rose to call the attention of the House to the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster presented to Parliament in pursuance of the Act 1 & 2 Vict. c. 101, and to move an Address for a Return of all Manors and Estates now belonging to the Crown in right of the Duchy of Lancaster; of all Sales, Grants, and Enfranchisements which have taken place since 1838; of the purchases and exchanges of Land which have been made since the same period, and the date and terms of all existing Leases of the Lands, Mines, and Rents of the said Duchy, The hon. Gentleman said, that his Motion was totally disconnected from that of any other hon. Member's with reference to the Duchy of Lancaster. His Motion referred to a subject in which he had taken a great interest for many years. So far back as the year 1854 he had moved for certain returns with reference to the question, when he was met by a right hon. Gentleman below him, with a declaration that the Motion referred so much to what concerned private rights and private property, that he might as well ask for returns with respect to the rental of any hon. Gentleman in that House. Indeed, having since thought a good deal over the subject, he had come to the conclusion that this was a doctrine put forward by the Government as it suited their convenience. When Parliament wanted anything of the Duchy, the property was always private; but when the Duchy wanted anything of Parliament, it was invariably public. It appeared, however, that Parliament had dealt with this property from time to time. He found, on looking into the history of the Duchy, that the first Duke of Lancaster, Henry IV., on his ascent to the throne, believing his position rather slippery, was obliged to come to Parliament to ask for a severance of these estates from the Crown lands. Henry V. followed the same course, and added to the Duchy the property of his mother, which was considerable. Things went on in that way up to the time of Edward IV., but he having no sympathy with the House of Lancaster, sequestered the estates, and added them to the revenue of the Crown. However, Henry VII. once more came to Parliament and severed the Duchy from the Crown. Singularly enough, Oliver Cromwell was the last who dealt with the revenues of the Duchy, for owing to the death of Charles I., the estates became national property. In his latter days, Oliver Cromwell, having an eye to making a promotion for some of his family, had once more severed the Duchy from the national property. Charles II. had not attempted to alter the settlement, and so things had remained down to the present day, with the distinction, that scarcely a reign passed in which the House of Commons had not limited the estates of the Duchy. He would show what Parliament had done with reference to the Duchy. And first let him call the attention of the House to a Bill that had been introduced by persons no less distinguished than Lord John Cavendish, Burke, and Fox, which might show the feeling of the then House of Commons and be a guide to the present House. This was a Bill—

"For uniting to the Crown the Duchy and County Palatine of Lancaster, for the suppression of unnecessary offices, now belonging thereto; for the ascertainment and security of tenant and other rights, and for the sale of all rents, lands, tenements, and hereditaments, and forests, within the said Duchy and County Palatine, or either of them, and for applying the produce thereof to the public service."

This took place in the reign of George III. and in an unreformed Parliament. He would quote one more authority. A distinguished orator of that House, who afterwards became Lord Chancellor, used these expressions in 1837:—

"It never surely can be contended that the revenues of the two Duchies are private property, or anything like private property. I should like to hear such a proposition advanced in this age. I should like to see the man endued with courage to maintain it. I should like to see the man, whether on the Ministerial or Opposition benches, gifted with the confidence which must he exhibited by him, who would affirm that Cornwall and Lancaster are private and personal property, and not public funds vested in the Sovereign, only as such; enjoyed as Sovereign, and in right of the Crown alone; held as public property for the benefit of the State, and as a parcel of the national possessions."—[3 Hansard, xxxix. 1356.]

These were the opinions of Lord Brougham, who, he rejoiced, had returned to this country in health and strength, and would, he hoped, advocate views similar to those that he had previously expressed. The next stage in the history of this property was the passing of an Act requiring the accounts of the Duchy to be laid on the table every year. This clearly showed that the House intended it to be regarded as public property, and that its affairs should be subjected, if necessary, to the criticism and interference of Parliament. It might appear a fruitless and even a quixotic undertaking for an humble private Member like himself to suggest reforms in such a venerable institution. Still, knowing what he did of the state of the property of the Duchy in different counties in England, of the forests of Needwood and Pickering, and the mines of Staffordshire, he thought that he was bound to state the facts, and to call on the officers of the Duchy to do their duty, not only to the State, but the Sovereign they represented. He approached the subject in no captious or fault-finding spirit. He had the advantage of the Duchy at heart; he desired to see its revenues better managed, and Her Majesty receiving more of them. He wished to expose a mediæval system, and to prune what he could only term a cumbrous Gothic establishment. The accounts on the table proved that the revenues of the Duchy scarcely more than nominally belonged to the Royal Lady who claimed them. The burden upon the estate was almost as great as the return derived from it, its income being nearly all eaten up by idle or useless functionaries. In a recent debate great stress was laid on the fact that the Sovereign was in the receipt of the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster; but if hon. Gentlemen believed that Her Majesty reaped the benefit of this property, they did her very great injustice, because, while this valuable estate, scattered over twenty counties of England, together with the woods of Pickering and Needwood, and the coal-fields of Stafford-shire, undoubtedly yielded a large revenue, that revenue, as far as Her Majesty was concerned, was chiefly a revenue on paper, and never entered the privy purse. No one was more truly beloved and esteemed in that House than the Chancellor of this Duchy; and if his office were abolished, he (Mr. Wise) should be glad to see the talents of its occupant employed in some position worthier of them, whether as a Minister of Justice, or as a Secretary of State. He therefore begged the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Baines) to understand that he entirely excluded him from the observations he was about to make. He would commence with the revenue and expenditure of the Duchy within the present reign. During the last nineteen years the total income had been £722,960, of which the privy purse had received but £251,000. Thus, the out-goings were £471,960; or, in other words, the average income was £38,000 per annum, of which the privy purse received but £13,000. Last year the accounts presented a somewhat more favourable appearance, because the revenues were £41,048, of which the privy purse derived £20,000; but the expenditure, even in 1856, was out of all proportion to what any ordinary proprietor would expect upon his own property. In fact, these accounts developed a system which, in 1780, Mr. Burke characterized as exhibiting "the apparatus of a kingdom for the management of a few private estates, and the formality and charge of the Exchequer of Great Britain for collecting the rents of a country squire." The establishment consisted of sixty persons, receiving salaries amounting to £8527 a year. There was the Chancellor of the Duchy, with a salary of £2,000 a year. That office had been in existence since the time of Henry IV., when the Palatinate was erected into a little kingdom; when the Chancellor had to hear appeals and had to perform very different functions from those devolving on him now. Indeed, in 1809, Mr. Perceval, who was First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, also held the office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and this showed that the duties of the latter office were not very onerous. Then there was a Vice Chancellor, with £600 a year. He was told that the Vice Chancellor discharged duties which were beneficial to the people of Lancashire; that he heard equity cases in the county, and so saved expense to the people of Lancashire. If that was so he should be sorry to abolish the office, but still he thought it was undesirable to keep up these separate and special jurisdictions in particular counties. Then there was the Receiver General, with a salary of £878 a year. As he (Mr. Wise) knew that he had little or nothing to do, as the rents and profits of the Duchy were all paid into the bank of Messrs. Coutts and Co., who acted practically as receiver general of the estate, he thought that office was quite unnecessary, it being, in fact, a nice little sinecure. Then there was an audi- tor, at £200 a year, and a clerk, registrar, and secretary, at a salary of £1,342 a year; but of him he made no complaint, as, in point of fact, he did all the work, and, probably, he was the officer who ought to be retained to discharge all the duty. Then there were four clerks in his office, with salaries amounting in the aggregate to £1,310 a year; a solicitor, with £300 a year; a surveyor, with £500, and who had numerous deputies under him. Then there were two Attorney Generals, one for the County Palatine and another for the Duchy of Lancaster. There were fifteen receivers and twenty-three stewards. He would not enter into all the "difficult trifles and laborious fooleries" connected with these various offices; but the other charges upon the estate were—donations, £1,613 a year; law charges, £335; surveying, £540; annuities, £903; and sundries—a most convenient item—£1,873. The law expenses of the Duchy in the last nineteen years had been £20,870. There were one acting and two retired Auditors, whose salaries were £200 and £400 a year respectively. It might be said that the nature of the property required this vast establishment, and no doubt it was to some extent true, inasmuch as property lay in several counties, in one of which the rent receivable was 6s. 8d., in another £1, in another £72, and in another £78, and so on; so that if surveyors and receivers travelled about to collect these important items, it must be a heavy charge. Constant applications were made from the clergy of the several counties for subscriptions to their churches, schools, and other charities; and in many instances the sum paid in donations exceeded the whole amount of the income. He now came to the woods of the Duchy. He resided not far from one, and was acquainted with its recesses; but he had not been able to dive into the mysterious recesses of the Duchy itself. Taking an average of fourteen years, the timber of the Forest of Need-wood (as we understood) had been sold for £11,893, the labour of cutting, &c., being £9,959. The balance left, after payment of the expenses, was therefore very small. The case of the Forest of Pickering, in Yorkshire, was very similar. The produce of the Pickering Forest, in Yorkshire, on an average of eleven years, was £7,511; the cost for labour being £4,814. He confessed, however, that when he looked into the general accounts of the nation he was not surprised at all this; for he found that in the department of Woods and Forests in 1856, the produce of the property was £77,118, while the expenses of the department amounted to £39,335. At Windsor the proportion was remarkable, for the produce was £5,744, while the cost was £18,459. Then there was attached to the Duchy of Lancaster a variety of strange and unnecessary offices—for instance, there was the dignified and important office of Axe-bearer, with a salary of £200 a year, which was generally discharged by a peer, and who had certain privileges in the Forest of Needwood with regard to the game. If the game was kept for the pleasure or enjoyment of the Royal Family he (Mr. Wise) should not say a word about the matter, but in fact it was kept up for the amusement of the neighbouring gentry, and the friends of the Axe-bearer. Last year the game cost £496, while the food and management during five years had cost £1,113, not including salaries. He was astonished at there being any charge for game at all. He (Mr. Wise) was something of an antiquarian, and he had read that the tenants of the Pickering estate entered into an agreement to find so many hawks a year for the use of the Crown. But it was a very different thing to tell tenants on a ninety-nine years' lease to find a certain quantity of game; and he had heard that the Needwood tenants, holding leases for ninety-nine years, were obliged to find so many head of game a year. This was a monstrous arrangement, and quite unworthy of the days in which we lived. If game was necessary for the Royal larder, why was there such a charge made for game, when these tenants of Needwood were bound to find game sufficient for the Royal larder. He now came to the next point. There were a great number of charges which he thought were unjustifiable reductions of Her Majesty's Privy Purse. It was notorious that out of the Civil List Her Majesty was obliged to subscribe many hundreds, if not thousands a year for what were called "Queen's Plates;" and, indeed, it should be recollected that when it was said that Parliament voted so much for the Civil List, that it was not for Her Majesty's own comfort or pleasure alone, for her privy purse was only £60,000 a year; and she did not receive a sum of £385,000 voted for the Civil List, most of which was taken to pay salaries, Masters of the Horse, Masters of the Buck-hounds, and so on. And here, again, there was a charge on the revenues of the Duchy of £105 a year for a Plate for the Lancaster races. The next item he should mention was a most absurd one. It was the travelling expenses of the Duchy Seal, £48. It would seem that the Seal came up from Lancaster to London, went and stayed at the Clarendon Hotel, and returned by a special train. He supposed that it was brought up whenever there was a new Chancellor. Another extraordinary charge was for new seals, £432. If he had John of Gaunt's seal he should prefer to use it, but on every accession to the throne there was a new one for the Duchy. Such an extravagant system as this was unjust to the Sovereign and injurious to the State. As it was said that Her Majesty possessed the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster he trusted that he had shown that she had no such thing; but that it was in this way that the revenues of the Duchy were eaten up. He saw no remedy for this state of things but to transfer the revenues of the Duchy to the Consolidated Fund, as had been done with the other hereditary revenues of the Crown, so that they might be collected without the incurring of the enormous expense, In the next place, he would suggest the enfranchisement of the copyholders on the estates of the Duchy. He knew a case in which the revenue of the Duchy derived from a copyhold manor was £50 a year; and he also knew that it could be commuted for a capital sum of £30,000 in less than six months after a notification to that effect from the Chancellor of the Duchy; for the copyholders of the manor were quite willing to pay 720 years' purchase, to be relieved from the tender mercies of the managers of the Duchy estates. He had now concluded this portion of his statement with regard to the Duchy. But he wished to ask a few questions of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, which he was about to put in the most friendly spirit. The first question was this: What was the reason that the income of the Duchy of Lancaster was stationary? There had been large sums sold out of the permanent stock and great improvements made on the estates, especially as regarded drainage. He wished to know why it was that while the royalty paid on the mines in 1844 was £1,141, and was now £5,688, the income of the Duchy was so stationary? How was it, then, that there was an increase in the royalty of the mines of £4,000 a year in 1856 as compared with 1844 and still no increase in the income of the Duchy? It might be one explanation of this that there had been bad bargains, and purchases, and exchanges of lands. He was acquainted with the circumstances of some of the recent exchanges, and he could only say he should have been sorry as a landowner to have made such purchases and exchanges; and he would further say that if there was any bad farming in Staffordshire it was on the Duchy estates. There was an estate which might have been advantageously exchanged for some of the Duchy estates, but it had been exchanged for land principally for sporting purposes; the chance of obtaining some good land for the Duchy was lost. There had been another purchase of land, which was a singular one—land which cost £11,308, having been recently added to the Duchy estates. It might have been added at the suggestion of those who lived in Needwood Forest; but he did not think that any one else would have given such a price for it. The next question he wished to put was with regard to the capital account. This was so mysteriously arranged that he could scarcely understand it. He could only refer to the authority of a Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1854, who said that the accounts of the Duchy were not kept on such a system as to afford in a full and intelligible manner such information as ought to be laid before Parliament. If an ex-Chancellor, therefore, found these accounts incomprehensible, how could a comparatively ignorant country gentleman like himself be expected to understand them? The next question he wished to ask was, what was done with the fines levied on renewals of leases and sales? The accounts in that point puzzled him as much as those of any railway company could. Since 1836 the amount of fines levied was £26,731, and the proceeds of sales amounted to £50,365. What had been done with those sums? Were they treated as capital, as they ought to be, in order to make the income of the Duchy as large as possible? The next question he had to put was with regard to the minerals? There had been a great increase in the production of minerals, of coals and ironstone; but there was no statement on that head in the accounts since 1837 and 1838. He could not understand why that omission had been made. Parliament had required the accounts of the Duchy to be laid before them annually, and for the first two years, the amount of the minerals raised, and the amount of the sales was given. Since then nothing of the kind had been stated. In 1837 the Duchy received one-ninth of the clear value of the coal raised and sold at the mines, after deducting the expense of getting the same. In 1838 a reduction to one-twelfth took place. Of course, this made a great difference in the revenue of the Duchy, and he was anxious to know, therefore, why since the years he had mentioned a full statement on this subject had not been published. The accounts were less satisfactory than they were, in this respect; and he hoped his right hon. Friend would give an explanation of the matter. There was only one other question to which he would refer; and that was, whether his right hon. Friend and the other officials of the Duchy had given their serious consideration to what he called the serious question of the demand for compensation for the destruction of their property by the Staffordshire potteries. The copyholders of North Staffordshire had purchased the surface of the land from the Crown, and a question had arisen whether copyholders purchasing the surface of the land were entitled to the foundation, as it was called. The lessees of the Duchy of Lancaster had undermined a town and district in Staffordshire, which contained a population of 30,000 persons. They undermined streets, houses, churches, chapels, to such an extent that; hon. Members who had been at Herculaneum and Pompeii, except for the beautiful climate and the character of the buildings, might fancy from the unroofed houses and the cracked walls and foundations, that they were looking at the places he had mentioned. One manufactory which cost £6,000 had been destroyed, a whole street had sunk into the earth; and a rick had disappeared in one night. A pigsty was sinking, and the sagacious animal which inhabited it saw what was coming, was very uneasy for two or three days, and finally made its escape the night before the building fell. Many of the people were made bankrupts and insolvents by the losses they sustained, and he was sorry to say that some of them became inmates of the workhouse. The copyholders naturally claimed compensation for the destruction of their property. They had purchased the surface of the land, and had built houses on it costing £300 or £400, as the case might be; then the lessees of the mines of the Duchy undermined the ground, and their houses were destroyed. The question was brought before the courts of law, and the Duchy of Lancaster spent £8,000 in the defending their lessees at law, instead of saying to them that the land was granted subject to their keeping up a foundation for the copyholders. He would say that such an arrangement should have been made with the lessees that, if they destroyed the foundation of the surface of the land, they should compensate the copyholders. It was rather hard, after the Duchy had sold the surface of the land, and lessees destroyed the foundation, that the Duchy should have to defend the lessees at law. It was most unjust. He said it was unjust, for four Judges, including the Chief Justice of England, had said it was unjust. The Judges decided that the copyholders had an unalterable right to a foundation for their buildings, but unfortunately they did not add that they were entitled to compensation if it was destroyed. Lord Chief Justice Denman said that the lessees had an immemorial right to carry on their mining operations; but the lessees in the present case were wrong both in law and in practice; because as the Crown had sold the surface of the land they could not deprive the copyholders of the foundation or jeopardize the lives of Her Majesty's subjects. The Duchy ought to say to the lessees, mine away and get as many minerals as possible, but if you destroy the foundation, you must compensate the copyholders. He had now, he thought, said enough on the subject, and bad given some reason for asking for the returns for which he moved. These returns, if granted, would throw some light upon the state of the Duchy property, would enable the accounts to be better understood, and the country would see that this property had been very badly managed. He did hope that the present discussion would tend to some extent, at all events, to the improvement of this property. The noble Lord at the head of the Government would, he trusted, dive into the mysteries of the Duchy, in which case he was sure the noble Lord would find an opportunity of effecting a reform which would be advantageous to the country, beneficial to the Duchy itself as well as to the Crown, and certainly creditable to the Minister who effected it. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving an Address for a return of all manors and estates now belonging to the Crown in right of the Duchy of Lancaster; of all sales, grants, and enfranchisements which have taken place since 1838; of the purchases and exchanges of land which have been made since the same period, and the date and term of all existing leases of the lands, mines, and rents of the said Duchy.

