in Parliament itself; so that Parliament of a Council, because removed almost enhas become directly responsible for the tirely from the control of public opinion in administration of the affairs of India. The this country, deprived of the advantage machinery by which Parliament has exer- which his Colleagues who are administercised this control is that of the Secretary ing other Departments of the State have of State in Council. The Council, as hon. of free discussion in Parliament upon every Members are aware, consists of fifteen question that arises, he is called upon to gentlemen, of whom the greater part have superintend and control the proceedings of served for a certain length of time in the Governors of an enormous Empire at India. Half of them are elected members the other side of the world, upon thouand half nominated by the Crown, and sands of details, embracing every class of they have certain powers conferred upon business. He is at once charged with them. They hold their offices for life, and military duties, with financial duties, with act as the advisers, and, to a certain ex- the duties of home administration, with tent, the controllers, of the Secretary of foreign affairs, with judicial affairs, with State, in whom is vested the control of the management of great railway and other the Executive Government of India. The public works; and the enormous mass of experience of the working of this system business which comes upon him is peris very favourable to the general principles fectly overwhelming. How is he to deal upon which it is founded. I am now with all these questions, unless he has the speaking more especially of the Council, advantage of taking counsel with persons and it is right to bear my testimony-and possessing such a considerable amount of I am sure my predecessors would also bear practical knowledge and holding such an theirs to the very efficient and invalu- independent position as to be competent to able assistance which they have derived enter into discussion with him? I do not from the gentlemen who have acted as know whether those who speak of the their Council. I believe that, in some great advantages of personal government quarters, among persons not very cognizant mean the term to be applied to the conof the nature of the business of the Coun- trolling authority in this country; I am cil, or of the mode in which they discharge quite certain, if they do, they are using a their functions, an impression prevails term of the significance and effect of which that the Council are more or less of a use- they are hardly conscious. Anything like less, and even of an obstructive, character. an attempt to regulate and control the One frequently sees taunts thrown out affairs of India through the personal auagainst them as being old and superan- thority of the Secretary of State alone nuated members of Indian services, who would be a most disastrous failure and have no acquaintance with the wants of would lead to serious consequences. It the present day, and stand in the way of may be said, no doubt, that the Secretary all improvement and reform; but any one of State, if he were not assisted by a who has had practical experience of the Council, would, of course, have the advanmode in which the Council has worked tage of having heads of Departments who would feel that this was not only ungene- would be possessed of a large amount of rous, but a very untrue account of the experience and would be compelled to give matter. The greater number of the mem- advice; but that would not be equivalent bers of Council devote a large part of their to the advice, assistance, and control of a time to the discharge of the duties of their body of Councillors properly selected and office; many of them work as hard as any holding a proper position. One of the obclerks or secretaries I have ever known in jections urged against the present system any public office; and, combined with the is that these Councillors are able to overamount of work they do as departmental rule the Secretary of State upon various officers, they afford most valuable assistance points of importance-that, in fact, his reas advisers to the Secretary of State. In sponsibility is frittered away by the cir estimating the value of the Council hon. cumstance that he has not the power to Gentlemen ought to bear in mind the pe- act as he himself pleases, and that, thereculiar position in which the Secretary of fore, when he is taken to task in this State, as a general rule, is placed in ad- House for anything done or omitted, he ministering the affairs of India. One who may shelter himself by pleading that it is has had no personal experience of India is not he but the Council that is responsible. placed in an anomalous and difficult posi- In the first place, that is not strictly true; tion, at least if he have not the assistance at least, to a very great extent it is not Except in questions immediately that my first impression was that it would be desirable to give the Secretary of State power, when any expenditure was recommended by the Governor General, to overrule his Council if he thought proper, and bring the matter before Parliament for approval; but, upon further consideration, I believe it is better and safer to leave the matter as it now stands. I do not know that the imaginary case I have put has ever happened, and, looking to the spirit which animates the Council in India-and which I believe always will animate any Council in India, if you have a Secretary of State who is really competent for his office-I think it will scarcely ever happen that the Council will refuse expenditure which he takes the responsibility of urging upon them, telling them that he must hold them responsible for refusing it. If they do so, he has it in his power to bring the matter before Parliament in