TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MORE WORDS ON INDIAN LEGISLATION.
ARE we or are we not mistaken in believing that the first thing for the welfare of dependencies, and the cohesion of great em- pires, is the wise and dignified action of the central heart of legis- lative and executive power ? We do not ask this question be- cause we have any doubt. We might as well propose for discus- sion the elementary truths of geometry. But we put it because it is not possible for any person, who can appreciate the public sentiment of England and India, to doubt that the prestige of the empire is seriously impaired, in this its central seat, by the Indian legislation of the present session. We put it, because we believe it to be the duty of journalists to protest against the method of legislative action which has been pursued for India, and threatens to become the model for further legislation, in the transition state of Parliamentary power, and disruption of majorities. That me- thod is simply that of placing a principle on record, and depend- ing upon the chance medley of Committee to find a practical realization of the principle in the clauses of a statute. It is obvious that such a method of legislation is the natural product of a state of things in which a Government possesses no absolute majority in the House, and acts upon the deliberate principle of feeling its way to a majority in the division list upon every point of detail. It is equally obvious that such a method is utterly unsuited to the construction of wise and well-considered statutes, bearing within them the seeds of permanence. Accordingly, we find it avowed, that the India Bill of the present session is intended to be a pre- liminary effort of legislation only, and to receive its development in the future. But this is in principle to commit organic legisla- tion to an indefinite future of experiments. This is in effect to re- serve a perpetual power of realizing the temporary public opinion of the hour in new recurring amendments of the Indian Govern- ment, which requires for efficiency something like fixity of tenure, and continuity of action. If it be true that because the East India Company, being sentenced to death, could not act usefully there- after, it must follow as a plain inference that a system of govern- ment, that may at any moment be called on to submit to painful surgical operations, can hardly be expected to work in thoroughly peaceful activity of mind. The Councillors for India will begin their equivocal legislative, consultative, or executive career with the Damocles sword of an amending bill suspended over their heads. Before Ministries are suffered for ever to abdicate their proper functions, and the House turns itself definitively into a huge un- wieldy committee for draughting measures of legislation, we would earnestly entreat those who, by their greater capacity of thought, and by their position, are responsible, in a special way, for the march of events, to give their most earnest attention to the issues that are at stake. It is because we foresaw this species of legislative deluge that would befal the House, unless the party of the majority were reconstructed, that we have, during the course of the present session, so strenuously advocated that measure, as one of paramount state necessity. But it has been the pleasure of some advanced Liberals, and some of the most eloquent Mem- bers of the House, to place pressure upon a weak Government, in order to realize some of their special views, rather than devote themselves in a manful patriotic way to the reorganization of the party of the majority, nominally or professedly their own. The evil has been aggravated by the fact that a statesman, old in years and whose day is evidently past, has refused to crown a life of political service by a graceful and timely recognition that men's allegiance had gone from him. We are endeavouring to point at the true sources of the present state of Parliamentary disease. The only remedy plainly must be the restoration of the old rule that Governments ought to possess a working majority of their own in the House. It is perfectly impossible to work the Parliamentary system healthily upon any other principle. For there is nothing between that and the spectacle we have seen this session of a Government trimming its sails to every breath of Par- liamentary wind, and exhibiting the most discreditable vacilla- tion and indifference upon a subject so deeply important as India. It would be a far less misfortune for the state that a bad Govern- snent, with a majority at its back, should pass measures not free from objection, than that dependencies should be made to feel that they are the mere sport and stalking-horse of a Ministry in an agony of weakness. For in matters of state and government it cannot be too often remembered, that firmness of purpose and all that goes to make up character, reaches to the level of virtue it- self, as being the best preservative against the revolutionary prin- ciple, which is tempted into action by undignified, helpless, or self-seeking vacillation of rulers. We have arrived at the 3d of July, and the India Bill is still in the Commons, who are accumulating evidence of their utter distaste for the work, and their willingness