\ik:m 
 
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 4%
 
 L I B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 9 
 
 A 
 
 THE ILBERT BILL. 
 
 A COLLECTION 
 
 LETTERS, SPEECHES, MEMORIALS, ARTICLES, (£c. 
 
 STATING THE OBJECTIONS TO THE BILL. 
 
 LONDON : 
 W. H. ALLEN & CO, 13, WATERLOO PLACE, S.W.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER, 
 
 MILFORD LANE, STRAND, W.C.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PACE 
 
 Letter to the Times from Hon. Mr. Justice Stephen, 
 
 K.C.S.I., March i, 1883 7 
 
 Meeting in St. James's Hall 14 
 
 Leading Article in the Times, June 26, 1883 . . .43 
 
 Leading Article in the SatVrdav Review, ]v'^y. 30, 1883 47 
 
 Letter of the Judges of the High Court of Calcutta. 52 
 
 Petition to the Houses of Parliament (from India) . 70 
 Petition of Englishwomen in India to Her Most 
 Gracious Majesty the Queen . . . ... .90 
 
 Memorial to Secretary of State for India (from Anglo- 
 Indian AssociATiuN, London Committee) . . .94 
 
 Deputation to Secretary of State for India, July 26, 1883 106 
 Letter to the Times from Sir Alexander Arbuthnot, 
 
 K.C.S.L, July 27, 1883 127 
 
 Letter to the Times from Mr. J. Dacosta, July 27, 1883 129 
 
 Meeting at Limehouse, August 2, 1883 130 
 
 Letter to the Times from the Right Hon. Sir Laurence 
 
 Peel 143 
 
 A Plain Statement about the Ilbert" Bill, for English 
 
 Readers 145 
 
 List of Members of the Anglo - Indian Association, 
 
 London Committee 153

 
 PREFACE 
 
 The Executive Committee of the Anglo-Indian Association, 
 which has been formed in this country for the purpose of 
 procuring the withdrawal of the Indian Criminal Procedure 
 Act Amendment Bill, commonly known as the Ilbert Bill, 
 have considered it advisable to re-publish in a pamphlet form 
 the Memorial against the Bill which was presented to the 
 Secretary of State for India on the 26th July last, and the 
 speeches made by the members of the Deputation on that 
 occasion, the protest of the English Judges of the Calcutta 
 High Court, the Petition addressed to the two Houses of 
 Parliament by Englishmen resident in India, the Petition 
 addressed to Her Majesty the Queen by Englishwomen in 
 India, some of the speeches made at the meetings held in St. 
 James's Hall and at Limehouse, and also some of the leading 
 articles and letters which have appeared in the newspapers on 
 the subject of the Bill. The object which the Executive 
 Committee have in view in re-publishing these documents, is 
 to present the arguments against the Bill in a complete form 
 for. the information of Members of Parliament and of other 
 persons desiring to make themselves acquainted with the 
 reasons which have led a large number of persons, of long 
 and varied Indian experience, to regard this Bill as an 
 unwise and uncalled-for measure.
 
 THE ILBERT BILL. 
 
 LETTER FROM THE HON. MR. JUSTICE 
 STEPHEN, K.G.S.I., 
 
 Formerly Legal Member of the Council of the Governor- 
 General in India, and now a Jndge of the High Court 
 of Judicature in England. — Times, March i, 1883. 
 
 Sir, — As I was the principal author of the measure as to 
 criminal procedure in regard to Europeans in India, which it 
 is now proposed to alter, and as I observe that my name 
 has been mentioned on several occasions in the discussions 
 on the alterations now proposed to be made, you will, 
 perhaps, allow me to give some explanations on a subject 
 which is very imperfectly understood in England. 
 
 In this, as in most other cases, it is necessary to under- 
 stand the history of the law in order to appreciate its present 
 condition and the changes proposed to be made in it. The 
 present criminal law of India has grown from two distinct 
 roots, the Mahomedan law and the law of England. The 
 Mahomedan law was introduced by the Mogul conquerors, 
 and was found in force by the English when our power was 
 first established in India. It was administered at first by 
 native Courts, more or less under English superintendence. 
 English magistrates and judges, assisted by Mahomedan law 
 officers, were afterwards substituted for the native judges, 
 and as experience accumulated, the system of local courts 
 now existing all over India was slowly elaborated. It con- 
 sists of a High or Chief Court in each province, a Sessions 
 Judge, in some cases assisted by additional or joint Sessions 
 Judges, and magistrates of various grades, with carefully-
 
 8 Mr. Justice Stephens Letter. 
 
 defined powers, in each district. The High or Chief Court 
 is the ultimate Court of Appeal ; the Sessions Judges may 
 be compared to our Assize Courts ; magistrates of the 
 first class can sentence up to two years' hard labour, and 
 those of the second and third classes have similar but less 
 extensive powers. These are the Courts by which the old 
 Indian Criminal Law — namely, the Mahomedan law, modified 
 in many ways by Regulations and Acts of the Indian 
 Legislative bodies, and some principles and definitions intro- 
 duced from the law of Lngland — was administered down to 
 the year 1861. 
 
 Side by side with them existed the Courts which adminis- 
 tered the criminal law of England to European British 
 subjects. In a very few words, their history was as follows : 
 — Mayors' Courts were established in Calcutta, Madras, and 
 Bombay far back in the i8th century. They were succeeded 
 by the Supreme Courts, afterwards established in the same 
 places, and for these in 1861 were substituted the present 
 High Courts, a fourth High Court being added at Agra, 
 which was afterwards removed to Allahabad. These Courts, 
 by the combined effect of the Acts which established them, 
 and the Charters which were granted under powers given by 
 the Acts, exercised over European British subjects through- 
 out the provinces in which they were situated, the powers 
 of the Court of King's Bench in England. They were 
 originally intended as a check, in the interest of Europeans 
 resident in India, upon the great powers conferred upon the 
 Governor-General, and Governors in Council. It would be 
 impossible to explain fully how important this function was, 
 without giving an account of the legislative and executive 
 powers of the governing bodies of British India ; but I may 
 say that the existence and the full efficiency oi these Courts 
 have always been regarded by Europeans in India, and 
 particularly by non-official Europeans, as their strongest and 
 best security for the maintenance, as regards themselves, of 
 the general principles of government to which they are 
 accustomed in England. The Mahomedan Criminal Law 
 was never at any time applied to the European British sub- 
 jects. The Supreme and the High Courts, in their original 
 criminal jurisdiction, administered the criminal law of 
 England, with certain modifications, according to the English 
 system of criminal procedure. 
 
 For a long time the Courts I have named, were the only 
 Courts in India which had jurisdiction over Europeans, 
 though the Chief Court of the Punjab and the Recorders'
 
 Mr, Jtistice Stephens Letter. 9 
 
 Courts in Burmah afterwards received such jurisdiction. 
 Certain magistrates, distinguished as justices of the peace, 
 had, however, power to fine Europeans up to Rs. 500 for 
 petty offences. 
 
 In 1 86 1 the Penal Code, passed in i860, became law, and 
 superseded both the criminal law of England as concerned 
 Europeans and the modified Mahomedan law as concerned 
 natives throughout India ; but the procedure and jurisdiction 
 of the Courts remained unaltered till long afterwards, though 
 in 1 86 1 a code of criminal procedure which did not apply to 
 the High Courts, and consequently not to the trial of Euro- 
 peans, was enacted for the regulation of the proceedings of 
 the district Courts. 
 
 In this state of the law the position of European British 
 subjects undoubtedly did constitute a serious practical griev- 
 ance. In the remoter parts of the country they nearly 
 enjoyed something equivalent to impunity in criminal cases 
 v/hich were not of sufficient importance to attract special 
 attention. The expense and delay of procuring a trial at 
 Calcutta for an offence committed, say, in a tea plantation in 
 Assam, practically prevented prosecutions. This grievance 
 was more and more strongly felt as the growth of trade and 
 the use of English capital in railways, plantations, and other 
 things introduced into India a large number of Europeans of 
 a class likely to commit crimes. 
 
 In 1872 the Code of Criminal Procedure, passed in i86r, 
 was re-arranged, re-enacted, and in some particulars amended. 
 One of the most important of the amendments related to 
 European British subjects. The matter was very carefully 
 considered, and the leading representatives of the unofficial 
 European population were consulted upon the views which 
 had either occurred or been suggested to me ; I, as legal 
 member of Council, having charge of the Bill. The scheme 
 proposed and adopted was this : — Magistrates of the first 
 class, being European British subjects and justices of the 
 peace {i.e., being specially authorized), were empowered to 
 sentence European British subjects up to three months' im- 
 prisonment and a fine of Rs. 1,000. Sessions Judges, being 
 European British subjects, were empowered to sentence them 
 up to twelve months' imprisonment and a fine. In more 
 serious cases European British subjects were to be tried by 
 the High Courts, the Chief Court of the Punjab, or the 
 Recorders' Courts in Burmah. This great innovation upon 
 the law as it had existed up to that date— that is to say, for 
 more than a century —was based on the following considera-
 
 lo Mr. Justice Stephens Letter. 
 
 tions : — To have subjected Europeans unreservedly to the 
 jurisdiction of the district Courts would have been, and would 
 have been felt to be, an intolerable hardship. They had 
 never been subject to the district Courts. They had up to 
 that time been entitled in all cases to trial by jury in what 
 were substantially English Courts, established principally 
 for the express purpose of making their persons and property 
 secure, and they regarded these privileges, together with the 
 protection of their personal liberty supplied by the power of 
 the High Courts to issue writs oi habeas corptts, as their great 
 safeguards against official oppression, and also against the 
 far more serious danger of persecution by false accusations 
 on criminal charges in a country where such accusations are 
 the commonest methods of revenge and extortion. On the 
 other hand, it seemed, and no doubt it was, both a grievance 
 and a scandal that the large and increasing European popu- 
 lation, established in various parts of the country, should 
 practically enjoy impunity for nearly all their crimes. It 
 was thought that the remedy provided by the Bill of 1872 
 Avould remove the real grievance upon the natives without 
 introducing a new grievance to the Europeans. The code 
 gave an efficient and somewhat summary form of trial, 
 generally speaking, without a jury, for what, speaking 
 roughly, might be compared to cases cognizable in England 
 under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts and at the Quarter 
 Sessions, and it left the jurisdiction of the High Courts in 
 more serious cases as it always had been. 
 
 It is, no doubt, contrary to some notions current in England 
 to make distinctions between the criminal liability of different 
 classes of persons, though even here the principle that a man 
 should be tried by his peers, and that application of it, which 
 in cases of -treason and felony gives a special tribunal to peers 
 of the realm, form part of the law of the land. In other 
 parts of the world the principle is far more extensively acted 
 upon. Special tribunals for Europeans exist in China and 
 Japan, in Turkey, and in Egypt, and there is probably no 
 part of the world in which there are so many personal laws 
 as in India. Not only are Hindoo and Mahomedan law 
 administered by every court in India in all cases connected 
 with inheritance and many other subjects, but even in 
 criminal matters the feelings of the natives and their practices 
 as to personal appearance and the giving of evidence in 
 public are studiously respected. If the wife of the Viceroy 
 had to testify, she would have to do so in a manner from 
 which a Mahomedan married woman of low rank would be
 
 Mr, Justice Stephens Letter, ii 
 
 excused. I should doubt if there was any part of the world 
 in which the common sentiment of the bulk of the population 
 would acquiesce so naturally in the notion that Englishmen 
 must be tried by men of their own race and colour. 
 
 As to the practical success of the system thus established 
 two remarks will be sufficient. In the first place, the Code 
 of Criminal Procedure of 1872, after having been in force 
 for ten years, was last year re-enacted and extended in its 
 operation to the High Courts, which had previously had 
 their own procedure. A variety of alterations and amend- 
 ments were introduced into the new measure, which in the 
 ordinary course must have been submitted for their remarks 
 to the different local Governments, but the part of the code 
 which related to European British subjects was re-enacted 
 without any alteration of importance, and the new code 
 came into force on the ist of January, 1883. Why it should 
 be considered necessary to amend in 1883 a Bill which had 
 been carefully considered and re-enacted in 1882, I am at a 
 loss to imagine. This in itself seems to show that there can 
 be no solid practical reason for the change proposed to be 
 made. 
 
 In the second place, even stronger evidence ou this subject 
 is supplied by the nature of the proposed change. It is one 
 of those changes which condemn themselves. What is 
 proposed, as I gather from the telegrams and the reports in 
 your columns, is not to abolish the distinction between 
 Europeans and natives, so as to introduce substantial equality 
 between them in the matter of criminal justice, but to modify 
 a privilege which in all its main features is to be maintained. 
 The exclusive jurisdiction of the High Courts, the Sessions 
 Judges, and the first-class magistrates over European British 
 subjects is still to be maintained. The Judge who can 
 sentence a native to death is still to be unable to sentence an 
 Englishman to more than a year's imprisonment ; the magis- 
 trate who can sentence a native to two and in some cases to 
 seven years' imprisonment is still to be confined to three 
 months in the case of an Englishman ; the course of appeal 
 is still in certain respects to be different ; the High Courts 
 are still to have exclusive jurisdiction over Europeans in all 
 cases requiring more than a year's imprisonment, but hence- 
 forth a native Sessions Judge or a native magistrate is to be 
 allowed to try Europeans, who can at present be tried only 
 by Europeans. This is called removing anomalies. It 
 seems to me to be a measure which from the point of view 
 of its originators is worthless, for it does not produce
 
 12 Mr. J 21 slice Stcpheiis Letter. 
 
 uniformity or anything the least like it, while from the- point 
 of view of those who oppose it, it is most formidable ; for, 
 except as an assertion of the false and infinitely dangerous 
 principle that no legal distinctions at all ought to be recog- 
 nized between Europeans and natives in India, the change 
 has no value and no meaning. 
 
 To consider the matter on its immediate merits, and apart 
 from the larger principles which it involves, I may observe 
 that it is a question on which official and unofficial Europeans 
 in India take very different views. There was ten years ago, 
 and I have every reason to believe that there still is, in India 
 an appreciable degree of jealousy between the official and 
 non-official Europeans. The official European is practically 
 in no danger of criminal prosecutions, and has never quite 
 lost the feeling that the Supreme Courts and their succes- 
 sors, the barrister Judges of the High Courts, who are in 
 some sort the representatives of the privileges of unofficial 
 Europeans, are more or less intruders on the authority of 
 the civilians who are the representatives of the servants of 
 the Company. The very change which is now proposed was 
 proposed by eminent members of the Civil Service in 1872, 
 though on different principles, and in a totally different 
 spirit from that in which it seems to have been introduced 
 on the present occasion. Nothing was then said as to the 
 removal of anomalies, nor was there at that time any 
 apparent disposition on the part of the Government to 
 attempt to put Europeans and natives on an equality. The 
 proposal was, however, rejected on account of the strong 
 feeling on the subject of the non-official Europeans. 
 
 Both m}^ Indian and my English experience lead me to 
 sympathize strongly in this matter with the non -official 
 Europeans. It seems to me most right and natural for any 
 one accused of a crime and about to be tried by a Judge 
 who decides both on the fact and the law, to wish to be tried, 
 if possible, by a man of his own race and colour, who speaks 
 his own language, and presumably enters into and under- 
 stands his feelings. An Englishman in India is a foreigner 
 in a strange country, and I can hardly imagine a more dis- 
 tressing position than that, say, of a railway guard, who, 
 having misconducted himself when drunk, is brought up to 
 be tried before a man who has no sort of knowledge of 
 him or sympathy with him, and only half understands him. 
 If it is said that a Native before an English Judge is equally 
 ill off, it is hardly true, for every effort is made to familiarize 
 English Judges with both the language of the country and
 
 Mr. y ustice Stepliai s Lcttc 
 
 r. 
 
 the character of the Natives, whereas Natives have no 
 famiharity at all with the character of the lower class of 
 English, and few know our language well enough to ad- 
 minister justice in it. In so far, however, as the observation 
 is true, it proves too much, for it is based upon a defect 
 inseparable from the existence of the British power in India. 
 It has been observed in many articles, some published in 
 the Times, that if the Government of India have decided on 
 removing all anomalies from India, they ought to remove 
 themselves and their countrymen. Whether or not that 
 mode of expression can be fully justified, there can, I think, 
 be no doubt that it is impossible to imagine any policy more 
 fearfully dangerous and more certain, in case of failure, to 
 lead to results to which the Mutiny would be child's play, 
 than the policy of shifting the foundations on which the 
 British Government of India rests. It is essentially an abso- 
 lute Government, founded, not on consent, but on conquest. 
 It does not represent the Native principles of life or of 
 government, and it can never do so until it represents 
 heathenism and barbarism. It represents a belligerent civili- 
 zation, and no anomaly can be so striking or so dangerous 
 as its administration by men who, being at the head of a 
 Government founded upon conquest, implying at every point 
 the superiority of the conquering race, of their ideas, their 
 institutions, their opinions, and their principles, and having 
 no justification for its existence except that superiority, 
 shrink from the open, uncompromising, straightforward 
 assertion of it, seek to apologize for their own position, and 
 refuse, from whatever cause, to uphold and support it. I 
 should be sorry to say a word which could embarrass any 
 Viceroy in the discharge of the weightiest and most delicate 
 duties which can be imposed on any of Her Majesty's 
 subjects ; but much of the language lately held as to local 
 government, education, and some other subjects has filled 
 me, as to my knowledge it has filled others who are inter- 
 ested in India, with apprehension, and I do not in the least 
 wonder that the Europeans in India see in the proposed 
 change about criminal procedure a symptom, all the more 
 formidable because in itself it is slight and utterly needless, 
 of a determination to try to govern India upon principles 
 inconsistent with the foundations on which British power 
 rests. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 J. F. Stephen.
 
 MEETING IN ST. JAMES'S HALL. 
 
 On the 2^th June a large meeting of Anglo-Indians ivas held 
 in St. James s Hall for the purpose of eonecrting and 
 adopting such measures as might be deemed advisable in 
 order to obtain the zvithdrawal of the Indian Criminal 
 Procedure Bill. The attendance was large ; all the seats 
 were filled^ and many had to stand. The Chair ivas 
 taken by Sir Alexander Arbuthnot, K.C.S.I, CIE., late 
 member of the Supreme Council of India. The folloiv- 
 ing speeches, among others, were made at the meeting. 
 
 Sir Alexander Arbuthnot, who opened the proceed- 
 ings, said they had met together for the purpose of express- 
 ing their opinion on a Bill now pending before the Council 
 of the Governor-General of India, under which it was pro- 
 posed to deprive English men and English women in that 
 country of the immunity which they had hitherto enjoyed 
 from the jurisdiction in criminal matters of Native judges and 
 magistrates, and for the purpose of framing a representa- 
 tion such as it might be hoped would induce Her Majesty's 
 Government to consider the expediency of ordering the 
 withdrawal of a measure which nearly all Englishmen who 
 knew India believed to be highly prejudicial to the best 
 interests of that country. (Cheers.) It was impossible, he 
 thought, to exaggerate the gravity of the present crisis. The 
 widespread excitement and agitation which had been caused 
 by the introduction of this measure, and the antipathies of race 
 which it had evoked, had wrought an amount of mischief
 
 Mectino- in St. yanicss Hall. 15 
 
 which it would take years of wise and prudent statesmanship 
 to undo. (Hear, hear.) And mischievous as the introduc- 
 tion of this Bill had been, and bitterly as those who brought 
 it forward must repent of their temerity, it was certain that 
 the evils of proceeding with the Bill would be far greater, for 
 it would establish a permanent cause of antagonism between 
 our countrymen and their native fellow-subjects. (Cheers.) 
 The objections which Englishmen felt in connection with this 
 measure were not a mere passing gale, which, as soon as it 
 passed, would leave behind it a serene and peaceful atmo- 
 sphere. The reasons urged against it were not reasons of a 
 temporary character, which would diminish in weight as 
 time went on ; for it was perfectly certain that this Bill, 
 if it became law, would intensify those antipathies of race 
 which it was the province of every wise statesman to dimin- 
 ish. (Cheers.) This was the view which was held by the 
 great majority of those who had lived and served in India, 
 and it was the view, he believed, of all of those whom he was 
 then addressing. He did not wish to overstate the case. 
 The admission of Natives into the Civil Service under the 
 competitive system, and the appointment of Natives to 
 posts hitherto reserved for that Service under the opera- 
 tion of the Act of Parliament passed in 1870, naturally 
 had a tendency to raise this question of jurisdiction ; 
 but v/hen the question was raised in 1872 it was then 
 settled that it was not expedient to subject Englishmen 
 to the jurisdiction of native criminal Courts — (hear, hear) 
 - — and their contention was that that decision was a wise 
 decision, and that no sufficient grounds had been adduced 
 for rescinding it. He would not stay to review in detail 
 the objections which attached to this measure, the weak- 
 ness of the arguments which had been adduced in its 
 support, the absence of any genuine demand for it in the 
 first instance on the part of the great body of the Native 
 community — (cheers) — the needlessness of the measure 
 upon administrative grounds, or the rashness which char- 
 acterised its introduction. These topics would be fully and 
 ably dealt with by the speakers who would follow him, and, he 
 was sure, would be treated with that moderation and with 
 that regard for the feelings and susceptibilities of the natives of 
 India which was almost invariably the result of a lengthened 
 residence in that country and of intimate knowledge of its 
 people and of the many good qualities which they possessed. 
 (Cheers.) For his own part, if he might refer for one moment 
 to his personal position in this matter, he wished to say that
 
 1 6 Meeting in Si. Janiess Hall. 
 
 when the Provisional Committpe did him the honour of re- 
 questing him to occupy the chair on that occasion, he was, in 
 complying with that request, largely influenced by the reflec- 
 tion that it might not be altogether inexpedient that this duty 
 should be discharged by one who during a great part of his 
 official life was employed in directing and pressing forward 
 Native education — (cheers)— and to whom it had been some- 
 times imputed that he sympathized unduly with the aspira- 
 tions, as he thought the just aspirations, of Native officials 
 for adv'ancement in the public service. For he contended 
 that it was perfectly compatible with the most friendly 
 sentiments towards the Natives of India, and with a sincere 
 recognition of the policy and of the justice of rewarding 
 eminent Natives of proved merit and ability and of tried in- 
 tegrity, to concede to them a larger share in the government 
 of their country, while at the same time resisting a proposal 
 such as this, subjecting English men and English women 
 to the jurisdiction of Native Criminal Courts. (Cheers.) 
 There were two allegations which had been made in connec- 
 tion with this matter, and on which he desired to say a few 
 words. In the first place, it was alleged that the opposition 
 to this measure was entirely or mainly confined to unofficial 
 persons, and that the majority of the officials \\\ India and 
 many of the best Indian officials in this country approved of 
 the Bill. In the second place, it was asserted that this oppo- 
 sition was at variance with the views held by some of the 
 greatest Indian statesmen of past times. With regard to 
 the first of these allegations, he thought that this meeting, 
 and the long list of officials and retired officials, many of 
 them men who have served in the highest positions, which 
 had appeared during the last few days in the London news- 
 papers, was a sufficient refutation — (hear, hear) — to say nothing 
 of the information which was coming in from week to week, 
 and which was corroborated by a telegram only published 
 that morning, showing that a large proportion — indeed, an 
 enormous majority — of the officials now serving in India, had 
 joined in the opposition to the measure. (Cheers.) Before 
 him and around him were many distinguished men, repre- 
 sentatives of all branches of the Indian Service — men 
 who had served as Chief Commissioners of important pro- 
 vinces, members of Council, secretaries to Government, 
 political officers of various grades, military officers in large 
 numbers, judges, collectors, and magistrates, medical officers, 
 engineers, educationists, not to mention the many able 
 men who, though not in the official service of the State,
 
 Meeting m St, J antes s HalL 17 
 
 had in commerce and in the learned professions done 
 much to further the moral and material improvement of the 
 Empire of India. (Cheers.) This movement was shared in by 
 men who left India many years ago, and by men who left 
 it, as it were, but yesterday, all inspired by a common convic- 
 tion that this measure was wrong, and dangerous, and incom- 
 patible with our holding our true position in India. (Cheers.) 
 And if this opinion was shared by Anglo-Indians, who left 
 India a quarter of a century ago, by men who left but recently, 
 and by numbers of men who were living and working there 
 at the present moment, assuredly there was cause for urging 
 upon her Majesty's Government the grave impolicy of allow- 
 ing this Bill to proceed. (Cheers.) The second allegation was 
 that the opposition to the Bill was at variance with the views 
 entertained by some of the greatest men of past times, and 
 in support of this assertion passages had been quoted from 
 writings by Sir Thomas Munro and Mr. Elphinstone, to show 
 that if they had been living at the present day, they would 
 have been supporters of Mr. Ilbert's Bill. He thought that 
 this was a most complete mistake. It was, of course, im- 
 possible to assert with perfect certainty what would have 
 been done or said by men who lived half a century ago, 
 had they survived to the present time. But from what he 
 knew of the writings of those men, from what he had learned 
 of the character of the work which they did, it seemed to be 
 in the last degree improbable that they would have so belied 
 themselves as to support such a Bill as this. Both these 
 men held most liberal views on the subject of advancing 
 Natives in the public service as they became qualified for 
 higher posts, but they both attached a paramount import- 
 ance to the policy of maintaining the position of English- 
 men in India as the dominant race. It was impossible 
 to read Sir T. Munro's famous minute on the Indian Press 
 — where he says : — " I cannot view the question of a free 
 Press in this country without feeling that the tenure with 
 which we hold our power, never has been, and never can 
 be, the liberties of the people " — and not to feel a tolerable 
 certainty that had he had a vote on this occasion it would 
 have been on the side that meeting took. As to Mr. Elphin- 
 stone, there was in one of his papers a passage which, it so 
 happened, bore indirectly upon this question, and showed 
 very plainly what his opinion would have been. In a paper 
 which he wrote in the year 1832, some years after he had 
 left India, on the subject of permitting Europeans, who at 
 that time required a Hcense to live in India, to reside in that 
 
 c
 
 1 8 Meeting in St. James's Hall. 
 
 country, Mr. Elphinstone said : — " Europeans, of course, could 
 only hold lands on the tenures already established, and the 
 only remaining difficulty I apprehend in the suggested in- 
 crease to their numbers would arise from the manner in 
 which they would be made responsible to justice. The ex- 
 tension of English law is very objectionable, and placing the 
 Europeans under Native law would indirectly lead to the 
 same result. In a choice of difficulties I think it would be 
 preferable to increase the powers of local magistrates in some 
 degree, still continuing to apply the English law to Euro- 
 peans, and leaving all capital or very serious causes to be 
 tried, as at present, by the Supreme Court." But Munro and 
 Elphinstone were not the only distinguished men whose 
 opinions might be cited in opposition to this Bill. All 
 Anglo-Indians honoured the name of Metcalfe, and among 
 Lord Metcalfe's published writings there was a passage which 
 bore upon this question. In an important minute which 
 he wrote, when a member of the Supreme Council, upon the 
 administration of justice in India, he distinctly stated that it 
 was " highly expedient to secure to British subjects as much 
 as possible the enjoyment of their own laws, and always the 
 right of trial by jury in criminal cases, extending the same 
 right to Native subjects as soon as it could be done with the 
 prospect of benefit, and securing to them also their own laws 
 and usages " — thus emphatically recognizing that, in this 
 matter, distinctions of race could not be entirely ignored. 
 There was another authority he should cite. No Indian 
 name in recent years was more deservedly honoured than 
 the name of Lawrence. What was Lord Lawrence's view 
 as to the true position of the British Governm.ent in relation 
 to the people of India } This he expressed in a paper which 
 he wrote very shortly after the quelling of the Mutiny: — 
 
 "Placed, as we are, widely separated from the Consti- 
 tutional Governments of England or America, our Govern- 
 ment is established, as all Governments should be, for the 
 good of the people ; but while in their case the popular will 
 is generally taken as the criterion of the public good, that is 
 not always the case in India. We are not elected or placed 
 in power by the people. We are here by our moral superiority, 
 by the force of circumstances, and by the will of Providence. 
 These alone constitute our charter of Government in India, 
 and in doing the best we can for the people we are bound by 
 our conscience, not theirs." (Cheers.) 
 
 It would be difficult to describe in clearer or weightier 
 words the true position of the Government of India in relation
 
 Meeting in St, J antes s Hall. 19 
 
 to the natives of that country. The question was whether 
 the provisions of the present Bill were compatible with that 
 position. He thought that they were not. He held that the 
 present Bill, and other recent measures of the present Govern- 
 ment of India, embodied a policy which differed widely as the 
 poles from the policy of Munro and Elphinstone, of Metcalfe 
 and Lawrence, and of all the great men who had helped to 
 establish and maintain the British Empire in India — (cheers) 
 — and that continuance in the path along which that policy 
 led, was as certain to be prejudicial to all the best interests of 
 the people in India as it was fraught with difficulties and 
 dangers to our own dominion. (Cheers.) 
 
 Mr. Roper Lethbridge, Hon. Sec. of the provisional 
 committee, read a telegram received the previous night from 
 Calcutta, which illustrated in a very vivid light the danger 
 that was being run by the continued unsettlement of the 
 great question before them. The telegram ran as follows : — • 
 
 "While the prosecution of the Indian rioters is still pending, 
 the wife of the Public Prosecutor has been brutally assaulted 
 by a sweeper. Other domestic cases. General feeling of 
 alarm among European ladies. The Uriya bearers have 
 held a meeting and subscribed for Surendranath Bannerjea, 
 evidently instigated by Bengalee sedition mongers.' I believe 
 that the conduct of the Natives arises from the conviction 
 that insulting Europeans is giving effect to the policy of the 
 Government." 
 
 That telegram appeared a most important one, and it 
 was very deplorable that there should be even the sus- 
 picion of such a thing on the part of the Native mind 
 that they might with impunity, and by way of giving 
 pleasure to their rulers, assault Englishmen and English- 
 women. The thing was perfectly preposterous on the face 
 of it ; but still, if the opinion was going about, the sooner it 
 was stopped the better. As to the correspondence, he had 
 that morning alone received fifty-seven letters from various 
 parts of England, Ireland, and Scotland, and two from the 
 Continent, on the subject of the meeting. Those letters 
 expressed, without a single exception, the utmost enthusiasm 
 on behalf of the movement, and he might say that among 
 the thousand odd letters that had reached him during the 
 last few weeks there was absolutely only one Anglo-Indian 
 who had anything to say in support of Mr. Ilbert's Bill. 
 There was one point he should like to notice with regard to 
 that correspondence — viz., the very great difficulty which it 
 showed there was in obtaining anything like concerted action 
 
 C 2
 
 20 Meeting iii St. Jmness Hall. 
 
 among Anglo-Indians in England, owing to their wide disper- 
 sion ; and that difficulty had only been partially surmounted 
 by the remarkable enthusiasm shown by correspondents in 
 various distant centres. Only on Friday he received a letter 
 from one of the most distinguished Bengal civilians now in 
 England, a late Judge of the High Court of Calcutta, point- 
 ing out that he had only recently observed the advertisement 
 of this meeting in one of the local papers, and stating that 
 he was most anxious to join. Up to that day they had a 
 list of adherents numbering over 500 names, and that number 
 was increasing with every post. It was absolutely impossible 
 any longer to doubt Anglo-Indian opinion on the subject ; 
 official, as well as non-official, it was perfectly unanimous. 
 He had received letters from a large number of gentlemen 
 who entirely sympathized with the object of the meeting, but 
 for various reasons did not wish publicly to join the move- 
 ment. A very considerable number of Anglo-Indian ladies 
 had shown their keen interest in the opposition to the proposed 
 legislation, and in more than one instance had volunteered 
 their services in urging their masculine friends to take part 
 in the movement. There was no feature in the proposed legis- 
 lation more objectionable than the position it would assign 
 to Englishwomen in remote parts of India, and that was one 
 point in which it was clear that the position of the opponents 
 of the Bill was, logically as well as practically, absolutely 
 unassailable. If the privileges of Native Indians were 
 attacked by a persecuting Government, the English people 
 would be quite ready to defend them ; ought they then to 
 do less for their fellow-countrymen } (Hear, hear.) On 
 that point he might read a letter he had received from a 
 Commissioner who had just returned from the charge of one 
 of the most important divisions in India — a division contain- 
 ing a very large non-official European population. He 
 said : — 
 
 "I think the Bill a great blunder — the worst since the 
 greased cartridges. It makes one doubt whether there is 
 not, among many advantages, a terrible risk in placing at 
 the head of the Indian Empire a man who has never been 
 in India. (Cheers.) From the letters I have received from 
 India I find that the large classes of artizans and working 
 Europeans are wild with excitement and hatred of the 
 Natives ; that the next grade, the tea assistants, railway 
 employes, &c., are scarcely less agitated ; and that even the 
 high officials and leading Europeans are full of anxiety and 
 concern, and annoyance with the Government for raising the
 
 Meeting in St. Jamess Hall. 21 
 
 question. It is the more deplorable because the last ten 
 years has witnessed a growth of friendly feeling and mutual 
 confidence between official and non-official Europeans, and 
 between both . those classes and the Natives, such as could 
 never have been expected in the days of Lord Canning." 
 
 A Judicial officer of long and wide experience wrote : — 
 " One shrinks from thinking what might in some cases be 
 the position of Englishwomen under this Bill." One pleasing 
 feature of the correspondence was that large numbers of the 
 letters he had received, dwelt with especial emphasis on the 
 non-political character of the movement. In Parliament 
 many loyal supporters of the present Government in both 
 Houses were among the warmest opponents of the Bill. 
 Indeed, one of the very ablest of Her Majesty's Ministers, 
 and the only one except Lord Northbrook who possessed 
 any personal knowledge of India, had published a book, 
 which showed clearly enough his opinion of the impropriety' 
 of placing poor, isolated Englishmen in India under the 
 criminal jurisdiction of any but those who were entirely and 
 in every way qualified to enter into their feelings and motives. 
 He referred, of course, to Mr. Trevelyan, the present Chief 
 Secretary for Ireland, well-known by his writings as the 
 *' Competition Wallah." Several present would 'remember 
 Mr. Trevelyan as a distinguished ornament of Calcutta 
 society, writing Anglo-Indian comedies, and helping to play 
 them, too, at Belvedere. No one would doubt the immense 
 ability of that gentleman, and in the chapter of " Letters 
 from a Competition Wallah," headed " Hindoo Character," 
 he had expressed very strong views. He himself [Mr. 
 Lethbridge] did not wish to say anything, and he 
 believed that all who were acting with ,him wished to say 
 nothing that could possibly be offensive to their Native 
 fellow-subjects — (cheers) — and he trusted that nothing 
 which they could not say among their private Native friends 
 would be said on any platform in England. Therefore, 
 he might not approve of some of the things which Mr. 
 Trevelyan had said, and, indeed, he [Mr. Trevelyan] possibly 
 might have modified his views with the advance of education 
 in India ; but there wa? one story which he would quote 
 very briefly, which he thought illustrated the point they were 
 upon. He would epitomize the story, and then give some of 
 Mr. Trevelyan's own words. Two planters in the Mofussil 
 paid a flying visit to a third planter, taking a travelling 
 Englishman — probably Mr. Trevelyan — with them. After 
 dinner they heard a jackal cry, and two of the men went
 
 22 Meeting in St, J antes s Hall. 
 
 out to have a shot at him. A shot was heard, and presently 
 the two men rushed back to their friends, pale and agitated. 
 " I believe I have shot a man," said one of them, " but we 
 did not dare to look." As the planter took aim a man had 
 risen up between him and the object at which he took aim, 
 and dropped again before he was well on his feet. The 
 other men — who had never left the house — went to the spot 
 and found a Hindoo peasant stone dead, with a bullet through 
 his heart. He would give what followed in Mr. Trevelyan's 
 own words : — 
 
 ** The relations of the poor fellow prosecuted the planter 
 for murder, and more — that he had tied the deceased to a 
 tree, beaten him cruelly and' outraged him in the most foul 
 manner, and finally put him out of his misery by deliberately 
 firing at him from a distance of a few yards. This vindictive 
 lie was supported in every particular by a number of the 
 'villagers. The presence of his three countrymen — a happy 
 chance — and nothing more, alone saved the prisoner from 
 condemnation." 
 
 Lastly, there was one letter which he would read, which 
 reached him that morning, because it showed the opinion of 
 a most important section of the Anglo-Indian community, a 
 section least likely to be biassed by an improper feeling in 
 the matter. It was from the Ven. Archdeacon of Bombay, 
 Dr. Leigh-Lye, and was as follows : — 
 
 " I much regret that the distance of my residence from 
 town and other engagements prevent my attendance at the 
 meeting on Monday next for the withdrawal of the Indian 
 Criminal Procedure Amendment Bill, and I earnestly hope 
 that success may attend your efforts against the measure, 
 the mere prospect of which has aroused such violent animosity 
 of race. The interests of true religion, of unity, peace, and 
 concord among all nations are not likely to be promoted, 
 but may most certainly be seriously injured by what nearly 
 all Anglo-Indians appear to agree will be prejudicial to our 
 Government, with which the welfare of India is so closely 
 connected." (Hear, hear.) 
 
