If He abled to state that it was spreading rapidly; | bate of that evening had proved beyond all and it was admitted on all hands that there doubt that free discussion in Parliament was an intense thirst for it throughout the should be brought to bear on the minutest entire empire. The people were indus- details of the Government of India. trious as bees, and the difficulty with Hin- there had been any listlessness exhibited, doo schoolboys was not to get them to work it must be ascribed to the lateness of the but induce them to play. The success of period at which the Indian Budget had the female schools was also most gratifying, been introduced. Earlier in the evening and the Parsee schools in Bombay were he had been anxious to bring under disalso most successful. The natives had a cussion a grievous wrong inflicted on one great desire for an education based on the of those native Princes who had petitioned English system, and the books most used the House of Commons, but he had been were those published by the Committee of stopped on a point of Order. Some short National Education in Ireland. Another time ago he had presented a petition from interesting feature was the tendency of one of the remaining Princes of Scinde, to capital to go to India. Allusion had been whom had been left a shred only of his made to a railway which was about to be territory. That petition contained very constructed without a guarantee. He had strong charges, and he should not have that morning had an interview with the presented it if the allegations had not enterprising promoter, Mr. Harrison, who been borne out by the facts. At so late lately most successfully established the an hour (twelve o'clock) it was, of course, Bombay Gold Company. That railway, impossible for him to bring the subject which was projected to reach from Calcutta forward; nor did he think that in a geto Chittagong, had come out into the mar- neral discussion this particular grievance ket on Friday last, and had been favour- could be considered with advantage. ably received. He did not know if it thought it due, however, to the character, would answer, but he mentioned it as a both of the Indian Government and of the sign and a symptom of the fact that India East India Company, that the statements was an increasing field for enterprise. Then in that petition should be answered (if it with regard to cotton-spinning, the esta- were possible to answer them) during the blishments which had been put into opera- present Session. So strong were the altion at Pondicherry, at Calcutta, and other legations of the petition that the Printing places, were important-not from their Committee had, as he thought quite unsize, but from the promise they held out: necessarily, omitted the names of the peryarn, which had hitherto been exported sons implicated. He would now, however, from England, might be made in India, give notice that on Thursday evening he and a trade arise which would lead to a would move for papers connected with the large interchange of capital between the subject, and if discussion were put off on two countries, and go some way to solve that occasion it would not be from any the question whether this country could not fault of his. be rendered independent of Anierica with regard to cotton. Then, again, there was the Euphrates Railway scheme, which was supported by the Turkish Government, and which was part of a largely-developing system of communication between England and India, which must go to increase their mutual wealth. If education was spread, if justice was rendered cheap and easy, and mercantile enterprise was spread over the country, it was to be hoped that every blot would be removed from the adminis tration of the revenue, every illegal exaction done away, and every case of torture made to cease, and that a new day would dawn on India-a result which was to be brought about more by the moral impress of the English mind upon that country than by any species of enactment. MR. I. BUTT said, he thought the de MR. MANGLES said, he could not, in justice to the body of which he was a member, allow the statements which had been made to their disadvantage to pass unnoticed. The hon. and learned Member for Devonport (Sir E. Perry), and those who agreed with him, in speaking of the Indian Government, were in the invariable habit of confining their attention exclusively to the failures and shortcomings of that body, and entirely overlooking the amount of good which it had done. No system of administration on earth could endure so unfair and one-sided a test. England itself could as little stand it as India. The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Otway) had commented on the treaty of 1837 between the Indian Government and the King of Oude. The result of the alternative suggested by the hon. Member would have been that the East India Company would have been obliged to take possession of the Government of Oude after the streets of Lucknow had flowed with blood. It seemed to be supposed that the East India Company were guilty of hypocrisy in maintaining that they were responsible for the good government of Oude, but forty years ago Mr. Mill, in his History of British India, had laid it down that the East India Company were responsible for all the miseries inflicted by the native Governments which they protected and supported. With regard to the deficiencies of the police system, the Government had always been sensible of them, and measures were now in progress to remedy them. He quite agreed in the expediency of separating the police from the revenue department, and he had himself advocated that separation upwards of twenty-five years ago. With regard to the views of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control with respect to the emoluments of the civil servants in India, he considered that they were not only unsound but inaccurate. It was a mistake to say that the civil service was most corrupt when best paid. It was no doubt most corrupt when its members made most money, as was shown in Mr. Macaulay's Essay on the Life of Lord