Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches Volume Iv Part 5

I see evils: but I see the government actively employed in the work of remedying those evils. The taxation is heavy; but the work of retrenchment is unsparingly pursued. The mischiefs arising from the system of subsidiary alliance are great: but the rulers of India are fully aware of those mischiefs, and are engaged in guarding against them. Wherever they now interfere for the purpose of supporting a native government, they interfere also for the purpose of reforming it.

Seeing these things, then, am I prepared to discard the Company as an organ of government? I am not. a.s.suredly I will never shrink from innovation where I see reason to believe that innovation will be improvement. That the present Government does not shrink from innovations which it considers as improvements the bill now before the House sufficiently shows. But surely the burden of the proof lies on the innovators. They are bound to show that there is a fair probability of obtaining some advantage before they call upon us to take up the foundations of the Indian government. I have no superst.i.tious veneration for the Court of Directors or the Court of Proprietors. Find me a better Council: find me a better const.i.tuent body: and I am ready for a change.

But of all the subst.i.tutes for the Company which have hitherto been suggested, not one has been proved to be better than the Company; and most of them I could, I think, easily prove to be worse. Circ.u.mstances might force us to hazard a change. If the Company were to refuse to accept of the government unless we would grant pecuniary terms which I thought extravagant, or unless we gave up the clauses in this bill which permit Europeans to hold landed property and natives to hold office, I would take them at their word. But I will not discard them in the mere rage of experiment.

Do I call the government of India a perfect government? Very far from it. No nation can be perfectly well governed till it is competent to govern itself. I compare the Indian government with other governments of the same cla.s.s, with despotisms, with military despotisms, with foreign military despotisms; and I find none that approaches it in excellence.

I compare it with the government of the Roman provinces, with the government of the Spanish colonies; and I am proud of my country and my age. Here are a hundred millions of people under the absolute rule of a few strangers, differing from them physically, differing from them morally, mere Mamelukes, not born in the country which they rule, not meaning to lay their bones in it. If you require me to make this government as good as that of England, France, or the United States of America, I own frankly that I can do no such thing. Reasoning a priori, I should have come to the conclusion that such a government must be a horrible tyranny. It is a source of constant amazement to me that it is so good as I find it to be. I will not, therefore, in a case in which I have neither principles nor precedents to guide me, pull down the existing system on account of its theoretical defects. For I know that any system which I could put in its place would be equally condemned by theory, while it would not be equally sanctioned by experience.

Some change in the const.i.tution of the Company was, as I have shown, rendered inevitable by the opening of the China Trade; and it was the duty of the Government to take care that the change should not be prejudicial to India. There were many ways in which the compromise between commerce and territory might have been effected. We might have taken the a.s.sets, and paid a sum down, leaving the Company to invest that sum as they chose. We might have offered English security with a lower interest. We might have taken the course which the late ministers designed to take. They would have left the Company in possession of the means of carrying on its trade in compet.i.tion with private merchants. My firm belief is that, if this course had been taken, the Company must, in a very few years, have abandoned the trade, or the trade would have ruined the Company. It was not, however, solely or princ.i.p.ally by regard for the interest of the Company, or of English merchants generally, that the Government was guided on this occasion. The course which appeared to us the most likely to promote the interests of our Eastern Empire was to make the proprietors of India stock creditors of the Indian territory.

Their interest will thus be in a great measure the same with the interest of the people whom they are to rule. Their income will depend on the revenues of their empire. The revenues of their empire will depend on the manner in which the affairs of that empire are administered. We furnish them with the strongest motives to watch over the interests of the cultivator and the trader, to maintain peace, to carry on with vigour the work of retrenchment, to detect and punish extortion and corruption. Though they live at a distance from India, though few of them have ever seen or may ever see the people whom they rule, they will have a great stake in the happiness of their subjects.

If their misgovernment should produce disorder in the finances, they will themselves feel the effects of that disorder in their own household expenses. I believe this to be, next to a representative const.i.tution, the const.i.tution which is the best security for good government. A representative const.i.tution India cannot at present have. And we have therefore, I think, given her the best const.i.tution of which she is capable.