 Mr. W. S. Seton-Karr (late Bengal Civil Service and 
 Foreign Secretary to the Government of India) : In moving 
 this resolution, " That this meeting disapproves of the Bill 
 now before the Indian Legislature to amend the Code of 
 Criminal Procedure, 1882, and desires to move Her Majesty's 
 Government to take measures for the withdrawal of the same," 
 I may be pardoned for saying that it would be much more 
 pleasure to me to appear on a platform on which I should
 
 Meeting in St, Jamess HalL 23 
 
 have to second efforts of the Indian Government in some 
 measure designed to ameliorate the condition of the people 
 of India, or on which I should have had to defend the 
 Government, than that I should have to appear to assail its 
 measures : but when Mr. Lethbridge invited me to join this 
 meeting, and when I considered that this measure attacked 
 the interests of an increasing and a highly important class 
 in India, and when I thought that with the interests of that 
 class was inseparably bound up the progress of our 
 administration, and even of our very supremacy in the East, 
 I felt it was a matter of conscience and duty to place my 
 services, whatever they might be worth, at the disposal of 
 Mr. Lethbridge and his committee. (Hear, hear.) This 
 controversy, which has been so prolonged, has brought to 
 the front every argument which could be adduced for or 
 against the measure. I have heard it said lately that there 
 are some papers about to be presented to Parliament for 
 Avhich we might wait in order to form a conclusion ; but I 
 am of opinion — and that opinion, I think, will be borne out 
 by the facts — that everything concerning this unhappy con- 
 troversy has long been laid before the public — from letters, 
 from telegrams, from debates, from leaders in the papers, 
 from the letters of " Asiaticus " on the one hand, and from 
 the letters of " Britannicus " on the other hand, and from the 
 ominous silence of one weekly journal in England supposed 
 to be intimately acquainted with, and intimately interested 
 in, India. (Cheers.) I would remind you that the ground 
 upon which this measure was at first supported, was, that it 
 was intended to remove an anomaly. I will just briefly 
 remind you that a Native gentleman, finding that in Calcutta 
 under the fierce light of the Press, and in full publicity, he 
 could exercise certain powers, and that when he was sent to 
 the Mofussil he could no longer exercise those powers, brought 
 this matter before the notice of the Government. I am very 
 well aware that since the question first arose, the ground to 
 a certain extent has been shifted ; and that the partizans of 
 this Bill are anxious to defend it, not so much on the ground 
 of the removal of anomalies, as on the ground that they are 
 bringing up the Natives to an equality with Europeans. I wish 
 those gentlemen had remembered for a moment the cele- 
 brated saying of Lord Mayo — about levelling up, and not 
 levelling down. (Hear, hear.) But for one moment I would 
 venture to deal with the question of anomaly. Why, the 
 whole of India bristles with anomalies — anomalies meet 
 us at every turn. Our splendid Empire there in itself is
 
 24 Meeting in St. James s Hall. 
 
 an anomaly, and we have done as much as we could 
 to tolerate and to recognize anomalies, privileges, and 
 exemptions to the very verge of abuse. Not to quote more 
 numerous examples, which will be within the recollection of 
 every one, I may remind you that when we tolerate the 
 polygamy of the Brahmin ; when we tolerate the law of 
 divorce and marriage of the Mahomedans ; when we tolerate 
 the seclusion of the Hindoo Zenana ; when we, by a recent 
 enactment, allowed Rajahs and Nawabs and other men of 
 position, to claim exemption from appearing as witnesses in 
 the civil courts — we have done everything in our power to 
 give sanction to exemptions, and to throw over privilege the 
 authority and sanction of the law. (Cheers.) I may be 
 permitted to suggest to this meeting and to the committee 
 the advisability of not, in any arguments against this Bill, 
 laying too great stress on the prophecy that this measure 
 would end by driving British capital from India. My ex- 
 perience is that into India British capital and British enter- 
 prise will go, sometimes with the aid of the law, sometimes 
 without the law, and sometimes, as in past generations, 
 almost in defiance of law ; and I believe that as long as we 
 retain even our hold upon India, there will be found, 
 side by side with the great public buildings of our 
 great cities there, the factory of the merchant and 
 the bungalow of the planter. The exemptions from 
 this jurisdiction, or the continuation of this privilege, 
 I should be inchned to put on somewhat different grounds. 
 Let me give an illustration from my own experience, 
 which, I doubt not, will be corroborated by the experience 
 of those around me. It is not so much that it will 
 banish capital, but that it will give to those numerous em- 
 ployes of companies and of institutions a sense of perpetual 
 unrest, disquiet, and insecurity. (Cheers.) Let me take a 
 case. A gentleman employed in agricultural pursuits, far 
 away in some isolated and jungly district, becomes involved 
 in what, for want of a better term, I will generalise as a series 
 of agrarian disputes. Then, either from his own fault, per- 
 haps, or from the unscrupulous character of the Natives, he 
 becomes involved in some controversy which leads to the 
 prosecution against him of a criminal charge. Now you are 
 well aware (at least I am, from my own experience) that in iso- 
 lated districts, far away from Calcutta — its Bar and its Press — 
 in such districts, the presiding magistrate is compelled, by 
 the very imperfect nature of the instruments before him, to 
 be at once counsel for the prosecution, counsel for the de-
 
 Meeting in St, J antes s HalL 25 
 
 fence, judge and jury. Now in cases which, however impor- 
 tant to the individual, may not be important enough to 
 warrant a transfer of the case to one of the courts in the 
 Presidency, in such cases I think, that it is a reasonable 
 privilege — a reasonable exemption — that a man so situated 
 shall claim to be tried before an English judge, who, in addi- 
 tion to his knowledge of the law, to the knowledge of Native 
 character which has been secured by long and honourable 
 service, has also that knowledge of the position and of the 
 character and of the proclivities of his countryman, which 
 will enable him to say with greater certainty than the Native, 
 whether the charge brought against him is likely to be true, 
 or whether the defence set up by the Englishman was in fact, 
 and in law, substantiated. In all this I see nothing more 
 anomalous, nothing more illogical, nothing more inconsistent, 
 than in a thousand other cases which we have already had. 
 And I put it to you whether after all society is not better 
 satisfied, criticism is not more disarmed, and the interests of 
 justice are not better consulted, when a European at a dis- 
 tance from friends and advisers, is tried by a tribunal which 
 is not only impartial, but which he and the world besides 
 believes to be thoroughly equitable and impartial. (Cheers.) 
 Without saying one single word against the class of Native 
 judges, whose integrity and impartiality I am bound to admire, 
 I do say that this claim on the part of an Englishman to be 
 tried before one of his own countrymen, is one which has 
 justice and right on his side. I would just for one moment 
 refer to the general question of policy, and to the state of 
 the controversy at the present time. It is within my recol- 
 lection and knowledge, and I daresay it will be within your 
 knowledge, if you have paid attention to the debates in the 
 Legislative Council, that many of the avowed partizans of 
 this Bill now declare plaintively and candidly that if they had 
 had any notion that they were going to raise all this outcry and 
 agitation, they would never have thought of introducing the 
 Bill. (Hear, hear.) Perhaps I may be pardoned for giving 
 you an anecdote of the late Lord Lawrence, which I don't 
 think you will find in his admirable biography. Lord Law- 
 rence was once engaged in a discussion in the Council, and 
 after it was over he said to one of the most able and consci- 
 entious members of the Council that he proposed to do so- 
 and-so. This gentleman, who, to do him justice, knew a 
 great deal of the law, but perhaps not so much of the coun- 
 try, replied, " Why, your Excellency, you do not find any 
 ground for doing this in the corners of this bundle of
 
 2 6 Meeting in St, Jamess Hall. 
 
 papers ! " " My good fellow," his Excellency replied, with 
 that frankness and that bonhomie which distinguished him 
 throughout his life, " what you say is perfectly true, but, 
 after all, is there not something due to a knowledge of the 
 people and to political instinct ? " (Cheers.) Now, if those 
 who are the partisans of this Bill had had anything of Lord 
 Lawrence's sound political instinct, they would not have 
 ventured to bring this Bill forward in the Council. (Cheers.) 
 I would remind you, too, as your chairman has reminded you, 
 that it is only just eleven years ago since this question was 
 taken up and discussed in its present bearing, and was, as 
 the officials and non-officials thought, finally set at rest by 
 Sir Fitzjames Stephen. I don't say that any distinct pledge 
 was given — for giving pledges is a rash thing — to the Anglo- 
 Indians, that at no future time would this question of criminal 
 jurisdiction be brought up ; but I do say there was a tacit 
 pledge that it would not be raised without grave administra- 
 tive reasons demanded it, at least for an Anglo-Indian gene- 
 ration, which we may take at thirty years. And I may also 
 remind you that when this Bill to remove so-called judicial or 
 legislative anomalies shall be passed, the anomalies will 
 still remain, as inconsistent, as illogical, and as incongruous 
 as ever. The English judge will still be able to sentence the 
 Rajah to death, and the English magistrate to give sentence 
 of three years' imprisonment ; whereas, in the case of the 
 Europeans, Native magistrates will only be able to give sen- 
 tences of three months' imprisonment, and a judge only 
 twelve months' imprisonment. I ask you, judging from past 
 experience, how long do you think it likely that these patent 
 anomalies shall escape the lynx-eyed investigation of some 
 legislator who is anxious to make a name for himself.? 
 (Cheers.) I say that the passing of this Bill will leave these 
 anomahes just as inconsistent and illogical as they were 
 before, and I will ask you, as I would ask any administrator 
 of experience, whether it would not be much better to tolerate 
 a system which involves a patent anomaly, which occasions, 
 perhaps, a slight dislocation of the administrative machinery, 
 which involves the transfer of one important case occasionally, 
 where it would be important to the Europeans, from one 
 tribunal to another, or a deputation, perhaps, of some Euro- 
 peans to try a planter, or to try some Englishman up the 
 country for an offence against the law, would it not be better 
 to tolerate the system than to have all this agitation and all 
 these evil passions aroused } (Cheers.) But, gentlemen, I 
 remember that there are others who have to speak, and who
 
 Meeting in St. J antes s HalL 27 
 
 will probably dilate from fuller experience and with more 
 pregnant examples than I can give ;' but there is one grave 
 question of State policy, which the chairman has truly re- 
 marked, is brought to the front by this unhappy question. 
 The eminent men who have built up in India a splendid edi- 
 fice of British valour and statesmanship — whether they were 
 nurtured in India itself, or whether leaving English policy 
 behind at the Cape or in Egypt, they have, without par- 
 tiality, without party, contributed to our moral and mate- 
 rial prosperity — those great names, as we have been re- 
 minded by the chairman, have preferred to act tacitly, but 
 not openly, upon the maxim that we are more in India by 
 ascendancy of character, by governing power, by the supre- 
 macy of our language, of our laws, of our literature, and, 
 above all, as a last resource, by the power of physical force ; 
 but they have taken care not to parade these maxims before the 
 world. They have not lectured their subjects of a conquered 
 race on the evils that have been inflicted on them by cen- 
 turies of priestcraft, of despotism, and of superstition. They 
 have carefully kept those maxims to themselves, but it is the 
 unhappy tendency of this controversy to bring into broad 
 daylight everything which a wise and prudent administrator 
 should seek to hide. (Hear, hear.) This discussion, as it has 
 proceeded in India, has inevitably dipped the pen in gall, and 
 has done more to embitter the relations between the European 
 community and the Natives than any single proposal since the 
 Mutiny, and to outrage the cherished conviction which is 
 shared, I believe, by every Englishman in India, from the 
 highest to the lowest, by the planter's assistant in his lonely 
 bungalow, and by the editor in the full light of the Presidency 
 town — from those to the Chief Commissioner in charge of an 
 important province, and to the Viceroy on his throne — the 
 conviction in every man that he belongs to a race whom God 
 has destined to govern and subdue. (Cheers.) This subject has 
 again revived those antipathies of race and creed and colour 
 which in past times have been allowed to subside, and which 
 from the occasion of the great Sepoy rising, it has been the 
 constant endeavour of every patriotic Englishman to allay. 
 I am not here to-day to imitate that language, but I do trust 
 that all who follow me will imitate the example of our chair- 
 man, and will to-day exhibit in argument the just and calm 
 and dispassionate language which, if it may not sway the 
 Council or the Cabinet, never fails ultimately to secure the 
 respect and the reasonable submission and intelligent acquies- 
 cence of a nation. I trust that we shall be — I trust that we
 
 2 8 Meeting in St, J antes s Hall. 
 
 all, officials, and non-officials — shall be animated by a deter- 
 mination to recognize that Empire as a magnificent heritage 
 — not as a battle-field of politics, not as a scene of philan- 
 thropic experiments — (hear, hear) — not as a place for the war- 
 fare of party — but as a magnificent heritage which we are de- 
 signed to, and which we ought to hand down to our successors, 
 if not improved, at least unimpaired, and which every true 
 Englishman has in his heart recognized as a material, well- 
 earned increment to our already grand accumulation of public 
 credit and of national renown. (Loud cheers.) 
 
 Mr. J. D. Mayne (late Acting Advocate-General of Madras) : 
 I am glad to have heard it so prominently put forward that 
 this meeting is in no sense whatever a party movement. India 
 was never won, and India will never be retained either by 
 Liberals or Conservatives. India was won, and India must 
 be kept, by the great body of Englishmen whose heritage it 
 is, and there is no person, of whatever political party or poli- 
 tical creed, who is not equally concerned in everything which 
 interests the honour, the safety, and the dignity of our 
 fellow-countrymen in the East. (Cheers.) Again, Sir, I 
 think it most important that we should remember that we 
 are not here to advocate the withdrawal from the Natives of 
 any privilege that they possess, or even to withhold from the 
 Natives any privilege which they desire. (Cheers.) The 
 Natives at present are governed by a system of law and a 
 system of judicature which was settled long years ago, with 
 which they are perfectly satisfied, and which there is no in- 
 tention to change. (Cheers.) The proposed change only 
 concerns the very few Englishmen who may from time to time 
 be brought before criminal courts ; and it is no more a matter 
 of interest to the Natives that these should be committed by 
 Native magistrates, or tried by Native judges, than that in the 
 hour of their illness they should be prescribed for by Native 
 doctors, or operated upon by Native surgeons. (Cheers.) I 
 grant you that if it could be shown that the possession of 
 the present privilege entailed any partiality in dealing with 
 the Europeans, if it could be shown that by means of that 
 privilege the Native prosecutor was put at any disadvantage, 
 then I admit freely that the privilege should be withdrawn. 
 But it has never been suggested that any European judge or 
 any European Magistrate in dealing with his fellow country- 
 men has been guilty of partiality. (Cheers.) And I do say, 
 and every one who knows India will echo my opinion, that 
 there is not a Native in India who in any cause in which his 
 interests are concerned, whether his opponent be a European
 
 Meeting in St. y antes s Hall. 29 
 
 or a Native, would not by preference choose an English 
 judge to try him. (Loud cheers.) It seems to me that we 
 should remember in discussing this question that we are asked 
 to remove a privilege, the possession of which does no injury 
 to anybody, and the withdrawal of which will confer no 
 benefit upon any human being on the globe. But, Sir, this 
 privilege is one, time-honoured and ancestral, the birthright 
 of every Englishman, which he prizes as his life. It is the 
 privilege that in every stage of a criminal proceeding, in every 
 stage of any proceeding which may affect his liberty, his 
 character, or his life, he shall be judged by a countryman of 
 his own. (Cheers.) Sir, this is no fantastic or new-fangled 
 privilege, invented for the first time by a small privileged 
 body for their own purposes. This is a privilege, the roots 
 of which must be sought in the foundations of the English 
 Constitution. This is a privilege which has been asserted 
 and maintained by every Christian nation in their dealings 
 throughout the East, and this is a privilege which has been 
 asserted and confirmed within recent years, not merely by 
 the Indian Legislature, but by the British Parliament itself. 
 Upwards of six centuries and a-half have passed since the 
 barons extorted from King John the Magna Charta, which 
 was in itself the declaration of the English common law, and 
 one of the rights which they insisted upon for themselves 
 and for their plebeian subjects was this, that every man 
 should be judged by the decision of his own peers, and in 
 pursuance of that right, and up to the present day the com- 
 moner is tried by the commoner, and the peer is tried by the 
 peer. If Lord Ripon were to return to England and be 
 guilty of a felony — (laughter) — Lord Ripon would not be tried 
 by the Lord Chief Justice of England and a jury sitting at 
 the Old Bailey, but he would have to be tried by the Lord 
 High Steward of England and the assembled peerage of 
 Great Britain in their ermine and their robes. (Cheers.) 
 Again, it is the first principle of International Law that 
 every nation has a right to try foreigners of whatever origin 
 within its own shores for crimes committed within its own 
 jurisdiction ; but the Christian nations of Europe have per- 
 sistently refused to recognise that right in their dealings with 
 Eastern races, and in all their dealings in Turkey, in Europe, 
 in Africa, in Asia, in Japan, they have persisted in maintain- 
 ing the right of their subjects to be tried for criminal offences 
 by their own countrymen, and their own countrymen alone. 
 (Cheers.) I observed in a recent article by Sir Arthur 
 Hobhouse that he attempts to deal with, and to set aside,
 
 30 Meeting in St. Jamess HalL 
 
 this argument by saying that it rests upon a different principle 
 — that it rests upon the ground that the laws of those nations 
 are in themselves unjust, that their punishments are in them- 
 selves cruel, and that they refused to admit the evidence of 
 the European and of his friends. I will give Sir Arthur 
 Hobhouse another instance to which he will not be able to 
 find the same objection. India, as we know, is encircled and 
 intersected by Native States : many of them have reached 
 the highest stage of organization ; some of them possess 
 tribunals as good as our own, and laws modelled upon our 
 own. Travancore and Mysore have exactly the same 
 criminal law as British India, and their judges' tribunals are 
 precisely as good as our own. Well, the India Office has 
 persistently refused to allow any European who commits an 
 offence in a Native State to be tried by the tribunals of that 
 State — (cheers) — and if a European commits an offence in 
 Travancore or in Mysore, he must be brought up before the 
 High Court of the adjoining Presidency, or tried by a 
 countryman of his own in the Native State. And, Sir, the 
 principle upon which this exemption rests, is rational and 
 sound. It does not rest upon any idea that the Native 
 judge will necessarily be partial or unfair, but it rests upon 
 the principle that every criminal has a right to be tried by a 
 judge who understands his feelings, who understands his 
 ways, w^ho understands what are the temptations to which he 
 is likely to give way, who understands what are his modes of 
 action and his modes of thought. And I maintain with 
 confidence that there is no Native judge, however wise, 
 however just, however learned, who is so capable of under- 
 standing the ways of thought and the modes of action, the 
 habits and the manners of an Englishman, and still more 
 of an Englishwoman, that in any case of controversy his 
 decision would be satisfactory. (Hear, hear.) I believe 
 that if this attempt to give jurisdiction to Native judges 
 were successful, every case which ended in conviction would 
 be followed by an embittered controversy, which would 
 spread anger and dismay throughout the length and breadth 
 of the land. (Cheers.) Now we are asked whether we 
 think that Native judges would be consciously unfair to a 
 British subject. Frankly speaking for myself, I should say 
 that in ordinary cases, and under ordinary circumstances, I 
 do not think they would. (Hear, hear.) I believe that the 
 Native judge, if a European of influence and position were 
 brought before him, would display to him a very much 
 greater degree of leniency than he would receive from his
 
 Meeting in St, Jamess HalL 31 
 
 own countryman. I believe that, if a European of influence 
 and position were brought before him, charged with a 
 crime of which he was really guilty, he would not 
 receive from that Native the stern and unhesitating 
 justice which would be meted out to him by a judge of his 
 own language. But in the case of the lower classes of Euro- 
 peans I am by no means confident that it would be the same. 
 I think, for instance, that if a couple of half-intoxicated 
 sailors were brought up before a Brahmin magistrate for 
 having broken into a Hindu pagoda, or slaughtered a sacred 
 monkey, they would probably receive very hard measure 
 indeed — (laughter) — partly because the magistrate would be 
 utterly unable to put himself into the point of view from 
 which the accused regarded the offence, and partly because 
 the culprits would probably conduct themselves before him 
 with a degree of levity — (laughter) — and independence which 
 would very much excite his indignation. It seems to me 
 that in considering the granting of this jurisdiction to Native 
 judges, this is a matter most important to be considered. 
 The great majority of offences would be what we call police 
 offences, assaults, drunken freaks, and the like, committed by 
 the lowest class of Europeans — the guards, the engine-drivers, 
 the mechanics, the loafers, and so forth. No^, I cannot 
 imagine a spectacle more derogatory to the dignity of the 
 European than the spectacle of one of these unintelligent 
 and angry Europeans, hustled about like an indignant 
 Samson by half a dozen puny Native constables, and bad- 
 gered for a day before a fussy and self-sufficient Native 
 magistrate who did not understand him, and by whom he 
 was not understood. When I was in India, it was the in- 
 variable practice, whenever it was possible, to effect the arrest 
 of a European by means of a European constable, and it 
 was always found that the European at once submissively 
 yielded to the European constable, and went with confidence 
 and respect before the European magistrate, because both 
 the European constable and the European magistrate em- 
 bodied to his eyes the majesty of the law to which he had 
 been accustom.ed to yield and respect from his birth. (Hear, 
 hear.) But no European of the lower class ever does 
 believe, or ever can be brought to believe, that any Native, 
 however highly placed, is his equal. It may be very un- 
 becoming, it may be very unchristianlike, that he should 
 not do so. I am far from wishing to defend him for not 
 doing so ; but it is an ultimate fact in his nature that nothing 
 will induce him to give the same submission and respect to
 
 32 Meeting in St. y antes s Hall. 
 
 a Native that he will do to his fellow-countrymen. Perhaps 
 this may be a part of the same feeling which has induced 
 him always to unflinchingly fight against overwhelming odds, 
 and has led Englishmen to march to victory in every quarter 
 of the globe, from Cape Comorin to Cashmere. (Cheers.) 
 I ask you, is it wise to alter a system under which ready and 
 unhesitating obedience to the law is accorded by those who 
 are most likely to be subject to it, for the sake of substituting 
 a tribunal which the culprit will not respect, which he would 
 resist with unavailing, unseemly resistance, and whose 
 decision would not be accepted with acquiescence by himself 
 or his friends } I have no hesitation in saying that there is 
 not a European convicted by a Native judge who would not 
 be of opinion that if he could have reported his own case in 
 his own language to one of his countrymen, the result would 
 have been different. (Hear, hear.) Now again. Sir, we know 
 that India is pre-eminently the land of false complaints. 
 Where the Italian stabs with the stiletto, the Native 
 strikes with the sword of the law. Let me read to you a 
 passage familiar to every one of you, from Macaulay's great 
 essay upon "Warren Hastings." He says: — "An Indian 
 Government has only to let it be understood that it wishes a 
 particular man to be ruined, and in twenty-four hours it will be 
 furnished with grave charges, supported by depositions so 
 full and circumstantial, that any person unaccustomed to 
 Asiatic mendacity will regard them as decisive." What was 
 true, as stated by Macaulay, of a Native Indian Government, 
 is equally true of any person, or of any class of persons, who 
 have influence enough to wish to bribe false testimony. One 
 instance of this sort has been read out to you by Mr. Leth- 
 bridge. Let me quote to you an instance from my own 
 personal experience in India. Every one, probably, who has 
 been in India, could furnish you with half a dozen similar 
 instances, but this will do as well as any other. A good 
 many years ago I had to defend a Native judge, or Moon- 
 sijfy as he was called, and twenty-five or thirty coolies upon 
 the charge of what was called ** torchlight robbery." The 
 case was proved with an amount of unanimity and respecta- 
 bility of testimony that I have hardly ever seen equalled. 
 Numbers of respectable inhabitants were called to prove 
 that they had been awoke in the middle of the night by a 
 gang of men who had burst into the village, burning their 
 torches, and slinging their stones , and firing off their 
 muskets ; that they heard them break into the house of a 
 respectable merchant (who was himself produced), and that
 
 Meeting in St. James's Hall. '^'^ 
 
 they had gutted his house, and set the greater part of his 
 property on fire. At the end of nearly a week's trial it was 
 proved and established beyond all dispute that there never 
 had been a torchlight robbery at all. (Laughter.) That is 
 to say, every one of the facts proved were perfectly true, but 
 the whole thing had simply been a pantomime. A number 
 of persons had been heard to enter the village in the manner 
 perfectly truly described, in the middle of the night ; they 
 had then gone and broken open the house of a Native 
 merchant, which he had kindly placed at their disposal, and 
 they had burnt a quantity of old accounts and papers which 
 he with equal liberality supplied to them for the purpose. 
 The whole object of the charge had been to crush the Native 
 judge who had made himself obnoxious to the Brahmins of 
 the district, and the twenty-five or thirty Native coolies 
 were thrown in at random to add probability to the charge. 
 Gentlemen, I need hardly say that a European, unprotected 
 in a distant district, is pre-eminently exposed to charges of 
 this sort. It is said, " But suppose a charge of this sort is 
 made, the Native judge is as capable of detecting the falsity 
 as a European judge would be." In thecase of a charge brought 
 against a Native I think that would be so, but it would not 
 be so in the case of a charge brought against ^ European. 
 Natives getting up a false charge would arrange all the facts 
 and all the circumstances, so as to give preparatory answers 
 according to their own view of what is probability, and in the 
 case of a Native they would make it probable, and any improb- 
 abilities would be disbelieved by the Native ; but it would be 
 utterly impossible for a number of Natives making up a 
 charge against a European to frame a connected chain of 
 falsehoods which should not contain numerous improbabilities 
 arising out of the habits and manners and ways of action 
 of the European which would at once stamp it with falsity 
 in the mind of a European judge, but which a Native judge 
 would accept as adding probability to the charge. (Cheers.) 
 And again, although I am quite willing to allow the most 
 thorough credit to the Native judges for impartiality in an 
 ordinary case, and under ordinary circumstances, you must 
 remember that our system of judicature must be arranged 
 with a view to extraordinary cases, and India is pre-eminently 
 the country in which, according to the French proverb, the 
 unforeseen is that which is almost certain to happen. You 
 never know at what moment some wave of national, political, 
 or religious feeling may sweep over the face of India, and 
 convulse Native society to its depths, and when such an 
 
 P
 
 34 Meeting in St. James s Hall. 
 
 emergency arises, every Native is subject to political, social, 
 and religious influences, the depth and the power of which 
 we are utterly unable to estimate, and when an occasion of 
 the sort arises, I do not say that a Native judge would neces- 
 sarily be partial — he would try not to be so if he could, but 
 I hardly believe he could if he would — but this I am certain 
 of, that his decision would never be accepted as being im- 
 partial. Take, for instance, the present state of things in 
 Bengal. Consider the torrents of obloquy and vituperation 
 which are heaped upon every Native who has attempted to 
 stand up against this change recommended by Mr. Ilbert. 
 Can .you imagine any Native strong enough to resist the 
 whole torrent of the public opinion of his own country 1 
 Take again what is known at present as the contempt of 
 co2irt case. Never was there a case in which the parties 
 assailed were so utterly and transparently right as they were 
 in that case. A dispute arises between two Native members 
 of a family as to the possession of an idol. Both parties, 
 who are Hindoos, and the counsel, who are Hindoos, ask 
 the judge to have the idol before him for inspection. After 
 taking the opinion of a high- caste Brahmin, he consents 
 to do so, and, having done so, he is assailed by a Native 
 paper as a Jefferies and Scroggs, and with all sorts of vile 
 epithets. He is accused of having attempted to tamper with 
 the religious feelings of the Natives, and the whole length 
 and breadth of Indian society is convulsed with the charge. 
 Let us recall those days that are within the memory of most 
 of us — the time of the Indian Mutiny. Do you believe that 
 if such a period were to recur, any Government worthy 
 of its name would be able to leave the criminal jurisdiction 
 of Europeans in the hands of Native magistrates } (Cheers.) 
 Do you think they would venture to incur the risk of having 
 man after man picked off by Natives and consigned to prisons 
 under their own control, for their own destruction } They 
 would not do so. But I ask, what are we to think of a 
 system of judicature which at the very time when it ought 
 to be in the fullest working order, is by the nature of things 
 to be put completely out of gear } (Hear, hear.) Now I 
 wish to refer to one or two of the arguments in favour of 
 this Bill, which have been advanced by its most accom- 
 plished advocate. Sir Arthur Hobhouse. I shall not deal at 
 length with the anomaly argument which has been discussed 
 so ably and so effectively by Mr. Seton-Karr, but I will only 
 say this — that if there is one anomaly greater than these 
 privileges, if there is an anomaly greater than the existence
 
 Meeting in St. yamess Hall. 35 
 
 of our own empire, it is the anomaly that for the last 
 hundred years Hindoos and Mahomedans, Sikhs and 
 Rajputs have, under our rule, and by the possession of our 
 privileges, lived together in harmony and peace. (Cheers.) 
 It is the anomaly that for the first time in their own 
 experience we have put a stop to the ravages of the 
 Pindarees and the Thugs, and that the very class of people 
 who are at present calling out against our tyranny and 
 oppression, are living under a system of liberty and equality, 
 such as they never could have enjoyed under their own 
 Native rulers. (Cheers.) Again, Sir, we are met with that 
 familiar argument th*at this is only a very little measure, 
 and Sir Arthur Hobhouse is quite triumphant against Lord 
 Salisbury, because he made the mistake of saying that under 
 this measure, if passed, the lives of English subjects would 
 be at the mercy of the Natives. That is not so at present, 
 but I must remind you that those who advocate this measure 
 avowedly intend it as the first instalment towards the utter 
 sweeping away of every European privilege. (Cheers.) If 
 you once admit that this principle is indefensible, that the 
 European should be tried by only his own countrymen, it is 
 a logical and necessary result of the abrogation of that 
 principle that every atom of the privileges which he at 
 present enjoys, should be swept away from under his feet. 
 (Hear, hear.) If you once allow this beginning, it must go 
 on to the end, and before very long the time will come when 
 the European in the distant Mofussil will be committed by 
 a Native magistrate upon a criminal charge, sentenced to 
 death by a Native judge, his sentence confirmed by a Native 
 High Court, and himself hanged within a month by a Native 
 executioner. I ask you whether that state of things will be 
 satisfactory to those who have sons, and, still more, those 
 who have daughters, who are likely to take up their resi- 
 dence in India .^ Then, again, we are told that we ought not 
 to be dissatisfied with this measure, because similar measures 
 have already been passed that have had no evil result. It 
 is said, '' Look at the police magistrates in Calcutta. Look 
 at the High Courts. In those Courts there are Native judges. 
 Yet you are satisfied with their decisions." Sir, there is no 
 parallel whatever between the two cases. (Hear, hear.) 
 The Native police magistrate sits in the full blaze of the 
 public opinion of the assembled European community. He 
 pronounces his decisions after argument by European 
 counsel, and his decisions are published and commented 
 upon by the European Press. The High Court judges, 
 
 D 2
 
 o 
 
 6 Meeting in St. J antes s Hall. 
 
 again, are the pick of the Native Bar — are men, few hitherto 
 in numbers, who have passed their whole time in administer- 
 ing justice before Enghsh tribunals, and who have become 
 impregnated with the principles of English law. But, I ask 
 you, do you think it would be satisfactory that all the police 
 magistrates should be Natives, and that all the High Court 
 judges should also be Natives ? I think it would not be so. 
 (Cheers.) But if the present Bill is passed, the position of 
 a European in the distant districts of the Mofussil will be 
 exactly like that of a European in Calcutta, if he were 
 brought up before a bench consisting wholly of Native 
 magistrates, with an appeal to Native judges. Suppose that 
 the English Press had been swept away, that the English 
 Bar had vanished, that the whole European community had 
 disappeared. That would be the parallel, and that parallel, 
 I say, would not be satisfactory to you. (Cheers.) There 
 is one more observation I wish to make. We all know that 
 beneath the calm and placid exterior of Indian society there 
 lurk elements of disturbance which are continually ready to 
 break out with all the violence of a volcano. Is it wise that 
 we should supply fresh means for political controversy } is it 
 wise that we should supply fresh causes of the bitterness of 
 class 1 Hitherto, the strongest part of our administration 
 has been the administration of the law. Is it wise to change 
 that for a system which cannot possibly be better, and which 
 will inevitably be worse t Hitherto, every person, of what- 
 ever class. Native or European, has leaned with undoubt- 
 ing confidence upon the impartiality and the strength of 
 our judicial system ; but if it were once imagined for a 
 moment that that judicial system could be worked for the 
 purpose of gratifying Native spite against a prominent 
 European, then I say a storm of resistless anger would arise, 
 which would sweep like a hurricane over the length and 
 breadth of the land. (Cheers.) We at present see from 
 this controversy the bitterness that has arisen between 
 Natives and Europeans, official and non-official — a bitterness 
 which has never existed since the days of the Indian Mutiny. 
 I do implore our rulers to be warned in time. I do implore 
 our rulers to beware, lest in attempting to repair a defect, 
 imaginary and theoretical, in the bulwarks of our constitu- 
 tion, they introduce a rift, small, perhaps, and unperceived, 
 but which will gradually widen and enlarge until before it 
 the very fabric of our Empire crumbles into ruins. (Loud 
 Cheers.) 
 
 Mr. J. M. Maclean (late editor of Bombay Gazette) : In
 
 Meeting in St. J antes s HalL 37 
 
 rising to second this resolution,* I must say that I do so with 
 great pleasure, because I was intimately connected, during a 
 long career in India, with that non-official class against whom 
 this measure is chiefly directed. I have always, for my own 
 part, had a strong feeling of contempt for those decorous 
 trappings of hypocrisy with which many Englishmen 
 attempt to disguise from themselves the real character of 
 our tenure of power in India. This movement is strictly 
 non-political, and I am, therefore, free to say to-day that I 
 think it is a great misfortune that public men of both parties 
 in recent years have been too profuse in the use of high- 
 sounding phrases about equality and fraternity, and the 
 rights of man generally, addressed to the people of India. 
 The misfortune of Lord Ripon is, that he, being apparently a 
 very sincere and simple-minded man, has come to the con- 
 clusion that those phrases were to be accepted in earnest, 
 and has tried to carry them out and to put in force the 
 principles of the French Revolution as applied to the 
 Government of India. (Cheers.) To show that I am not 
 going too far in saying this, let me remind you what is 
 the ground upon which Lord Ripon proposes this alteration 
 of the law. He says expressly in his despatch to the Secre- 
 tary of State that no change in the law wilf be stable or 
 satisfactory which does not sweep away completely, and at 
 once, every judicial disqualification based on difference of 
 race, or on the supposed privileges of a dominant caste. 
 Lord Hartington actually re-echoes that opinion. Well, 
 gentlemen, can you imagine anything more ludicrous than 
 an English Secretary of State, and an English Viceroy, who 
 hold those appointments simply by virtue of being English- 
 men, consulting v/ith one another how they shall do away with 
 the privileges of their humbler fellow-countrymen in India } 
 (Cheers.) They do not for a moment propose to lay down 
 their own offices ; that would be going too far ; that would 
 be carrying their principle " to an illogical extent," possibly 
 they would say. (Laughter.) But they are quite ready to 
 attack those of their fellow-countrymen who have gone 
 abroad for the purpose of doing their best to improve the 
 welfare both of India and of England. I think it is a great 
 misfortune that a number of public speakers and writers in this 
 country have seized with avidity upon some indiscreet ex- 
 pressions used at a Calcutta meeting which was held to 
 protest against this Bill. There are some Englishmen 
 in this country who seem to be never happier than 
 
 * The last resolution on page 41.
 
 38 Meeting in St. James s Hall. 
 
 when they are showing their superior virtue by vili- 
 fying their countrymen abroad. (Cheers.) When we 
 consider all the circumstances of the case, the English- 
 men in Bengal might say to themselves, as Lord Clive 
 did on a memorable' occasion, ''we are only amazed at our 
 own moderation." Just consider for a moment what this 
 class of non-official Europeans is in India. It is composed 
 of planters, professional men, and skilled workmen in all 
 departments. Well, these men are necessarily a privileged, 
 dominant class. No legislation can make them anything else 
 but the Government itself. I dare say some of you have 
 noticed, from the Gazette of India the other day, that Lord 
 Ripon has been conferring decorations on officers of a 
 volunteer regiment formed in India. There the Government 
 recognized the exceptional position which the non-official 
 Europeans in India hold. They dare not appeal to the 
 loyalty of the Natives to form volunteer regiments. No, but 
 they appeal with confidence to the loyalty of the non-official 
 Europeans in the country, and they have raised regiments 
 several thousand strong to assist in the defence of our Indian 
 Empire. So, in the same w^ay, when any tax is brought for- 
 ward, it is to the non-official Europeans that the Government 
 look to set the Natives an example of how to make sacrifices 
 of their own personal interests for the benefit of the State. 
 In the same way, when any measure is brought forward 
 that the Government wishes the Natives to adopt in a quiet 
 and loyal spirit, it is to the English Press and the English 
 non-official class in India that they appeal, and the appeal is 
 never disregarded. (Applause.) Then, gentlemen, is it not 
 monstrous that, having to deal with such a community, the 
 Government of India never for a moment thought of asking 
 w^iat would be the opinion of the non-official community 
 themselves regarding this change in the law which was about 
 to be introduced 1 If you look at the papers presented to 
 Parliament, you will find adverse opinions expressed by every 
 class in India, by officials belonging to every province — some 
 of the provinces not in the least degree interested in this 
 Bill ; but the Government of India seems never for a mo- 
 ment to have thought of consulting the Chambers of Com- 
 merce, of consulting the Associations of Planters, or the 
 prominent men of the Anglo-Indian community, to learn how 
 this Bill would be received by them. (Cheers.) That was a 
 very great and serious mistake for them to make. I am quite 
 certain, from the way in which the Anglo-Indian community 
 have behaved at other times, that this Bill would have been
 
 Meeting in St. J antes s Hall. 39 
 
 discussed by them in a Svober and temperate spirit, and that they 
 would have been anxious to do what they could to further 
 the intentions of Government. Look at their conduct, for 
 instance, with regard to the appointment of Native magis- 
 trates in Calcutta and Bombay. Those appointments have 
 not always been so successful as some people imagine. I 
 dare say Europeans of the well-to-do class do not know the 
 feelings with which decisions of Native magistrates are 
 sometimes received by the humbler classes of their fellow- 
 countrymen who come before them. There is a well-known 
 story of a sailor who was brought before a very intelligent 
 Native magistrate in Bombay, and he was told by the Euro- 
 pean constable in charge of him that he was brought up for 
 disobedience, and asked what he had to say. The sailor cast 
 a glance upon the Native magistrate, hitched up his trousers, 
 and said, " Well, I have nothing to say except this, * that I 
 object to be tried by a Coolie magistrate.' " (Laughter.) 
 Still, I am afraid that that is the feeling with which very 
 often the decisions of the Presidency Native magistrates are 
 received by the sailors, and such men brought before them. 
 But still, the European community have acquiesced in the 
 appointment of the Native magistrates ; they have never 
 severely criticised them, and that is a proof of their mode- 
 ration, which the Government ought to have taken into ac- 
 count. I shall not detain you by going very closely into this 
 question, because it has been very freely discussed to-day, and 
 I am sure you are already getting a little weary. I will only say 
 one thing, that in all the papers which have been presented 
 to Parliament, there is a strong feeling amongst the officials 
 themselves, who were consulted by the Government of Lidia 
 in the first instance, that it was a pity that this Bill should 
 have been brought forward. Mr. Grant Duff, about the 
 purity of whose Liberalism no possible doubt can exist, says 
 in his minute on the Bill, " It is perhaps a pity that just now 
 a measure of this kind should be brought forward which can 
 affect so very few persons indeed," And Mr. T. C. Hope, 
 who is a member of the Viceroy's Council, insists on the 
 essential difference of race, and tries, though evidently under 
 the influence of the Viceroy, to minimize this Bill as far as he 
 possibly can. The same feeling is evidenced in all the official 
 despatches that were received. The Government of India very 
 eagerly seized on some expression of the judges of Bombay ; 
 but I am informed on excellent authority that the Chief 
 Justice of Bombay, though he expressed an opinion as to the 
 way in which the administration of the law could be carried
 
 40 Meeting in St. Jamess Hall. 
 
 out if this change were effected, pronounced no opinion what- 
 ever on the expediency or the pohtical suitabihty of a mea- 
 sure of the kind. I met also not very long ago a very dis- 
 tinguished Anglo-Indian, who told me that he had given an 
 opinion in favour of this Bill some years ago, but he thought 
 it would be madness for any practical statesman to persevere 
 with the Bill in the face of the storm of opposition which it 
 has encountered. (Cheers.) Now we have a consensus of 
 official and non-official opinion against this measure, and we 
 can go now to Lord Kimberley and ask him that it shall be 
 withdrawn. But remember, ladies and gentlemen, that be- 
 hind the Secretary of State in this matter there lies the 
 people of England, and if the Secretary of State should 
 refuse to heed our appeal — if, unfortunately, the Government 
 should persevere with this ill-omened measure — it rests upon 
 every one of us to do his utmost to appeal to the people of 
 England to do us justice. (Loud cheers.) Even extreme 
 politicians in this country are very ready to use the ascend- 
 ancy of England in India for promoting their own purposes. 
 Let me point out to you that only a few days ago at Birming- 
 ham, Mr. Bright, when he was looking at the wall of tariffs 
 built up by foreign nations to shut out English goods, and 
 trying whether he could find a breach in the wall anywhere, 
 exclaimed, triumphantly, "India at all events is a free trade 
 country.'' Yes, but why is India a free trade country } 
 Not of her own free will ; not by the consent of the 
 people of India, whose interests Mr. Bright is sup- 
 posed to have so entirely at heart. Free trade was 
 forced upon India at the point of the sword, as Mr. 
 Bright himself vv'ould say, if he were speaking to 
 his opponents. It was forced upon the people of India by a 
 Government which supposed it knew better what were the 
 interests of the country than the people of India did. I 
 concur thoroughly with the Government which made the 
 beneficial change. I have always held that the cotton 
 industry of India ought not to be backed up by protective 
 duties, and that if it cannot prosper without those duties, it 
 ought to fail, and the people of India ought to be allowed 
 to buy their goods in the cheapest market. But that is not 
 the opinion of the people of India themselves. They believe 
 that those duties were taken off for the benefit of Mr. Bright's 
 friends in Lancashire, and they complain that it was an act 
 of oppression to compel them to put direct taxes upon them- 
 selves in order that this benefit might be conferred upon Mr. 
 Briglit's friends. (Cheers.) If English ascendancy in India
 
 Meeting in St. J antes s HalL 41 
 
 can be used in order to put down protection and to make 
 free trade triumph, why should it not also be used for the 
 protection of the liberty and property of non-official Euro- 
 peans who make India the best customer for the trade of 
 England, and to whose enterprise and industry it is due that 
 India is now so profitable a component part of the British 
 Empire ? Let me tell these extreme politicians, who are so 
 inconsistent when their interests are concerned, that if they 
 wish to try their sentimental theories of a false humani- 
 tarianism anywhere, they must find some other field than 
 India. (Cheers.) The danger there is too great. If this 
 policy should be persevered in — this ill-omened and disas- 
 trous policy — it can only end in bringing about consequences 
 which will be most injurious to the interests of England 
 and to the welfare of India. (Applause.) 
 
 The following resolutions were passed at the meeting : — 
 
 I. " That this meeting disapproves of the Bill now before 
 the Indian Legislature to amend the Code of Criminal Pro- 
 cedure, 1882, and desires to move Her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment to take measures for the withdrawal of the same." 
 