, in seconding the Motion, said he wished to obtain an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Baines) that the Duchy would no longer interfere for the protection of the lessees, but would let the copyholders fight it out with those persons. There was the large expenditure of £20,000 in law within a few years. The copyholders of North Staffordshire, who had been so seriously injured, found, when they took proceedings against the lessees, that the Duchy always came to the rescue with their long purse. Within the last few years some of the finest pasture land had been destroyed—he would not say designedly, but it would almost appear so, because such a reckless destruction need not have taken place if the ironstone had been carried a few yards further. There was a case in which a piece of valuable pasture land, surrounded by a quickset hedge, had been covered with ironstone without any notice, the lessee not even asking permission from the copyholder. Another person, the possessor of twenty-eight acres of land in Staffordshire, valued at from 2s. 6d. to 7s. 6d. a yard for building purposes, had his land spoiled and destroyed by a lessee under the Duchy, and he had received compensation at the rate of only £5 per acre. The copyholders of North Staffordshire might defend themselves in a court of law from the lessees; but they dared not encounter the purse of the Duchy, and besides, if they obtained a verdict they received no costs, and when Lord Denman gave judgment in their favour formerly, he was told that the Crown, by a technical manœuvre, totally nullified its effect. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would take the subject into his serious consideration, in order to put a stop to this reckless course of conduct, and he suggested that a Select Committee should be granted to inquire into the whole question.

said, that he must in the first place tender his acknowledgments to his hon. Friend the Member for Stafford for having given him notice of some of the points to which he had adverted that evening, because, as all the circumstances of which his hon. Friend had complained had taken place before he (Mr. Baines) had entered on his present office, it was impossible for him to bring any personal knowledge of his own to bear upon the subject. He had now, however, made careful inquiries into the matter, and he was sure that he should not appeal to the House in vain for a candid hearing while he replied to the imputations which had been cast upon the Duchy at the head of which he was officially placed. He agreed with his hon. Friend that the duty was imperative on him (Mr. Baines), as Chancellor of the Duchy, to do his best to render its property as available for the interests of Her Majesty, to whom it belonged, as possible. That duty he fully acknowledged, and, so far as he had the means, he certainly intended to perform it; but it must have been seen from the speech of his hon. Friend that any attempt of that kind, however earnest and however prompt, could only be attended with very gradual success; because there were many outstanding leases, granted long before he had had anything to do with the Duchy, a variety of stipends and charges upon land, numerous arrangements of one kind or another, grants of patent offices for life, and so on, which could not be disposed of at once, but could only be dealt with from time to time as opportunities arose. Whenever an opportunity should present itself, however, of making a better arrangement, either with regard to any of these patent offices, or to the management of the land by making improved contracts and leases, he should, so long as he had the honour of holding the situation which he then filled, most earnestly avail himself of it, and should always keep that matter earnestly and diligently in view. He would now call the attention of the House to the precise position of the Duchy of Lancaster at the present moment. It was well known that the Duchy of Lancaster originated as long ago as the reign of Edward III. It became a possession of the Crown in the reign of Henry IV., and from that time to the present the government of the Duchy had been distinct from the other possessions of the Crown, and had consisted of the Chancellor and the Council. When the Civil List was settled at the accession of Her present Majesty, the arrangement was made that all the other hereditary revenues of the Crown should be given up to be dealt with by Parliament, but that the two Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall should not be given up. They remained distinct and separate, as they were before, and that was the footing upon which they stood on the Civil List Act of Her present Majesty. That being so, Parliament very properly—in order that the House might have the means of auditing the accounts of the Duchy of Lancaster—passed an Act, the 1& 2 Vict. c. 101, which provided that every year accounts of the expenditure and revenue of the Duchy should be made out in such a form as the Treasury should from time to time require, and that they should be submitted to Parliament; and here he would state with regard to the returns asked for by his hon. Friend, as he understood that they were required in order to throw light upon the accounts, that he should not interpose any obstacle to the presentation of those returns. Now, he thought that the House would agree with him, when they should have heard his statement, that, whatever room there might still be for amendment—and he was far from denying that there was great room—very substantial improvements had taken place in the management of the Duchy of Lancaster since the passing of the Act of the 1& 2 Vict., and he should briefly enumerate some of those improvements. His hon. Friend the Member for Stafford had alluded to the system which at one time existed, to a great extent, of having local receivers all over the country. He (Mr. Baines) was happy to inform the House that there was only one of those local receivers left. All the rest had been got rid of in one way or another, and by the new arrangement, making the Receiver General answerable for the whole amount received, a saving of no less than £1,200 a year had been effected under that head alone. The one local receiver who remained held a patent office, and could not be removed from it; but whenever a vacancy should occur, it was not likely: that it would be filled up again. His hon. Friend had also adverted to the salaries paid to the officers of the Duchy, and he admitted that that was a topic deserving serious consideration; but since the passing of the Act to which he had alluded, a material alteration had taken place in that respect. Previously, the Chancellor, and he believed all the officers of the Duchy, had been paid a certain sum in the shape of salary plus another sum made up from fees and emoluments, but that was now altered, and fixed salaries were paid instead. Under the new system, the Chancellor received £2,000 a year, instead of £3,400 or £3,500, which his income had averaged before, and the salaries of the other officers had been reduced in about the same proportion. Thus, not only had a great saving in salaries been effected, but the farther advantage had been gained of getting rid of the fees upon instruments and documents of various descriptions. In another point a great improvement was effected. In 1847, Lord Chief Justice Campbell, who at that time held the office which he (Mr. Baines) had now the honour to hold, determined to make an alteration in the constitution of the Council. This Council was part of the system of government of the Duchy in the time of Edward III., but it was thought advisable to infuse into the Council some new blood, and to obtain the assistance of gentlemen qualified to advise with respect to the sale and letting of lands particularly, and generally with respect to the management of a large territorial domain like the Duchy of Lancaster; and, accordingly, several new Councillors were added at that time. When he stated the names of those whose assistance he had now the honour of having as Councillors, he thought the House would admit that it was impossible to imagine any set of gentlemen better qualified to give advice with respect to the management of such property. The present Councillors were the Duke of Newcastle, Earl Spencer, the Earl of Hardwicke, Lord Portman, Lord Belper, the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle, and Colonel Phipps. It was impossible to name persons entitled to more respect, and he was happy to say that he had the opportunity of referring to this Council for advice with respect to any matter of importance connected with the management of the domain, and had during the short time he had held the office of Chancellor received most valuable assistance from them. From the time of this alteration there had been introduced very great improvements into the government of the Duchy of Lancaster. Very soon after the appointment of new Councillors by Lord Campbell, a recommendation was made by the Council which involved another improvement of an important kind. They recommended that fines on grants and renewals of leases of land should be abolished as speedily as possible, and since then every effort had been made to carry out the principle. He had already said that any attempt to carry out these improvements could only he prosecuted gradually, but the object was kept steadily in view. A point adverted to by the hon. Member for Stafford, and on which too much stress could not be laid, in reference to the expense attaching to the management of the property of the Duchy, was the very scattered and dispersed character of the possessions of the Duchy. The hon. Member had stated that in some counties the amount of the property was very small, and yet it was necessary to have some person to look after it. When property was scattered in that way a great amount of expense was necessarily involved, and, in consequence, about two years ago an Act of Parliament was passed which made a great alteration in this respect, as it empowered the Chancellor and Council to dispose of outlying properties, and to purchase other properties contiguous to the property already possessed. The object was to consolidate, as it were, the possessions of the Duchy, and this had already been carried out to a considerable extent, and would be hereafter carried much further. He had understood the hon. Member for Stafford to say that the Queen derived hardly any benefit from the Duchy of Lancaster, and that the payments into the Privy Purse were very trifling, and that no increase had taken place in them. He had got a return of the payments into the Privy Purse for the last nineteen years, since the time when a new system of account was introduced, and he would state the result. The House would then be able to judge whether the result of these alterations had been so insignificant as his hon. Friend had mentioned, and also whether strong hopes might not be entertained that by means of the improvements he had already adverted to much greater progress would hereafter be made in the same course. He was happy to say that in the last and preceding years the return had augmented, and there was a prospect of a considerable further increase in the present year. The yearly average of the sums paid into the Privy Purse from the Receiver of the Duchy of Lancaster free of all deductions for the last nineteen years was £13,210. In 1851 the sum paid was £12,000; in 1852, £15,000; in 1853, £15,500; in 1854, £18,000; in 1855, £20,000; and in 1856, £20,000. In the present year he could not say how much more would be paid into the Privy Purse, but there was a prospect of the sum being much greater than in the last few years, and of the increase being progressive in future years, as it did not arise from accidental circumstances. Therefore, it was wrong to say that the amount paid to the Privy Purse was trifling. Of course allowance must be made for a certain time for existing encumbrances, old leases, patent offices held for life, contracts and engagements already entered into, and which could not be got rid of all at once; but he had every reason to believe that the resources of this great property would develope themselves more and more, and return to Her Majesty a greater and greater revenue. The hon. Member for Stafford had thrown out one or two suggestions which he should not lose sight of, and he promised that if any gentleman would favour him with suggestions for the real improvement of the property, those suggestions would receive from him the most respectful and earnest consideration. He admitted that the present discussion was useful in having brought forth certain suggestions which might be found capable of being carried out. He had already answered many of the questions which the hon. Member for Stafford did him the favour previously to communicate to him, but there were one or two more to which it was necessary that he should advert. With respect to the statement that the income derived by Her Majesty from the Duchy was stationary, he had, he believed, given a satisfactory answer. The hon. Member had also called attention to a purchase of land for the sum of £11,000, from a lady of the name of Anson, and observed that the people in the neighbourhood did not know why that purchase was made. The purchase was made some years ago, but he had inquired into the circumstances, and he found that the rents of the property yielded a larger sum than the money would have yielded if still invested in the funds. With regard to the accounts, the managers of the Duchy property were bound by statute to lay them before Parliament in such form as the Treasury should require, and he never heard before that they did not give full information. There was, however, every readiness to give the fullest information, and he was sure that the Treasury would attend to any suggestions made on that point. He could give no more specific answer with respect to this matter, because the hon. Member did not point out in what respect the accounts were unintelligible. A case of damage much to be regretted, done to the copyholders of the manors of Hanley and Shelton, in consequence of mining operations, had been referred to. That injury had been sustained by them no one could doubt, but the question was, whether the Duchy, in what had been done in this matter, which took place a number of years ago, was blameable. As far as he was informed, it was not blameable. An action had been brought some time back, in the case of "Hilton and Granville," by a copyholder of one of those manors, against the lessee of the mines, for damage done to his property. That case had occupied the attention of the Court for a considerable period, and there was a great deal of conflicting evidence adduced. In that case, the Court were of opinion that a legal custom was not sufficiently established of the right of the lessees of mines to excavate at risk to the property of other persons, and ultimately the case had been brought before the Court in Error, and the case had not yet been decided. He believed himself that the general custom had been, that the copyholders held their land subject to the right of the lessee of the mines to excavate, and that if they erected buildings on ground which it was intended to excavate, they did so at their own risk. It appeared to him that, although no doubt individuals might suffer from such a custom, yet it would be difficult, in a district the working population of which was supported almost entirely by mining operations, to introduce a different system. It was found upon the trial to which he had referred, that the copyholders were served with notices by the lessees of the minerals, to the effect that they had a right to get the minerals, and cautioning them against erecting any building that might be endangered by the excavations. Some copyholders took no heed of these notices, and erected buildings at their own risk. It appeared also from other sources, that when it was evident that land would be excavated, the surface was bought at a reduced price in consequence of that liability. With regard to the litigation that had taken place, the jury had found that such a custom as that to which he had referred, and which threw the risk from mining on the copyholder, did in point of fact exist, and although it was true that the Court of Queen's Bench, under the presidency of Lord Denman, had held that such a custom was bad in law, this was directly opposed to the opinion of Lord Cottenham, and the question had since then gone into a Court of Error, out of which it had never emerged, and the question still remained undecided. But, in 1846, Lord Granville Somerset, the then Chancellor of the Duchy, had expressly stated that he was willing to listen to any proposition for an equitable arrangement not involving an absolute abandonment of the rights of the Duchy. That offer had been repeated more than once by his successors, and to it he (Mr. Baines) was willing to adhere. It was said that the officers of the Duchy had encouraged the lessee in his litigation against the copyholder; but the fact was, that they were under covenants to indemnify him in working the mine; and they therefore thought they were bound to do their best to show that no liability had accrued. He thought he had now shown, with respect to the management of the estates, that there was ample reason to believe that an important progress had been made in the management of these estates, and that further progress might be expected. He had only further to say, that he had no objection to the returns moved for by the hon. Gentleman, for he was anxious that the fullest information should be given as to the management of the estates of the Duchy of Lancaster.

