Thus was completed the third stage in this curious legislative achievement. Lord Palmerston’s ‘India Bill No. 1’ was laid aside, because he was expelled from office; Mr Disraeli’s ‘India Bill No. 2’ was abandoned, because it was ridiculed on all sides; and now the ‘resolutions’ were given up when half-finished, because they were found to be inoperative and non-binding. Some of the supporters of the East India Company claimed, and not illogically, a little more respect for the Company than had lately been given; the difficulty of framing a new government for India shewed, by implication, that the old régime was not so bad as had been customarily asserted.
The ‘India Bill No. 3’ was brought in by Lord Stanley on the evening (June 17th) which witnessed the withdrawal of the resolutions. The bill comprised sixty-six clauses—of the more important of which a brief outline may be given here, to furnish means of comparison with bills ‘No. 1’ and ‘No. 2:’ The government of India to revert from the Company to the Crown—A Secretary of State to exercise all the powers over Indian affairs hitherto exercised by the Court of Directors, the Secret Committee, and the Board of Control—The Crown to determine whether to give these powers to one of the four existing secretaries of state, or to appoint a fifth—The Secretary to be assisted by a ‘Council of India,’ to consist of fifteen persons—The Court of Directors to elect seven of those members from among its own body, or from among persons who had at any time been directors; the remaining eight to be nominated by the Queen—Vacancies in the council to be filled up alternately by the Crown and by the council assembled for that purpose—A majority of all the members to be chosen from among persons who had served or resided at least ten years in India—Every councillor to be irremovable during good behaviour, to be prohibited from sitting in the House of Commons, to receive twelve hundred pounds a year as salary, to be allowed to resign when he pleases, and to be entitled to a retiring pension varying in amount according to the length of service—Compensation to be given to such secretaries or clerks of the Company as do not become officers of the new department—The Secretary of State to be president of the ‘Council of India,’ to divide the council into committees for the dispatch of business, and to appoint any member as vice-president—Council meetings to be called by the Secretary, or by any five members; and five to be a quorum—Questions to be decided in the council by a majority, but the Secretary to have a veto even over the majority—The Secretary may send and receive ‘secret’ dispatches, without consulting his council at all—Most of the appointments in India to be made as heretofore—Patronage of cadetships to be exercised partly by the council, but principally by the Secretary of State, and to be given in a certain ratio to sons of persons who have filled military or civil offices in India—The property, credits, debits, and liabilities of the Company, except India stock and its dividends, to be transferred from the Company to the Crown; and the council to act as trustees in these matters—The council to present annual accounts to parliament of Indian finance and all matters relating thereto—The council to guarantee the legalised dividend on India stock, out of the revenues of India.
The ‘Bill No. 3,’ of which the above is a slight programme, came on for second reading on the 24th of June. Lord Stanley—who, as admitted by opponents as well as supporters, entered with great earnestness upon the duties of his office—stated that he had endeavoured to avail himself of all the opinions expressed during the various debates, to prepare a measure that should meet the views of a majority of the House. In the discussion that ensued, Mr Bright wandered into subjects that could not possibly be treated in the bill; he reopened the whole topic of Indian misgovernment—disapproved of governor-generals—condemned annexations—suggested new presidencies and new tribunals—and told the Commons how he would govern India if he were minister. The speech was vigorous, but inapplicable to the subject-matter in hand. The bill was read a second time without a division.
The East India Company were not silent at this critical period in their history. A meeting of proprietors on the 23d was made special for the consideration of ‘Bill No. 3,’ which was to be read a second time in the Commons on the following day; and at this meeting there was a general expression of disappointment that the Company had been treated as such a nullity. The only source of consolation was in the fact that seven members of the new council were to be chosen by the Court of Directors, from persons who then belonged or had formerly belonged to that court. The opinions of the Company were embodied in a letter addressed to Lord Stanley by the chairman and deputy-chairman, and presented to the House of Commons.