 II. "That the Secretary of State for India be j-equested to 
 receive a deputation to lay before him the grounds of objec- 
 tion to the Bill." 
 
 III. "That the following gentlemen do form an Execu- 
 tive Committee (with power to add to their number) for 
 carrying out the objects of the meeting, and to take 
 such further steps as may be necessary : — Major-General 
 W. Agnew, late Judicial Commissioner of Assam ; Sir 
 Alexander J. Arbuthnot, K.C.S.I., CLE., late member of the 
 Supreme Council of India ; Henry Berners, Esq., late of 
 Calcutta ; Colonel C. S. Blair, late Deputy Commis- 
 sioner, Mysore ; J. H. A. Branson, Esq., late of Calcutta ; 
 
 C. J. Brookes, Esq., late of Calcutta ; C. T. Buck- 
 land, Esq., late B.C.S. and member of Board of 
 Revenue, Calcutta ; J. R. BuUen-Smith, Esq., C.S.I., late 
 member of Legislative Council of India ; Sir Orfeur Cave- 
 nagh, K.C.S.I., late Governor Straits Settlements ; M. 
 
 D. Chalmers, Esq., late Bengal Civil Service ; Surgeon- 
 General R. Cockburn ; General Sir A. Cotton, K.C.S.I., 
 R.E. ; J. Dacosta, Esq., late of Calcutta ; Surgeon-General 
 A. C. C. de Renzy, C.B., late Sanitary Commissioner of 
 Assam ; Lieut-Colonel Eardley-Wilmot, 14th Bengal Lan- 
 cers ; James Fergusson, Esq., CLE. ; Sir T. Douglas 
 Forsyth, K.C.S.I., C.B., late Commissioner, Punjab ; Surgeon-
 
 42 Meetmg in St. ya7ness Hall. 
 
 General C. A. Gordon, C.B., late Principal Medical Officer, 
 British Forces, Madras ; Edward Grey, Esq., late Bengal 
 Civil Service; H. Hankey, Esq., late Bengal Civil, Service, 
 and Inspector-General of Police, N.W.P. ; R. S, Hills, Esq., 
 late of Calcutta ; Major-General H. Hopkinson, C.S.I., late 
 Chief Commissioner of Assam ; Colonel R. H. Keatinge, 
 V.C., C.S.I., late Chief Commissioner of Assam ; J. B. Knight, 
 Esq., CLE., late member of the Bengal Legislative Council ; 
 A. Lawrie, Esq., of Calcutta ; C. A. Lawson, Esq., editor of 
 the Madras Mail ; Roper Lethbridge, Esq., CLE., late Press 
 Commissioner of India ; S. P. Low, Esq., of Messrs. Grindlay 
 and Co. ; J. M. MacLean, Esq., late editor Bombay Gazette ; 
 Melville MacNaghten, Esq., of Nischindapur, Bengal ; 
 Colonel G. B. Malleson, C.S.I., late Guardian of the Maha- 
 rajah of Mysore ; G. F. Mewburn, Esq., late member of the 
 Legislative Council of India ; E. C Morgan, Esq., late 
 member of the Legislative Council of India ; A. T. Osmond, 
 Esq., late of Calcutta ; Deputy-Surgeon-General S. B. 
 Partridge ; W. G. Probyn, late Bengal Civil Service, and 
 Judge of Saharunpore ; E. T. Roberts, Esq., Barrister, late 
 of Calcutta ; A. Rogers, Esq., late member of the Bombay 
 Council ; J. O'B. Saunders, Esq., proprietor of The English- 
 man, Calcutta ; Lieut.-General A. C Silver, late Secretary 
 to Government in the Military Department ; W. S. Seton- 
 Karr, Esq., late Bengal Civil Service, and Foreign Secretary 
 to the Government of India ; John Stevenson, Esq., of 
 Midnapore, Bengal ; Chas. Sanderson, late Solicitor to the 
 Government of India, Calcutta ; Major-'General E. Tyrwhitt, 
 late Inspector-General of Police, N.W.P. ; Lieut. Templer, 
 late Indian Navy ; Ernest Tye, Esq., late Hon. Magistrate 
 and J. P., Assam ; J. D. Ward, Esq., late Bengal Civil Service 
 and Judge of Chittagong ; Colonel T. Prendergast Walsh, 
 late Bombay Army ; Brigade-Surgeon J. Berry White, late 
 Civil Surgeon, Assam ; and Geo. Williamson, Esq., late of 
 Calcutta."
 
 LEADING ARTICLE IN THE ^'TIMES." 
 
 {June 26, 1883.) 
 
 The meeting held yesterday afternoon to protest against 
 the Ilbert Bill was in point of numbers as successful as its 
 most sanguine promoters could have ventured to anticipate. 
 The hall was filled to overflowing with an audience obviously 
 very much in earnest in seeking the withdrawal of the mea- 
 sure. Sir Alexander J. Arbuthnot occupied the chair, and 
 set forth the main points of the controversy in a speech 
 marked by studious moderation of statement. His estimate 
 of the gravity of the present crisis can scarcely be-contested, 
 whatever may be thought of the merits of the question in 
 dispute. It is unfortunately beyond doubt that the introduc- 
 tion of the Criminal Jurisdiction Bill has caused widespread 
 agitation and excitement, has evoked antipathies of race, and 
 has produced a vast amount of reciprocal irritation, which 
 might very well have been avoided. Sir Alexander Arbuth- 
 not holds that these mischievous results of the discussion 
 which has been going on for the last four months will be in- 
 tensified and rendered permanent if the Indian Government 
 persists in passing the Bill. The objections felt to the juris- 
 diction of Native magistrates over Englishmen in criminal 
 cases are, he assures us, of a kind which custom will not 
 diminish, but will rather deepen and increase. Leaving to 
 others the treatment of the detailed arguments against the 
 Bill, he passed to the consideration of what is now the domi- 
 nant factor in the case — the extraordinarily unanimous oppo- 
 sition of the Avhole Anglo-Indian population. He has no 
 objection to giving to competent Natives an Increasing share 
 in the government of India, and he can appeal to his Indian 
 career to show that no narrow and Illiberal jealousy dictates 
 his present conduct. But he thinks, as do thousands more 
 who are honestly anxious to give scope for the just ambition
 
 44 Leading Article in the '' Times T 
 
 of Natives, that there are many ways of utilizing their ablH- 
 ties without meddling with the particular department which 
 the proposed law invades. Jurisdiction over Englishmen in 
 criminal cases ought to be one of the last proofs of our con- 
 fidence in Native probity and impartiality, and can very well 
 be withheld for a long time to come without in any appreci- 
 able degree hampering reformers who wish to develop Native 
 capacity for administration. To be judged by their peers is 
 the most dearly prized right of Englishmen, and the preser- 
 vation of that right is incompatible with the transfer of 
 criminal jurisdiction to men differing from them in race, 
 religion, history, and education. 
 
 The chairman laid great stress upon the evidence that this 
 feeling prevails not among this or that section, but among all 
 classes who are practically acquainted with India. It is 
 very probable that some men of ability and position can be 
 found to defend the Ilbert Bill. The striking originality 
 required to produce a measure of which no one approves, is 
 not to be looked for in the Indian Government. But the 
 point is that the overwhelming majority of those who have 
 to live under Indian law, and in whose exertions lies the 
 best hope of Indian advance, are, rightly or wrongly, con- 
 vinced that the proposed change is a mistake ; while among 
 Indian officials, whether active or retired, the preponderant 
 opinion is to the same effect. Sir Alexander Arbuthnot uses 
 an argument alike legitimate and unanswerable when he 
 points to the long list of official and non-official persons who 
 have intimated their objections to the Bill ; to the reports 
 which prove that the general opinion of English adminis- 
 trators throughout India is hostile to it ; and to the passages 
 which show that, so far as authority is to be relied upon, the 
 eminent Anglo-Indians of earlier days have condemned the 
 present proposal by anticipation. It may be possible to pro- 
 duce a similar array of instructed opinions upon the other 
 side. It may be that there are Indian officials, past and 
 present, who have remained silent while this question was 
 being debated, though fully convinced that the Ilbert Bill is 
 wise and expedient. It may be that throughout India there 
 is a great body of hitherto silent planters, merchants, and 
 artisans who look with perfect equanimity upon the prospect 
 of being judged by Natives, But in that case it is fair to 
 ask that they shall be produced. At present the whole 
 current of Anglo-Indian conviction appears to run strongly 
 in the opposite direction, and while it does so, it must 
 remain a thing which no wise Government will venture to
 
 Leading Article in the '' Times J' 45 
 
 disregard. We might grant that the Bill is right in the . 
 abstract without in the smallest degree weakening the prac- 
 tical objections to passing it. By the showing of its friends 
 its action will be of the most limited kind. Out of the vast 
 and heterogeneous population of India, divided by every 
 kind of religious, ethnic, and social barrier, it selects a mere 
 handful of fortunate persons and declares them eligible for 
 the post of judge in criminal cases affecting Europeans. In 
 bringing about this infinitesimal result, it arouses the appre- 
 hension and the hostility of the whole body of Englishmen in 
 or concerned with India. Is the game worth the candle "i 
 Is it desirable to do so much evil that so small a good may 
 accrue } That is practically the question put by the chair- 
 man of yesterday's meeting, and it is one that peculiarly 
 calls for the attention of statesmen, no matter what may be 
 the abstract arguments for the Ilbert Bill. It does not do 
 to dismiss the whole body of hostile opinion as the fruit of 
 panic or unreasoning prejudice. Englishmen in India are of 
 the same race as those who stay at home, and an opinion 
 shared by a great number of them, possessed of more than 
 the average intelligence and enterprise, deserves, at least, as 
 respectful treatment as would be accorded to a popular vote 
 in England. No one surely will be cynical enough to main- 
 tain that opinion is worthy of attention only when it directly 
 disposes of the emoluments of office. 
 
 It is not necessary to follow in detail the arguments 
 against the Bill adduced by the different speakers. They 
 are already tolerably familiar to our readers. They were 
 yesterday put forward with commendable moderation and 
 candour, notwithstanding the temptation to exaggeration 
 which a sympathetic meeting naturally offers. Mr. Seton- 
 Karr did well in declining to adopt the cry that if the 
 Bill were passed it would drive capital out of India. The 
 influx of capital is undoubtedly regulated by the degree of 
 security and comfort which capitalists enjoy ; but nothing 
 short of very violent legislation indeed could produce an 
 effect sufficiently palpable to justify predictions of that kind. 
 In our domestic legislation we understand perfectly well 
 that while it is nearly impossible to ruin an industry, it is 
 very easy to depress it. Nearly all the economic contro- 
 versies of the last forty years have turned upon the removal 
 of obstacles to commerce which, though troublesome, were 
 well known not to be fatal. The case of Englishmen in 
 India is quite strong enough to dispense with overstatement. 
 There will not be a general exodus if the Ilbert Bill passes
 
 46 Leading Article in the '' Times!' 
 
 any more than there will be a collapse of Indian society, if 
 it is withdrawn. But the change of the law would un- 
 questionably add to the risks of capital and the unplea- 
 santness of life in India, just as some vexatious restriction 
 may hamper and depress, without destroying, an indus- 
 try at home. It is highly important for India that every- 
 thing should be done to foster enterprise and to promote 
 confidence, and it would consequently be a mistake to 
 encourage the present dangerous temper of the natives by 
 ostentatiously defying the universal and strongly expressed 
 opinion of the English community.
 
 LEADING ARTICLE IN THE "SATURDAY REVIEW. 
 
 {Jtme 30, 1883.) 
 
 The assemblage of. Anglo-Indians on Monday last was 
 distinguished by some new and striking features. Platform 
 oratory has been on the increase in India in spite of Lord 
 Brougham's dictum that, in that country, men "neither 
 debate nor write." But, except on the occasion of a royal 
 marriage, a famine or tropical visitation, or the departure of 
 some successful Governor or Commander-in-Chief, meetings 
 in town halls have been generally confined to a class. 
 Planters and merchants comprising Her Majesty's Opposi- 
 tion have met at intervals to denounce Her Majesty's 
 Government when bent on some measure affecting indigo- 
 planting, commerce, or the landed interests. During the 
 Sepoy mutiny meetings were convened in India and in 
 England to cast discredit on the noble policy of Lord 
 Canning. On nearly all these occasions there has been a 
 distinct cleavage in the ranks of Anglo-Indian Society. 
 During the past week these distinctions have been effaced. 
 Members of Council, Chief Commissioners, and other high 
 executive and judicial officers were seen standing on the 
 same platform with editors, influential merchants, and 
 eloquent barristers long known for their skill in exposing the 
 errors of Indian Administrations and expounding British 
 rights. It is now quite impossible to speak in other than 
 respectful terms of such an assemblage, or to call it a mere 
 agitation of briefless lawyers, shrieking adventurers, or dis- 
 contented civil and military officers. 
 
 Not less remarkable than the composition of the assembly 
 were the varieties of reasoning and experience which led 
 to a practical unanimity of conclusion. Sir Alexander 
 Arbuthnot, as chairman, opened the proceedings in a
 
 48 Article in the ''Saturday Review'' 
 
 speech of sinp^ular dignity, force, and moderation. We can 
 give it no higher praise than that, in argument and diction, 
 it would have been equally appropriate had the speaker been 
 still in his former place in the Council Chamber at Madras 
 or Calcutta. With very trifling exceptions, the same absti- 
 nence from irritating topics or haughty denunciation of 
 Oriental failings characterized the utterances of those who 
 took up the subject where the chairman left it. There is 
 good reason to believe that there was no previous concert 
 between any of the movers or seconders about the division 
 of subjects or the mode of attack. Any one of some four 
 or five speeches contained matter enough to throw doubts on 
 the policy of the Bill. Taken together, from the different 
 points of view of the speakers, the addresses are simply 
 overwhelming and irresistible. The subsequent meeting of 
 the East India Association has not contributed a single fact 
 or argument calculated to throw discredit on Monday's 
 proceedings. 
 
 The existence and retention of a legislative anomaly in 
 favour of the energetic, independent, and occasionally 
 troublesome Englishman, was justified by reference to other 
 anomalies which the most ardent legislator would never 
 venture to touch. The enormous privileges of caste, the 
 strange customs of marriage, divorce, death, and inheri- 
 tance, had all been tolerated under British rule. Entrance 
 into the Zenana is, for all judicial purposes, still barred 
 to the English magistrate when on the track of criminals, 
 and no Rani, Begum, or lady of rank, has ever been 
 subpoenaed from her seclusion to appear as witness before 
 even the highest judicial tribunal. Recently, the Legis- 
 lature has stereotyped privilege in favour of Native gentle- 
 men of position, and at the discretion, of the executive 
 Governments has exempted them from attendance in civil 
 suits before any Court in the country. In truth, there 
 is no society in which privilege is so highly valued by 
 the nobleman, is so little resented by the agriculturist or 
 trader, and sits so lightly and easily on the mass of the 
 community, as is the case in India. It was, after this, not 
 difficult for the speakers to justify the exemption which 
 the Englishman claims. A dealer in country produce,' a 
 tea-planter, an agent for some house in Cachar, Assam, the 
 Wynaad, or the Doon, through his own act or that of his 
 Native staff, becomes involved in litigation. A charge is 
 brought against him, not grave enough to warrant his 
 committal to any one of the High Courts, though quite
 
 Article in the " Saturday Reviezu!' 49 
 
 serious enough to impair his prospects and character, and to 
 subject him, before the magistrate or the judge, to sentences 
 respectively of three months or one year. Is there any- 
 thing calculated to shock our notions of equity, propriety, 
 and fairness in the demand that the trial should be held 
 before an Englishman, who, to a knowledge of law and Native 
 languages, adds an appreciation of the character, position, 
 and proclivities of his erring or unfortunate countryman ? 
 The " anomaly " would be really greater if, in the case of 
 isola'.ion from friends and counsel, the trial took place before 
 a single Native judge. This argument Avas backed up by 
 evidence showing that several experienced Natives were 
 prepared, not to accept, but to deprecate this new respon- 
 sibility ; that in any action where English susceptibilities 
 were much excited there would be more danger of inability 
 on the part of a Native magistrate to deal sternly with facts, 
 and of a miscarriage of justice ; and that the spectacle of the 
 ordinary loafer brought before a similar functionary might 
 be about as edifying as that of the sailor who in Marryat's 
 novel was brought before the Pasha, and got off by telling 
 wonderful yarns. It was also shown, in handling this 
 portion of the subject, that the advocates of the Bill, 
 abandoning the ground of anomalies, have based their pleas 
 on the high qualifications of the Native judge and the 
 necessity for giving full and free scope to his legal know- 
 ledge and ability. It is surely more correct to say that in 
 criminal proceedings, if any consideration is to be shown, 
 it should be shown to the accused. It is not for any judge 
 to claim the class of prisoners whom he is to try. In all 
 civilized countries it is the prisoner who may object to the 
 summary jurisdiction of a magistrate, or claim trial by jury, 
 or challenge the list of jurymen. In India, where, as it was 
 pointedly said on Monday, a magistrate in less advanced 
 districts must be counsel for the prosecution, counsel for the 
 defence, jury, and judge, it is not so very illogical, inequitable, 
 anomalous, or inconsistent, for the prisoner to demand that 
 the person who has to discharge all these varied functions 
 should be one of his own colour and creed. 
 
 But the arguments against the Bill were supported by 
 facts of far more vital significance than the weighty 
 testimony of ex-judges and Commissioners, or the witty and 
 forcible illustrations of Irish advocates. It is now admitted 
 that a second reference to men outside the Simla ring — that 
 is, to the district officers who are not yet obliterated by the 
 Bill for Self-Government — has resulted in a remarkable 
 
 E
 
 50 Article in the '' Saturday Review." 
 
 opposition to the Bill. It has also been discovered that, 
 owing to railroads and accelerated communication by post^ 
 and telegraph, an electric touch of sympathy runs through 
 the whole English community. When Macaulay was burnt 
 in ^(iigy in 1836, it was a far cry from Madras or Bombay 
 to Calcutta. Now it is known that meetings will be held 
 on the same day at Silchar and at Mercara ; and, while an 
 orator is addressing an enthusiastic m.eeting in the Town 
 Hall in Calcutta, his auditory may be inflamed and excited 
 by the news that their sentiments are being reciprocated by 
 an equally important assemblage, convened for the same 
 purpose, at that very moment at Madras. The expressions 
 that rise to the lips on such occasions, though not invariably 
 in the purest taste, are almost excusable when we know for 
 certain that Mr. Ilbert's Bill was not designed to remedy 
 any one positive defect or administrative failure ; that no 
 executive ofificers had uttered one word of complaint 
 against Englishmen as either defying or obstructing the 
 ordinary courts of justice ; that, as regards the mass of 
 the Native community, it would confer not the smallest 
 benefit nor remove the minutest grievance ; and that the 
 whole question had been taken up, analyzed, and dropped so 
 lately as 1872. Well might the speakers ask whether it was 
 the deliberate intention of the Indian Government to supply 
 fuel foe fresh agitation every ten years. Then, too, the 
 anomaly of certain exceptional privileges still to be 
 reserved to the Englishman, even if the Bill should pass, 
 would remain as glaring and offensive as ever, and would 
 again tempt the attack of the Native agitator and the prentice 
 hand of some legislator not troubled with results, and 
 nourished, as Macaulay said, on trope and figure in the 
 cloisters of Oxford. 
 
 The tendency of all unnecessary legislation in England 
 may be merely to harass a few interests, to hamper freedom 
 of contract, and to provoke the jealousies and rivalries 
 of classes. But a simi'ar policy in India makes good 
 government almost impossible, and raises questions which 
 strike experts with positive awe and dismay. Prominence 
 has now been given to every sentiment wdiich ought to be 
 kept out of sight. Maxims on which statesmen are pre- 
 pared to act quietly if necessary, without always parading 
 them in laws, proclamations, and manifestoes, have been 
 openly brandished in the face of agitators taught by 
 English education to feel ashamed of their previous de- 
 basement. Old antipathies have been revived ; violent
 
 Article in the '' Sahtrday Review ^ 51 
 
 contrasts suggested ; controversy has been embittered ; 
 and any strong language employed by English journalists 
 has been outdone by the virulence and mendacity of Native 
 scribblers. Hardly a speaker at the meeting but was prepared 
 to produce private letters or to quote extracts from Native 
 papers showing a tension on one side and a violence of 
 invective on the other without a parallel since the days of 
 1857. I^ f^c^ of this raging tempest of controversy one or 
 two journalists bid the Government to stand " firm " and 
 pass the Bill. Sir W. Harcourt once compared the action 
 of his opponents to that of an engine-driver, who, seeing the 
 signal of danger, puts on fresh steam. If, after the reference 
 to experienced officials, the alarm of residents in India, 
 the temperate but forcible language of the speakers at St. 
 James's Hall, and the comments of the daily Press, the 
 Government persist in turning the draft into law, they will 
 much resemble the driver of an express train, who seeing 
 from afar both lines strewn with shattered trucks and 
 splintered carriages, refuses to apply the break, and hurries 
 on to increase the universal havoc. And, amidst all doubts, 
 prophecies, denunciations, and fears, we may be pretty sure 
 of one thing — that, had the removal of any anomalous caste 
 privilege or " incongruity " affected any considerable portion 
 of the Native community, and had it excited amongst them 
 one-half the amount of opposition not unreasonably shown 
 by the whole English population, we should very soon have 
 heard the last of Bills for removing anomalies and blots. 
 
 E 2
 
 LETTER OF THE JUDGES OF THE HIGH COURT 
 OF CALCUTTA. 
 
 From Mr. C. A. Wilkins, Officiating Registrar of the High 
 Court, to the Secretary of the Government of India, 
 Legislative Department. 
 
 High Court, Engh'sh Department, Criminal. Present. — 
 The Hon. Sir Richard Garth, Knight, Chief Justice, the 
 Hon. H. S. Cunningham, the Hon. W. F. M'Donell, 
 V.C, the Hon. H. T. Prinsep, the Hon. L. R. Totten- 
 ham, the Hon. A. T. Maclean, the Hon. J. F. Norris, the 
 Hon. J. Q. Pigot, the Hon. J. O'Kinealy, the Hon. C. J. 
 Wilkinson, the Hon. W. Macpherson, Judges of the 
 Court. 
 
 Calcutta, May 23, 1883. 
 Sir, — In reply to your letter. No. i6c, of the i6th of 
 March, 1883, asking for an expression of the judges' opinion 
 on the provisions of the Bill to amend the Code of Criminal 
 Procedure, so far as it relates to the exercise of jurisdiction 
 over European British subjects, I am desired to say that the 
 judges have considered the Bill, together with its annexures, 
 and the abstract of the proceedings of the Legislative Council, 
 so far as they relate to that measure. 
 
 2. The judges consider it to be their duty to express 
 without reserve the views which they entertain, not only 
 upon the form and language of the Bill, but on its general 
 policy and probable effects. 
 
 3. The statement of objects and reasons sets forth that, 
 " after consulting the Local Governments, the Government of
 
 Letter of the Calcutta Jitdges. 53 
 
 India has arrived at the conckision that the time has arrived 
 for modifying the existing law and removing the present bar 
 upon the investment of native magistrates in the interior 
 with powers over European British subjects ; and that the 
 Government has, accordingly, decided to settle the question 
 of jurisdiction over European British subjects in such a way 
 as to remove from the Code, at once, and completely, every 
 judicial disqualification which is based merely on race dis- 
 tinctions." 
 
 With this view the Bill amends section 22 of the Criminal 
 Procedure Code, which at present restricts the appointment 
 of justices of the peace to European British subjects, by 
 empowering the Government to appoint any magistrate of 
 the first class, who is either {a) a member of the Covenanted 
 Civil Service, or {b) a member of the Native Civil Service 
 constituted under 33 Vict. cap. 3, or {c) an assistant com- 
 missioner in non-regulation provinces, or {d) a cantonment 
 magistrate, to be a justice of the peace. 
 
 4. The Bill next amends section 25 of the Code, so as to 
 provide that all sessions judges and magistrates of the district 
 shall be justices of the peace for the territories of the Local 
 Government under which they are serving. It then repeals 
 so much of sections 443 and 444 of the Code, respectively, 
 as limits jurisdiction over European British subjects to such 
 magistrates and sessions judges as are themselves European 
 British subjects. 
 
 5. Accordingly, if this Bill becomes law, the effect will be 
 that (i) all Native sessions judges and magistrates of the 
 district will, ex officio^ exercise the same jurisdiction over 
 European British subjects as is now exercised by European 
 officials of the same class ; and (2) the Government will be 
 empowered to invest any Native magistrate of the first class, 
 who is either a covenanted civilian, or has been appointed 
 under 33 Vict. cap. 3, or is an assistant commissioner in a 
 non-regulation province, or a cantonment magistrate, with 
 the jurisdiction over European British subjects, which by the 
 existing law is restricted to European British subjects. 
 
 6. Thus, a Native magistrate, who has been appointed to 
 be a justice of the peace, will have jurisdiction (i) to inquire 
 into any charge against a European British subject, and 
 either commit him to the Sessions Court or High Court ; or 
 (2) if the offence be one ordinarily triable by a magistrate, 
 to try it and impose a sentence of three months' imprison- 
 ment, or fine up to Rs. 1,000, or both. A Native sessions 
 judge or assistant judge, empowered under Section 444, will
 
 54 Letter of the Calcutta J midges. 
 
 be competent to try a European British subject for any 
 offence not punishable with death or transportation for life, 
 and to impose a sentence of one year's imprisonment or fine 
 of unlimited amount, or both. Cases for which, in the sessions 
 judge's opinion, such a punishment is inadequate, will be 
 transferred to the High Court. 
 
 7. Offences punishable with death or transportation for 
 life will remain, in tlie case of European British subjects, 
 exclusively triable by the High Court. The European British 
 subject will retain his right, under Section 451, of claiming 
 a mixed jury or mixed assessors, his special rights of appeal, 
 under Chapter 31, and his right of applying to the High 
 Court, under Section 456, in case of unlawful detention. 
 
 8. It must be remembered that in India the powers of 
 police investigation, magisterial inquiry, and judicial trial 
 are closely connected, and are frequently combined in the 
 same official. Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, as it 
 now stands, any district or subdivisional magistrate, as well 
 as any other magistrate specially empowered in that behalf 
 (Section 191), may take cognizance of any offence, that is, ini- 
 tiate criminal proceedings in respect of any offence, (i) upon 
 a complaint made, (2) upon a police report thereof, (3) upon 
 information received from any person other than a police 
 officer, or (4) upon his own knowledge or suspicion that such 
 offence has been committed. 
 
 9. It is the duty of the district or subdivisional magistrate 
 to direct investigations by the police. He receives their 
 daily reports, and very often has to instruct them on points 
 which he may think that they have overlooked or mis- 
 apprehended. It sometimes even happens that the investi- 
 gation is taken out of the hands of the police and conducted 
 by the magistrate himself (Section 159). The result of this 
 is that the chief local magistrate practically becomes the 
 prosecutor, and may become the judge, notwithstanding that 
 he may have formed a strong opinion on the case behind the 
 back of the accused without having heard his explanation or 
 defence. This is the system in force in India ; and although 
 it is probably, for administrative reasons, unavoidable, it is an 
 extremely dangerous system. It has certainly provoked ad- 
 verse criticism ; that it has not provoked more is probably 
 due to the careful superintendence bestowed by district 
 magistrates, who have in Bengal hitherto been English 
 gentlemen of the Covenanted Civil Service, whose education 
 and training have made them fully sensible of the responsi- 
 bilities which such a system as that described imposes on
 
 Letter of the CatctUta Jtuiges. 55 
 
 them in their own proceedings, and also in supervising the 
 proceedings of their subordinate subdivisional magistrates. 
 The present law protects European British subjects from the 
 exercise of this dangerous combination of duties by any one 
 but their own countrymen. The Bill under consideration 
 proposes to remove this protection. 
 
 10. The general result, accordingly, of the proposed 
 amendments will be to leave European British subjects in 
 the possession of various important rights as regards the class 
 of officer who can commit or try them, the form of trial, the 
 right of appeal, and the power of invoking the aid of the High 
 Court when they are unlawfully detained in custody; but to 
 deprive them of the right, which they at present enjoy, that 
 in every case the inquiry or trial shall be conducted by a 
 European British subject. It will become the duty, ex officio, 
 of Native officers of a particular class to commit or try 
 European prisoners, even in cases in which, in person or 
 through the police, they have initiated investigations affecting 
 them ; and the Government will be empowered to select from 
 a wide area such other Natives as it thinks well to invest 
 with such powers. 
 
 11. The position in which European British subjects 
 would be placed by the proposed changes, is one which they 
 have never yet occupied, and in which the Legisfature has on 
 several occasions deliberately determined that it would not 
 be wise to place them. On a review of the course of legis- 
 lation sinc'e 1793, it is impossible, the judges consider, to 
 doubt that the intention and practice of the Government has 
 been to surround the investigation and trial of offences, 
 charged against European British subjects in the Mofussil 
 with special precautions, and among those precautions to 
 restrict the jurisdiction in such cases to European officials. 
 Any doubts which the wording of particular Acts, as, e.g.. 
 Act 7 of 1853, might have occasioned, have been removed by 
 the express declarations of the Codes of 1861 and 1872, in 
 both of which this restriction was deliberately enacted. 
 
 12. On the other hand, as regards European officials, the 
 result of the proposed change will be to curtail considerably 
 the powers now exercised by Government in the appointment 
 of justices of the peace. At present the Government can 
 appoint such European British subjects as it thinks fit to 
 be justices of the peace. This power has been hitherto ex- 
 tensively employed, and Europeans, other than covenanted 
 civilians, have been appointed to be justices of the peace, and 
 dispose in a manner which the judges believe to be satis-
 
 56 Letter of the Calcutta Judges, 
 
 factory, of cases in which Europeans arc concerned. Under 
 the amended section the Government will be unable to 
 appoint any one who does not fall within one of the four 
 classes specified in the amendment There are at present 
 in Bengal many such justices of the peace whose appoint- 
 ments would have been impossible under the amended 
 section. 
 
 13. The first argument adduced in favour of the proposed 
 change in the law, which the judges propose to consider, is 
 that on which his Excellency the Viceroy grounded his 
 support of the Bill in the discussion of the 9th March in the 
 Legislative Council — viz., the expediency of taking at once 
 a step which the policy of admitting Natives to the Service 
 rendered sooner or later inevitable. " It is clear," his Ex- 
 cellency observed, " that though there is not at the present 
 moment an irresistible necessity for introducing this measure, 
 as Lord Lytton's system develops, an irresistible difficulty 
 will arise. When you have one-sixth of the Civil Service 
 composed of Natives, it will be impossible to maintain the 
 present restriction. Therefore, what we had to consider was, 
 is it better to wait until this necessity becomes overwhelming 
 and irresistible, or is it better to introduce the system now .'* 
 I confess it appears to me that it is far wiser, and far more 
 in the true and substantial interests of those over whom this 
 jurisdiction is exercised, that it should be introduced now, 
 when the persons who would obtain these powers are very 
 Hmited in number: when the circumstances under which they 
 enter the Civil Service insure their ability and character, and 
 when all their proceedings can be carefully watched. Being 
 few in number, it wnll be easier now than afterwards for the 
 attention of the Local Governments and the public to be 
 directed to their proceedings, and, being the men they are, 
 it seems to me that they would be likely to set a good 
 example and give a good tone to those who come after them. 
 I hold it, therefore, to be wiser to introduce the measure now, 
 gradually, cautiously, and tentatively, than to wait till the 
 change is forced upon us by necessity, and the powers which 
 are now to be given only to a few men have to be given 
 suddenly to a very much larger number of Native Civil * 
 Servants. This is the ground upon which I thought that the 
 time had come when this change could best be made." 
 
 14. The judges fully appreciate the necessity of adjust- 
 ing the judicial machinery of the Courts to the declared 
 policy of the Secretary of State as regards the employment 
 of Natives in the judicial service. But they do not perceive
 
 Letter of the Calcutta Jtidges. 57 
 
 that that policy necessarily involves any such change as that 
 now suggested ; nor, in any case, do they consider that the 
 proper moment for making such a change has arrived, or 
 that materials at present exist for deciding on the form 
 which it ought to assume. 
 
 The table below* shows that of the civilians on the 
 Bengal list there are at present twelve Native?, either cove- 
 nanted civilians, or persons admitted under 33 Vict. c. 3. 
 Of these, two have, been over eleven years in the service, one 
 over ten, one over nine, one has been over seven years. The 
 rest have been under five years, and of these, five have served 
 less than three years. Moreover, since 1875 only one Native 
 civilian has passed through the competitive examination 
 and that was in 1879. Since that year all the admissions 
 have been under the Statute. There are, accordingly, only 
 four officers who, in the ordinary course, would for some 
 time to come be either magistrates of the District or Sessions 
 judges. As regards the rest no question is likely to arise 
 for several years. 
 
 15. These figures appear to the judges to indicate that 
 the question of the jurisdiction of Native civilians over Euro- 
 pean British subjects cannot be regarded as in any way 
 pressing for immediate solution. Though it may be intended 
 that Native ofificials shall ultimately constitute a sixth of the 
 entire Civil Service, there do not appear to be grounds for 
 expecting that this intention will be realised for many years 
 to come. It would appear, moreover, that various causes 
 have, of late years, led Native candidates to refrain from 
 seeking admission to the Civil Service by the competitive 
 examination, and that the main body of Native civilians will 
 for the future be those who are appointed in this country 
 under 33 Vict. cap. 3. Such a state of things scarcely seems 
 to justify prospective legislation on the ground that an irre- 
 sistible necessity is impending, which can be at present more 
 conveniently and safely met than at a later date. The 
 covenanted Native civilians, who have passed into the service 
 by the competitive examination, constitute, it is apparent 
 small and dwindling class. So far as can be judo-ed at 
 present, the supply has come to a standstill; nor^as to 
 admissions under 33 Vict. cap. 3, does it appear that the 
 Local Governments have found it feasible to carry out the 
 provisions of the Act except on a very limited scale. Three 
 officers appear to have been appointed \\\ Beno-al in 1880 
 one in i88r, one in 1882. At present, therefore, tile measure 
 
 * Sec table on p. 58.
 
 58 
 
 Letter of the Calcutta Judges. 
 
 
 
 He was first appointed to offi- 
 ciate as a Magistrate in 
 September, 1881. 
 
 He has elected the Judicial 
 line. 
 
 On furlough. Hu was ap- 
 pointed to act as a Magis- 
 trate in August, 1880. 
 
 He has been offered an Acting 
 Magistracy. 
 
 Has not yet passed the depart- 
 mental examination by the 
 higher standard. 
 
 Has not yet passed the depart- 
 mental examination by the 
 higher standard. 
 
 Has yet to pass by the lower 
 standard. 
 
 Has yet to pass by the lower 
 standard. 
 
 Approximate years when 
 
 Officers will become 
 
 eligible for appointments 
 
 either as 
 
 
 ro vooo Q 
 
 ^1 
 
 ■*o eo oo ^ 
 
 Appointments Held. 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 Magistrate and Collector 
 3rd Grade 
 
 Nil 
 
 Nil 
 
 Joint Magistrate, ist 
 Grade 
 
 Joint Magistrate, 2nd 
 Grade 
 
 Nil 
 
 Nil 
 
 Nil 
 
 Nil 
 
 Nil 
 
 Nil 
 
 Nil 
 
 Substantive Appointments. 
 
 Joint Magistrate, 2nd Grade 
 
 Presidency Magistrate 
 
 Joint Magistrate, 2nd Grade 
 (Substantive pro tern.) 
 Assistant Magistrate and Collector 
 
 Assistant Magistrate and Collector 
 
 Assistant Magistrate and Collector 
 
 Assistant Magistrate and Collector 
 Assistant Magistrate and Collector 
 Assistant Magistrate and Collector 
 
 Assistant Magistrate and Collector 
 
 Assistant Magistrate and Collector 
 Assistant Magistrate and Collector 
 
 '0.2 
 •— 1 > 
 
 July 10, 1871 
 
 July 10, 1871 ... 
 July 9, 1872 
 June 30, 1873 ... 
 July 19, 187s ... 
 September 8, 1879 
 
 March 2, 1878 ... 
 January 27, 1880 
 December 28, 18S0, 
 
 November 3, 1882 
 
 February 3, 1880 
 December 27, 1881 
 
 .i 3 C 
 
 til 
 
 Hi 
 
 c S c 
 
 1 
 
 Appointed in Eng- 
 land :— 
 Mr. R. C. Dutt ... 
 
 Mr. B. L. Gupta ... 
 
 ]Mr. A. Burooah 
 
 Mr. K. G. Gupta ... 
 
 Mr. B. De 
 
 Mr. K. J. Badshah 
 
 Appointed in India :— 
 Koomar Rameswar 
 
 Sing 
 
 Baboo Nanda 
 
 Krishna Bose 
 Koomar Girindro 
 
 Narain Deb 
 
 Baboo Gopendra 
 Krishna 
 
 Koomar Sattya Sree 
 Ghosal 
 
 Maulvi Ashunuddin 
 Ahmed
 
 Letter of the Calcutta Jiidges. 59 
 
 can, it is obvious, scarcely be regarded as having passed 
 beyond the stage of an experiment, How these officials 
 will turn out, is a question on which it is at present, and must 
 be for some years to come, impossible to form any confident 
 opinion. Even as regards the earlier appointments, the 
 judges are of opinion that they have been too few in number, 
 and, in the majority of instances, have lasted for too short a 
 time, to afford material for any safe generalisation, or to 
 justify, on the ground of ascertained fitness, a change in the 
 policy of Government which would take away from Euro- 
 pean British subjects a privilege which, it is apparent, they 
 regard as of high value and importance. 
 
 16. If some years hence, owing to the number of Native 
 civilians having greatly increased, any administrative diffi- 
 culty should arise and a change in the existing arrangements 
 be considered necessary, such a change will, the judges 
 think, be more safely made at a time when there are better 
 means than at present of judging, both of the administrative 
 difficulties which have to be met, and of the capacity and 
 character of the class of officials whose powers and responsi- 
 bihties it will have the effect of enlarging. The increase in 
 the number of Native officials will not render the supervision 
 of their behaviour in any way more difficult tjjan it is at 
 present. On the other hand, longer experience and a better 
 acquaintance with the particular points as to which super- 
 vision is found to be necessary would enable the superin- 
 tending authority to perform its duties more efficiently. At 
 any rate legislation, should it hereafter be necessary, would 
 proceed on a basis of practical experience, not, as it is likely 
 to do now, on mere conjecture as to the conduct and cha- 
 racter of officers about whom scarcely anything is known. 
 
 17. In considering the question whether legislation is at 
 present advisable, it is necessary to keep in view the wide 
 distinction which exists between Native officers who have 
 entered the Civil Service by competitive examination in 
 England, and those who are nominated under 33 Vict, 
 cap. 3, in this country. The judges are not prepared to 
 admit that, even as regards the former class, the proposed 
 change in the law is any way necessary or desirable ; but 
 here there is, at any rate, some guarantee for ability, moral 
 character, and such insight into the feelings of Englishmen 
 as a short residence in England may be supposed to confer. 
 On the other hand, with the statutory civilians there is abso- 
 lutely no guarantee against the existence of the very defects 
 which constitute the grounds of the reluctance of European
 
 6o Letter of the Calctiita Jtidges, 
 
 British subjects to submit to their jurisdiction in criminal 
 trials. They arc described by the Judicial Commissioner of 
 Oude in a document, forwarded by the Lieutenant-Governor 
 of the North-Western Provinces with his own reply to the 
 Government' of India, as "often being men saturated with 
 caste and religious prejudice, and ignorant of European 
 modes of thought and feeling." One object of the statute 
 was, the judges believe, to enable the Government to enrol 
 in the ranks of its service Native gentlemen of high birth and 
 social position. It is easy to imagine cases in which a 
 gentleman might have on these grounds great claims to a 
 nomination under the statute, who might yet be con- 
 .spicuously deficient in many of the qualifications which are 
 admittedly essential in the judge who is to deal with cases 
 in which European British subjects are concerned. It must 
 be remembered that it is with olTicials of this class, not with 
 successful competitors in the Civil Service examination, that, 
 in considering the present question, we have principally to 
 deal ; nor can the judges lose sight of the fact that these 
 statutory civilians will be appointed by a system of nomina- 
 tion which was abandoned by the Government twenty-five 
 years ago in favour of competitive examination, and which 
 can scarcely be expected to work more satisfactorily in India 
 than it did in England. On the offtcers thus nominated the 
 proposed change will confer a jurisdiction unknown to 
 English law, a combination of inquisitional, magisterial, and 
 judicial powers, which may be justified by the necessities of 
 the case of India, but which Englishmen in India may with 
 some reason contend should continue to be exercised in their 
 own case, as it is at present, only by officials for whose com- 
 petence or character they have some adequate guarantee. 
 