One word as to the new arrangement which we propose with respect to the patronage. It is intended to introduce the principle of compet.i.tion in the disposal of writers.h.i.+ps; and from this change I cannot but antic.i.p.ate the happiest results. The civil servants of the Company are undoubtedly a highly respectable body of men; and in that body, as in every large body, there are some persons of very eminent ability. I rejoice most cordially to see this. I rejoice to see that the standard of morality is so high in England, that intelligence is so generally diffused through England, that young persons who are taken from the ma.s.s of society, by favour and not by merit, and who are therefore only fair samples of the ma.s.s, should, when placed in situations of high importance, be so seldom found wanting. But it is not the less true that India is ent.i.tled to the service of the best talents which England can spare. That the average of intelligence and virtue is very high in this country is matter for honest exultation. But it is no reason for employing average men where you can obtain superior men. Consider too, Sir, how rapidly the public mind of India is advancing, how much attention is already paid by the higher cla.s.ses of the natives to those intellectual pursuits on the cultivation of which the superiority of the European race to the rest of mankind princ.i.p.ally depends. Surely, in such circ.u.mstances, from motives of selfish policy, if from no higher motive, we ought to fill the magistracies of our Eastern Empire with men who may do honour to their country, with men who may represent the best part of the English nation. This, Sir, is our object; and we believe that by the plan which is now proposed this object will be attained. It is proposed that for every vacancy in the civil service four candidates shall be named, and the best candidate selected by examination. We conceive that, under this system, the persons sent out will be young men above par, young men superior either in talents or in diligence to the ma.s.s. It is said, I know, that examinations in Latin, in Greek, and in mathematics, are no tests of what men will prove to be in life. I am perfectly aware that they are not infallible tests: but that they are tests I confidently maintain. Look at every walk of life, at this House, at the other House, at the Bar, at the Bench, at the Church, and see whether it be not true that those who attain high distinction in the world were generally men who were distinguished in their academic career. Indeed, Sir, this objection would prove far too much even for those who use it. It would prove that there is no use at all in education. Why should we put boys out of their way? Why should we force a lad, who would much rather fly a kite or trundle a hoop, to learn his Latin Grammar? Why should we keep a young man to his Thucydides or his Laplace, when he would much rather be shooting? Education would be mere useless torture, if, at two or three and twenty, a man who had neglected his studies were exactly on a par with a man who had applied himself to them, exactly as likely to perform all the offices of public life with credit to himself and with advantage to society. Whether the English system of education be good or bad is not now the question. Perhaps I may think that too much time is given to the ancient languages and to the abstract sciences. But what then? Whatever be the languages, whatever be the sciences, which it is, in any age or country, the fas.h.i.+on to teach, the persons who become the greatest proficients in those languages and those sciences will generally be the flower of the youth, the most acute, the most industrious, the most ambitious of honourable distinctions. If the Ptolemaic system were taught at Cambridge instead of the Newtonian, the senior wrangler would nevertheless be in general a superior man to the wooden spoon. If, instead of learning Greek, we learned the Cherokee, the man who understood the Cherokee best, who made the most correct and melodious Cherokee verses, who comprehended most accurately the effect of the Cherokee particles, would generally be a superior man to him who was dest.i.tute of these accomplishments. If astrology were taught at our Universities, the young man who cast nativities best would generally turn out a superior man. If alchymy were taught, the young man who showed most activity in the pursuit of the philosopher's stone would generally turn out a superior man.

I will only add one other observation on this subject. Although I am inclined to think that too exclusive an attention is paid in the education of young English gentlemen to the dead languages, I conceive that when you are choosing men to fill situations for which the very first and most indispensable qualification is familiarity with foreign languages, it would be difficult to find a better test of their fitness than their cla.s.sical acquirements.

Some persons have expressed doubts as to the possibility of procuring fair examinations. I am quite sure that no person who has been either at Cambridge or at Oxford can entertain such doubts. I feel, indeed, that I ought to apologise for even noticing an objection so frivolous.

Next to the opening of the China trade, Sir, the change most eagerly demanded by the English people was, that the restrictions on the admission of Europeans to India should be removed. In this change there are undoubtedly very great advantages. The chief advantage is, I think, the improvement which the minds of our native subjects may be expected to derive from free intercourse with a people far advanced beyond themselves in intellectual cultivation. I cannot deny, however, that the advantages are attended with some danger.

The danger is that the new comers, belonging to the ruling nation, resembling in colour, in language, in manners, those who hold supreme military and political power, and differing in all these respects from the great ma.s.s of the population, may consider themselves as a superior cla.s.s, and may trample on the indigenous race. Hitherto there have been strong restraints on Europeans resident in India. Licences were not easily obtained. Those residents who were in the service of the Company had obvious motives for conducting themselves with propriety. If they incurred the serious displeasure of the Government, their hopes of promotion were blighted. Even those who were not in the public service were subject to the formidable power which the Government possessed of banis.h.i.+ng them at its pleasure.

The license of the Government will now no longer be necessary to persons who desire to reside in the settled provinces of India. The power of arbitrary deportation is withdrawn. Unless, therefore, we mean to leave the natives exposed to the tyranny and insolence of every profligate adventurer who may visit the East, we must place the European under the same power which legislates for the Hindoo. No man loves political freedom more than I. But a privilege enjoyed by a few individuals, in the midst of a vast population who do not enjoy it, ought not to be called freedom. It is tyranny. In the West Indies I have not the least doubt that the existence of the Trial by Jury and of Legislative a.s.semblies has tended to make the condition of the slaves worse than it would otherwise have been. Or, to go to India itself for an instance, though I fully believe that a mild penal code is better than a severe penal code, the worst of all systems was surely that of having a mild code for the Brahmins, who sprang from the head of the Creator, while there was a severe code for the Sudras, who sprang from his feet. India has suffered enough already from the distinction of castes, and from the deeply rooted prejudices which that distinction has engendered. G.o.d forbid that we should inflict on her the curse of a new caste, that we should send her a new breed of Brahmins, authorised to treat all the native population as Parias!

With a view to the prevention of this evil, we propose to give to the Supreme Government the power of legislating for Europeans as well as for natives. We propose that the regulations of the Government shall bind the King's Court as they bind all other courts, and that registration by the Judges of the King's Courts shall no longer be necessary to give validity to those regulations within the towns of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay.

I could scarcely, Sir, believe my ears when I heard this part of our plan condemned in another place. I should have thought that it would have been received with peculiar favour in that quarter where it has met with the most severe condemnation. What, at present, is the case? If the Supreme Court and the Government differ on a question of jurisdiction, or on a question of legislation within the towns which are the seats of Government, there is absolutely no umpire but the Imperial Parliament.

