Robert Vernon Smith, House of Commons, 16 February 1858

MR. VERNON SMITH said, that before the hon. member rose his noble friend (Viscount Palmerston) had requested him to postpone the motion of which he had given notice, in order that the House might proceed with the debate on the Indian Government Bill. The hon. gentleman declined to comply with this request, on the score that it was necessary to acquaint the House with certain information not then in its possession that it might be enabled the better to make up its mind on that Bill. He regretted extremely that the hon. member had taken that course, not that he had not been satisfied to hear his statement, but that it might, as well have been introduced into the discussion on the India Bill, instead of forming a separate motion, and prolonging that discussion.

Mr. H. BAILLIE said, he had given notice of his motion long before the noble Lord's Bill was introduced.

Mr. VERNON SMITH said: he was aware of that; he did not object to the hon. gentleman's having given that notice, but thought that upon the appeal of his noble friend he might have delivered his speech, full, as it was, of documentary information, m the course of the other debate, particularly as he seemed to have used it for the purpose of expressing his opinion on a question upon which that debate turned. Indeed, he should collect from the hon. gentleman's address that the Ministry would have his vote in favour of their Bill, because he had found as much fault as possible with the existing Government of India. If any hon. gentleman thought that to condemn the Board of Control and the present system was at the same time to condemn the Bill of his noble friend they were totally mistaken. To find fault with the Board of Control as well as with the Court of Directors was, in fact, to find fault with the present system that the Bill had been introduced to amend.

