Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, vol 1 | Page 5

the Russian War
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INDIA
I
HOUSE OF COMMONS, JUNE 3, 1853.

From Hansard.
[The ministerial measure for the government of India was introduced
by Sir Charles Wood on June 3, 1853. The particulars of the Bill were
as follows: The Government proposed that for the future the relations
between the Directors and the Board of Control should be unchanged,
but that the constitution of the former should be altered and its
patronage curtailed. It reduced the number of the Members of the Court
from twenty-four to eighteen, of whom twelve were to be elected as
before, and six nominated by the Crown from Indian servants who had
been ten years in the service of the Crown or the Company. One-third
of this number was to go out every second year, but to be re-eligible.
Nominations by favour were to be abolished. The governorship of
Bengal was to be separated from the office of Governor-General. The
legislative council was to be improved and enlarged, the number to be
twelve. The Bill passed the House of Lords on June 13.]
I feel a considerable disadvantage in rising to address the House after
having listened for upwards of five hours to the speech of the right hon.
Gentleman. But the question is one, as the right hon. Gentleman has
said, of first-rate importance; and as I happen from a variety of
circumstances to have paid some attention to it, and to have formed
some strong opinions in regard to it, I am unwilling even that the Bill
should be brought in, or that this opportunity should pass, without
saying something, which will be partly in reply to the speech of the
right hon. Gentleman, and partly by way of comment on the plan which
he has submitted to the House. There is, as it appears to me, great
inconsistency between the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and that
which he proposes should be done; because, really, if we take his
speech as a true and faithful statement of the condition of India, and of
the past proceedings of the Government in that country, our conviction
must be that the right hon. Gentleman will be greatly to be blamed in
making any alteration in that Government. At the same time, if it be not
a faithful portraiture of the Government, and of its transactions in India,
then what the right hon. Gentleman proposes to do in regard to the
home administration of that country is altogether insufficient for the
occasion. I cannot on the present occasion go into many of the details

on which the right hon. Gentleman has touched; but the observations
which I have to make will refer to matters of government, and those
will be confined chiefly to the organisation of the home administration.
I am not much surprised that the Government should have taken what I
will call a very unsatisfactory course with regard to the measure they
have propounded, because they evidently did not seem exactly to know
what they ought to do from the very first moment that this question was
brought before them. I do not allude to the whole of the Treasury bench,
but I refer particularly to the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell), because he
was at the head of the Government when this question was first brought
before them. Lord Broughton, then Sir John Hobhouse, was at that time
the President of the Board of Control, and he was not in favour of a
Committee to inquire into the past government and present condition of
India. Shortly afterwards, however, it was considered by the noble Lord
(Lord J. Russell) that it would be desirable to have such a Committee
appointed. A Committee was appointed, and it sat.
But at the commencement of the present Session the noble Lord
intimated very distinctly, in answer to a question which I put to him,
and which seemed to make the noble Lord unnecessarily angry, that it
was the intention of the Government to legislate, and in such a way as
to leave the Indian Government almost entirely the same as it had
hitherto been. ['No, no!'] Well, I thought that the noble Lord said so,
and in corroboration of that I may mention that the noble Lord
quoted--and I believe that it was the noble Lord's only authority--the
opinion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stamford (Mr.
Herries), who considered that no material change was required in the
constitution of the home Indian Government. Well, when the noble
Lord made that announcement, considerable dissatisfaction was
manifested on both sides of the House, some hon. Members speaking in
favour of a delay of one, two, or three years, or declaring themselves
strongly against the present constitution of the Indian Government.
However, from