The device of putting one wild elephant between two tame elephants was ingenious: but it may not always be practicable. Suppose a tame elephant between two wild elephants, or suppose that the whole herd should run wild together. The thing is not without example. And is it not most unjust and ridiculous that, on one side of a ditch, the edict of the Governor General should have the force of law, and that on the other side it should be of no effect unless registered by the Judges of the Supreme Court? If the registration be a security for good legislation, we are bound to give that security to all cla.s.ses of our subjects. If the registration be not a security for good legislation, why give it to any? Is the system good? Extend it. Is it bad! Abolish it. But in the name of common sense do not leave it as it is. It is as absurd as our old law of sanctuary. The law which authorises imprisonment for debt may be good or bad. But no man in his senses can approve of the ancient system under which a debtor who might be arrested in Fleet Street was safe as soon as he had scampered into Whitefriars. Just in the same way, doubts may fairly be entertained about the expediency of allowing four or five persons to make laws for India; but to allow them to make laws for all India without the Mahratta ditch, and to except Calcutta, is the height of absurdity.

I say, therefore, that either you must enlarge the power of the Supreme Court, and give it a general veto on laws, or you must enlarge the power of the Government, and make its regulations binding on all Courts without distinction. The former course no person has ventured to propose. To the latter course objections have been made; but objections which to me, I must own, seem altogether frivolous.

It is acknowledged that of late years inconvenience has arisen from the relation in which the Supreme Court stands to the Government. But, it is said, that Court was originally inst.i.tuted for the protection of natives against Europeans. The wise course would therefore be to restore its original character.

Now, Sir, the fact is, that the Supreme Court has never been so mischievous as during the first ten years of its power, or so respectable as it has lately been. Everybody who knows anything of its early history knows, that, during a considerable time, it was the terror of Bengal, the scourge of the native population, the screen of European delinquents, a convenient tool of the Government for all purposes of evil, an insurmountable obstacle to the Government in all undertakings for the public good; that its proceedings were made up of pedantry, cruelty, and corruption; that its disputes with the Government were at one time on the point of breaking up the whole fabric of society; and that a convulsion was averted only by the dexterous policy of Warren Hastings, who at last bought off the opposition of the Chief Justice for eight thousand pounds a year. It is notorious that, while the Supreme Court opposed Hastings in all his best measures, it was a thoroughgoing accomplice in his worst; that it took part in the most scandalous of those proceedings which, fifty years ago, roused the indignation of Parliament and of the country; that it a.s.sisted in the spoliation of the princesses of Oude; that it pa.s.sed sentence of death on Nuncomar. And this is the Court which we are to restore from its present state of degeneracy to its original purity. This is the protection which we are to give to the natives against the Europeans. Sir, so far is it from being true that the character of the Supreme Court has deteriorated, that it has, perhaps, improved more than any other inst.i.tution in India.

But the evil lies deep in the nature of the inst.i.tution itself. The judges have in our time deserved the greatest respect. Their judgment and integrity have done much to mitigate the vices of the system.

The worst charge that can be brought against any of them is that of pertinacity, disinterested, conscientious pertinacity, in error. The real evil is the state of the law. You have two supreme powers in India.

There is no arbitrator except a Legislature fifteen thousand miles off.

Such a system is on the face of it an absurdity in politics. My wonder is, not that this system has several times been on the point of producing fatal consequences to the peace and resources of India;--those, I think, are the words in which Warren Hastings described the effect of the contest between his Government and the Judges;--but that it has not actually produced such consequences. The most distinguished members of the Indian Government, the most distinguished Judges of the Supreme Court, call upon you to reform this system. Sir Charles Metcalfe, Sir Charles Grey, represent with equal urgency the expediency of having one single paramount council armed with legislative power. The admission of Europeans to India renders it absolutely necessary not to delay our decision. The effect of that admission would be to raise a hundred questions, to produce a hundred contests between the Council and the judicature. The Government would be paralysed at the precise moment at which all its energy was required. While the two equal powers were acting in opposite directions, the whole machine of the state would stand still. The Europeans would be uncontrolled. The natives would be unprotected. The consequences I will not pretend to foresee. Everything beyond is darkness and confusion.

Having given to the Government supreme legislative power, we next propose to give to it for a time the a.s.sistance of a commission for the purpose of digesting and reforming the laws of India, so that those laws may, as soon as possible, be formed into a Code. Gentleman of whom I wish to speak with the highest respect have expressed a doubt whether India be at present in a fit state to receive a benefit which is not yet enjoyed by this free and highly civilised country. Sir, I can allow to this argument very little weight beyond that which it derives from the personal authority of those who use it. For, in the first place, our freedom and our high civilisation make this improvement, desirable as it must always be, less indispensably necessary to us than to our Indian subjects; and in the next place, our freedom and civilisation, I fear, make it far more difficult for us to obtain this benefit for ourselves than to bestow it on them.