On the 25th, the House went into committee on the bill. Lord Palmerston proposed two amendments—that the members should be twelve in number instead of fifteen, and that all should be appointed by the Crown; but both amendments were rejected by large majorities as being inconsistent with the recent expression of opinion. At a further sitting on the 1st of July, the ministers shewed they had obtained a considerable hold on the House; for they succeeded in obtaining the rejection of amendments proposed by Lord Palmerston, Mr Gladstone, Sir James Graham, and Mr Vernon Smith. Lord Stanley, however, proposed many amendments himself on the part of the government; and these amendments were accepted in so friendly a spirit, that a large number of clauses were got through by the end of a long sitting on the 2d of July. One of the most interesting of the questions discussed bore relation to the Secret Committee of the past, and the proposed exercise of similar powers by the Secretary of State. Lord John Russell and Mr Mangles advocated the abolition of those powers altogether; while Sir G. C. Lewis recommended great caution in their exercise, if used. Mr Mangles, the late chairman of the Court of Directors, stated that the powers of the Secret Committee had been much more extensive than was generally supposed. ‘During many years after the conquest of Sinde, the whole government of that province was conducted by the Secret Committee, and the Court of Directors knew nothing about it. He believed that much mischief had arisen from the Secret Committee undertaking to transact business with which it had no right to interfere. The real fact was, that nine-tenths of that which came before the Secret Committee might with safety be communicated to the whole world. He wished, therefore, that there should be no Secret Committee in future. It was a mere delusion and snare. The Court of Directors had shewn themselves to be as competent to keep a secret, when there was one, as the cabinet of her Majesty; and he had no reason to think otherwise of the proposed Indian Council.’ The ministers, however, received the support of Lord Palmerston in this matter; and the continuance of the secret powers was sanctioned, although by a small majority only. On the 5th and 6th, the remaining clauses and amendments were gone through. Mr Gladstone proposed a clause enacting, ‘That, except for repelling actual invasion, or under sudden or urgent necessity, her Majesty’s forces in India shall not be employed in any military operation beyond the external frontier of her Indian possessions, without the consent of parliament.’ Lord Palmerston opposed this clause; but Lord Stanley assented to it as a wholesome declaration of parliamentary power; and it was agreed to.
At length, on the 8th of July—five months after ‘Bill No. 1’ had been introduced by Lord Palmerston, and three or four months after the introduction of ‘Bill No. 2’ by Mr Disraeli—‘Bill No. 3’ was passed by the House of Commons, after a vehement denunciation by Mr Roebuck, who predicted great disaster from the organisation of the ‘Council of India.’ Lord Palmerston’s bill was withdrawn on the next day: it never came on for a second reading.
The House of Lords justly complained of the small amount of time left to them for the discussion of the bill; but there was now no help for it, short of abandoning the measure for the session; and therefore they entered at once on the discussion. On the 9th, the bill was brought in and read a first time. Between that time and the second reading, the East India Company made one more attempt to oppose the measure. They agreed to a petition for presentation to the House of Lords. It was in part a petition, in part a protest. The propriety of adopting the petition was urged by such considerations as these: ‘If we do not protest, every wrong that may be done for years to come will be laid at our doors; but with this protest upon record, history will do us the justice of stating that we have been deprived of our power without inquiry.’ The Court of Proprietors also discussed whether counsel should be employed to represent the Company before the House of Lords. Many of the directors assented to this—but only so far as concerned technical and legal points; for, they urged, it would be very undignified to employ any hired counsel to argue the moral and political question, or to defend the conduct of the Company and the rights of India. It remained yet, however, an unsettled point whether counsel would be permitted to appear at all.
On the 13th of July, after a feeble attempt to attach importance to the Company’s petition and protest, the bill was read a second time in the Lords. The most remarkable speech made on this occasion was that of the Earl of Ellenborough, Lord Stanley’s predecessor at the Board of Control. He declared that, whether in or out of office, he could not approve of the measure, the parentage of which he gave to the House of Commons rather than to the government. He disapproved of the abandonment of popular election in the proposed council; disapproved of the strong leaven of ‘Leadenhall Street’ in its composition; disapproved of competitive examinations for the Indian artillery and engineers; and expressed a general belief that the scheme would not work well. When the bill went into committee on the 16th, the earl proposed that the members of the council should be appointed for five years only, instead of for life; but this amendment was negatived without a division. Lord Broughton, who, as Sir John Cam Hobhouse, had once been president of the India Board, opposed the whole theory of a council in the strongest terms. He described in anticipation the inconveniences he believed would flow from it. ‘The council would only embarrass the minister with useless suggestions and minutes on the most trifling questions; and, if they were rejected, the minority would always be able to furnish weapons of attack against the Secretary in the House of Commons. The minister would gain no advice or knowledge from the council he could not obtain from others without the embarrassment of having official councillors.’ The Earl of Derby contested these assertions simply by denying their truth; and they had no effect on the decision of the House. All the clauses were examined during three sittings, on the 16th, 19th, and 20th of the month, and were adopted with a few amendments. During the discussions, the Earl of Derby appeared as the friend of the ‘middle classes.’ The Earl of Ellenborough having repeated his objection to competitive examination for the engineers and artillery of the Indian army, on the ground that it would lower the ‘gentlemanly’ standard of those services, the premier replied that, ‘He was not insensible to the advantages of birth and station: but he could not join with his noble friend in saying that because a person happened to be the son of a tailor, a grocer, or a cheesemonger, provided his mental qualifications were equal to those of his competitors, he was to be excluded from honourable competition for an appointment in the public service.’