 1 8. The apprehensions which many Europeans entertain 
 as to the results of the proposed change, are not, in the 
 judges' opinion, without foundation. There is no doubt 
 that the position of Europeans in the Mofussil has many 
 disadvantages. They are often completely isolated, they 
 live among people alien to themselves in religion, nationality, 
 social habits, and political ideas. As owners of property 
 and employers of labour they are necessarily brought into 
 collision with classes or individuals whose interests conflict 
 with their own ; and it is impossible to ignore the fact that 
 such a state of things exposes them to very considerable 
 risks. The attention of the Government was forcibly drawn 
 to this fact by the Hon. Sir Steuart Bayley in the debate of 
 March 9. " There is," he said, " another aspect to the case of
 
 Letter of the Calctttta Jiielges. 6r 
 
 the opposition which I think deserves most attentive con- 
 sideration, and this is the real danger which the isolated 
 European, living in the Mofussil, runs from false cases 
 trumped up against him. It is right that I should state 
 publicly that this danger is a very real and very serious one, 
 for probably no member of this Council has had the same 
 experience as I have, of the lives led by planters in the 
 Mofussil. My own experience has given me a strong feeling 
 on this matter, and anyone who knows the extreme bitter- 
 ness with which disputes about land are fought out in the 
 Mofussil, and the unscrupulous methods to which recourse is 
 had in conducting these disputes before the Court — methods 
 to which a planter cannot have recourse — will understand 
 how precarious his position may become, and how essential 
 to him it is that the law should be well and wisely ad- 
 ministered." 
 
 19. The judges concur in the views here expressed ; 
 and they consider that the dangers thus described in the case 
 of planters and manufacturers would be even greater in the 
 case of persons in a humbler position in life, railway employes^ 
 artificers, and the like. These men are continually brought 
 into contact with Natives in ways which may easily give rise to 
 misunderstandings and ill-will. Should an accusation be 
 brought against them, they labour under great disadvantages ; 
 they are often isolated from other Europeans ; they generally 
 have but an imperfect acquaintance with the vernacular lan- 
 guages ; they are unable to retain the costly services of Euro- 
 pean advocates ; and they might, in some circumstances, 
 find it impossible to secure the assistance even of Native prac- 
 titioners. It is easy to see how the grossest injustice might 
 easily be inflicted in such cases by an officer who from any 
 cause failed fully to realize the position of the accused. It is 
 at any rate certain that Europeans of this class would feel 
 an entire want of confidence in any but a European tri- 
 bunal. On the whole, after making every allowance for tem- 
 porary excitement and agitation, it is, the Judges think, im- 
 possible to doubt that European residents in the Mofussil do 
 really consider themselves to be, and in fact are, in a position 
 which justifies them in regarding the privilege of being tried 
 by a European, on whose independence and impartiality they 
 can fully rely, as one of very real importance to them. 
 
 20. Accordingly, as the number of Native officials who 
 will be affected by the proposed change is extremely small ; 
 as it seems probable that the majority of Native officials will 
 for the future be statutory nominees, appointed in this coun-
 
 62 Letter of the Calentta Judges, 
 
 try without any guarantee as to ability, and not necessarily 
 possessing any acquaintance with the habits or feelings of 
 Englishmen ; as there is no evidence of any real demand for 
 any such alteration ; as the proposed change will disqualify a 
 class of European officers who at present perform their duties 
 to the entire satisfaction of the Government and the public ; 
 and as it cannot, it appears, be effected without a reviv^al of 
 animosities and class feelings, which are, on every account, to 
 be deplored, the judges consider that nothing short of grave 
 and pressing reasons could justify its introduction. 
 
 21. But, so far as their own observation goes, the judges 
 are unaware of the existence of any of the reasons on which 
 a legislative change is usually demanded. In the exercise of 
 their duties of superintendence and revision, they have occa- 
 sion to watch attentively the working of the criminal courts, 
 the returns of which are continually before them. Nothing 
 in those returns indicates that there is at present any adminis- 
 trative inconvenience, any miscarriage of justice, any hard- 
 ship inflicted on prosecutors, witnesses, or accused, or any 
 dissatisfaction felt with the provisions of the Code as to the 
 jurisdiction of the Courts. Some provisions of the Code are, 
 the judges are aware, believed by some persons to operate 
 severely, and any measure for the reform of these would 
 deserve consideration. It might be "well, for instance, to 
 consider the possibility of extending to Natives in the Mofus- 
 sil, under certain conditions, the right of the nature of a 
 habeas corpus, now exclusively enjoyed by Europeans, of 
 applying to the High Court in cases of unlawful detention. 
 B-ut as regards the powers conferred on the several classes of 
 Courts and the rights enjoyed by European British subjects 
 in criminal cases, the judges are not aware that there is any 
 feeling of grievance or, except among a few individuals, any 
 wish for change. On the contrary, the judges believe that 
 the privileges now enjoyed by Europeans are readily acqui- 
 esced in by the main body of Natives, who understand and 
 .sympathise with the natural desire of Europeans to be tried 
 by their own countrymen, and who appreciate the evils to 
 which any alteration of the existing law may probably con- 
 duce. 
 
 22. They are confirmed in this view by the fact that, 
 though the Criminal Procedure Code was for several years 
 under consideration, and was criticized minutely by every 
 Local Government, and though a very large body of official 
 opinion was collected from every rank in the service, no sug- 
 gestion on the subject was made by any responsible autho-
 
 Letter of the Calcutta Judges. 63 
 
 rity till Sir A. Eden's communication, of the 20th March, 
 1882, enclosing Mr, Gupta's letter of 30th January, 1882. 
 
 23. The judges find that their views as to this part of 
 the subject are endorsed by his Honour the Lieutenant-Gov- 
 ernor, who, in his speech on the 9th March, observed that 
 " there were a great many facts which supported the conten- 
 tion that there is no administrative difficulty in connection 
 with the matter," and expressed his conviction that " this 
 measure is unnecessary in the present condition and consti- 
 tution of the Native judicial covenanted service in Bengal." 
 
 24. On these grounds the judges are of opinion that 
 there is nothing in the present condition or prospects of the 
 service which renders a change of the law expedient ; nor do 
 they think that any necessity is likely to arise within any 
 period sufficiently near to require or justify legislation, espe- 
 cially when that legislation arouses apprehensions and ani- 
 mosities which are on every ground matter of regret. 
 
 25. In connection with this part of the subject it may 
 be well to point out that the rapid development of railway 
 and telegraphic communication, which has been urged by 
 some of the supporters of the Bill as a reason for consider- 
 ing it to be free from danger, goes far, and will year by year 
 go farther, to meet the argument based on administrative 
 necessity. There are few parts of India, and there will soon, 
 it is to be hoped, be none, in which a European cannot be 
 forwarded to any place in which it may be desired to try 
 him, with ease, speed, and economy. Europeans in India 
 are, for the most part at the present day, for all practical 
 purposes, far nearer to the tribunals to which they are 
 subject than they have ever been before ; and their trans- 
 mission from one place to another will year by year become 
 a matter of less difficulty. 
 
 26. The foregoing considerations, in the judges' opinion, 
 sufficiently dispose of the question of the expediency of 
 introducing the measure at the present time. But some of 
 the grounds on which the defence of the proposed change in 
 the law was rested by the supporters of the Bill seem to 
 the judges to call for observation. In the first place, as to 
 the reasons adduced for the change. " The only object we 
 have in view," it was observed by the honourable member 
 who moved the introduction of the Bill, " is to provide for 
 the impartial and effectual administration of justice. It is 
 by this test that we desire our proposals to be tried. ' Tried 
 by that test the proposal seems to the judges indefensible, 
 for no one has suggested that the present administration of
 
 64 Lcllcr of the Calcutta yudges. 
 
 justice is not effectual and impartial, or that it will become 
 in any degree more impartial or more effectual by the pro- 
 posed alteration. On the contrary, the proposal is that a 
 class of cases, which are admitted to be of so " exceptionally 
 troublesome and difficult a character" as to justify their 
 exclusion from the cognizance of any but specially qualified 
 tribunals, shall be no longer confined to a class of officials who, 
 in their disposal at present give entire satisfaction and com- 
 mand entire confidence, but shall become cognizable by officials 
 who, speaking generally, offer a less complete guarantee 
 for impartiality and independence — who necessarily labour 
 under the disadvantages arising from difference of nationality 
 and social habits, and in whom the portion of the community 
 concerned confessedly places less confidence than in the 
 existing tribunals. If, as the honourable member says, the 
 trial of Europeans is '' apt to put an exceptionally severe 
 strain on the judicial qualities of tact, judgment, patience 
 and impartiality," it is difficult to understand how the interests 
 of justice can be promoted by committing these cases to 
 ofificials who are regarded, and, the judges consider, rightly 
 regarded, as less qualified to deal with them than those who 
 at present are empowered to do so. Under the proposed 
 law any Native Assistant-Commissioner who has served 
 long enough to become a first-class magistrate might, in 
 Assam or in any other non-regulation province, be em- 
 powered to commit or try Europeans. Europeans may not un- 
 reasonably regard such an arrangement as providing less satis- 
 factorily than the existing law for the impartial and effectual 
 administration of justice in their own case. It is no dis- 
 paragement of the integrity or ability of a Native judge to 
 say that he is necessarily more amenable to the external influ- 
 ences to which popular feeling, local prejudice, or the wishes 
 and interests of powerful individuals may give rise, than is a 
 European officer, to whom such matters are for the most part 
 unknown. It would be easy to conceive cases in which it 
 would require no ordinary fortitude and independence on the 
 part of a Native official to run counter to the prevailing senti- 
 ments of the society in which he lives. It not unfrequently 
 happens that our superior officials are asked to transfer an im- 
 portant case from some Native judge or magistrate, not because 
 from deficiency of experience or judicial knowledge he is 
 unable to try it, but because one side or other apprehends 
 (and sometimes even both sides unite in this respect) that 
 some unknown or improper influence will be brought to bear 
 on that officer.
 
 Letter of the Calcutta Judges. 65 
 
 27. In this respect it is necessary to point out that the 
 present measure differs fundamentally from those by which 
 in years past Europeans have been brought gradually within 
 the jurisdiction of the civil and criminal courts. On each of 
 these occasions the reform had this strong justification, that 
 it was really demanded in the interest of an impartial and 
 effectual administration of the law. Justice could not, it is 
 obvious, be done between Europeans and others either in 
 civil or criminal cases, so long as a European could be 
 brought before no tribunal nearer than the presidency town. 
 Such a state of the law was in many cases tantamount to a 
 denial of justice, and in criminal matters it practically, in all 
 but very serious cases, secured impunity to the favoured 
 class. On these grounds the changes heretofore made were 
 justifiable and wise. But on the present occasion it cannot 
 be suggested that the change will make the trial or punish- 
 ment of European criminals in any one respect easier, 
 speedier, cheaper, or more certain. 
 
 28. One of the grounds most frequently alleged in sup- 
 port of the Bill was that the present state of the law was 
 anomalous, and that this anomaly justified legislation. As 
 to this, it is, the judges think, enough to point out that the 
 entire structure of Indian society and the British administra- 
 tion rests on personal laws, under which particular classes or 
 individuals enjoy special rights apart from the general law 
 applicable to the entire community. These rights have been 
 solemnly guaranteed to the inhabitants of the country, and 
 are conscientiously respected by the Legislature and the 
 Courts. The principle laid down in the preamble of 21 Geo. 
 III. c. 70, that it was "expedient that the inhabitants should 
 be maintained and protected in the enjoyment of all their 
 ancient laws, usages, rights, and privileges," has been con- 
 sistently maintained ; and the Act which at present regulates 
 the Civil Courts in Bengal (Act 6 of 1871) expressly pro- 
 vides that, in all questions regarding succession, inheritance, 
 marriage, or caste, or religious usage or institution, the 
 personal law of Hindoos and Mahomedans shall be the rule 
 of decision. These personal rights are observed, so far as 
 the judges are aware, with equal care and with ready 
 acquiescence by the people in their dealings with one another. 
 They are insisted on by the class concerned whenever they 
 appear to be endangered. Only a year ago the entire Hindoo 
 and Mahomedan communities were exempted from some of 
 the most important provisions of the " Transfer of Property 
 Act " out of respect to the wishes of certain native gentle- 
 
 F
 
 66 Letter of the Calcutta Judges. 
 
 men who were apprehensive that the proposed enactment 
 might be regarded as discountenancing their view of the 
 Hindoo law. Such being the universal rule, the English in 
 India may, the judges think, with some reason, demand that 
 a like regard may be paid to their personal rights, for which 
 they have at any rate the prescription of long usage, which 
 they highly prize, and which are not shown to conflict in any 
 way with the rights of any class. The question asked in 
 the course of discussion on the Code of 1872, when the law 
 was placed on its present footing, seems to the judges 
 extremely pertinent — are English people to be told that, 
 while it is their duty to respect all these laws scrupulously, 
 they are to claim nothing for themselves } That, while 
 the English Courts are to respect and even to enforce a 
 variety of laws, which are thoroughly repugnant to all the 
 strongest convictions of Englishmen, Englishmen who settle 
 in this country are to surrender privileges to which, rightly 
 or otherwise, they attach the highest possible importance } 
 
 29. Another ground urged in support of the proposed 
 change in the law is the invidious character of the existing 
 distinction. If by " invidious " is meant that the law, as it 
 stands, unfairly benefits Europeans to the detriment of 
 Natives, or that the privilege now enjoyed by Europeans can 
 justly be regarded as offensive to Native feeling, the judges 
 are unable to see any foundation for such a charge. It is 
 not suggested that the rights now enjoyed by Europeans 
 should be extended to the entire community, or that the 
 proposed chang*e would improve in any particular the general 
 administration of the law. If by the abolition of the present 
 rights of Europeans the Natives would be benefited, the 
 balance of advantages might have to be struck ; but this is 
 not the case. No practical advantage for Natives is to be 
 gained. 
 
 30. If even, apart from considerations of practical benefit, 
 there were reasons to think that the present state of the law 
 was, or could reasonably be, regarded by Natives as humiliat- 
 ing or insulting to them or their countrymen, the judges 
 would consider that the possibility of remedying such a 
 state of things deserved serious attention. But they cannot 
 believe that such is the case. There is nothing in the 
 existing law which implies any personal disparagement to 
 any one. There may be in the ranks of the Native service 
 officials who resent the existing law because it impliedly re- 
 cognizes the existence of a difference between Europeans 
 and Natives, and because they regard such a recognition as
 
 Letter of the Calcutta yudges. 67 
 
 obsolete, injurious, and oppressive. The judges cannot 
 regard such feehngs as deserving of sympathy or considera- 
 tion. Those differences, as a fact, exist, and any attempt to 
 ignore them would, the judges believe, be unwise and 
 disastrous. So far as the present measure encourages the 
 belief in any class of the community that such differences 
 have ceased to exist — that Hindoos and Englishmen can live 
 side by side, not only with just and equal laws, but with 
 absolute identity of status in every particular — it must, the 
 judges consider, be regarded as a probable source of future 
 difficulty. No reasonable official need feel aggrieved or 
 humiliated because the law lays down a general rule that a 
 class of especially difficult cases shall be tried by the officials 
 who are confessedly most competent to try them, to whom 
 their trial has hitherto been invariably confined, and to whom 
 the class concerned earnestly desires that they should con- 
 tinue to be restricted. As was observed in the debate in 
 1872, ''The privilege as to the jurisdiction is the privilege of 
 the prisoner, not the privilege of the judge. The European 
 has an objection to be tried by a Native. Considering the 
 position in which he stands, the question is whether you will 
 put him in a position in which he does not at present stand. 
 You place no slight upon a Native by saying that lie can only 
 try a man of his own race. What is there against the 
 feelings of the Native in that } Why should any one feel a 
 slight because he is told that a particular man is to be tried 
 in a particular way. On the other hand, it is a feeling, and 
 not an unnatural one, that a man should wish to be tried by 
 his own countrymen." This feeling, as a fact, is recognized 
 by the provisions of the code which allow Europeans and 
 Natives alike to claim that at least half of the jury by which 
 they are to be tried shall consist of persons of their own race. 
 31. Much reliance has been placed on the argument that 
 for many years past Native magistrates have in the Presi- 
 dency towns exercised jurisdiction over European British 
 subjects without giving rise to complaint. As to this, it is, 
 the judges think, enough to say that the position of the 
 Presidency magistrates, from the close proximity of the High 
 Courts, the facilities thus afforded for supervision and control, 
 the presence of a large and influential Bar, the activity of the 
 local Press, and the influence of public opinion, renders it 
 safe to entrust these officials with far more extensive powers 
 than could be safely conceded in the case of Mofussil 
 magistrates. This view has been adopted by the Legislature, 
 which empowers iC. P. C, 411) a Presidency magistrate to 
 
 F 2
 
 68 Letter of the Calctitta Judges. 
 
 pass a sentence of imprisonment for six months or fine 
 of Rs.200 without any appeal, whereas in the Mofussil, first- 
 class magistrates and sessions judges are unable to pass a 
 higher sentence than one month or Rs.50 fine without appeal ; 
 and in the case of European British subjects no order passed 
 by either is unappealable. For these reasons the judges 
 cannot consider the experience of the Presidency Magistrates' 
 Courts as in any degree justifying the investment of native 
 officers in the Mofussil with jurisdiction over Europeans. 
 
 32. Lastly, the judges have to consider the question of 
 the finality of the Bill. They are, of course, perfectly 
 satisfied that any assurances which may be given by the 
 present Government or any members of it in that respect 
 will be fully and faithfully adhered to. But such assurances 
 would not be binding upon any future Government, and still 
 less upon the native community. There would seem to be 
 no elements of finality either in the Bill itself or in its 
 subject matter. There is no reason why those, in deference 
 to whose wishes the Bill has been introduced, should accept 
 it otherwise than as a prelude to still larger concessions ; and 
 it may probably be more difficult in the future for Europeans 
 to protect their rights when the principle upon which those 
 rights depend, has once been invaded. 
 
 33. The judges have endeavoured in the preceding re- 
 marks to explain why they consider the grounds for the in- 
 troduction of the Bill to be insufficient. They believe that 
 they have shown that it is justified by no necessity, either 
 immediately present or sufficiently near at hand to require 
 consideration ; that the native civilians who enter the service 
 by competition are a small and dwindHng class ; that nothing 
 is as yet, or can be for many years, known of the officers 
 appointed under 33 Vict. c. 3, except that they have not had 
 the residence in England which is supposed by some to 
 render the covenanted civilians competent to exercise the 
 proposed jurisdiction ; that the circumstances of Mofussil 
 life render the present privileges of Europeans in the 
 Criminal Courts not a mere sentimental gratification, but an 
 important safeguard against a real danger ; that the measure 
 cannot be defended as contributing to the more effectual and 
 impartial administration of justice — an object which the 
 present law sufficiently attains, and which it is not pretended 
 that the amended law would attain any better ; that in this 
 respect the present Bill differs from former measures of a 
 like nature, which had for their object the removal of an 
 acknowledged grievance ; that the anomaly involved in the
 
 Letter of the Calcutta yudges. 69 
 
 present state of the law is merely one instance of a state of 
 things on v/hich the entire structure of Indian society- 
 depends ; that the right which the proposed legislation will 
 take away, ought not to be, and in fact is not generally, re- 
 garded as invidious or oppressive ; and finally, that the Bill 
 does not possess the elements of finality claimed for it, but 
 on the contrary must, whatever be the wishes of the Govern- 
 ment, be hereafter made the standing ground from which in- 
 novations will be demanded. On these grounds the Judges 
 feel bound to express their strong disapproval of the Bill. 
 
 34. I am directed to state that the Hon. Mr. Justice 
 Mitter will record his opinions on the subject of the Bill in a 
 separate minute. — I have the honour to be, Sir, your most 
 obedient servant, 
 
 C. A. WiLKiNS, Officiating Registrar.
 
 PETITION TO THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Petition addressed to iJie House of Commons'^ by Englishmen 
 resident in India. 
 
 To the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain 
 and Ireland in Parliament assembled. 
 
 The humble petition of the undersigned Euro- 
 pean British subjects and others resident 
 in India. 
 
 Respectfully sheweth, — 
 
 That by the existing law for the administration of criminal 
 justice in British India European British subjects charged 
 with the commission, without the local limits of jurisdiction 
 of the High Courts of Judicature of Bengal, Madras, 
 Bombay, and Allahabad, and of the Chief Court of Judi- 
 cature of the Punjab at Lahore, of offences against the 
 criminal law, are entitled to be tried on such charges in the 
 above-named High Courts or Chief Court, in case of offences 
 punishable with death or transportation for life, and by 
 European Judges and Magistrates in case of offences not so 
 punishable, with the proviso that, should such cases require 
 a sentence of more than one year's imprisonment from a 
 Judge or three months from a Magistrate, they are to be 
 sent for trial to the High Court. 
 
 2. That the right of British accused persons in India to 
 be tried by Judges, being themselves European British sub- 
 jects, is not of recent introduction, but coeval with the 
 establishment in this country of British Courts of Criminal 
 Judicature. Criminal jurisdiction over all persons subject to 
 their rule was conferred by the Charters of i66r and 1669 
 
 * A similar petition was addressed to the House of Lords.
 
 Petition to the House of Commons. 71 
 
 on the Governors and Councils of Madras, Bengal, and 
 Bombay, who were constituted Courts of Oyer and Ter- 
 miner, and the limits of whose jurisdiction were defined by 
 the Charters of 1726 and 1753. The jurisdiction of the 
 Governors' Courts was transferred in Bengal to the Supreme 
 Court at Fort William, established in 1774, under Statute 
 13 Geo. III. c. 63, with criminal jurisdiction over all British 
 subjects in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, and in Madras and 
 Bombay to the Recorders' Courts established in those towns 
 in 1797, under Statute 37 Geo. III. c. 142, with criminal 
 jurisdiction over all British subjects residing within the fac- 
 tories subject to, or dependent upon, the Governments of 
 those Provinces. The last-mentioned Courts were them- 
 selves replaced by the Supreme Courts established at Madras 
 in 1 801, and at Bombay in 1823, under the Statutes 39 and 
 40 Geo. III. c. 79, and 4 Geo. IV. c. 71 respectively. 
 
 3. The criminal jurisdiction over British subjects of these 
 several Courts, whose Judges were themselves British sub- 
 jects, was extended by various enactments to the new 
 territories acquired from time to time by the East India 
 Company. 
 
 4. The Charter of 1726 and the Acts and Charters under 
 which the Supreme Courts were created, constituted the 
 Governors and Councils of Madras, Bengal, and Bombay, 
 the Governor-General and the members of his Council, and 
 the Judges of the Supreme Courts, Justices of the Peace ; 
 but as these provisions were found insufficient for the due 
 administration of justice, and in order to facilitate the com- 
 mitment of British offenders for trial, the Statute 33 
 Geo. III. c. 52 empowered the Governor-General in Council 
 to appoint Justices of the Peace from the Covenanted 
 Servants of the East India Company, or other British iii- 
 habitants, to act within the provinces and presidencies of 
 Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, and places subordinate 
 thereto ; and a later Statute, 47 Geo. III. c. 6S, conferred on 
 the Governors in Council of Madras and Bombay similar 
 powers within their respective Presidencies in supersession, 
 to that extent, of the above-mentioned powers of the 
 Governor-General in Council, but with the like restrictions 
 as to the persons who might be appointed to act as Justices 
 of the Peace outside the Presidency towns. The powers 
 then conferred have been confirmed and extended to the 
 Local Governments established in India since the date of 
 these Statutes by various Acts of the Indian Legislature, the 
 last of which, being the existing Code of Criminal Procedure
 
 72 Petition to the Hotise of Commons. 
 
 passed on the 6th day of March, 1882, came into force on 
 the 1st of January of the present year. Every one of these 
 Acts prescribed that only European British subjects should 
 be appointed Justices of the Peace outside the Presidency 
 towns. Native members of the Covenanted Civil Service 
 have, it is true, been appointed Justices of the Peace in pur- 
 suance of powers supposed to be given by Acts XXV. of 
 1861 and II. of 1869, but such appointments, your petitioners 
 desire to urge, are entirely contrary to the spirit of both 
 Acts and in violation of the express language of the later 
 Act, identical in this respect with the words of the Statutes 
 above-mentioned, and which clearly indicates that the Civil 
 Servants appointed thereunder shall themselves be British 
 inhabitants. Down to the 6th of March, 1882, therefore, 
 the Indian Legislature fully recognized the inexpediency — 
 to use no stronger expression — of conferring on natives out- 
 side the Presidency towns even so limited a jurisdiction as 
 that of committing European British subjects for trial. In 
 the Presidency towns, where such powers are exercised under 
 the direct supervision of the British Government and the 
 watchful control of a large European community, where the 
 Supreme Court was a Criminal Court of Oyer and Terminer, 
 and where immediate redress for a wrongful commitment is 
 obtainable, the same necessity for special tribunals for Euro- 
 peans did not exist, and accordingly the Statutes 2 and 3 
 Will. IV. c. 71 authorized the appointment, as Justices of the 
 Peace for such towns, of any persons resident within the 
 Company's territories without distinction of races. Con- 
 siderations of a similar character appear to have prevailed 
 in the occasional appointment by the Government of natives 
 of India to the Magistracy of the Presidency towns. Your 
 petitioners would, however, point out that the appointment 
 of native Presidency Magistrates has, on the whole, by no 
 means proved a success even in Calcutta. One of the first 
 native Presidency Magistrates, appointed in 1856, was dis- 
 missed or removed for gross judicial misconduct in 185 . 
 No native was in consequence appointed for 21 years after 
 him, and though there have been some recent appointments, 
 and though from the peculiar circumstances of the Presidency 
 towns there do not exist equally strong objections to the 
 appointment as apply in the interior or Mofussil, yet in 
 many respects these native Bengali Magistrates have not 
 been found to discharge the duties of the office as satisfac- 
 torily in public opinion as when that office has been filled by 
 European British subjects.
 
 Petition to the House of Commons. 73 
 
 5, The criminal jurisdiction of the Supreme Courts over 
 European British subjects was transferred to the High Courts 
 estabhshed at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay in 1862, and at 
 Agra in 1865, under the Statutes 24 and 25 Vict. c. 104 and 
 28 Vict. c. 15, and as regards the Punjab, to the Chief Court 
 of that Province created by Act IV. of 1866 of the Supreme 
 Council. Natives of India are made ehgible to the benches 
 of these several Courts. The policy of such appointments 
 is in some measure safe-guarded by the fact that the judicial 
 duties of such native Judges are discharged subject to the 
 immediate control of their British colleagues, and are liable 
 to the check of a large, independent, and vigilant bar, the 
 criticism of an able and enlightened European press, and 
 the powerful influence of the collective educated opinion of 
 the numerous British residents in the Presidency towns. 
 Moreover, no native Judge has hitherto sat in any of the 
 High Courts singly to exercise original criminal jurisdiction 
 over Europeans, but native judges have only sat as members 
 of a Court of Appeal with European colleagues. Under 
 Act XXI. of 1863 3- Recorder's Court was established at 
 Rangoon with criminal jurisdiction over European British 
 subjects in British Burmah in respect of all offences not 
 punishable with death, jurisdiction in the case of capital 
 offences being reserved to the Calcutta High Court. The 
 only statutory qualification for the Recorder's Office is that 
 the Judge must be a Barrister of not less than five years' 
 standing. It must be remembered, however, that, when this 
 Act was passed, no native of India, as your petitioners 
 believe, had been called to the Bar, and no native, as a 
 matter of fact, has ever been appointed Recorder, and your 
 petitioners submit that it was not in the contemplation of 
 the Legislature that such an appointment ever could be 
 made, and that, therefore, no exclusive enactment was 
 deemed necessary, and it is generally recognized that it 
 would be highly inexpedient to make such an appointment. 
 
 6. The exclusive criminal jurisdiction over British subjects 
 of the Courts established by Royal Charter continued till 
 18 1 2, when the Statute 53 Geo. III. c. 155 empowered Zillah 
 Magistrates (who were Justices of the Peace and therefore 
 Europeans) to try British subjects for petty assaults or in- 
 juries, accompanied with force, committed on natives at a 
 distance from the Presidency towns, and to punish such 
 offenders by fine not exceeding Rs. 500, or, in default of 
 payment of the fine, by simple imprisonment for a period 
 not exceeding two months. The criminal jurisdiction of
 
 74 Petition to the House of Commons, 
 
 the Company's Courts over European British subjects out- 
 side the Presidency towns was never further extended. 
 
 7. On 24th of January, 1857, Mr. (now Sir) Barnes Pea- 
 cock, then Legal Member of the Legislative Council of the 
 Governor-General, moved the first reading of Bills (framed 
 by the Indian Law Commissioners appointed under the 
 Statute 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 85) **for extending the jurisdic- 
 tion of the Courts of Criminal Jurisdiction of the East India 
 Company in Bengal, Madras, Bombay, and the North- 
 Western Provinces, for simplifying the procedure thereof, 
 and for investing other Courts with criminal jurisdiction." 
 These Bills provided that no person whatever should, by 
 reason of place or birth, or by reason of descent, be in any 
 criminal proceeding whatever excepted from the jurisdiction 
 of any of the Criminal Courts. The Select Committee, how- 
 ever, to whom these Bills were referred for consideration, 
 were of opinion that the jurisdiction of the Mofussil Courts 
 in regard to European British subjects ought not to be ex- 
 tended, an opinion in which the majority of the Council con- 
 curred, and accordingly, on the 3rd of September, 1859, the 
 Council, at the instance of the legal member, Mr. Peacock 
 himself, inserted a clause which provided that "no person 
 should be empowered by Government to hold a preliminary 
 enquiry into cases triable by any of the Supreme Courts of 
 Judicature, or to arrest, hold to bail, or commit any European 
 British subject unless the person so authorized is a Cove- 
 nanted Servant of Government or a European British sub- 
 ject." It must be borne in mind that no native of India had 
 at that time been admitted as a Covenanted Servant of 
 Government. The result, therefore, of that clause was to 
 exclude all natives from criminal jurisdiction over European 
 British subjects. The Bill so modified passed into law as 
 Act XXV. of 1861, the criminal jurisdiction as regards 
 European British subjects of the Courts established by Royal 
 Charter being in no wise affected thereby, and, save so far as 
 it was affected by the creation of the Recorder's Court at 
 Rangoon and the Chief Court of the Punjab, that jurisdic- 
 tion continued unchanged till 1872. On the 17th December, 
 1870, a Bill to consolidate and amend the law relating to 
 the Procedure of Criminal Courts of Judicature not estab- 
 lished by Royal Charter was introduced into the Legislative 
 Council of India by Mr. J. F. Stephen, then Legal Member 
 of Council, and was referred to a Select Committee. This 
 Bill, as originally framed, did not touch the jurisdiction of 
 the Charter Courts. On the i6th of December, 1871, Mr.
 
 Petition to the House of Commons. 75 
 
 Stephen informed the Council that "the Select Committee 
 had received a large number of opinions from the Local 
 Governments and persons connected with the administration 
 of justice in reference to the Bill, and amongst others they 
 had received a most important paper from the Government 
 of Bengal. That paper contained a suggestion that Euro- 
 pean British subjects should be made to a great degree 
 amenable to the ordinary Criminal Courts of the country." 
 A reference to the paper alluded to shows that the Bengal 
 Government advocated such an extension of jurisdiction to 
 the Mofussil Courts on the express ground that these Courts 
 were presided over by British officers. Upon a consideration 
 of the suggestion so made, the Select Committee, after in- 
 formally ascertaining the feeling of the non-official classes, 
 recommended with respect to the jurisdiction over European 
 British subjects : — 
 
 '*(i) The extension of the jurisdiction of Magistrates 
 being Justices of the Peace, and, in the case of Mofussil 
 Magistrates, European British subjects, to try European 
 British subjects for offences which would be adequately 
 punished by three months' imprisonment or fine of Rs. 
 1,000. 
 
 '' (2) That Sessions Judges, being European British sub- 
 jects, should be empowered to pass sentence on European 
 British subjects of one year or fine ; but that in case of 
 European British subjects pleading guilty or accepting the 
 Sessions Judge's jurisdiction, the Court might pass any 
 sentence provided by law for the offence in question. 
 
 " (3) That a European British subject convicted by a 
 Justice of the Peace or a Magistrate should have the right 
 of appeal either to the Court of Sessions or the High Court 
 at his option. 
 
 " (4) That, in every case in which a European is in custody, 
 he may apply to the High Court for a writ of habeas corpus, 
 and the High Court shall thereupon examine the legality of 
 his confinement and pass such order as it thinks fit." 
 
 8. On the consideration by the Council of the Select 
 Committee's report Sir Barrow Ellis moved that jurisdiction 
 over European British subjects should be conferred on native 
 Magistrates of the ist Class being Justices of the Peace, that 
 is to say, native members of the Covenanted Civil Service who 
 had been admitted by competition in England, and whom he 
 thought sufficiently Europeanized to be treated as Europeans, 
 but the motion was negatived on a division of the Council 
 after full and deliberate discussion, and the Bill, modified
 
 76 Petition to the Hottse of Commons. 
 
 according to the recommendations of the Select Committee, 
 was passed on the 25 th day of April, 1872, as Act X. of that 
 year. The proposal to invest native Magistrates with crimi- 
 nal jurisdiction over European British subjects evoked on 
 every occasion strong opposition of the non-official European 
 community, and the question of conferring such jurisdiction 
 v/as not again raised in Council until the present year, not- 
 withstanding the pregnant fact that an Act to amend Act X. 
 of 1872 was passed in 1874, and that the whole law relating 
 to the jurisdiction and procedure of the Criminal Courts in 
 India (including the Courts established by Royal Charter) 
 was remoulded by Act X. of 1882. This last measure was 
 framed in consultation with all the Local Governments of 
 India and professed to embody the ripe conclusions of ten 
 years' deliberation. It was therefore formally and deliber- 
 ately resolved in 1882 that it was neither just nor expedient 
 that European British subjects should be rendered liable to 
 the exercise of criminal jurisdiction by native Magistrates 
 outside the Presidency towns. 
 
 9. Although Act X. of 1882, which purported to deal ex- 
 haustively with the amendment of the Criminal Procedure 
 Code, came into force only on the 1st of January, 1883, yet 
 notwithstanding, a new Bill to confer criminal jurisdiction 
 over European British subjects without the Presidency towns 
 upon native Magistrates and Judges being members of the 
 Covenanted Civil Service of India, or of the Native Civil 
 Service constituted under Statute 33 Vict. c. 3, or being 
 Uncovenanted Sessions Judges, or Uncovenanted Assistant 
 Commissioners or Cantonment Magistrates, was, on the 9th 
 of February, 1883, introduced by the legal member, Mr. 
 Ilbert, into the Legislative Council of His Excellency the 
 Viceroy and Governor-General of India, and such Bill is now 
 under consideration by that Council. 
 
 10. That from the discussions which have already taken 
 place in such Council on the said Bill, and from the pub- 
 lished official papers relating thereto, it appears that sanction 
 was obtained to the introduction of the Bill from the Secre- 
 tary of State for India in Council, and that confidential 
 opinions had been obtained from the Local Governments in 
 favour of some criminal jurisdiction over European British 
 subjects being conferred on native members of the Covenanted 
 Civil Service. It further appears that the Chief Commissioner 
 of Coorg and the two senior members out of the four who 
 compose the Madras Council are opposed to such a measure, 
 and that the Government of Bengal was not consulted on
 
 Petition to the House of Commons. jj 
 
 the subject, such omission being justified as in accordance 
 with ordinary practice, the measure having originated in a 
 suggestion made by Sir Ashley Eden, the late Lieutenant- 
 Governor, shortly before his departure from India. In view 
 of the fact that the European population of Bengal far 
 exceeds that of any other Presidency, it is, your Petitioners 
 venture to think, to be regretted that, before the introduction 
 of so important a Bill, steps were not taken to ascertain the 
 opinion of the present Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and 
 his judicial and magisterial officers, and also the opinions of 
 the Chief Justice and Puisne Judges of the High Court of 
 Bengal. It is, your Petitioners feel, matter for yet graver 
 regret that no endeavour was made to ascertain the opinions 
 and sentiments of the non-official European community, 
 who were to be specially and peculiarly affected by the pro- 
 visions of the Bill, with regard to a measure, the principle of 
 which that community had, on all previous occasions, con- 
 demned, and the re-introduction of which has led to a strong 
 and general agitation, and awakened profound feelings of 
 indignation and distrust. 
 
 11. The effect of this Bill is to disquahfy all Europeans not 
 in the Covenanted Civil Service from being Justices of the 
 Peace, that is, from trying or committing Europeans, and to 
 render eligible in their place {a) Native members of the 
 Covenanted Civil Service, chosen by competition in England 
 (of whom there are only nine in all India) ; {b) Native mem- 
 bers of the new Native Civil Service nominated in India 
 without competition and without going to England ; {c) 
 Native Uncovenanted District Judges ; {d) Native Uncoven- 
 anted Assistant Commissioners ; {e) Native Cantonment 
 Magistrates (should any such be appointed). 
 
 12. Your Petitioners have been led to inquire into the 
 origin of this astounding proposal, and find that it is the 
 result of a compromise arising from differences of opinion in 
 the Executive Council of the Governor-General. 
 
 13. It appears from the despatch of the Government of 
 India to the Secretary of State for India, dated September, 
 1881, that a minority of the Council were in favour of the 
 views expressed by Sir Charles Aitchison in a confidential 
 communication, dated the 5th August, 1882, that "The 
 restriction introduced by the Code of Criminal Procedure 
 upon the powers of Courts to inquire into and try charges 
 against European British subjects, which rest exclusively on 
 race distinctions, are invidious and unnecessary," that is, that 
 all exemption of Europeans in the interior or Mofussil should
 
 78 Petition to the House of Commo7is. 
 
 be swept away, that no person should be exempted from the 
 jurisdiction of any Criminal Court in India, and that any 
 native officer who has power to try a native for any offence, 
 and to pass any sentence upon him, should have power to 
 try a European for the same offence and pass the same 
 sentence upon him. 
 
 14. It appears from the same despatch that the majority 
 of the Council declined to accept any such sweeping proposal. 
 
 15. It appears further that the Government of India did 
 not think it worth while to legislate unless they could remove 
 from the statute book all trace of what they term '' race dis- 
 qualification of judges," and, therefore, so far as your 
 Petitioners can gather, as the majority of the Council 
 refused to get rid of the "race disqualification," by quali- 
 fying the ordinary Uncovenanted native, some ingenious 
 person hit on the plan of producing the desired symmetry 
 in the statute book, and getting rid of the anomaly by dis- 
 qualifying all the Uncovenanted Europeans, against whose 
 efficiency and fitness there has never been any complaint, 
 and who under the existing law were qualified. 
 
 16. This curious compromise appears to have been adopted, 
 and the present Bill appears to have been introduced to 
 give effect to it, without the smallest attempt to ascertain 
 what would be the feeling of the non-official Europeans. 
 
 17. The principle embodied in the measure is supported 
 by arguments based on the so-called anomalous character 
 of the present law, on the alleged invidiousness of the dis- 
 qualification attaching to native judicial officers, and lastly 
 on certain administrative difficulties stated to have resulted, 
 or to be likely to result, from such disqualification. 
 
