The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan 1856-7-8

That your petitioners cannot well conceive a worse form of government for India, than a minister with a council whom he should be at liberty to consult or not at his pleasure, or whose advice he should be able to disregard without giving his reasons in writing, and in a manner likely to carry conviction. Such an arrangement, your petitioners submit, would be really liable to the objections in their opinion erroneously urged against the present system. Your petitioners respectfully represent that any body of persons associated with the minister, which is not a check, will be a screen. Unless the council is so constituted as to be personally independent of the minister; unless it feels itself responsible for recording an opinion on every Indian subject, and pressing that opinion on the minister, whether it is agreeable to him or not; and unless the minister, when he overrules their opinion, is bound to record his reasons – its existence will only serve to weaken his responsibility, and to give the colourable sanction of prudence and experience to measures in the framing of which those qualities have had no share.

That it would be vain to expect that a new council could have as much moral influence, and power of asserting its opinion with effect, as the Court of Directors. A new body can no more succeed to the feelings and authority which their antiquity and their historical antecedents give to the East India Company, than a legislature, under a new name, sitting in Westminster, would have the moral ascendency of the Houses of Lords and Commons. One of the most important elements of usefulness will thus be necessarily wanting in any newly constituted Indian Council, as compared with the present.

That your petitioners find it difficult to conceive that the same independence, in judgment and act, which characterises the Court of Directors will be found in any council all of whose members are nominated by the crown. Owing their nomination to the same authority, many of them probably to the same individual minister whom they are appointed to check, and looking to him alone for their re-appointment, their desire of recommending themselves to him, and their unwillingness to risk his displeasure by any serious resistance to his wishes, will be motives too strong not to be in danger of exercising a powerful and injurious influence over their conduct. Nor are your petitioners aware of any mode in which that injurious influence could be guarded against, except by conferring the appointments, like those of the judges, during good behaviour; which, by rendering it impossible to correct an error once committed, would be seriously objectionable.

That your petitioners are equally unable to perceive how, if the controlling body is entirely nominated by the minister, that happy independence of parliamentary and party influence which has hitherto distinguished the administration of India, and the appointment to situations of trust and importance in that country, can be expected to continue. Your petitioners believe that in no government known to history have appointments to offices, and especially to high offices, been so rarely bestowed on any other considerations than those of personal fitness. This characteristic, but for which, in all probability, India would long since have been lost to this country, is, your petitioners conceive, entirely owing to the circumstance that the dispensers of patronage have been persons unconnected with party, and under no necessity of conciliating parliamentary support; that consequently the appointments to offices in India have been, as a rule, left to the unbiassed judgment of the local authorities; while the nominations to the civil and military services have been generally bestowed on the middle classes, irrespective of political considerations, and in a large proportion on the relatives of persons who had distinguished themselves by their services in India.

That your petitioners therefore think it essential that at least a majority of the council which assists the minister for India with its advice, should hold their seats independently of his appointment.

That it is, in the opinion of your petitioners, no less necessary that the order of the transaction of business should be such as to make the participation of the council in the administration of India a substantial one. That to this end it is, in the opinion of your petitioners, indispensable that the dispatches to India should not be prepared by the minister, and laid before the council, but should be prepared by the council, and submitted to the minister. This would be in accordance with the natural and obvious principle, that persons, chosen for their knowledge of a subject, should suggest the mode of dealing with it, instead of merely giving their opinion on suggestions coming from elsewhere. This is also the only mode in which the members of the council can feel themselves sufficiently important, or sufficiently responsible, to secure their applying their minds to the subjects before them. It is almost unnecessary for your petitioners to observe, that the mind is called into far more vigorous action, by being required to propose, than by merely being called on to assent. The minister has necessarily the ultimate decision. If he has also the initiative, he has all the powers which are of any practical moment. A body whose only recognised function is to find fault, would speedily let that function fall into desuetude. They would feel that their co-operation in conducting the government of India was not really desired; that they were only felt as a clog on the wheels of business. Their criticism on what had been decided, without their being collectively consulted, would be felt as importunate as a mere delay and impediment; and their office would probably be seldom sought, but by those who were willing to allow its most important duties to become nominal.