Clive, and he should earnestly deprecate any unwise reduction of the salaries of the Indian. civil servants, which should give them a shadow of an excuse-and a miserable excuse it would be admitted-for indulging in the dishonest practices there described. From a Return which he held in his hand, he found that, comparing the year 1827 with 1854, the amount paid to the civil service had greatly decreased, notwithstanding the large increase in the number of civil servants. Injustice had been done, he thought, to the civil servants in the matter of torture. When so many eminent Indian officials, Governors General and others, had been ignorant of its existence, was it not a fair inference to draw that it was not so general as commonly supposed? All the inquiries which had been made had been confined to the Madras Presidency, where the people were exceedingly poor, and where the land tax was paid by small cottiers, but in Bengal and the north-western provinces it was extremely unlikely that torture could exist. In the Mofussul the revenue was paid by the zemindars, and there was not a single Government revenue officer in the pro vince by whom torture could be inflicted. [Cries of "Divide!"] Although he had intended to reply to other statements that had been made in the course of the discussion, he would not oppose the wish of the House to bring the debate to a conclusion. MR. VERNON SMITH said, he must beg to explain, with reference to the Report of the Law Commission, that he was not aware that any compact had been entered into with the Commissioners that their recommendations should at once become law. From communications he had had with his noble Friend (Lord Canning), he entertained no doubt that the recommendations of the Commissioners would be carried into effect as speedily as possible. The Commissioners on the Penal Code had also reported, and he hoped the Legislative Council would be enabled at an early period to give effect to the most important suggestions contained in their Report. MR. OTWAY said, he understood that Mr. Theobald, the Professor of Law at the Calcutta Institute, who had first brought the subject of torture in India under the notice of the hon. Member for Poole (Mr. D. Seymour) had been dismissed from his office. He (Mr. Otway) did not mean to intimate that that Gentleman had been dismissed in consequence of the part he had taken with reference to the question of torture, but there could be no doubt that the course he had pursued had not tended to bring him into favour with the authorities. He would, however, beg to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Control was aware of the cause of Mr. Theobald's dismissal, and whether it was connected with the part that gentleman had taken in the denunciation of torture? MR. VERNON SMITH replied that he was not aware of the fact of Mr. Theobald's dismissal, but if it had taken place with the sanction of the Governor General of India, or of the Council, he thought he could say that it had not been the consequence of Mr. Theobald's denunciation of the system of torture. He (Mr. V. Smith) could not conceive that the Governor General or the Council would act so unjustly. Resolutions agreed to. 1. Resolved, "That the total net Revenues of the Bengal Presidency, for the year ended the 30th day of April, 1854, amounted to £8,096,682 period, other than Military Charges, amounted to sterling; and the Charges thereof for the same £2,200,944 sterling. 2. Resolved, "That the total net Revenues of right rev. Prelates have stipulated that the North Western Provinces, including the newly their resignations shall be given in? acquired Territory, for the year ended the 30th day of April, 1854, amounted to £5,656,674 sterling; and the Charges thereof for the same period, other than Military Charges, amounted to £1,547,106 sterling. 3. Resolved, "That the net Revenues of Ben gal and the North Western Provinces, together, for the year ended the 30th day of April, 1854, amounted to £13,753,356 sterling; and the Charges thereupon, including the Military Charges, amounted to £9,774,486 sterling, leaving a surplus available for the general Charges of India of £3,978,870 sterling. 4. Resolved," That the total net Revenues of the Madras Presidency (Fort St. George), for the year ended the 30th day of April, 1854, amounted to £3,315,513 sterling; and the net Charges thereof, for the same period, amounted £3,539,334 sterling, showing an excess of Charges over Revenue in the above Presidency, of £223,821 sterling. to VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: That correspondence was laid before the House of Lords, and there will be no objection to its production. PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS (SCOTLAND) BILL. On the Question that the Lords' Amendments to this Bill be considered, THE LORD ADVOCATE moved that Clauses 12 and 14, imposing a test on schoolmasters, be left out of the Bill. MR. HENLEY said, he did not quite understand the Motion which had been made, but he supposed the object was to reinstate the two clauses which were struck out by the House of Lords. He was sorry that the right hon. and learned Lord Ad5. Resolved, "That the total net Revenues of vocate thought fit to disagree with the the Bombay Presidency, for the year ended the Lords' Amendments. The Bill was in30th day of April, 1854, amounted to £2,633,211 sterling; and the net Charges thereof, for the tended to improve the system of education same period, amounted to £2,977,113 sterling, in Scotland, by increasing the salaries of showing an excess of Charges over Revenue in the masters and providing for inspection, the above Presidency of £340,902 sterling. &c. So far, everybody was in favour of the measure, but the clauses which had been struck out proposed to sever the connection of the schools with the Church of Scotland. Now, he was surprised that this severance should be attempted, because the whole system of education in Scotland had always been looked up to as worthy of imitation, and they were told the same creed was taught by all denominations in that country. The Free Church party, he 6. Resolved, "That the total net Revenues of the several Presidencies, for the year ended the 30th day of April, 1854, amounted to £19,705,080 sterling; and the Charges thereof amounted to £16,290,933 sterling, leaving a surplus Revenue of £3,414,147 sterling. 