Viscount Palmerston, House of Commons, 12 February 1858

I RISE, sir, in pursuance of the notice which has been given by Her Majesty's Government, to ask leave to introduce a Bill of first rate importance. I rise to ask leave to introduce a Bill for transferring from the East India Company to the Crown the government of Her Majesty's East Indian dominions. In making that proposal I feel myself bound, in the first place, to say that I do not do it in any spirit of hostility to the East India Company, or as meaning thereby to imply any blame or censure upon the administration of India under that corporation. I believe the East India Company has done many good things in India. I believe that its administration has been attended with great advantage to the population under its rule. And it is not on the ground of any delinquency on the part of the Company, but on the ground of the inconvenience and injurious character of the existing arrangements, that I propose this measure to the House. It is perhaps one of the most extraordinary facts in the history of mankind that these British Islands should have acquired such an extensive dominion in a remote part of the globe as that which we exercise over the continent of India. It is indeed remarkable that those regions, in which science and art may be said to have first dawned upon mankind, should now be subject to the rule of a people inhabiting islands which, at a time when these eastern regions enjoyed as high a civilization and as great prosperity as that age could offer, were in a state of utter barbarism. That is a remarkable circumstance; but still more remarkable is it that these extensive dominions should have been gained not by the power of a nation as a nation, but by an association of individuals, by a mercantile community, supported, indeed, to a certain degree by the power and resources of their country, but mainly indebted for success to their own energy and enterprise. These two circumstances are undoubtedly singular in the history of the world, but it is quite as remarkable, quite as singular, that a nation like this, in which the science of government is perhaps better understood than in any other, in which the principle of popular representation has so long been established, should have deliberately consigned to the care of a small body of commercial men the management of such extensive territories, such vast interests, and such numerous populations. One could easily imagine that a wilderness in the northern part of America, where nothing lives except fur-bearing animals and a few wild Indians but little removed from the lower creation, might be confined to a company whose chief functions should be to strip the running animals of their fur, and to keep the bipeds sober; but that a great country like this should deliberately consign to the management of a mere commercial company, of a set of irresponsible individuals, a great territory, occupied by different races, professing divers religions, and should place in their hands the determination of all the questions of peace and war and of international relations with independent princes, which must necessarily
arise, is, I believe, a circumstance unexampled in the history of mankind. But this country never designedly did any such thing. The existing state of things grew up gradually from a very small beginning. The original settlers began with a factory, the factory grew into a fort, the fort expanded to a district, and the district to a province, and then came collisions with less civilized neighbours, injuries to be resented, attacks to be repelled, and conflicts which always ended in victory and extension of territory. So, gradually, from one transaction to another, grew up that state of things in which the East India Company found itself invested with vast commercial privileges and with most important political functions. This state of things continued up to the year 1784, when there was an infusion of responsibility in respect of its political administrative functions into the affairs of the Company by the establishment of the Board of Control. Matters went on under this new arrangement for a number of years, during which the Company continued, subject to a slight interference from the Board of Control, to discharge its political functions, and at the same time to exercise all its commercial rights. One would have imagined that in a country like this that first step would have been followed up; that before anything else was done the reflective British nation would have pursued the course inaugurated in 1784, and that, as the effect of the measure then adopted was to limit to a certain degree the political functions of the Company, the next step would have been to take them away altogether, and to leave the Company in its original position as a trading association. However, it happens that in this country commercial matters often attract more attention arid excite deeper interest than political affairs, and the next step was, not to meddle further with the political functions of the Company, but to take away all the commercial privileges which originally constituted the foundation of its existence. Accordingly, in the year 1833 the Company altogether ceased to be a commercial association, and became, one may say, but a phantom of its original body. It lost the commercial character for which it was originally founded, and continued to be merely a political instrument, by means of which the administration of India was carried on. Now, sir, I venture to think that the arrangement so made was a most inconvenient and most cumbrous arrangement. The principle of our political system is that all administrative functions should be accompanied by Ministerial responsibility-responsibility to Parliament, responsibility to public opinion, responsibility to the Crown; but in this case the chief functions in the government of India are committed to a body not responsible to Parliament, not appointed by the Crown, but elected by persons who have no more connexion with India than consists in the simple possession of so much India Stock. I think that that of itself is a most objectionable arrangement. In this country we are slow to make changes. The