Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, vol 1 | Page 8

hon. Gentleman. It is a very interesting book, and gives a great
deal of information. That writer says--
'The division of authority between the Board of Control and the Court
of Directors, the large number of directors, and the peculiar system by
which measures are originated in the Court, sent for approval to the
Board, then back again to the Court, and so on, render all deliverances
very slow and difficult; and when a measure is discussed in India, the
announcement that it has been referred to the Court of Directors is
often regarded as an indefinite postponement. In fact, it is evident that
(able and experienced as are many of the individual directors)
twenty-four directors in one place, and a Board of Control in another,
are not likely very speedily to unite in one opinion upon any doubtful
point.'
That, I think, is likely to be the opinion of any man on the Government

of India. There is another authority to which I will refer, Mr. Kaye, who
has also written a very good book. It was actually distributed by the
Court of Directors; I have therefore a right to consider it a fair
representation of their views of what was done, especially as the
Chairman of the Court has given me a copy of the book. Mr. Kaye, in
referring to the double Government which existed in Bengal in 1772,
makes use of these expressions. When I first read them, I thought they
were a quotation from my own speeches:--
'But enlightened as were the instructions thus issued to the supervisors,
the supervision was wholly inadequate to the requirements of the case.
The double Government, as I have shown, did not work well. It was
altogether a sham and an imposture. It was soon to be demolished at a
blow.... The double Government had, by this time, fulfilled its mission.
It had introduced an incredible amount of disorder and corruption into
the State, and of poverty and wretchedness among the people; it had
embarrassed our finances, and soiled our character, and was now to be
openly recognised as a failure.'
This is only as to Bengal. The following are the words he uses in
respect to the double Government at home:--
'In respect of all transactions with foreign Powers--all matters bearing
upon questions of peace and war--the President of the Board of Control
has authority to originate such measures as he and his colleagues in the
Ministry may consider expedient. In such cases he acts presumedly in
concert with the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors--a body
composed of the chairman, deputy-chairman, and senior member of the
Court. The Secret Committee sign the despatches which emanate from
the Board, but they have no power to withhold or to alter them. They
have not even the power to record their dissent. In fact, the functions of
the Committee are only those which, to use the words of a
distinguished member of the Court (the late Mr. Tucker), who deplored
the mystery and the mockery of a system which obscures responsibility
and deludes public opinion, could as well be performed "by a secretary
and a seal."'
Further on he says--

'In judging of responsibility, we should remember that the whole
foreign policy of the East India Company is regulated by the Board of
Control; that in the solution of the most vital questions--questions of
peace and war--affecting the finances of the country, and, therefore, the
means of internal improvement, the Court of Directors have no more
power than the mayor and aldermen of any corporate town. India
depends less on the will of the twenty-four than on one man's
caprice--here to-day and gone to-morrow--knocked over by a gust of
Parliamentary uncertainty-- the mistaken tactics of a leader, or
negligence of a whipper-in. The past history of India is a history of
revenue wasted and domestic improvement obstructed by war.'
This is very much what I complain of. I admit the right of the East
India Company to complain of many things done by the Board of
Control; and I am of opinion, that if the House left the two bodies to
combat one another, they would at last come to an accurate perception
of what they both are. The East India Company accused the Board of
Control of making wars and squandering the revenue which the
Company collected. But Mr. Kaye said that Mr. Tucker deplored the
mystery and the mockery of a system which obscured responsibility
and deluded public opinion. It is because of this concealment, of this
delusion practised upon public opinion, of this evasion of public
responsibility and Parliamentary control, that you have a state of things
in India which the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles) has
described, when he says that the Company manages the revenues,