to do anything to take the ques- tion out of an arena, where there are good grounds for thinking it never ought to have been flung. Bnt we have to reiterate the question, what will the Lords do ? To pass a bill in unseemly in- considerate hurry is merely to register a decree of the House of Commons, and, we repeat, will be felt all through the empire as a blow shaking, to the very centre, the moral authority of the House of Peers. All through this question we have considered ,its primary importance to be in its bearings upon the creditable .'working of our institutions at home, and upon the character and Wisdom of our public men. And we are earnestly, anxiously de- sirous that the Lords may find some method of dealing with it more befitting their political position in the state, than would be a summary and cynical adoption of that, to which they will have given, not moral adhesion certainly, scarcely common attention, Is it consonant to the functions of the Conservative branch of the Legislature to make itself the final consummating instrument of the blind chance to which India legislation has been committed p We cannot think it. And we cannot but feel that more, far more than is on the surface, is at stake in the bearing of the House of Lords upon this matter of India. If this question were really settled we should abide by the ordinary practical rule of Englishmen to make the best of the facts as they stand. But can it be said to be settled in any other sense than this, that everybody is now fully persuaded that the whole course of the session has been thoroughly absurd, and that no statesman has really had the clue to the sort of reconstruction which India requires ? We have thoroughly discussed this subject, in reference to the native army, in a separate paper. If the principles there set forth commend them- selves to the judgment, it will be seen, without much difficulty, that the whole principle, which has been the real motive to the India legislation of this session, is in conflict with the real needs of India. What that country requires is, mainly, power for the free play and working, both in civil and military matters, of the indi- vidual Englishman. But the despotic Secretary of State, con- trolled by Parliament, is regarded by those Liberal Members who have been striving, in such strange apparent contradiction to their principles, to create him, as a convenient tool for stamping India with the impress of English public opinion and sentiment. Their ideal of the Indian Government is a bureaucratic despotism tem- pered by questions in Parliament, the most extraordinary ab- surdity which it ever entered into the brains of men to con- ceive. But whether that will be acknowledged or not, it can scarcely be denied that the tendencies of such a government are scarcely to evoke that freedom of indi- vidual action and character, in our civil and military admini- strators, which will be the very life blood of the future of Hindostan. Much every way, supposing this bill be carried, will depend upon the system that is initiated by Lord Stanley, who has a responsibility of the most serious nature laid upon him. If he attempts to govern India through the medium of his depart- ment, he will assuredly lay the foundation of the destruction of that empire. If he be equal to the occasion his first step will be to take counsel with the really great men of India, those who have, it may be said without much exaggeration, kept or con- quered it once again from that north-western district from which Indian conquest has ever come. From them he will derive clear intelligible statesmanlike advice as to what is really needed by India. He will there find great soldiers, statesmen, and admin- istrators who have made India the business and study of their lives, which, indeed, they stake at every moment upon the con- tinuance of our rule in the peninsula. In a word, if Lord Stanley be really desirous of laying broad and deep the foundation of English rule in Hindostan he will have to forget as soon as possible all that nightmare of legislation which has oppressed this session, and look to India and to India alone. The first and last thought, the alpha and the omega of his reflections should be, that there is a vast empire to be reconquered and reorganized on the spot; and that this can only be done by the wisest and best of those who know the em- pire, by having passed the flower of their lives there, and only done on the spot. We have been all too premature here at home with our cotton and colonization, and secretary and councils. Let us hope that with the recess, Parliamentary necessities, and the tactics which they have imposed, may be forgotten, amid the real pressing needs of the Indian empire. India will tax to the utmost all the statesmanship and patriotic purpose which our public men can bring to her ease. But if dealt with too long for the merely selfish purpose of propping a Ministry, if Cabinets and Parliaments deal with her with such cynical indifference as has marked this session, we shall not hold, for we shall not de- serve to hold, an empire of which we shall have been proved all unworthy. There is at stake, therefore, nothing less than the power, the prestige, the place in the .world of the British empire itself.
Previous page