indisposition to make changes is wise and useful. As a general principle it is wise, and nations do themselves great mischief, by rapid and ill-considered alterations of their institutions. But equally unwise and equally injurious is it to cling to existing arrangements simply because they exist, and not to admit changes which can be made with advantage to the nation. What can be more cumbrous than the existing system of Indian administration which is called by the name of the`double Government'? In the debates of 1853, when the last India Bill was passed, the right hon. gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) asked who was the Government of India, and to whom he was to look as the authority responsible for the administration of that vast empire. Why, sir, there is no responsibility, or rather there is a conflict of responsibility. The Directors possess a power paramount, as the right hon. gentleman said, to everything else, the power of recalling the Governor-General, by which any great system of policy may be at once interrupted. And they have this power, although the Governor-General must
have been appointed by the Crown, and the appointment sanctioned by the Directors. The functions of Government and the responsibility have been divided between the Directors, the Board of Control, and the Governor-General in India; the Board of Control representing the government of the day, responsible to this House, responsible to public opinion, appointed by the Crown, and exercising functions delegated by it; the Court of Directors, elected by the gentlemen and ladies who happen to be holders of India Stock, many of whom are totally ignorant of everything relating to Indian interests, and perhaps knowing nothing
about Calcutta, Bombay, or Madras, except what they learn from the candidates for the directorship as to the presidency to which the cadetship is to belong which is promised in return for their votes. The directors are undoubtedly, in general, men of great experience and knowledge of India, but they are elected by a body of persons who have no peculiar faculty for choosing persons qualified to govern a great empire in the East. Then comes the Governor-General, invested with great, separate, and independent powers, and among these three authorities it is obvious that dispatch and unity of purpose can hardly by possibility exist. I won't trouble the House by going into a detailed explanation of the method in which business is done, because it is very well known to those hon. Members who have given their attention to Indian affairs, that before a dispatch upon the most important matter can go out to India it has to oscillate between Cannon Row and the India House; that it is proposed by one party, altered by the other, altered again by the first, and sent back to the other; and that the adventures of a dispatch between these two extreme points of the metropolis are often as curious as those Adventures of a Guinea of which we have all read. It is obvious that this system of check and counter-check must be attended with great inconvenience to the public service, and be productive of great delay. Take, for example, a body of twenty gentlemen generally agreeing in their views, and make ten of them sit at the east end of the town and the other ten in Westminster. Propose to them any question of average difficulty and importance, and the probability is that the two parties will come to that a majority of hon. gentlemen here imagine that the Government is the authority by which those arrangements are made. Not in the least. The East India Company is chargeable with the expense of transporting troops to India; it is the Company which takes up the ships, and not the Government; and, though the opinion of the Government must naturally have weight with the Company, these arrangements are not made by the officers of the Government, but by the officers of the East India Company itself. I say, then, it is most desirable that this complicated machine should be simplified and reduced m fact and form to that which it is imagined to be, but which it practically is not. I may be asked why we take this moment for proposing a change of system. The inconveniences of different systems of administration are forced upon the attention of the Government and the country from time to time by peculiar emergencies.  Thus the arrangements of the military departments had existed in time of peace, but, though many felt that the division of the Ordnance into separate departments and the distinction between the War Office and the office of the Secretary of State for War were inconvenient, it was not until the war in the Crimea made the Government more directly sensible of the disadvantages of that complicated system that we altered the arrangements, and it was by means of the alterations carried out during the Crimean war that the consolidation, was effected, by means of which we were enabled to carry on the struggle with Russia with far greater promptitude, vigour, and success than we should have been able to do if the old system had been continued. I say, then, that as far as regards the executive functions of the Indian Government at home, it is of the greatest importance to vest complete authority where the public have a right to think that complete responsibility should rest, and that, whereas m this country there can be but one governing body responsible to the Crown, to Parliament, and to public opinion, consisting of the constitutional advisers of the Crown for the time being, so it is in accordance with the principles and practice of our constitution, as it would be in accordance with the best interests of the nation, that India, with all its vast and important interests, should be placed under the direct authority of the Crown, to be governed in the name of the Crown by the responsible Ministers of the Crown sitting in Parliament, and responsible to Parliament and the public for every part of their public conduct, instead of being, as now, mainly administered by a set of gentlemen who, however respectable, however competent for the discharge of the functions entrusted to them, are yet a totally irresponsible body, whose views and acts are seldom known to the