never heard a less satisfactory answer than that which the right hon. Gentleman had given to the speech of his hon. Friend, particularly so far as that portion of it went which referred to that which he considered a case of great oppression, He had spoken of the injury done by the falling in of the surface in Staffordshire as if it was a matter which had occurred some time ago. But at this moment the houses in Hanley and Sherrington were constantly falling in. The lives of the inhabitants were in constant danger, and yet they could get no redress from the Duchy. He had himself been for seventeen years connected with this mining district, and had frequently applied for redress of the grievances which had been inflicted, and he thought that the answer of the right hon. Gentleman that evening would give the House a specimen of the kind of redress which he had to expect. He had been sent from the Duchy to the lessees, then back again from the lessees to the Duchy. Then he was told to apply to the Courts, and the right hon. Gentleman had indeed drawn a pleasant picture of the state of those who went into those courts. It was too bad that it should be gravely proposed that people who had been ruined by the Duchy should then be compelled to fight against the purse of the Duchy. And all this injury was inflicted upon the inhabitants of Staffordshire for the annual sum of £2,700, for that was the whole rent which the Duchy derived from the ironstone, the getting of which occasioned the mischief. He really would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, as a Minister of the Crown, administering Crown property he was justified, for the purpose of obtaining a small rent for mines and minerals, in creating all this mischief amongst a population who were the loyal subjects of Her Majesty.

said, that, as a tenant of Her Majesty, he hoped he might be permitted to say a few words. There were few properties in the county of Stafford or elsewhere which were in a worse position than that of Her Majesty as Duchess of Lancaster. He believed that, if the property were sold and the produce invested, the income would be quintupled. He found by the Returns that there was a balance of £80,000 in the hands of the Receiver General. What was the necessity for such a balance? He should observe that Her Majesty reserved the privilege of killing the game on the estate. For his own part, he should say that he would be very glad to see any member of the Royal Family visiting the estate for the purpose of sporting, and he was sure that the gentry of the neighbourhood so honoured would do all in their power to make the sport as agreeable as possible. However, such an honour had never been conferred on the estate within his memory. But let not hon. Members think that those Royal game rights did not give rise to any inconvenience to the tenants. Although the Royal Family did not sport over the estate, Her Majesty required a supply of game, and the Queen's Master of the game had demanded of him, as one of the tenants, an annual supply of four pheasants, eighty partridges, and eighteen hares, for the Royal kitchen. Now, nothing could afford him greater pleasure than to in any way contribute to Her Majesty's comforts, and he should, therefore, have been most happy to send in his quota to the Royal kitchen; but, unfortunately, he lived in a neighbourhood where night poaching was carried on, and he could not comply with the demand of the master of the game. However, on representing these facts to his noble Friend, the officer in question, the latter, after some discussion on the subject, consented that a purveyor should supply the game, and that the bill should be sent to him (Mr. Bass) every Christmas. Accordingly the game was so supplied, and the bill was sent to him every year. He, of course, paid it, with he need not say how much pleasure and satisfaction. The state of things, however, to which he referred might, he thought, more properly have existed in the reign of Henry IV. than at the present day.

said, that when he presented the petition of the Protestant missionaries on the state of the lower provinces of Bengal the House had exacted from him a pledge to found a Motion on that petition. He was now about to redeem that promise. He was well convinced that in very many respects our government in India, taken as a whole, had been productive of much good to that country; but he claimed the attention of the House while he endeavoured to set before them, as briefly and as faithfully as he could, the present condition of the Lower provinces of Bengal, as a signal exception to that fact, if they were to believe the testimony of residents in that country. He did this, because undoubtedly on that House rested the responsibility of securing for the people of India the best attainable government. He disclaimed all feelings of hostility to the Government or to the East India Company, of which the proof was that he had supported them generally with reference to India when the last charter was passed; but he was now painfully convinced that hitherto they had failed to secure to the Natives of the Lower Provinces of Bengal those blessings for which Governments exist. It was his desire to impress upon the House the tremendous magnitude of the claims of their Indian empire—an empire he might almost say the greatest that had ever been committed to the care of a civilized country. The age in which they lived was an age of wonders, but certainly not one of the least was the almost utter indifference that had hitherto been manifested in that House to those claims, and to the interests of this mighty empire—committed to them, as was once so well said by the late President of the Board of Control, not for the selfish purpose of their own aggrandisement, but that they might raise it to the participation of the same privileges which they themselves nationally enjoyed. He felt that they had neglected their duty to India, and that they ought to repair that neglect, and at least to give some earnest and constant attention to its claims for the future. When the interests of 30,000 of the gallant soldiers in the Crimea were thought to be neglected, how wide-spread was the sympathy! When the 7,000,000 of Ireland were afflicted by a sore famine, how generous the response to the cries of distress! But these numbers sank into absolute insignificance in comparison with the numbers on whose behalf he felt it his duty to plead that night. In India 150,000,000 or 160,000,000 of human beings, a sixth of the population of the world, were under the sway of the British Crown,—a population greater in number than the combined populations of European Russia, of Austria, of France, and of Great Britain, and six times greater than the population of all the other British colonies taken together. But he intended to confine his observations to the state of the Lower Provinces of Bengal, the country referred to in the petition, which of themselves formed an area of nearly 290,000 square miles, and contained a population of from 40,000,000 to 45,000,000. These provinces had been for nearly a century, more or less, under the dominion of England, and, having been their first possession, there had been committed, he apprehended, their greatest mistakes in government, and mistakes of such a nature that it was exceedingly difficult to rectify them. It was only since the renewal of the East India Company's charter in 1853 that Bengal had even had a separate Governor. Again, the system of landed tenure established by Lord Cornwallis in 1792 had been a source of boundless misery. Good in theory, and if honestly carried out, all those provisions in it calculated to protect the poor had been practically lost sight of. It was known by the name of the Perpetual Settlement and the Zemindaree System, It was founded with the most benevolent intentions, praised by Pitt and Dundas at home, and approved by Lord Wellesley (Lord Cornwallis's successor) in India; while the Court of Directors congratulated themselves on having at length done their duty by the establishment of institutions so admirably adapted to promote the welfare of the people of Bengal. Consequently, he imputed blame to no one with regard to its adoption; all he said was that, as it had been carried out, its results had been most disastrous. If they compared the state of the Lower Provinces with the North-west Provinces, which had more recently come under their sway, they would see in the latter the beneficial results of good government, and in the former the evils of grinding oppression. In eight years that talented nobleman Lord Dalhousie, whose state of health they all deplored, in the Punjab, which came into their possession in 1848, devised and created a system of government said to be free from all the defects developed in the older provinces, and, with due allowance for the weakness of the Native character, a perfect model of excellence, and that district was now prosperous. But in Bengal their institutions were pronounced a failure, and some who knew the country felt that they were on the eve of a crisis; for not only were things bad, but in very important respects they were growing worse. Let the House just consider that the Europeans, who were the governing class in India, were but a handful compared with the Natives, less than 100,000 against 150,000,000, and they would at once perceive that their power rested on prestige. Destroy that prestige by any violent shock, and their power was gone. The Hindoos wore no doubt a patient people, but there was a limit to human endurance, and if they overpassed that limit who could predict the consequence? The petition of the missionaries which he had had the honour to present to that House at the close of the last Session had had its origin in their personal knowledge of the miseries of the people. They had first addressed themselves to the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal (Mr. Halliday) and the Governor General in Council; but the petition which they presented for inquiry into the social condition of the people of Bengal was dismissed with the usual official assurances that inquiry was useless; that the evils, though great, were exaggerated; and that remedies would be applied which inquiry would only delay: though the Lieutenant Governor and even Mr. Grant himself, in their answers, practically admitted the truth of nearly all their representations. He felt persuaded, judging from his former policy, that had Lord Dalhousie been Governor General, he would have granted the inquiry. As it was, having failed to obtain a satisfactory reply from those quarters, they had had no resource but to address themselves to the Parliament of England, with the hope that they would listen to the cry of distress, which, whether they heeded it or not, was rising from the millions of Bengal. That they were justified—nay, much more than justified—in the course they had taken he unhesitatingly maintained, and that their testimony was of the greatest value and deserving the highest credit he conscientiously believed. His right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Control would tell him, no doubt, that the missionaries ought to confine themselves to their own sacred calling and not interfere with the grievances of the people. But he (Mr. Kinnaird) begged to take issue with his right hon. Friend on that point. Of no one party, but connected with various Christian denominations, conversant with the every-day lives of the people, unconnected with the Government and the civil service, gentlemen of British birth and liberal education, with English ideas of justice, what one body in India was there so well calculated as they to take a just view of the social condition of the people? They were, in fact, the only body in India who had no class interests to serve. These were not days when men could discredit the testimony of missionaries. They were too well known and appreciated. The name of Livingstone alone would forbid it. And Dr. Duff and Mr. Mullens, who signed the petition, were themselves members of the University Council. He was the more induced to bring this question under the notice of the House because on the renewal of the charter in 1853 the Parliamentary inquiry had terminated before this question of the social condition of the people had been mooted. This House would agree with him that a Government that did its duty should at least secure to the subjects of that Government these four things:—1, the administration of justice; 2, security to life and property; 3, protection to all classes, poor as well as rich; 4, and lastly, exemption from excessive taxation. It became, therefore, his duty, in submitting these Resolutions to the House, to give them such information as was within his power on these several points; and if he succeeded in showing that on all our administration had been radically and grievously defective, he must believe that they would take some effectual steps to secure for these their fellow-subjects those rights to which they were as much entitled as themselves. He claimed the indulgence of the House while he read some extracts giving an account of the present social condition of Bengal, written by men who knew the country and whose statements might be relied on. He wished to say at the outset that it was his aim rather to understate than to overstate the case, which, in truth, needed no colouring of his to make the picture more gloomy. It was gloomy enough of itself. He should have dwelt at some length on the system of landed tenure, but there was hardly any one present who was not acquainted with the zemindary system. Although that system was founded with the most benevolent intentions, and there were provisions for the protection of the poor in their rights, he was sorry to say that those provisions had been entirely neglected. As an example, if a Zemindar, on account of the loss of his crops, obtained a remission of the tax, he still exacted the tax from the ryot, or held it over till the next year as a debt to himself, thus rendering the ryot thenceforth practically a slave. The simple fact was that Lord Cornwallis provided a series of measures to protect the cultivator, but those measures had been utterly disregarded. The cultivator experienced no benefit from one of them. He could get no lease, no receipts, no protection from arbitrary extortion. A regulation was passed in 1797 under which nearly every Zemindar had his own bludgeon men, his own courts, his own prisons, aye, it was universally believed, his own modes of torture, to extract money from the ryots. This law and the regulation No. 5 of 1812 together constituted the most severe laws of distraint in the world. It was stated that—

"Bengal had been neglected in a most extraordinary manner. The condition of the people had not been made a matter of parliamentary in- quiry. The real state of the case is known only to a few civil servants, who all these years have done nothing. In fact, in Bengal there is an amount of suffering and debasement which probably you would not find exceeded in the slave states of America."

In answer to a question put as to whether the Lower provinces were deteriorating, the answer was that they were not, inasmuch as the produce and exports had so wonderfully increased; but yet, with all the elements of prosperity developed, the ryot alone languished, and his condition had deteriorated, and was deteriorating. Then it was stated that the laws were oppressively severe, enabling the Zemindar or landlord at any time to sell up and ruin his unfortunate tenant; while by the arts of bribery and intrigue the Zemindars acquired an influence in the Courts of Justice which practically precluded all hope of redress for the unhappy ryots. For a few shillings any number of false witnesses could easily be procured, and the police always took the strongest side. The Zemindars were also in the habit of treating their ryots not as their tenants, but their servants; they set themselves up as petty kings, and exacted tribute from the poor cultivator every time a birth, marriage, or death occurred in the family. Not only did the Zemindary system grind the ryots to the dust, but it operated as one of the most powerful obstacles to the spread of Christianity in India. He was not surprised that before Lord Dalhousie left India a memorial was presented to him, in which he found these words—

"The conviction we have that your Lordship will always endeavour to promote the welfare of India encourages us to give expression to our wishes that your attention will be directed to the lamentable condition of the peasantry of Bengal, the causes of it, and the best means of alleviating it. We take the liberty of addressing you on the subject because we know that the present working of the Zemindary system is one of the most powerful obstacles not only to the spread of Christianity but also that it is a growing evil."

Another petition said—

"Your petitioners view with alarm as well as sorrow the continuance of the evils which they have so long deplored, and the effects of which are seen in the sufferings of the people. They believe that measures of relief can with safety be delayed no longer, as they believe that a bitter feeling of hatred is engendered in the minds of the population."