7. Resolved, "That the Interest on the Registered Debt of India paid in the year ended the 30th day of April, 1854, amounted to £2,195,975 sterling, and the Charges defrayed in England on account of the Indian Territory in the same period amounted to £3,262,289 sterling, leaving a deficiency of Indian Income for the year ended as aforesaid, to defray the above Interest and Charges, of £2,044,117 sterling. House resumed. BISHOPS OF LONDON AND DURHAM RETIREMENT BILL-QUESTION. SIR JAMES GRAHAM: Perhaps it will be for the convenience of the House if the noble Lord at the head of the Government will state when he proposes to move the second reading of the Bill respecting the future incomes of the Bishops of London and Durham. VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I shall propose that the Bill be read a second time to-morrow. SIR JAMES GRAHAM: At the morning or evening sitting? [Viscount PALMERSTON: In the evening.] Will the noble Lord have any objection to lay upon the table the correspondence which has taken place between the Bishops of London and Durham and Her Majesty's Government with respect to the terms upon which those was informed, exacted what was called a test from their own professors and schoolmasters, and he could not understand on what ground the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate contended that the masters of the parochial schools should not come under some sort of test. THE LORD ADVOCATE said, he greatly deplored the course which had been taken in another place on this Bill; and he called upon the House to persist in the principle which they had hitherto maintained on this subject. He thought that when the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Henley) came to inquire a little more into the question, he would considerably modify his views. It was just because the people of Scotland nearly all held substantially the same creed, as the right hon. Gentleman had observed, that this Bill was necessary. The Presbyterians of Scotland, consisting of nine-tenths of the community, were taught the same catechism and held the same faith, and that being the case it was thought undesirable that at least one-half of the people of Scotland | representative of the City of Glasgow, he should be ineligible as masters of the wished to thank his right hon. and learned national schools. The Bill was accord- Friend the Lord Advocate for the Bill, ingly brought in to improve and amend which, although it did not go far enough the system of education, and to provide in the way of reform, was nevertheless a that that exclusion should no longer exist. measure for which the people of Scotland It was not proposed to sever the connec- would be most grateful to the House of tion between the Established Church and Commons. the schools. The heritors and ministers were to have the power of electing the schoolmasters left in their hands, but it provided that their choice should not be restricted to one denomination. That was the whole question. The House had affirmed the principle over and over again, and by a majority of two to one they sent the Bill, with that provision, to the other House. It had been said in another place that the majority in that House was unworthy of consideration, because it consisted chiefly of the borough Members of Scotland who had no interest in the matter; but he contended that the borough Members had a very deep interest in this question, as it was from the agricultural districts the boroughs principally received those who were employed in them, and the education of those districts must therefore be to them a matter of great importance. They had, in his belief, a far greater interest in the question than the landowners who never sent their sons to the parochial schools, and who had merely to pay the schoolmaster because they bought their land with that burden resting on it. He had been told that this was a Free Church Bill. He could only say that he was offered terms from the other side of the House that would have had the effect of letting in all the Free Church teachers while it kept out others; but those terms he refused, so that there could be no pretence whatever for calling it a Free Church measure. It seemed to him that to keep up a test not to exclude Episcopalians, against whom it was originally levelled, but to exclude onehalf of those persons whom it was intended to protect, would degrade the national schools of Scotland to the rank of schools belonging to a mere denomination. The House had already condemned the test as exclusive and unjust. He sincerely hoped it would continue to do so; but, in the event of its being foiled in the attempt to place the schools on a national basis, it would be its duty to declare that the paro- MR. NEWDEGATE said, the admischial schools of Scotland had no further sion of the right hon. and learned Lord claim to favour than those of any other Advocate that if he had framed the clause denomination. so as to include the Established Church MR. JOHN MACGREGOR said, as the and the Free Church, the Bill would have LORD HADDO said, he could not avoid expressing his astonishment that the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate should insist so pertinaciously on the retention of a clause which, if adopted, would be barren of any practical result. He considered that he was contending for a shadow. The clause, as it originally stood, was sure to be inoperative; for, as had been admitted by a noble Lord, a foremost supporter of the Bill in another place, the landed proprietors of Scotland were too strongly in favour of a religious test to, have elected schoolmasters who were not known as members of a particular denomination. He would ask, then, why should such a clause be pressed forward with a tenacity that was likely to endanger the