public, and whether known or unknown, whether approved or disapproved, unless one of the Directors happens to have a seat in the House, are out of the range of Parliamentary discussion. Again, as regards our interests in India, I may state at once that the Bill which I am about to propose to the House is confined entirely and solely to a change in the administrative organization at home, and that we do not intend to make any alteration in the existing arrangements in India. In fact, if Parliament were to adopt the measure which we are about to propose, the only difference, as far as India is concerned, would be, that the next dispatch would go out signed by the President and the Council for Indian affairs, instead of by the Court of Directors, and that the reply would be addressed to the President of the new Board, instead of to the Chairman of the body sitting in Leadenhall Street. Now, I believe there can be no doubt that, so far as the impression on the minds of the people of India is concerned, the name of the Sovereign of a great empire like this must be far more respected, far more calculated to produce moral and political impressions, than the name of a Company of merchants, however respectable and able they may be. We have to deal, in that country, with Princes, some ruling independently and some in a state of modified dependence upon us, and with feudal chiefs proud of their position, cherishing traditionary recollections of a wide empire, and of great Sovereigns to whom their ancestors owed allegiance. How can we expect such men to feel any great respect for a mere Company of merchants? The respect they feel, the allegiance they yield, would be increased tenfold if the one were given and the other tendered to the Sovereign of a great and mighty empire. I believe, in fact, that what gives force to the Company in India is not the fame or authority of the Company itself, but the knowledge which the people have that behind the Company, and strengthening it, is the power of the British empire, and that, although the ruler may be an officer of a commercial association in name, the real power which they have to look up to is the power of the Sovereign of this great country. I am, therefore, satisfied that the transfer of the government of India to the Crown would, as far as its effect upon the people of India is concerned, be equivalent to a large reinforcement of troops; that the impression which would be produced would be most advantageous, and would tend to consolidate and strengthen the moral and political influence of England in these vast regions of the world. What, then, is the arrangement which we are about to propose? We wish to alter things as little as we can consistently with the great object which we have in view. That object is to make the responsible advisers of the Crown answerable for the government of India as well for that of all other possessions of the Crown beyond seas. We wish that the affairs of India should be administered by Ministers responsible to Parliament for the manner in which that country is governed. We propose, therefore, that the functions of the Court of Directors, and, of course, of the Court of Proprietors, shall cease; that there shall be substituted for those bodies a President, assisted by a Council for the Affairs of India; that that President, of course, shall be a member of the Government, and shall be the organ of the Cabinet with reference to all matters relating to India ; but, as men who have distinguished themselves in public life in this country, and who are likely from time to time, as changes of administration occur, to be placed at the head of that department, cannot be supposed to possess that detailed local knowledge which is essential to the wise government of the country, we propose that the President shall be assisted by a Council composed of persons named by the Crown, with the condition that they shall either have been Directors of the East India Company, have served for a certain period in India either in a civil or military capacity, or have resided there a certain number of years unconnected with the local administration. We propose that that Council shall consist of eight members, that the members shall be appointed for eight years, and that two shall retire by rotation every second year, in order that successive administrations may have the means of renewing the Council from time to time by the introduction of persons returning from India with fresh knowledge and ideas. We think that while, on the one hand, the permanency of a Councillor for eight years will make him an independent adviser of the President, he will not on the other, by being appointed for life, block up the way to the accession of other persons who may from time to time appear more capable of serving the country. Of course, as the proposal is to transfer to the Government of the day full responsibility for the management of Indian affairs, and as the President will be the organ of the Cabinet upon Indian matters, just as the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs are the organs of the Government in regard to the departments under their respective care, the decision of the President must be final in all matters which may be treated of in the Council. But, nevertheless, we propose that, if the Councillors differ in opinion from the President, they shall have the right to record that difference, together with their reasons, upon the Minutes of the Council, so as to be able to justify themselves afterwards for the advice they have given. The full power of the President, however, will not extend to matters involving increased expense to the Indian revenue; and, for purposes of that sort, it will be necessary that he shall have the concurrence of four Councillors to any proposals which he may, have to submit. In the temporary absence of the President a Secretary of State will be able to act for him, and four members of the Council will be a quorum for the transaction of business. We propose that the Council shall have the power of distributing among themselves the business which comes to them, so as to allot different departments of business to different Members of Council, who will, of course, make