He believed that that point was disputed, which was only a reason for inquiry. Then there was another evil of great magnitude—he meant the frequent removal from place to place, and from one office to another, of the servants of the Company, rendering it impossible that they could acquire either a knowledge of their duties or an acquaintance with their districts. The average duration of a magistrate's term of office in the Deccan for a series of years past was not more than ten months. It was stated that thousands of square miles are inhabited by millions of people who enjoyed neither justice nor protection. The magistrate's court was often sixty miles distant from certain districts; and so wide was one man's jurisdiction that a judge had had to go 140 miles to try a case of murder. It occasionally happened that a Native population of 2,000,000 were governed by two solitary Europeans; and this, too, it must be remembered, in a country without roads. It was further stated that no man in his senses resorted to a court of law in Bengal. [Mr. Vernon SMITH asked the hon. Member (Mr. Kinnaird) his authority for those statements.] He was glad that his right hon. Friend had put this question to him; for it gave him an opportunity of stating that Mr. Halliday's Minute corroborated the statements which he (Mr. Kinnaird) had been making. And here he should observe, that though that document had been moved for, it had never been laid on the table of the House. However, it had been at the India House for a month, and there was, he believed, a copy of it in the hands of his right hon. Friend. Mr. Halliday, to whom the missionary Report was first addressed, was a great authority on India. He had been brought over to this country and examined before the Committee of 1852. And what did that gentleman say in his Minute? Why, that for a long series of years complaints had been handed from administration to administration with regard to the Mofussil police in Bengal, and that yet very little had been done to remedy that which was complained of. Again, Mr. Halliday gave it as his opinion that beyond all doubt they would fail to establish a good system of government unless they had such a vigorous and effective administration of justice as would give the weak ready access to the law, in order to insure them protection against the oppression of the strong. Throughout the length and breadth of the country, Mr. Halliday stated, that the strong preyed almost universally upon the weak. Of the vast importance of the rural police, he added, and the necessity of improving their character and position, there was only one opinion; but it was an unquestionable fact that the rural police had deteriorated in character and position in the lower provinces during the last twenty years. But this was not all. The great difficulty, with regard to the police was, that they were inadequately paid, and kept in a permanent state of starvation. That was what he said about the village police, the foundation of all possible police in the country, and upon the renovation, improvement, and stability of which depended the ultimate success of all our measures for the benefit of Bengal and the prevention, detection, and punishment of crime. The late Mr. Bethune, a Member of Council, came to the conclusion that the Bengal police were worse than the rest of the population; and it appeared that convictions for heinous crimes committed by the police were, in proportion to their numbers, greater by one quarter than the convictions of the rest of the population for all offences of every kind. Whilst the average of crime among the general population was stated to amount to 981 yearly, that amongst the whole number of police amounted to 1,130 cases, some of them of the most violent kind, as murder, thuggee, and robbery. Then what was his evidence as to the inexperience and inefficiency of the magistrates? "Even if the tribunals were all they could wish," observed Mr. Halliday, "and the police fully reformed, what would it avail so long as the superintending magistrates were for the most part inexperienced, and, therefore, unqualified young men?" The average standing of the magistrates of the twenty-five districts which had separate magistrates, was, in 1850, nine years and eight months. The average in 1856 was only six years and ten months. In 1850 there were only two magistrates below a seven years' standing; whereas in 1856, there were fifteen. The youngest in 1850 was of five years' standing; whilst the youngest in 1856 was under three years. On the whole, the magistracy was losing character and credit, and our administration growing perceptibly weaker; yet Mr. Halliday grieved to be obliged to affirm that the evil would infallibly increase within the next three years, unless an early remedy were applied. It was necessary, therefore, that the magistracy should be increased, for without it he doubted if any measures would be successful. Now Mr. Halliday admitted quite as much as he (Mr. Kinnaird) wished, and quite enough, he was satisfied, to justify inquiry. The Governor General, in his reply to the missionaries, very truly said that he could not adduce in support of his opinions on the subject experience derived from personal intercourse with the Natives. Having been but a short time in India he naturally turned to the Members of Council, and amongst them to Mr. Dorin, who seemed to take a very different view indeed of the state of affairs, and that a very original view. Mr. Dorin said that there could be little question as to the unsatisfactory condition of the rural population of Bengal proper; but he doubted if it arose from circumstances over which the Government had control, and attributed it in a great degree to the physical structure of the people and the nature of the climate, and complained of the Bengalee because he did not resist violent oppression. It would, therefore, seem that that gentleman's opinion was that Bengal could only hope for an improvement in the administration of her affairs from the peaceably disposed part of the population imitating the violent conduct of the robbers and murderers who were the curse of the country. Really the climate seemed to have had a remarkable effect upon Mr. Dorin. On his own showing he ought to approve of Dacoitee, for the Dacoits were the only Bengalese who possessed any energy of character, or had any idea of standing up for their rights. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Vernon Smith) might, in opposing this Motion, rely a good deal on the evidence of Mr. Grant; but that Gentleman knew very little of the interior of Bengal, whereas he (Mr. Kinnaird) had mentioned positive facts—facts which had been testified to by the missionaries who had not gone to Calcutta for the purpose of making fortunes, but with the single object of devoting their lives to benefit the souls of their fellowmen. If, however, there was nothing more than Mr. Halliday's Minute to rest his case upon, he could not conceive that his right hon. Friend would refuse his assent to the Resolutions he (Mr. Kinnaird) now proposed for the adoption of the House. He thought the House must be convinced from the statements he had brought before them that the whole subject demanded a thorough investigation, not an investigation that was to stop any measure now in progress for the amelioration of these evils; not an investigation which was to array class against class and promote discord, but a calm, patient investigation such as English gentlemen were capable of making, and the result of which ought to be submitted to that House. If he was asked what object would be attained by inquiry into facts which were admitted to a great extent, to say the least, by the authorities in Bengal, he would say there were three objects. First, it would put all men, who cared to know, in possession of the facts which some men only now knew. He should like to know whether the Governor General himself was acquainted with the facts, and he doubted very much if he was; whether this House without inquiry could know of the facts; and whether the Court of Directors here knew anything about them, and this he was inclined to doubt also; for he remembered that when in the last Parliament the hon. Member for Poole stated in his place in this House that torture was practised in India, the two hon. Members who represented the Court of Directors in this House steadily denied the charge. If those hon. Gentlemen were unaware of the facts in that case it afforded strong presumption that they were equally ignorant of the facts in the present case also; and hence there was the greater necessity for inquiry. Secondly, it would put the stamp of the Government authority on the authenticity of the facts, so that it would be impossible to have official denials of those facts from interested parties either in India or at home. Thirdly, and lastly, the knowledge of the publicity given to the existence of the evils must, in the nature of things, quicken the activity both of the Legislative Council of India and of the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal to devise and to push forward measures of fundamental reform; so that they should have no more such answers as Mr. Dorin's to the petitions of missionaries; and, on the other hand, they would cease to have obstructions put in the way of such measures as the one lately introduced into the Legislative Council by Mr. Grant respecting the sale of land for arrears, as he understood from a letter he received from Calcutta only last week was now the case. And, to refer to another most important subject, they would perhaps cease to hear of such a fact as this, that when the Indian authorities were themselves desirous of putting down the cruel swinging festivals in Bengal, as had been done in Madras and Bombay, they had been prevented doing so by a despatch from the Court of Directors at home. Nothing, he thought, could give a better illustration of the importance of such a public and special inquiry than what had just occurred with reference to the pauper lunatics in Scotland. A few weeks ago, who would have credited the statement of the hon. Member for St. Andrews with regard to the condition of lunatics in Scotland? In fact, when Lord Rutherfurd proposed a remedy, it was rejected, because nobody would believe in the existence of the evils complained of; but after the inquiry which the energy of the Home-office had instituted, no hesitation was any longer felt in applying that remedy. He said that that House was responsible in the matter, and they had a right to know whose statement was correct—the missionaries who said that there was widespread disaffection as the consequence of misrule, or the Government authorities, who deny the statement. There was a higher power than all the authorities in India and than the Court of Directors at home, and that was, the Ministers of the Crown, and those Ministers were responsible Ministers; and if we would hold up our heads among the nations as the defenders of right and justice, we must see that our own rule in India is just and pure. What availed their representations to Turkey, their indignation at the corrupt officials there for not carrying out the more enlightened views of the Sultan, if they allowed the Native officials in India to take bribes, to oppress, to defraud, and, for the sake of a miserable economy, gave such a small staff of efficient magistrates that they could not, if they would, control their subordinates? Let them wipe their own hands of guilt. He said, "miserable economy." And why did he say so? Why, but because he believed that one great cause of misgovernment in India was, that for a long time it had been governed, not so much for the good of the people as for the selfish purpose of enriching themselves; and, even now, what did the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal say, on the point of expense? He said these three things:—

"1. If ten more lacs of rupees (£100,000) were annually spent on the magistracy and police of Bengal, the police charges would still be only a little more than those of the North-west provinces.

"2. That the diminution of expenditure at present, in consequence of the diminished numbers of junior civil servants, as compared with 1850, was more than a lac and a half of rupees (£15,000).

"3. He, last year, submitted to the Govern- ment of India, an earnest recommendation for an increase to the salaries of Darogahs, &c., by a system of gradation; and, unless financial difficulties interposed, he could not doubt that this measure must ultimately be honoured by the approval of the Governor General in Council. But, if this were not granted, all thought for the improvement of the police would, he feared, be but thought thrown away."

He felt confident that his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Control desired to do justice to the people of India, and he could not doubt that the noble Lord at the head of the Government would be more than willing to promote the welfare of all the subjects of the British Crown, whether black or white; and what could he wish better for him, than that he who had been the tried friend of the African black, the supporter all over the world of liberty and humanity against oppression and misrule, who had stopped diplomatic intercourse with a European ruler, because he used his authority to oppress his subjects, should be known also as the maintainer of the rights of the millions of Hindostan? If his right hon. Friend answered in reply to what he had said, that measures of reform were in progress, then he claimed his support for his second Resolution. And if any one demurred to the truth of his statements, he could only see in this a fresh reason for inquiry, as both could not be right. If he was right, then he had asked the very least that could be asked. He had purposely abstained from asking for a Royal Commission to be sent out from England lest it should weaken the hands of the Indian authorities in the eyes of the Natives, who did not understand constitutional government; but he could not believe that any evils that could result from an inquiry instituted by the Indian Government, for the sake of giving them the information they required, would at all counterbalance the advantages that would result from it. During the siege of Sebastopol, who were right in their statements of wants and grievances—the public or the private authorities? He considered that the present Government of India was on its trial. Four years had passed away since it had assumed its present form, and nothing to alleviate these evils had been done for Bengal, whatever had been talked about. The North-west provinces might be enjoying a good system of government. The Punjab, thanks to that distinguished nobleman who had so ably presided for many years over the Government of India, might be under a still more perfect system; but what was this to the 35,000,000 of Bengal? It was for them he pleaded. He wished to do full justice to the Government of India. They had undoubtedly wrought many important and beneficial changes, and no man was more ready to recognize them than himself. They had abolished the government connection with idolatry. They had put an end to sutteeism, infanticide, thuggism, and human sacrifices. They had also instituted, though it had not yet made much progress, an advantageous system of education; and last, but not least, had recognized as legal the marriage of Hindoo widows. But did these benefits, after all, alleviate the present miserable social condition of the people of Bengal? He had not willingly overstated a single fact, but was content to rest his case on the admissions of Mr. Halliday. He hoped, therefore, that this country would not refuse the means of carrying out a necessary reform; recognizing as they did the authority of Him who said—"Thou shalt not pervert judgment; thou shalt not respect persons; thou shalt not take a gift; but that which is altogether just thou shalt follow." The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the following Resolutions:—

"1. That, from representations made to this House, there is reason to believe that the present administration of the lower provinces of Bengal does not secure to the population the advantages of good government, but that the mass of the people suffer grievous oppression from the police, and the want of a proper administration of justice.

"2. That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that Her Majesty's Government should take immediate steps with a view to the institution of special inquiries into the social condition of the people; and to ascertain what measures have been adopted in consequence of the oppression under which a large proportion of the inhabitants of the lower provinces are now said to be suffering, more especially with reference to the system of landed tenures, the state of the police, and the administration of justice; and also that such Report be laid upon the table of the House."

rose to second the Resolution, and expressed his surprise that such an attempt should have been made to prevent this important and interesting subject being urged upon the attention of the Government. He felt the subject to be one so momentous that, notwithstanding the repugnance he had to address a reluctant and indifferent audience, be could not refrain from adding a few observations to those made by the hon. Member for Perth. He believed that the permanence of our empire in India could never be maintained solely by what was termed our prestige. It was not by prestige or force of arms that we could continue to govern that country. We must enlist on our side its population, of whom our army there must always chiefly be composed. We must create a conviction in their minds that our dynasty was connected with their happiness, security, and good government; and without that, all our prestige and all the force we could send from this country would be utterly and absolutely in vain. It was not enough that the people of India had escaped from the horrors of native rule. True, that was the case; but it was generations since that rule was felt, and the existing population of India could no more realise the exact position of their forefathers than we could realise the situation of the villains who groaned in this country under the oppression of the feudal barons centuries ago. They would form their judgments by their condition now whether the results of good government were secured to them or not, and according as they felt their present actual position would they either remain willingly under our rule or be discontented and disaffected. Some prejudices might be excited by the fact that it was the missionaries who had brought this matter before the House; but considering that the only mouthpiece the unfortunate people of India—these miserable and oppressed ryots—could have were missionaries, he thought the House ought rather to be thankful and rejoice that there was such a body of men to represent their case to them. The Government of India was all powerful there, and bad many representatives here. When Europeans in India had any cause of complaint they could through their numerous connexions easily make their voice heard before Parliament and the country. But the poor oppressed ryots had no one to speak for them if the missionaries did not. And who were those missionaries? Men of the highest character and of every denomination, who had conferred benefits greater far than many of the civilians who had gone out and returned to this country with large fortunes. His dear friend Dr. Duff, for example, had done more for the inhabitants of India than many of the gentlemen who, having come home with great wealth, had afterwards taken their seats, first in the Court of Directors, and subsequently in this House. Substan- tially, however, as his hon. Friend (Mr. Kinnaird) had shown, the statements of the missionaries were admitted in the answers which had been returned to their memorial to the Indian Government, except in regard to the single allegation of discontent. Lieutenant Governor Halliday said he saw no discontent; but it was not to be expected that he could have the same opportunities of making himself acquainted with the feelings of the Natives as the missionaries who were in daily intercourse with them. Indeed, it was not possible, considering the oppressions under which these poor people suffered, that there should not be discontent; it was not in human nature that they should be satisfied and quiescent. Mr. Halliday observes—

"Great stress is laid by the memorialists on the inefficient condition of the police and the defects of the judicial system. They call, first and foremost, for inquiry into these, in preference to all other subjects of investigation; and they designate them, and with perfect truth, the radical cause of the social evils, of which I am far from denying the existence, though I am not disposed to look on them as so dark and deplorable as they appear in the painting of the memorialists."