 18. It cannot be contended as a valid or reasonable argu- 
 ment, that the right of European British subjects in India to 
 be tried on criminal charges by judges of their own race is 
 open to any serious practical objection by reason of its 
 special and limited character. In a country like India, sub- 
 ject by right of conquest to the dominion of an alien people, 
 inhabited by numerous races of different origin and different 
 creeds, swept as it has been by successive tides of foreign in- 
 vasion, which have left behind them peculiar and exclusive 
 privileges, as the hereditary rights of particular classes and 
 special individuals, where immutable laws of caste, surviving 
 the shock of contending systems and accepted as divine by 
 millions, have during countless ages circumscribed and de- 
 fined the sphere of individual action and crystallized by in- 
 numerable prejudices and customs the various gradations of
 
 Petition to the House of Commons. 79 
 
 rank which are entirely dependent on birth alone, and which 
 are neither to be won by merit nor purchased by wealth, and 
 where the very idea of equality has come to be regarded by 
 a large body of the population as a grave sin against the 
 divine inheritance of birth, and where too the avowed prin- 
 ciple of British policy has hitherto been the conservation, as 
 far as possible, of every existing right, whether founded on 
 the fragmentary remains of ancient laws, or on the prejudices 
 of religion, caste, or social customs, surely your petitioners 
 are justified in urging that, in such a country and under such 
 existing anomalous systems, there is no special or unreason- 
 able anomaly in the existence of the right now sought to be 
 taken away, and the anomaly, if such it can be called, must 
 be sought for in the person of the judge and not in the con- 
 ditions under which he is permitted to exercise jurisdiction. 
 That a Native magistrate, however much it is to be regretted, 
 should ever have been invested with special jurisdiction over 
 European British subjects within the Presidency towns, whilst 
 he was excluded from the exercise of a like jurisdiction outside 
 such Presidency towns, is in no way anomalous to those who 
 have even a limited experience of the social conditions, privi- 
 leges, and prejudices existing in India, and can only appear 
 anomalous to those who are ignorant of the distinotive circum- 
 stances under which these judicial and magisterial powers are 
 exercised. All such anomalies, if such they be, must remain 
 as inseparable constituents of the paramount anomaly of all, 
 namely, the existence, in fact, of the supremacy of British 
 rule in India. The so-called disqualification of Native mem- 
 bers of the Covenanted Civil Service to try P^uropeans is 
 really not a disqualification of the judge, but a privilege of 
 Europeans to insist on being tried in a Court presided over 
 by a European — and affects equally uncovenanted as well as 
 covenanted Natives. It would be as reasonable to speak of 
 the privilege of Europeans to demand a jury composed one- 
 half or more of Europeans, as a disqualification of Native 
 jurors. 
 
 19. The arguments based on the alleged injustice of the 
 so-called judicial disqualification of Natives to try European 
 British subjects on criminal charges is hardly worthy of 
 serious consideration. Justice presupposes the existence of 
 some right, inherent or conferred, and which has been wrono-- 
 fully invaded. There cannot be a right to try Europeans, 
 existing in Natives, any more than there is a right in English- 
 men in England to try peers of the realm for treason and 
 felony.
 
 8o Petition to the House of Co^nmons. 
 
 20. Your petitioners are at a loss to discover in which of 
 the countless races of India this alleged right is supposed to 
 exist. If in the heterogeneous mass of the Native races of 
 India as a united class, then it may be well pointed out that 
 their various and varied social systems are entirely founded 
 on the exclusive recognition of special rights and peculiar 
 privileges. It can hardly be permitted, therefore, to any 
 Native, of any race, creed, or nationality, to argue that the 
 existence of the right which the European British subject 
 now enjoys in this respect, and which is now sought to be in- 
 vaded, is to be condemned because it is a peculiar race pro- 
 tection. Your petitioners would contend that, even were its 
 m.aintenance claimed on no higher grounds than sentiment 
 or prejudice, its existence could not afford a legitimate 
 grievance to those whose personal laws have been expressly 
 secured to them by British legislation, and deference to whose 
 social prejudices is allowed to override the requirements of 
 impartial justice. Their females, who live or claim to live in 
 seclusion, and their men of rank and position, are exempted 
 from appearing in British Courts of Justice as witnesses. 
 Your petitioners desire to urge upon your Honourable House 
 that the exclusion of European British subjects from the 
 criminal jurisdiction of Natives has never formed a ground of 
 complaint with the Native populations of India, and your 
 petitioners would further urge that the special exemption of 
 European British subjects has been recognized by all 
 thoughtful Natives as a requisite protection, and as necessary 
 for the employment of European capital in India. The want 
 of homogeneity amongst the Native inhabitants of India, 
 antipathies of creeds, inequalities of caste, the mutual distrust 
 and jealousies of different tribes, the profound and unqualified 
 contempt felt and expressed by the brave and hardy races 
 of the North-West and of the Central Provinces for the 
 Bengalee, from whose ranks the Native Covenanted Civil 
 Servants are chiefly drawn, all combine to prevent the possi- 
 bility of such a complaint. The argument in this particular 
 of invidious race disqualification, which your petitioners 
 venture to think, owed its origin entirely to European official 
 inspiration, was confined to a few semi-Anglicized Natives 
 and the limited class of youthful agitators whom they are 
 enabled to influence. Even viewing, for the sake of argu- 
 ment, the subject of jurisdiction as a mere question of feeling 
 (and your petitioners desire to impress on your Honourable 
 House that it means a serious sacrifice of a most disastrous 
 character), still your petitioners venture to deny the justice
 
 Petition to the House of Commons. 8i 
 
 of sacrificing even the mere feelings of the whole European 
 community in India to the vanity of a few Native officials, or 
 to the aspirations of a small uninfluential class of the Native 
 population of Lower Bengal ; and since, in support of their 
 supposed claim to criminal jurisdiction over European British 
 subjects, it is urged that Native Civil Servants appointed by 
 competition in England (a class which will form but a very 
 small proportion of the entire Native Covenanted Civil 
 Service) by their education and by their residence in England 
 have become thoroughly imbued with English ideas of justice, 
 your petitioners are justified in presuming that they have 
 also arrived at a sufficient appreciation of the principles 
 underlying the British system of trial by a man's own peers, 
 to regard their personal disqualification as no greater insult 
 to their ability or integrity than a British juror would 
 deem the demand of an accused alien to be tried by a mixed 
 jury. 
 
 21. The existing law sufficiently provides for the appoint- 
 ment of Natives to all offices of emolument, even to those of 
 District Judge and District Magistrate, and obviates all in- 
 convenience arising from the right of a European within the 
 jurisdiction to be tried by a European judge or niagistrate, 
 by making provisions for the transfer of such case to another 
 Court, or, as it is tertbed in England, for a change of the 
 venue, and it should be borne in mind that these cases are 
 stated by the mover of the Bill to be rare. 
 
 22. Your petitioners would next urge upon your Honour- 
 able House the grave objections which exist to em.powering 
 Natives in the Mofussil to try Europeans on the ground of 
 their unfitness to discharge their duties satisfactorily. 
 
 23. The social system of the Native inhabitants of India, 
 the seclusion of Native ladies in the zenana, and the various 
 Hindoo prejudices of caste which regard contact with the 
 European as contamination, and the bigoted character of the 
 Mahomedan creed, prevent a possibility of free and unreserved 
 intercourse between the European and Native communities, 
 and the consequent growth of anything approaching to in- 
 tellectual and moral sympathy between them. In the ab- 
 sence of such sympathy the Native judge, however honourable 
 and high-minded he may be, cannot properly appreciate the 
 motives of European conduct, and is therefore incapacitated 
 from forming a correct judgment on the natural presumptions 
 of European actions. Moreover, whereas the European in- 
 habitants of India have some security for the just and honest 
 discharge of judicial duties by a fellow-countryman, whose 
 
 G
 
 82 Petition to the Hotise of Cormnons. 
 
 character and modes of thought have been moulded under a 
 rehgious and moral system and domestic and external in- 
 fluences identical with or similar to those under which they 
 have themselves been reared, and whose present actions con- 
 tinue to be governed by influences of the same character, in 
 the case of Native magistrates no such guarantees exist. It 
 is impossible to believe that a few years of early manhood 
 passed in England, or the intellectual training that these 
 magistrates may have undergone, can possibly suffice to 
 change their whole moral nature, or to eradicate the ideas of 
 right and wrong under which their childhood was trained, 
 and which regulate the actions and sentiments of that society 
 to the influence of which they are again subjected on their 
 return to India. It is contrary to experience to believe that 
 in so short a period they can have succeeded in stifling every 
 prejudice of caste, or in emancipating themselves from strong 
 race prejudices and the subtle influences of domestic and 
 popular sentiment by which they are surrounded, and which 
 they have absorbed from early youth. 
 
 24. The domestic and social institutions of the Natives of 
 India, whether Mahomedans or Hindoos, based as they are 
 upon a system of polygamy combined with female seclusion, 
 have been developed on a type so opposed in the most 
 essential particulars to those of Europeans, and have en- 
 gendered as their necessary and indissoluble correlates such 
 opposite habits, feelings, and ideas, especially in matters con- 
 cerning the relations and mutual conduct of the sexes, and 
 all the incidents of such relations and conduct, as to render 
 Natives of India wholly incompetent to estimate correctly or 
 even intelligently the significance of facts connected with 
 them, and consequently incompetent to arrive at just con- 
 clusions regarding them. The efl'ect of the proposed Bill 
 would, therefore, be to transfer criminal jurisdiction over 
 European British subjects, in an important class of cases 
 afl'ecting the domestic happiness and peace of the parties 
 concerned, from men who by community of institutions, feel- 
 ings, and ideas are competent to arrive at correct conclusions, 
 to men who, however honest they might be, must necessarily, 
 from the absence of such community of institutions, feelings, 
 and ideas be powerless to arrive at even intelligent conclusions 
 concerning them. 
 
 25. That not only would serious risk thus arise of great 
 injustice and misery being inflicted on innocent persons, but 
 grave scandal and injury to the reputation of European 
 British subjects would be created.
 
 Petition to the House of Commons. 8 
 
 J 
 
 26. Your Petitioners further desire to point out that, owing 
 to the disgrace which attaches in native estimation to the 
 appearance of respectable women in open Court, a feeling 
 from which your Petitioners believe no native is entirely free, 
 an Englishwoman placed for trial before a native Judge 
 would encounter an unavoidable prejudice in his eyes, and so 
 be placed at a grave disadvantage, while, in the eyes of the 
 more ignorant spectators of her disgrace, she would be 
 covered with obloquy, to the injury of her self-respect and 
 of the esteem of the natives around her. 
 
 2J. So great is the contempt in which the Mahomedan 
 and Hindoo natives of India hold the female sex, that an 
 Englishwoman brought before a Judge of either of these 
 races, to be tried for a criminal offence, would be thereby 
 subjected to a special indignity of the most galling kind, and 
 one to which it would be in a high degree inhuman, unjust 
 and impolitic to expose her. A knowledge of this circum- 
 stance would furnish a dangerous temptation to native de- 
 pendents and others to worry Englishwomen with false 
 charges for the purpose of extortion and intimidation. 
 
 28. Not only are Europeans in the interior of the country 
 isolated in the sense of being solitary units in the midst of 
 tens of thousands of an alien race, but, by reason of ^difference 
 of language, habits and feelings, and the absence of common 
 ties and sympathies, they are also morally and socially 
 isolated from the natives around them ; in consequence of 
 this isolation, they stand at an insuperable disadvantage in 
 respect of the means of combating, or even ascertaining the 
 existence of, conspiracies to bring false charges against them, 
 or of rebutting the evidence brought forward in support of 
 such charges, which are of frequent occurrence ; and the only 
 counterpoise to this disadvantage which they possess, is the 
 right of being tried by European British subjects, of which 
 the Bill would deprive them. 
 
 29. That the necessary protection which the European 
 British subject now has against false charges — which con- 
 stitute the common weapon of offence and annoyance 
 amongst the natives of India — which protection partly de- 
 pends upon the feeling which such charges inspire in the 
 mind of the British Magistrate, and partly upon the just 
 severity of the punishment he awards to the offender, will be 
 materially impaired, if not completely destroyed, when such 
 charges can be preferred with comparative impunity before a 
 native Magistrate, who would regard them as the ordinary 
 incidents of legal warfare and the natural weapon of the 
 
 G 2
 
 84 Petition to the House of Commons. 
 
 weak against the strong, reprehensible possibly, but still to 
 be dealt with leniently and of no great consequence, espe- 
 cially when directed against Europeans in the interior. It is 
 well to remember, also, that the native press is for the most 
 part antagonistic to Europeans, and generally takes a pre- 
 judiced view in all those cases in which there is a conflict, 
 either criminal or civil, between members of the two races. 
 It is only natural to suppose that Native Magistrates should 
 be in some degree biassed by the expression of opinion 
 published in these papers. 
 
 30. Moreover, throughout the greater portion of India 
 where European British settlers gather no strength from 
 numbers, but live isolated from their fellow countrymen, 
 their exemption from the Criminal Jurisdiction of Native 
 Magistrates has invested them in the eyes ef the natives by 
 whom they are surrounded, with a certain prestige, which in 
 itself affords no little protection against the danger of false 
 accusation. But, as the foundations of such prestige become 
 undermined, and Europeans become lowered down to the 
 same level as that on which their accusers stand, they will 
 necessarily be deprived of this protection also, and will 
 become subjected to the danger of frequent persecution, and 
 to the constant harassing of the preferment of false charges, 
 and not only will the danger to themselves be thus increased, 
 but their influence for good on the native population, in 
 whose midst they live, will be proportionately weakened. 
 
 31. It has been stated that the jurisdiction which native 
 judges have exercised for many years in civil cases in which 
 European British subjects may be concerned, affords a con- 
 clusive answer to those who oppose the investment of native 
 Magistrates with criminal Jurisdiction over European British 
 subjects, and that the objections and fears which are now 
 expressed are identical with those expressed in 1836, and 
 that time has shown the apprehensions then entertained to 
 be groundless. As regards the two latter statements your 
 Petitioners would point out that the agitation of 1836 was an 
 agitation against the extension of the jurisdiction of the 
 Company's Courts over British subjects, and was not specially 
 directed against the investment of native judicial officers with 
 such jurisdiction ; on the contrary, the leaders of native 
 society in Calcutta allied themselves in 1836 with their 
 British fellow subjects in opposing the extension of jurisdic- 
 tion which was then contemplated. The fears then ex- 
 pressed have been in a very great measure justified by 
 events, and, so far as they may have been falsified by time,
 
 Petitio7i to the House of Commons, 85 
 
 this has resulted only in consequence of, the whole constitu- 
 tion and system of the Company's Courts, having been 
 subsequently altered. Your Petitioners, moreover, while 
 abstaining from entering on an examination of the merits 
 and defects of natives as Civil Judges, deny that the exer- 
 cise of Civil Jurisdiction by native Judges affords an 
 adequate or indeed any guarantee that native Magistrates 
 will exercise criminal jurisdiction over Europeans in a 
 satisfactory manner. The conditions under which the two 
 kinds of jurisdiction are exercised differ in every material 
 particular. The very nature of a criminal complaint, the 
 police agency, only too frequently corrupt, by which evidence 
 in its support is so frequently obtained, the character of the 
 evidence itself and the difficulty in many cases of disproving 
 it, the position of the accused on his trial, for the most part 
 imperfectly acquainted with the vernacular language and the 
 legal liabilities to which he is subject, before as well as after 
 trial, all tend to place criminal proceedings on a wholly 
 different footing from a civil action, and to displace any 
 arguments in favour of the bill attempted to be founded on 
 past experience of the manner in which Civil Jurisdiction 
 has been exercised by native Judges. It is to be reniembered 
 also that a system of bribery is rampant throughout India, 
 that the native police are in very many instances excessively 
 venal and corrupt, and that the promotion of the Magistrates 
 and the police is to some extent dependent upon their record 
 of convictions. 
 
 32. The administrative difficulties anticipated from a con- 
 tinuance of the so-called disqualification of native Cove- 
 nanted Civil Servants are, as your Petitioners allege, 
 ■difficulties of a purely visionary and theoretical character. 
 There are at present not more than nine native members of 
 the Covenanted Civil Service selected by competition in 
 England. Only two of these are of sufficient standing to be 
 affiscted by the measure, and for several years to come not 
 more than four or five can possibly come within its opera- 
 tion. But, even were these numbers far larger, there are 
 numerous districts in India without a European resident, 
 where the judicial functions of the native Magistrate can be 
 utilized without fear of offence to any member of the com- 
 munity, and where his official dignity will not be wounded 
 hy the exemption of a single individual from his jurisdiction. 
 In addition to this consideration there remains the fact that 
 there is no district in India without at least one European 
 magisterial officer. Moreover, in Bengal, where the Bill
 
 86 Petition to the House of Commons. 
 
 must admittedly have the most extensive operation, your 
 Petitioners have the public assurance of the present Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor that no administrative difficulty will be 
 felt. 
 
 33. Somewhat inconsistently with arguments founded on 
 such supposed administrative difficulties, it is urged that the 
 Bill will confer criminal jurisdiction over European British 
 subjects on only a few native officials, and that the removal 
 once for all of all judicial disqualification, dependent on 
 birth alone, carries with it an element of finality, and sur- 
 prise is accordingly affected at any opposition to a measure 
 which is said to rest on principles of natural justice, which 
 will effect so small a change, and which cannot be further 
 extended. The alleged finality of the measure is delusive, 
 and the arguments founded on natural justice find their 
 logical conclusion in the abolition of every distinctive right 
 and privilege which the European British subject now enjoys, 
 and amongst others those which the Bill has advisedly left 
 untouched, the Courts by which he can be tried, the punish- 
 ments they may inflict upon him, the mode of trial, his right 
 of appeal, and his right to be brought before the High Court 
 if wrongfully detained in custody. The principle of perfect 
 equality, once admitted as paramount to every other con- 
 sideration of State, would gain its logical result in a Native 
 Viceroy and a Native Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 34. As to the disqualification, with a few possible excep- 
 tions, of all Europeans not being Covenanted Civil Servants, 
 your Petitioners would remark that, so far from conducing 
 to the better administration of Justice, it will produce prac- 
 tical inconvenience. At present there are in Lower Bengal 
 alone forty Uncovenanted European Deputy Magistrates 
 with first class powers who are Justices of the Peace and try 
 Europeans, and it is admitted that they do it satisfactorily 
 and efficiently. These forty will retain their powers. But 
 there are a large number of Europeans in the Uncovenanted 
 Service who, as they attained first class powers, would have 
 been made Justices of the Peace and have tried on the spot 
 all petty crimes committed by Europeans, The Local 
 Government will be debarred from using the services of these 
 men in their respective sub-divisions for the prompt and 
 speedy adjudication of European cases, or the cases will 
 have to be transferred to some Court presided over by a 
 Covenanted Civilian, thus creating an absolutely gratuitous 
 inconvenience, asked for by no one, and having no justifi- 
 cation except the removal of an alleged anomaly, which is
 
 Petition to the House of Commons, Z"] 
 
 one of a class of anomalies which the Government has re- 
 solved to retain. 
 
 35. Your Petitioners would point out that the new native 
 statutory Civil Service which it is proposed to substitute for 
 the disqualified Europeans, is a new and comparatively un- 
 tried class ; that it will be many years before any of them 
 will be senior enough to be invested with first class powers 
 or made a District Judge or District Magistrate, so as to be 
 empowered to try Europeans ; that they are chosen by 
 nomination in India, not by competition or in England ; that 
 they are often chosen on account of the social position or 
 influence of their families ; that they have been described in 
 one of the confidential communications to Government, by 
 the Judicial Commissioner of Oudh, as often " saturated with 
 caste and religious prejudices and ignorant of European 
 modes of thought and feeling, and not to be trusted to hold 
 the scales fairly." 
 
 36. Your Petitioners humbly submit that it cannot be for 
 the interests of Justice to disqualify experienced European 
 Uncovenanted Deputy Magistrates, who are admittedly fit 
 and efficient, and substitute for them such a class as this as 
 Criminal Judges over your. Petitioners. So that it is per- 
 fectly clear that this Bill, so far from being an enabling Bill, 
 as it has been termed by its supporters,' is practically a dis- 
 enabling Bill of a very sweeping character, and is entirely 
 destructive of an important existing machinery of British 
 administration in India. 
 
 37. Your Petitioners would also submit that the proposal 
 to empower native Assistant Commissioners to try European 
 British subjects is most disastrous, as Assistant Commis- 
 sioners are largely appointed in the tea planting districts. 
 
 38. Your Petitioners further point out that at present non- 
 official Europeans are largely appointed Honorary Magis- 
 trates and Justices of the Peace in the Mofussil and are 
 useful in that capacity ; but that this Bill, with no cause 
 assigned, disqualifies them from being Justices of the Peace. 
 Moreover European Master Attendants are invested with 
 like powers as Justices of the Peace in various ports, and are 
 found of great use in dealing with English and foreign sailors, 
 but by this Bill such appointments will be prohibited. 
 
 39. Your Petitioners regard the right to be tried by Euro- 
 pean British subjects as a valuable safeguard, as an ancient 
 and highly privileged right, defensible on sound grounds of 
 expediency, as well as on those of deep-rooted feelings and 
 sentiments, and believe it to be a right which has been of
 
 88 Petition to the House of Commons, 
 
 the utmost value to them in the past, while initiating enter- 
 prise in the Mofussil, and essential to them in the future, for 
 the prosecution of those enterprises by which India has so 
 much benefited. 
 
 40. Your Petitioners submit, moreover, that the right of 
 European British subjects to be tried on criminal charges by 
 European British Magistrates and Judges has infinitely 
 stronger claims on justice than rest on sentiment alone, and 
 is based on principles of policy which are inseparably bound 
 up with the welfare of India and the prosperity of all classes 
 of Her Majesty's subjects, Native as well as European. 
 Your Petitioners claim that the preservation of that right is 
 essentially expedient. For in no country is confidence in 
 the administration of justice — and especially of Criminal 
 Justice — more essential to the well-being of the community 
 than it is in India, which owes to British capital and energy 
 the recent rapid development of her natural resources, as 
 illustrated by the Railway system and the abnormal growth 
 of Tea, Jute, Coal and other industries, and which contribute 
 in so important a manner to the marked prosperity of her 
 people, and which in years of scarcity or famine, support 
 millions of her native inhabitants who but for such support 
 would perish miserably. Your Petitioners are anxious to 
 impress upon your Honourable Plouse that the enormous 
 European capital which is already invested, and which is 
 about still further to be invested, will assuredly seek other 
 channels if British capitalists and their employes are forced 
 to lose confidence in the Criminal Courts of the land by 
 which they have hitherto been partially protected, at all 
 events from persecution and aggression. 
 
 41. Your Petitioners desire to remind your Honourable 
 House that the British Government has been invariably 
 careful to protect British subjects in Oriental countries from 
 trial by Oriental tribunals. They fail to understand why 
 this protection, which has been so universally and invariably 
 accorded hitherto, should now be withdrawn in India. And 
 they desire, moreover, to impress upon your Honourable 
 House that the right which they seek so jealously to main- 
 tain is simply a protective right, and in no sense is capable 
 of being construed as an invasion cf the rights and privileges 
 enjoyed by the native subjects of Her Majesty in India. 
 The grievous loss which they will sustain will bring no kind 
 of compensatory gain to their native fellow-subjects. 
 
 Your Petitioners, therefore, humbly pray your
 
 Petition to the House of Commons. 89 
 
 Honourable House for protection and redress, and 
 that your Honourable House will take into con- 
 sideration this humble petition, and that it may 
 adopt such measures by Legislative Resolution or 
 otherwise as in its wisdom it may deem just and 
 proper to maintain the existing rights of your 
 Petitioners, and to express its disapproval of a 
 policy which is based upon no sound principle of 
 statesmanship, and which is founded on no ex- 
 perience, and which, whilst unnecessarily depriving 
 the European British inhabitants of India of a 
 much valued and time-honoured privilege, in no 
 way affords any additional protection to their native 
 fellow-subjects, and which is hurtful to the interests 
 of the Empire by deterring the investment of 
 British capital in the country in consequence of the 
 feeling it creates of insecurity as to the liberties and 
 safety of European British subjects, and which has 
 evoked feelings of race antagonism and jealousy 
 such as have never been aroused since the dis- 
 astrous Mutiny of 1857. 
 
 And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will 
 ever pray.
 
 PETITION OF ENGLISHWOMEN IN INDIA. 
 
 The humble petition of the undersigned Euro- 
 pean British subjects, being women residing 
 in India, to Her Most Gracious Majesty, 
 Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Em- 
 press of India. 
 
 May it please Your Most Gracious Majesty, 
 
 Having learnt that a Bill has been introduced into the Legis- 
 lative Council of the Governor-General of India to amend 
 the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1882, by altering the 
 existing law, so as to confer on Native Magistrates of certain 
 classes jurisdiction to try European British subjects in the 
 interior of India on Criminal charges, and knowing the tender 
 care and interest Your Majesty ever bestows upon your 
 subjects in all parts of your dominions, we beg most humbly 
 to approach Your Majesty, to express the grave alarm with 
 which we contemplate the proposed change, and to crave 
 Your Majesty's intervention to protect us from the serious 
 injury we believe it must cause to our welfare and happiness. 
 
 In thus craving Your Most Gracious Majesty's protection 
 we will forbear to enlarge on the many and cogent arguments 
 against the said Bill, as affecting our countrymen in common 
 with ourselves, being aware that such arguments have been 
 ably set forth by our countrymen in India and England, and 
 will confine ourselves to those particulars in which it specially 
 affects women who are European British subjects, in India. 
 
 First, then, we would humbly submit that the position held 
 by women in Native society is so entirely different from that 
 held by their European sisters, and this difference so deeply 
 affects all the relations of social and domestic life, and the 
 customs, habits and feelings connected with those relations, 
 that no Native of India, however highly educated, can
 
 Petition of Englishwomen in India, 91 
 
 possess the knowledge or sympathy essential to a correct 
 appreciation of the feelings and conduct of European women. 
 But such a correct appreciation of the feelings and conduct 
 of accused persons can alone qualify a judge to try them ; 
 and consequently the effect of the proposed change in the 
 law would be to transfer the trial of European women in India 
 to men who, by the force of circumstances, are Incompetent 
 to do them justice. 
 
 The civilizing effect of a residence in England on Natives 
 of India has been put forward as an argument in favour of 
 the harmlessness of the proposed change. But this argu- 
 ment is inapplicable to the circumstances of the case, and, if 
 it were applicable, would have very little force. For, in the 
 first place, the Bill proposes to give jurisdiction over Euro- 
 pean British subjects not only to Covenanted Native Civilians 
 who have been to England, but to Native Statutory Civilians, 
 Native Assistant Commissioners and others, who have never 
 left India, and have often had nothing worthy of the name of 
 an English education ; and, in the second place, experience 
 has shown us that the effect of a residence in England on the 
 character and feelings of Natives of India is far from being 
 generally such as to inspire us with confidence in their compe- 
 tence to try us. 
 
 Apart from the terrible risk of injustice to which Euro- 
 pean women would thus be subjected in cases in which they 
 themselves might have the misfortune to be accused, their 
 examination as witnesses in cases in which their countrymen 
 might be accused, before Native Magistrates, would, owing to 
 the great difference of modes of life, habits, and ideas already 
 described, be in the highest degree hurtful to their feelings 
 'and repugnant to their sense of propriety, and this injurious 
 consequence would be greatly aggravated by the fact that, in 
 the majority of cases, the pleaders to whose cross-examina- 
 tion they would be exposed, would also be Natives of India. 
 
 A further ground on which we implore Your Most Gracious 
 Majesty's intervention is that, in the opinion of the Natives 
 of India, it is highly disgraceful for women of respectability 
 to appear before a stranger of the opposite sex, particularly 
 in a Criminal Court ; and this is a feeling so deeply ingrained 
 in their minds that no amount of education and no residence 
 in Europe can wholly disabuse them of it. The Native 
 magistrate before whom a European woman could be brought 
 for trial would consequently be unavoidably prejudiced 
 against her, and she would thus be placed not only in a false 
 position, but at an unfair disadvantage.
 
 92 Petition of Englishwo7nen in India. 
 
 Moreover, the British Government in India, having so far 
 lent its sanction to this feeling as to exempt Native women 
 of respectabihty from appearing openly in Court, the fact of 
 our being compelled to appear before the very men who 
 claim and enjoy this exemption for their own women, would 
 inevitably give rise, in the minds of ignorant people of the 
 country, to comparisons prejudicial to the esteem in which 
 we are held, and without which esteem our position in the 
 midst of an alien unsympathetic population would be intol- 
 erable. 
 
 Further, we would urge on Your Most Gracious Majesty's 
 consideration the fact that, owing to the low estimate in 
 which the Natives of India hold the female sex, it would be 
 imposing a special indignity on us, and inflicting a cruel 
 wound on our self-respect, to subject us to trial by Native 
 Magistrates. 
 
 Nor would the evil thus resulting be confined to this un- 
 necessary and unbearable injury to our feelings. For the 
 knowledge of the injury and of the dread with which we 
 should regard it, would operate as a powerful incentive to any 
 ill-disposed Natives to resort to false charges against us for 
 the purposes of extortion, intimidation, and revenge ; and 
 this temptation would be increased by a belief in our help- 
 lessness before an alien tribunal, isolated, as we should in 
 many cases be, from our natural protectors ; unable, as we 
 should be in the great majority of cases, to obtain the assist- 
 ance of European counsel, and ignorant, as we should gene- 
 rally be, of the language in which the proceedings would be 
 conducted. 
 
 In the case of the poorer class of Europeans residing in 
 the interior of the country, the danger arising from this cause 
 would be of a most serious character, and would destroy 
 their sense of security, and embitter their relations with 
 the Natives around them to an extent which would be likely 
 to prove a fruitful source of trouble. 
 
 So far we have confined ourselves to the respects in which 
 the passing of the proposed Bill would result in grievous 
 wrong and injury to ourselves. But we would also urge, as a 
 matter well deserving of Your Most Gracious Majesty's care- 
 ful consideration, that, by the degradation it would inflict on 
 us in the eyes of the Natives of this country, it would go far 
 to deprive us of that influence for good on which the enlight- 
 enment and amelioration of the condition of our Native 
 sisters so largely depend, and which we believe to be an 
 object of Your Majesty's anxious solicitude to promote.
 
 Petition of Englishwomen in India. 93 
 
 We might say much more, but we feel we have said enough 
 to justify our humble prayer that Your Most Gracious Ma- 
 jesty will be pleased to use your constitutional power for the 
 protection of your petitioners in such manner as to Your 
 Majesty may seem fit. 
 
 And Your Majesty's humble petitioners, as in duty bound, 
 will ever pray.
 
 MEMORIAL TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 FOR INDIA. 
 
 To THE Right Hon. the Earl of Kimberley, Her 
 Majesty's Secretary of State for India in 
 Council. 
 
 The Memorial of the undersigned members of the London 
 Committee of Anglo-Indians for obtaining the with- 
 drawal of the Indian Criminal Procedure Act Amend- 
 ment Bill, 
 
 Respectfully showeth, 
 
 That your memorialists view with the deepest apprehen- 
 sion and concern the Indian Criminal Procedure Act Amend- 
 ment Bill, which has been introduced into the Council of the 
 Governor-General of India for the purpose of conferring 
 upon certain native magistrates and judges in the Mofussil 
 criminal jurisdiction over European British subjects. Your 
 memorialists — many of whom have spent the greater portion 
 of their lives in India, and have filled positions in which 
 their experience has been such as to enable them to speak 
 with confidence of the merits of this proposal — unanimously 
 believe that the measure is not justified by any necessity, 
 either political or administrative ; they observe with regret 
 that it has already aroused wide-spread excitement and 
 agitation throughout India ; and they feel sure that its 
 results, if it be passed into law, will be prejudicial to the 
 peace and prosperity of the Indian Empire. 
 
 2. Your memorialists desire respectfully to state their con- 
 viction that the existing law — which has been arrived at 
 after the fullest discussion at various times — admirably fulfils 
 all the requirements of justice, with the least possible ad- 
 ministrative inconvenience, and to the entire satisfaction of
 
 Memorial to the Secretary of State for India. 95 
 
 those whose interests are affected by it. This fact seems to 
 be amply proved by the consideration that, during the whole 
 course of the protracted deliberations on the Criminal Pro- 
 cedure Code — deliberations which lasted over several years, 
 and were shared by all the Local Governments and by 
 officials of all ranks in every province — it has never been 
 alleged that there has been any miscarriage of justice, or any 
 practical hardship to anyone, owing to the criminal jurisdic- 
 tion over European British subjects in India having been 
 confined to persons of the same race. Your memorialists 
 are unable to see that the proposed measure can be regarded 
 as in any way a continuation of the policy indicated in 
 former legislation upon this subject ; for preceding enact- 
 ments have been directed to the removal of real and 
 substantial hardships, whereas the present Bill proposes to 
 substitute, for a system which has given general satisfaction, 
 one which is avowedly distasteful to the whole European 
 population, and for which at the commencement there was 
 no genuine demand on the part of the native community. 
 
 3. With reference to the plea of administrative convenience, 
 which has been alleged by the supporters of the Bill as a reason 
 for the proposed alteration of the law, your memorialists 
 desire to ask your lordship's consideration of the very im- 
 portant fact that the Bill, if passed, will have a twofold 
 effect — one qualifying or enabling, the other disqualifying or 
 disenabling. On the one hand, it will extend, under certain 
 conditions, criminal jurisdiction over European British sub- 
 jects to four classes of Native magistrates — (i) Native 
 covenanted civilians selected by competition in England ; 
 (2) Native civilians appointed in India under 33 Victoria, 
 c. 3 ; (3) and (4) Native assistant-commissioners in non- 
 regulation Provinces and Native cantonment magistrates. 
 This is the extent of the qualifying or enabling effect of the 
 Bill. On the other hand, its disenabling operation will be 
 very wide indeed. For the Government will be deprived by 
 it of the services, in future appointments to the office of 
 justice of the peace, of the whole European uncovenanted 
 and non-official communities throughout the land. A refer- 
 ence to the published lists of existing justices of the peace 
 will show at a glance the sweeping character of this whole- 
 sale disqualification ; and your memorialists are strongly of 
 opinion that an enactment which deprives the Government 
 of the valuable and approved aid of European planters, 
 merchants, railway police officers, and other non-official and 
 uncovenanted Europeans as justices of the peace, stands self-
 
 96 Memoinal to the Secretary of State for India. 
 
 condemned, as one that may lead to something hke a dead- 
 lock in the administration of justice in important planting 
 and mining districts, and must cause serious administrative 
 inconvenience in every province. 
 
 4. Your memorialists would, therefore, venture to urge that 
 the Bill, so far from removing administrative inconvenience, 
 will create it. They entirely agree with the Lieutenant- 
 Governor of Bengal — whose authority on the point, indeed, 
 is such as to need no confirmation — that no administrative 
 inconvenience has arisen, or is at present likely to arise, out 
 of the existing state of the law. Indeed, your memorialists 
 would go further, and would express their conviction that 
 the probability of any such inconvenience arising at any 
 future time is extremely small. Even if the proportion of 
 the Native members of the Civil Service should be eventually 
 increased under the operation of 33 Victoria, c. 3, to one- 
 sixth, as the Governor-General anticipates, your memorialists 
 believe that, in these days of railways, no practical difficulty 
 is likely to arise in dealing with the few cases of criminal 
 offences committed by Europeans at places where there may 
 be no European magistrate. The distances to which such 
 cases will have to be transferred will generally not be great, 
 nor will the journey occupy much time, or entail much expense 
 if a moderate amount of discretion be observed in regard to 
 the posting of Native magistrates and judges. But, as regards 
 the present and the immediate future, the effect of the Bill will 
 be the reverse of an administrative improvement. The class of 
 covenanted civilians selected in England by competition is a 
 very small one, and not likely to be increased, and only two 
 members of it will be at once affected by the Bill. The class 
 of Native civilians appointed in India under 33 Vict. c. 3, is 
 a new and untried one, in regard to which it is impossible 
 for any one to predict whether the experiment which has 
 been made in instituting it will turn out well or ill ; but no 
 member of it is likely for some years to exercise the juris- 
 diction in question, so that in any case this class need not 
 be taken into present account in considering the question 
 of administrative convenience. There are no Native canton- 
 ment magistrates, and it is understood that the Govern- 
 ment has pledged itself not to appoint any. It is possible 
 that a few of the Native assistant commissioners in non- 
 regulation provinces will receive the extended jurisdiction. 
 On the whole, however, it is obvious that the Bill, in disquali- 
 fying the large classes of Europeans above-named for future 
 appointment to the office of justice of the peace, must create
 
 Alemorial to the Secretary of State for India. 97 
 
 an administrative inconvenience far greater than any that it 
 removes under its enabling clauses. 
 
 5. The facts adduced by your memorialists in the last 
 paragraph have been used by the supporters of the Bill to 
 minimise the importance of the proposed change. But those 
 who are likely to be affected by legislation, which they believe 
 to be in itself hurtful, justly look to the possibilities opened 
 up by it, rather than to the extent of its immediate opera- 
 tion. Moreover, in such a matter, in regard to which no one 
 can say Avhether he liimself may not be the one sufferer 
 from even the most limited application of the new law, the 
 number of persons who will immediately acquire the extended 
 jurisdiction, naturally seems, and is, a point of comparatively 
 little importance to the class directly concerned ; though the 
 insignificance of that number clearly disposes of the plea of 
 a present administrative convenience. Your memorialists 
 would further point out that nearly all the tea grown in 
 India is produced in districts under the criminal jurisdiction 
 •of assistant commissioners, who may now be Natives, and 
 who, if the Bill be passed, might be invested with the power 
 to try Europeans. The fact that the danger threatened to 
 isolated Europeans in the Mofussil, under this Bjll, is a very 
 real and serious one, and by no means the sentimental one it 
 is sometimes represented to be, was frankly and forcibly 
 admitted by the Hon. Sir Steuart Bayley in the debate of 
 March 9. The hon. member then said : — *' There is another 
 aspect to the case of the opposition, which, I think, deserves 
 most attentive consideration, and this is the real danger 
 which the isolated European, living in the Mofussil, runs 
 from having false cases trumped up against him. It is right 
 that I should state publicly that this danger is a very real 
 and very serious one, for probably no member of this Council 
 has had the same experience as I have of the lives led by 
 planters in the Mofussil. My own experience has given me 
 a strong feeling on this matter ; and any one who knows 
 the extreme bitterness with which disputes about land are 
 fought out in the Mofussil, and the unscrupulous methods to 
 which recourse is had in conducting these disputes before the 
 Court — methods to which a planter cannot have recourse — 
 will understand how precarious his position may become, 
 and how essential it is to him that the law should be well 
 and wisely administered." The experience of your memorial- 
 ists entirely coincides with that of Sir Steuart Bayley. 
 
 6. It has been alleged that a slur is cast on the Native 
 civilians, by a state of the law which prevents them from 
 
 PI
 
 98 Memorial to the Secretary of State for India. 
 
 exercising the special jurisdiction over European British 
 subjects entrusted to their European colleagues. Your 
 memorialists are unable to see how the denial of a right to 
 try a particular class — a right which can hardly be considered 
 to be inherent in any one — can be regarded as a slur. It is 
 not considered a slur on the Lord Chief Justice of England 
 that he is unable, unless he happens to be a peer, to sit in 
 judgment on peers. But, however this may be, your 
 memorialists believe that this argument of the supporters of 
 the Bill is distinctly barred by the consideration that the 
 privilege as to jurisdiction is the privilege of the prisoner, 
 not the privilege of the judge. The question which is really 
 at issue in this matter, is not whether a certain jurisdiction 
 ought to be conferred upon certain public functionaries ; but 
 whether the requirements of the administration of justice 
 demand that a certain class of persons should be deprived 
 of a privilege which they have long enjoyed, and which they 
 greatly value. 
 
