finance was to get Manchester goods into every country of the world duty free. His idea was that an import tax was a good tax, so long as it did not materially impede imports. But there were two incidents to this tax in India which must not be lost sight of. Cotton goods paid the largest share of the duties, though by no means heavily assessed. In the first place, these imported goods competed with home manufactures, and, without a countervailing excise duty, the competition Was unequal. Secondly, the duty, supposing it paid by consumers, was a tax which fell upon the poor, as the upper classes wore habitually the higher priced home-made fabrics. It was possible that a slight addition to the customs duties might not materially affect imports, but he did not expect that a very large increase could be obtained; and, though the revenue derived from these, together with other taxes, had been more elastic since the Mutiny, the increase had not been great for a population of 150,000,000. There were, indeed, articles such as tobacco and sugar, the latter of which, if not the former, India had begun to import, as well as to grow at home, a moderate customs and excise duty on which might bring in a fair return, and would press very lightly on the consumer. So much for customs duties properly so-called. He now came to that very peculiar, very profitable, and very much abused source of revenue, the opium duty. He need not re-capitulate the many arguments they had heard, and would hear again,

  893
  on that subject; but if it were in Bengal, as in other parts of India, a mere tax, a transit or export duty, it might be susceptible of the same excuse that the present First Lord of the Treasury, he thought, made for the spirit duty in the United Kingdom—namely, that we could not be said to foster it when we put upon it as heavy a duty as it would bear without encouraging smuggling. He did not know how the right hon. Gentleman would have felt, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, if his well-meant efforts to discourage the consumption of spirits had been entirely successful. But unfortunately, in Bengal, opium was a Government monopoly. Government not only taxed it, but they grew, manufactured, and sold it. Tobacco was a Government monopoly in many countries. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had proposed to make life assurance a Government monopoly here; but he did not know what the hon. Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) would say if it were proposed to raise some millions in the United Kingdom by a Government distillery. This opium revenue had an ugly look in more ways than one, for we charged so highly for the drug that we had fostered its growth not only in China, where at present it had found no such suitable soil, but in Persia, where he understood it was nearly as good as in India; so that we might possibly lose this source of revenue without having the credit of giving it up for conscience' sake. Then came salt, which was taxed at rates varying from 500 to 2,500 per cent on prime cost in different parts of India. That had been regarded by many as not dependent on price, subject to few fluctuations — in fact, a kind of poll tax, rising with increase of population. Unfortunately, famine had destroyed vast numbers who paid this tax; but, more than this, a casual scarcity in the Government salt stores in Bengal had proved that a large portion of the inhabitants of India, when an article arrived at a certain price, did without it, and in that way entirely upset the calculations of the Finance Minister. He had said nothing about the income tax, in respect of which opinions so widely differed. It was at present very high, and without it the telegraphic Budget would have presented a less favourable result. With the exception of great merchants, such as the
  894
  Parsees, whose wealth was well known, though not more than their liberality, the money incomes of Natives was not generally very large. They had the apparent wealth, of servants, horses, and magnificent attire; but we are told that the jewels on Oriental dresses and arms were not very valuable, being of the kind called "Lasque" diamonds, and that a very superb show might be made at a comparatively small cost. To say that the income tax was unpopular in India was no very strong argument. It was unpopular everywhere. But we must not forget that of all people the Indians were most suspicious of novelty. He believed they would prefer the doubling of an old tax to the imposition of a new one. This brought him to the mode in which he ventured to ask, with great deference, whether the deficiencies in the Revenue might not be supplied. There were three conditions of national existence, to each of which, as it seemed to him, a different plan of taxation was applicable. The first was that like our own, in which the people were settled and stationary, having much fixed property and many artificial wants. In the case of such a population direct taxation might well be applied to property, and indirect taxation to luxuries. Secondly, there was the newly-settled country in which the people were sparse and migratory, and though well to do and not in the habit of denying themselves, were impatient of taxation and difficult to reach. Indirect taxation, and on the necessaries as well as the luxuries of life, was the only method which paid the cost of collection in such countries; and he had always thought it most unfair that we should first call upon Canada to incur large outlay in self-defence, and then raise an outcry against her for obtaining the ways and means by almost the only method available for her. Thirdly, there was a class of people, like the Natives of India, who, owing to climate and habits, had few wants and little accumulated property. He spoke now of the masses, who, when prices rose, did without almost all the necessaries of life, as had been shown in the case of sugar, when the price in Europe had made it worth exporting. Upon such a class a hold could only be obtained in two ways—their persons and their land. In the Native States of India this had been recognized, and acted

