that the right hon. Gentleman must think that the responsible affairs of his government were entirely beneath his notice. If there was one question that had attracted greater public attention in Ireland than another during the last three or four years in the newspapers and in the Courts of the country, publicly and open, and everybody to hear and see, it was this case of Mr. Elcock and the Trustees of the Netterville charities. He was thoroughly surprised that the Chief Secretary, who might be supposed to take some little interest in Irish questions, declared that he had never heard of these places or of the parties in this question. The Chief Secretary also said he had heard nothing which sustained the charges brought against Mr. Gradwell. It was usually supposed that neither a trustee nor an agent could be the purchaser of property of which he was the trustee or agent. Mr. Gradwell, who was both agent and trustee, had the audacity to sell to himself a portion of this property, and there was considerable doubt about its confirmation, and the Courts of Dublin refused for some time to sanction the purchase. It was only on the promise of Mr. Gradwell that he would set up certain schools and afford certain advantages to the charity that the sale was effected. He (Mr. Parnell) was disposed in yesterday in the vague terms in which this appeared, could be regarded as sufficient. He (Mr. J. Lowther) never, until the Notice appeared, heard of any of the places referred to, and had never, until now, had the good fortune to hear of the gentleman who had been spoken of in such scathing terms. At one part of the debate he was likened to Mr. Squeers, further on he was called an adventurer, and latterly he appeared as a fraudulent Trustee, and he did not know what he might not become by the time the debate terminated. He was asked to commit the Government to grant an inquiry; but, so far as he had been able to gather, he had heard nothing to justify him in assuming that this gentleman had done anything wrong. He might have committed everything that had been alleged against him, but he had had no such circumstances brought to his knowledge, and there had been no time to obtain information which would justify him in forming a judgment on the matter; and it was contrary to the usage of this House to bring forward serious charges of a personal nature-charges of direct fraud and malpractice-without those who were appealed to, to express an opinion or announce their intention of adopting an unusual course of action, having the slightest opportunity of making themselves acquainted with the sub-to think that even now if the matter ject. He hoped, therefore, that the House would not continue the discussion, which could not possibly lead to any useful result, but might be the means of doing considerable harm, because the persons whose conduct was impugned had had no means of communicating their defence. MR. PARNELL said, that the Chief Secretary and the Attorney General had done their best to stifle the discussion; and in the very remarkable speech that had just been heard from the Chief Secretary-not, indeed, remarkable for him, but remarkable for a Gentleman in his position-he stated that he had never heard anything of a question that had resounded throughout the length and breadth of the country of which he was supposed to be the Governmental Representative in this House. When the Chief Secretary coolly told them that he had never heard of these places, and never heard of the name of Mr. Gradwell, he was driven to the conclusion could be brought before the Courts the sale would be set aside. But the people who were interested were very poor; they were humble tenant farmers, and their efforts to set things right had come to grief for want of means. Besides, the laws governing trust property in Ireland were so imperfect that it was difficult for people to get justice done. He (Mr. Parnell) thought sufficient Notice had been given, and he thought the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Kirk) would have been violating his duty if he refrained from taking advantage of the opportunity of bringing the case before the House, because at this period of the Session the opportunities of private Members were very few. Mr. Gradwell had had plenty of notice. He had had two or three months' public notice, and could long since have instructed some Member to defend-if, indeed, he could get a Member of the House to defend his conduct—which he (Mr. Parnell) very much doubted. It appeared to him that That gentle nothing would have pleased the Chief | death with Mr. Elcock. man was in a dying state in consequence SIR JOHN LUBBOCK was sorry that the hon. Member for Meath had attacked the Royal Irish Academy, an institution of which every Irishman ought to feel proud. The hon. Member alleged that the Academy had commenced this work of destruction, whereas their chief object was to preserve and maintain all the ancient monuments illustrative of the history of the country. Motion, by leave, withdrawn. Committee deferred till Monday next. COUNTS-FINANCIAL STATEMENT. COMMITTEE. ADJOURNED DEBATE. [SECOND NIGHT.] Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question, [22nd May], "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair" (for Committee upon East India Revenue Accounts). Question again proposed. Debate resumed. logical Society of Dublin allowed him to INDIA - EAST INDIA REVENUE ACremove stones for building purposes, and it was impossible that he could restore the moat to its former condition under his agreement. If that was to be done, according to the reading of Mr. Gradwell, an agreement was entered into to refer the matter to arbitrament of the law, but that was not carried out. Mr. Elcock therefore proceeded in his old manner, and, but for the charity of his neighbours, he would have lost property to the extent of many thousands of pounds. The law had since removed him from his holding, and the only question was the amount of compensation he was to get for his permanent improvements, and nothing had been said against his claim in that direction. The whole thing resolved itself into this-that the Trustee, instead of recognizing his position as a Trustee, had mismanaged affairs, and there seemed no possibility for the people of the locality to get redress. Their only redress was to come to the House and ask of the Government officials to take an interest in their case. He hoped the Chief Secretary would be better informed upon the subject after the Whitsun Recess than he was tonight, and that in the interim he would devote his attention to this very important Irish question. He assured him that in doing so his time would not be thrown away. It was a case of life and Mr. Parnell SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL said, it was very evident, so far as the time of the House was concerned, that the Government proposed, and the Irish Members disposed, for both that night and last night they had occupied the time in discussing their own questions, instead of Indian finance. He hoped the Government would give ample opportunity for the subject to be fully discussed. He might say, at the outset, that he did not intend to move the Amendment which stood in his name, and which was to this effect the state of the Finances of India, and is of "That this House regards with apprehension opinion that they are not sufficiently controlled, Her Majesty's Government having disregarded the letter and provisions of the Acts for the better government of India on that subject.” The hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt) had given Notice of a Motion for a future day which involved very much the same principle, and as a great Constitutional question was at stake, it was better in the hon. and learned Member's hands than in his. He did not propose to enter on the question of the loans, because he understood that the Resolution with regard to the loans would only be passed pro formá, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had promised a day upon which the subject would be fully discussed. He must heartily congratulate the Under Secretary of State for India (Mr. E. Stanhope) on the clear and able way in which he had made his Financial Statement. He concurred very much in what he had said, and welcomed the improvement in the general policy of the Government. His only objection to the speech of his hon. Friend was that it seemed to be somewhat too sanguine and rose-coloured, and that it exaggerated in some measure the good points in the finances of India, while it minimized the bad ones. Though the speech had charmed his hon. Friend the Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett), so that, beginning by cursing he remained to bless, he, for his part, did not think there was much in the speech which was a surprise to those of them who had studied the subject. The Under Secretary had taken great credit for the reductions of Expenditure which were to be effected; but of what did they consist? With regard to the Civil Services, they cost some £12,000,000 or £13,000,000 a-year, and the general result of the economy that was to be exercised was not to reduce the expenditure all at once, but it was to take place a little at a time, so that some time or other a saving of £250,000 was expected. Though he was thankful for small mercies, he did not think that would be likely to create a revolution in the state of the finances. With regard to the Military Department, which involved an expenditure of some £17,000,000 or £18,000,000, the hon. Gentleman told them how difficult it was to reduce the expenditure, and stated there was to be a Committee of Inquiry. But an inquiry might suggest changes which would cost money, and might mean increase of expenditure as well as reduction, so that they must consider the reduction of Army expenditure as a thing which might or might not be in the future. The one item in which there was a substantial reduction was in public works. That was a very easy remedy; but it meant cutting down those works which went to the improvement of the country. He did not think this change by any means all improvement, for it would result in the stoppage of many very useful and necessary works. Practically, deducting the military works and works which must go on, they were going to cut down by one-half the expenditure upon ordinary public works. Already it was a reproach to the Government that they had carried their reductions in that Department too far. He was told that it was distressing in Madras to see the extent to which works had been stopped. Even the roads and tanks were