 7. The argument in favour of the Bill, which is based 
 on the "anomalous" character of the existing system, can 
 hardly be regarded as a serious argument in a country and 
 under an administration which are alike full of anomalies. 
 It is almost unnecessary for your memorialists to point out 
 that the anomalous privileges possessed and prized by 
 various classes of Natives are not only numerous, but also, 
 in many cases, far more open to objection than this pri- 
 vilege of the European British subject. Some of these 
 privileges are anomalies that seriously interfere with the due 
 administration of justice ; and the abolition of them, if 
 Europeans and Natives are to be made perfectly equal in 
 the eyes of the law by such abolition, would cause far 
 deeper resentment on the part of the latter than the pro- 
 posed change of jurisdiction has among the former. Your 
 memorialists allude to the privileged exemption from per- 
 sonal appearance, as witnesses in courts of justice, of 
 Native ladies, and of men of position, to whom such exemp- 
 tion is granted by Government as a mark of exceptional 
 respectability ; as well as to the serious hindrance to equit- 
 able procedure in Courts, brought about by the objection on 
 the part of Brahmins and other high caste Natives to the 
 admittance within the precincts of the Courts of low caste 
 people, whose touch, or even whose standing on the same 
 carpet, is considered personal pollution by the former, and 
 entails the immediate performance of expiatory religious 
 ceremonies. For a parallel to the anomaly complained of
 
 Memorial to the Secretary of State for India. 99 
 
 by the supporters of the Bill, your memorialists can point 
 to the refusal of the Governments of all Western nations to 
 submit to the trial of their subjects by Native Courts in 
 Turkey, Egypt, China, and elsewhere. If it be argued that in 
 British India there exists an equitable law to which all are 
 alike amenable, your memorialists feel bound to assert 
 that the just administration of a good law depends even more 
 on its administrators than on the law itself ; and that the 
 very slight and superficial acquaintance with the feelings, 
 modes of thought, and customs of Europeans, possessed, or 
 likely to be possessed, by Native civilians — until the break- 
 down of the caste system in India and the introduction of 
 female education into that country shall render possible 
 intimate social relations between Natives and Europeans — 
 must for many years render those to whom the extended 
 jurisdiction is proposed to be given, ill-suited in most in- 
 stances to judge in criminal cases where Europeans are con- 
 cerned. If your memorialists are met with the argument 
 that there are Native judges in the High Courts, and Native 
 police magistrates in the Presidency towns, with whose 
 administration of justice no fault has been found, your 
 memorialists would point out the difference in circumstances, 
 where these officials are controlled by the presence of learned 
 European colleagues, of public opinion, a powerfuj European 
 Press, and a competent Bar, and where, as in the Mofussil„ 
 the Native magistrate must himself be judge and jury, pro- 
 secutor and counsel for both accuser and accused, with a 
 subservient staff, and no public opinion to hold him in check. 
 As regards the Native judges of the High Courts, your 
 memorialists would observe, that hitherto, as far as they are 
 aware, there has never been an instance of a Native judge of 
 a High Court presiding at the Criminal Sessions, and that 
 when trying appeals in criminal cases the Native judge is in- 
 variably associated with an English judge. In Ceylon, too, 
 on the other hand, the circumstances of the non-official 
 European community are almost exactly the same as those 
 which obtain in the Presidency towns of India : within a 
 very limited area there is a numerous, powerful, and highly- 
 concentrated European population, possessing all those 
 safeguards which are conspicuously wanting in the Indian 
 Mofussil. Your memorialists would further point out, that 
 when a Native of India has once entered the covenanted 
 Civil Service, his promotion to the head of an office is 
 virtually merely a matter of time ; and that the refusal of 
 such promotion by the Local Government, possibly for very 
 
 11 2
 
 lOO Memorial to the Secretary of State for India, 
 
 valid reasons that might be incapable of exact legal de- 
 monstration, would be impossible, without raising far more 
 heart-burning on the part of the Native community, and far 
 greater race-antipathy, than the present entirely unexpected 
 action of the Government of India has aroused. Moreover, 
 the present Bill does not by any means remove from the 
 Code of Criminal Procedure all anomalies based upon dis- 
 tinctions of race. If the Bill is passed, Natives of India will 
 still be liable in certain cases to be tried and sentenced to 
 very heavy penalties by English judges, who, notwithstand- 
 ing their nationality, have no similar jurisdiction over Euro- 
 pean British subjects. 
 
 8. It has been strongly represented by the supporters of 
 this Bill that the objection which is now urged to the exercise 
 of Criminal jurisdiction by Natives over Europeans is exactly 
 similar to that which was formerly urged to the exercise of 
 Civil jurisdiction by Natives over Europeans, and that ex- 
 perience has proved that none of the evil consequences which 
 were anticipated in the latter case have been found to result. 
 But your memorialists wish to point out that there is no 
 parallel between the two cases. Civil suits are not used for 
 mere purposes of revenge. Defeat in a civil suit involves no 
 consequences similar to those which follow from conviction 
 on a criminal charge, and if an unjust decision is ultimately 
 reversed, even after years of litigation, the party who is 
 ultimately successful is replaced in the exact position which 
 he would have occupied if a right judgment had originally 
 been passed. But no ultimate reversal of a conviction could 
 ever undo the fatal injury which would be entailed upon an 
 innocent man who had, even for a single week, been con- 
 signed to gaol as a convicted criminal. 
 
 9. Under the Bill, Englishwomen in India will be liable to 
 be tried on criminal charges before Native magistrates. It is 
 almost unnecessary for your memorialists to point out that 
 the position of the female sex in the social system of India 
 has not been appreciably affected by that contact with West- 
 -ern ideas, which has done so much for India in other 
 respects. That social system is still founded on polygamy, 
 and on the strict seclusion of Avomen. Publicity of any kind 
 is, in the case of any respectable Native female, an utterly 
 infamous thing ; and it seems obvious that Native magis- 
 trates, brought up under such a social system and living in it, 
 rigorously secluding their own wives and daughters, whose 
 faces may not be looked on, either in court or elsewhere, by 
 the eye of any male stranger, are certainly not qualified
 
 Memorial to the Secretary of State for India, loi 
 
 (however high may be their moral character or intellectual 
 abilities) to sit in judgment on Englishwomen charged with 
 criminal offences. Your memorialists believe it to be abso- 
 lutely impossible for Native magistrates, so nurtured, so 
 educated, and so circumstanced, adequately to appreciate the 
 motives, or weigh the words and actions, of Englishwomen ; 
 and the consequences of extending to them this jurisdiction 
 might therefore prove most disastrous. And this point will 
 be seen to be even more serious than it would otherwise be, 
 from the fact that the law of India differs altogether from 
 the law of England, in that it treats some offences against 
 domestic morality as criminal offences. When regard is had 
 to the isolated position of numbers of English families in 
 India, especially among the poorer classes — to the dangers 
 of trumped-up charges, so forcibly dwelt upon by Sir Steuart 
 Bayley — to the obvious openings that might be afforded for 
 extortion or even worse, by the increased chances of impunity 
 in bringing such false charges, and by the humiliation and 
 disgrace that might be inflicted on the victim even by an 
 unsuccessful charge — it must be at once evident how im- 
 portant, to the Englishwomen of India in particular, is that 
 safeguard which has hitherto been secured to tjiem, in the 
 right to be tried by their own countrymen, who are fully 
 acquainted with their habits and modes of thought, and are 
 able to judge what is, and what is not, compatible with 
 innocence in their conduct. Your memorialists believe it to 
 be unnecessary to consider further how far Native magis- 
 trates may be qualified to try cases in which Englishmen are 
 accused of criminal offences ; for their disqualification in 
 cases in which Englishwomen are concerned seems to be 
 incontestable, and ought (your memorialists respectfully 
 submit) to be in itself decisive as to the fate of the Bill. 
 
 lO. Attempts have been made, both in India and in 
 England, to misrepresent the character of the opposition to 
 the Bill, by ascribing it wholly to the resentment which 
 settlers belonging to the conquering race in India feel 
 at any and every attempt to place them on an equality 
 with the Native population. The agitation raised in 
 Calcutta against the so-called " Black Act of 1836," which 
 took away the exclusive jurisdiction of English judges of the 
 Supreme Court in civil suits between Englishmen and 
 Hindoos, is referred to as a case in point ; and it has even 
 been said that both official and non-official Englishmen in 
 India have invariably shown a singular unanimity in resisting 
 changes in the law intended to improve the condition of the
 
 I02 Meinorial to the Secretary of State for India. 
 
 Native population. Your memorialists are of opinion that 
 no charge could be more unfounded. The essential difference 
 of race, to which England owes the possession of her Indian 
 Empire, cannot indeed be set aside without endangering the 
 fabric which has been built upon it. The principle of English 
 ascendancy penetrates the whole administration of India : 
 it is recognized in the army and in every department of the 
 Civil Service ; and the Native civilians who now complain 
 that they are deprived of the prospective right- of exercising 
 criminal jurisdiction over Europeans, might with as good 
 reason, if their theory of equality were once admitted, demand 
 that they should no longer be excluded from the highest 
 positions in the Executive Government of the country, which 
 are still reserved, and if British rule in India is to continue, 
 must be reserved, for Englishmen. But, so far as the ad- 
 ministration of the law is concerned, your memorialists main- 
 tain that what is now proposed to be done by the Government 
 of India has excited alarm, not because it offends the pre- 
 judices and lessens the privileges of a dominant class, but 
 because it would deprive Englishmen and Englishwomen in 
 India of a safeguard to which they attach the highest value. 
 Englishmen in India want nothing more than justice, and 
 they will be satisfied with nothing less. They do not believe 
 that Native magistrates and judges are competent to decide 
 cases affecting the liberty of isolated Englishmen who may 
 unconsciously have incurred the ill-will of their neighbours, 
 and have thus exposed themselves to the risk of being 
 arrested on false charges. This question is, as has been 
 already shown, totally distinct from that of the transfer of 
 civil jurisdiction, which affected rights of property only ; and 
 it may also be pointed out that the agitation against the Black 
 Act of 1836 was really the outcome of the long-standing feud 
 between the servants of the East India Company and the 
 private adventurers who had courts of law of their own, and 
 that what happened then belonged to a state of Indian 
 society which has long since disappeared. In more recent 
 times, since the creation of the High Courts, Europeans in 
 India have acquiesced cheerfully in any reasonable extensions 
 of the powers of Native judicial officers. Not a word of re- 
 monstrance has ever been uttered by them against the 
 criminal jurisdiction over Europeans given to Native magis- 
 trates in the Presidency towns, because in this instance they 
 are well assured that they have adequate securities for the 
 due administration of justice. When, therefore, they object to 
 the grant of this jurisdiction to Native officials in districts
 
 Memorial to the Secj-etary of State foi^ India. 103 
 
 outside the limits of the Presidency towns, they should get 
 credit for the moderation they have hitherto displayed, and 
 not be met with the unreasoning cry that their protests are 
 prompted by race feeling. The non-official English class in 
 India occupy a peculiar and exceptional position. Their 
 capital, their enterprise, their labour have marvellously deve- 
 loped the agricultural, the mineral, and the commercial 
 resources of India, and converted that country into England's 
 best customer. Their tried loyalty has made them respond 
 zealously to the call of the Government of India to raise 
 regiments of volunteers which might aid in the defence of 
 the Empire ; and, as members of the various legislative 
 councils, as honorary magistrates in country districts, and as 
 members of municipalities in the great towns, they have 
 given the Government much valuable and unbought help in 
 carrying on the work of administration. They are shut out 
 from all high public offices, which are reserved for the 
 Covenanted Civil Servants appointed from England, and for 
 Native nominees of the Government of India ; and such 
 slight account is taken of the feelings of this important class 
 of the population, among whom there is very little poverty 
 or crime, that, on a measure so vitally affecting their interests 
 as Mr. Ilbert's Bill, their opinion was not even sought by 
 the Government before it determined to change the law. 
 Surely, non-official Anglo-Indians do not expect too much 
 when they claim from the Government they serve so well, 
 freedom to carry on their business in India without being^ 
 brought before Native magistrates, whom the all but unani- 
 mous judgment of Anglo-Indian officials pronounces to be 
 ill-suited to deal in a satisfactory manner with criminal 
 charges against Europeans, What makes the argument 
 against the Bill all the stronger is, that if it becomes law, 
 it will hardly be likely to injure the wealthier and more 
 influential Europeans, whom the Natives, at all events for 
 the present, will be afraid to conspire against. The merchant, 
 the lawyer, the planter may escape ; but the Bill will smite 
 with terrible effect the unprotected planter's assistant and the 
 skilled mechanic, who are the bone and sinew of English 
 enterprise in India. 
 
 II. Your memorialists have now set forth, they trust with- 
 out passion or exaggeration, the reasons which l;ave induced 
 them earnestly to entreat the Government to pause and re- 
 trace its steps on the dangerous path on which it has entered. 
 Although this Bill will more especially affect the non-official 
 Englishman, and in particular the poorer members of that
 
 I04 Memorial to the Secretary of State for India. 
 
 class, the opposition to it is not less strong on the part of 
 the great body of Anglo-Indian officials, past and present. 
 Of the signataries to this memorial, a large majority belong 
 to the official class. Among them are men who have risen 
 through all the grades of the Anglo-Indian official hierarchy, 
 who have long been known to be actuated by the most kindly 
 sentiments towards the natives of India, and to whom it can- 
 not, with the slightest semblance of reason, be imputed that 
 they are influenced by prejudices of race, or by any other 
 motive than a sincere desire for the good government of the 
 country in which they have passed the greater part of their 
 lives. The opinions which your memorialists have formed, 
 and the remarks which they have offered for your lordship's 
 consideration, are the result of long experience and of careful 
 observation of Indian life in all its varied phases, and they 
 submit those opinions and those remarks with an earnest 
 hope that a measure which they believe to be alike prejudicial 
 to the best interests of the Natives of India, and dangerous 
 to the safety of Her Majesty's dominion will not be passed 
 into law ; for it is certain that this Bill, if it be persisted in, 
 will keep alive in the future those mischievous race anti- 
 pathies which its introduction has revived, and thereby will 
 seriously add to the difficulties, already sufficiently great, of 
 Indian administration. 
 
 All which your memorialists would humbly submit to your 
 lordship. 
 
 A. J. Arbuthnot. R. V. Doyne. 
 
 W. Agnew. R. Eardley-Wilmot. 
 
 S. A. Apcar. J. Fergusson. 
 
 H. Berners. T. Douglas Forsyth. 
 
 C. S. Blair. S. S. Gladstone. 
 
 J. A. Bourdillon. C. A. Gordon. 
 
 J. H. A. Branson. E. Grey. 
 
 C. J. Brookes. H. Hankey. 
 
 C. T. Buckland. R. S. Hills. 
 
 J. R. Bullen-Smith. H. Hopkinson. 
 
 J. K. Bythell. W. H. Hudson. 
 
 Orfeur Cavenagh. R. H. Keatinge. 
 
 M. D. Chalmers. J. B. Knight. 
 
 Hyde Clarke. G. St. P. Lawrence. 
 
 R. Cockburn. A. Lawrie. 
 
 A. Cotton. C. A. Lawson. 
 
 J. Dacosta. Roper Lethbridge. 
 
 A. C. C. De Renzy. S. P. Low.
 
 Memorial to the Secretary of State for India. 105 
 
 Malcolm Low. 
 
 J. M. Maclean. 
 
 Melville Macnaghten. 
 
 G. B. Malleson. 
 
 J. D. Mayne. 
 
 E. C. Melville. 
 
 G. F. Mewburn. 
 
 W. Moran. 
 
 E. C. Morgan. 
 
 C. W. Nightingale. 
 
 A. T. Osmond. 
 
 Charles Palliser. 
 
 S. B. Partridge. 
 
 J. Pitt-Kennedy. 
 
 W. G. Probyn. 
 
 C. Raikes. 
 
 E. T. Roberts. 
 
 A. Rogers. 
 
 J. O'B. Saunders. 
 
 C. Sanderson. 
 
 W. ,S. Seton-Karr. 
 
 R. A. Scoble. 
 
 A. C. Silver. 
 
 W. Smith. 
 
 J. Stevenson. 
 
 R. Steward. 
 
 H. Stewart-Reid. 
 
 H. H. Sutherland. 
 
 W. Tayler. 
 
 C. B. Templer. 
 
 Ernest Tye. 
 
 E. Tyrwhitt. 
 
 A. J. Vibart. 
 
 T. Prendergast Walsh. 
 
 J. D. Ward. 
 
 J. P. Watson. 
 
 R. M. Westropp. 
 
 J. Berry White. 
 
 G. Williamson. 
 
 For the London Committee, Anglo-Indian Association for 
 obtaining the withdrawal of the Indian Criminal Pro- 
 cedure Act Amendment Bill.
 
 DEPUTATION TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE 
 FOR INDIA. 
 
 — o — 
 
 On the 26th July a deputation waited upon the Earl of Kim- 
 berly, Seeretary of State for I?idia, and presented the 
 foregoing Memorial. A^ early all the signataries to the 
 Memorial were present on the oecasion. 
 
 Mr. PUGH, M.P., in introducing the deputation said : My 
 Lord, the deputation which I have the honour to introduce 
 to your lordship is, I very much think, the most influential 
 deputation that has ever been received between these walls. 
 The deputation represents a committee consisting of 700 
 members, and I have carefully analysed the composition of 
 the commitee, but I am not going to weary your lordship 
 with any details upon the subject. My intention was to point 
 out how many men there were upon that Committee who 
 were distinguished for their services in India, but I found the 
 list so large that it would be impossible for me within any 
 reasonable compass to make any individual mention of the 
 more prominent of those members. But I would say this, 
 that of the 700, somewhere about 250 only are non-official 
 Europeans ; that leaves something over 450 men who have 
 held service under Her Majesty in India, and many of 
 these, my lord, are distinguished for services which they 
 rendered to the country ; and they are distinguished very 
 much in this respect, that many of them had long been, and 
 will be, known for the earnest desire they had always shown 
 for the advancement of the Natives of India. Now, the 
 object of this deputation is to lay before your lordship their 
 views upon the Bill now pending before the Council in India 
 for the Amendment of the Criminal Procedure Code. I do
 
 Deputation to the Sec^^etary of State for hidia. 107 
 
 not propose to enter myself into any argument upon the 
 subject. I shall content myself with introducing the deputa- 
 tion to your lordship, and the deputation will state tem- 
 perately and yet fully, I have no doubt, their views upon the 
 subject. And, my lord, the deputation are moved to take 
 this measure owing very much to the repeated assurances 
 given by Lord Ripon in his speech upon this Bill before the 
 Legislative Council in Calcutta, of his desire to keep him- 
 self clear from all controversy, so that he might give a full and 
 impartial consideration to all the representations which might 
 be made to him by the local governments or by the public 
 with reference to the objection that they might feel to the 
 Bill. Those assurances of Lord Ripon the deputation entirely 
 accept, and for myself I will say that I have not the slightest 
 doubt all those representations will receive from Lord Ripon 
 the fullest and most careful consideration. The deputation 
 being here in England, they have thought that the proper 
 way to lay their views before the Government of India 
 would be through this deputation which your lordship has 
 kindly consented to receive. Now had it been, as has been 
 stated more than once, the desire of those who oppose this 
 Bill to attack the general policy of Lord Ripon J should not 
 in any way for my own part have consented to ask your 
 lordship to receive this deputation ; nor if they desired in 
 any way to attack the Rent Bill of Lord Ripon, should I 
 have consented to have anything to do with the deputation ; 
 nor if they had proposed to come here in order to oppose 
 any extension of local self-government in India, should I 
 have in any way consented to have anything to do with it. 
 But my views being in accordance with the views of the 
 deputation with regard to this one particular Bill, I have had 
 no hesitation in consenting to ask your lordship to receive 
 this deputation. Now, the object of all those who study the 
 welfare of India, I take it, must be to endeavour to adopt 
 and to agree upon such measures as will conduce to the 
 different races that inhabit the country acting together in 
 greater harmony ; and I may say for myself, my lord, that 
 during the twenty years in which I have known India, I 
 believe the different races in India have been hitherto ap- 
 proximating more and more closely towards each other, and 
 I am sure it is the wish of every member of this deputation 
 to see that approximation continue without let or hindrance. 
 And it is because they do not think that this Bill is cal- 
 culated to promote that approximation, but that it will have 
 the directly contrary effect — it is on that account, and I
 
 io8 Dcpictatioii to the Sea^etary of State for India. 
 
 believe on that account alone, that they wish to make public 
 their views in reference to this measure. My lord, I shall 
 not trouble you with any further remarks in introducing the 
 deputation ; but Sir Alexander Arbuthnot will now address 
 your lordship. He, as your lordship is aware, was formerly a 
 member of the Supreme Council, and I may say also that he 
 has been distinguished above all other things for his efforts in 
 the cause of Native education, and the advancement of the 
 Natives generally in the Presidency of Madras, and in fact 
 throughout the rest of India. I trust that the views of the 
 deputation will be such as to commend themselves to your 
 lordship, and I trust also that when Lord Ripon enters upon 
 that full consideration of the views of the various local 
 governors in India, he will not fail also to consider the views 
 which will have been laid before your lordship to-day by this 
 deputation, and that the result of that consideration will 
 be the withdrawal of this Bill. (Hear, hear.) I beg to in- 
 troduce to your lordship Sir Alexander Arbuthnot. 
 
 Sir Alexander Arbuthnot: My lord, I have been 
 requested to present to your lordship this memorial on behalf 
 of a large body of gentlemen, who either are or have been 
 connected with India, praying, for reasons which are fully 
 stated, that Her Majesty's Government will be pleased to 
 order the withdrawal of the Indian Criminal Procedure Act 
 Amendment Bill which is now pending before the Council of 
 the Governor-General. I think that after all that has been said 
 by Mr. Pugh it is not necessary for me to disclaim, as I should 
 wish to disclaim in the most emphatic terms, the imputation 
 that I or any of those who are associated with me in this 
 movement, are actuated by hostile or illiberal feelings towards 
 the Natives of India. (Hear, hear.) For my own part I 
 think I may truly affirm that during my long Indian service 
 one of the most prominent objects to which my time and 
 attention were constantly given, was the moral and intellec- 
 tual advancement of the people of the country, and the 
 fulfilment of the pledges which had been given, and the 
 prospects which had been held out to them by the most pro- 
 minent Indian statesmen of former times. (Hear, hear.) 
 In the memorial which I am about to present to your lord- 
 ship there is a very full statement of the reasons which have 
 led the opponents of this Bill to regard it as an uncalled-for 
 measure, and as one which, while it is not demanded in the 
 interests of the small section of the Native community 
 which it will immediately affect, is calculated to be most 
 prejudicial, in our opinion, to the best interests of Her
 
 Deptttation to the Secretary of State for India. 109 
 
 Majesty's Empire in India. I will not attempt to go over 
 those reasons, but there are a few points connected with this 
 matter which I should like to urge upon your lordship's 
 attention. In the first place, I am aware that it is thoug-ht 
 by many persons, and even by some who have considered 
 the introduction of this Bill' to have been unwise, that after 
 the hopes and expectations which have been aroused in 
 the Native mind, and after all the agitation which has taken 
 place, it is now too late to withdraw the measure. This 
 consideration, and the consideration that the Government 
 of a great Empire, having once introduced such a measure as 
 this, can hardly recede from it without some loss to its credit 
 and reputation, are considerations which must naturally be 
 weighed by Her Majesty's Government. We who are urging 
 the withdrawal of this Bill, do not at all ignore the con- 
 siderations to which I have referred ; but our contention is, 
 that in this case, as in so many other cases which occur 
 constantly in human affairs, the Government have a choice 
 of difficulties, and that the real question is not whether 
 there is a course which is absolutely free from objection, 
 but which of two or three courses, all of them more or less 
 open to question, is likely on the whole to be conducive to 
 the welfare of the Indian Empire. (Hear, he^r.) Looking 
 at the question from this point of view, as practical men, 
 intimately acquainted with the Natives of India, appreciating 
 their merits and knowing their defects, we are persuaded that 
 the mischief of proceeding with this Bill will be far greater than 
 the inconvenience of withdrawing it. We feel sure that this 
 Bill, if it be persisted in, will be a permanent cause of anti- 
 pathies of race, and we are convinced that if this Bill shall 
 become law, certainly on a great many occasions, though not 
 perhaps on every occasion, reclamations will be made in the 
 Anglo-Indian newspapers, which will be followed by those 
 denunciations of British rule and oi the English race which 
 have lately been revived in the Native Press, and that a state 
 of things will arise which cannot fail to be most prejudicial 
 to the interests of India and to the security of our rule. 
 And here I should like to observe that the agitation which 
 has arisen upon this subject on the part of the Natives of 
 India was originally a purely factitious agitation ; that, on the 
 part of the great bulk of the Native community of India, 
 there was no demand for this Bill — (hear, hear) — and that 
 €ven now many — some, at all events, of the best men among 
 the Natives deprecate the measure as one which was uncalled 
 for in the interests of the Natives of India, and is certain to
 
 I lo Deputation to the Secret ary of State f 07" India. 
 
 affect injuriously their relations with their English fellow 
 subjects. Before I sit down, I should like to invite your 
 special attention to the argument which is urged in the 
 memorial as to the real nature of the question which is at 
 issue in this case. We have submitted that the real question 
 is not whether a certain jurisdiction should be conferred upon 
 certain Native functionaries, but whether Englishmen in India 
 should be deprived of a privilege which they have hitherto 
 enjoyed, and to which they attach the greatest importance. 
 Our contention is that the withdrawal of that privilege is not 
 only undesirable on other grounds, but that it is certain to 
 have a bad political effect in diminishing the prestige and 
 impairing the authority of Englishmen in India ; and if proof 
 be needed of the soundness of this contention I must ask 
 your lordship to consider some incidents which have occurred 
 at Calcutta within the last few weeks. When we hear of a 
 Native servant of the lowest class attempting with brutal 
 violence to dishonour an English lady — the wife of the Public 
 Prosecutor at Calcutta, and of another Native servant, who 
 had been recently discharged, entering the bedroom in which 
 his late master and mistress were sleeping, and then proceed- 
 ing to cut to pieces the lady's dresses and to cut off her hair ; 
 when also we read of another somewhat similar outrage on 
 an Eurasian woman, the wife of a railway employe in the 
 neighbourhood of Calcutta ; and when we read of the editor 
 of a Native newspaper urging the formation of an enormous 
 national fund, to be raised by subscriptions in every village 
 for the purpose of enabling the Natives of India to obtain 
 Parliamentary institutions, for which they are notoriously 
 unfit, and urging upon his audience " to kindle a fire upon 
 the altar of their country, ^vhich all the water of the Ganges 
 will not put out," I submit that it needs a very moderate 
 clearness of political foresight to discern the evils which are 
 certain to result from this Bill. It has been said, and still is 
 said, by the supporters of this Bill, that its provisions are in 
 accordance with the opinions held by the wisest and most 
 eminent Indian statesmen of past times. The names which 
 are most commonly mentioned are those of Sir Thomas 
 Munro and Mr. Elphinstone ; but it is only by ignoring or 
 suppressing important passages in the writings of those 
 distinguished men that it is possible to arrive at the conclu- 
 sion which the advocates of the new legislation seek to 
 establish. One single sentence in the famous minute of Sir 
 Thomas Munro on the Indian Press, where he says — " I 
 cannot view the question of a free Press in this country with-
 
 Deputation to the Secretary of State for India, 1 1 1 
 
 out feeling that the tenure with which we hold our power never 
 has been, and never will be, the liberties of the people," 
 is, I think, amply sufficient to show what the opinion of that 
 distinguished statesman would have been on a question of 
 depriving Englishmen in India of the privilege of being 
 subject in criminal cases to the exclusive jurisdiction of their 
 countrymen. (Hear, hear.) With these remarks, my lord, I 
 now present to your lordship a copy of the memorial. 
 
 Mr. W. S. Seton-Karr (formerly Foreign Secretary to the 
 Government of India) — My Lord : In the few remarks which 
 I shall have the honour to address to your lordship, and which 
 I wish to compress into the smallest space possible, I will not 
 speculate whether the distrust as to this measure, which is avow- 
 edly felt in India, proceeds from some deeper distrust of other 
 measures of the administration which seem destined to break 
 the continuity of tradition, and to impair the efficiency of the 
 machinery of Government ; nor shall I, on the other hand, 
 expatiate on the arguments and counter-arguments for or 
 against the Bill which your lordship will find set forth in 
 the memorial which we have this day the honour of presenting 
 to you, and set forth in language, I trust, which it is not dis- 
 respectful or unconstitutional for us to offer, and which it 
 cannot be offensive to your lordship to receive. 'But I would 
 briefly request your lordship's consideration to three points 
 connected with the opposition to this Bill. Your lordship is 
 probably aware, and your able officers who surround you 
 will confirm my statement, that on many occasions, when im- 
 portant measures have been under discussion which affected 
 the welfare of the Natives of India, the non-official and the 
 official world have been prominently divided into two camps. 
 I can say from my own knowledge, and I shall be confirmed 
 by others, that in past times it has fallen to the lot of many 
 officials of Government to explain, or to defend, or to pro- 
 mulgate those measures of Government which, with equal 
 honesty of purpose and with equal sincerity of conviction, the 
 non-official community have thought it their duty to oppose. 
 I may remind you, I say, that in past times we, the officials 
 of India, have had to carry through those measures, and we 
 have been denounced for doing it, with that freedom of 
 thought and that energy of language which with Englishmen 
 everywhere is the very salt and breath of their political life. 
 But on the present occasion all those divisions amongst 
 English society have entirely disappeared. We are here met 
 together, men of every variety of occupation and of every 
 variety of experience, from ahnost every province of India,
 
 1 1 2 Deputation to the Seeretary of State for India. 
 
 and I believe that from the non-official community, from 
 merchants, from barristers, from civilians and military men, 
 there never has been on any previous occasion such a remark- 
 able unanimity of sentiment or such extraordinary consensus 
 of opinion. That is one point to which I would earnestly 
 request your lordship's clo'^e and careful attention. Secondly, 
 I would ask your lordship to remember that we cannot be 
 taxed with any selfish purposes in opposing this Bill. Many 
 of us, as the chairman of our committee has reminded you, 
 have taken a deep interest in the cause of Native progress 
 and the advancement of Native civilization. I may say frankly 
 that we owe everything we have in the world to India. India, 
 with all its drawbacks, has given to most of us a career of 
 which we are justly proud, and if we have attained, any one 
 of us, any honour from the State, any esteem from the 
 public, if in any shape whatever, either by commercial fit- 
 ness, by forensic ability, or by official aptitude, we have 
 achieved success or an independence in life, it is to India and 
 its career that we owe it all — (hear, hear) ; and as our 
 chairman has reminded you, there are many of us who would 
 far sooner prefer to dwell on the many good points in the 
 Native character-, on their touching acts of devotion, on their 
 fidelity in service, on their readiness to follow where English- 
 men lead — we would far rather, I say, at this distance of time 
 and place, recall these features than aggravate antipathies of 
 race by dwelling too long on well-known instances of Oriental 
 turpitude and Asiatic treachery. We can none of us here, 
 at this distance of time and place, be actuated by any other 
 than the kindliest feelings towards the Natives of India. 
 (Hear, hear.) Then, thirdly, there is another point to which 
 I would call your lordship's attention. It has been said in 
 many papers that the agitation against the Bill is factitious 
 and temporary, and that the desire for the Bill is permanent 
 and genuine. We have every reason to believe, from private 
 correspondence, from our attentive study of the comments of 
 the Press, and from our knowledge of India, that the very 
 contrary is the case. (Hear, hear.) We believe, on the 
 contrary, that the agitation for the Bill has been got up 
 mainly by a few interested individuals. I would take the 
 liberty of stating to your lordship that a journal accredited 
 with some knowledge of India, and avowedly a supporter of 
 your own Government, has maintained a silence on this im- 
 portant subject which to me is more ominous and more 
 eloquent than all the pleadings of a deputation ; and that 
 journal has stated, and I doubt not on good authority, that
 
 DepiUation to the Secretary of State for India. 1 1 
 
 o 
 
 90 per cent, of the so-called Nativqs of India have never 
 heard of the Bill and do not care one farthing about it. 
 (Hear, hear.) We believe, on the contrary, that the agitation 
 which the Bill has evoked amongst the Anglo-Indian com- 
 munity will not pass away quickly. As a proof of it, there 
 is one circumstance hitherto unexampled in Indian history, 
 and that is, that Englishwomen have for the first time thought 
 it necessary to descend into the arena of controversy, and 
 have sent forth a protest against the passing of this Bill. 
 And although I do not anticipate for a moment that English- 
 women resident in India w^ould furnish many examples of 
 the criminal classes, yet at the same time I would avail my- 
 self of this fact to illustrate what has been often said about 
 anomalies and inequalities. Can there be a greater anomaly 
 than the position of the Ranee or the Begum, whose seclusion 
 in the Zenana is inviolate, practically, against the pursuit of 
 justice and against the arm of the law, and the position of the 
 English lady or the wife of the English employe, who lives 
 openly in the light of day, who is amenable as a witness or 
 defendant in every court, and who sheds about her, unlike 
 her Aryan sister, that indescribable charm which the presence 
 of a refined and energetic Englishwoman always ^heds in the 
 social and domestic circle t (Hear, hear.) There was one 
 occasion when, twenty years ago, the community of India was 
 violently agitated regarding the passing of a measure which 
 affected Native interests. That measure, as your lordship's 
 advisers will tell yow, commanded the support of very high 
 and noble-minded statesmen, including, amongst others, the 
 late Lord Canning. Your eminent predecessor. Lord Halifax 
 (then Sir Charles Wood), who at that time presided over the 
 destinies of India, although the Bill had not only been intro- 
 duced into the Council, but had actually been passed as a 
 tentative measure for more than six months, intimated his 
 disapproval of the measure. The agitation and the measure 
 collapsed, and we have never heard one word of the subject 
 since. (Hear, hear.) In conclusion, I will ask your lordship 
 to remember that we, as representing the Anglo-Indian com- 
 munity, do not for a moment ask that Englishmen or English- 
 women should be set above the law. We do not even ask 
 that any one. law or clause should be altered to their ad- 
 vantage. We only ask that the law should remain as it is, 
 and that they should enjoy the privilege upon which, as you 
 have been told, they set so high a value, the privilege of being 
 tried for any criminal offence before one of their own colour, 
 race, and creed. In short, my lord, we can only submit to 
 
 I
 
 1 14 Deputation to the Secretary of State for India. 
 
 your lordship's earnest consideration the fact that we re- 
 present a large consensus of opinion on the part of the 
 official community in India ; that we believe ourselves to be 
 backed by the reasons and the arguments of those high 
 authorities who, on a second consideration of this important 
 measure, have, we believe, been led to disapprove of it ; and 
 we earnestly entreat you to weigh our arguments in order 
 that the Bill should not pass, for we believe it to be one 
 which is not really compatible with the advancement of the 
 best interests of the Natives, which will really shake the 
 loyalty and the fidelity of the Anglo-Indian community, and 
 which, in the end, cannot but tend to impair the stability and 
 the permanence of that vast and magnificent dependency 
 over which your lordship so worthily presides. (Hear, hear.) 
 Mr. J. R. Bullen-Smith, C. S. I. (formerly member of 
 the Legislative Council of the Governor-General of India) : 
 My lord, I feel that so much has been already written 
 and said upon this subject during the last few weeks 
 that anything I could bring forward might almost appear 
 to be a twice told tale ; but as having represented till I 
 left India a few years ago, very large non-official interests 
 in the Mofussil of Bengal, I cannot refuse the invitation 
 which was addressed to me to join this deputation and 
 say a few words, both to manifest my own extreme in- 
 terest in the subject and the entire approval with which I 
 regard the prayer contained in this memorial, and also to 
 express the opinion which I know is strongly held by those 
 who have succeeded in the management of those interests to 
 which I have referred. My lord, I claim on behalf of those 
 in India who are opposed to this Bill, and especially on behalf 
 of my non-official countrymen, that notwithstanding all that 
 is being said now to the contrary, they are reasonable men. 
 I assert, and do it with full confidence, that they are deeply 
 interested in the welfare of India, both for their own sakes 
 and for the sake of its population, and that as a consequence 
 they are deeply interested in its good government in every 
 particular, anxious to advance it by every means in their 
 power, and willing, if necessary, to make some sacrifice on 
 its behalf, I would not wish to make this assertion rashly ; 
 but I think in support of it I may very fairly refer to the 
 legislation which took place on this subject in the year 1872. 
 I, in common with my friend Mr. Stewart, whom I see now 
 in this room, had the honour of a seat in the Legislative 
 Council of the Viceroy at the time, and were members of the 
 Select Committee which sat on the Bill connected with the
 
 Deputation to the Secretary of State for India. 115 
 
 legislation to which I have referred. , He will bear me out in 
 saying- that nothing was done then that was hasty ; it was 
 a matter which met with the fullest consideration, and although, 
 from the ver}^ nature of the case, the result which was arrived 
 at could not be officially put forth to the world as being a 
 compromise between different classes of the community and 
 the Government, yet, nevertheless, he will support me, I am 
 sure, in saying that it was understood to be a compromise. 
 Mr. Justice Stephen, in a letter which he has lately addressed 
 to the public of England on this subject, has asserted this in 
 the fullest manner, and from the position which he held at 
 the time, as the head of the legislative department in India, 
 his testimony on the subject may be accepted as conclusive. 
 And it is that fact which gives to the present action of the 
 Government, what I am sure was unintentioned, a sort of 
 appearance of breach of faith. It was felt at the time 
 that the compromise then made would be held sacred, 
 and would be acted upon until some strong necessity 
 arose for entering upon a new course of action. (Hear, 
 hear.) Let it not, my lord, for a moment be supposed 
 that Englishmen in India held at that time the privilege for 
 which we are now contending a whit less dear th^n they hold 
 it now. They prized it then just as much as they do now, 
 but they were willing to give up something when a definite 
 reason why was put before them. They were reasonable men, 
 and when it was explained to them that the retention of this 
 privilege in all its length and breadth meant practically 
 unpunished crime in the Mofussil, then, I say, they were 
 willing to the extent demanded to give up their privilege. 
 Now it seems to me, my lord, that the position now is this : 
 that compromise having been entered into, the natural ques- 
 tion is, what has occurred during the last ten or eleven years 
 to cause the Government to enter upon a new line of action t 
 I may safely say that up to this time — at any rate that is 
 my opinion — absolutely nothing has occurred. It seems to 
 me that only two reasons would have justified the Govern- 
 ment in re-opening this subject. Those would be either 
 that there was some administrative difficulty which rendered 
 it impossible in the existing state of affairs to carry on the 
 government of the country as it ought to be conducted, or 
 that there was some strong demand for a new measure on 
 the part of the inhabitants of India, which it would be 
 impolitic and inexpedient to resist. Now, my lord, with 
 regard to the first of these — the administrative difficulty — it 
 certainly was broached at first in the debate in the Legislative 
 
 I 2
 
 1 1 6 Deputation to the Secretary of State for India, 
 
 Council, but, as far as I can see, it very f^radually diminished, 
 and at all events I can tell your lordship this : that the 
 Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, speaking with all the weight 
 of his high and responsible position, ruling over the territories 
 in which are to be found more of the class which would be 
 particularly affected by this Bill than in all the rest of India 
 put together — Mr. Rivers Thompson was able, from his place 
 in the Legislative Council, to say that there existed no 
 administrative difficulty whatever in the territories under his 
 charge, and that assertion he would be prepared to prove 
 whenever it was denied. Then as to the second reason : can 
 it be said that there has been on the part of the Native com- 
 munity a strong demand for this measure } For ten years, 
 from the date which I have spoken of up till last year, 
 when the Criminal Procedure Code was passed, I never 
 remember the subject to have been mentioned at all ; and 
 is it not a curious thing that we should find in the Legis- 
 lative Council itself, when this subject is brought forward, 
 that the support given to it by Native members is of 
 such a half-hearted and lukewarm description ? The Native 
 members in the Council at the time this Bill was brought in, 
 were two. One of them is well known to myself; he is a 
 shrewd merchant, who has long lived and been respected in 
 Calcutta, and held his own with any and every one there in 
 his own walks of life ; it would have been too much to ex- 
 pect that he should have voted against such a proposition as 
 this ; but assuredly, those who read his few remarks will find 
 no great warmth in the assenting vote which he gave. I 
 believe that both he and his colleague, who said that while 
 his head approved of the measure his heart voted against it, 
 v/ould have been far better pleased had this subject never 
 been brought forward. (Hear, hear.) My lord, I cannot too 
 strongly endeavour to impress upon your lordship this fact — 
 that the people of India, as such, those whose opinion is 
 worth having, care nothing about this matter. It seems to 
 them nothing strange whatever that Englishmen should pos- 
 sess this privilege. They see privileges all around them, and 
 not only do they see nothing strange in our possessing this 
 privilege of being tried by one of our own countrymen, but, as 
 I said just now, I never knew a Native yet who would not, if the 
 choice were given him, rather go before the English gentleman 
 than before the Babu. It therefore comes to this, that the 
 cause of this new procedure which it is sought to enter upon, 
 is to be found in the now prospective disability of a few. 
 This, perhaps, is scarcely the place for me to speak of what I
 
 Dcpittation to the Secretary of State for India. 1 17 
 
 think ought to be the attitude of these few ; but I will say this 
 much, that I think that attitude ought not to be the forward 
 one which they are now assuming. I think that — looking to 
 the fact that they are now in the Civil Service at all, a posi- 
 tion which ten years ago they could never look forward to — it 
 is hardly becoming of these young gentlemen, in advance of 
 any felt injustice, in advance of any actual disability, to endea- 
 vour to force the hand of the Government in this matter. It 
 would have been more becoming of them to have waited till 
 the evil was actually felt, and then to have asked ,for that 
 relief which the whole dealings of the Government with the 
 people of Lower Bengal entitled them to believe they would 
 have readily granted. (Hear, hear.) There only remains 
 for me now to mention one other reason which seems to 
 me strongly to show that the status quo of 1872 should be 
 maintained, and that is this : through the large extension of 
 railways, mills, and other works of the kind, we every year 
 import into India a large proportion of mechanics, engineers, 
 artizans of different kinds — the very men upon whom in the 
 Mofussil this Bill will most hardly and severely press. Now 
 Ave cannot do without these men ; if we wished we cannot 
 deport them, as in olden times ; their presence is very mate- 
 rial, I may say absolutely necessary, to the wealth and 
 material prosperity of India, which we all so much desire ; and 
 what I feel strongly is this, that while on the one hand we 
 must take every means to see that their treatment of the 
 Natives is what it should be, we, on the other hand, should 
 not, unless there existed an absolute necessity, drive them 
 to courts in which they have no confidence. (Hear, hear.) 
 