  895
  upon from time immemorial. There the bulk of the Revenue sprang from two sources. First, the land, in customary rents—namely, the portion of rent reserved for the State—and various local rates—cesses as they were called in India as in Ireland—secondly, from a sort of protection or poll tax, that which a man paid for the protection of the State. "Skin for skin, all that a man hath will he give for his life," had frequently been the maxim of the Native Princes; and they had made it the excuse for the most grinding extortion and oppression. Mehemet Ali, in Egypt, justified his exactions in another way. He said that if he allowed the Fellaheen to have two shirts it would be impossible for him to govern them. That was not our policy; but he ventured to ask whether a way out of our difficulty might not be found in these two directions. A poll tax was the only tax for a naked man, who would live upon almost nothing, and he believed it would be found less objectionable and oppressive than the salt tax. Lord Grey, as was mentioned in a former debate, was in favour of taxing articles most used by negroes in the West Indies; but he was dealing with a people who, though adverse to work, would rather work than do without what they were accustomed to. The mention of the West Indies reminded him that the emigration of Indians to those Colonies, as well as the increase of public works in India, had caused so great a rise in wages in India that the labourer was far better off, and more able to pay, than in former times. With regard to land, he should doubtless be met by the "fixed settlement." Well, he was aware of what, speaking with great humility, appeared to him the most unwise of all arrangements, by which the Government, unlike other landlords, precluded itself for long terms of years, and in some cases for ever, from sharing in the rapidly improving value of land. Where faith was pledged it must be kept, even to our own hindrance, but there was no reason why the landlord should afterwards lay out large sums in raising artificially the value of the same land, without demanding from the tenant a percentage of the cost, which in this country was freely given in such cases every day. Again, we had in this country a land tax redeemed in most cases at a fixed rate, but this did not
  896
  prevent rates being laid over and over again upon land, for local, or what were called local, purposes. Education was defrayed, in great measure, by local rates here; in India it was charged on the Imperial Revenue. And surely we might fairly ask for local aid to railways and irrigation works, which had so enormously increased the value of land and its products, that exports had multiplied nearly five-fold, and corn had risen in price at Jubbulpore from 12 s. to 36 s. a quarter. And all this through the State sinking £200,000,000 in improvements, expenditure on which in the last complete accounts made, according to the Resolution of the Under Secretary, the difference between surplus and deficiency, and yet taking the same rent as before, and in some instances even alienating land in perpetuity for a mere nominal price. Might not this system of local rates lead to the local and decentralizing management of affairs which was considered so desirable to those who looked forward to the Native population assisting us to govern the country, and becoming less apt than they were at present to call upon Government to initiate social reforms? At least we might begin locally, and try them with five cities, before entrusting them with the Empire. And now, although he had detained hon. Members too long, he should like to say one word on this Committee, which was to inquire into Indian affairs. He doubted its doing much good, though it might do great mischief. But he was thankful it was not to be a Commission sent to obtain information in the country itself. Persons who talked of sending Commissioners to India, as if they were to inquire into Scotch Fisheries or English Factory Acts, little knew what they were talking of. It was said that the Saxons in Ireland, after all our attempts at conciliation, were merely encamped in an enemy's country. If that were so, what must it be with the handful of English in India? Looking to the difference of national character, which made conspiracy which was almost impossible in Ireland easy in India, we might well say of our countrymen there that they are on a slumbering volcano.
  "Incedunt per ignes
  Suppositos cineri doloso."
  What mischief such a Commission might do by exciting vague hopes or fears among excitable Southern races might

  897
  be imagined from the effect which the late most ill-judged roving Commission, sent out on most inadequate grounds by the Colonial Office to British Guiana, had exercised, and would for some time longer exercise, upon the coloured population. Then, what would be the composition of such a Commission? Possibly, old Indians, who would be quite able to draw up their Report without leaving the country; or men of books and theories, who would not stay long enough to realize their own ignorance. He remembered once going to look after some family property in the West Indies. He read everything that had been written on the subject, and went out to set everybody right, fully convinced that he knew their business better than men who had been engaged in it all their lives. It was not till he had been six months in the country that he began to find out how little he really knew. How little one knew of the inner life and real feeling of the working classes immediately around us; aye, without even excepting those who claimed specially to represent them. He had heard a distinguished Indian official acknowledge this with respect to the inhabitants of India—a man whose life had been spent among them, who could speak to them in their own language, and even, as he expressed himself, knew when they meant what they said and when they did not. It behoved us to beware of expressing doubts or hesitation. A vigourous government was far preferable to a much better government weakly administered. Revolutions had usually been in the reigns of good and weak, not of bad and vigourous rulers. A Governor General, even an able and energetic one like the present, had great difficulties to contend with—difficulties within his own Council, which was not so manageable as a Cabinet, though that was said to be not always a happy family; difficulties from conflicting interests and contending races; difficulties from the Press. All these, not unknown here, had to be encountered in an exaggerated form in India. A Committee would be apt to act on the notion that English ideas and English institutions were like a general fitting saddle, good for any country. But even in these days of telegraphs India must be governed in India. Mistakes must be corrected there, not at home. With a people, or rather
  898
  peoples, of that kind, want of authority would be fatal, not only to good government, but to the very existence of our magnificent and dearly-bought Indian Empire.
  MR. W. FOWLERsaid, he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. S. Cave), that this Statement would be far from satisfactory. In the first place, there was a supposed increase of the opiume rvenue; and, in the next place, a large decrease in the expenditure on public works. If hon. Members would turn to the figures they would find that the decrease in the expenditure on public works for 1870–1 was £1,000,000 as compared with the actual expenditure in 1869–70; and there was also a decrease in the expenditure on public works extraordinary amounting to nearly another £1,000,000. Now, it appeared, to him that it was a very serious thing for the Government to commence so rapid a diminution in the expenditure on public works in India. He had read over and over again, on the authority of the very highest Indian officials, that the need of public works in that country was now as great as ever; that what had been done was comparatively nothing to what was required; and that over very large tracts there was a great deficiency of roads, bridges, embankments, and every other kind of the most necessary works. If that were so, he could not congratulate the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Grant Duff) on the decrease of expenditure this year under that head. While on this subject he begged to say a few words on a question of principle to which the hon. Gentleman had alluded with special reference to himself. He must say he held that if a public work was of a permanent character and was really useful to the community it ought not to be paid for out of revenue, but out of local taxation. In this country we should not dream of making a drain across a street without borrowing the money, because we were in the habit of proceeding on this principle—that those who came after us should share in the burden. In dealing with India we adopted a totally different principle. The hon. Gentleman had said that we did not find the result we might have expected from the money spent in India. Well, that would be an argument against making the expenditure out of revenue, for it would go to show that these works should not be constructed,