Mr. Grant, too, also a Member of Council, had substantially acknowledged all the worst of the cases set forth by the missionaries. He stated in the Parliamentary paper, No. 51 of last Session, that the memorial of the missionaries mentioned the following as evils existing in Bengal, "which it fell within the scope of the Government to meet and control, and which, they said, appeared to be on the increase—first, insecurity of life and property in many districts; secondly, numerous gang robberies perpetrated with impunity; thirdly, constant scenes of violence and contentions as to disputed boundaries between the owners of adjoining estates; and the memorialists maintained that the radical cause of these evils was the inefficiency of the police and of the judicial system." Mr. Grant then went on to "record his most complete concurrence with the memorialists, both as to the, existence and extent of the evils and the nature of the remedy." Another member of the Council, indeed, Mr. Dorin, attributes the evils existing, not to the judicial system and state of the police, but to the physical conformation of the people, and asks "what could be done for a people like this, who would do nothing for themselves; and what Government interference could supply that foundation of moral im- provement and self-reliance which nature itself seemed to hare denied them. It was almost a law of nature," he adds, "that cowards should be slaves or tyrants," "and I fear this describes but too truly the general condition of the population of this fertile province." No doubt, these poor people were timid by nature, but the conclusion to be drawn from that was, not that the Government should not interfere for their protection with an effective police, but that they should so interfere all the more. Mr. Halliday takes a sounder view, stating that "this is a country in which, owing to imperfect civilization, scanty knowledge, and a low standard of morality, to habits of selfish domination in one part of the population and of slavish submission in another part, might is at all times very apt to be made right. It is a country, therefore (he adds), where the poor greatly needed for their protection against the rich a strong and incorrupt police, and a pure and easily accessible judicial system." But so far from that being the case the state of things was very way the reverse. From the village watchman, "the foundation of all possible police," to the criminal tribunal, all was inefficient. As to the watchman, Mr. Halliday, in his Minute, says, "that when anyone is robbed in a village it is probable that the first man suspected will be the village watchman," and the Commissioners of Police describe the establishment "as a curse instead of a blessing to the country," adding "it is even a question whether an order issued throughout the country to apprehend and confine them, would not do more to put a stop to theft and robbery than any other measure that could be adopted." With the materials which alone exist for a police force an efficient superintendence is essential; but it is wretchedly inadequate. Mr. Halliday considers "no provision for superintendence adequate which does not at least supply one capable and trustworthy magistrate for every two, or, at most, every three thannahs;" but the actual provision is, on the average, one for every seven and a quarter thannahs. The magistrates, too, are inexperienced, and too frequently unqualified; and the result of the whole is the popular conviction, as stated by Mr. Halliday, "that dacoity is bad enough, but that the subsequent police inquiry is much worse." Matters, too, so far from improving, are getting worse. Mr. Halliday admits it to be "a lamentable but unquestioned fact, that the rural police, its position, character, and stability, as a public institution, have in the lower provinces deteriorated during the last thirty years; and that our magistracy is losing credit and character, and our administration is growing weaker," adding, "and I grieve to be obliged to affirm that the evil will infallibly increase within the next three years unless an early remedy be applied." The first duty of the country was to supply justice; but he had no hope that the Indian Government would agree to the requisite expenditure for adequately doing so, unless upon a declaration of the House of Commons. It was a most discouraging circumstance which had been stated by his hon. Friend (Mr. Kinnaird), that Mr. Grant's Bill had been stopped. By the present law, when the Government sold a zemindar's lands for arrears of his tax or rent, the whole leases granted by him became void; and it was not unusual for a zemindar to allow arrears to be incurred, in order to bring about a sale at which the lands were bought back for himself, in another name, to get rid of his own obligations and annihilate the rights of the tenants. Mr. Grant's Bill was to secure the leases of the tenants notwithstanding a Government sale; and it was this simple act of justice, in doing away an atrocious iniquity, that the Government had interfered to prevent being passed. He did not look upon the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Perry) as hostile, but simply as supplementary to the present Motion. For himself, he owned that without the declaration of the House of Commons he had no hopes of an amendment in the present system, and he therefore trusted that the House would raise its voice on the present occasion and accede to the Resolution of his hon. Friend.

said, his hon. Friend who began this discussion had observed that it was desirable for this House to interfere occasionally in the affairs of India, were it but to exhibit some tokens of sympathy with the Natives. In that opinion he entirely concurred. He concurred in it, not only because he was anxious that such sympathy should be ex- pressed, but for his own sake, and that of any person who might hold the office which he filled, because he conceived that some expression of public opinion in this country, and some assistance from the House of Commons, might be necessary in many cases to redress grievances, and enforce remedies which otherwise, from want of motive power, they might not be able to carry into execution. In all that his hon. Friend said in this respect, therefore, he entirely concurred; but when his hon. Friend (Mr. Dunlop) expressed his surprise at the apathy of the House of Commons on this question, adding that the indifference of hon. Members had nearly led to a count-out, he must say that he could not entirely coincide in this view. He owned that it was sometimes difficult to secure that attention to the concerns of India which the importance of the subject demanded; but he believed that that attention would be secured by Motions brought forward carefully and deliberately upon specific questions upon which the House was called upon to legislate and to act; and he must say that the present did not contain Resolutions of that character. It might reasonably occur to hon. Gentlemen that a Motion calling for inquiry after inquiry had been carried to the utmost, and when everything that could be known was already known, not only to this House, but to the country, was not a proposal of that practical nature to call for their attention. What had taken place that evening? The speech of the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird) consisted of one continued series of extracts from papers now before the House, and the hon. Gentleman who followed him, thinking he had omitted one or two passages from those papers, said he would supply the deficiency. The supporters of this Motion, therefore, themselves proved that all the information which could be asked for was already in the possession of the House. His hon. Friend appeared to have felt the difficulty attending his Resolutions, for he had altered them two or three times. His original proposition was, to call the attention of the House to the petition of the missionaries in Bengal, and for an Address to the Crown, praying it to issue a Commission, as suggested by those gentlemen, to inquire into the grievances of which they complained; but he had since altered the Resolutions repeatedly, until at last they assumed their present form. Now, in his (Mr. Vernon Smith's) opinion, the Resolutions were such as, though they might be considered very harmless, the House ought by no means to adopt. His hon. Friend was for an entire change in the constitution of the Indian Government, finding fault with everything done in India, and among other things, with the zemindary system in the Bengal provinces; yet his hon. Friend was obliged to acknowledge that that system was founded by Lord Cornwallis, the fact being also that it was coincided in by everybody here, and was considered very beneficial to the people of India. That system, moreover, was a permanent one, and could not be disarranged without a complete convulsion in the system of tenure in India. No such result, however, would ensue from the vague Resolutions submitted to the House, nor had his hon. Friend ventured to suggest that this system should be abolished. With respect to the land tenures of India generally, it must be remembered that there were two other systems there besides the zemindary, and he (Mr. Vernon Smith) had heard fault found with all of them; and so it must ever be in countries where a land tenure obtained. Was the tenure of the soil agreeable to both landlord and tenant in Ireland? Could we even point to a perfect system as existing in our own country? His hon. Friend seemed to think that perfection was compatible with government in India. All he (Mr. Vernon Smith) could say on this subject was, not that there was perfection in India, but the government was progressive, and that the land tenures there had not led to many of the evils which in some other countries had arisen. His hon. Friend asserted that Lord Dalhousie, had he still been Governor General, would have consented to the appointment of this Commission. Now, unless his hon. Friend spoke authoritatively, and after personal communication With Lord Dalhousie, he (Mr. Vernon Smith) ventured to deny that statement, and to express his belief that his Lordship would have been the last man in the world to issue such a Commission. Lord Dalhousie was a man of very determined character, and not likely to allow his functions as Governor General to be superseded by any Commission whatever. But then his hon. Friend compared this with the Torture Commission, and with the Commission issued to inquire into the treatment of lunatics in Scotland. He was happy to hear his hon. Friend acknowledge that there were some grievances to be redressed in his own country, but Commissions of the kind he had mentioned differed very much from a commission to inquire into the administration of justice, of police, taxation, and every question which could concern the Government in India. How would his hon. Friend, if Governor General, like to have a Commission issued which would supersede all the executive functions with which he had been, invested? He repeated his certain belief that Lord Dalhousie was the last man to have allowed the appointment of such a Commission. But his hon. Friend stated that the missionaries had applied to the Government, and that they had received the usual official answer. If his hon. Friend meant to imply by that that they obtained nothing definite in reply, all that he could say was that they received a detailed and reasoned answer upon every part of their statement, and that they were informed that inquiries were then going forward under the eye of the Government. The best answer, however, to his hon. Friend's proposal was that his hon. Friend had been forced that evening, in support of his case, to quote from the Minute of Mr. Halliday, who was not an independent or nameless individual supposed to know nothing of the matter, but the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. Mr. Halliday admitted many things which his hon. Friend urged; and bow could his hon. Friend say that further inquiry was needed when all the facts which be had presented were derived from a paper furnished by a high official of the Bengal Government who was perfectly cognizant of the whole question? He believed that no man knew more of the native character than Mr. Halliday; he was intimately acquainted with all the languages, and he had had opportunities of intercourse and information which few men possessed. With respect to the general assertions of his hon. Friend, he (Mr. Vernon Smith) was bound to say that having watched them closely to ascertain if he could derive any practical suggestion from them, they consisted, he was sorry to find, of vague declamation on the persecution of the ryots and the distress of the peasantry, without any specific facts. Mr. Halliday's Minute was dated April, 1856, and upon one point only of his hon. Friend's remarks, he (Mr. Vernon Smith) admitted that there was no answer—namely, that it had not been sent home, and presented officially to the House. The usual course, in the case of a representation being made by a subordinate official, was to send it to the Governor General, who read and reported on it, and sent both home. That had not been done in this instance; but it happened, perhaps, because the, Governor General had thought it advisable to retain it, as the matters to which it referred were to be made, for the most part, the subject of legislation in the Council. For that omission the Government certainly was responsible. The chief allegations which his hon. Friend had brought forward were that there was a deficiency in the police and in the administration of justice in India, He conceived that the answer to those allegations was to be found in the papers already presented to the House. [Mr. KINNAIRD: No, no.] His hon. Friend denied that. Then he would call into court the paper which his hon. Friend himself had read—a despatch from the Court of Directors on the subject of police. It began in this way—

"Our attention has been directed on various occasions of late to the character and proceedings of the police in different parts of India; and the reports which from time to time have been laid before us have combined, with many incidental notices of failure or abuse, to deepen the conviction that an immediate and thorough reform of the police in all the old provinces of British India is loudly called for."

What more complete admission could his hon. Friend have—what could he desire more than that? [Mr. KINNAIRD: Nothing has been done.] No, nothing has been done; but if his hon. Friend imagined that these things proceeded with greater speed in India than elsewhere he was very much mistaken. Let him look at home. Here we had agitations for reform, and questions mooted, discussed, introduced into Parliament, thrown out, reintroduced, and so on year after year; but when he compared such measures as those with the organization of a new system of police all over the enormous territory of India, equal in extent to the whole of Europe, he should like to know at what pace his hon. Friend was so desirous of travelling when he complained that measures were not yet carried into execution which had only been pointed out in a despatch from the Court of Directors dated September, 1856. They went on in that despatch to say—

"That the police in India has lamentably failed in accomplishing the ends for which it was established is a notorious fact; that it is all but useless for the prevention, and sadly inefficient for the detection, of crime is generally ad- mitted."

They Further said it would be necessary to make material changes in the constitution and organization of the police, and, after remarking upon the satisfactory police establishments in the Punjab, they concluded as follows:—

"And we desire that you will take the subject into your early consideration, and, after communication with the other Presidencies, report fully to us your sentiments as to the expediency of the general re-organization of the police throughout India, upon some such system as that which obtains with respect to the police in the Punjab, or perhaps the constabulary of Ireland, and as to the mode and cost of the proposed reform."

It would be impossible to frame a stronger despatch than that, even after hearing the speech of his hon. Friend. Mr. Halliday's Minute gave rise to the petition of the missionaries which his hon. Friend had presented; but what was Mr. Halliday's opinion of the petition itself? He said that it was a picture founded doubtless on some isolated facts which had occasionally come to the knowledge of missionaries in the Mofussil; but he added that it was not by any means an accurate representation of the state of the actual relations between landlord and tenant, and he expressed his absolute dissent from the statement that the people exhibited a spirit of sullen discontent on account of the miseries ascribed to them, and that there existed among them that bitter hatred to the Government which had filled the memorialists, as they declared, "with alarm as well as sorrow." Mr. Halliday then proceeded to say that he had under consideration means of improving the relations between the Zemindars and the ryots, and that a Bill upon the subject would shortly be placed before the Legislative Council. That was in September, 1856; and there was no doubt, when the Council met for the winter session, that they would take these subjects into consideration. So that there was a remedy proposed for the very grievance which his hon. Friend the Member for Greenock had so loudly and so justly complained of. The memorialists proposed that there should be a Commission appointed of men of independent minds, unbiased by official or local prejudices; but where, he asked, were they to find such men? Did they expect to find them in India? At the moment, however, that that Commission was prayed for by the missionaries, it was a curious fact that another and a different memorial was presented from the indigo planters and committee of the British Indian As- sociation. The prayer of the memorial was, that a Commission might be issued "for a searching, patient, and unbiased inquiry into the social evils of those provinces; namely, whether they be to any and what extent caused by the landed system, the planting interest, the Mahajunec dealings, the Foujdary and Dewanny administration; also, whether to any and what extent by the well-intended efforts and zeal of professional Christian missionaries." Did the hon. Member for Perth believe that it would conduce to the well-being or good government of British India that one Commission should be issued at the instance of the missionaries and another at the desire of the indigo planters? Such a course would excite dissension between landlord and tenant, would set class against class, injure the cause of religion, and make confusion worse confounded. That would be the inevitable result if the prayer of the missionaries were granted, which the hon. Member himself had shrunk from recommending, limiting himself to proposing Resolutions which were mere milk and water compared with the demands of his clients. The hon. Gentleman asked for inquiry. By whom was the inquiry to be instituted? The Government were already prosecuting inquiries, as he had shown in every instance, and were either acting, or would act, upon the result of those inquiries. Then came the question of the administration of justice in India, which was undoubtedly a question of great difficulty, which stood in this position in 1853, when the Act was altered, and before the Committee on Indian Territories of 1852 the whole question was fully discussed. The Committee had the advantage of hearing the evidence of the hon. Member for Devonport (Sir E. Perry), who had then just returned from India, and of many other gentlemen thoroughly conversant with the subject. Pending that discussion the right hon. Baronet now First Lord of the Admiralty (Sir C. Wood), who then presided over the Board of Control, appointed a Commission on the administration of justice in India, composed of men of the very highest ability. At the end of three years, for which it had been appointed, the Commission presented a Report expressing very definite opinions. He (Mr. Vernon Smith) regretted to say that a lamented personal friend, now no more, the late Lord Chief Justice Jervis, was rather offended because the recommendations of the Commissioners were not at once em- bodied in an Imperial Act, as was also the hon. Member for Devonport (Sir E. Perry), who was happily still alive. However, when those recommendations were known in India there came from that country a shout of disapprobation, and a gentleman had been sent over to England, commissioned by a numerous constituency, to impress upon him the necessity of not complying with those recommendations. He had foreseen this; and he had not, therefore, adopted all the recommendations of the Commission. The consequence was, that four Bills to carry out the law procedure propounded by the Commission, and four founded on the Report of Mr. Macaulay, which hung fire when first it came out, were before the Legislative Council, and under discussion. Those Bills had been read a second time, and were undergoing full consideration in India. For his own part, he could not regret the delay that had occurred. The whole government of India was founded upon the principle of acting cautiously and deliberately in everything. That might have been carried too far in some instances, but such had been the principle always acted upon. It was impossible, however, to say that there had not now been a sufficient consideration given to the subject; and he (Mr. Vernon Smith) hoped that by the end of the year the House would see the remedy for the evil which existed put into the form of a law by the Legislative Council, for adoption by Parliament. The Chairman of the Board of Directors had corrected the hon. Member for Perth during his observations respecting Mr. Grant's Act; and as to the question of putting an end to swinging and other horrible practices, it must be remembered that that was a very delicate matter. The hon. Member must be well aware that it was not possible for the Indian Government to put a violent end to all the objectionable practices which prevailed in India. Infanticide, however, and the practice of Meriah sacrifices had been stopped, and it was acknowledged that much had been done by degrees to repress the cruelties which disgraced society in India; but it had been done quietly and calmly, without offering violence to public opinion in that country. To make any open attack upon the prejudices of the, Natives would not fail to lead to very dangerous consequences, and so far from putting an end to such horrible practices, would only inflame the minds of the Natives, and cause them to adhere still more closely to their ancient customs. The hon. Member for Perth asked whether the Governor General and the Court of Directors were aware of those things which he had mentioned. It was quite certain that the Governor General must be aware of them, because it was obvious that he had read the Report of the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. The hon. Member for Perth appeared to doubt that fact, but he could not seriously want that confidence. That House must, also, have been fully aware of the state of affairs, because the papers which had been laid upon the table placed them in full possession of all the circumstances, and if any further information were required the Government would be quite ready to give it, if possible. He (Mr. Vernon Smith) was anxious to give the fullest information upon any point, whether as to the spread of education in India or any other matter. Those were practical questions, but the Resolutions submitted by the hon. Member would, if agreed to, end in nothing, containing, as they did, a simple declaration of facts which were known to all, and asking for inquiry, which was actually in progress. Such being the apparently harmless character of the Resolutions, he might be asked why he objected to their adoption. His answer was, that he did not wish to propagate in India a notion that there was to be any new Commission to supersede the Government in its functions, and thereby shake the confidence of the Natives in its power. He was bound to say, although he did so with regret, that he must object to the Resolutions, as tending to excite a belief in India that the gentlemen who had forwarded the memorial were the persons to whom the Government of that country should be intrusted. He had the very highest respect for those earnest and excellent gentlemen who were exercising their vocation quietly, and, he hoped, were gradually extending the blessings of their religion throughout India; but it would greatly interfere with the success of their religious efforts if it were to be supposed that they had power to direct the legislation of India, or to override the Government of that empire. He did not wish to alarm the House or the public, but he could not forget the circumstances which had recently occurred in India—circumstances which all must deeply regret. There had arisen a great agitation among the troops, not generally, but as he trusted among a few only, and speedily to be repressed. The discontent in some regi- ments had been already repressed with the consent of the Natives themselves, and he had pleasure in stating that a non-commissioned officer of the 34th Native Regiment, who confessed his crime on the gallows, was condemned by persons of his own religious persuasion, some of whom were officers in his own regiment. Still it could not be disguised that there did prevail considerable disaffection among the troops in consequence of a prevalent notion that a compulsory conversion of the Natives was intended. He would put it to the hon. Gentleman and all who had the interests of the country at heart, whether it was advisable, under the circumstances, that a notion should go abroad that missionaries who were engaged in their vocation in India were able to wrest the powers of the State from the Government, and exercise them just as they chose. To justify himself in what he had just said, he asked the House to listen to one or two sentences in the petition which the hon. Member had presented to the House. The petition stated—

"That your petitioners have reason to believe that there is a vast amount of social disorganization and of consequent suffering in the whole country. Much of this your petitioners can trace to the fearful superstitions of the people, to their ignorance, and to the debasing effects of a popular mythology, which presents examples of every vice, and which ascribes sanctity and divine honour to a priesthood which is the principal curse of India."