reports to the Council itself. We propose that the President shall be placed on the footing of a Secretary of State, and that the Councillors shall have a salary of  1,000 a year each. We propose that all powers now vested in the Court of Directors shall be transferred to this Council, and therefore, that all appointments which have hitherto been made by the Court of Directors or by other parties subject to the approbation of the Crown, shall be made by the Crown direct, but that all appointments in India which have hitherto been made by the local authorities shall continue to be made by those authorities; so that no part of the local Indian patronage will be transferred to the Government of this country. We propose that the President shall be able to appoint one Secretary, who shall be capable of sitting in this House. It will be convenient that a Cabinet Minister holding that situation shall have the assistance of a Secretary conversant with the business which may come under discussion; but we do not propose that the Councillors shall be capable of sitting in Parliament. We think there would be great inconvenience in such an arrangement; that they would become party men; that they would necessarily associate with one side or the other in this House, and that, with changes of Administration, the relations between the President and the Councillors might then become exceedingly embarrassing. One point which has always attracted the attention of those who have considered these matters, and which has created even a very considerable constitutional difficulty, in any attempt to decide what would be the best system of Government for India, has been the question of patronage. Many met have said that they think the `double Government' a cumbrous and antiquated machine, which ought to be done away with. That was the opinion in 1853 of a great number of those hon. gentlemen who took part in the discussion, but it was always said `How can we manage with the patronage? We do not wish to increase the patronage of the Government, and we fear that this transfer of power would greatly augment the patronage of the Home Government.' Now, I have already said with regard to local appointments, all these appointments which have hitherto been made either by the Governor-General or by other authorities in India, will continue exactly as before to be made by them, the members of the local Council being named by the Governor-General instead of being named hence. An arrangement was made in 183 by which all appointments to writerships were given up to open competition. That arrangement we shall of course maintain. Writerships, therefore, are beyond the range of patronage. The appointments to cadetships have hitherto been divided between members of the Court of Directors and the Presidents of the Board of Control. What we propose is to leave the appointments to those cadetships as they have been hitherto. The reduction from the number of Directors to the number of Councillors will give somewhat more patronage to the Councillors, but the addition to patronage of the President will be hardly acceptible. It must be remembered that hitherto we have had an enormous native army, and it does t seem probable that, for the future, we shall keep up that force at the same strength. As regards the civil appointments, they will remain matters of public competition, and as regards appointments to cadetships, they will be made, as have stated, with, probably, the additional condition that the cadets shall be appointed to probation in some military College, their final appointments to regiments depending on the efficiency of their studies. There is one condition which we propose to attach to this distribution of cadetships--viz. that a certain proportion of first appointments, which we cannot fix in a Bill, but which must be left to the discretion of the Council from time to time, shall be reserved for the sons of civil and military officers who have served in India. According to that arrangement it will be seen that no addition of patronage will devolve on the Executive Government of an amount which need excite the least constitutional jealousy the part of the House of Commons. The army India will consist, as heretofore, of Queen's troops, forming part of the regular army of this country, and local corps enlisted and confined to service in India. With regard to Queen's troops no change will be made. With regard to the others, they will be transferred to the Crown from the service of the Company, subject to the same conditions of service as those under which they are enlisted, and if they dislike that change I think in common justice, they will be entitled to their discharge. It is proposed with regard to local military services, that the troops shall be paid out of the revenues of India, and that their services shall be limited to Asia so long as they are paid out of the Indian revenue. At present, I believe, the range of service for the Company's troops is coextensive with the limits of the Company's charter, as far as any place eastward of the Cape. It is proposed that, if at any time a part of the local army shall be employed out of Asia, the troops shall then not be paid out of the Indian revenue. It will be left for this House to determine whether a force so employed shall be paid out of the revenue of this country, and whether their employment is consonant with what the interests of India may be. This will be a sufficient check against the employment of the Indian troops without the consent of Parliament. It is proposed that, whereas we transfer to this President of the Council the functions of the Court of Directors, and Board of Control, both of which will be abolished, the functions and powers of the Secret Committee, which govern matters involving great discretion and temporary secrecy, should be vested in the President, as representative of the responsible Minister of the Crown. But we propose that, in any, case in which orders shall be sent to India involving the immediate commencement of hostilities, communications thereof shall be made to Parliament within one month, if Parliament be then sitting, or within one month after Parliament shall next meet. That interval will allow