That, with the duty of preparing the dispatches to India would naturally be combined the nomination and control of the home establishments. This your petitioners consider absolutely essential to the utility of the council. If the officers through whom they work are in direct dependence upon an authority higher than theirs, all matters of importance will in reality be settled between the minister and the subordinates, passing over the council altogether.

That a third consideration to which your petitioners attach great importance, is, that the number of the council should not be too restricted. India is so wide a field, that a practical acquaintance with every part of its affairs cannot be found combined in any small number of individuals. The council ought to contain men of general experience and knowledge of the world, also men specially qualified by financial and revenue experience, by judicial experience, diplomatic experience, military experience; it ought to contain persons conversant with the varied social relations, and varied institutions of Bengal, Madras, Bombay, the Northwestern Provinces, the Punjaub, and the native states. Even the present Court of Directors, reduced as it is in numbers by the act of 1853, does not contain all the varieties of knowledge and experience desirable in such a body; neither, your petitioners submit, would it be safe to limit the number to that which would be strictly sufficient, supposing all the appointments to be the best possible. A certain margin should be allowed for failures, which, even with the most conscientious selection, will sometimes occur. Your petitioners, moreover, cannot overlook the possibility, that if the nomination takes place by ministers at the head of a political party, it will not always be made with exclusive reference to personal qualifications; and it is indispensable to provide that such errors or faults in the nominating authority, so long as they are only occasional, shall not seriously impair the efficiency of the body.

That while these considerations plead strongly for a body not less numerous than the present, even if only regarded as advisers of the minister; their other office, as a check on the minister, forms, your petitioners submit, a no less forcible objection to any considerable reduction of the present number. A body of six or eight will not be equal to one of eighteen in that feeling of independent self-reliance which is necessary to induce a public body to press its opinion on a minister to whom that opinion is unacceptable. However unobjectionably in other respects so small a body may be constituted, reluctance to give offence will be likely, unless in extreme cases, to be a stronger habitual inducement in their minds than the desire to stand up for their convictions.

That if, in the opinion of your [lordships’] honourable House, a body can be constituted which unites the above enumerated requisites of good government, in a greater degree than the Court of Directors, your petitioners have only to express their humble hope that your endeavours for that purpose may be successful. But if, in enumerating the conditions of a good system of home government for India, your petitioners have, in fact, enumerated the qualities possessed by the present system, then your petitioners pray that your [lordships’] honourable House will continue the existing powers of the Court of Directors.

That your petitioners are aware that the present home government of India is reproached with being a double government; and that any arrangement by which an independent check is provided to the discretion of the minister, will be liable to a similar reproach. But they conceive that this accusation originates in an entire misconception of the functions devolving on the home government of India, and in the application to it of the principles applicable to purely executive departments. The executive government of India is, and must be, seated in India itself. The Court of Directors is not so much an executive as a deliberative body. Its principal function, and that of the home government generally, is not to direct the details of administration, but to scrutinise and revise the past acts of the Indian government – to lay down principles and issue general instructions for their future guidance – and to give or refuse sanction to great political measures, which are referred home for approval. These duties are more analogous to the functions of parliament than to those of an executive board; and it might almost as well be said that parliament, as that the government of India, should be constituted on the principles applicable to executive boards. It is considered an excellence, not a defect in the constitution of parliament, to be not merely a double but a triple government. An executive authority, your petitioners submit, may often with advantage be single, because promptitude is its first requisite. But the function of passing a deliberate opinion on past measures, and laying down principles of future policy, is a business which, in the estimation of your petitioners, admits of and requires the concurrence of more judgments than one. It is no defect in such a body to be double, and no excellence to be single, especially when it can only be made so by cutting off that branch of it which, by previous training, is always the best prepared – and often the only one which is prepared at all – for its peculiar duty.