Now, whether that was true or not, he asked the House whether it was fit to found a Commission of inquiry into the social condition of India on the request of persons with such language in their mouths? The missionaries said they were the mouth-pieces of the ryots; but were they the mouth-pieces of the ryots when they said that their deities were the degraded idols of every vice, and their priesthood the curse of the people? Nor was it necessary that they should be. There was a mouth-piece for the ryots in the Government of India, and he was prepared to show that that Government did make themselves their mouth-piece, and take into consideration every claim that came from them. He repudiated the notion that the Court of Directors or the Government of India would not be ready to speak on behalf of the ryots if they were in a state of degradation and social disorganization. That a great deal remained to be done, and ought to be done, he never meant, and would be the last to deny; but the Government of India was a very difficult problem. That Government had to throw their shield over the people, to advance them in every kind of civilization, and to endeavour to give them that happiness which they had not under their native chiefs, for he never would admit that they were less happy now than when under their native chiefs. If it could be said with truth that they were less happy, he should say that the Members of the Legislature should not sit in their present small conclave, but ought in full assembly to deliberate from day to day on the condition of India. But he did not believe such to be the case. He believed that the condition of the Natives of India had improved under the Government of the Court of Directors; but when the Court of Directors assumed that government they had for a long time to continue many of the institutions of the Native chiefs, and to endeavour to adapt them to new circumstances, and still the problem to be solved was how to awaken the desire in India for European institutions, and to adapt them to Oriental customs. That was a problem of the greatest difficulty, which he hoped to see solved. It would be the anxious care of the Indian Government to improve the condition of the people of India; but the House would not do well to allow them to be thwarted in their efforts to make that improvement by the interference of missionaries calling for Commissions of inquiry, but which he called commissions for delay. There was one expression of Mr. Halliday in the document referred to by the hon. Member which, strange to say, he had forgotten to quote. It was, "the time for investigation was over, and the time for action come." He agreed in that, and was therefore of opinion that if the House wished to do anything for the benefit of the people of India they should do it through the legitimate Government they had established, and not thus surreptitiously, at the instance of men, worthy and respectable, no doubt in their own way, but who were likely to create hostile feelings amongst different classes in India, and who might therefore unintentionally cause evils worse than those they desired to remove. By the action of that legitimate Government he earnestly hoped that all the evils complained of would shortly be remedied, and he trusted the hon. Member would not press his Motion to a division, for if he did, he (Mr. Vernon Smith) must oppose it.

agreed with nearly all the observations which had been made by the President of the Board of Control; but hon. Gentlemen must have remarked that those observations addressed themselves, not to the Resolution now before the House, but to the second Resolution, which had not yet been proposed. The right hon. Gentleman had admitted that the main complaints of the missionaries were well founded, and had declared that Mr. Halliday in his Minute had admitted all the grounds upon which the hon. Member for Perth based his statement. Against the adoption of the first Resolution the right hon. Gentleman had advanced only one argument—namely, that it would appear to the Indian world as if Parliament and the Government were led by the missionaries. It was to be hoped the House would not be influenced by such an argument as that. If the missionaries had given a truthful description of evils which it was within the power of the Government to remedy, he trusted the House would not be deterred by innuendoes with respect to missionary influence from doing its duty. He, for one, had no connection with Exeter Hall, but he respected the missionaries for their earnest endeavours to civilize the inhabitants of India. He was bound to consider the question whether the statements in the petition were true, and whether the missionaries had enjoyed full opportunities of informing themselves upon the subject. He declared boldly, and in the presence of many hon. Gentlemen better acquainted with India than himself, that no Englishman could be compared to the missionary for opportunities of inquiring into the social condition of the peasantry in Bengal. The House had been told that Mr. Halliday had great knowledge of the country. He had the honour of knowing that gentleman very well, and he also knew what the life of a great official in India was. He was occupied all day in reading or writing long minutes. He lived in a palace at Calcutta or Bombay. He talked with persons who brought him official representations of the condition of the people, but he never came in contact with the great body of the inhabitants in such a manner as to elicit the truth from them. The missionary, on the contrary, visited the people in their huts and cottages, and by personal inquiry made himself acquainted with their wants and grievances. But the missionaries were not the only witnesses relied upon by the hon. Member for Perth. Their statements were confirmed by the Minute of Mr. Halliday and by the impor- tant body of indigo planters in the provinces of Bengal and Tirhoot. And it was important to remark that neither the missionaries nor the indigo planters were likely to make groundless complaints against the Government of India. The former, in carrying on their operations, depended a great deal upon the indirect assistance which they received from the Government. To be well received by the different official personages throughout the country, to have it seen that they were not pointed at with the finger of scorn, was so essential to the success of missionary enterprize that, as the House might well suppose, the missionaries would be the last to point out evils of administration which occurred under the government of their friends and hosts. So also with the indigo planters. There were not more than 312 of them located in India; they had been there for many years; they lived under the direct protection of the East India Company, and from 1813, when, having joined in the struggle against the East Indian trade monopoly they were reminded by Mr. Grant, the Chairman of that day, that they were in the enjoyment of certain remunerative monopolies of their own, down to the present day they had never once lifted their voice in favour of improvement in the administration of Indian affairs. At last, however, they had opened their mouths, and they confirmed every statement in the petition of the missionaries. They said that the police, instead of giving security, were the terror of the people and the instruments of cruelty and oppression; and that the district courts and magistrates were so inefficient that they were obliged to protect themselves and adopt a system of club law to maintain their rights and possessions. The House would remember that upon a former occasion he presented a petition from the wealthiest, most intelligent, and most influential native inhabitants of Calcutta, who stated that the Company's Courts were most unsatisfactory, the Judges being remarkable for their ignorance and want of legal training. But their evidence presented no new picture to those acquainted with India. During the inquiry which took place in 1853 competent witnesses were examined as to the administration of justice in that country, and their statements clearly proved that the native inhabitants were entirely satisfied with the Queen's courts. It was said that their proceedings, like those of English courts generally, were expensive; but he knew that the Court of Directors bad exercised their influence to prevent the Judges of those courts diminishing the cost of proceedings. He and his colleague, Sir Lawrence Peel, had tried to reduce those expenses at Calcutta, but they bad been thwarted in their attempts by the Company. The evidence given before the Committee with respect to the Queen's Courts in India was extremely favourable, but the evidence given as to the operation of the Company's Courts was quite the reverse, and showed that the Judges were incompetent, from want of legal training. When he stated before the House of Lords that young civilians of twenty two years of age heard appeals from the decisions of native Judges of double their age and experience he was not believed. The great complaint in Bombay was against boy Judges without legal knowledge or training, unchecked by the Bar or the public press, sitting on appeals and disposing of the rights of Native subjects. In Bengal, the defects in the judicial system were quite as great but of a different character. They were not so young, but equally untrained in judicial duties, and equally inefficient. They were taken, after twenty years' service, from the revenue and political departments, and their previous career entirely incapacitated them for judicial duties. It was admitted in 1853, as it was admitted now, that some action was necessary for the improvement of the administration of justice; but no improvement had taken place. It was admitted by Mr. Halliday himself that matters had even deteriorated since that period, He saw last year an account in an Indian newspaper of a gentleman, Mr. Raikes, being appointed to the Supreme Court of Agra, and yet he had never before been in the judicial service. Another appointment, that of Mr. Brown, was still more startling. That gentleman had been turned out by the Bengal Government from the office of Commissioner in the district where the Santhal insurrection took place. The despatch reinstating him was published in the Indian paper, and the writer of the despatch, Mr. Halliday, said, "he caused a letter to be written to Mr. Raikes, in which he recapitulated to him the occasions in which he had incurred censure on account of the exaggerated views he took of the danger, and the disturbed state of his mind." But the Bengal Government said, "He'll do to make a Judge of—he is not equal to any higher duty than that of a zillah Judge," which was equal to a judge of circuit in this country. Now could the House wonder, if such was the stuff their Indian Judges were made of, they should have missionaries and indigo planters loading the table of the House with petitions about such appointments. He quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control that the time for action was come. So thought the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor in 1853, but his views had not been correctly described by the right hon. Gentleman. The predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman, when he introduced the measure for the reform of the Indian Government, admitted the necessity of a complete reform, and intimated an intention to amalgamate the Company's and Queen's Courts—in other words, to place them under the authority of men trained in the law. But it was necessary that a code of procedure should first he drawn up; and in that task the Government were assisted by some of the most eminent men in this country, including the late Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, the Master of the Rolls, and Sir E. Ryan. After patient and arduous exertion, they drew up the most simple and complete mode of procedure which, perhaps, the world had ever seen. He did not agree in all its details. One of its principles he entirely dissented from, namely, that which proposed to place the Judges of India under the control of the Governor General. The experience of a century had proved that the independence of the judicial bench of the Government of India was the main cause of the Judges possessing the confidence of the people. With that exception, he approved of all the propositions of the Commissioners. The present head of the Board of Control, instead of adopting that code, said he thought it best to refer to India for a Report; but it appeared that the right hon. Gentleman had referred to India, not for a Report, but for legislation. With great deference, he thought the right hon. Gentleman had committed a grave constitutional error in delegating to an inferior body, composed almost entirely of officials, a duty which it was the peculiar province of the Imperial Parliament to perform. Besides the fact that this small body could not for a moment be put in competition with the great legal authorities whose names he had mentioned, they were the very civilians in India against whom objection was made, and it could not be expected they would pass a self-denying ordinance, saying, "We are unfit, therefore turn us out." To prepare a code, the Commissioners were perfectly competent; but another duty which they could not perform was equally imperative on the Government, namely, to make a complete change in the class from which the judges were chosen. He was glad to observe the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leominster (Mr. J. P. Willoughby) in his place, and he could tell what line of argument the hon. Member would likely adopt if he addressed the House on this subject. The hon. Member would probably say that if English lawyers were to be sent to India to fill judicial offices, a great mischief would be done. That had been the cry of the Civil Service of India for years—indeed, ever since the Queen's Courts had been established. But he (Sir E. Perry) contended that they were not admissible witnesses on the question, because they spoke in their own case. The people entitled to speak and to be heard on that question were the Natives of India, who smarted under the one and profited by the other. He would make one remark before he concluded, and he thought it was a very pertinent one. It was that the House ought never to forget, in all their considerations as to the Government of India, the very few points of contact which existed between the Indian and the European races, and that there were prejudices on both sides which kept them asunder. There was only one field on which they could meet on a footing of perfect equality, and on which Europeans could be always benefactors to the Natives of India without the display of any arrogant superiority, and that was the field of justice. Before the majesty of the law there was, or ought to be, no respect of persons, and he was satisfied that the greatest boon which could be conferred by Parliament on the people of India would be the establishment of a system of judicature in which the Judges should be trained lawyers and experienced men.

