THE INDIAN COUNCIL.
Belfast, 22d April 1858.
SIB—It appears that a part of the Council of India must be elective. I do not see the necessity : for I believe that the independence of the Council may be perfectly attained by nominating its members for life. But if a part is to be elected, what constituency would be so suitable as Parliament itself?
The present Court of Directors ought in any ease to be transplanted en- tire into the new system, as the Council of India. Six of its eighteen mem- bers are nominated by the Crown ; this of course will be continued : and for the remaining twelve, the best course would not be to create some cum-. brous nondescript constituency for the purpose, but to let each House of Parliament elect six ; so that the election of the Council of India would be equally divided between the three estates of the realm.
It is no argument against this suggestion, that it closely resembles Fox's India Bill. That bill was an attempt to destroy the political power of the Company. Parliament judged, and probably at that time it was right, that the Company ought to be retained as a part of the Government of India. But now, when the power is to be taken from the Company, the same objec- tion no longer exists to giving it to Parliament.
I do not believe, however, that Parliament can ever exercise any real superintendence over the general management of India, as some appear to contemplate. This can never be desirable, nor can it in general ever be possible ; for we never can have a Parliament that really understands India. But the abolition of the double government, and the consequent identifica- tion of the Home Government of India with the Cabinet, will have a very be- neficial effect in preventing Government from being so ready as at present to permit the House of Commons to interfere in particular Indian questions, as it has done in the case of the Nawab of Surat and Ali Murad, (Mr. Butt's employer,) with grievous detriment both to its own character fur common sense, and to the cause of good government in India.
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