  899
  as not being certain to be productive. Over and over again we had been told that the Indian Budget showed a constant deficit; but that had arisen of late years simply from this item of public works. The figures were very remarkable. In 1867–8, independent of the expenditure on public works ordinary, there was an actual surplus of £4,873,000. In 1868–9 the surplus was £3,809,000; and in the last year there would be a surplus of just about £3,000,000. Now, it puzzled him exceedingly to know why the poor people of India should have to pay additional imposts—an additional salt tax and an increased income tax, for instance—required to meet an increasing expenditure on public works. If a public work was paid for out of revenue it must be carried on in the most extravagant manner, because it would be constantly stopped in the middle for want of funds, and the works discontinued could not be resumed except at an additional expense. Take, for example, the works on the Godavery, which had been so much talked of in that House, and had almost become a by-word. He knew that a telegram had been sent out to stop those works in the middle, the men were all dismissed, and the whole affair had cost half as much again as it would have done had it been pushed on quickly. On the other hand, if the money were borrowed and the work proceeded with with all possible rapidity, he ventured to say that one-third of the cost incurred by doing it in driblets would have been saved. This was the course adopted in the construction of railways in this country, and he had yet to learn what difference there was in this respect between railways and public works so called. It had been said that those works were not directly remunerative; but a good road was as directly remunerative in its degree to the community as any work that could possibly be made; it was in its degree as remunerative as a railway, even if no toll was got out of it. So again with regard to military buildings, which formed a very large item in what was described as public works ordinary. It was of the highest importance that the lives of the troops should not be thrown away from being in bad buildings, and, therefore, to provide good barracks was a most remunerative expenditure. But he had been told that the barracks in India were badly built; but that only showed
  900
  that in paying for works out of revenue there was no security against improper expenditure. The fact was it discouraged a good officer and made him feel that he would not get full supplies for his work, while it did not make the lazy man diligent. He had been exceedingly struck by a speech made last summer by Sir Bartle Frere, who was admitted to be a man of high authority in these matters, in which he said that in the Public Works Department of India the best man was not he who would forward works, but he who would check them. It was perfectly true that great caution was required as to the amount laid out in public works, just as in England in 1847 we laid out far more than the country could afford. That was a matter of judgment and discretion; but if they expected to find in paying out of revenue a security against extravagant expenditure, the check would prove utterly illusory. One or two other things in the Budget had struck him. He maintained the opinion he had expressed a year ago with regard to the opium revenue. They had been told that it was an extremely uncertain revenue; he believed it to be most unsatisfactory. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had said, with great justice, that it was like a revenue derived by the Government from an enormous distillery carried on at the public expense. But such a thing would, not be tolerated for a moment; and yet we talked of the opium revenue as perfectly innocent, and very few Members lifted up their voices against it. In his opinion, it was an immoral thing for a Government to have a hand in, and the sooner they got rid of it the better. He was told last year it was a matter of dispute whether it was or was not injurious to the people of China. He was persuaded that it was injurious, and he felt that our conduct in this matter had not been marked by the high principle which ought to be expected from a nation as civilized and advanced as our own. The expenditure on the Army had also been referred to, and certainly it was very great. He would call the attention of his hon. Friend to an opinion expressed on this point by Sir Charles Trevelyan a few months ago—that almost the whole cost of the Army of Madras was a sheer waste of money. Now, if he mistook not, the cost of that Army was nearly £3,000,000, and therefore he

  901
  would recommend to the hon. Gentleman to see whether there was not a possibility of some economy with respect to it. Looking to all the circumstances, he considered the appointment of a Committee on Indian Finance as a very satisfactory proceeding on the part of the Government, which he was sure would go into the inquiry in a business-like manner. In his opinion, it was high time that the whole question should be thoroughly investigated, because he was one of those who believed that the danger of India was the danger of England. It was perfectly true that the House of Commons was not responsible for the debt of India. For the money which was invested there the people of this country got Indian security and nothing more; but he felt assured that if we were likely to lose India, the public would demand that English credit should be pledged in order to save her. Anything, therefore, which endangered her position was of great importance to every taxpayer in England, and a question of greater moment could not, therefore, be brought under the notice of a Committee. The right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken (Mr. S. Cave) had used a very serious expression when he said the English population in India were living on a volcano. That he hoped was an exaggeration; but certainly there were enormous dangers arising out of the peculiar prejudices and ideas of the people of that Empire; and living as we did in ignorance of those prejudices, there were, perhaps, many dangers the extent of which we failed to appreciate. If, then, by means of the proposed Committee, we could convince the people of India that we wished to treat them with perfect justice, and to avoid unequal taxation, we might win them to a more thorough devotion to our rule, and thereby confer a great benefit on the whole Empire.
  SIR CHARLES WINGFIELDsaid, that if the Indian Budget was henceforth to be laid before Parliament in the month of February, the Indian year of account must be made to agree with the calendar year. The Financial Statement of the Minister for India, in which he reviewed the results of the last year and stated the Estimates for the next, was the occasion on which the only debate of interest as to the internal conditions of the Indian Empire, arose in that House. But upon the present occasion, owing
  902
  to the desire of the Government to make that Statement at an early period of the Session, they were without either of those necessary items of information. In fact, the only difference between what they knew now and what they knew in August last, was that they now had the actual instead of the estimated results of 1869–70, and a revised Estimate of 1870–1. It was said that they could not adopt the calendar, year because it would not fit in with the land revenue accounts. He did not agree with that. The land tax in India was fixed for a term of years or perhaps in perpetuity, and the amount was therefore known; the instalments were payable at variable periods in different parts of India. If the calendar year were adopted as the Indian year of account, it would only affect the first year's reckoning; after that the year's land revenue would fall into the year of account. The very same inconvenience had been got over without difficulty a few years ago, when the 31st of March was adopted as the close of the year of accounts instead of the 30th of April; and there was no greater difficulty in putting back the year three months than one. If that were done, the Indian accounts could be laid before the House with the Financial Statement and the Estimate of the current year in February. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Grant Duff) had read extracts from an order of the Government of India, announcing a scheme of decentralization of the finances. He (Sir Charles Wingfield) had examined that scheme, and it seemed to him good as far as it went; but it did not go very far. The Government of India relinquished all control over the distribution of the sum it assigned to each provincial Government from the Imperial funds for the support of certain specified establishments and works; the local governments would submit their Estimates for these services as before, but they would be able, within the limits of the assignment, to transfer funds from one head of account to another, whereas formerly they had to obtain the sanction of the Government of India. Practically, no doubt, this sanction was little more than a form. On the other hand, the Government of India relieved itself of an immediate charge of £350,000, by reducing the aggregate grants of 1870–1 by that amount, and of all prospective charges beyond the reduced sum now