He hoped that the hon. gentleman would not think him wanting in respect if he abstained from answering-or he should not say answering, inasmuch as he agreed in much that the hon. gentleman had said-but if he followed him at much less length than he had himself occupied in developing his ideas. Many of his views were backed by authorities to which he was not then prepared to reply, because he had not anticipated that the hon. gentleman would go at such great length into the subject. The notice which he gave was that he should `call the attention of the House to the causes of the present outbreak in India', and he commenced by stating that it was very difficult to say what were those causes, because none of the men in England who were best qualified to give opinions, including the hon. and gallant gentleman the member for Reigate (Sir Henry Rawlinson) whose advent to that House they had on the previous evening hailed with so much satisfaction, and the hon. member for Leominster (Mr. J. P. Willoughby), could describe them. Where the Directors, the ex-officio Councillors of the State upon this subject, had feared to tread, the hon. gentleman has rushed in; but he himself had assigned only one cause for all the evil-the annexation of Oude. He had not canvassed any of those various supposed causes which were suggested last Session by the right hon. member for Bucks, and which he (Mr. Vernon Smith) and others had then discussed. It was singular, but it was notorious, that since that date we had not at all advanced towards a solution of this question; and that at the present moment not only the Government, who might be accused of ignorance and incompetency, but the most eminent men in India, were unable to say what were the causes of mutiny. Even Sir John Lawrence, the man whose opinions were most favourably received in that House, skid that he was still ignorant of those causes, and that he could not satisfy himself that there was any conspiracy organized before hand sufficient to account for the most extra ordinary proceeding which had, perhaps, ever happened in history. The hon. gentleman then embarked upon an historical disquisition on the general Indian policy of late years, and he fixed upon the year 1833-probably because then the Ministers of the gown became more responsible for the Government of India-as the date at which a new policy, what he called a policy of annexation, was commenced. He found fault with the policy which had been pursued under the administrations of Lord William Bentinck, of Lord Auckland, of Lord Ellenborough, and of Lord Dalhousie; in fact, with all the noblemen who had administered the affairs of India between 1833 and the present year, and through them with the Governments of all parties who had been in office during that time. Now, no one, he imagined, would accuse either Lord William Bentinck or Lord Auckland of having pursued a policy of annexation, and therefore if such a policy had been adopted the blame must fall principally upon Lord Ellenborough and Lord Dalhousie. But the hon. gentleman was entirely mistaken, because he could not perceive that any such policy had been adopted or acted upon in India. A policy of annexation meant a policy of acquisition--a policy in accordance with which you should take possession of every territory which you could acquire either by conquest or cession. Now, although there had, from time to time, been acquisitions of territory in India, he did not believe that any Minister or any Governor-General had ever, either publicly or privately, laid down such a policy. Annexations were of two kinds, either to extend the frontier, or to absorb the State of a native prince, with whom we had a subsidiary treaty, and whose territory was in the interior of our own possessions. The hon. gentleman had referred to both species of annexation, but he had admitted that one kind was founded upon very sound policy. No one could doubt that, during the recent outbreak, we derived great advantage from having annexed the Punjab. Not only did the possession of that province prevent our being attacked from that quarter, but the existence of large forces in the Punjab enabled us to strike at the mutineers much earlier, and more effectually, than we could otherwise have done. It was to those troops mainly that we owed the rapid suppression of the mutiny. The policy of annexation, as it was called, was a very doubtful one, and the only fair way was to judge of each acquisition of territory according to its own justification, and its own value. To a general policy of annexation, not merely he (Mr. Vernon Smith), but every man of sense, must be opposed, nor was it part of the spirit of any Court of Directors or of the Home Government ; yet in spite of all the declarations, both oral and written, made by the Court of Directors and by different Ministers, almost every Governor-General had added something to our possessions. A man who went out to India in that position must go out with a desire for fame, and unfortunately, m India, fame was only to be obtained by the acquisition of territory. That was the great temptation to which Governors-General were exposed, and it was against that, therefore, that the Government at home ought mainly to exert themselves; but he thought that the lion. gentleman had failed to show that the Government at home had not discharged that duty. The lion. gentleman had endeavoured to distinguish between the Crown and the Court of Directors; but he contended that, in all cases of annexations, if there was any crime, the Crown and the Court of Directors had been equally culpable. In almost every case which he had mentioned they had gone hand in hand. The first mover was the GovernorGeneral, but the backers and supporters of his policy had always been the Court of Directors and the Crown. The hon. gentleman was not accurate when he stated that, with all these annexations, there had been no addition to the number of European troops in India. Although the increase had not been large, it was a fact that, since 1833, the number of Queen's troops had risen from 20,000 to 24,000, while there had also been an addition of three European regiments, one in each Presidency, to the army of the Company. The hon. gentleman might say that the increase was but small; but it had been made; and the reason why the increase had been so small, was, that up to the 10th May, 1857, we had always depended upon native troops. Our policy had been to make the natives so subservient there that they should form regiments of police to retain the countries which we had annexed; and it had been the admiration of all mankind that the Government of India had been able to do that which all other nations had failed in doing-not only to conquer the nations, but to compel the inhabitants themselves of the conquered countries to maintain our conquests. Proceeding with his history, the hon. gentleman said that the mutiny broke out because the natives saw that a favourable moment had arrived. He much questioned the accuracy of that expression, because he thought that the period of the Crimean war would have been a much more favourable opportunity than that which was selected for the commencement of this outbreak. The hon. gentleman complained that, at the same time that they were annexing Oude, the Government embarked in the Persian war. That was a matter of fact; but there was no apprehension of any outbreak in Oude, and the Persian war had thrown no obstacle in the way of putting down the mutiny, because the troops which had returned from that expedition were the first which applied themselves to its suppression. That war he had, on a proper occasion, been prepared to defend, not only as having been justifiable and politic, but also as having greatly added to our prestige in India. He was sorry to hear the hon. gentleman say that the
annexation of Oude was effected in a manner most discreditable to Lord Dalhousie, because neither in that House nor elsewhere had that noble lord been well treated by those who now objected to his policy. For nearly two years the annexation of Oude had been before the country, and had even been discussed in that House; yet it was now whispered that the Directors had nothing to do with it. That was totally and entirely incorrect. Lord Dalhousie, as the hon. gentleman had said with something of a sneer, received a pension, but that pension had not even been objected to in the House of Commons, except that an hon. gentleman had asked if the Court of Directors had power to grant it. The Court of Directors had thanked Lord Dalhousie, and as one of their reasons for thanks they mentioned the acquisition of Oude. The annexation of that country was effected by Lord Dalhousie with great ability. Such was the confidence of the Directors and of himself in the noble lord; that they left to him, as to the manner, of the annexation, a latitude of discretion such as had hardly ever been left to a Governor-General; and they thought then, and still thought, that he had conducted that operation in the best, in the most manly, and in the most creditable manner possible.  The hon. gentleman said the notion of annexing Oude was not first entertained by Lord Dalhousie. That was true, for the idea of annexing Oude had existed since 1799. It was held by Lord Wellesley, and every succeeding Governor-General of India down to the time of Lord Dalhousie, not because it was one of the richest territories of India but because it was in close neighbourhood to our own dominions, and one of the worst governed countries on the face of the earth. There were dispatches in the blue books detailing the horrors of the government of Oude, and, indeed, the materials on this point were so numerous that he could occupy the time of the House for hours without exhausting the subject. If the hon. gentleman wanted more information on this subject he would recommend him to read the revelations made by Colonel Sleeman, and see in the work called The Private Life of an Eastern King a true description of the condition of affairs under the King of Oude. The hon. gentleman asked if we could post out any difference between the state of Oude in 1801 an 1856. His reply was, it was those very fifty years during which matters had become so much worse in Oude, that at length the period arrived when it became absolutely necessary to put an end to a state of things that could no longer be tolerated. Lord Dalhousie, very naturally, having exercised a splendid reign in India, wished to close it by accomplishing an act which everybody had desired to accomplish, but which no one had ventured to grapple with but himself. The hon. gentleman contended that by the treaty of 1801 we were not entitled to deal in this way with the government of Oude. But Lord Dalhousie had shown in his minute that by the third article the Nawab Vizier engaged that he