not being repaired. There was also, they were told, to be a saving in regard to the extraordinary public works, although the matter was at present before a Committee upstairs. He very much regretted that the hon. Gentleman had anticipated the decision of the Committee, and, for his part, he did not at all approve of the proposal to limit the extraordinary public works to £2,500,000. If they were to carry out remunerative public works, and such works were really before them, he thought they had far better spend £10,000,000 at once, than go on letting out money in slow and wasting driblets; and, on the other hand, if they had not such works, there was no reason to spend £2,500,000 or any other particular sum. He thought the Government were right to take measures to reduce expenditure where they could; but the fact was that they had entered into such dangerous and expensive political complications on the Frontier of India as to create a deficit, and they were obliged, if he might so express it, to starve the most necessary works and the most necessary part of the administration. He must protest against the airy way in which the Under Secretary had spoken of the "late war" as a matter which had been settled for £2,000,000, and which was something in the nature of a bagatelle. He must protest against the idea that, because the Government had got hold of an Afghan who was willing to make terms with them, they had brought the political difficulty to an end. So far from that being the case, he believed that the present negotiations would be found [Second Night.] only real considerable tax felt by the people was that on salt, which, unfortunately, occupied the position of the property tax in this country, in being raised to meet extra burdens. He regretted to find that the Under Secretary had fallen into the groove in which all the officials of the India Office ran-that of regarding the salt tax as the "horse of all work." The salt tax was in the nature of a poll tax; but there were limits beyond which it could not be raised. He thought the Government had committed a grave error in imposing the additional £300,000 which was to be salt duty; but he confidently hoped that now that money had been abandoned, the Government would see that they had reached the ultimate limit of that tax. The other sources of taxation would not yield much increase of Reve to be only the beginning of further | venue, which was altogether inadequate troubles and of further expenses. They to the size and resources of India. The were treating not so much with the de facto Ameer of Afghanistan as with a man who hoped by their aid to become so, and they might find that they had a second Shah Soojah on their hands. There could be no doubt that a crisis had been arrived at in Indian finance, and it was necessary to do something in order to get matters out of their present lamentable condition. Not only did figures show that the finance of India was in an unsatisfactory state, but recent news from that country regarding disturbances in the Bombay Presidency was of an extremely serious character. He was not an alarmist, but the ac-produced by the last increase of the counts which had come to hand of overt discontent and of open defiance were very grave; indeed, he might say, speaking with an experience of almost 40 years, they were assuming proportions which he had never known before. There could be no ques-nue, and the only alternative seemed to tion that those disturbances were connected with the financial position of India, and with the position of some administrative matters in our great Eastern Dependency. He believed that the disturbances to which he referred were caused, in some degree, by taxation which was felt to be an injustice, and also, in some degree, by the stoppage of public works, which took away labour from people who would otherwise be employed. India having arrived at a situation of chronic deficits, he would ask the House coolly and deliberately to look at the situation. First, was there excessive taxation in that country? In his opinion, there had been some exaggeration in what had been said about heavy taxation in India. The real amount was about £40,000,000 when they cleared away the padding of the accounts, and that was derived from six great sources, some of which he maintained were not taxes at all. The first was the land revenue, which was really in the nature of reserved rent, and as landlords we had perhaps dealt hardly with the ryots of Bombay and some other districts. Then there was the opium revenue which was paid by the Chinese. Next came the Excise, a comparatively small amount obtained from noxious articles of consumption, and nobody would wish to see that reduced. Then there were the stamps, and the Customs reSir George Campbell be local rates, locally administered, for local works. He sympathized very little with the British Association in Bengal; but they certainly had the strongest reason to complain of an unwarrantable breach of faith on the part of the Government of India in absorbing the additional rate which had been imposed on the land revenue in Bengal for a Famine Fund in the general administration and defence of the country. The Government had also thought it necessary to attempt additional direct taxation. They first tried an income tax; but that had