I believe that no country ever stood so much in need of a code of laws as India; and I believe also that there never was a country in which the want might so easily be supplied. I said that there were many points of a.n.a.logy between the state of that country after the fall of the Mogul power, and the state of Europe after the fall of the Roman empire. In one respect the a.n.a.logy is very striking. As there were in Europe then, so there are in India now, several systems of law widely differing from each other, but coexisting and coequal. The indigenous population has its own laws. Each of the successive races of conquerors has brought with it its own peculiar jurisprudence: the Mussulman his Koran and the innumerable commentators on the Koran; the Englishman his Statute Book and his Term Reports. As there were established in Italy, at one and the same time, the Roman Law, the Lombard law, the Ripuarian law, the Bavarian law, and the Salic law, so we have now in our Eastern empire Hindoo law, Mahometan law, Pa.r.s.ee law, English law, perpetually mingling with each other and disturbing each other, varying with the person, varying with the place. In one and the same cause the process and pleadings are in the fas.h.i.+on of one nation, the judgment is according to the laws of another. An issue is evolved according to the rules of Westminster, and decided according to those of Benares. The only Mahometan book in the nature of a code is the Koran; the only Hindoo book, the Inst.i.tutes. Everybody who knows those books knows that they provide for a very small part of the cases which must arise in every community. All beyond them is comment and tradition. Our regulations in civil matters do not define rights, but merely establish remedies. If a point of Hindoo law arises, the Judge calls on the Pundit for an opinion. If a point of Mahometan law arises, the Judge applies to the Cauzee. What the integrity of these functionaries is, we may learn from Sir William Jones. That eminent man declared that he could not answer it to his conscience to decide any point of law on the faith of a Hindoo expositor. Sir Thomas Strange confirms this declaration. Even if there were no suspicion of corruption on the part of the interpreters of the law, the science which they profess is in such a state of confusion that no reliance can be placed on their answers. Sir Francis Macnaghten tells us, that it is a delusion to fancy that there is any known and fixed law under which the Hindoo people live; that texts may be produced on any side of any question; that expositors equal in authority perpetually contradict each other: that the obsolete law is perpetually confounded with the law actually in force; and that the first lesson to be impressed on a functionary who has to administer Hindoo law is that it is vain to think of extracting certainty from the books of the jurist.

The consequence is that in practice the decisions of the tribunals are altogether arbitrary. What is administered is not law, but a kind of rude and capricious equity. I asked an able and excellent judge lately returned from India how one of our Zillah Courts would decide several legal questions of great importance, questions not involving considerations of religion or of caste, mere questions of commercial law. He told me that it was a mere lottery. He knew how he should himself decide them. But he knew nothing more. I asked a most distinguished civil servant of the Company, with reference to the clause in this Bill on the subject of slavery, whether at present, if a dancing girl ran away from her master, the judge would force her to go back.

"Some judges," he said, "send a girl back. Others set her at liberty.

The whole is a mere matter of chance. Everything depends on the temper of the individual judge."

Even in this country we have had complaints of judge-made law; even in this country, where the standard of morality is higher than in almost any other part of the world; where, during several generations, not one depositary of our legal traditions has incurred the suspicion of personal corruption; where there are popular inst.i.tutions; where every decision is watched by a shrewd and learned audience; where there is an intelligent and observant public; where every remarkable case is fully reported in a hundred newspapers; where, in short, there is everything which can mitigate the evils of such a system. But judge-made law, where there is an absolute government and a lax morality, where there is no bar and no public, is a curse and a scandal not to be endured. It is time that the magistrate should know what law he is to administer, that the subject should know under what law he is to live. We do not mean that all the people of India should live under the same law: far from it: there is not a word in the bill, there was not a word in my right honourable friend's speech, susceptible of such an interpretation.

We know how desirable that object is; but we also know that it is unattainable. We know that respect must be paid to feelings generated by differences of religion, of nation, and of caste. Much, I am persuaded, may be done to a.s.similate the different systems of law without wounding those feelings. But, whether we a.s.similate those systems or not, let us ascertain them; let us digest them. We propose no rash innovation; we wish to give no shock to the prejudices of any part of our subjects. Our principle is simply this; uniformity where you can have it: diversity where you must have it; but in all cases certainty.

As I believe that India stands more in need of a code than any other country in the world, I believe also that there is no country on which that great benefit can more easily be conferred. A code is almost the only blessing, perhaps is the only blessing, which absolute governments are better fitted to confer on a nation than popular governments.

The work of digesting a vast and artificial system of unwritten jurisprudence is far more easily performed, and far better performed, by few minds than by many, by a Napoleon than by a Chamber of Deputies and a Chamber of Peers, by a government like that of Prussia or Denmark than by a government like that of England. A quiet knot of two or three veteran jurists is an infinitely better machinery for such a purpose than a large popular a.s.sembly divided, as such a.s.semblies almost always are, into adverse factions. This seems to me, therefore, to be precisely that point of time at which the advantage of a complete written code of laws may most easily be conferred on India. It is a work which cannot be well performed in an age of barbarism, which cannot without great difficulty be performed in an age of freedom. It is a work which especially belongs to a government like that of India, to an enlightened and paternal despotism.

I have detained the House so long, Sir, that I will defer what I had to say on some parts of this measure, important parts, indeed, but far less important, as I think, than those to which I have adverted, till we are in Committee. There is, however, one part of the bill on which, after what has recently pa.s.sed elsewhere, I feel myself irresistibly impelled to say a few words. I allude to that wise, that benevolent, that n.o.ble clause which enacts that no native of our Indian empire shall, by reason of his colour, his descent, or his religion, be incapable of holding office. At the risk of being called by that nickname which is regarded as the most opprobrious of all nicknames by men of selfish hearts and contracted minds, at the risk of being called a philosopher, I must say that, to the last day of my life, I shall be proud of having been one of those who a.s.sisted in the framing of the bill which contains that clause. We are told that the time can never come when the natives of India can be admitted to high civil and military office. We are told that this is the condition on which we hold our power. We are told that we are bound to confer on our subjects every benefit--which they are capable of enjoying?--no;--which it is in our power to confer on them?--no;--but which we can confer on them without hazard to the perpetuity of our own domination. Against that proposition I solemnly protest as inconsistent alike with sound policy and sound morality.

I am far, very far, from wis.h.i.+ng to proceed hastily in this most delicate matter. I feel that, for the good of India itself, the admission of natives to high office must be effected by slow degrees.