'Will establish, in his reserved dominions, such a system of administration, to be carried into effect by his own officers, as shall be conducive to the prosperity of his subjects and be calculated to secure the lives and property of the inhabitants; and his Excellency will always advise with and act in conformity to the counsel of the officers of the East India Company.'

The article was never complied with, and therefore had we not fair ground for saying that the treaty was broken on the part of the government of Oude? The hon. gentleman further said we had dealt unfairly with the King of Oude, and that he had no reason to expect he would receive such treatment from an ally like that of the government of India. Lord Dalhousie, it was true, bore testimony to the merit of the King of Oude as an ally; but how could he be otherwise than a faithful ally when we were supporting him upon his throne and supplying him with our soldiers? He was but too happy to gain these objects by rendering us in return some assistance; but all along his conduct was so bad that he was continually receiving warnings. He was warned in 1831 by Lord William Bentinck, who told him that:

'If the warning he then gave was disregarded it was his (the Governor-General's) intention to submit to the home authorities his advice that the British Government should assume the direct management of the Oude dominions.'

And His Majesty was informed that the Court of Directors had subsequently granted to the Governor-General the authority which he had asked for that purpose. He was again warned in 1847 by Lord Hardinge, who impressed upon the King 'the great importance of making salutary and decisive changes in his administration', and remarked:

'By wisely taking timely measures for the reformation of abuses as one of the first acts of your reign, you will, with honour to your own character, rescue your people from their miserable condition; but if your Majesty procrastinates you incur the risk of forcing the British Government to interpose in the government of Oude.'

