Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, vol 1 | Page 9

collects the taxes, and gets from 20,000,000l. to 30,000,000l. a-year,
and nobody knows how much more. But, whatever it is, such is the
system of foreign policy pursued by the Board of Control--that is to say,
by the gentlemen who drop down there for six or eight or twelve
months, never beyond two years--that, whatever revenues are collected,
they are squandered on unnecessary and ruinous wars, till the country is
brought to a state of embarrassment and threatened bankruptcy. That is
the real point which the House will have to consider.
With regard to some of the details of the Government plan, we should
no doubt all agree: but this question of divided responsibility, of
concealed responsibility, and of no responsibility whatever, that is the

real pith of the matter. The House should take care not to be diverted
from that question. [Mr. Mangles: 'Produce your own plan.'] An hon.
Gentleman has asked me to produce my plan. I will not comply with
that request, but will follow the example of a right hon. Gentleman, a
great authority in this House, who once said, when similarly challenged,
that he should produce his plan when he was called in. I believe that the
plan before the House to-night was concocted by the Board of Control
and the hon. Member for Guildford and his Colleagues I shall, therefore,
confine myself at present to the discussion of that plan. Some persons
are disposed very much (at least I am afraid so) to undervalue the
particular point which I am endeavouring to bring before the House;
and they seem to fancy that it does not much matter what shall be the
form of government in India, since the population of that country will
always be in a condition of great impoverishment and much suffering;
and that whatever is done must be done there, and that after all--after
having conquered 100,000,000 of people--it is not in our power to
interfere for the improvement of their condition. Mr. Kaye, in his book,
commences the first chapters with a very depreciating account of the
character of the Mogul Princes, with a view to show that the condition
of the people of India was at least as unfavourable under them as under
British rule. I will cite one or two cases from witnesses for whose
testimony the right hon. Gentleman (Sir C. Wood) must have respect.
Mr. Marshman is a gentleman who is well known as possessing a
considerable amount of information on Indian affairs, and has, I
presume, come over on purpose to give his evidence on the subject. He
was editor of a newspaper which was generally considered throughout
India to be the organ of the Government; in that newspaper, the Friend
of India, bearing the date 1st April, 1852, the following statement
appears:--
'No one has ever attempted to contradict the fact that the condition of
the Bengal peasantry is almost as wretched and degraded as it is
possible to conceive--living in the most miserable hovels, scarcely fit
for a dog-kennel, covered with tattered rags, and unable, in too many
instances, to procure more than a single meal a-day for himself and
family. The Bengal ryot knows nothing of the most ordinary comforts
of life. We speak without exaggeration when we affirm, that if the real

condition of those who raise the harvest, which yields between
3,000,000l. and 4,000,000l. a-year, was fully known, it would make the
ears of one who heard thereof tingle.'
It has been said that in the Bengal Presidency the natives are in a better
condition than in the other Presidencies; and I recollect that when I
served on the Cotton Committee the evidence taken before it being
confined to the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, it was then said that
if evidence had been taken about the Bengal Presidency it would have
appeared that the condition of the natives was better. But I believe that
it is very much the same in all the Presidencies. I must say that it is my
belief that if a country be found possessing a most fertile soil, and
capable of bearing every variety of production, and that,
notwithstanding, the people are in a state of extreme destitution and
suffering, the chances are that there is some fundamental error in the
government of that country. The people of India have been subjected
by us, and how to govern them in an efficient and beneficial manner is
one of the most important points for the consideration of the House.
From the Report of the Indian Cotton Committee it appears that nearly
every witness--and the witnesses were nearly all servants of the
Company--gave evidence as to the state of destitution in which the
cultivators of the soil lived. They were in such an abject condition that
they were obliged