  903
  granted; and as these charges related to the very objects in which increased outlay was sure to be called for—namely, education, gaols, local roads, &c.—the Government of India merely abandoned an authority it found it troublesome to exercise. The balance of advantage was clearly on the side of the Government of India. What the local governments and what Indian Reformers in this country asked for was, that after defraying the cost of their civil establishments, and having contributed pro ratâ to the Imperial expenditure—that was, debt, army, diplomacy, &c.—they might be allowed to spend the balance of their revenues as they thought best. In short, they asked for some control over their receipts; what they got was control over certain allotted items of expenditure. He thought, therefore, that this scheme had no pretension to be styled decentralization of the finances. He came now to the most important subject of all. He was not conscious of exaggeration when he said he apprehended great danger to the security of our Empire in India, if the course on which the Government of India appeared to have entered of imposing increased taxation by its own discretionary will be uncompromisingly persevered in. He might meet with the usual fate of those who declined to prophesy smooth things; but he might claim, without egotism, to know something of the feelings and ideas of the people of India, and, entertaining the strong convictions he did on the subject, he was bound not to remain silent. The Government of India, as the scheme to which he had just referred showed, had avowed its intention of restricting its grants from the general revenues for provincial purposes, and of requiring the local governments to raise the additional funds they needed by local taxation. Now, local taxation in England meant self-taxation; but that was not what it meant in India—there was no self-government in India. There the additional taxes would be levied under Acts of Legislative Councils in which the Natives were not represented at all. Already serious discontent and irritation had been aroused by attempts to raise new cesses and imposts. He had seen a memorial from Natives of the Madras Presidency complaining of a Bill that had been brought into the Legislative Council to raise funds for
  904
  local purposes—sanitation being one—by a variety of new taxes, one of them a tax on marriages. The memorialists urged that religious observances and social customs were not fit objects of taxation. It appeared to him to be no defence of such a tax to plead, as had been pleaded by the Government, that it had been levied by Native rulers. Why, they could find justification for any enormity in the example of Native rulers; but, if they could, do nothing better than reproduce the Native model of government, he did not see what business they had to be in India at all. Despots for despots, the people of India might say, give us our countrymen. Again, after the 30 years' settlement had been concluded a road cess had been imposed by an Act of the Legislature; and in Oudh, where cesses for education had been provided, it was now sought to double the amount. That he regarded as a departure from engagements on the part of the Government. He was aware of the argument on which those impositions were defended—namely, that promises of the Executive Government could be overriden by Acts of the Legislature. That argument would be of more force if the people were represented in the Legislature; but, composed as the Legislative Council was of members of the Executive Government and Government nominees, mostly servants of the Government, the Government, in accomplishing its objects through such a legislative body, made itself judge in its own cause. It was well observed by a Member of Council, in the Papers on education recently presented to Parliament, that—"We have no standing ground in India save brute force if we forfeit our character for truth." He (Sir Charles Wingfield) therefore held strongly that if they sought to impose additional taxation for local purposes, they could only do so safely with the co-operation of the people. To that end councils should be established at the seat of each provincial government, composed mainly of leading members of the landed and commercial interests. The representative element should enter into their constitution, and without their concurrence no new taxes should be imposed. No one could fail to perceive that there was a great and growing demand among the upper and educated classes, who were the leaders of Native opinion, for some voice in the

  905
  management of their affairs, especially in the matter of raising and spending new taxes. It was useless to attempt to wring more money out of a poor people — they only further impoverished them—they must trust to time, and the effects of works of public utility, to enrich the country, and in the meantime they held the great source of increased income in the future, the share in the rental of land. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Grant Duff) remarked last Session that representative institutions were not yet for India. He (Sir Charles Wingfield) did not seek to transplant the British Constitution there; but there was surely a middle course between full-blown representative government and altogether refusing to consult the people on the matter, nearest and dearest to all people, the raising and spending the revenues they had to contribute. They must, moreover, bear in mind that there was in India an active and widely-diffused free Press, English and Native; and that there were facilities for higher education, of which the people eagerly availed themselves. Thousands now read with interest in the newspapers the reports of the debates on Indian subjects in that House, and of the political events happening in Europe; and every year, as knowledge and enlightenment spread, the people grew less disposed to submit without murmur to taxation, which they regarded as oppressive and unjust, or as a breach of promise on the part of the Government. If their complaints and remonstrances were unheeded, the sense of wrong would rankle in their breasts, to find vent some day—not in insurrection, for the power of the British Government was felt to be overwhelming, but in passive resistance to taxation, a form of opposition which would be far more embarrassing to the Government, for they could not issue coercive processes against a nation of 150,000,000. The hon. Gentleman attributed the unpopularity of the income tax to the oppressions of unscrupulous Native collectors. But that was the fault of the Government. From ill-judged economy they would not allow an efficient special establishment for the collection of the tax, and the duty was devolved on the overworked collectors and their deputies, and these were obliged to leave it to underpaid Native assessors, who extorted money from the poor and ignorant
  906
  classes under threats of assessing them for large sums, and distraining their property in default, while many landlords re-couped themselves the amount of the tax from their tenants. He (Sir Charles Wingfield) hoped his remarks would not be understood as made in a spirit adverse to the Home Government. On the contrary, he attached the highest value to the Government by a Secretary of State in Council. He knew that complaints had been made of undue interference with the Governor General on the part of the Secretary of State. He did not sympathize with those complaints at all; so far from it, he considered that in every case that had come to his knowledge where the Secretary of State had modified or annulled the acts of the Governor General, his interference had been exercised for the public advantage. For instance, Lord Halifax had overruled a law making failure in a contract to deliver agricultural produce a criminal offence; and the present Secretary of State had disallowed two laws, one introducing the metric system, and the other the Contagious Diseases (Women) Act. It was most fortunate that there was an authority in this country to prevent the consequences of such empirical and doctrinaire legislation. It was worthy of notice, too, that this complaint of undue interference was never made by the people of India, who highly appreciated the controlling authority of the Secretary of State. And, when Lord Halifax resigned office he received addresses from the Native inhabitants of all Presidency towns, thanking him for the care and protection he had extended to their interests. The right hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. S. Cave) laid it down as a profound political maxim, that India must be governed in India. If that merely meant that the initiative should rest with the Governor General, he (Sir Charles Wingfield) had no objection; but if it meant that the proceedings of the Governor General were not to be subjected to watchful supervision and control by the Secretary of State he entirely dissented from it. He could conceive no greater danger to our Empire in India than that the impression should prevail among the people that the Governor General must be supported at all hazards, and that there was no remedy against hasty and unjust measures. He was convinced that the decision of the late Se-