 Mr. J. M. Maclean (late editor of the Bombay Gazette) : 
 My lord, I have been asked to support the prayer of this 
 memorial, because, having conducted for a great number of 
 years one of the principal daily papers of India, I have had 
 perhaps exceptional opportunities of becoming familiar with 
 the sentiments of the representatives of English commerce 
 and industry in India— of those men whom in the days of the 
 East India Company it was the fashion to speak of as English 
 adventurers. It is generally admitted, I think, that this Bill 
 is exceedingly distasteful to this class, whom I may call the 
 most valuable element of the population of India. Where- 
 ever independent Englishmen settle in that country, whether 
 as merchants, as planters, as professional men, or as skilled 
 mechanics, they are a leaven of loyalty, of intelligence, and 
 of fruitful enterprise, which leavens the whole inert mass of 
 Indian society. I may say further, that this class are, as a
 
 1 18 Deputation to the Seci'etary of State for India. 
 
 body, remarkably free from crime. The High Court Judges 
 of Allahabad pointed out the other day that during the last 
 ten years not more than 800 cases had occurred in which 
 Europeans were concerned that were brought before all the 
 courts of India, and that of those a very large majority were 
 cases arising in the presidency towns, where it is proposed 
 not to make any change in the law. It is therefore clear 
 that this Bill will only affect a score or two of cases at the 
 outside every year, which would have to be tried by up-country 
 magistrates and judges, and as it is settled that the propor- 
 tion of Natives in the Civil Service is not to exceed one-sixth,, 
 it is obvious that the chance is very remote indeed of any 
 Native having the privilege of trying a European up-country. 
 This result is of course based on the supposition that crime 
 would not increase, and it shows how infinitesimal and shadowy 
 is the grievance that the Government of India proposes to 
 redress. But what non-official Europeans have too much 
 cause to fear, what they are really alarmed about, is that the 
 number of cases of alleged crime will be fearfully multiplied 
 if this change in the law is carried into effect. As a class,, 
 we non-officials have never grudged or opposed the advance- 
 ment of Natives to positions which they are well qualified to 
 fill. We do not do so now. It is not sought to change the 
 law which gives Native magistrates in the Presidency towns 
 full powers to try both Europeans and Natives, but we feel 
 sure that if similar powers are entrusted to Native magistrates 
 up-country the fortunes and liberties of Englishmen scattered 
 about India Avill be exposed to terrible peril. (Hear, hear.) 
 We conceive that we have the right to claim the special pro- 
 tection of the Government of India, because we are a small 
 and scattered minority, living in the only part of HerMajesty's 
 wide dominions in which an independent Englishman is shut 
 out from any hope of ever having a share in the Executive 
 Government of the country. And that which we claim — I 
 don't call it a privilege, but I call it a right — is one, the pos- 
 session of which can give no just cause of offence to any 
 human being. There is only one more point I would like to 
 say a word about. It has been said that the Government of 
 India cannot withdraw this Bill for fear of disappointing the 
 Natives ; but is it possible for the Government to satisfy the 
 expectations that they have raised if they persevere with this 
 Bill } Do we not see from the language of the Native Press 
 that Native agitators will not be satisfied with this Bill 
 alone 1 They regard it, as they say, as only a small instalment 
 of the justice that is due to them, and they will never cease
 
 Deputation to the Secretary of State for India. 1 19 
 
 to demand fresh concessions, the end of which could only be 
 either to destroy the ascendency of the English in India or 
 to compel us (which would be almost equally disastrous) to 
 put forth such efforts to restore our authority as were needed 
 in the crisis of 1857. It is on these grounds that I join in 
 the appeal to your lordship to withhold the consent, of Her 
 Majesty's Government to a measure which cannot fail to offend 
 and to injure every Englishman in India, and which holds 
 out no prospect of effectually conciliating the Natives of the 
 country. (Hear, hear.) 
 
 Major-General HOPKINSON, C.S.I, (late Chief Commissioner 
 of Assam, and Agent to the Governor-General North-East 
 Frontier) : My Lord, I have been invited to represent Assam, 
 and especially the tea interest on this deputation, because 
 I once had the honour of being Commissioner of that 
 province. Now, my lord, I have been asked by some of my 
 native friends, in reference to my taking the side of the ques- 
 tion represented by the deputation, whether I should not 
 think it very absurd if the Irishmen now in England were 
 to clamour to be tried only by their own countrymen, when 
 charged with the commission of criminal offences, and I have 
 answered, " Yes, without doubt it would be very absurd." But I 
 have added : " Suppose the successful cultivation of some of the 
 most important agricultural products of England depended 
 upon Irish superintendence ; that our chief manufacturing 
 industries were managed by Irishmen ; that we owed to them 
 the introduction and maintenance of our systems of steam 
 navigation and railways ; that we had to thank Irishmen for 
 our code of national education ; that we enjoyed through 
 them, for the first time in our history, a tolerable mea- 
 sure of security for our persons and our property, protection 
 from anarchy within and from foreign enemies without ; and 
 that the continuance of all these benefits depended upon 
 their stay among us, I should then say that we could not do 
 too much to make it acceptable to them, and that even as a 
 mere matter of sentiment, we should be glad to show our 
 gratitude, by conceding to them the privileges of being tried 
 by their own countrymen, if they desired it, and much less 
 seek to deprive them of it, if they had long enjoyed it." 
 (Hear, hear.) But, my lord, I am not content to argue 
 against the Ilbert Bill on sentimental grounds ; I make to it 
 the very practical objection that it provides for the setting in 
 authority over British European subjects, in remote provinces 
 of India like Assam, as judges and administrators, officers 
 whom I cannot regard as qualified by their ability for such
 
 I20 Deputation to the Secretary of State for India. 
 
 responsible positions. When I say, "■ qualified by their abil- 
 ity," I do not mean the abihty to acquire this or that parti- 
 cular science ; I do not mean an extraordinary aptitude for 
 mathematics, nor a wonderful gift of tongues, I mean the 
 ability which depends upon the possession of certain moral 
 qualities, which are beyond the reach of competitiv^e examin- 
 ations to discover, but are the most important of all qualities 
 in an administrator. We are taught by history that English- 
 men, Irishmen, and Scotchmen, as a rule, do possess these in- 
 dispensable moral qualities in a very great degree, and so we 
 may assume for any one of them an average share of what 
 is possessed by the mass ; and if, therefore, he shows himself 
 superior in those subjects which can be tested, we may con- 
 clude that so far we have the best man v/hen we take him ; 
 but I make bold to affirm that history equally teaches that 
 there are races in India which do not possess the indispen- 
 sable moral qualities I have in view, and it most unfortu- 
 nately happens that the races which least possess them are the 
 races who are most nimble witted and apt in the subjects to 
 which the competitive test can be applied. It follows, there- 
 fore, that the test which may be fairly adapted for a native 
 of Great Britain will by no means justify the same conclu- 
 sions when applied to a Native of India. If mere educa- 
 tional or knowledge tests were of universal application to 
 prove universal fitness, we might have " a sweet girl grad- 
 uate " from Girton appointed on the strength of a successful 
 examination to a seat on the Bench of Metropolitan Magis- 
 trates, or sent to take charge of a disturbed district in Ire- 
 land. She certainly would not be more out of place there 
 than a Native gentleman from Bengal would be who was 
 appointed to officiate as a deputy commissioner in a frontier 
 district of Assam. P'^or it is from Bengal only that Native 
 members of the Covenanted Civil Service would be likely to 
 be available for employment in Assam, and I should not 
 expect a Native gentleman from Bengal to show much confi- 
 dence in himself or inspire confidence in others in such a 
 position. If his fears, as Rajah Shiva Prasad says, would 
 prompt him to unjust acquittals, it is certain there would be 
 cases where they would make him convict unjustly ; and 
 when both sides were European, he would incline to the 
 stronger side. Let it be remembered also that the efficiency 
 of a deputy commissioner or a district magistrate is less 
 severely tested by his judicial capacity than by the discharge 
 of his executive functions, where power of will, force of char- 
 acter, tact, temper, and judgment (and for Assam I might
 
 Deputation to the Secretary of State for India. 1 2 i 
 
 fairly add physical courage) are required. It is, I am con- 
 vinced, quite a mistake to suppose that the planters of Assam 
 are animated by the spirit of what a member of the Indian 
 Council calls " spread eagleism " in their opposition to the 
 Ilbert Bill ; they do not care whether their rulers and judges 
 are black or white, or where they are born, so long as they 
 get even-handed justice and have their public business ad- 
 ministered honestly and firmly ; and it is the result of their 
 actual experience that makes them doubt whether these 
 would follow under the Ilbert Bill. The enormous cost of 
 European superintendence is one of the greatest hindrances 
 to the profitable cultivation of tea in Assam, and accordingly, 
 in one concern after another, in plantation after plantation, 
 the experiment of Native managers, chosen from the very 
 classes that have furnished successful competitors for the 
 Civil Service, has been tried, and I am assured that no case 
 can be cited in which it has been found to answer. The 
 Native managers have usually proved deficient in the neces- 
 sary administrative qualifications, and hence the planters 
 have come to the conclusion that if they cannot find Natives 
 who can manage their gardens for them, the Government are 
 not likely to be able to find Natives competent to manage them. 
 There are yet a few remarks, my lord, that with your per- 
 mission I should like to make on that other provision in the 
 Ilbert Bill, which restricts the Government from appointing 
 European-British subjects to be justices of the peace, and, a 
 foi'tiori, we may assume that henceforth they will not be 
 appointed honorary magistrates to try Natives,i for it would 
 be opposed to the very spirit in which the Bill is conceived 
 to admit such a class distinction. Now I will not dwell on 
 the sentimental side of the question ; that is, the slight 
 implied by the provision that no non-official European, what- 
 ever his antecedents, his birth, his education, his social posi- 
 tion, nay, possibly, his tried capacity as an administrator in 
 some vast industrial enterprise, shall be deemed eligible to 
 serve on the Commission of the Peace. Here there seems 
 surely a class distinction of the most invidious kind ; but I 
 pass that over. My lord, I insist on the impolicy of the 
 restriction, as it will affect the local governments in Assam, 
 Cachar, Darjeeling, and elsewhere, by depriving them of an 
 unpaid but material help to the maintenance of law and order. 
 The institution of honorary magistrates and justices of the 
 peace served that purpose in m^any ways. It fostered a spirit 
 of loyalty, or at least of goodwill, towards the Government, and 
 a desire to be of service to it. It interested the planters in the
 
 122 Deputation to the Secretary of Stale for India. 
 
 administration of the country, and made them more conside- 
 rate towards the Natives ; and for a very trifling expenditure 
 in the way of salaries to clerks it placed a number of magis- 
 trates — the pick of the planting community — at the disposal 
 of Government for employment in parts of the country 
 which practically were not reached by the district magistrates 
 proper, and who were vested with precisely the powers that 
 were required to keep the peace on the tea plantations and 
 make any necessary preliminary investigation in cases of 
 serious crime. I will not further trespass, my lord, on your 
 patience. As a Liberal in politics I fully recognize that our 
 mission to India is to educate the Natives to the manage- 
 ment of their own affairs, and fit them for the largest mea- 
 sure of independence and equality ; but I think we are a 
 long way yet from the completion of this education, and that 
 in the meanwhile the differences which must exist between 
 the teacher and the taught should be fairly admitted. I 
 object to the Ilbert Bill, inasmuch as it disregards this diffe- 
 rence, and that it pretends not only to put the master and 
 pupil on equal terms, but actually to place the rod in the 
 hands of the pupil. (Cheers.) 
 
 Colonel Malleson (late guardian of H.H. the Maharajah 
 of Mysore) : My lord, I think that no stronger argument 
 can be adduced to bear upon any question than the argu- 
 ment of practical experience, and if I should be able to show 
 to your lordship that an experiment very similar to that 
 which has been put forward by the Government of India has 
 been introduced into one of the provinces of India and has 
 failed in that province, there will be good ground for asking 
 the Government of India to abandon such a measure. My 
 lord, I spent seven years in the country of Mysore. When 
 I arrived in that country Mr. Lewin Bowring was the chief 
 commissioner of that province. Mr. Bowring had served 
 with much distinction under very able masters ; he had been 
 brought up by Sir Henry and Sir John Lawrence in the 
 Punjab, and had served as private secretary to Lord 
 Canning during the most tumultuous time of that noble 
 lord's career in India. Mr. Bowring was sent by Lord 
 Canning to administer the country of Mysore, and Mr. 
 Bowring, who had at heart the welfare of the Natives as 
 much as any gentleman with whom it has been my good 
 fortune to be associated in India, endeavoured to give them 
 in the province the fullest power of internal administration. 
 Unfortunately Mr. Bowring is not able to be present this 
 afternoon ; he is detained by illness at Torquay ; but he has
 
 Deputation to the Secretary of State for India. 123 
 
 written to me his views on the subject, and with your lord- 
 ship's permission I will read an extract from his letter. He 
 says:— ''I should like to take this opportunity of saying 
 that I have regarded with grave distrust and anxiety the 
 recent measures of the Government of India. . . . There 
 is no disguising the fact that we hold India by the strong 
 hand, and that the time has not come when we can trust to 
 moral force to govern the Natives. I have no faith whatever 
 in their capacity for self-government independently of Euro- 
 pean control, nor could I place any confidence in Native 
 judges or magistrates who were removed from English super- 
 intendence. It is a notable fact that on the rendition of 
 Mysore, although it was a Native State, it was found ad- 
 visable and necessary to nominate an English officer to the 
 district where the coffee planters reside, so that the Govern- 
 ment of India itself showed a becoming distrust of Native 
 district officers. What I feel regarding the Ilbert Bill and 
 other recent measures of the Government of India, is that 
 they tend to unsettle our rule, and to excite hopes in the 
 Native mind which will never be realized in our time. I am 
 sure that no one who had to administer an Indian province 
 was more anxious than I was to advance qualified Natives 
 to high posts ; but although the experiment I made in nomi- 
 nating Mr. Krishniengar to be a district officer answered 
 thoroughly, the second Native whom I appointed to a similar 
 post proved a dismal failure. Ability and experience were 
 not wanting, but strict impartiality, combined with that un- 
 flagging energy which one finds in Englishmen, was not 
 forthcoming. There are a thousand and one influences at 
 work to deter a Native who wishes to be upright from follow- 
 ing a straightforward course — social ties and prejudices, caste 
 fears, religious feelings, and other motives, which hardly 
 present themselves to the mind of the European, but which 
 are all potent to the Native. So much is this the case, that 
 I am almost surprised that any Native official should wish to- 
 have jurisdiction over Englishmen. Lord Canning, my old 
 master, had a true insight into the genuine way of main- 
 taining our rule, for he saw that the mass of the people, 
 whose position we had done so much to elevate and improve^ 
 were supine or helpless in a time of convulsion, and he learnt 
 that it was to the allegiance of the great chiefs that we must 
 look in case of need. I shall always remember with pleasure 
 the small help that I was able to give him in those days. I 
 happen also to have known Lord Lawrence well, and I am 
 quite sure, from what I saw of him, that anxious as he was to
 
 124 Deputation to the Secretary of State for India. 
 
 better the condition of the ryots and to protect them from 
 oppression, and desirous as he was to foster municipal action, 
 he would never have dreamt of putting Native officials in a 
 quasi independent position and of giving them authority 
 over Europeans." I trust, my lord, that I shall be pardoned 
 for expressing what are the views of one of the most 
 experienced officials and administrators we have ever had in 
 India. (Hear, hear.) 
 
 LORD KIMBERLEY'S REPLY. 
 
 The Earl of KiMBERLEY : Gentlemen, I have had the ad- 
 vantage of reading the memorial which has been presented 
 to me, for Mr. Pugh was good enough to give me a copy, 
 and I need scarcely say that I shall make a point of trans- 
 mitting it without delay to Lord Ripon. With regard to the 
 arguments which I have heard, you, no doubt, will remember 
 that upon the occasion of Lord Lytton's motion in the 
 House of Lords, I myself and two of my colleagues stated 
 very fully the arguments which had induced the Government 
 to arrive at a conclusion favourable to the measure which you 
 have referred to to-day. I think it would be quite unneces- 
 sary and, indeed, probably unwise that I should now repeat 
 those arguments. I confess that my natural instinct for 
 debate makes me a httle tempted to deal with some of the 
 remarks that I have heard to-day, but there are only two 
 that I will allude to, because I do not think the matter is 
 likely to be advanced by controversial argument. There are 
 only two ; one is that I was rather pained to hear Sir Alex- 
 ander Arbuthnot bring forward as an argument the occur- 
 rence of two or three acts of violence on the part of Natives 
 at Calcutta. I cannot see that the commission of brutal 
 crimes, which are committed by white men in other countries 
 as well as by Natives, can affect the character of such Native 
 gentlemen as are at all likely to exercise jurisdiction under 
 this Bill, and I should be rather disposed to reply to such an 
 argument by the observation that was used by another 
 gentleman — namely, that because certain L-ishmen have un- 
 fortunately committed some grievous agrarian crimes, there- 
 fore no Irishman is fitted to sit upon the Judicial Bench in 
 Ireland to deal with crime in that country. One other re- 
 mark I should like to make is this. We have just heard an
 
 Lord Kimberleys Reply. 125 
 
 interesting Qetter read from Mr. Eowring, who has had ex- 
 perience in Mysore, and I was curious to know what was the 
 principle or the argument which he could suggest, as showing 
 by his experience that the committal of magisterial powers 
 to Natives had proved a failure, and would be likely to prove 
 a failure. But the only thing that I gathered was this — that 
 he had had experience of two magistrates. One of them, he 
 said, had been a success, and the other had turned out to be 
 a failure. Now, I have unfortunately had to deal with a 
 great many public officers in my time, and I am sorry to say 
 that out of a certain number of gentlemen — Europeans — 
 there are some who have proved failures in the offices they have 
 held, and in some particular or other have not realized the ex- 
 pectations formed with regard to them. I confess I think it is 
 scarcely possible to argue to the exclusion of the whole body of 
 Natives on the ground of a failure in oneparticular jurisdiction. 
 However, I will not pursue the argument any further. I am 
 very glad indeed that you have afforded me this opportunity of 
 stating that Her Majesty's Government adhere entirely to 
 their approval of the principle of the Bill, as stated in Lord 
 Hartington's despatch of December last, and that they have 
 not the slightest intention of instructing the GoYernment of 
 India to withdraw the Bill. You know, of course — indeed it 
 has been referred to by some speakers — that Lord Ripon 
 has referred the Bill, which was laid before the Legislative 
 Council, to the Local Government Committees and to some 
 other local bodies. He has not yet received the whole of 
 the reports which are expected to be returned from those 
 Governments and bodies. When they are received, I have 
 no doubt that in transmitting them to this country he will 
 express the opinion of the Government of India upon the 
 subject, and it may be very possible that the Government of 
 India may come to the conclusion that it is desirable to 
 introduce certain modifications into the Bill, as brought 
 before the Legislative Council, not inconsistent with its 
 general principle. I am sure, however, the deputation will 
 not expect me to allude in any way now to any particular 
 points upon which the Bill might possibly be modified, 
 because it would be very wrong on my part to express an 
 opinion before I know the views of the Government of India, 
 and also the opinions that have been expressed by the Local 
 Governments on those various details. I hope that the 
 deputation who have brought this matter very fully before 
 me will not think that I am giving them a curt answer. I do 
 not in the least desire to do so. I am very sensible, indeed,
 
 126 Lo7'd Kmiberleys Reply, 
 
 of the weight and importance of the deputation that has 
 waited upon me. I find nothing whatsoever in this memorial 
 which I have the smallest reason to complain of. The views 
 of the memorialists, as far as I can gather, are stated in clear, 
 plain, forcible, and very temperate language ; and it is a 
 distinct advantage to the Government that where there is a 
 large body of gentlemen who, although I may not agree 
 with them, entertain very strong views upon a question of 
 importance of this kind, they should lay those views before 
 the Government, and give us a full and ample opportunity 
 of considering them with reference to the subject before us. 
 
 Mr. PUGH : I have only, on the part of the deputation, to 
 thank your lordship for having received the deputation, and 
 also to thank you for the careful and considerate way in 
 which you have dealt wath the matter. 
 
 The deputation then withdrew.
 
 LETTER TO THE "TIMES" FROM SIR ALEXANDER 
 ARBUTHNOT, K.C.8.1. 
 
 {July 27, 1883.) 
 
 — o — 
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Sir, — As I had no opportunity yesterday of replying to 
 the remark which was made by Lord Kimberley in his 
 answer to the deputation on the Ilbert Bill with reference to 
 the course taken by me in alluding to certain outrages which 
 have lately occurred at Calcutta, I wish to say that the 
 Secretary of State entirely misunderstood my meaning when 
 he assumed that I had referred to those outrages for the pur- 
 pose of in any way reflecting upon " the character of the 
 native gentlemen who are likely to exercise jurisdiction 
 tinder this Bill." Nothing could have been m.ore remote 
 from my intention, or from the plain meaning, as I venture 
 to think, of the words in which I alluded to this painful sub- 
 ject. My argument was that the Bill, if it became law, 
 would be a permanent cause of race antipathies, and that b)^ 
 the ill-feeling which it would excite between the English in 
 India and the natives, it would have a bad political effect in 
 impairing the respect and consideration with which English- 
 men and Englishwomen, as a rule, are treated in that 
 country ; and in support of this argument I alluded to the 
 painful incidents of which we have heard by recent mails, as 
 indicating that the excitement and agitation which have re- 
 sulted from the introduction of the Bill in question, and the 
 bitter antagonism of race which it has unfortunately revived, 
 had already begun to produce this effect. For, as every one 
 who has lived in India knows, outrages by natives of India 
 against English gentlemen or ladies are, in ordinary times, 
 extremely rare, and the occurrence in the metropolis of India
 
 128 Sir Alexander Ai'biLthnofs Letter. 
 
 within a very brief period, and at this time of excitement 
 and agitation, of two such cases as those to which I drew 
 attention, is surely a very significant fact, and one which 
 goes far to justify the apprehensions of those who regard this 
 Bill as a probable source of political difficulty. 
 
 And I cannot think that in drawing attention to this fact 
 I am in any way open to the charge of imputing, even by 
 implication, to native officials, least of all to the class of 
 officials who, to repeat Lord Kimberley's words, "are 
 likely to exercise jurisdiction under this Bill," any sort of 
 sympathy with outrage, or of drawing from the outrages 
 which have occurred any inference as to the fitness or unfit- 
 ness of native magistrates or Judges to exercise the jurisdic- 
 tion which it is proposed to confer upon them. I recognize 
 quite as fully as the Secretary of State for India can recog- 
 nize, the impropriety, and, indeed, the absurdity of any such 
 imputations or inferences ; and as one who though depre- 
 cating as impolitic and uncalled for the withdrawal from 
 Englishmen in India of the privilege of which it is now 
 proposed to deprive them, has long been a staunch advocate 
 of the claims of natives to advancement in the public service, 
 I wish to disclaim in the most public manner the views 
 which have been attributed to me in Lord Kimberley's 
 speech. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 Alex. J. Arbutitnot. 
 
 Newtown House, Newbury, ////j/ 27.
 
 LETTER TO THE "TIMES" FROM MR. J. DACOSTA. 
 
 {Jidy 27, 1883.) 
 
 — O — ' 
 
 TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES. 
 
 Sir, — The danger of placing the supreme control of the 
 Government of India, of its vast territories and its millions 
 of inhabitants, in the hands of an officer personally unac- 
 quainted with the country, with its people, and with their 
 language, was strongly exemplified in Lord Kimberley's 
 answer to the deputation last Thursday, when his lordship 
 could perceive no political significance whatever in the ex- 
 traordinary outrages which have recently been committed by 
 natives in India on the persons of Englishmen and English- 
 women. All that his lordship could see was that ruffians 
 existed in India as in other parts of the world ; but had he 
 been personally acquainted with India, he could not have 
 failed to perceive that the outrages were such as have rarely 
 occurred in the course of our Indian rule, and been remark- 
 able on previous occasions only when a strong political feel- 
 ing was aroused among the people, either through some 
 error committed by the Government, or by ambitious men 
 exciting religious fanaticism or otherwise imposing on the 
 credulity of the masses. 
 
 The outrages now reported are not such as ruffians com- 
 mit from personal motives. In every instance the risk incurred 
 has been out of proportion to the ostensible end in view ; 
 but they are strongly characteristic of fanatical and race 
 hatred, such as marked the period which immediately pre- 
 ceded the mutinies of 1857. The evil at present might 
 doubtless be arrested by judicious and firm management, 
 but to ignore its significance must inevitably lead to its in- 
 crease in extent and intensity, and greatly aggravate the 
 ultimate difficulty of suppressing it. 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 J. Dacosta. 
 
 16, Manson Place, Jtdy 2y. 
 
 K
 
 MEETING AT LIMEHOUSE, 
 
 {Angiist 2, 1883.) 
 
 A meeting of the opponents of the Ilbert Bill zvas held on 
 Thursday, August 2, at tJie Toivn Hall, Liviehottse ; the 
 Hon. E. Stanhope, M.P., in tJie chair. The Limehonsc 
 Town Hall is probably the largest place of meetiiig in the 
 East End ; and it was densely packed, large nnnibers being 
 unable to find seats. The proceedings were a good deal 
 interi'upted by a small body of persons who had evidently 
 joined the meeting for pitrposes of obstruction ; but zvhen 
 the resolutions zuereputto the vote, only tiventy-ihree hands 
 were counted against them, out of a meeting coftsisting of 
 several hundred persons. The resolutioiis were similar to 
 those passed at the meeting held in St. James's Hall. The 
 following speeches zuere made by Mr. Stanhope, Sir A. 
 A r-buthnot, and Mr. Lethbridge, 
 
 Mr. E. Stanhope, M.P., in opening- the proceedings, 
 expressed his regret that Lord George Hamilton, who had 
 promised to be present, and who warmly sympathized with 
 the objects of the meeting, had that morning suffered a 
 domestic affliction, which prevented his attendance. Turning 
 to the purpose of the meeting, he went on to say that they 
 were met to discuss a measure which was popularly known 
 under the name of Mr. Ilbert's Bill, and he felt quite sure 
 he might appeal to the speakers who would address them 
 on the subject to deal with the question without such attacks 
 upon opponents as they had seen an instance of at the
 
 Meeting- at Linichottse. i^i 
 
 %b 
 
 meeting of the previous day, and with that moderation and 
 calmness which properly befitted the discussion of any 
 Indian question whatever. Up to this time the Committee 
 of Anglo-Indians who had undertaken the opposition to 
 the Bill, had been carrying on that opposition with an 
 absolute freedem from party feeling, and with a moderation, 
 calmness, and good temper in this country which did them 
 the highest credit. (Hear, hear.) They might, he thought, 
 also be certainly very firmly convinced that the facts they 
 had to bring forward and the unanswerable arguments by, 
 which they could support their case, had made an impression 
 upon the Government. But, unhappily, they had recently 
 found that a deputation of Anglo-Indians, who had argued 
 their cause in the most moderate and calm manner, had 
 been snubbed by the Secretary of State for India, and that 
 all who had opposed this Bill had been attacked by Mr. 
 Bright in terms of very great violence. Still, it seemed to 
 him that the time had come when every man in this country, 
 to whatever party he might belong, who was deeply im- 
 pressed with a conviction of the great dangers likely to be 
 involved in the pressing forward of this Bill, was bound, if 
 he had even the smallest influence among his fellc^w-country- 
 men, to come forward and take an active part in opposition 
 to it. (Hear, hear.) It was not to be supposed for a 
 single moment that any of them in coming there to take 
 part in this meeting were actuated by feelings of opposition 
 to the larger employment of natives in the Civil Service of 
 India. That policy was not the monopoly of any one 
 political party. (Hear, hear.) He believed that the great 
 charter upon which they now relied, was issued in the time 
 of a Conservative Government. (Cheers.) And there had 
 been no more outspoken and candid supporter of that policy 
 than his friend Sir Stafford Northcote, or any man who had 
 tried more persistently to give that policy practical effect than 
 his friend Lord Lytton. (Loud cheers.) All people interested 
 in Indian affairs, to whatever political party they belonged, 
 had always felt that the policy to which they were called to give 
 their adhesion, required to be applied in the exceptional cir- 
 cumstances of India with due caution, and under the guidance 
 of the experience of those who thoroughly understood the 
 feelings of the natives of the country. That, he believed, 
 had been the policy of all previous Governors-General ; but 
 they were now face to face for the first time with a proposal 
 of a somewhat different character, which proposed to subject 
 Europeans in the greater part of the country in all criminal . 
 
 K 2
 
 132 Afeetiiig at Limehotisc. 
 
 cases to the jurisdiction of native magistrates, without taking 
 any adequate safeguards whatever. (Cheers.) Considering 
 the manner in which the Bill had been introduced into the 
 country, Mr. Stanhope observed, no one liked to own that 
 he Avas the father of it. Mr. Ilbert, whose name would 
 always be associated with it, said it was not his, that he 
 was not responsible for it, and that it was the Government 
 of India which had brought in this Bill. But the Govern- 
 ment of India, including Lord Ripon, were only too anxious 
 to get rid of all responsibility, and to say that they brought 
 it in because they were urged to do so by Sir Ashley Eden. 
 That gentleman, however, who spoke with more authority 
 than any one, was able to say that he was not for one 
 moment responsible for the Bill having been brought forward 
 in the manner and at the time it had been proposed. They 
 had, therefore, before them a fatherless Bill — a little orphan 
 that no one was willing to claim, and they had to look into 
 its provisions in order to see what merits it possessed. It 
 was in the first place to be observed that the Bill was of very 
 considerable importance to the rich Englishmen in India, 
 but it was a Bill of immeasurably greater importance to the 
 poor Englishmen in India. (Cheers.) Who were the people 
 likely to suffer from the action of this Bill } Those Anglo- 
 Indians engaged in the prosecution of the industries of the 
 country, who lived in remote parts of the country far away 
 from the greater number of the European population. The 
 rich Anglo-Indian was in case of difficulty able to obtain 
 legal assistance of a high character, while the poor man 
 would now be subjected to the jurisdiction of native judges 
 in criminal cases without that right which he had always 
 previously enjoyed, of submitting a case, affecting his liberty 
 and personal character, to the decision of his countrymen. 
 He had noticed that amongst the arguments of those who 
 were earnest supporters of this measure, there was one in 
 particular to which he would like to direct their attention 
 — viz., that special consideration should be given to the position 
 of the judge. It was urged that it was a great hardship to 
 the Native Indian judge, who had worked through the stages 
 of the Civil Service, and who had taken the trouble to 
 acquire legal knowledge, that he should have no jurisdiction 
 oyer Europeans in India. (Hear, hear.) But it seemed to 
 him that the man they had to think about more particularly, 
 was the prisoner. (Loud cheers.) It might be just as well main- 
 tained that because the judges in this country did not like to 
 try cases of murder, because everybody knew that they were
 
 Meeting at Lzmehouse. 133 
 
 very disagreeable, those cases should be handed over to 
 an inferior judge. In matters of ' this kind we thought 
 always of the prisoner ; and with regard to the situation 
 in India, it was felt that the prisoner and his wife and 
 family ought to have the best justice that English liberality 
 and fair play could procure. (Hear, hear.) The second 
 theory which was relied upon in favour of the Bill was that 
 of sweeping away all race distinctions in India ; it was 
 said that a beginning was to be made in the work of sweep- 
 ing away all those distinctions— (hear, hear)— and he 
 did not think that this view of the case could have been 
 more strongly put than it was the previous day by a 
 native speaker, Mr. Lalmohun Ghose, who had addressed the 
 meeting at Willis's Rooms. That gentleman had said that 
 in India there was still one law for Europeans and another 
 for Natives — (shame) — and that the criminal code was full of 
 invidious distinctions of race. Well, this was quite true, and 
 for a reason which he would at once indicate. When in a 
 case going on before a tribunal in India an Englishwoman 
 was obliged to go and give evidence she could be brought 
 there by compulsion, she could be forced to answer every 
 question that every cross-examining counsel could put to her, 
 but a native woman could refuse to go to the c^urt. (Hear, 
 hear.) An exceptional law protected the native woman ; 
 her prejudices and the feelings of her countrymen were 
 respected, and she was not compelled to come into court. 
 (Question.) If he were asked what this had to do with the 
 question, he must say that it seemed to him to be the very 
 vital essence of it. (Cheers.) There were undoubtedly 
 distinctions between race. We protected the Native women 
 of India in the court of law, we protected the idols of the 
 people of India, we protected the temples of the people of 
 India, and we protected the other customs and feelings of the 
 people of India, and in every possible way we respected the 
 races, the castes, and the religions of the natives of India 
 throughout the whole of that country. (Cheers.) In sum- 
 ming up this part of the case, what he had to say to them 
 was this ; that if they were going to carry out the principle 
 for which Mr. Lalmohun Ghose contended, they would have 
 to sweep away a hundred distinctions in favour of the Native 
 for one in favour of the l^^uropean. (Hear, hear.) However, 
 he would pass from this point, because neither in India nor 
 in this country were we governed by pure theory. We were 
 governed by practical considerations. If we were going to 
 look into it very critically we should know perfectly well that
 
 1-34 Meeting at LivieJio^tse. 
 
 our whole Government in India was one of the greatest 
 anomahes in the whole world, and that of all the difficult 
 and intricate questions with which the Government had to, 
 deal, the most delicate and intricate was that of the relations 
 between Englishmen and Natives. He would venture to say- 
 that when any legislation was proposed in this country or in 
 India which in any way affected relations between English- 
 men and Natives in India, we ought to hold fast to two 
 cardinal considerations, which to his own mind ought to 
 influence us in the most important degree. The first of these 
 Avas that we must secure the safety of our dominion in India, 
 and he did not think that any one had put this point more 
 forcibly than a Go\^enior-General whose name was entitled 
 to the highest respect in every assembly of Englishmen — the 
 late Lord Lawrence. (Cheers.) Lord Lawrence had said 
 that the truest kindness to the natives of India was to take 
 steps to secure the continuance and the strength of our rule. 
 (Hear, hear.) As for his second cardinal condition, it was 
 that they ought, in dealing with any such intricate and 
 delicate question as that to which he had alluded, pay the 
 greatest possible regard to the feelings and knowledge of 
 those Anglo-Indians who had had experience in India. 
 Those Anglo-Indians possessed a knowledge of the customs 
 and of the prejudices of the people of India which no other 
 person could have, however much they might read about 
 India and in that way study the country. Well, he would 
 ask them whether in this particular case the feelings, know- 
 ledge, and experience of Anglo-Indians had been appealed 
 to for a single moment \\\ support of the Bill. ('' No.") He 
 might go further and say — and this was a point which had 
 been brought very prominently forward during the last few 
 days — that there was not the smallest evidence that any 
 demand existed on the part of the Natives for any such Bill 
 as that which was now before the Government of India. 
 (Hear, hear.) He held in his hand a letter w^ritten by a 
 Native inhabitant of India which put the case with so very 
 much force that they would permit him to read two or three 
 sentences from it. The Native said " that Mr. Ilbert's pro- 
 posal to extend the jurisdiction over European British 
 subjects by Natives was certainly impolitic and ill-timed. It 
 was calculated to do more harm than good to the furtherance 
 of Native interests. It might satisfy ideal claims of justice, 
 but, on the other hand, it would excite race feeling and 
 widen the gulf which unhappily existed between Europeans 
 and Natives." (Hear, hear.) And then he went on to say,
 
 Meeting at Lime house. 135 
 
 " Legislative measures like the one under consideration should 
 consult the wishes and feelings of those whom they concern. 
 The European community is averse to it, and the Native 
 community has not demanded it. Why, then, introduce a 
 measure which will do no practical good, but incalculable 
 harm, by generating friction between the two races — a de- 
 plorable result, in my humble opinion ? " (Cheers.) Well, 
 who had been consulted in this matter .? They all knew 
 that the class of Englishmen in India who were not officials 
 had never been consulted at all. They knew perfectly well 
 what the result of appeals to the official Englishmen had 
 been. Originally the Local Governments were consulted, 
 and they sent back answers to the proposal of Lord Ripon 
 which were taken by Lord Ripon to imply some adhesion to 
 the principle for which he contended, and thereupon he in- 
 troduced the Bill. He had sent round the Bill to the Local 
 Governments. We had not yet got their opinions In this 
 country, but what we heard beyond any reasonable doubt 
 was this, that the Local Governments in India were almost 
 unanimously opposed to it. (Cheers.) And one of the 
 things of which he must complain was this, that while they 
 sent home from India a telegram soon enough to explain in 
 their own language, and as he ventured to say, entirely con- 
 trary to the facts that were before them, the debate that 
 took place In the Indian Council, because they thought It 
 would tell In favour of the Bill, they were abstaining day by 
 day from sending the answers of the Local Governments ; 
 and when they got them he supposed it would be in the sarne 
 sort of form that they got the debate in the Indian Council. 
 (Hear, hear.) He must say that the Anglo-Indian com- 
 munity had been treated most cruelly, when they were told 
 yesterday at a meeting in Willis's Rooms that It was open to 
 them to go the House of Commons and to submit a motion 
 condemning the Bill. He thought he had never heard a more 
 unfair observation, because they knew perfectly well the 
 reason why no motion had been submitted. He might say 
 for himself that the reason why he had submitted no motion 
 to the House of Commons had been. In the first place, 
 because he had been most rigidly careful up to the present 
 time not to make it in the smallest degree a question between 
 parties in this country. (Cheers, and interruption.) Until 
 the meeting of Wednesday, it had never been a question 
 between pakies. (Hear, hear.) In the second place he had 
 desired above all things to do what the supporters of this Bill 
 had always urged them to do — he had desired to wait as long
 
 136 Meeting at LiiJiekouse. 
 
 as he could in order that the fullest information might be 
 before the country, and that Lord Ripon himself might have 
 the fullest opportunity of considering the opinions that had 
 been expressed. (Cheers.) But there was another party 
 that had been consulted — the judges of the High Court ; and 
 the judges of the High Court, who were specially qualified 
 to express an opinion upon this subject of jurisdiction, had 
 pronounced against this Bill in a paper which, he thought,, 
 would long be remembered as one of the ablest State papers 
 ever sent to this country. It seemed therefore to be this, 
 that in the opinion of all those, or almost every one of those,, 
 most qualified to judge from their knowledge of the country, 
 and from the experience that they had of the feelings and 
 prejudices of the Natives, it appeared to be felt and admitted 
 that this Bill would not do the smallest atom of good to the 
 Natives of India, and that it might do enormous mischief to 
 the true interests and to the future of India. (Cheers.) He 
 should venture to say in concluding the remarks which he 
 had ventured to submit, that if they desired at that moment, 
 sitting in that room, to take steps for securing the stability 
 of their rule in India, then ask that this Bill might be 
 dropped. (Hear, hear.) If they desired to develop the true 
 interests of India, and to extend into the remotest parts of 
 the country the application of English capital to industrial 
 undertakings, which were calculated to do enormous good to 
 the country, then demand that this policy might be reversed. 
 (Cheers.) And if above all they desired that the difficulties 
 and animosities between races should be gradually and 
 speedily got rid of, and that both Englishmen and Natives 
 should endeavour to be amicably united for the common 
 purpose of promoting the interests of the Empire, then insist 
 upon the withdrawal of the Ilbert Bill. (Cheers.) 
 