such a way as to raise a full and fair discussion, and if the Council were objecting to that which was absolutely necessary, I believe he would be able to overcome them. Therefore, I do not think it is necessary to introduce any change in the present system, which has in it very great advantages, including this, that it furnishes a check to any rash or ignorant action on the part of the Secretary of State. There are certain disadvantages; but, considering all things, I do not propose any alteration. With regard to the other point on which the Council have supreme authority-namely, the appointment of certain officers in India, the members of the Governor General's Council, and of the Councils of the Governors of the Presidencies, I feel differently. I think we ought to lay down as the first principle of our proceeding that the Executive in India should be as strong as possible, and that the control should be exercised, not in India, not by any vexatious hampering of the Governor General or the Governors, as the case may be, but by the deliberate action of the Secretary of State in this country. In former times, when India was at a great distance in point of time from this country, when it was impossible to send home for instructions, and when the Governors and the Governor General had enormous power, it was undoubtedly right to put some check upon them, and Councils in India were, no doubt, invented for that purpose. In the days of Warren Hastings such control was effectually exercised. The state of things now is so changed that the occasion connected with the expenditure of money, and except in questions relating to certain appointments-of which I shall speak presently-the Secretary of State has always the power of over-ruling his Council if he pleases, although no Secretary of State would unnecessarily exercise it. Still, he has the power, and whenever he thinks a sufficient case has arisen, he is bound to exercise it. Therefore, he certainly ought not as a rule to shelter himself under the plea that it is the Council and not he that is responsible. No doubt he has the power, which has been from time to time exercised, of over-ruling his Council, and as he has the power he must be responsible when he does not choose to do so. With regard to questions of expenditure, I was some time before I was able to make up my mind as to the right proposal to submit to the House, or, indeed, whether I should make any at all. It is undoubtedly the case that the Secretary of State has not the same power of over-ruling his Council with regard to the expenditure of money that he has in other matters, and that is a very important limitation upon his powers. It might happen, for instance, that the Governor General might send home a despatch to this country calling attention to the sanitary condition of some of the great towns in India; and he might point out that it was necessary, in his opinion, that certain measures should be undertaken to improve the condition of those towns. The Secretary of State might be perfectly convinced that the Governor General was right; he might propose the necessary expenditure to his Council; they might by a majority, perhaps a small one, refuse to sanction it; and in that case the Secretary of State would be powerless. Suppose after a time a great calamity hap. pened, an epidemic broke out in consequence of the neglect of sanitary precautions, a number of lives were lost, and the Secretary of State were called upon in Parliament to answer for that neglect, all he would be able to say would be that he was over-ruled by his Council. That is an illustration of what might happen under the present system. Undoubtedly, the controlling power is vested in Parliament, and if Parliament chose to hold the Secretary of State responsible it would seem reasonable that he should have ample power to exercise his authority. After full consideration, I am satisfied we may still leave things as they stand at present. I own for this sort of control seems to have things which I do not deem satisfactory, ceased. On the other hand, the character and I wish to get rid of any danger of of the business done in India has ma- that kind, because nothing could be more terially changed as India has become injurious to the Government of India than more civilized. It becomes more and to turn it into anything that could be called a bureaucracy." But if you pursue a system under which the majority of the Councillors are appointed by rising to a certain position in the Civil Service, you do, in fact, create a "bureaucracy." I therefore propose that the power of nominating the members of the Governor General's Council, and those of the Councils of. the Presidencies should be transferred virtually to the Secretary of State. The only other point in this Bill that I need mention relates to the control over the expenditure. It is this-There is in the present Act for the Government of India a section which provides for the appointment of an officer called the Auditor General, who has great power vested in him by that Act. He has to examine all the accounts, and see that nothing is done, and no expenditure ordered without proper sanction; and, to secure his independence, direction is given in the Act that he shall be appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is also to fix his salary, which he is to receive for life, or as long as he conducts himself properly. All that sounds very well, but in actual practice, whether intentionally or through inadvertence, I do not know, that clause has been made a mere farce. Because, although a very distinguished gentleman has been appointed as Auditor General, and a salary which cannot be taken from him, has been assigned to him by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, yet that salary is only £300 a year; and, inasmuch as he is