  907
  cretary of State (Sir Stafford Northcote), restoring the kingdom of Mysore to its Native Prince, after repeated refusals by former Secretaries of State, had done more to inspire confidence in the Home Government and to unite the Natives of India by the bonds of attachment to this country than all the money they had spent on railways and canals had accomplished. The truth was that this maxim was first laid down at a time when there were no railways, no telegraphs, and when education was in its infancy. It was now quite antiquated. He heartily thanked the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government for having acceded to the request for a Committee of that House on the financial administration of India. He assured him that the announcement would be received with satisfaction and gratitude throughout India.
  MR. EASTWICKsaid, that, before adverting to the Statement they had just heard, he wished to express his belief that the course adopted by Government this Session with respect to India must be satisfactory to the people of India, and to all those who took a real interest in that country. He hoped that the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into everything connected with the finance of India would go far to remove the impression—that most mistaken impression—that Parliament was really indifferent to the interests of India. That delusion would, he hoped, be further dispelled by the day for making the Indian Financial Statement having been changed from the very end to the very beginning of the Session. By a happy coincidence, although the financial year was not concluded, the alteration had not deprived the hon. Gentleman of the opportunity of making several important announcements. It might be otherwise on the next occasion, and it would, perhaps, be better that the Statement might be more complete, to appoint a day somewhat later in the Session—say, towards the end of June—for the Indian Budget. For this time, at least, nothing could be more felicitous than the alteration; and he hoped the people of India would now be disabused of the idea that there was, or had been, any real indifference on the part of Parliament towards them, except that which was not indifference, but rather an inability to act, on account of the overwhelming pressure of
  908
  home business. He hoped the Anglo-Indian Press would put this matter in its true light; and would, at the same time, make the people of India understand how impossible it was for a nation that had to pay £26,000,000—much more than a third of its Revenue—for the interest of its own debt, to encourage the remittance of capital to India by way of Government loans, so as to increase the debt of that country, all of which, but 9 per cent, was already owing to England. There were a number of matters in the statement they had just heard to which he would like to advert. First, there was the important Resolution of December 14, 1870, on the decentralization of finance. It would be admitted that that Resolution was, at all events, a step in the right direction, because it would obviate the mistakes and delays which occurred in the mode of dealing with the representations of the local governments with respect to the 10 departments of expenditure to which it referred. Next, the sum allowed to the local Governments were stereotyped. Now, it was absurd to suppose that their wants could be stereotyped too, and would always remain represented by the exact sum of £4,688,711. Why, the wants of Bengal alone, in future years, for gaols, registration, police, education, and, above all, for roads and miscellaneous public improvements, might come to amount to that sum. How, then, was the deficiency to be made up? In his judgment, the better course would be for the Supreme Government to take such taxes as must be uniform throughout the Empire—say, customs, salt, opium, liquor tax, and a due proportion of the land revenue—and to say to the local Governments—"Take the rest, and make the best you can of them." That would greatly increase not only their responsibility, but also their motives for economy, which, as they were told in the second paragraph of the Resolution, were now too few. He came next to the announcement made in the third paragraph of the Resolution, and which, he feared, unveiled the real reason for making these changes. It said that "existing Imperial revenues will not suffice for the growing wants of the country." And again, in the eighth paragraph, they read that—
  "The relief of the Imperial finances has been a prncipal object in the discussion of measures for enlarging the powers of the local governments."

  909
  It was quite clear, then, that the Supreme Government found itself overburthened, and was shifting its difficulties on to the subordinate governments, which was like cutting away the trunk of a banyan tree and leaving the immense weight of its branches to rest on the suckers. He hoped the Supreme Government would not rely on any such prop, but would take the only safe means of planting itself firmly by reducing its enormous expenditure. Now, it seemed to him that there were at hand, two important means of effecting something like adequate reductions. The first, by re-establishing the local European Army for India, with long service engagements, and a very much smaller number of officers. He would not go into the question of the comparative merits of the late East India Company's European regiments. At all events, they did the work required of them in conquering India, and there could be no doubt that similar regiments could perform the much easier work of retaining it. Recruits for such regiments would cost less than £40 each, whereas those for the Imperial forces cost £100. Such regiments would be sufficiently officered with 20, instead of 33, officers. Indeed, as the Native regiments, which he supposed required more leading than Englishmen, had only seven officers, he could not understand why such regiments need have even 20. Then look at the expenditure on account of the Army and military works for the last four years, ranging between £ 175,000,000 and £185,000,000, and judge whether that expense could be borne out of an available Revenue of only £27,000,000, which was all the Indian Government had to deal with as they pleased. Other enormous savings might be made by the reduction of the Native Army to two-thirds its present force, and by obtaining from the Native States their fair quota of the expense for defending the Empire. At present, with the revenues of only a part of India, they defrayed the expense of defending the whole. One of two things ought to be done—either those States should disband their forces and maintain order with police, or they should be made responsible for the security of the country, and we might withdraw the troops which were now kept to watch their armies. Another way of reducing the expenditure would be by the introduction of Native gentlemen of rank
  910
  into the higher civil appointments. He would ask, why should they be paying £2,250,000 to mediatized Princes, and, as they had been called by a Secretary of State, "titled stipendiaries," without obtaining from them any service in return? Why should they do this when many of them were capable of rendering good service to the State, and loathe their enforced idleness? Why, he (Mr. Eastwick) received a letter a few days ago from an Indian Prince, who, for the last quarter of a century, had been spending his income at Bagdad, and had always maintained a character worthy of his high rank, and had been thanked by our Government for his voluntary and gratuitous services in the Persian War. He was most anxious to be employed in his Native country. If he were so employed his large income, which was now spent abroad, would be spent in India, and the Government would derive advantage from his abilities and his great influence among his countrymen. And, no doubt, there were many pensioned noblemen and others who would gladly be employed for a moderate, perhaps, even for a nominal, salary. He thought that, when they remembered the gloomy anticipations which existed about a year ago as to the accounts of the year 1870–1, they might be glad that the out-turn had been as good as it had proved. But the element of chance was too conspicuous in the result to make it very satisfactory. The great success had been in opium, and an opium success was one that rather sobered than intoxicated his mind. He (Mr. Eastwick) would rather turn to the progress in the Orissa Irrigation Works, which had cost £1,043,698, and were now irrigating 100,000 acres. That was a legitimate cause for satisfaction. He was glad to learn, too, from private letters, that the Native Princes were strenuously engaged in the construction of irrigation works, as, for instance, the Rajah of Ahmedmyar, in the collectorate of Ahmedabad, who had lately expended about £40,000 in the construction of irrigation works, with an anticipated return of from 7 to 10 per cent. He was not going into the accounts, as he had hardly sufficient data wherewith to criticize them; but there was one point he could not forbear mentioning. He found a number of sums entered in the expenditure under the head of "Sundry Items." He had taken the trouble to add them