Lord Hardinge gave him two years to accomplish that object; but still nothing was done. Lord Dalhousie gave him seven more; nothing was done. Surely after that it was time to interfere. The oppression of his people of which he was guilty was the sole cause and a sufficient justification of that interference. The oppression he promised time after time to remedy and bring to an end; but instead of doing so, his tyranny rose to such a pitch that it was no longer tolerable. Let the House reflect how that oppression was maintained. It was by- British bayonets. It was by maintaining troops for his use that the King of Oude was enabled to tyrannize over his unfortunate people; and when the question which Lord Dalhousie had to decide was, whether he would withdraw those troops and expose the country to anarchy and confusion, or take possession of the province, he thought he took the most manly course in deciding upon the latter alternative. If anarchy and confusion had prevailed in our immediate neighbourhood; it world have been evident to everybody that it was with our knowledge and cognizance, and every civilized State would have cried out upon us as the authors of the evil-every native State in India would have sneered at our pretensions to superior morality when they saw us conniving at a state of anarchy and disorder in the province of Oude. Lord Dalhousie took the right course, therefore, when he assumed the government of Oude. The hon. gentleman pointed to this annexation of Oude as the chief, if not the only cause of the mutiny. Now, that might be so, and yet the act be justifiable in itself. It might possibly have led to consequences which were not foreseen at the time. Who did foresee what had happened in India? And if we were incapable of foreseeing all the mischief that ensued, lie was perfectly willing that the annexation of Oude should be reckoned amongst those acts which we did, and did justly at the time, in our dream of the fidelity of the native army. But when the hon. gentleman pointed to the annexation of Oude as the cause of the mutiny, he (Mr. Vernon Smith) would call the attention of the House to dates. Oude was not the place where the mutiny broke out. It did not appear there till at least a month after it had broken out at Meerut. But it arose, he said, from the number of sepoys from Oude employed in the army. It was not easy to arrive at exact conclusions in matters of this kind, when it was so often found that what they considered logical results failed them; but it must be borne in mind that there were sepoys in the Bombay army, and in other parts of India, where they showed no disposition to rebel. But the Oude army subsisted on the plunder of the people of Oude, and were no doubt sorry to be deprived of it by the annexation; it was the destruction of monopoly, and very naturally those who had profited by the monopoly were discontented. But the advantage was all on the side of the people of Oude. There could be no doubt that the first account we had from Oude, after the annexation, was that everything was proceeding tranquilly, and that the entire transfer of the provinces to the British dominions had been made, as was stated in one dispatch, without a single drop of blood being shed or even a single murmur. The hon. gentleman said that in 1833 there were secret orders given to the Governor-General to annex the kingdom of Oude. He spoke so positively on the subject, and seemed to have studied it so maturely that he (Mr. Vernon Smith) was loth to contradict him in making that assertion; but he was able to say that when he made inquiry after this secret dispatch he was unable to find it. He inquired of Mr. Waterfield, one of the most experienced clerks to be found in any office, under the Crown. He was all that time. connected with the Secret Committee, but remembered nothing of such a dispatch. His noble friend (Lord Glenelg) had assisted him with his recollections while he was making his inquiries. His noble friend was President of the Board of Control at the time the hon. gentleman had referred to, but neither could he recollect any such dispatch. All he would now say was that if it could be found it would be produced to the House. He begged to observe, however, that the scheme of annexing Oude was always in contemplation, and that it was one to which no objection was made by the Court of Directors. When the hon. gentleman said Her Majesty's Government ordered Lord Dalhousie to carry out the annexation of Oude he was mistaken. Lord Dalhousie suggested the dealing with this question himself. He said:

'In addressing you upon this subject I would venture to urge upon you an early consideration and decision of the question relating to Oude. From indications of your opinion upon this question, which already appear upon record, and from the nature of the case which has now been laid before you, it seems to me impossible that you can ultimately avoid having recourse to the measure which has been recommended for your immediate adoption. If under these circumstances you should consider that the experience of eight years will arm me with greater authority for carrying the proposed measure into effect than any GovernorGeneral when first entering on the administration of this empire is likely to command, I beg permission to assure you that I am ready to undertake the duty.'

