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].)
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[[205]] to lay before your lordship,[[206]] and through you before her Majesty’s government, a few observations on some portions of the bill.