  911
  up, and they amounted altogether to £404,379. Surely that was too large a sum to pass under such a heading, and details ought to be given. There were several matters on which he wished his hon. Friend had given them fuller information. Such was the Board of Agriculture and Commerce. He hoped that, when established, it would supply information why the agricultural produce of India was comparatively so small. Judging by the land revenue, that it might be estimated at £60,000,000, or, at most, £70,000,000; this, compared then with the agricultural produce of France or of Ireland, was in proportion very small. Another point was the small-gauge railroads, which, he understood, had been decided on, and one of which was to connect Mooltan with Kurrachee. Such railroads could be made very cheaply, but he apprehended that advantage would be counterbalanced by the disadvantage of having to break bulk. Lastly, he should like to hear something of the Princes and Chiefs who were drawing pensions from us. He should be glad to learn that some of them had been recommended to visit this country. The young persons among them ought, for two or three years, at least, to study in this country. They would get instruction here which would be of great value to them in India. The young Rajah of Mysore, for example, ought, in his opinion, to be sent to England for a time. On all these points he should be glad if his hon. Friend could supply them with information. He desired once more to express his satisfaction at the course taken this Session by the Government with respect to Indian finance.
  MR. DICKINSONsaid, he was anxious to point out that this was the first occasion on which the results of canal irrigation had been included as part of the land revenue. He thought it very undesirable to mix up the land revenue with railways, canals, or any works of that kind, believing that the capital expended upon reproductive works, and the income which this produced, ought to be shown clearly in the accounts. He had put an Amendment upon the Paper; but, after the Statement they had heard, and finding that its result would be rather to limit the range of discussion, he did not propose to move it. There were in that House hon. Gentlemen who were, or who had been,
  912
  connected with different Departments of the Indian Government, and some who had visited India in connection with the Civil Service, with professions, or with trade, and thus acquired a knowledge of the country, but there was not one who could say that he represented the people of India, or that he was thoroughly acquainted with their views and aspirations. There being, therefore, no actual representatives in Parliament of the people of India, this country, as the governing Power, was bound to give the benefit of the doubt to India, whenever the interests of the two countries came into collision. Why, then, he would ask, should we not bear our proportion of Indian charges instead of seeking to throw an undue burden on India itself? What would be said by Australia or Canada, if we proposed to inflict upon either of these Colonies an annual charge for ships of war cruising upon their stations for the protection of our own commerce? And if, without risk of a separation, we could not attempt such a charge upon Canada or Australia, how could we justify it in the case of India? It was, no doubt, necessary that commerce in the Indian waters should be protected; but, in this, English interests were quite as much concerned as Indian interests; but the division of the charges was not proportionate. Moreover, it should be remembered that the relations of the two countries was very different from what it was when India was governed by the East India Company. At that time the Company had to bear every charge connected with the home control of its Government. It was impossible that that traditional policy could be preserved under the present state of affairs. On the part of England, the greatest commercial nation in the world and mistress of the seas, the policy of placing this burden on the Indian Government was both niggardly and unjust; and when the proper time came he should press the subject on the consideration of the Committee. They were now concerned in a hurried consideration of the Indian accounts, and, therefore, he thought it would not be convenient to press the general question at that moment. Still, he would remind the House that if our rule was to be continued in India it could only be maintained by governing the people of India in the spirit of equity and justice.