The hon. gentleman, therefore, could hardly assume that the Government originated the intention of dealing with Oude, though as regarded the act he was of course prepared to say that the government was responsible for it as well as the Court of Directors. General Low, who had always been opposed to annexation and who had been quoted by the member for Bucks, in the last Session, as the best authority against that policy, had put upon record a minute of his approval of the annexation of Oude, because of the shameful oppression of the people by the Government, the general infraction of the treaty by the King, and because the relative position of Great Britain to that kingdom differed from that in which it stood to any other native state. He also thought that such a step would prevent future misrule m Oude itself. General Outram, too, the Commissioner at
Lucknow who had stood up for the Ameers of Scinde, subscribed to the policy of annexing Oude, and every man at all acquainted with the country, whose authority was of any value, likewise approved of it[.] It was upon the strength of their authority Government had acted, and was now prepared to take the responsibility.

Again, the hon. gentleman had told them that the Crown was responsible for most of the wars that had taken place. He (Mr. Vernon smith) thought upon that point the hon. gentleman was completely mistaken. The only case on which the hon. gentleman had dwelt was that of the Afghan war. He (Mr. Vernon Smith) would call to his recollection a speech on that subject made recently at the India House by Mr. Prinsep, which he thought finally settled that question. Mr. Prinsep was at the time Secretary to the Council at Calcutta, and he positively objected in writing to that war, and yet he had the candour and fairness to state during the discussion the other day at the India House that for the Afghan war the Indian Government was as responsible as Her Majesty's Ministers. He (Mr. Vernon Smith) could only conclude that the hon. gentleman, in bringing forward this motion for the sake of showing that the Crown was not to be trusted with the management of Indian affairs, had only shown that the Board of Control was not to be so trusted, and that, he (Mr. Vernon Smith) contended, was an attack on the existing Government of India. The Board of Control might be as much to blame as the Court of Directors. It was against the union of those two powers that Her Majesty's Ministers had thought fit to act, and to introduce a Bill for the purpose of their abolition. With regard to the return moved for by the hon. gentleman, he did not know of anything in the papers called for which he should not be perfectly ready to produce; but he believed the answer to the principal subjects indicated in the motion would be nil. With respect, for instance, to 'copies of a secret dispatch signed by the President of the Board of Control in 1831, addressed to Lord William Bentinck, and ordering him to annex or otherwise assume the administration of the kingdom of Oude', he was told that it would be very difficult to find such a dispatch either at the India House or at the Board of Control. He might here remark, as a proof of the general ignorance that prevailed as to the India administration, that even the hon. gentleman (Mr. Baillie) himself, who at one time had the honour of a seat at the Board of Control, did not seem to be aware that by the forms of office at that Board the President did not sign any secret dispatches. He (Mr. Vernon Smith) believed that the 'dispatch (moved for) of Lord William Bentinck, explaining his reasons for not carrying those orders into effect', was already before Parliament. Copies of 'the correspondence which took place, through the Secret Department of the India House, between the President of the Board of Control and the Governor-General of India, in the years 1833, 1834, and 1835, in reference to the annexation of Oude', the hon. gentleman could also have if they could be produced; but he had already told the hon. gentleman that the letter of which he had spoken was to him (Mr. Vernon Smith) a perfect novelty. As to 'a copy of a note or minute, signed by Sir Henry Ellis, when a member of the Board of Control, explaining his reasons for dissenting from the projected annexation of Oude', that also might be produced, although the hon. gentleman must be aware that a minute made by a member of any Board, and not officially made, was rather in the nature of a private document. But he (Mr. Vernon Smith) was exceedingly anxious that the whole of the information which the hon. gentleman thought necessary to elucidate the subject under discussion should be placed in his possession, and any of the papers indicated in the motion, he should be ready to produce if it was in his power to do so.

From: A. Berriedale Keith, ed. Speeches and Documents on Indian Policy, 1750-1921. Vol. I. London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1922, 355-370.