That your petitioners have heard it asserted that, in consequence of what is called the double government, the Indian authorities are less responsible to parliament and the nation than other departments of the government of the empire, since it is impossible to know on which of the two branches of home government the responsibility ought to rest. Your petitioners fearlessly affirm that this impression is not only groundless, but the very reverse of the truth. The home government of India is not less, but more responsible than any other branch of the administration of the state; inasmuch as the president of the Board of Commissioners, who is the minister for India, is as completely responsible as any other of her Majesty’s ministers; and, in addition, his advisers also are responsible. It is always certain, in the case of India, that the president of the Board of Commissioners must have either commanded or sanctioned all that has been done. No more than this, your petitioners would submit, can be known in the case of the head of any department of her Majesty’s government. For it is not, nor can it rationally be supposed, that any minister of the Crown is without trusted advisers; and the minister for India must, for obvious reasons, be more dependent than any other of her Majesty’s ministers, upon the advice of persons whose lives have been devoted to the subject on which their advice has been given. But in the case of India such advisers are assigned to him by the constitution of the government, and they are as much responsible for what they advise, as he for what he ordains; while, in other departments, the minister’s only official advisers are the subordinates in his office, men often of great skill and experience, but not in the public eye, often unknown to the public even by name; official reserve precludes the possibility of ascertaining what advice they give, and they are responsible only to the minister himself. By what application of terms this can be called responsible government, and the joint government of your petitioners and the India Board an irresponsible government, your petitioners think it unnecessary to ask.

That, without knowing the plan on which her Majesty’s ministers contemplate the transfer to the Crown of the servants of the Company, your petitioners find themselves unable to approach the delicate question of the Indian army, further than to point out that the high military qualities of the officers of that army have unquestionably sprung, in a great degree, from its being a principal and substantive army, holding her Majesty’s commissions, and enjoying equal rank with her Majesty’s officers; and your petitioners would earnestly deprecate any change in that position.

That your petitioners having regard to all these considerations, humbly pray your [lordships’] honourable House that you will not give your sanction to any change in the constitution of the Indian government during the continuance of the present unhappy disturbances, nor without a full previous inquiry into the operation of the present system. And your petitioners further pray, that this inquiry may extend to every department of Indian administration. Such an inquiry your petitioners respectfully claim, not only as a matter of justice to themselves, but because, when, for the first time in this century, the thoughts of every public man in the country are fixed on India, an inquiry would be more thorough, and its results would carry much more instruction to the mind of parliament and of the country, than at any preceding period.

E. I. Company’s Objections to the First and Second India Bills: April 1858. (See p. 567 (#x_83_i20).)

It is the duty of your Directors to lay before the Proprietors the two bills which have been introduced into parliament by the late and by the present ministry, for divesting the East India Company of all participation in the government of India, and for framing a new scheme of administrative agency.

On former occasions, when the ministers of the Crown have submitted measures to parliament for altering, in any manner, the constitution of the Indian government, the substance of the measures has been officially communicated to the Court of Directors, and an opportunity allowed to them of offering such remarks as their knowledge and experience in Indian affairs might suggest. The correspondence being afterwards laid before the Court of Proprietors, formed the most appropriate report which the Directors could make to their constituents on the measures under consideration by the legislature. In the present instance, this opportunity not having been afforded to them, it appears desirable that they should adopt the present mode of laying before the proprietary body the observations which it is entitled to expect from its executive organ, on the bills now before parliament, and on the present posture of the Company’s affairs.

The Directors cannot but advert with feelings of satisfaction to the altered tone which public discussion has assumed in regard to the character of the East India Company, and the merits of the administration in which the Company has borne so important a part. The intention of proposing the abolition of the Company’s government was announced in the midst of, and it may be surmised in deference to, a clamour, which represented the government of India by the Company as characterised by nearly every fault of which a civilised government can be accused, and the Company as the main cause of the recent disasters. But in the parliamentary discussions which have lately taken place, there has been an almost universal acknowledgment that the rule of the Company has been honourable to themselves and beneficial to India; while no political party, and few individuals of any consideration, have alleged anything seriously disparaging to the general character of the Company’s administration. So far, therefore, the stand made by the Company against the calumnies with which they have been assailed, may be considered to have been successful.

But the admission generally made, and made explicitly by the proposers of both the bills, that the existing system works well, has not had the effect of inducing doubt of the wisdom of hastily abolishing it. Neither does it seem to have been remembered, that if the system has worked well, there must be some causes for its having done so, and that it would be worth while to consider what these are, in order that they might be retained in any new system. If the constitution which has made the Indian government what it is, must be abolished, because it is thought defective in theory, what is substituted should at least be theoretically unobjectionable. But the constitution of the East India Company, however anomalous, is far more in accordance with the acknowledged principles of good government than either of the proposed bills.

The nature of the case is, indeed, itself so anomalous, that something anomalous was to be expected in the means by which it could be successfully dealt with.