  913
  Nearly three-fourths of the people were under English rule; we were in the position of the dominant power—yet we had never hitherto laid down with clearness what were the principles which were to guide our administration of affairs. A noble responsibility rested on us in determining the future destiny of that great Empire. He regarded any foreign attack on India as quite out of the question—our frontier was well protected by natural boundaries, and he had no fear of the Russian progress towards India; and, consequently, internal peace alone was required for the development of its resources. At present, of course, we could not give representative institutions to India, but this might be done at some future time. Education ought to be freely imparted to all classes, and the condition of the people elevated morally and socially. It was highly desirable that a decision should be come to as to the future language of the country, his own opinion being that English might be brought into general use. But at present he would not enter into the details referred to by the hon. Gentleman.
  MR. C. B. DENISONcongratulated the Under Secretary of State on having made his Financial Statement thus early in the Session, in accordance with the wish expressed by the Committee last year; and hoped that in future it might be found practicable to make up the Indian accounts on the 31st December in each year. At the same time he must admit that it would be attended with a certain degree of inconvenience, because complete information on many details could not reach this country in time. While hoping that the scheme of financial decentralization, which had been submitted to the House in the form of a despatch, would be successful, he feared it would involve an addition to local taxation of burdens which it was found inexpedient to couple with Imperial taxation. He had glanced over the Financial Statement that had reached this country by telegraph, and there were one or two points on which he desired to say a few words. He observed that £2,000,000 of the anticipated revenue was jumbled together under the head of "Miscellaneous." He hoped that in due time they would receive a statement explaining the exact character of the various items. He also observed that there was a serious diminution in the
  914
  estimated expenditure for education. It was only £540,000, for the current year, instead of £750,000—a point that required explanation; it might be that part of the expenses had been relegated to the subordinate governments. Under the head of assessed taxes he found that there was an increase of nearly £1,000,000. They had been indulged by the hon. Gentleman in a hope that the 7½ per cent income tax would be reduced, but he must confess to feeling very doubtful whether that anticipation would be realized. The hon. Gentleman, in reviewing the financial administration of India since the days of Mr. Wilson, had characterized it as a period of experiments and suggestions. The retrospect was to him (Mr. Denison) very unsatisfactory—it seemed to him that these experiments and suggestions were such as were generally understood under the maxim fiat experimentum in corpore vili. He had always been of opinion that more than half the difficulties of Indian finance had been difficulties of audit more than anything else; and had there been a definite system of audit and of accounts much inconvenience would have been avoided. When the income tax was doubled, instructions were sent to every officer to reduce his expenditure, without delay, to the lowest amount possible; and a chief engineer reported that it was impossible for him to keep his expenditure within the grant, except by postponing the charges of that year to the next. A system under which accounts could be postponed from one year to the next must lead to financial difficulty and embarrassment. He anticipated good results from the inquiries of the Select Committee.
  SIR FRANCIS GOLDSMIDsaid, he wished to take this opportunity of calling attention to the step recently taken by the Secretary of State for India in establishing a College for Civil Engineers, a step which appeared to him (Sir Francis Goldsmid) directly opposed to the whole course of recent policy adopted by the Government and approved by the House. Appointments in the Civil Service of India had been thrown open to public competition. Haileybury College, where formerly young men intended for that service were educated, had been abolished; and now this new College was established, education at which was to be a necessary pre-

  915
  liminary to young men entering as civil engineers the service of the Indian Government. Could a more retrograde step be imagined? It was said, indeed, that admission to the College was to be open to public competition. But it was to be open only to those who could afford to pay £150 a-year for three years. Before the establishment of County Courts, when it cost £30 or £40 to recover a debt of £10, the reply to the remark that the King's Courts were open to all the King's subjects, used to be—"So is the London Tavern to all who can pay the bill." The new Civil Engineering College was to be open to all on the same principle. The reason alleged by the Government for a measure so strangely contrary to all that had of late years been done, was understood to be that without it civil engineers for the service of India could not be obtained. And to prove this, it was stated that at the recent examinations the number of competent candidates was quite insufficient for the exigencies of the service. But the reason for this failure was not far to seek. The Government had offered to the approved candidates no more than £240 a-year. Not only was this remuneration too low to attract young men of the qualifications required, but the Government had shown that they knew it to be too low. For, simultaneously with the establishment of the College, they had announced their intention of giving to the candidates who might be successful a yearly salary of £420 from the time of their entering the service. The Government had thus, if better candidates should hereafter present themselves, made it impossible to ascertain whether the improvement were due, as they would suppose, to the establishment of the College, or, as he should believe, to the increased rate of remuneration. If, said Bentham, you desire to persuade yourself that a measure of no real utility is extremely useful, adopt it at the same time with some highly beneficial measure. If you wish to learn its real value, try it alone. If you want to convince yourself that saw-dust is a drastic medicine, mix it with jalap. If you desire to know its actual efficiency, swallow it in water. The Secretary of State for India was mixing the saw-dust of his College with the jalap of a nearly doubled salary. If the Government were determined to
  916
  proceed with the establishment of the College, let them at least show their confidence in its usefulness by allowing young men who had been educated elsewhere to compete with their collegians. But even this had hitherto been refused.
  SIR DAVID WEDDERBURNsaid, that the Motion of the Prime Minister yesterday made it quite unnecessary to trouble the House with any particulars as to the anomalies and abuses of Indian financial administration, which were only too patent. The financial history of British India, like that of the Second French Empire, was a chronicle of deficit and debt, with occasional illusory surpluses, obtained, for the most part, by crediting special windfalls to current ordinary income. The inquiries of the Select Committee would go far to remedy the worst of these financial abuses, as would also the creation of the new Department of Revenue, Agriculture and Commerce. But, after all, finance proper was only one of the many subjects urgently demanding investigation at this moment in India. There was at this moment in course of signature at Calcutta a Memorial, praying for inquiry into the condition of the Native Army, the management of the Public Works Department, and the working of the income tax. He desired to draw attention to the last of these points, especially to the fallacy of the statement put forward by the Indian Government, that the income tax "does not touch the poor, but only the well-to-do-classes." Probably by this time Government had found out their mistake; he thought recent despatches showed that they had done so, and, if they had, he hoped that they would frankly acknowledge it. The usual complaints against this tax—styled "odious" by those very Members of Council who voted for it — was that it was unproductive; that it was novel; and that it was oppressive in the case of officials and other persons with fixed incomes. Every one of these objections was well founded. It was unproductive, owing to the general poverty of the country—in Bengal, out of 36,000,000, only 53,773 had incomes over £50 a-year, and this in the wealthiest Province in India; also from the difficulty of ascertaining and assessing the incomes of the few rich Native bankers and traders. It was novel, and therefore dangerous, in a country