a very valuable officer, and performs some important departmental duties, an addition of £700 a year has been made to his income by the Secretary of State in Council, which is quite independent of what he enjoys by Royal Warrant, and might be taken from him to-morrow by a stroke of the pen of the Secretary of State in Council. To say that a gentleman with a fixed salary of £300, and a variable one of £700, depending on the pleasure of those whom he is appointed to control, is an independent officer, is what I call a mere farce; and I therefore propose that the Auditor General shall continue to receive the same salary as now more necessary that the Executive should be able to distribute its business among Departments, as is done in this country, ceasing to be a controlling power over the Governor General, aud becoming more ministerial to discharge particular functions with authority. It is becoming important that the Governor General should have the support in his Council of men upon whom he can rely, and who will be of use to himself, he retaining his responsibility, he being the person responsible to the Secretary of State, and not they; and if that is so, it would seem natural that the Governor General should have the power of selecting his Councillors. Speaking from my own point of view, I should have been very glad to give the Governor General directly the power of nominating his own Councillors. It has, however, been pressed upon me by men whose opinions I am bound to respect that there may be cases in which this would lead to inconvenience. I therefore propose, instead of giving the power directly to the Governor General, to give it to the Secretary of State-that is to say, to provide that Her Majesty shall by Royal Warrant nominate these Councillors, and that power Her Majesty will, of course, exercise, under the advice of the Secretary of State, who, it is to be supposed, will be guided by the advice of the Governor General in regard to the selection of those gentlemen. I cannot but think that there may be a tendency, on the part of the Council of India, composed of men such as Indian Councillors always must be, to look upon such appointments in a different light from that in which as I conceive they ought to be regarded. That is to say, that, being for the most part old civil servants, they are tempted to look on the position of Councillor as one which the members of that service, if they are persons of average competence, and of a certain standing, ought in due course to attain, and that it is a case of injustice or unfairness to pass over a man standing high in the Civil Service and put one who is his junior into the Indian Council. It is, in fact, thought that after a certain period of service a man earns his appointment to the Council. That is a state of namely, £1,000 a year, but that it shall be given him by the Act, and at the same words will be inserted, providing that he shall not receive any other salary from the fine the powers of the Governor General Secretary of State. Beyond this, we do not propose that there should be any ma terial alteration in the principles on which the control over the expenditure is exercised; but I do think it would be desirable that this House should take somewhat more interest in observing what the expenditure is. I have introduced some changes in the form of the accounts which will render them rather more intelligible to the House. I have called on the Auditor General to make his Report in such a manner as will show whether there are any points which he thinks ought to be challenged, so that attention may be directed to them; and I hope the House will consent to refer the accounts with the Auditor General's Report upon them to the standing Committee of Public Accounts, which examines the audited accounts of Imperial expenditure. And if that Committee will undertake this duty, I should propose that when the Secretary of State brings forward what is called his Indian Budget, instead of asking the House to pass a Resolution affirming simply that certain facts have been laid before it, he should propose a Resolution to the effect that the House has seen the namely, that on the first occasion their Report of the Committee of Public Ac- difference of opinion has become decided, counts upon the Auditor General's state- and they know that they do disagree, the ment, and approves the same. That would Governor General shall at once be able to be a kind of voucher which would not im- over-rule his Council, giving, of course, to pose any great responsibility on the House, his Councillors the power of recording but which would afford it more opportu- Minutes, with their reasons for dissenting nity, if so disposed, of challenging any from him, and providing for those Minutes particular portion of the expenditure. I being sent to the Secretary of State. Anmay mention a matter which has been, I other point of a rather technical nature, admit very properly, the subject of some and which it will, perhaps, be best to criticism in this House. I refer to the leave till the Bill is in print, relates to the expenditure incurred last year for the ball definition of the power which the Goto the Sultan. Under the old form of the vernor General in his Legislative Council accounts that expenditure would never has to make laws for British subjects in have appeared in any account presented other parts of India. Then comes another to this House; but I have ordered the ac- point of considerable importance. counts to be prepared in such a shape as House is aware generally of the distincthat any item of that kind would be easily tion drawn between the Regulation and seen, and that the House might have an the non-Regulation provinces of India, and opportunity of expressing an opinion upon probably also that under the Indian Counit. I do