On the 23d of July the India Bill was read a third time and passed by the House of Lords, with only a few observations bearing collaterally on Indian affairs. The Archbishop of Canterbury and some of the bishops made an appeal for the more direct encouragement of Christianity in India; but the Earl of Derby made a very cautious response. ‘Due protection ought to be given to the professors of all religions in India, and nothing should be done to discourage the efforts of Christian missionaries. On the other hand, he deemed it essential to the interests, the peace, the well-being of England, if not also to the very existence of her power in India, that the government should carefully abstain from doing anything except to give indiscriminate and impartial protection to all sects and all creeds; and that nothing could be more inconvenient or more dangerous on the part of the state than any open or active assistance to any attempt to convert the native population from their own religions, however false or superstitious.’ The Earls of Shaftesbury and Ellenborough joined in deploring the vindictive feeling which had sprung up between the Europeans and natives in India, and which, if continued, would neutralise all attempts at improvement. The Anglo-Indian press was severely reproved for the share it had taken in originating or fostering this feeling.
The Lords having introduced a few amendments in the India Bill, these amendments required the sanction of the Commons before they could be adopted. One of these affected the secret service of the new council; another, the mode of appointing the higher officials in India; a third, the principle of competitive examinations; a fourth, the application of Indian revenues; and so on. The Commons rejected some of these amendments, and accepted the rest, on the 27th. On the 29th the Lords met to consider whether they would abandon the amendments objected to by the Commons. This they agreed to do except in one instance—relating to competitive examinations for the Indian artillery and engineers; they still thought that commissions in these two services should be given only to ‘gentlemen,’ in the conventional sense of the term. The government, rather than run into collision with the Lords, recommended the Commons to assent to the slight amendment which had been made; and this was agreed to—but not without many pungent remarks on the course which the Upper House had thought proper to pursue. Sir James Graham adverted to a supercilious allusion by the Earl of Ellenborough to the ‘John Gilpin class,’ and added—‘Where is hereditary wisdom found? In what consists the justice of the tenet that India must henceforward be governed by gentlemen, to the exclusion of the middle classes—a gentleman being defined to be something between a peer and those who buy and sell. Is this, I would ask, the only argument that can be advanced against the system of competitive examinations? Who, let me ask, founded, who won our Indian empire?—Those who bought and sold. Who extended it?—Those who bought and sold. Who now transfer that empire to the Crown?—Those who bought and sold; a company of merchants—merchants, forsooth, whose sons are now not thought worthy to have even inferior offices in India committed to their hands. But are not the sons of those who buy and sell entitled to the appellation of gentlemen? Definitions are dangerous; but I should, nevertheless, like to know what it is that constitutes a gentleman. Why, sir, it appears to me that if a man be imbued with strong Christian principles, if he have received an enlightened and liberal education, if he be virtuous and honourable—it appears to me that such a man as that is entitled to the appellation. And who will tell me that among the sons of those who buy and sell may not be found men possessing literary attainments and a refinement of mind which place them in a position to bear comparison with the highest born gentlemen in India? Who, let me ask, were the conquerors of the country? From what class have they sprung? Who was Clive?—The son of a yeoman. Who was Munro?—The son of a Glasgow merchant. Who was Malcolm?—The son of a sheep-farmer upon the Scotch border. These, sir, are the men who have won for us our Indian empire; and I entertain no fear that the sons of those who buy and sell, and who enter the Indian service by means of this principle of open competition, will fail to maintain a high position in our army, or that they will do anything to dishonour the English name.’