All English institutions and modes of political action are adapted to the case of a nation governing itself. In India, the case to be provided for is that of the government of one nation by another, separated from it by half the globe; unlike it in everything which characterises a people; as a whole, totally unacquainted with it; and without time or means for acquiring knowledge of it or its affairs.

History presents only two instances in which these or similar difficulties have been in any considerable degree surmounted. One is the Roman Empire; the other is the government of India by the East India Company.

The means which the bills provide for overcoming these difficulties consist of the unchecked power of a minister. There is no difference of moment in this respect between the two bills. The minister, it is true, is to have a council. But the most despotic rulers have councils. The difference between the council of a despot and a council which prevents the ruler from being a despot is, that the one is dependent on him, the other independent; that the one has some power of its own, the other has not. By the first bill, the whole council is nominated by the minister; by the second, one-half of it is nominated by him. The functions to be intrusted to it are left, in both, with some slight exceptions, to the minister’s own discretion.

The minister is indeed subject to the control of parliament and of the British nation. But though parliament and the nation exercise a salutary control over their own affairs, it would be contrary to all experience to suppose that they will exercise it over the affairs of a hundred millions of Hindoos and Mohammedans. Habitually, they will doubtless be hereafter, as they have been heretofore, indifferent and inattentive to Indian affairs, and will leave them entirely to the minister. The consequence will be, that in the exceptional cases in which they do interfere, the interference will not be grounded on knowledge of the subject, and will probably be, for the most part, confined to cases where an Indian question is taken up from party motives, as the means of injuring a minister; or when some Indian malcontent, generally with objects opposed to good government, succeeds in interesting the sympathies of the public in his favour. For it is not the people of India, but rich individuals and societies representing class interests, who have the means of engaging the ear of the public through the press, and through agents in parliament. And it is important to remark, that by the provisions of either of the bills, the House of Commons will be rendered even less competent, in point of knowledge of Indian affairs, than at present, since by both bills all the members of the Council of India will be excluded from it.

The government of dependencies by a minister and his subordinates, under the sole control of parliament, is not a new experiment in England. That form of colonial government lost the United States, and had nearly lost all the colonies of any considerable population and importance. The colonial administration of this country has only ceased to be a subject of general condemnation since the principle has been adopted of leaving all the important colonies to manage their own affairs – a course which cannot be followed with the people of India. If the control of parliament has not prevented the habitual mismanagement of countries inhabited by Englishmen like ourselves, who had every facility for representing and urging their grievances, it is not likely to be any effectual protection to Mussulmans and Hindoos.

All governments require constitutional checks; but the constitutional checks applicable to a case of this peculiar kind must be found within the governing body itself.

Though England, as a whole, while desiring nothing but to govern India well, is necessarily ignorant of India, and feels, under ordinary circumstances, no particular interest in its concerns, there are in England a certain number of persons who possess knowledge of India, and feel an interest in its affairs. It seems, therefore, very desirable, for the sake of India, that England should govern it through, and by means of, these persons. This would be the case if the organ of government principally consisted of persons who have passed a considerable portion of their lives in India, or who feel that habitual interest in its affairs which is naturally acquired by having aided in administering them; and if this body, or a majority of it, were periodically elected by a constituency composed of persons in England who have served the government for a certain length of time in India, or whose interests are connected with that country by some permanent tie. It would be an additional advantage if this constituency had the power of requiring information, and compelling a public discussion of Indian questions. These are conditions which, to a considerable extent, the existing constitution of the East India Company fulfils.

The other great constitutional security for the good government of India lies in the forms of business. This is a point to which sufficient importance is not generally attached. The forms of business are the real constitution of India.

From the necessity of the case, recognised in both the proposed measures, the administration must be shared, in some proportion, between a minister and a council. The council may consist of persons possessing knowledge of India. The minister, except in very rare cases, can possess little or none. He is placed in office by the action of political party, which is governed by considerations totally unconnected with India; and, in the common course of politics, he is removed from office by the time he has been able to learn his duty. Even in the unusual case, of which present circumstances are an example, when the minister has made himself acquainted with India through the discharge of high functions in India itself, his knowledge is but the knowledge of one man; and one man’s knowledge of a subject like India, until corrected and completed by that of other men, is, it may safely be affirmed, wholly insufficient, and if implicitly trusted, even dangerous. The good government, therefore, of India, by a minister and a council, depends upon the amount of influence possessed by the council; and their influence depends upon the forms of business.