But that, when the fulness of time is come, when the interest of India requires the change, we ought to refuse to make that change lest we should endanger our own power, this is a doctrine of which I cannot think without indignation. Governments, like men, may buy existence too dear. "Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas," is a despicable policy both in individuals and in states. In the present case, such a policy would be not only despicable, but absurd. The mere extent of empire is not necessarily an advantage. To many governments it has been c.u.mbersome; to some it has been fatal. It will be allowed by every statesman of our time that the prosperity of a community is made up of the prosperity of those who compose the community, and that it is the most childish ambition to covet dominion which adds to no man's comfort or security. To the great trading nation, to the great manufacturing nation, no progress which any portion of the human race can make in knowledge, in taste for the conveniences of life, or in the wealth by which those conveniences are produced, can be matter of indifference.

It is scarcely possible to calculate the benefits which we might derive from the diffusion of European civilisation among the vast population of the East. It would be, on the most selfish view of the case, far better for us that the people of India were well governed and independent of us, than ill governed and subject to us; that they were ruled by their own kings, but wearing our broadcloth, and working with our cutlery, than that they were performing their salams to English collectors and English magistrates, but were too ignorant to value, or too poor to buy, English manufactures. To trade with civilised men is infinitely more profitable than to govern savages. That would, indeed, be a doting wisdom, which, in order that India might remain a dependency, would make it an useless and costly dependency, which would keep a hundred millions of men from being our customers in order that they might continue to be our slaves.

It was, as Bernier tells us, the practice of the miserable tyrants whom he found in India, when they dreaded the capacity and spirit of some distinguished subject, and yet could not venture to murder him, to administer to him a daily dose of the pousta, a preparation of opium, the effect of which was in a few months to destroy all the bodily and mental powers of the wretch who was drugged with it, and to turn him into a helpless idiot. The detestable artifice, more horrible than a.s.sa.s.sination itself, was worthy of those who employed it. It is no model for the English nation. We shall never consent to administer the pousta to a whole community, to stupefy and paralyse a great people whom G.o.d has committed to our charge, for the wretched purpose of rendering them more amenable to our control. What is power worth if it is founded on vice, on ignorance, and on misery; if we can hold it only by violating the most sacred duties which as governors we owe to the governed, and which, as a people blessed with far more than an ordinary measure of political liberty and of intellectual light, we owe to a race debased by three thousand years of despotism and priestcraft? We are free, we are civilised, to little purpose, if we grudge to any portion of the human race an equal measure of freedom and civilisation.

Are we to keep the people of India ignorant in order that we may keep them submissive? Or do we think that we can give them knowledge without awakening ambition? Or do we mean to awaken ambition and to provide it with no legitimate vent? Who will answer any of these questions in the affirmative? Yet one of them must be answered in the affirmative, by every person who maintains that we ought permanently to exclude the natives from high office. I have no fears. The path of duty is plain before us: and it is also the path of wisdom, of national prosperity, of national honour.

The destinies of our Indian empire are covered with thick darkness. It is difficult to form any conjecture as to the fate reserved for a state which resembles no other in history, and which forms by itself a separate cla.s.s of political phenomena. The laws which regulate its growth and its decay are still unknown to us. It may be that the public mind of India may expand under our system till it has outgrown that system; that by good government we may educate our subjects into a capacity for better government; that, having become instructed in European knowledge, they may, in some future age, demand European inst.i.tutions. Whether such a day will ever come I know not. But never will I attempt to avert or to r.e.t.a.r.d it. Whenever it comes, it will be the proudest day in English history. To have found a great people sunk in the lowest depths of slavery and superst.i.tion, to have so ruled them as to have made them desirous and capable of all the privileges of citizens, would indeed be a t.i.tle to glory all our own. The sceptre may pa.s.s away from us. Unforeseen accidents may derange our most profound schemes of policy. Victory may be inconstant to our arms. But there are triumphs which are followed by no reverse. There is an empire exempt from all natural causes of decay. Those triumphs are the pacific triumphs of reason over barbarism; that empire is the imperishable empire of our arts and our morals, our literature and our laws.

EDINBURGH ELECTION, 1839. (MAY 29, 1839) A SPEECH DELIVERED AT EDINBURGH ON THE 29TH OF MAY 1839.

The elevation of Mr Abercromby to the peerage in May 1839, caused a vacancy in the representation of the city of Edinburgh. A meeting of the electors was called to consider of the manner in which the vacancy should be supplied. At this meeting the following Speech was made.

My Lord Provost and Gentlemen,--At the request of a very large and respectable portion of your body, I appear before you as a candidate for a high and solemn trust, which, uninvited, I should have thought it presumption to solicit, but which, thus invited, I should think it cowardice to decline. If I had felt myself justified in following my own inclinations, I am not sure that even a summons so honourable as that which I have received would have been sufficient to draw me away from pursuits far better suited to my taste and temper than the turmoil of political warfare. But I feel that my lot is cast in times in which no man is free to judge, merely according to his own taste and temper, whether he will devote himself to active or to contemplative life; in times in which society has a right to demand, from every one of its members, active and strenuous exertions. I have, therefore, obeyed your call; and I now present myself before you for the purpose of offering to you, not, what I am sure you would reject with disdain, flattery, degrading alike to a candidate, and to a const.i.tuent body; but such reasonable, candid, and manly explanations as become the mouth of a free man ambitious of the confidence of a free people.