said, I will not long stand in the way of my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles), who wishes, no doubt, to express the sentiments of the Court of Directors on the subject under consideration. I must express my satisfaction that the discussion has proceeded. I think it would have been a great misfortune if the very able statement of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth (Mr. Kinnaird), founded, as it was, on documents so much entitled to respect, had been allowed to go forth to the world, with the accompanying announcement, that not forty Members were present in the House to give the subject their consideration. I cannot but consider the question in itself as one of the greatest importance; but I entirely concur in the argument of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Control against the expediency of further inquiry. I believe, in common with my right hon. Friend, that the appointment of a Commission in reference to a subject so extensive, and involving so completely all the ordinary duties of a Government, would amount to a practical supercession of the executive in what might fairly be considered their own special functions. But, above all, I agree with my right hon. Friend that inquiry in this case has already, as stated by Mr. Halliday, been pushed to the utmost possible extent, and that the time has come, not for investigation, but for action. Mr. Halliday goes on to state that the only effect of inquiry will be to retard the application of those remedies which the existing state of things requires. While I agree with my right hon. Friend in that respect, I must also agree that it is not expedient for the House at the present moment, and in the present state of the House, to assent to a Resolution so broadly condemning the Government of India, and declaring that it does not secure to the population the advantages of good government. While I think there are serious faults in that government, I cannot say that a remedy would be secured by the adoption of so broad a Resolution. What, then, is the course to be adopted, which, as far as I can judge, the Government of India is not disinclined to adopt, although that is a point on which the House has not received that sufficient assurance from the President of the Board of Control which I could have desired. The evils are unquestionably of the greatest magnitude. Mr. Halliday, in a Minute which is not before the House, but, at the same time, to a great degree, a Minute which is upon the table, states, in the first place, that the police is defective to such an extent that the persons composing it are in a greater proportion criminals, and criminals guilty of some of the worst offences against society, than the rest of the inhabitants; and the result is that if a man does get this so-called protection of the police he becomes afterwards a marked object of revenge, and, instead of obtaining redress from injury, he is exposed to further injury by the very process to which he had recourse to procure redress. It was further stated, and not contradicted, that the people were willing to pay for the advantage of being relieved from the presence of the police. That is a very great evil with regard to the police. In the next place, Mr. Halliday states that the courts of justice are insufficient, and that, far from having been improved of late years, the time during which the Judges have received instruction, and have had some sort of probation, is a much smaller number of years than heretofore, and that from the great extent of territory over which each Judge is appointed there is no sufficient administration of justice. Now, these facts almost justified the Resolutions of his hon. Friend, since there is nothing more important to a people than to be protected in their lives and property, and there is no greater object in which a Government can be interested. A man cannot when his property is taken away from him or when his person suffers from injury obtain redress if there is no court which can afford him that redress. These, however, are matters which do not necessitate inquiry, but, according to Mr. Halliday, they admit of remedies which may in no very long time be applied; and with regard to the first evil—the police—the remedy seems to be to find persons more trustworthy, to give them higher salaries, and, by showing that their position shall be such that they will lose that salary by misconduct, they will have great inducements to good conduct and the regular performance of their duties. But, then, that which seems so simple a remedy, and one which we should probably adopt if the subject for the application of it was in London and not at Bengal, is objected to on the ground of imposing additional burdens on the finances. There is no subject on which the Government ought to be more cautious than that of increasing the burdens on the finances of India; but then this is an object so vital and important in itself that I cannot conceive that any man would say we cannot carry on the Government and cannot protect life and property, because we have not the means of doing it. Economy and retrenchment are very necessary in many things, but eco- nomy and retrenchment may be carried to the point of refusing justice, and of not affording protection to life and property; and a Government which refuses justice and protection by a proper police ventures upon a retrenchment which defeats its own object by impoverishing the subjects. Then comes Mr. Dorin, and he, differing from Mr. Halliday, says it is a law of nature, in such a population as this, that there should be nothing but tyrants and slaves; and he seems very tranquilly to make up his mind that there are tyrants and slaves in that community, and that tyrants and slaves there must ever be. I should say, no doubt, that the timid and unwarlike character of the population has been the great means by which we have been enabled to conquer that country, and establish over it the government of Great Britain, and that we have no right after that to turn round on them and reproach them with their timidity, and say, we do not mean to give you that full protection which is necessary and desirable. I cannot but hope, therefore, that the Government—willing as I believe they are to remedy these grievances, and agreeing as they probably will with the views expressed by Mr. Halliday—will not be induced by any financial considerations to hesitate to apply what seems a practical remedy. The question with regard to courts of justice appears to me to be attended with much greater difficulty. Young men, who are not even barristers of three years' standing, but who have been placed for three years under a particular course of education are placed in a very important position as Judges; and my hon. Friend who spoke last stated that he had frequently heard of instances in which talented men, possessing high qualifications, had been placed in the revenue departments, while the least qualified men received appointments in the department of justice. That may be so, but the most distinguished of the Governors of India have always been of opinion that the departments of revenue—involving, as it does, many considerations of justice, and to a great extent the good treatment of the people—is one which ought to be supplied with the best qualified servants who can be obtained. If that is the case, however, it is necessary to provide some means of supplying the deficiency with regard to men who are qualified to occupy the position of Judges. It has been proposed by some persons that the revenue and judicial offices should be combined. Another proposition, made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Davenport (Sir E. Perry), is, that Englishmen who possess a competent knowledge of the law should be sent out at once to fill the office of Judges in India. Another suggestion is, I believe, that there should be a considerable increase in the number of Judges. The evil is one of such magnitude that I think the Government ought to consider at once which of these various propositions would best tend to the satisfactory administration of justice in Bengal. I will not venture an opinion as to which of the suggestions it is most advisable to adopt. Undoubtedly, if you had a sufficient supply of men who to the other necessary qualifications, added a knowledge of the language of the people in the particular districts in which they were to administer justice, they would be far superior to the men who are generally sent out from England without that qualification; but if such a supply does not exist, and cannot be created for a number of years, I think the proposition of the hon. Member for Devonport is well worthy of consideration. If any other more efficient plan can be suggested, let the Government adopt it. The wrong is one which requires a remedy; that remedy is not so simple and easy as in the case of police; but I think the Government and the Court of Directors are bound to give their immediate attention to the subject. I cannot doubt that they will do so, and I am satisfied that when Mr. Halliday's Minute is received here, accompanied by the opinions of the Governor General and the Members of the Council, the question will be taken into immediate consideration. Upon the whole, I rejoice that my hon. Friend (Mr. Kinnaird) has brought this subject before the House, although I do not think the two Resolutions which he proposes will effect the object he wishes to attain. After the speech of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Control and from what I know of the disposition of the Court of Directors, I do not believe there will be any unwillingness on their part to adopt the remedial measures which are necessary. Undoubtedly, with regard to India, and perhaps in the case of this country, we are slow in making requisite changes. One member of the Council of India—Mr. Grant, I believe—says he has known many good plans considered and afterwards thrown aside, owing to the desire to attain perfection. I think Mr. Grant is very right in saying that the better course would be to improve the system as far as you can at once, and to trust to the possibility of effecting further improvements by degrees. I certainly am not willing to vote for the Resolutions now before the House, but I trust the Chairman of the Court of Directors will add his assurance to that which we have received from the President of the Board of Control, that they regard this subject as one of paramount importance, and that, however strongly they may be disposed to introduce economy into other branches of the service, they will not deal with the department to which this discussion has referred in any parsimonious spirit; and turning to the Government, I would express a hope that they would be a little less prone to enter into quarrels with neighbouring powers, for I would rather that retrenchment and economy should be displayed in any other manner than in witholding from the people of India that justice to which, on every consideration of the duties we have undertaken, and the Acts of Parliament we have passed, they are fully entitled.

said, he hoped the House would extend to him its indulgence while he attempted to offer to it some explanation in reference to the observations which had fallen from the hon. Members by whom he had been preceded. He should, in the first place, state, in answer to an appeal made to him by the noble Lord, that he would willingly venture, on behalf of the Court of Directors, to give to the noble Lord and to the House the pledge which he asked,—that no considerations of economy should stand in the way of their affording to the people of Bengal—the presidency which was especially the subject of consideration—the best judicial and police systems which could be devised. He regretted that the hon. Member for Perth, who was not then in his place, had not been candid enough to refer to a despatch from the Court of Directors to the Governor General with reference to the police system in Bengal, which had been written before Mr. Halliday's Minute reached this country, and before it was known that the subject was under the consideration of the Indian Government. That despatch showed the answers of the Court of Directors in the matter of police reform. It stated that "the majority of the principal officers of the native police are much underpaid, in relation not merely to the importance of their functions, but even to the necessary expenses of their employment in the public service and of their social position," and added that their salaries must be placed upon such a footing as would "render the tenure of their respective situations an advantage not to be lightly risked for the sake either of factitious and temporary credit with their superiors or of illicit gain," He entertained the most unaffected respect for the whole body of missionaries in India, and especially for some of those gentlemen who had signed the petition, among whom was the Rev. Dr. Duff, a Christian minister of the greatest worth, and whose opinions were well entitled to consideration; but at the same time he must say he thought they had acted with singular want of judgment in this matter. He would tell the House why he entertained this opinion. He believed that for very many years to come the greatest difficulty of the Indian Government would be to hold the balance evenly and secure the safety of all classes while the great experiment of the attempt to convert the people to Christianity by the means of Missionary efforts was in progress. It might be presumptuous on the part of any man to attempt to define the designs of Providence, but he had no doubt whatever in his own mind that Providence had been pleased to place the magnificent Empire of India in our hands in order that in due time we might be the instruments of converting the inhabitants to Christianity. Mr. Macaulay had said in one of his able essays, that for a man to desire the propagation of Christianity in India it was not even necessary that he should be a Christian, it was sufficient that he should not be much below the ordinary level of European good sense and benevolence. In that opinion he entirely concurred, and he believed that the combined effects of good government, good education, and the labours of those excellent men to whom reference had been made, would be the gradual diffusion of Christianity. The great difficulty which the Government of India would have to contend with would be to keep the different classes of society from destroying each other while the great moral struggle was going on. No doubt, in the course of that struggle scenes of violence, such as those recorded in the Acts of the Apostles as having occurred upon the introduction of Christianity into the Roman empire, would take place, and he was sorry to be obliged to say that the line of conduct which the missionaries had taken up in placing themselves in a position of hostility towards the land-owners of Bengal, thereby enlisting against themselves the strongest secular feelings—the love of power and the love of money—as well as religious prejudices, had tended greatly to increase the difficulties of the Government. The House, must not suppose that this petition to the Government of Bengal was the first act of the drama. No; the petition was only the consequence of antecedent events. For a long period a most angry contreversy had been going on in the news papers, pamphlets, and magazines between the missionary body and the zemindars and planters. He believed that the Hindoo religion was a most tolerant religion, and the people always entertained a real respect for any one whom they believed to be a devout man, whatever creed he might profess, and who preached to them what he believed to be the truth. As long as missionaries were content to do that alone, and to preach the gospel without being in any way connected with the Government, they would always have a fair field open for their labours. That such was the case was proved by the Scotch mission, whose schools in Calcutta, Chinsurah, and other places were the best in India, and always the fullest of pupils, even of the highest castes; and in them not only was the Bible read, but the whole doctrine of Christianity was propounded. He deeply regretted, both for the sake of the missionaries themselves and the cause which they advocated, that they had placed themselves in the position of having taken up a political line. The best friends of missions were now, he believed, of opinion that the Government ought to hold itself altogether aloof from the work of conversion, and leave that great, work to the unaided efforts of the missionaries. And the converse of that position was equally true. The missionaries ought carefully to abstain from meddling with politics. Nothing was more dangerous than any interference with the religion of the people on the part of the Government. The unhappy spirit of disaffection which had manifested itself in certain regiments was, no doubt, based upon an ill-founded opinion that the Government had some intention of interfering with their religion. And, looking to those recent occurrences, he would venture humbly to suggest to the hon. Member for Perth that the present was a most inopportune moment, having regard to the missionaries themselves, for bringing forward such a motion. Primâ facie, no doubt, it wore very bad appearance that Bengal, which was the oldest province in the hands of the British, should at that moment be in the worst condition, as regarded its internal administration, of all our Indian provinces. He admitted it was so; nevertheless, he could assure the House that great pains had been taken to produce a different state of things. It was necessary, however, to consider the causes which had led to such a state of things. The first cause was the rashness with which Lord Cornwallis, in spite of the remonstrances of Sir J. Shore, made a permanent settlement. He had an idea that the creation of a large class of landowners would remove all the evils under which the country laboured. He unfortunately, though warned against it, handed over the ryots to the mercy of the zemindars without the protection and without the recognition of their rights. The second reason was, that during long centuries of tyranny and oppression to which the Bengalese had been subjected, at the hands of one conqueror after another, all village institutions had fallen into disuse, and all village organization had been destroyed. The third was the unsuitableness of their judicial institutions, as introduced by Lord Cornwallis, to the peculiar feelings and prejudices of an Asiatic people. The people of Asia required to be governed by a ruler in whom all power, judicial and political, should be concentrated. They could not understand a complex system of checks and counterchecks. But the fourth, and most potent reason of all (and in this he was ready to support the opinion of Mr. Dorin), was the natural timidity, the utter want of energy and courage which characterized the Bengalese. A people who have not the spirit to maintain their own rights, and were content to submit, to oppression from any one who chose to tyrannize over them, presented the greatest difficulties to good government. Mr. Marshman, who knew Bengal better, perhaps, than any man, described the task of governing the Bengalese as carving in rotten wood. You could not trust your instruments for a moment. The submissiveness of the people was a temptation for every person placed in authority over them to abuse his power, and, though you might remove one for doing so, his successor would be certain almost immediately to follow in the same course. Mr. Macaulay had described the inhabitants of Bengal as the most enervated race in India, and expressed a doubt if there were 100 genuine Bengalese in the whole Indian army. He (Mr. Mangles) doubted if there was a single one. Why, he did not believe that a robber had been resisted by a Bengalese from the commencement of history down to the present day. The whole population was prostrate with fear, and the East India Company would no more think of enlisting a Bengalese into their army than they would think of taking a monkey to make a soldier of. Such, then, was the material on which the Government of Bengal had to work, and he would appeal to the candour of the House whether they thought it an easy task to give good government to such a people? He had been that day in company with Sir F. Currie, who was secretary to Lord Hardinge during the expedition to the Punjab, and he told him that when the army was approaching the Sutlej and a battle was expected, the clerks who were attending the army—and who in common with most of the writers and clerks in the English service in India were Bengalese—sent a round robin to the Governor General entreating permission to go to the rear, and that they began their memorial with these words:—"It is well known to your Excellency's Lordship that the Bengalese are a cowardly people." He believed that the Bengalese were the only people, either in ancient or modern times, who would have admitted that cowardice was their national characteristic. Let him not, however, in making these remarks, be misunderstood. Notwithstanding the want of energy by which the Bengalese were characterized, it was our duty, he was ready to admit, to give them the best government in our power. But he did not look upon it only in the light of a bare duty; it ought to be a true gratification to provide for them the best scheme for the administration of justice, as well as the best system of police which it was possible to devise. And he could say that the earnest and anxious efforts of the Court of Directors were directed to the amelioration of the condition of India, and the extension among the people of that country of the blessings of civilization. Many improvements they had already introduced, and their attention was now turned to the redress of those evils that still remained. It had been admitted that something had been done towards the establishment of a better system of administering justice, and of reforming the police, and their best endeavours would continue to be directed to the introduction of similar measures of social progress. One word as to Mr. Halliday. No man was better acquainted with the Bengalese than that gentleman. He spoke their language like a Native, and knew the people, and was not a man, as the hon. and learned Member (Sir E. Perry) supposed, who was above going into the fields and conversing with the ryots while they were ploughing the ground. Mr. Grant, too, was one of the ablest Englishmen that adorned the civil service of India, but his hon. Friend, when quoting Mr. Halliday and Mr. Grant, ought to have quoted them fairly, and not confined himself to that which was in his favour, omitting everything that told against his own arguments, as showing what the Government had done and was doing for the amelioration of the condition of the people. He was astonished to hear his hon. Friend say that the missionaries were the only mouthpieces of the Indian people. When Mr. Halliday represented their grievances, as it had been shown that he had done by the hon. Gentleman himself, was he not one of their mouthpieces, and was not Mr. Grant, when he appealed to the Government at home to extend good government to them, was he not one of their mouthpieces? He would now address himself to the remarks of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Devonport (Sir E. Perry) who said that the officials in India were not conversant with the native languages, as they were spoken. He would state what the Government of India had done in order to make sure that their officers should acquire the power of speaking the native languages. The young civilians who were to be employed in the service were taught the languages at college, which, of course, was not sufficient; but after they had entered on their appointments they had to go through two several examinations in the languages as spoken by the natives; and, at the last of these, as a test, they were given a report, written in that most illegible of hand-writing, the running hand of an Indian native, by a native policeman, which they were required to read, having then seen it for the first time, and to write a suitable order upon in the language as spoken by the Na- tives. A better test than that could not be applied to the colloquial knowledge of a language. His hon. and learned Friend had praised the administration of justice in India in the Supreme Courts by English Judges. In reply, he would read Mr. Macaulay's opinion on that question. [The hon. Gentleman then read an extract from a Minute of Mr. Macaulay, recorded in Calcutta in which he designated those courts as being utterly inefficient as a means of administering justice, because they were inaccessible, the expenses of judicial proceedings being five times as great as in England; and with respect to the officers connected with those courts he stated that in a short time they made larger fortunes than any of the civil servants could realise after thirty or forty years]. Mr. Macaulay spoke principally of Bengal, but added that the Supreme Court of Madras had fulfilled its mission; it had done its work so well as to be at a standstill, on account of all the suitors having been ruined—(fortunately for his hon. and learned Friend, Mr. Macaulay did not go so far as Bombay)—and he characterized these courts as the worst, and most full of abuses in the world. That was a description of the courts which his hon. and learned Friend wished to extend, and which he called the best in the world. [Sir E. PERRY: The Natives told me so]. Of course the Natives would tell his hon. and learned Friend so, and no doubt they also told him that he was the best judge in the world. His hon. and learned Friend had spoken of the collectors of the revenue. He begged to assure him that the functions of revenue collectors in India were not like those of a collector of assessed taxes in this country, but were in a very great measure judicial. Not only all suits for the recovery of rent, and complaints, on the other hand, of undue exaction of rent, but boundary disputes and other questions of great intricacy were frequently brought before them. In the case of the Commissioner, Mr. Brown, who had been referred to by his hon. and learned Friend for Devonport, the Government thought he had not shown sufficient presence of mind at the breaking out of the Santhal insurrection, and had consequently displaced him, but he would do him the justice to say that he thought he had been very hardly dealt with, since he had been for thirty years in the service of the Government and had shown an excellent judgment throughout his previous career, and was fully qualified for the office of a Judge, to which he had not, indeed, been appointed, but which had been offered to him. His hon. and learned Friend's infallible nostrum for the improvement of the Indian Courts seemed to be to send out a number of full-fledged barristers from this country, utterly ignorant of the language, the people, and the religion of the country, to sit upon the judgment-seat and administer justice. But with all deference to his hon. and learned Friend, there were some qualifications required for a Judge in India besides a knowledge of English law, and it was just possible for a man to acquire a sound knowledge of the principles of jurisprudence without having studied at the English bar. Sir Thomas Munro and other persons, well qualified to come to sound conclusions, were of opinion that a man was not fit to sit as a Judge in India unless he had passed through the offices of collector, knew the institutions of the people, had made settlements, bad studied the system of landed tenures, and was conversant with the manners, customs and religion of the country. The Directors were considering by what means they could improve the qualifications of the Judges, but he deprecated the system of sending grown men to India. It had been the salvation of our Indian empire that the system adopted by the Company had been not to send out grown men to India, but youths who entered their service as apprentices with the view of becoming for life the servants of the Company. It was said that when a zemindar got a remission of taxation, he did not make any corresponding remission to the ryot. But a remission of taxation by the Government in the permanently settled provinces was one of the most unfrequent things in the world, and only look place when there was an irruption of the sea, or of some tidal river, or when a famine or some other overwhelming calamity visited the country, and then the Government adopted the strictest measures to enable the ryots to participate in that remission. He would answer for it that the Court of Directors, with the assistance of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control would do, and were doing, all that they could to reform the existing evils, and he felt confident that in the course of twenty years, by which time the railroads and other great measures would have come into operation, the progress of India would be a marvel to the world, and something without example in history.