However experienced may be the council, and however inexperienced the minister, he will have the deciding voice. The power will rest with one who may know less of the subject than any member of the council, and is sure to know less than the council collectively, if they are selected with ordinary judgment. The council will have no substantive power, but only moral influence. It is, therefore, all-important that this influence should be upheld. Unless the forms of business are such as to insure that the council shall exercise its judgment on all questions; that all matters requiring decision shall be considered by them, and their views recorded in the initiatory stage, before the minister has committed himself to an opinion – they will possess no more weight or influence than the same number of clerks in his office, whom also he can consult if he pleases; and the power of the minister will be practically uncontrolled.

In both the bills these considerations are entirely disregarded. The first bill does not establish any forms of business, but leaves them to be determined by the minister and his council; in other words, by the minister. Even, therefore, if the minister first appointed should be willing to establish forms which would be any restraint upon himself, a subsequent minister would have it in his power to alter the forms in any manner he pleased.

The second bill, unlike the first, does establish forms of business; but such alone as would effectually prevent the council from being a reality, and would render it a useless pageant.

To make the council a merely consultative body, without initiative, before whom subjects are only brought after the minister has made up his mind, is already a fatal inroad upon its usefulness. But by the second bill the council are not even a consultative body. The minister is under no obligation to consult them. They are not empowered to hold any regular meetings. They are to meet only when the minister convenes them, or on a special requisition by six members. He may send orders to India without their knowledge when the case is urgent, of which urgency he is the sole judge. When it is not urgent, his orders must be placed in the council-room for the perusal of the members for seven days, during which they are not required, but permitted, to give their opinion, not collectively, but individually. Their only power, therefore, is that of recording dissent from a resolution not only taken, but embodied in a dispatch. And as if this was not enough, provision is made that an office, always invidious, shall be incapable of being fulfilled in any but the most invidious manner. The members of council must come forward individually in declared opposition to the minister, by volunteering a protest against his announced intentions, or signing a requisition for a meeting of council to oppose them. Such a council is fitted to serve as a shield for the minister’s responsibility when it may suit him to seek, and them to accord, their adhesion; rather than as a restraint on his power to administer India according to his individual pleasure.

The Directors are bound to admit, that the first of the bills contains several provisions indicative of a wish to assure to the council a certain, though small, amount of influence. The administration is to be carried on in the name of the president in council, and not, as by the second bill, in that of the Secretary of State alone. The council, as well as the president, has a voice in the appointment of the home establishment; while in the second bill all promotions and all appointments to the principal offices under the council, rest with the Secretary of State, exclusively; a provision which divests the council of all control or authority over their own establishment. Again, by Section XII. of the first bill, no grant involving increase of expenditure, and no appointment to office or admission to service, can be made without the concurrence of half the council. This, as far as it goes, is a real power; but its value is much diminished by the consideration that those by whom it is to be exercised are the nominees of the minister, dependent on him for their continuance in office after a few years.

In some other points the provisions of the second bill seem to have the advantage. Its council is more numerous; to which, however, little importance can be attached, if the council has no substantial power. It also recognises that the whole of the council ought not to be nominated by the minister, and that some part of it should be elected by a constituency specially qualified by a knowledge of India. But even in these, the best points of the bill, it is, in the opinion of the Directors, very far from unexceptionable. The nomination of even half the council by the minister, takes away all security for an independent majority. It may, indeed, be doubted whether there is any sufficient reason for the minister’s nominating any portion, except the supposed reluctance of some eligible persons to encounter a canvass. The proportion of one-third, whom the minister now nominates to the Court of Directors, seems the largest which, consistently with full security for independence, can be so appointed.

The provision that each of the members nominated by the Crown shall be selected as the representative of some particular branch of the service in India, is still more objectionable. Not only would it preclude the nomination of the most distinguished man, if the seat in council appropriated to the department in which he had served were not at the time vacant, but it would introduce a principle which cannot be too strongly deprecated – that of class legislation. The council should comprise the greatest attainable variety of knowledge and experience; but its members should not consider themselves as severally the representatives of a certain number of class interests.