It is hardly necessary for me to say that I stand here unconnected with this great community. It would be mere affectation not to acknowledge that with respect to local questions I have much to learn; but I hope that you will find in me no sluggish or inattentive learner. From an early age I have felt a strong interest in Edinburgh, although attached to Edinburgh by no other ties than those which are common to me with mult.i.tudes; that tie which attaches every man of Scottish blood to the ancient and renowned capital of our race; that tie which attaches every student of history to the spot enn.o.bled by so many great and memorable events; that tie which attaches every traveller of taste to the most beautiful of British cities; and that tie which attaches every lover of literature to a place which, since it has ceased to be the seat of empire, has derived from poetry, philosophy, and eloquence a far higher distinction than empire can bestow. If to those ties it shall now be your pleasure to add a tie still closer and more peculiar, I can only a.s.sure you that it shall be the study of my life so to conduct myself in these our troubled times that you may have no reason to be ashamed of your choice.

Those gentlemen who invited me to appear as a candidate before you were doubtless acquainted with the part which I took in public affairs during the three first Parliaments of the late King. Circ.u.mstances have since that time undergone great alteration; but no alteration has taken place in my principles. I do not mean to say that thought, discussion, and the new phenomena produced by the operation of a new representative system, have not led me to modify some of my views on questions of detail; but, with respect to the fundamental principles of government, my opinions are still what they were when, in 1831 and 1832, I took part, according to the measure of my abilities, in that great pacific victory which purified the representative system of England, and which first gave a real representative system to Scotland. Even at that time, Gentlemen, the leaning of my mind was in favour of one measure to which the ill.u.s.trious leader of the Whig party, whose name ought never to be mentioned without grat.i.tude and reverence in any a.s.sembly of British electors, I mean Earl Grey, was understood to entertain strong objections, and to which his Cabinet, as a Cabinet, was invariably opposed. I speak of the vote by ballot. All that has pa.s.sed since that time confirms me in the view which I was then inclined to take of that important question. At the same time I do not think that all the advantages are on one side and all the disadvantages on the other. I must admit that the effect of the practice of secret voting would be to withdraw the voter from the operation of some salutary and honourable, as well as of some pernicious and degrading motives. But seeing, as I cannot help seeing, that the practice of intimidation, instead of diminis.h.i.+ng, is gaining ground, I am compelled to consider whether the time has not arrived when we are bound to apply what seems the only efficient remedy. And I am compelled to consider whether, in doing so, I am not strictly following the principles of the Reform Bill to the legitimate conclusions. For surely those who supported the Reform Bill intended to give the people of Britain a reality, not a delusion; to destroy nomination, and not to make an outward show of destroying it; to bestow the franchise, and not the name of the franchise; and least of all, to give suffering and humiliation under the name of the franchise.

If men are to be returned to Parliament, not by popular election, but by nomination, then I say without hesitation that the ancient system was much the best. Both systems alike sent men to Parliament who were not freely chosen by independent const.i.tuent bodies: but under the old system there was little or no need of intimidation, while, under the new system, we have the misery and disgrace produced by intimidation added to the process. If, therefore, we are to have nomination, I prefer the nomination which used to take place at Old Sarum to the nomination which now takes place at Newark. In both cases you have members returned at the will of one landed proprietor: but at Newark you have two hundred ejectments into the bargain, to say nothing of the mortification and remorse endured by all those who, though they were not ejected, yet voted against their consciences from fear of ejectment.

There is perhaps no point on which good men of all parties are more completely agreed than on the necessity of restraining and punis.h.i.+ng corruption in the election of Members of Parliament. The evils of corruption are doubtless very great; but it appears to me that those evils which are attributed to corruption may, with equal justice, be attributed to intimidation, and that intimidation produces also some monstrous evils with which corruption cannot be reproached. In both cases alike the elector commits a breach of trust. In both cases alike he employs for his own advantage an important power which was confided to him, that it might be used, to the best of his judgment, for the general good of the community. Thus far corruption and intimidation operate in the same manner. But there is this difference betwixt the two systems; corruption operates by giving pleasure, intimidation by giving pain. To give a poor man five pounds causes no pain: on the contrary it produces pleasure. It is in itself no bad act: indeed, if the five pounds were given on another occasion, and without a corrupt object, it might pa.s.s for a benevolent act. But to tell a man that you will reduce him to a situation in which he will miss his former comforts, and in which his family will be forced to beg their bread, is a cruel act.

Corruption has a sort of illegitimate relations.h.i.+p to benevolence, and engenders some feelings of a cordial and friendly nature. There is a notion of charity connected with the distribution of the money of the rich among the needy, even in a corrupt manner. The comic writer who tells us that the whole system of corruption is to be considered as a commerce of generosity on one side and of grat.i.tude on the other, has rather exaggerated than misrepresented what really takes place in many of these English const.i.tuent bodies where money is lavished to conciliate the favour and obtain the suffrages of the people. But in intimidation the whole process is an odious one. The whole feeling on the part of the elector is that of shame, degradation, and hatred of the person to whom he has given his vote. The elector is indeed placed in a worse situation than if he had no vote at all; for there is not one of us who would not rather be without a vote than be compelled to give it to the person whom he dislikes above all others.

Thinking, therefore, that the practice of intimidation has all the evils which are to be found in corruption, and that it has other evils which are not to be found in corruption, I was naturally led to consider whether it was possible to prevent it by any process similar to that by which corruption is restrained. Corruption, you all know, is the subject of penal laws. If it is brought home to the parties, they are liable to severe punishment. Although it is not often that it can be brought home, yet there are instances. I remember several men of large property confined in Newgate for corruption. Penalties have been awarded against offenders to the amount of five hundred pounds. Many members of Parliament have been unseated on account of the malpractices of their agents. But you cannot, I am afraid, repress intimidation by penal laws.