said, that when he was in India with Lord Frederick Fitzelarence he had an opportunity of seeing the way in which the Native army was conducted, and he became acquainted with the causes which produced mutinies among the Sepoys. Those mutinies, in his opinion, were in some degree referable to the withdrawal of European officers from native regiments to perform civil functions. Even when these regiments had their full complement of officers there were only one colonel, one major, seven captains, eleven lieutenants, and five ensigns, to a regiment of 1,000 men. There being only seven captains, five lieutenants were charged with the duties of captains, leaving only six lieutenants and five ensigns, or hall a lieutenant and half an ensign per company, to do regimental duty. From these numbers of officers must be deducted those who were employed in civil duties, and those who were on sick leave, or on furlough, which latter were in a much larger proportion than in an European climate. He had not mentioned the native officers, because he did not think they were of much value. They were promoted from the ranks by seniority, and, being frequently sixty or seventy years of age, were of about as much use as a superannuated Chelsea pensioner would be in a regiment of the line. It was true that in the Bombay army this state of things had been altered, and the native officers were now not appointed entirely by seniority.

hoped that the hon. Member (Mr. Kinnaird), would be satisfied with this discussion, and would not press his Motion to a division. If he did so he should, after hearing the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control and of the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Mangles), vote against it. Lord Canning, in a Minute dated October 6, 1856, thus characterised the question raised by the memorial of the missionaries—

"A wide and vague field of inquiry, inviting discussion and difference upon such subjects as rents, wages, fixity of tenure, and the relations of poor and rich; class made to testify openly against class; the weaker remanded when their task is done to the vindictiveness of the stronger, against which no interposition could effectually protect them; wild and extravagant expectations of immediate advantage raised in the minds of a whole people only to be disappointed; the examination of the share which the memorialists had in causing the social evils which they deplore, and the investigation of those delicate and dangerous questions confided to persons whose responsibility would cease with the inquiry. With every sincere respect and admiration for the character of the body from which this memorial proceeds, I can- not think that the advice which they have tendered to the Government of India is, in this instance, well judged, or that to adopt it would advance the end at which we all aim—the moral and social improvement of the Indian people."

After such an expression of opinion, the House of Commons could not grant this inquiry without passing a vote of censure on the Governor General. At the same time he should be very sorry, and he thought it would be a matter of deep regret to all who were interested in the civilization and Christianization of India, that any proposition should be rejected on the supposed ground that it was promoted by the supporters of Christian missions in that country.

said, that the hon. Member for Perth, carried away by feelings of religion, had adopted a course the most embarrassing with reference to the subject before the House. It was hardly possible to suggest a more inconvenient proceeding than to ask the House to come to a decision at the request of the missionaries of Bengal. Nothing was more likely to be injurious in the eyes of the Natives of India than a Resolution based on statements such as were contained in that petition, which prayed for inquiry on the ground of the ignorance and idolatry of the Natives, in order, as alleged in the petition, to promote the spread of Christianity in India. No one would be more pleased than himself to see every native of India embrace the Christian faith; but no one circumstance, at the present moment, tended more to retard the progress of Christianity in India than the disposition manifested by those engaged in its ministration, to intermeddle in political affairs. This petition was an evidence that these missionaries sought to add to the weight which they ought to derive from their spiritual office alone, the influence which sprang from secular power. On that ground he should feel it his duty to meet the hon. Gentleman's Motion by moving the previous question. No doubt the Resolutions stated facts to which no man could offer an unqualified denial. Nobody would dispute that numerous evils marked the system of administration in India; but, from what had fallen from the President of the Board of Control, the Government would appear to have become conscious of the existence of those evils, and to be taking measures for their redress. The defects requiring correction were not only those which lay upon the surface, but they were interwoven with the very basis of our power. If the natives of India were like any nation of Europeans, they could not be kept under the rule of some 30,000 or 40,000 Englishmen. The population of Bengal were a peculiar people, even in India, and incapable of either governing or taking care of themselves under any system of administration. The affairs of India turned upon an infinite mass of minute and complicated details, and could not be summarily dealt with upon any one general principle. The more he examined the complex machinery of the Indian Executive, the more he was overwhelmed with the difficulties which surrounded every step that could be taken for its improvement. The most perplexed question in English affairs was simplicity itself compared with the entangled web of Indian administration. In dealing with India we had to regard the interests, not of tribes of savages, or a race unaccustomed to any forms of law or government, but of a civilized and most religious people—a people far more religious, in fact, though mistaken in their creed, than Englishmen themselves. They had a venerable system of law which they respected, and manners and institutions which were ancient when the kingdom of England had no existence. It was a remark of Montesquieu that no tyranny could be worse than that which undertook to legislate for a people without regard to their customs, usages, feelings, and even their prejudices. We could not deal off-hand, according to some new idea of our own, with the various races of Hindostan. They had been referred to the opinions of Mr. Halliday, a high authority, and a man of superior intelligence; but when they examined his views, they would be found to resemble closely those expressed by Lord Dalhousie at the end of his Government; and, therefore, after much experience of Indian affairs, the remedy of Mr. Halliday was to sweep away the whole system of the Mofussil, or provincial administration, and to supplant it by a system more in keeping with Oriental notions. This plan proceeded on the consideration that the Asiatic did not understand the minute subdivision of our European polity; he could not comprehend why there should be more than one judge; and when he went before a judicial functionary, (whom he usually designated as "a father") whatever might be the nature of his grievance, whatever the position of his adversary, he expected that he would be capable of rendering him justice. He (Mr. Ayrton) might not entirely subscribe to these views, but they indicated what large questions had yet to be solved, and how much lay behind the subject which the hon. Member had only touched upon. The land tenure of Bengal was different from that of the rest of India. It was based on a fatal error—that of a permanent settlement, and a fixed payment from a given locality; but the same error had been almost simultaneously committed by the Government and Parliament of England in regard to the adjustment of the land tax under Mr. Pitt. The table of the House was covered with petitions from both natives and Europeans in all the three Presidencies, relative to the administration of justice, and if that question were remitted to the Legislative Council of India, without allowing the Imperial Parliament an opportunity of pronouncing an opinion upon it, the greatest dissatisfaction would be produced. He hoped that, when the President of the Board of Control should have determined on the course which he intended to pursue with regard to India, he would submit his scheme to the House, as well as all the documents bearing on the subject. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the Legislature could reverse or alter any scheme which he might set up in India without their concurrence, if it should be found to work mischievously; but it was idle to say that, after expensive establishments had been set up in India to carry the new system into operation, Parliament could rescind or reform the laws by which the change had been effected. Partial discussion like the present would be unnecessary if the right hon. Gentleman would give a distinct assurance that, in the forthcoming recess, he would apply himself to the preparation of a scheme likely to meet the complaints of the, discontented in India; but, whatever improvements might be introduced into the system of government in India, he believed that no satisfactory result could be arrived at until there was also some improvement in the system of government in this country with reference to India. The time had come when that unintelligible absurdity—the East India Company—should be put an end to, and when the name of the Queen should be made to appear in the Government of India, for the people of that country were essentially loyal, and had for ages been accustomed to sovereign power. An opportunity should now be afforded them of manifesting their sense of loyalty to the Sovereign of the British Empire.

After the appeal made to me by the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, it is not my intention to divide the House. I do not think that I ought to put the House to the trouble of a division after the explicit statements made by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control and the Chairman of the East India Company, and the assurances that have been given that attempts will be made to remove these grievances as speedily as possible. I do not, however, regret that I brought forward this Motion, because it has led to a very valuable discussion.

objected to the withdrawal of the Motion. The question was of far too great importance to be dealt with in that summary manner. He hoped that it would be adjourned with the view of being brought on again in conjunction with the intended Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Stockport with respect to the financial affairs of India. The debate had taken a very extraordinary turn. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Kinnaird) had taken upon himself to say that the Motion ought not to be pressed, without having had the slightest consultation with those hon. Members who had been attending the debate all night, and who supported him in that critical moment when, but for their presence, the House would have been counted out, but who would now have no opportunity of recording their votes on the subject. The President of the Board of Control had said that he felt no surprize at the thinness of the House during this discussion; but did not the right hon. Gentleman recollect that when his predecessor addressed the House three years ago with respect to the finances of India for two hours, there were no more than fourteen Members present to listen to his statement. But how happened it that on the present occasion the House was so thin? Where were those honourable and valuable servants of Her Majesty, the whips of the House? What were they doing? He asked that question in the presence of Her Majesty's Government. Were they not employed in thinning the House? Was it not a fact that they were at the door keeping Members out? Were they not employed in seducing Members out of the House? Except the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control there was not a Member of the Government on the Ministerial bench, and even he walked out of the House. [Mr. VERNON SMITH: That is not the fact.] An hon. Gentleman said he saw him walk out, but after the right hon. Gentleman's denial, of course he (Mr. Hadfield) could say no more; and now he begged to recall the attention of the House to the great seriousness of the question which was under consideration, being no less than that of the administration of justice in a country containing a sixth of the entire population of the world. It had not been and could not be denied that the people of India had been most unjustly treated by their rulers. All that the President of the Board of Control and the hon. Member for Guildford had said amounted to nothing more than a plea of guilty. When an offence was committed in India, the first object of suspicion was the policeman; and, as that was the sad way in which justice was administered there, he should insist on a division being taken on the Motion. The time for mere inquiry had passed, and now was the time for the House to insist on justice being done to the down-trodden people of India, who were the worst governed nation on earth. Fifty Christian missionaries concurred in describing the manner in which the people of India were governed to be so barbarous and corrupt, that the people's minds had become slaves to the most appalling fatalism. They cared for nothing but a mere miserable subsistence, and looked upon moral and social improvement as not destined for them. Attempts had been made to asperse the missionaries. Who were they? Fifty clergymen of all denominations—not of the Church only, but of the Kirk of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland, and various other classes of Christians. It was not until 1818 that missionaries were allowed to enter India; and he (Mr. Hadfield) was surprized to hear them spoken of as they had been. The advocates of the Company were obliged to plead guilty to the charge of injustice to the people of India, and he thought that the opinion of the House in reference to these statements ought to be placed on record, and he should therefore object to the Motion being withdrawn without a division.

thought it would be unwise, looking to the impression which the Vote might produce in India to press for the division, which could not now be taken under favourable circumstances,—more particularly after the statements of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control and the Chairman of the Board of Directors, that they were prepared to do all they could to carry out the views of the hon. Gentleman opposite.

maintained that, after the inflammatory speeches of the President of the Board of Control and the Chairman of the Court of Directors, admitting the whole case stated in the petition, no further harm could be done by a Vote of the House of Commons. Indeed it might be rather advantageous in urging the Government forward in the fulfilment of the promises which they had made. The hon. Member for Sheffield, however, had intimated to him that he did not mean to press for a division.

said that, however much he might agree in the statement of facts contained in the petition of the missionaries, he was not prepared immediately to adopt a course of action as recommended in the second Resolution, and he should therefore move the Previous Question, as the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had promised to do, but had not done. He thought that the House was greatly indebted to the missionaries of Bengal for having brought the condition of the population of that province before them in such clear and strong language, and he had been very much surprized to hear the President of the Board of Control speak of them as heated enthusiasts who had stepped out of their proper functions to interfere with the province of the Government. The missionaries having obtained no satisfactory answer from the Government of India had no alternative but to appeal to this House, and he thought they deserved the thanks of the House for what they had done. At the same time, after the pledges which had been given on the part of the Government, he thought the hon. Member for Perth had exercised a wise discretion in withdrawing his Motion. He hoped that a division would not be insisted on by any Member. [An hon. MEMBER said the Motion had been withdrawn.] Then, it would not be necessary for him to move the Previous Question.

observed, that the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield) seemed to cast some slur upon those hon. Members who had sat through the whole debate. He did not agree with the hon. Member in thinking that this Resolution ought not to be withdrawn. He thought that no advantage would arise from pressing the Resolutions to a division, and therefore he should move the Previous Question.

expressed his approbation of that provision by which shares in Limited Liability Companies were rendered transferable by writing without deed. He believed that at present a considerable portion of the transfers made were invalid, in consequence of the formalities now required not being fulfilled. He thought the provision might be advantageously extended to transfers of railway shares.

said, it would not be proper to deal with railway companies under this Act, the operation of which was limited to companies which had come in under the Act of last Session. He should, however, be ready to consider the suggestion of the hon. Gentleman.