The clause which continues to the Proprietors the power of electing some portion of the council is, so far, deserving of support; and the principle of enlarging the constituency by the addition of persons of a certain length of Indian service and residence is, in itself, unexceptionable; but unless guarded by provisions, such as have never yet been introduced into any electoral system, so large and scattered a constituency as that proposed would greatly add to the inconvenience of canvass: especially as it is not certain that the new electoral body would adopt, from the old, the salutary custom of re-electing, as the general practice, whoever has been once chosen, and has not, by misconduct or incapacity, deserved to forfeit their confidence. The duties of a member of council would be entirely incompatible with a continually-recurring canvass of the constituency.

Respecting the proposition for giving the choice of five members of council to the parliamentary constituencies of five great towns, the Court of Directors can only express a feeling of amazement. It is not the mere fact of election by a multitude that constitutes the benefits of the popular element in government. To produce those benefits, the affairs of which the people are enabled to control the management must be their own affairs. Election by multitudinous bodies, the majority of them of a very low average of education, is not an advantage of popular government, but, on the contrary, one of its acknowledged drawbacks. To assign to such a constituency the control, not of their own affairs, but of the affairs of other people on the other side of the globe, is to incur the disadvantages of popular institutions without any of the benefits. The Court of Directors willingly admit the desirableness, if not necessity, of some provision for including an English element in the Council of India; but a more objectionable mode than the one proposed of attaining the object, could scarcely, in their opinion, be devised.

Besides the provisions which relate to the organ of government in England, the bills contain provisions relating to India itself, which are open to the strongest objection.

The appointments to the councils at Calcutta and at the subordinate presidencies, which are now made by the Court of Directors, with the approbation of the Crown, are transferred by both bills to the governor-general, and to the governors of Madras and Bombay. The Court of Directors are convinced that this change would greatly impair the chances of good government in India. One of the causes which has most contributed to the many excellences of Indian administration is, that the governor-general and governors have always been associated with councillors selected by the authorities at home from among the most experienced and able members of the Indian service, and who, not owing their appointments to the head of the government, have generally brought to the consideration of Indian affairs an independent judgment. In consequence of this, the measures of a government, necessarily absolute, have had the advantage, seldom possessed in absolute governments, of being always preceded by a free and conscientious discussion; while, as the head of the government has the power, on recording his reasons, to act contrary to the advice of his council, no public inconvenience can ever arise from any conflict of opinion. These important officers, who, by their participation in the government, form so salutary a restraint on the precipitancy of an inexperienced, or the wilfulness of a despotically tempered, governor-general or governor, are henceforth to be appointed by the great functionary whom they are intended to check. And this restraint is removed, when the necessity for an independent council will be greater than ever; since the power of appointing the governor-general, and of recalling him, is taken away from the Company, and from the body which is to be their substitute. It may be added that the authorities at home have had the opportunity of being acquainted with the conduct and services of candidates for council from the commencement of their career. The governor-general or governor would often have to nominate a councillor soon after their arrival in India, when necessarily ignorant of the character and merits of candidates, and would be entirely dependent on the recommendation of irresponsible advisers.

Another most objectionable provision demands notice, which is to be found only in the second bill. A commission, appointed in England, is to proceed to India, for the purpose of inquiring and reporting on the principles and details of Indian finance, including the whole revenue system, and, what is inseparably involved in it, the proprietary rights and social position of all the great classes of the community. The Court of Directors cannot believe that such a project will be persisted in. It would be a step towards the disorganisation of the fabric of government in India. A commission from England, independent of the local government of the country, deriving its authority directly from the higher power to which the local government is subordinate, and instructed to carry back to the higher power information on Indian affairs which the local government is not deemed sufficiently trustworthy to afford, would give a most serious shock to the influence of the local authorities, and would tend to impress all natives with the belief that the opinions and decisions of the local government are of small moment, and that the thing of real importance is the success with which they can contrive that their claims and objects shall be advocated in England. Up to the present time, it has been the practice of the home government to uphold in every way the authority of the governments on the spot; even when reversing their acts, to do so through the governments themselves, and to employ no agency except in subordination to them.