Such laws would infringe the most sacred rights of property. How can I require a man to deal with tradesmen who have voted against him, or to renew the leases of tenants who have voted against him? What is it that the Jew says in the play?

"I'll not answer that, But say it is my humour."

Or, as a Christian of our own time has expressed himself, "I have a right to do what I will with my own." There is a great deal of weight in the reasoning of Shylock and the Duke of Newcastle. There would be an end of the right of property if you were to interdict a landlord from ejecting a tenant, if you were to force a gentleman to employ a particular butcher, and to take as much beef this year as last year.

The principle of the right of property is that a man is not only to be allowed to dispose of his wealth rationally and usefully, but to be allowed to indulge his pa.s.sions and caprices, to employ whatever tradesmen and labourers he chooses, and to let, or refuse to let, his land according to his own pleasure, without giving any reason or asking anybody's leave. I remember that, on one of the first evenings on which I sate in the House of Commons, Mr Poulett Thompson proposed a censure on the Duke of Newcastle for His Grace's conduct towards the electors of Newark. Sir Robert Peel opposed the motion, not only with considerable ability, but with really unanswerable reasons. He asked if it was meant that a tenant who voted against his landlord was to keep his lease for ever. If so, tenants would vote against a landlord to secure themselves, as they now vote with a landlord to secure themselves. I thought, and think, this argument unanswerable; but then it is unanswerable in favour of the ballot; for, if it be impossible to deal with intimidation by punishment, you are bound to consider whether there be any means of prevention; and the only mode of prevention that has ever been suggested is the ballot. That the ballot has disadvantages to be set off against its advantages, I admit; but it appears to me that we have only a choice of evils, and that the evils for which the ballot is a specific remedy are greater than any which the ballot is likely to produce. Observe with what exquisite accuracy the ballot draws the line of distinction between the power which we ought to give to the proprietor and the power which we ought not to give him. It leaves the proprietor the absolute power to do what he will with his own. n.o.body calls upon him to say why he ejected this tenant, or took away his custom from that tradesman. It leaves him at liberty to follow his own tastes, to follow his strangest whims. The only thing which it puts beyond his power is the vote of the tenant, the vote of the tradesman, which it is our duty to protect. I ought at the same time to say, that there is one objection to the ballot of a very serious nature, but which I think may, nevertheless, be obviated. It is quite clear that, if the ballot shall be adopted, there will be no remedy for an undue return by a subsequent scrutiny. Unless, therefore, the registration of votes can be counted on as correct, the ballot will undoubtedly lead to great inconvenience. It seems, therefore, that a careful revision of the whole system of registration, and an improvement of the tribunal before which the rights of the electors are to be established, should be an inseparable part of any measure by which the ballot is to be introduced.

As to those evils which we have been considering, they are evils which are practically felt; they are evils which press hard upon a large portion of the const.i.tuent body; and it is not therefore strange, that the cry for a remedy should be loud and urgent. But there is another subject respecting which I am told that many among you are anxious, a subject of a very different description. I allude to the duration of Parliaments.

It must be admitted that for some years past we have had little reason to complain of the length of Parliaments. Since the year 1830 we have had five general elections; two occasioned by the deaths of two Sovereigns, and three by political conjunctures. As to the present Parliament, I do not think that, whatever opinion gentlemen may entertain of the conduct of that body, they will impute its faults to any confidence which the members have that they are to sit for seven years; for I very much question whether there be one gentleman in the House of Commons who thinks, or has ever thought, that his seat is worth three years' purchase. When, therefore, we discuss this question, we must remember that we are discussing a question not immediately pressing. I freely admit, however, that this is no reason for not fairly considering the subject: for it is the part of wise men to provide against evils which, though not actually felt, may be reasonably apprehended. It seems to me that here, as in the case of the ballot, there are serious considerations to be urged on both sides. The objections to long Parliaments are perfectly obvious. The truth is that, in very long Parliaments, you have no representation at all. The mind of the people goes on changing; and the Parliament, remaining unchanged, ceases to reflect the opinion of the const.i.tuent bodies. In the old times before the Revolution, a Parliament might sit during the life of the monarch. Parliaments were then sometimes of eighteen or twenty years' duration. Thus the Parliament called by Charles the Second soon after his return from exile, and elected when the nation was drunk with hope and convulsed by a hysterical paroxysm of loyalty, continued to sit long after two-thirds of those who had heartily welcomed the King back from Holland as heartily wished him in Holland again. Since the Revolution we have not felt that evil to the same extent: but it must be admitted that the term of seven years is too long. There are, however, other considerations to set off against this. There are two very serious evils connected with every general election: the first is, the violent political excitement: the second is, the ruinous expense. Both these evils were very greatly diminished by the Reform Act. Formerly these were things which you in Scotland knew nothing about; but in England the injury to the peace and morals of society resulting from a general election was incalculable. During a fifteen days' poll in a town of one hundred thousand inhabitants, money was flowing in all directions; the streets were running with beer; all business was suspended; and there was nothing but disturbance and riot, and slander, and calumny, and quarrels, which left in the bosoms of private families heartburnings such as were not extinguished in the course of many years. By limiting the duration of the poll, the Reform Act has conferred as great a blessing on the country,--and that is saying a bold word,--as by any other provision which it contains. Still it is not to be denied that there are evils inseparable from that state of political excitement into which every community is thrown by the preparations for an election. A still greater evil is the expense. That evil too has been diminished by the operation of the Reform Act; but it still exists to a considerable extent. We do not now indeed hear of such elections as that of Yorks.h.i.+re in 1807, or that of Northumberland in 1827. We do not hear of elections that cost two hundred thousand pounds. But that the tenth part of that sum, nay, that the hundredth part of that sum should be expended in a contest, is a great evil. Do not imagine, Gentlemen, that all this evil falls on the candidates. It is on you that the evil falls. The effect must necessarily be to limit you in your choice of able men to serve you. The number of men who can advance fifty thousand pounds is necessarily much smaller than the number of men who can advance five thousand pounds; the number of these again is much smaller than the number of those who can advance five hundred pounds; and the number of men who can advance five hundred pounds every three years is necessarily smaller than the number of those who can advance five hundred pounds every seven years. Therefore it seems to me that the question is one of comparison. In long Parliaments the representative character is in some measure effaced. On the other side, if you have short Parliaments, your choice of men will be limited. Now in all questions of this sort, it is the part of wisdom to weigh, not indeed with minute accuracy,--for questions of civil prudence cannot be subjected to an arithmetical test,--but to weigh the advantages and disadvantages carefully, and then to strike the balance. Gentlemen will probably judge according to their habits of mind, and according to their opportunities of observation.