not, however, think it would be cils Act of 1861, the power which was desirable so to alter these things as to formerly supposed to be vested in the call upon the House in any way to vote Governor General of making laws or reguthe expenditure for India, because that lations with the force of law for the nonwould change in an inconvenient manner Regulation provinces, has now ceased to the relations between the Imperial Parlia- exist, and that, in fact, there is no means ment and India in financial matters. I by which he can legislate for the Punhave described to the House the whole of jab, the Central Provinces, or any of the first Bill which I wish to bring in for the outlying parts of India which has the amendment of the Government of not a Legislative Council of its own, exIndia Act. There is another Bill I pro- cept through the Legislative Council of pose to introduce, which is intended to de- India. Well, the Legislative Council of The India is a body extremely well qualified, no doubt, to legislate for the settled parts of India; but it does not appear to be very well qualified to legislate for the wilder, ruder, and more distant portions of that country. In the first place, its composition is not such as would enable it very easily to legislate for certain remote parts of India; and, in the next place, the very fact, that anything which is proposed for the regulation of those provinces must form matter of debate in the Legislative Council is a serious evil; because in those wilder districts what is wanted is something more in the nature of despotic ordinances to meet promptly and at once some difficulty that has arisen; and if those ordinances are made the subject of discussion in such a fairly advanced Council as now usually sits at Calcutta, there is every probability that misunderstanding and misrepresentation may arise, and those very discussions may produce much mischief in the provinces in question. What I propose in this Bill is to give powers to the Lieutenant Governors of the Punjab and the other provinces where there are no Legislatures, and also to the authorities in such parts of India as may be specified by the Secretary of State, to propose regulations to the Governors in Council to which they may give the force of law. That suggestion emanates from Mr. Maine, and is entirely approved by Sir John Lawrence. There is another point which relates to the very important question of the Government of Bengal. The House will bear in mind much that happened last year in consequence of the melancholy and disastrous famine in Orissa, and the inquiries that were made into the steps that were taken to avert and relieve that distress. The House will not have forgotten the result of those inquiries was far from satisfactory as to the picture of our administration of Orissa. It was a difficult matter to say upon whom the responsibility of that failure directly fell-whether on the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, on the the officers under him, or on the Government of India. The peculiar relations that exist between the Governor General and the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal were undoubtedly seen to be very inconvenient and embarrassing. These circumstances have naturally caused a great deal of attention to be bestowed upon the question of the administration of Bengal. Early in the autumn, I drew the attention of my Council to the subject; and the most convenient mode of proceeding, I thought, was to appoint a Special Committee of the Council of India, and submit to them certain questions as to the administration of India generally, and especially as to the future organization of the administration of Bengal. That Committee devoted considerable time to the examination of the subject, and ultimately presented a Report, which was signed by four out of six members of Committee; the other two put in a dissent. The view the majority took was this - that Calcutta ought to be the capital of India, that it was essential that the Governor General and the Government of India should be permanently resident in Calcutta, and that if the Government resided in Calcutta it would be inexpedient and embarrassing to have a separate Government of Bengal in the same city with the Government of India. They held, therefore, that the Government of Bengal should continue, as at present, under a Lieutenant Governor, but strengthened by the addition of secretaries and other officers, and they proposed to take the city of Calcutta out of the administration of the Lieutenant Governor and place it under the direct administration of the Governor General of India. They also proposed that the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal should be a member of the Governor General's Council. Two Members of the Committee dissented from those recommendations, however, and advocated the erection of Bengal into a full Government, like Madras and Bombay. It happened that Mr. Maine was in this country, and he put in a very interesting memorandum on the subject. After these Papers were presented and I had considered them, I adopted the view of the minority- that it was more desirable that the Government of Bengal should be erected into a Presidency on the footing of Madras and Bombay. I also came to the conclusion that the majority of the Committee were wrong in thinking that it was necessary to confine the Governor General of India and his Council to Calcutta, and that it was rather desirable that they should be as far as possible detached from any local or special adminis tration. It seemed to me unnecessary to lay down the principle that there should be but one capital of India, and that capital Calcutta. I thought that by detaching the Government of India from local administration, and setting it free to place itself wherever its presence was required, |