been surrendered, and the infinitely worse scheme had been resorted to of a licence tax. The income tax had been abandoned in response to the cry of the rich and noisy, and its remission had only benefited rich people, whereas the licence tax contained all the worst features of the income tax, and, from a political point of view, was infinitely more dangerous. For every rich man who was relieved by the remission of the income tax a hundred poor persons were affected by the licence tax. Last year he ventured to predict that the imposition of this tax would lead to political disturbance, and his words had come true to a lamentable degree. But the Government had not only imposed a most unpopular tax, they had surrendered the cotton duties, of which no one in India had complained. Those duties, and the tax on sugar, had been surrendered in deference to Lancashire opinion in this country, or to the crotchets of the present Finance Minister of India. It might be right or wrong to remit the cotton duties; but when hon. Members considered the Motions placed on the Paper, and the speeches made on one side of the House and the other, as if the remission had taken place in the interest of the people of India, it was difficult for them, like the Roman augurs, to look at one another without smiling. He believed a well-founded irritation had been created and was felt largely in India upon this subject at the present moment. With regard to the whole subject of taxation, he thought India was not excessively taxed; but the rich were scarcely taxed at all. With regard to retrenchment, he very much agreed with Lord Northbrook in the extract read by the Under Secretary last night. No doubt, the work of retrenchment would require a firm hand; but the necessity for it was so urgent that he hoped the House would strengthen the hands of the Government now that they said they were prepared to deal with it. One advice he would give to Her Majesty's Government was that if they wished to set an example of economy to India they should begin at home. No doubt, over by far the greater part of the Home expenditure Her Majesty's Government had no control. The amount really spent at home was only some £275,000, not a large sum to work upon; but, nevertheless, something could be done. There were some items not fixed by Act of Parliament, on which excessive extravagance on the part of the Government was shown. For instance, no fewer than eight holders of some of the highest posts at the India Office had been pensioned off, not under superannuation rules, but under what was called re-arrangement of Offices, the fact being that it was thought desirable to promote certain persons; others were dissatisfied, and so were allowed to retire on pensions varying from £733 68. 8d. to £340. There was no reduction in the expenditure of the Office; on the contrary, there was an increase in the staff. He quite agreed with the Under Secretary that we could not safely reduce our Army in India, though, with short service, some radical re-arrangements might be necessary. He wished to express his entire concurrence in the measure the Government had announced for the reduction of the numbers of the Civil servants. By more largely employing Natives we should do more justice to them, and by employing fewer Europeans the flow of promotion would be improved in the upper ranks of the Service. He did not think, however, that the Natives would be very well satisfied if they were not paid as well as Europeans. When he was at the head of the Government of Bengal, he endeavoured to substitute cheap Native for dear European labour, thinking that he would secure the eternal gratitude of the Natives; but he was never so greatly or continually abused for anything he had done. They said that if they did the same work they ought to be paid at the same rate. With regard to the remission of the cotton duties, the Under Secretary of State for India had stated, in reply to a Question, that that remission was made with the knowledge and sanction of Her Majesty's Government; but he subsequently said the sanction was conveyed in a confidential telegram of a private nature which could not be produced. He maintained that it was absolutely against the law that the sanction of Her Majesty's Government to an important financial measure should be conveyed in a private telegram. But this was not a single instance. On the question of that remission of the salt duties, the Under Secretary promised to produce the Correspondence; but he had never done so, for the simple reason that there was no Correspondence to produce, no Correspondence except, perhaps, some private telegrams. The result of the system was that there was no real check on the Viceroy. The Viceroy_was assisted by a very able man-Sir John Strachey; but Sir John Strachey had his crochets and his imprudences. When acting with such a solid and sensible Viceroy as Lord Mayo, Sir John Strachey was a most valuable public servant; but when Sir John Strachey, audacious and impulsive as he was, was yoked to such a Viceroy as Lord Lytton, who was more audacious, impulsive, and imprudent than himself, the danger was one of considerable magnitude. Had the Rulers of the Mogul Empire been assisted by wise and prudent counsellors, the Great Mogul Empire might still be in exist[Second Night.] |