From this review of the chief provisions of the bills, which embody the attempts of two great divisions of English statesmen to frame an organ of government for India, it will probably appear to the proprietors, that neither of them is grounded on any sufficient consideration of past experience, or of the principles applicable to the subject; that the passing of either would be a calamity to India; and that the attempt to legislate while the minds of leading men are in so unprepared a state, is altogether premature.

The opinion of your Directors is, that by all constitutional means the passing of either bill should be opposed; but that if one or the other should be determined on for the purpose of transferring the administration, in name, from the East India Company to the Crown, every exertion should be used in its passage through committee to divest it of the mischievous features by which both bills are now deformed, and to maintain, as at present, a really independent council, having the initiative of all business, discharging all the duties, and possessing all the essential powers of the Court of Directors. And it is the Court’s conviction, that measures might be so framed as to obviate whatever may be well founded in the complaints made against the present system – retaining the initiative of the council, and that independence of action on their part which should be regarded as paramount and indispensable.

E. I. Company’s Objections to the Third India Bill: June 1858. (See p. 570 (#x_83_i30).)

1. Although the bill which has been newly brought in by her Majesty’s ministers ‘for the better government of India,’ has not yet been formally communicated to the Court of Directors, the Court, influenced by the desire which they have already expressed to give all aid in their power towards rendering the scheme of government, which it is the pleasure of parliament to substitute for the East India Company, as efficient for its purposes as possible, have requested us[194 - The chairman and deputy-chairman.] to lay before your lordship,[195 - Lord Stanley, president of the Board of Control.] and through you before her Majesty’s government, a few observations on some portions of the bill.

2. Having in documents which have been presented to parliament expressed their sentiments fully on all the general features of the subject, the Court refrain from offering any further arguments on points upon which the government and the House of Commons seem to have pronounced a decided opinion. The joint government of a minister and a council, composed in majority of persons of Indian experience, deriving their appointments only partially from ministerial nomination, and all of them holding office on a tenure independent of the minister, is a combination which fulfils to a considerable extent the conditions of a good organ of government for India. The Court would have much preferred that in the constitution of the council more extensive recourse had been had to the elective principle. But if they cannot hope that this course will be adopted, they see many advantages in the provision by which one-half the number, instead of being named by the government, will be selected by a responsible body, intimately connected with India, to whom the qualification of candidates will in general be accurately known, and who will be under strong inducements to make such a choice as will tend to increase the credit and consideration of the body.

3. With regard to the qualifications prescribed for members of council, the Court desire to offer a suggestion. Her Majesty’s present government have, on many occasions, expressed a desire to secure the Crown appointments against the evils of abuse of patronage. The security against such abuse has hitherto consisted in the strict limitation of the appointments to persons who have served a considerable number of years in India. While the Court fully agree with her Majesty’s government in recognising the desirableness of an English element, it does not seem to them advisable that this element should extend to nearly half the council, only a bare majority being reserved for persons of Indian experience. Knowledge of India is, after all, the most important requisite for a seat in the Indian Council; while it is chiefly in the English nominations that there is any present danger lest appointments should be obtained through political or parliamentary influence – from which influence, unless introduced through that channel, the council, like the Court of Directors, may be expected to be altogether free. The Court, therefore, recommend that the qualification of ten years’ Indian service or residence be made imperative on at least two-thirds instead of a mere majority of the fifteen members of council. They also think it questionable if the interests of India will be promoted by the exclusion of the whole of the members of the council from seats in parliament. These are the only modifications which we are requested to suggest in the provisions respecting the composition of the council.

[The remaining objections made by the Directors were little more than a repetition of those made against the first and second bills (given in extenso in a preceding page); and need not be reproduced here. The Directors expressed a dislike or apprehension of the subordinate position in which the Council would be placed; of the autocratic power to be possessed by the Secretary for India; of the transference of the powers of the Secret Committee wholly and solely to him; of the proposed mode of making appointments and exercising patronage; of any disturbance in the mode of auditing accounts; and of the appointment of any Commission of Inquiry in India which should appear derogatory to the dignity of the local governments. Many of these objections were listened to, and were productive of modifications during the discussion of the bill. The result will be seen in the next article of this Appendix.]

Abstract of Act for the Better Government of India – 21 and 22 Vict. cap. 106. – Received Royal Assent August 2, 1858. (See p. 573 (#x_83_i41).)

Transfer of Governing Powers