a sufficient time to elapse to prevent injury to the public service from the too early publication of orders so issued; while it will, at the same time, Parliament an early opportunity of calling upon the Government for explanation of the causes which had led to such orders. Of course, it will be necessary that there should be an effective audit of revenues of India and their application. It is required by this Bill that the revenue shall be applied solely for the purpose of government in India. It is proposed that an auditor shall be appointed, with the power of appointing assistant auditors, for the purpose of examining minutely accounts of receipts and expenditure of Indian revenue, and that the accounts, when audited, shall be laid before Parliament for its consideration. Of course, power will be given to the President of the Council to issue to the Company such sums as be necessary to defray the expenditure reed for paying their dividends and keeping books, until the Company determine whether will or will not avail themselves of the option given them of being paid in a certain time for their stock. This then, sir, is, generally speaking, the outline of our measure. Of course, the details will under the consideration of the House, if it is, as I trust it will, give us leave to bring in the Bill; and when the Bill shall be in the hands of members, they will then have to consider the details, such as I have described, as well as some other points, to which I have not thought it scary to advert. But the question now to be considered is simply the great and large question, whether or not we shall transfer to the executive and responsible Ministers of the Crown the direction of the affairs of our Indian territories, or whether that direction shall be left, as heretofore, under the cumbrous and complicated system described as the 'double government', which, in my opinion, is full of embarrassment, and not calculated to accomplish the purposes good government ought to have m view, and which, though continued heretofore, because no great events have called on Parliament to reconsider it, ought, I think, to be abolished without further delay. Now, I do not think I shall be met by any objections to this principle itself, because, when I recollect what has passed on former occasions in this House, and when I know what is the general opinion of the country on the point, I cannot persuade myself that we shall meet with any strong opposition to the general principle on which the measure is founded. When I look back to what passed in 1853, I find some of the leading Members of this House expressed strong opinions that the time must come, at no distant period, when an entire change ought to be made, and that the introduction of Government nominees into the East India Direction was only the first step to further and ulterior measures; and the only doubt was, whether a full measure ought not at that time to be adopted. But, whatever may have been the opinion of Parliament at that time, I am much mistaken as to the signs and indications of opinion in the country now if the nation at large has not made up its mind that this 'double Government' ought to cease. I am convinced that this is the opinion of the country; and great disappointment would be felt if this House should negative the Bill upon an objection to the principle itself on which it is founded. We shall, no doubt, met by a motion for delay, and be told that this not the time for discussing the measure; that India is unsettled; that we should wait until a better moment, a calmer period, and until the difficulties in India are over. Why, that plea for delay is invariably the plea set up by those who are anxious to oppose that which they cannot resist directly, but which they wish to get rid of by the intermediate policy of proposing delay. Why, sir, what is the force of any argument of that kind? They say, 'Do not alter the machine of Government at a time when India is unsettled, and in difficulty, when you have not fully and finally got rid the mutiny, and when you have not entirely re-established authority in every part of the country.' What does that argument amount to when it is analysed?  It is said 'Do not change your Government now, because there is in India that to be done which is difficult to be accomplished, and which, therefore, it might require great power to accomplish.' Will, then, any man pretend that a single Government at home will not be a much more effectual instrument for the purpose than a double Government? Will any man pretend to tell me, at with a view to rapidity of discussion and execution, unity of purpose, and responsibility to the public, a Government administered by the responsible advisers of the Crown would not be a far more efficient instrument for everything to be done here than the existing conflict of checks and counter-checks, the system of previous communications and subsequent communications, of objections a dispatch and its transfer by cabs from one part of the town to another, by which delay was created, so that a dispatch, which ought to go out to-morrow, might not go out for a month, or be ready until it was too late to send it out. Why, no reasonable man will venture to get up and tell the House that the present machine can be so effective and so powerful a machine for administration at home as the machine we propose to substitute for it. Will any man acquainted with India tell me that the name of the Company--which is now pretty well seen through by all the natives in India--can have half, or the tenth part of the powerful influence the name of the Crown would carry with it? I declare it is nonsense to say that the Indian chiefs would not feel ten times more respect for the Rajah of England than for the name of any unknown Company. Well, then, I say, if we look to England, the machine we propose to substitute is a much more powerful machine, and if we look to India it is a machine infinitely more influential than the existing one. Then we are told that there is a state of difficulty in India, and what is the proposal of those who want delay? They say, that in order to overcome this difficulty, and to restore tranquillity in India, which we are told is a