  917
  where men would endure patiently, as inevitable, almost any amount of exaction by ancient and customary methods, but regard every innovation with mingled hatred and terror. It was hard on officials and Government employés, who found their salaries heavily mulcted at a period when marked increase in the cost of living made a reduction of their pay peculiarly ill-timed. But while such objections as these had been more or less generally admitted, he felt certain that in this country, and in this House, it was not understood what a terrible instrument for grinding the faces of the poor was placed by this, or indeed by any direct tax, in the hands of subordinate Native officials. Some very startling facts had been brought to light by the Indian Press as to the working of the income tax in and around Calcutta. Men had been assessed and fined for non-payment — miserable ryots, whose entire property when sold did not amount to the nominal annual income on which they were assessed—perhaps not even sufficient to pay the fine, amounting to double the tax. Others, again, had paid to the assessors the sums demanded of them, "to save trouble, expense, and insult," as they said, although their incomes did not amount to half the minimum chargeable with income tax. In one village 25 ryots were assessed; and after a magisterial investigation, it was found that five might, perhaps, be liable to assessment. If such things took place at the Presidency, within sight of the viceregal palace, he asked those who know India what was likely to occur in the remote Mofussil, where no missionaries and no Press existed, and where European officials were few and far between? Nor was it only selfish dishonesty and peculation which must be dreaded, official zeal was equally oppressive, and the desire to find favour in the eyes of a supreme Government. In all Oriental countries the minor agents of Government were a terror to the people, and the favourite title given to a popular Prince or magistrate was "Protector of the Poor." It was to the sympathy of the British Parliament that the poor of India now looked for protection against this grinding tax.
  SIR THOMAS BAZLEYreferred to the great extension in the trade and commerce of India, since its affairs were managed by the Imperial Government,
  918
  as a proof of the beneficial results which had followed from that change. In 1856 the imports of India amounted to £25,000,000, and the exports to £23,000,000. Taking the 10 years, during eight of which the new Government had been in existence, the imports were £56,000,000 sterling, and the exports £67,000,000, so that the trade and commerce of India had very nearly trebled; and there was every manifestation of increase during the past year or two. But still the increase had not been so rapid as they had a right to expect. He did not think that the public works were developed with the energy they had a right to expect. Railways and irrigation works would give an immense impetus to the vast internal commercial resources of India. He did not share in the gloomy anticipations of the future of that great Empire. He rejoiced in the appointment of the Select Committee, whose labours, he thought, would be attended with the most beneficial results.
  MR. HAVILAND-BURKEobserved that last year the Under Secretary laid great stress on five points. The first of these was the military reductions; but in his Statement to-night he saw very little sign of this. The second point was the reduction in the civil charges; but everyone thought they were still very greatly in excess of what they ought to be. There had been a reduction in the charge for public works, and amongst other items was that of irrigation; but this, he thought, was rather to be regretted, for expenditure of this kind was, or ought to be, reproductive. The people would never believe that there was an economical administration in India so long as there were great charges amounting, as one hon. Member said, to £2,000,000, which were almost altogether unaccounted for. It was assumed that the present rulers of India were superior to the former rulers; but there might be a difference of opinion on that point, and it might be maintained that 150 years ago India was in a better condition as to material prosperity than at present.
  SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, that as the Government had moved the appointment of a Committee, it was unnecessary at present to discuss Indian financial questions in that House. He would suggest that the inquiry should

  919
  be divided into two heads, the one being revenue and the other public works; and in that case the investigation might be concluded in a reasonable time.
  MR. MACFIEsaid, that in listening to the statement of the Under Secretary of State he had been struck by the absence of any reference to the Indian Council; and he thought that this omission might possibly provoke the inquiry whether that body was really in existence. Complaint had been made of the want of public interest in Indian affairs; but the only way to excite interest was to increase knowledge of the subject, and to do that it would be advisable to admit the public and reporters to the meetings of the Council, and allow Members of Parliament to be unpaid members of it. He concluded, from the Statement that had been made, that the whole charges of every kind upon the people of India were less than 6s. 8d. per head, and that the proceeds from land and opium provided revenue for the whole cost of the administration—so that the people generally were taxed only for reproductive works. He trusted that economy would not be sought at the expense of the Army or Navy.
  MR. GRANT DUFFreviewed at some length the various opinions that had been expressed during the course of the debate.
  Motion agreed to.
  Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.
  House adjourned at a quarter after Twelve o'clock, till Monday next.

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments and Office of the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, appointed and nominated; Private Bills, appointed and nominated.
PUBLIC BILLS—Committee—Report—Provisional Order Bills (Committees)* (25).
Third Reading—Princess Louise's Annuity* (20); West African Settlements* (1); Juries Act (1870) Amendment* (21), and passed.

OFFICE OF THE CLERK OF THE PARLIAMENTS AND OFFICE OF THE GENTLEMAN USHER OF THE BLACK ROD.
Select Committee on, appointed: The Lords following were named of the Committee:

Ld. Chancellor

E. Malmesbury

Ld. President

E. Granville

Ld. Privy Seal

Ld. Chamberlain

D. Richmond

V. Hawarden

M. Lansdowne

V. Eversley

M. Salisbury

Ld. Steward

M. Bath

L. Colville of Culross

E. Devon

L. Redeadale

E. Tankerville

L. Colchester

E. Stanhope

L. Skelmersdale

E. Carnarvon

L. Cairns

PRIVATE BILLS.
Standing Order Committee on, appointed: The Lords following, with the Chairman of Committees, were named of the Committee:

Ld. President

V. Hawarden

Ld. Privy Seal

V. Eversley

D. Somerset

Ld. Steward

M. Winchester

L. Camoys

M. Lansdowne

L. Saye and Sele

M. Bath

L. Colville of Culross

M. Ailesbury

L. Sondes

M. Normanby

L. Digby

E. Devon

L. Sheffield

E. Airlie

L. Colchester

E. Hardwicke

L. Silchester

E. Carnarvon

L. De Tabley

E. Romney

L. Skelmersdale

E. Chichester

L. Portman

E. Powis

L. Belper

E. Verulam

L. Ebury

E. Morley

L. Churston

E. Stradbroke

L. Egerton

E. Amherst

L. Hylton

Ld. Chamberlain

L. Penrhyn

House adjourned at a quarter past Five o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.