passing of a Bill which contained so much that was useful? The clause said that no schoolmaster should be required to make a confession of faith. Did that mean that when a school was vacant the patron was not to require from the candidates a declaration of their religious opinions? That declaration, whether made by word of mouth, or conveyed in a letter, would be tantamount to a confession of faith, and might be made a condition, not perhaps of the instalment in office, but of the preliminary examination. The passing of the clause would no doubt nominally, though not practically, place the members of the Free Church on a footing of equality with those of the Established Church; but the House was bound, before taking such a step, to consider whether in doing something agreeable to the Free Church it would not be inflicting great injury upon other parties. It was believed in Scotland that the existing test was the best security that could be had for religious teaching in the schools; and he was sure that the absence of any recognition that the schoolmaster had a religious duty to perform would be viewed with great disapprobation and apprehension. been received with universal approbation, fully justified the other House of Parliament in amending the Bill as they had done. It would be impossible to satisfy a whole community; but the Lord Advocate had shown them that he had wilfully rejected terms which would have quieted the apprehensions of a great majority of the Presbyterians of Scotland. The truth was, that the Lord Advocate, in order to favour the pretensions of certain would-be schoolmasters, was carrying on a system of persecution against the existing teachers in the national schools, who were very inadequately paid. MR. BLACK said, he would remind the House that there were three sections of Presbyterians in Scotland, the Established Church, the Free Church, and the United Presbyterians. They were all of nearly equal magnitude, and the Lords' Amend ments, if agreed to, would therefore prevent two-thirds of the people of Scotland from availing themselves of the advantages to be derived from the Bill. SIR ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL said, he thought that if the Established Church and the Free Church acted together, the third section of Presbyterians alluded to by the hon. Member would be found a very small minority. The Government had made no effort to advance the cause of education except by introducing Bills which they did not pass, and they alone would be to blame if incompetent schoolmasters were to teach the people of Scotland for another year. MR. W. LOCKHART said, he was of opinion that a change in the present parochial system of Scotland would be very injurious to the country. MR. ELIOTT LOCKHART said, he would appeal to the noble Lord at the head of the Government not to allow agitation upon this subject to be kept up year after year. Lords' Amendments considered; several agreed to; several disagreed to; several amended, and agreed to; others agreed to. Committee appointed, "to draw up Rea. sons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to the Amendments to which this House hath disagreed:"-The LORD ADVOCATE, Viscount DUNCAN, Sir GEORGE GREY, Viscount MONCK, Mr. FITZROY, and Mr. KINNAIRD: - To withdraw immediately; Three to be the quorum. HOUSE OF LORDS, Tuesday, July 22, 1856. MINUTES.] PUBLIC BILLS.-2 Sheep, &c. Contagious Diseases Prevention; Hospitals (Dublin); Burial-grounds (Ireland); Lunatic Asylums (Superannuation) (Ireland); Joint-stock Banks. 3a Sheep, &c. Contagious Diseases Prevention; Formation, &c. of Parishes; Courts of Common Law (Ireland); Unlawful Oaths (Ireland) ; Nuisances Removal, &c. (Scotland); Marriage and Registration Acts Amendment. THE CRIMEAN BOARD OF INQUIRYEXPLANATION. THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, I wish to make a few remarks in reference to some animadversions which have been made upon me in another place, in consequence of what I addressed to your Lordships a few nights since, on the production of the Report of the Board of General Officers at Chelsea. I think the most con venient course will be to read what I did say on the occasion. I have placed it upon paper, and have shown it to several persons who were present at the time, and they all admit its accuracy. I said— "The Minister of War, excusing himself on the last occasion for not producing the Report, stated that he was acting under the advice of the Judge Advocate General. I do not desire to comment upon the manner in which that learned Gentleman conducted himself on that inquiry, or I might say that he appeared to me to assume more the authority of the Board than the position of the legal adviser of the Board. What character he assumed during the deliberations, with closed doors, I will not say; but I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that the learned Gentleman is a colleague of the noble Lord, and is, therefore, no doubt most unfairly, open to the suspicion that he might not be more impatient for the drawing up of the Report than the noble Lord is for producing it. In passing, I must take the opportunity of observing that it is repugnant to all sense of justice that in a political inquiry a political partisan should be the officer to advise the Court. A review of the proceedings at Chelsea makes it clear that the administration of justice before military courts requires consideration on the part of the Legislature, and as I believe that consideration cannot be given to it in a more fitting place than your Lordships' House, I hope the next Session will not pass away called to the office of the Judge Advocate General, without the attention of your Lordships being the functions of that officer, his tenure of office, and the mode of procedure before military courts, which I do not hesitate to say is at present unnecessarily tedious and obstructive to eliciting truth." I believe that to be a most accurate report The House adjourned at a quarter before of what fell from me on that occasion; Two o'clock. the learned Gentleman in another place |