matter of great difficulty, and which will require great strength and power to effect, we should prolong the existence of the present weak instrument, instead of substituting for it a stronger, more powerful, and more effectual machine. In that argument there is no sense, I submit. However, we shall be told by some that the Government of India is a great mystery--that the unholy ought not to set foot in that temple--that the House of Commons should be kept aloof from any interference in Indian affairs-that if we transfer Government to the Ministers responsible to Parliament, we shall have Indian affairs made the subject and plaything of party passions in this use, and that great mischief would arise therefrom. I think that argument is founded on an overlooking of the fundamental principles of the British constitution. It is a reflection on the Parliamentary government. Why, sir, what is there in the management of India which is not mainly dependent on those general principles of statesmanship, which men in public life in this country acquire here, and make the guidance of it their conduct?  I do not think so ill of this House to imagine that it would be disposed, for factious purposes, or for the momentary triumph party, to trifle with the great interests of the entry as connected with the administration of Indian affairs. I am accustomed to think that Parliament of this country does comprise in itself as much administrative ability, and as much statesmanlike knowledge and science, as are possessed by any number of men in any other country whatever; and I own, with all respect the Court of Directors, that I cannot bring self to think that the Parliament of England less capable of wisely administering the great airs of state in connexion with India than the art of Directors in Leadenhall Street. I am not afraid to trust Parliament with an insight into India affairs. I believe, on the contrary, that if things have not gone on so fast in India as they might have done-if the progress of improvement has been somewhat slower than might have been expected, that effect has arisen from the circumstance that the public of England at large were wholly ignorant of Indian affairs, and had turned away from them, being daunted by the complications they imagined them to be involved in; and because Parliament has never had face to face, in this and the other House, men personally and entirely responsible for the administration of Indian affairs. No doubt a good deal has been done in the way of substantial improvement of late years, but that which has been done I may venture to say has been entirely the result of debates in this and the other House of Parliament. And, so far from any discussion on India having worked evil in India, I believe that the greater part of those improvements which the East India Directors boast of in that publication, which has lately issued from Leadenhall Street, has been the result of pressure on the Indian administration by debates in Parliament and discussions in the public press. Therefore, so far from being alarmed at the consequences which may arrive from bringing Indian affairs under the cognizance of Parliament, I believe that a great benefit to India, and through India to the British nation, will result therefrom. Therefore, I say, I see no reason, either on the score of principle or on the score of the augmentation of patronage, or on the score of time, or constitutional danger, why we should not at once pass the measure which it will be my duty to present to the House. Sir, I trust that Parliament will feel that great power is not given to nations without corresponding duties to be performed. We have, by an almost miraculous train of events, been entrusted with the care of the destinies of 150 or 160 millions of men--with the government, directly or indirectly, of a vast empire larger in extent than the whole face of Europe, putting the Russian empire out of the question. That is a task which involves great responsibility. Do not imagine that it is the intention of Providence that England should possess that vast empire, and that should have in our hand the destinies of that vast multitude of men, simply that we may send out to India the sons of gentlemen or of the middle classes to make a decent fortune to live on. That power has been entrusted to us for other and better purposes; and, without pointing to anything particular, I think it is the duty of this nation to use it in such a manner as to promote, as as they can, the instruction, the enlightenment, and the civilization of those great populations which are now subject to our rule. We have lately had our attention called to scenes of barbarity in India, which would make any man shudder, but are we wholly irresponsible for those scenes? If, during the century for which we have exercised power in India, we had used that power to enlighten and civilize the people, do you think their nature would not, in some measure at least, have been changed, and that the atrocious crimes which they have committed would not have been as repugnant to their feelings as they are to those of the people of this country? We ought to bear these things in mind-to remember that we have a great duty to fulfill in India, and I am sure that that duty will be best discharged if we commit performance to the hands of men who will accountable to Parliament for their conduct, and who feel themselves bound to acquaint the public of this country, step by step, with the arrangements which they make. I am confident, if Parliament should adopt the measure we are about to propose, that, while on the one hand it will add to the strength of our position in India, while it will increase the power of this country, and render our influence more firm and secure, it will, on the other hand, enable us more efficiently to perform those important duties which, in my view, it was intended that we should discharge when the great Indian empire was transferred to our control. Sir, I beg to move for leave to bring in a Bill for the better Government of India.

From: A. Berriedale Keith, ed. Speeches and Documents on Indian Policy, 1750-1921. Vol. I. London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1922, 319-342.