Those who have seen much of the evils of elections will probably incline to long Parliaments; those who have seen little or nothing of these evils will probably incline to a short term. Only observe this, that, whatever may be the legal term, it ought to be a year longer than that for which Parliaments ought ordinarily to sit. For there must be a general election at the end of the legal term, let the state of the country be what it may. There may be riot; there may be revolution; there may be famine in the country; and yet if the Minister wait to the end of the legal term, the writs must go out. A wise Minister will therefore always dissolve the Parliament a year before the end of the legal term, if the country be then in a quiet state. It has now been long the practice not to keep a Parliament more than six years. Thus the Parliament which was elected in 1784 sat till 1790, six years; the Parliament of 1790 till 1796, the Parliament of 1796 to 1802, the Parliament of 1812 to 1818, and the Parliament of 1820 till 1826. If, therefore, you wish the duration of Parliaments to be shortened to three years, the proper course would be to fix the legal term at four years; and if you wish them to sit for four years, the proper course would be to fix the legal term at five years. My own inclination would be to fix the legal term at five years, and thus to have a Parliament practically every four years. I ought to add that, whenever any shortening of Parliament takes place, we ought to alter that rule which requires that Parliament shall be dissolved as often as the demise of the Crown takes place. It is a rule for which no statesmanlike reason can be given; it is a mere technical rule; and it has already been so much relaxed that, even considered as a technical rule, it is absurd.

I come now to another subject, of the highest and gravest importance: I mean the elective franchise; and I acknowledge that I am doubtful whether my opinions on this subject may be so pleasing to many here present as, if I may judge from your expressions, my sentiments on other subjects have been. I shall express my opinions, however, on this subject as frankly as I have expressed them when they may have been more pleasing. I shall express them with the frankness of a man who is more desirous to gain your esteem than to gain your votes. I am for the original principle of the Reform Bill. I think that principle excellent; and I am sorry that we ever deviated from it. There were two deviations to which I was strongly opposed, and to which the authors of the bill, hard pressed by their opponents and feebly supported by their friends, very unwillingly consented. One was the admission of the freemen to vote in towns: the other was the admission of the fifty pound tenants at will to vote in counties. At the same time I must say that I despair of being able to apply a direct remedy to either of these evils. The ballot might perhaps be an indirect remedy for the latter. I think that the system of registration should be amended, that the clauses relating to the payment of rates should be altered, or altogether removed, and that the elective franchise should be extended to every ten pound householder, whether he resides within or without the limits of a town. To this extent I am prepared to go; but I should not be dealing with the ingenuousness which you have a right to expect, if I did not tell you that I am not prepared to go further. There are many other questions as to which you are ent.i.tled to know the opinions of your representative: but I shall only glance rapidly at the most important. I have ever been a most determined enemy to the slave trade, and to personal slavery under every form. I have always been a friend to popular education. I have always been a friend to the right of free discussion. I have always been adverse to all restrictions on trade, and especially to those restrictions which affect the price of the necessaries of life. I have always been adverse to religious persecution, whether it takes the form of direct penal laws, or of civil disabilities.

Now, having said so much upon measures, I hope you will permit me to say something about men. If you send me as your representative to Parliament, I wish you to understand that I shall go there determined to support the present ministry. I shall do so not from any personal interest or feeling. I have certainly the happiness to have several kind and much valued friends among the members of the Government; and there is one member of the Government, the n.o.ble President of the Council, to whom I owe obligations which I shall always be proud to avow. That n.o.ble Lord, when I was utterly unknown in public life, and scarcely known even to himself, placed me in the House of Commons; and it is due to him to say that he never in the least interfered with the freedom of my parliamentary conduct. I have since represented a great const.i.tuent body, for whose confidence and kindness I can never be sufficiently grateful, I mean the populous borough of Leeds. I may possibly by your kindness be placed in the proud situation of Representative of Edinburgh; but I never could and never can be a more independent Member of the House of Commons than when I sat there as the nominee of Lord Lansdowne. But, while I acknowledge my obligations to that n.o.ble person, while I avow the friends.h.i.+p which I feel for many of his colleagues, it is not on such grounds that I vindicate the support which it is my intention to give them. I have no right to sacrifice your interests to my personal or private feelings: my principles do not permit me to do so; nor do my friends expect that I should do so. The support which I propose to give to the present Ministry I shall give on the following grounds. I believe the present Ministry to be by many degrees the best Ministry which, in the present state of the country, can be formed.