 Sir A. Arbuthnot said that the objections to this 
 Bill had been very fully stated by Mr. Stanhope in the 
 admirable speech to which they had just listened. As,, 
 however, he had spent the greater part of his life in India, 
 he might perhaps submit for their consideration a few points 
 connected with this measure. In the first place he should 
 like to remind them of the vast extent of our Indian Empire.. 
 India was not only a very great country in the extent of its 
 area, but it was also a very populous country, containing a 
 population of 250,000,000. (Hear.) And this vast country,, 
 with its teeming population, was ruled by a small body of 
 Englishmen — a small handful, he might say, in comparison 
 with the millions of Asiatics, who, side by side with a few
 
 Meeting at Lime house. 137 
 
 thousands of Englishmen, inhabited that great country. 
 (Cheers, and an exclamation of " ShAme ! " from one corner 
 of the room.) A gentleman had called out *' Shame," 
 when he referred to the fact that India was ruled by a hand- 
 ful of Englishmen. He could not believe that this sentiment 
 was shared by that meeting, or by any other assembly of 
 Englishmen ; for the more he studied the history of the 
 conquest and government of India, the more was he im- 
 pressed by the beneficence of English rule in India ; and he 
 did not believe that in the history of the world there was 
 another instance of a Government having so thoroughly 
 devoted itself, both in intention and in act, to the task of 
 benefiting a subject people. (Cheers.) It was not, how- 
 ever, necessary for him on this occasion to defend the justice 
 and benevolence of British Indian administration. They 
 could readily imagine that the government of this great 
 country, and of its vast population, by a small body of men 
 of an alien race, was by no means an easy task ; that it was 
 a task which needed great judgment and discretion, and 
 that one of the most important matters to keep in view 
 was that the Natives of the country should look up to and 
 respect their English rulers ; that while we governed them 
 with justice and benevolence, while we endeavoiiVed to give 
 them peace and prosperity, while we imparted to them the 
 advantages of the discoveries of modern science, while, by 
 improving the communications and developing the irrigation 
 works, we did all that was in our power to avert that great 
 calamity of famine, to which, at all times and under all 
 Governments, India had been subject ; while we did all we 
 could to educate the Natives and to give them a share in the 
 government of their country : at the same time we should be 
 most careful to do nothing that might weaken our credit as 
 a powerful nation, or that might sow the seeds of ill-feeling 
 between the English and the Native inhabitants of India, or 
 in any way imperil the safety of the Englishmen and 
 Englishwomen who were scattereci over that vast continent. 
 One of the things which had been considered by the wisest 
 statesmen to be necessary, in order to maintain the respect 
 which the Natives of India entertained for Englishmen, and 
 to ensure that the latter should pursue their avocations in 
 safety, was that Englishmen and Englishwomen, when 
 charged with criminal offences in the districts away from the 
 Presidency towns, should be invariably tried by Englishmen. 
 It had "been felt that the retention of this privilege in favour 
 of Englishmen and Englishwomen was perfectly compatible
 
 138 Meeting at Limehouse. 
 
 with the Hberal policy — hberal not in a poHtical or party 
 sense, but in the sense of governing India for the benefit of 
 the Natives of the country, and of promoting their moral 
 and intellectual advancement, and also their political 
 advancement, so far as was consistent with the supremacy of 
 British rule — which had been avowed by successive Govern- 
 ments of India and successive English ministries. And here 
 he must remind them that, in the words of Lord Lawrence, 
 that great administrator to whom Mr. Stanhope had already 
 referred, the supremacy of British rule was " essential to the 
 well-being of the people of India." For many years English- 
 men in India, when charged with criminal offences, could 
 only be tried by the Supreme Courts, now the High Courts, 
 in the Presidency towns ; but this was found to be incon- 
 venient, as with the extension of our Empire the number of 
 Englishmen in India had increased, and the distances over 
 which prosecutors and witnesses and prisoners had to travel 
 were greater than they used to be. (A voice, *' A denial of 
 justice.") Yes, in some few cases there had been, owing to 
 this cause, a practical denial of justice ; and accordingly 
 eleven years ago a law was passed which g-ave jurisdiction 
 to the English Judges and Magistrates in the Provinces to 
 try and sentence Englishmen for certain offences, excluding 
 those of the most heinous kind. On that occasion it was 
 deliberately considered and discussed in the Council of the 
 Governor-General of India whether similar powers should be 
 conferred upon Native Magistrates and Judges, when those 
 offices should be held by Natives, as was likely to be the 
 case to a limited extent at no very distant date ; but after 
 full discussion it was settled that it was not expedient or 
 politic, and that, in the interests of the administration of 
 justice, it was not necessary, that the privilege of being tried 
 by their own countrymen, which Englishmen in India had 
 always enjoyed, should be withdrawn from them ; and this 
 decision was accepted both by Natives and by Englishmen 
 as a perfectly fair and just decision. It was this settlement — 
 a wise settlement of the question, as he thought — which the 
 Ilbert Bill proposed to undo. Mr. Bright had said at the 
 meeting of the previous day that the Ilbert Bill was a very 
 small Bill. (At the mention of Mr. Bright's name there 
 were loud and prolonged cheers from some persons who had 
 joined the meeting, and from that time the harmony of the 
 meeting came to an end.) After a pause Sir Alexander 
 Arbuthnot went on to say that Mr. Bright had called the 
 Bill a very small Bill, and that this was true as regards the
 
 Meeting at Limehouse. 139 
 
 present time ; but that in course of time the number of 
 Natives who would exercise the new jurisdiction, if the Bill 
 passed, would considerably increase. 
 
 There were several reasons why the proposed change in 
 the law was inexpedient. In the first place it was not 
 necessary for administrative reasons ; for the number of 
 Englishmen in India, though larger than it used to be, was 
 never likely to be so great as to necessitate the withdrawal 
 of the present privilege, in order that justice might be pro- 
 perly administered. In the next place there had been no 
 genuine demand for a change in the law on the part of the 
 great body of the Native community. A noisy section were 
 urging the change, now that it had been put into their 
 heads ; but the demand was, in fact, a factitious demand for 
 a privilege which nobody cared about a few months ago, 
 and not a genuine demand for the removal of a real griev- 
 ance. In the third place the measure was most distasteful 
 to the great body of Englishmen and Englishwomen in India, 
 and might be a source of danger to many of them. The 
 difference in the habits and modes of life of Englishmen 
 and Asiatics was so great that a Native of India, however 
 intelligent and however anxious to do justice, would hardly, 
 as a rule, be deemed competent to try an Englishman for 
 a criminal offence. Of late years there had been a very 
 great improvement in the qualifications of the Native Judges, 
 and in ordinary times cases of positive injustice would prob- 
 ably be rare ; still it was to be feared that in times of excite- 
 ment, whether religious or political, such cases would not 
 unfrequently occur. He would leave it to some of the 
 speakers who would follow him, to explain how specially 
 unfitting it was that Englishzvomeii in India should be sub- 
 jected to the criminal jurisdiction of Native Magistrates or 
 Judges. 
 
 Lastly, the proposal to withdraw the privilege to which he 
 had referred, had aroused, and, if carried out would, he 
 feared, perpetuate those antipathies of race, which we had 
 heard of before in India. Within the last week or two we 
 had read of painful incidents in the metropolis of India, of 
 a kind which never occur except in times of grave religious 
 or political excitement. We had heard of insults to English 
 ladies in Calcutta, and of outrages which would never have 
 been ventured upon in ordinary times. He did not wish to 
 be misunderstood. He did not mean for a moment to imply 
 that the class of Native officials who would exercise the 
 jurisdiction which the Bill created, would have the slightest
 
 140 Meeting at Limehouse, 
 
 sympathy with such outrages. He was proud to reckon 
 among Natives of that class several valued friends, who would 
 regard such outrages with not less detestation than that with 
 which we regarded them. What he wished to show was, 
 that situated as the English were situated in India, it was 
 very dangerous to introduce measures which m.ight produce 
 race antagonism, or in any way diminish the consideration in 
 which Englishmen and Englishwomen are held by the 
 Natives of India. (Hear, hear.) 
 
 Before he sat down he would refer to another remark 
 made by Mr. Bright on the previous day. Mr. Bright had 
 said a good deal about an Act of Parliament which was 
 passed just fifty years ago, and which contained a clause 
 enacting that no Native of India should be disqualified for 
 any office by reason of his creed, colour, or caste. Now he 
 (Sir Alexander) wished to say that in opposing this Bill, he 
 and his friends were not in any way seeking to exclude a 
 Native of India from any office. The objections which they 
 urged were not directed against the appointment of a Native 
 to the office of Magistrate or Judge, but simply against the 
 withdrawal from Englishmen of the privilege of being tried 
 for criminal offences by their own countrymen ; and the 
 retention of this privilege was not incompatible with the 
 advancement of Natives to the offices which he had named. 
 (Hear, hear.) He must also draw attention to a remarkable 
 observation made by Mr. Forster at the same meeting, to the 
 effect that the opposition to the Ilbert Bill had not arisen 
 until after Lord Ripon's Local Self-Government Resolution 
 had been published, the fact being that the intention to 
 pass the Ilbert Bill was not made public until early in 
 the present year, while the Local Self-Government Reso- 
 lution had been issued so far back as May, 1882. (Hear, 
 hear.) There was one sentence in Mr. Forster's speech with 
 which he agreed, viz., where he spoke of the importance of 
 the Local Self-Government Resolution ; but he (Sir Alex- 
 ander) used the word " importance," as applied to that 
 Resolution, in a very different sense from that in which it 
 was used by Mr. Forster, and in connection with the Resolu- 
 tion alluded to he would conclude by reading to the meet- 
 ing a passage in a letter which he had received some time 
 ago from one of the most eminent Native officials in India : — 
 
 " I am afraid the measure is at least half a century in 
 advance of its time. I only hope, if introduced, it will not 
 throw back the cause. It is strange, too, that the Government 
 should seek to commence at the wrong end. Why not first
 
 Me2ting at Lzmehotise. 141 
 
 enlarge the legislative councils and give them more powers ? 
 The Education Commission, too, I fear is another blunder. 
 It is setting missionaries and natives by the ears. We are 
 never satisfied with what we have, but must do things by- 
 leaps and jumps. I begin to feel that a five years' tenure of 
 power is a terrible temptation to a man to do something 
 which should be essentially his own." (Cheers.) 
 
 Mr. Roper Lethbridge, CLE., said that his only 
 claim to say a few words in support of the resolution was 
 that he had spent many years of his life in India, that 
 he had learned to love that country and its people, and 
 that he felt certain that this iniquitous Bill, if persevered 
 in, would prove the ruin, not only of the English in India, 
 but of India itself. He wished first to denounce with the 
 utmost indignation the imputation that had been made upon 
 Anglo-Indians that they opposed the Bill from the base 
 motive of jealousy of the natives. They desired to see the 
 natives educated and enlightened, they desired to see them 
 largely and usefully employed by the Indian Government ; 
 but for the sake of the natives themselves, as well as for the 
 sake of the Empire at large, they did not desire to see them 
 placed in positions for which they were entirely disqualified, 
 however high their character and education, by reason of their 
 social customs. When native magistrates broke through the 
 shackles of caste — under which the poor low-caste man was 
 not allowed to stand on the same carpet with the Brahmin, 
 even in a Court of Justice — when they learnt to look upon 
 women as the equals of men, when they married one woman 
 only and respected her as their equal ; then, but not till then, 
 would he and those who agreed with him be prepared to 
 hear of their sitting in judgment on Englishwomen. In the 
 next place, the people directly afi"ected by this measure were 
 the ^Qw native magistrates who would obtain this jurisdiction 
 on the one side, and whole body of Englishmen and English- 
 women residing in the rural districts, on the other side. The 
 vast bulk of the natives neither knew nor cared about it ; 
 whilst the most liberal and most intelligent section of the 
 native community deplored it, as surely causing hatred be- 
 tween the Native and the Englishman. A renowned orator 
 had uttered an unworthy sneer against them on the previous 
 day, because in their memorial to the Secretary of State they 
 stated that the Englishmen and Englishwomen who would 
 be affected by the Bill belonged almost entirely to the poorer 
 classes ; but he challenged Mr. Bright and every one of the 
 supporters of the Ilbert Bill to disprove the statement. It
 
 142 Meeting at Limchoiise. 
 
 was not the wealthy planter or the influential official who 
 had anything to fear, at least for the present, from the Bill. 
 But in the rural districts that would come under the opera- 
 tion of the Bill, there were thousands of industrious, intelli- 
 gent English working men, who were the very bone and 
 sinew of the commercial enterprise of the country, who 
 worked the railways which have proved such a boon to India, 
 and whose skill and intelligence guided the manual labour of 
 native workmen, and it was against those men that false 
 charges would be brought, whose wives and daughters would 
 be subject to intimidation and extortion, and who would ulti- 
 mately be driven out of the country, to the ruin of its com- 
 merce and to the disgrace of the English name. The assertion 
 that only a few English men and women would be touched 
 by the Bill was used as an argument in its favour, but even 
 were the number few, which he denied, he contended that by 
 driving them out of the country they would entirely destroy 
 the great nascent industries of India, for no capitalists would 
 invest capital in a country where their employes were not 
 secure. (Hear, hear.) It was urged by the supporters of 
 the Bill that justice must be done, even if the whole of the 
 commerce of India and of England were destroyed ; that il 
 the native magistrates were qualified to exercise jurisdiction, 
 the power should be given to them, even at the risk of lower- 
 ing every workman's wages in India and in England. To 
 that he assented without the smallest hesitation. But he 
 would ask any one who had read the petition, which was 
 signed by nearly every Englishwoman in India, and which 
 Avas in the hands of many present that evening, whether it 
 could be said that native magistrates, however high their 
 character and ability, were qualified to judge of the actions 
 and motives of Englishwomen. It was an undeniable fact 
 that native magistrates had been brought up under a social 
 system that held women to be distinctly inferior to men, and 
 under such circumstances it w^ould'be a monstrous thing that 
 they should deliberately change the law of the land in order 
 to render Englishwomen liable to be dragged up for trial, 
 perhaps on the most humiliating charges, before magistrate;: 
 who were entirely unable to understand or to appreciate their 
 actions or their motives. (Cheers.)
 
 LETTER TO THE "TIMES" FROM THE RIGHT 
 HON. SIR LAURENCE PEEL, 
 
 {Formerly Chief Justice of Bengal) 
 
 Sir, — Judges neither in India nor elsewhere are measure- 
 able by their jurisdiction, but by their merit. A peremptory 
 challenge to a juror may proceed solely from the defendant's 
 distrust. The allowance of it by the law is in favoreni vitce, 
 and implies no disesteem of jurors or juror. I entertain no 
 distrust whatever nor fear of miscarriage by native Judges, 
 if well selected. I, therefore, if a defendant, should challenge 
 none ; but if my co-defendant did, why should I seek to 
 deprive him of his peremptory challenge ? This remnant of 
 the law, whatever you call it — privilege, or by whatever 
 other name — is virtually in the nature of a peremptory 
 challenge. Nobody would have offended me by objecting 
 to my being summoned on the Judicial Committee on an 
 appeal in a given case merely because I was not a native 
 Judge, supposing such a ground of challenge had been 
 tenable. If a Hindoo, or Mahomedan, or other native 
 Judge is taught to confound extent of jurisdiction with 
 judicial fitness, he will so far have been led astray and made 
 to imbibe false notions of his office and dignity. Nobody in 
 truth can degrade him but himself Why should any one 
 suppose the trial of a European more difficult to try in India 
 than that of a native ^ The challenger may be ignorant, preju- 
 diced, or stupid ; the challenged eminently in all things his 
 superior. Is, then, the challenged self-abased or generally 
 lowered by the allowance of a peremptory challenge } Insults 
 to Judges and comparative estimates of Judges do not seem 
 elements in this inquiry. Suppose it were proposed in England 
 to try all criminals by a Judge without jury. Would any one
 
 144 ^^^^ Laurence PeeVs Letter. 
 
 by sug-g-esting that the Judge would probably try them 
 better, calm the ferment of men's minds at the bare proposal ? 
 The reality and strength of sentiments, and not their abstract 
 reasonableness, generally determine questions of expediency 
 as to overpowering or yielding to them. This particular 
 privilege has no connection whatever with dominion or high 
 hand ; it came in originally by concession from native 
 power, grew and prevailed where no lex loci existed, and is 
 as completely the result of the force of circumstances, usage, 
 and custom as any law of any kind that exists in India. To 
 make it now seem offensive to natives and derogatory to 
 native Judges, is simply giving a bad name and executing on 
 the misnomer. 
 
 I have the honour to be. Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 Laurence Peel.
 
 A PLAIN STATEMENT ABOUT THE ILBERT BILL 
 FOR ENGLISH READERS. 
 
 At a time when so much controversy rages around what is 
 known as the "Ilbert Bill," a little information about it may 
 not be out of place. 
 
 The parties to the controversy are the Viceroy of India 
 and Her Majesty's European British subjects in that 
 country. 
 
 Though few in numbers, the latter claim a hearing for two 
 reasons. 
 
 The first is that the Viceroy is the aggressor, and wishes 
 against their will to bind them as they were never bound 
 before. 
 
 The second is that the proposed Act against which they 
 protest, is aimed at them exclusively ; and that the whole of 
 those whom it will affect are united in protest. 
 
 What does the Viceroy propose doing ? It is, in a few 
 words, to bind, for the first time in history, the European 
 British subjects of Her Majesty in the interior of India to 
 submit to be tried on criminal charges by a Native of the 
 country, provided he belong to the Covenanted Civil Service^ 
 and get the power from Government. Europeans criminally 
 accused have hitherto been able to claim a trial by one of 
 their own countrymen. The right of making this claim is to 
 be taken away. 
 
 Now, it is a wholesome English maxim that to invade any 
 man's freedom, to bind him where he was not bound, is an 
 evil in itself, justifiable only to remedy some greater evil. 
 When this proposal was made thus to bind the Europeans 
 under his care, it was the Viceroy's duty at once to inquire 
 what was the existing evil to be remedied. 
 
 It might have been that there were not enough of Courts. 
 
 L
 
 146 A Plain Statement about the Ilbc7't Bill. 
 
 But, even if Lord Ripon's prophecy that, many years hence, 
 the Natives in the Civil Service would be one-sixth of the 
 whole, were to come true, there would still be one European 
 member of the Service for every five or six European 
 families in the part of the country to be affected by the Bill. 
 All those who ought to know say that it will never be 
 difficult to get a European man or woman tried by a Euro- 
 pean. In this very Bill, too, provision is made for gradually 
 abolishing many good and efficient Courts — those presided 
 over by Europeans outside the Civil Service. 
 
 It might have been that Europeans are unruly and un- 
 manageable. There is the Viceroy's own testimony that 
 they are orderly and law-abiding. It does not fall to one 
 qualified magistrate out of five or six to try a case against 
 a European once a year. They are well in hand, and it is 
 not suggested that the control of Natives will improve them. 
 
 These two considerations, viz., that there are plenty of 
 Courts, and that Europeans are doing well as they are, ought 
 to have proved to the Viceroy that the Bill was not needed, 
 that there was no evil to be remedied. 
 
 But the Bill is to remedy injustice. Injustice to whom t 
 It is said that for want of having Europeans bound to submit 
 to trial by them, three or four Natives now, and three or four 
 score hereafter, will not be able to get promotion. It might 
 be answered, '' What if their promotion is stopped t Is an 
 evil to be inflicted on many thousands, in order to remove an 
 obstacle in the path of a iQ\N already fortunate ones } " But 
 there is another answer. The want of this bond will not 
 hinder their promotion. They can get the same pay, rank, 
 and work, whether the Bill is passed or not. The trial of a 
 European is so unusual an occurrence that it can easily be 
 arranged for otherwise. 
 
 But it is said that if Europeans are not bound to submit 
 to trial by them, a " slur " will be cast on them, and, through 
 them, on all the people of India. What has that to do with 
 it } No Native ever had this dignity, and there can there- 
 fore be little slur in refusing it now to a few Natives. The 
 highest authorities are constantly declaring that there would 
 be no slur. But if there be any slur, it does not lie in the 
 mouth of the authors of this Bill to use it as an argument 
 for the Bill. The same Bill which is to soothe the feelings 
 of three or four Natives now, and three or four score in the 
 future, by declaring them eligible for appointment to try 
 Europeans, insults (if there be any question of slur) the 
 whole European community outside the Civil Service, by
 
 A Plain Statement about the Ilbert Bill. 147 
 
 declaring its members for the first time ineligible, and retains 
 the slur upon all the Native communities in India, except 
 these few persons. The Bill is declared a final measure, so 
 the slur on all, Europeans and Natives, outside the Civil 
 Service, is designed to be permanent. No one talked of 
 " slur " in connection with this matter before ; but now the 
 blot has been seen, and recognized, and is to be allowed to 
 remain. 
 
 But is not a Native who is fit to try a Native fit also to try 
 a European } The Viceroy himself answers " No," for he 
 permanently disqualifies numbers of Native magistrates 
 trusted to try Natives. The Europeans tried to avoid the 
 question by saying that, even if they were fit, their services 
 are not needed. But if further pressed, they may answer 
 that the fitness from one work does not follow from fitness 
 for the other ; they are utterly different. Then the question 
 is asked " Europeans try Natives ; why not Natives Euro- 
 peans t " The Europeans might reasonably say that they 
 prefer Europeans to Natives, and Europeans are available. 
 They might say that there are 250,000,000 Natives and not 
 half as many thousand Europeans. Somebody must try the 
 former, and Europeans are found to do it as well ^as Natives 
 with efficiency. The latter are so few in number and cases 
 against them so few that the Europeans need no help. But 
 further, a European magistrate trying a Native has in his 
 Court Native ministerial officers, a Native bar. Native police, 
 and a Native crowd. He is in the midst of Native manners 
 and customs. The Court language is the vernacular of the 
 place. He has a long and varied experience of Natives. 
 The Native magistrate trying a European has all these 
 Native surroundings which are strange to the European 
 accused. The latter is probably utterly alone, disturbed in 
 mind, and in trouble about nearly everything. The Native 
 magistrate is not familiar to him. The Native magistrate 
 has probably not been to England, and has not seen one 
 European, for every hundred thousand Natives the European 
 magistrate has seen. The Native has no knowledge of 
 Europeans, and little means of gaining it. Granted equal 
 intelligence, the European magistrate trying a Native has 
 enormous advantage over the Native trying a European. 
 With all this. Native agitators say the European cannot try 
 the Native properly. With what force can they say that the 
 Native can try a European "i 
 
 It was anticipated by the Viceroy, when the Bill was first 
 introduced, that it would meet with no opposition. That 
 
 L 2
 
 148 A Plain Statement about the Ilbert Bill. 
 
 was a mistake, and that the opposition was not factious per- 
 haps reason has been given above to show. In order, how- 
 ever, that the dispute may not be conducted as in a debating 
 society where nothing depends on the result, let the reader 
 remember that this controversy is likely to affect the fortunes 
 and lives of many good and honest men and women. Un- 
 fortunately if harm is done it is .not likely to be sensational, 
 so it will be all the worse to remedy. 
 
 Take, for instance, John Smith and his wife Jane. John 
 is not a travelling M.P., or a sportsman out for the winter's 
 shooting, or a great official on high pay. He is earning an 
 honest living as a tea or coffee or indigo planter's assistant, 
 a merchant's agent, a trader, or manufacturer, a driver, guard, 
 or way-inspector on the railwav, a tester or mechanic in a 
 mill. 
 
 They have a prospect of many years of hard work before 
 them, and cannot do much more than make both ends meet. 
 John's duties take them out to live at a place far away from 
 the Presidency towns, out of reach of European neighbours, 
 European barristers, newspapers, High Court. They have 
 none but people of the country around them, it may be 
 Burmese, Bengalis, Mahrattas, or others. These are in 
 thousands. John does business with them ; perhaps Jane 
 keeps a stock of medicine and doctors them, and John 
 decides their little disputes. 
 
 But John gives offence to some one, in one of hundreds of 
 ways. It may be a neighbour with whom he has a land dis- 
 pute, or who wants to get him out of the country as Shylock 
 did Antonio ; it may be a clerk whom he has caught em- 
 bezzling, or a servant who has been stealing the horse's food, 
 or carelessly giving bad water to him or Jane to drink (which 
 means cholera), or a hand who has carelessly broken valuable 
 machinery. 
 
 The offended person lays a plot. There are hundreds of 
 persons available as witnesses, and, as is done every day by 
 Natives against Natives, a criminal case is concocted, made 
 as plausible as possible, and probably rehearsed in action, 
 both the act to be charged and the scene in Court, magis- 
 trate, witness, and bar all being represented. The complaint 
 is laid, and John is summoned. If it is his busiest time, so 
 much the better. The Court is not at his door. He has to 
 go ten or twenty miles to Court. He will find no hotel, no 
 lodgings, no suitable food or drink. He must take his food 
 with him ; and, anxious about his work and his wife, whom 
 he has to leave unprotected, he has to set out. When he
 
 A Plain State7nent about the Ilbert Bill. 149 
 
 arrives at Court he finds Natives everywhere, all the under- 
 strappers, the police, the bar, and the crowd of idlers. He 
 is a stranger, and alone. Perhaps there is great delay before 
 his case is called, and he has to wait on a hot day in May, 
 or a dripping wet day in the rains, hour after hour. Perhaps 
 he employs some one of the Native lawyers of the place, but 
 they, though ingenious enough, don't understand a European. 
 
 The case is called. Prosecutor and witnesses stand up, 
 confident and well-coached (unfortunately, as nearly all 
 witnesses, true or false, are coached up, it is not easy to 
 distinguish), and he is called on to cross-examine. John is 
 no better lawyer than his countrymen in general, and it is 
 doubtful whether his questions, or the ingenious but ignorant 
 questions of his lawyer, would do most harm. He may want 
 to call his wife as a witness ; and, if they are allowed, the 
 other side will try to break her credit in cross-examination 
 with questions which no modest woman will face. Then 
 there is the judgment after more or less delay. If John is 
 convicted, he is punished ; if he is not convicted, he is 
 punished. It has been loss enough to have to leave work 
 and home, to risk illness and dawdle away his time and 
 money in the stuffy court. It is nothing to the Natives on 
 the other side, who are possibly paid for their outing, and 
 even if not, probably enjoy it. 
 
 Now, here John is on the defensive, and cannot retaliate 
 in kind. Being a law-abiding, orderly man, he is not likely 
 to retaliate by violence. He needs the utmost protection 
 that the law can give him. He cannot afford a wily de- 
 tective to expose the plot ; without the independent press, 
 and bar, and public ; with no adviser but perhaps Jane ; with 
 no appeal (how could the Court of Appeal upset a plausible 
 decision on plausible evidence .?), or resort, John is in a bad 
 case. 
 
 At every stage in the case he takes comfort from the fact 
 that the magistrate who will try him if accused will be a 
 European whom he trusts, because he feels a European will 
 understand him. Before any case is instituted, he knows 
 that his enemies will not be so bold in alleging crimes against 
 him of which he is innocent, when they know that the case 
 will pass through the hands of one with some knowledge of 
 the European character. You can persuade a man who 
 knows nothing about them that turnips groW on trees, but 
 ten thousand witnesses will not make one who knows believe 
 it. Then the European magistrate will see that there is no 
 undue delay in taking up and disposing of the case ; will not
 
 150 A Plain Statement about the Ilbert Bill. 
 
 fancy insult where none is meant, and will perhaps be more 
 patient with petulance caused by grief of mind. He will be 
 able to understand in all its points the story of the accused, 
 and take the allusions to customs and facts which a Native 
 would not understand. He will be able to clear up doubtful 
 points by a few questions put to the witness, which John for 
 want of skill, and the Native pleader for want of knowledge, 
 would not think of putting. If Jane comes into the box as 
 a witness, he will be able to understand her feelings and stop 
 all attempt to give her unnecessary pain in a way that a 
 Native, who has quite a different idea of womanhood, would 
 perhaps, from thoughtlessness, not think of doing. He could 
 strip a false or exaggerated charge of much falsehood or ex- 
 aggeration as a Native, from ignorance of European habits 
 and customs, could not ; and would have much greater cer- 
 tainty in attributing its proper weight and significance to 
 each word or action. If he convicted, he would be better 
 able to tell what would be the proper punishment to give. 
 
 John and Jane are able with this assurance to walk about 
 as freely and fearlessly in India as at home, though they 
 have no public round them, no press, no European neigh- 
 bours, and cannot get an English lawyer to defend them if 
 they are attacked. They feel that without the safeguard of 
 a European tribunal, even should they never come before it, 
 they must go about like a crab without its shell, shrinking at 
 every touch, yielding to every one, sneaking into holes. What 
 the public, the press, the bar, and the Court are to a law- 
 abiding, law-loving citizen at home, all these the European 
 tribunal is to honest, homely John and Jane in the lonely 
 places of that far-off Eastern land. With all respect to the 
 Native proteges of Government, they do not feel that these 
 can possibly be a proper substitute. So, if Lord Ripon 
 insists on saying his Native proteges (so very few there are of 
 them) will do as well, John and Jane will have to go about 
 shrinking and trembling for the rest of their time in India, 
 because they do not agree with him, and he, having a giant's 
 power, insists on using it as a giant.
 
 LIST OF MEMBERS OF THE ANGLO-INDIAN 
 ASSOCIATION. 
 
 ANGLO-INDIAN ASSOCIATION. 
 
 LONDON COMMITTEE 
 
 FOR OBTAINING THE WITHDRAWAL OF THE INDIAN 
 CRIMINAL PROCEDURE ACT AMENDMENT BILL. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 Sir Alexander J. Arbuthnot, K.C.S.I., CLE., late Madras Civil Service, 
 late Member of Council at Madras, and Member of the Supreme Council of 
 India. 
 
 GENERAL COMMITTEE. 
 
 Abbott, General;., C.B., R.A. (Bengal). 
 
 Abbott, Major-General Saunders, late Commissioner of Lucknow. 
 
 Adam, R. M. , late Deputy-Commissioner of Salt Revenue, Madras. 
 
 Adley, Surgeon-General W. PL, late Sanitary Commissioner of Assam. 
 
 Agnew, Major-General W., late Judicial Commissioner of Assam. 
 
 Alexander, General Sir James E., K.C.B., F. R.S. E. 
 
 Alexander, Major-General W., R.E., Retired List, Bengal. 
 
 Allan, A., of Calcutta. 
 
 Allan, James, of Calcutta. 
 
 Allan, T. Plenry, late of Madras. 
 
 Allen, Emmanuel M., Inst.. C.E., late Engineer East Indian and Punjab 
 
 Railway. 
 Allen, W. J., late Bengal Civil Service, Senior Member of the Bengal Board of 
 
 Revenue. 
 Anderson, R. S., late of Calicut. 
 
 Anderson, Lieut. -General W. W., late Political Agent, Kattywar, Bombay. 
 Anderson, Beresford, late Chief Engineer, Madras Railway. 
 Anderson, J., Magistrate and Collector, second grade, Bengal. 
 Anderson,}. P. C, late Superintending Engineer, Punjab. 
 
 Anderson, Major-General R. P., late Commandant 34th Regiment, Bengal N.I. 
 Anderson, T. W,, Merchant, Calcutta. 
 Angelo, E. (late of Calcutta), Merchant. 
 Angelo, W. N., ditto. 
 Angus, Major-General T. A., late Bengal Staff Corps.
 
 152 List of Me7)ibers. 
 
 Apcar, S. A., firm of Apcar & Co., Calcutta. 
 
 Arbuthnot, Sir Alexander J., K.C.S.I., C.I.E., late Member of Council at 
 
 Madras and Member of the Supreme Council of India. 
 Arbuthnot, W. R., late Member Legislative Council, Madras. 
 Archibald, E. D., M.A. Oxon, late Professor, Patna College. 
 Ashburner, Major-General G. E., Bombay Army, retired. 
 Aspinwall, J. H., Cochin, Malabar Coast, Merchant. 
 Aston, Lieut.-Colonel H., late Bombay Army, late Political Agent, Kathiawar. 
 
 Babington, Major-General R. C, late Madras Army. 
 
 Badgley, Lieut--Colonel W. F., Survey of India. 
 
 Ball, v., F.R.S., late of the Geological Survey of India. 
 
 Banbury, George, late Madras Civil Service, and Member Board of Revenue. 
 
 Barclay, G. W., M.A., late Editor, EtiglisJunaii, Calcutta. 
 
 Bardin, Major-General George, late Madras Army. 
 
 Barker, W. R., Landed Proprietor, Jubbulpore District. 
 Barlow, Captain A. P. 
 
 Barnes, J. S., Zemindar in Behar, 
 
 Barrow, Major-General De S., late Madras Staff Corps, and Inspector-General 
 of Police in Oudh, 
 
 Barlow, Colonel C, late loth Foot. 
 
 Barras, Colonel Julius, late Bombay Army. 
 
 Batten, Lieut. -General S. J., Madras Army. 
 
 Basden, Major-General Ch. B., Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Battye, Colonel A. F., late Bombay Staff Corps, and commanding 7th Regi- 
 ment N.I. 
 
 Bayley, Vernon, B. F. 
 
 Beaman, Surgeon-General A. H., late Madras Army. 
 
 Bean, Major-General J. W. F., retired B.S.C 
 
 Beaufort, W. M., late Bengal Civil Service, and late Judge. 
 
 Beresford, Major-General Le Poer., late Madras Staff Corps. 
 
 Berthon, Major-General J. T., late Bombay Staff Corps. 
 
 Bettington, A., late Bombay Civil Service. 
 
 Beatson, Surgeon-General J. Fullarton, C.I.E., late Chief, Bengal Medical De- 
 partment. 
 
 Beckley, Lieut.-Colonel T., Royal (late Madras) Engineers. 
 
 Beckwith, J., late High Sheriff of Calcutta. 
 
 Beddy, Lieut.-Colonel E., Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Beerbohm, J. E. 
 
 Bergman, Conrad, Tea Broker, late of Nazira, Assam. 
 
 Bell, Surgeon-Major G. C, late Bombay Army. 
 
 Berners, Henry, of Amgoorie Tea Estate, Assam. 
 
 Berners, W. T., late of Calcutta, Merchant. 
 
 Best, A. V. Dunlop, Merchant of Madras. 
 
 Beverley, H,, Bengal Civil Service, late Registrar General of Bengal. 
 
 Beynon, Major-General W. H., late Political Agent, Rajputana. 
 
 Bird, Paul, late of Calcutta, Merchant and Estate Proprietor of Assam. 
 
 Bird, S., late of Calcutta, Merchant and Estate Proprietor of Assam. 
 
 Birney, Colonel John, R.E., retired. 
 
 Bishop, Major-General W, D., formerly Cantonment Magistrate in India. 
 
 Black, Major-General James, late Political Agent, Mahi Kaunta, Bombay. 
 
 Blair, Major C. R. 
 
 Blair, Colonel C. S., late Deputy Commissioner, Mysore. 
 
 Blair, Colonel G. F., retired. Royal (late Madras) Artillery. 
 
 Blair, J. Hunter, late Madras Civil Service. ' 
 
 Blake, General H. W., late Madras Army. 
 
 Blake, G. W., of Tirhoot, Bengal. 
 
 Blake, H., Chetwand School, Bengal. 
 
 Blount, Major W., late Madras Army. 
 
 Boileau, Colonel T. T.
 
 List of Monbers. 153 
 
 Bond, Major-General F, W., late Madras Army. 
 
 Bonnor, Colonel R. M., late Bombay Staff Corpsi 
 
 Booth, Dr. B. S., lateof Behar. 
 
 Borradaile, John. 
 
 Botler, (J. B., Kinacoorie Estate, Nilgiri Hills. 
 
 Boulderson, Colonel S. S., late Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Boulderson, A., late Bengal Civil Service. 
 
 Bourdillon, J. A., Bengal Civil Service, Registrar General. 
 
 Bowring, Lewin, C.S.I., late Chief Commissioner of Mysore. 
 
 Boyle, R. J., Jorehaut Tea Estates, Assam. 
 
 Bramwell, Captain G., late Bombay Staff Corps. 
 
 Branson, J. H. A., Barrister-at-Law, late of Calcutta. 
 
 Brereton, W. H. 
 
 Britten, Major-General T. E., late Bombay Staff Corps. 
 
 Brddribb, W. A. 
 
 Brown, Sir J. Campbell, K.C.B., late Surgeon-General, Bengal Army. 
 
 Broughton, Colonel W. E., Bengal Infantry. 
 
 Brookes, C. J., Hon. Magistrate of Calcutta. 
 
 Brown, General W. Tod, C.B., late Bengal Army. 
 
 Brown, Colonel C. R. , Bengal Army, retired, late Commissioner of Delhi. 
 
 Brown, G. F. H., Bombay Medical Service, retired. 
 
 Brown, Major-General G. R., late R.H.A., Bengal. 
 
 Brown, Colonel E., late loist Royal Bengal Fusiliers. 
 
 Browne, W. J. 
 
 Browne, Lieut. -Colonel E. F. J., late Bengal Army. 
 
 Buchanan, Major-General J. 
 
 Buckland, C. T., Bengal Civil Service, late Member Board of Revenue, Calcutta 
 
 BuUen-Smith, J. R,, C.S.I., late Member Legislative Council of India. 
 
 Bunbury, Captain W. Douglas. 
 
 Burke, G. J., M.I.C.E., late Executive Engineer, P.W.D. 
 
 Burkinyoung, W., Tea Planter, Assam. 
 
 Bushe, Colonel H. K., Bombay Army. 
 
 Cadell, Colonel B. W., Retired List B.S.C. 
 Caithness, J. E., Bengal Legislative Council. 
 Cameron, Major T. M., late Bengal Army. 
 Campbell, Lieut. -Colonel W. M.', R.E. 
 Campbell, R., Manager National Bank of India. 
 Campbell, R. O. , late Member Legislative Council, Madras. 
 Carey, General T. A., late Bengal Staff Corps. 
 Carleton, Colonel, late Madras Artillery. 
 Carnegie, R. G., late of Bengal. 
 Carstairs, R., Bengal Civil Service. 
 
 Carter. Surgeon-Major F., retired, formerly Civil Surgeon in Gudh. 
 Castell, Colonel J. H. 
 Cavan, James, M.A. Oxon. 
 
 Cavenagh, Sir Orfeur, K.C.S.I., late Governor of the Straits Settlements. 
 Cavendish, R. F., Dibrugarh, Assam. 
 Cavendish, R. R. F., Tea Planter, Assam. 
 Chalmers, Colonel H. B., late Bengal Staff Corps. 
 Chalmers, M. D., Barrister, late Bengal Civil Service. 
 Chalmers, Patrick. 
 
 Channer, Colonel G. G., late Bengal Artillery. 
 Chapman, Captain H. W., late Bengal Army. 
 Charrington, M. V. , of Mysore. 
 Chester, Charles, late Bengal Civil Service. 
 Childs, J., late lI.E.I.C. Bengal Marine. 
 
 Clarke, Hyde, formerly Agent for Darjeeling for the Planters' Association, 
 Northern India, late Chairman of the Indian Section of the Society of Arts. 
 Clay, Major-General A. D., late Madras Army.
 
 154 Li^^ of Members. 
 
 Clay, Colonel C. IL, Bombay Staff Corps. 
 
 Clementson, W., late Assistant to the Deputy Commissioner of Cachar, Bengal. 
 Clerk, Major-General H. 
 Cleveland, Henry. 
 
 Cockburn, Surgeon-General R., Bengal, retired. 
 Coildington, J. G. T., late Executive Engineer, P.W.D. 
 
 Coke, Major-General Sir John, K.C.B., retired, Bengal Army, formerly Com- 
 manding Punjab Frontier Force. 
 Coleman, J. R., late Member Legislative Council, Madras. 
 Collingridge, F., of Doudpore, Tirhoot, Bengal. 
 Collis-Sandes, F., late Administrator-General of Bengal. 
 Collis, S. E., J. P., Solicitor, Calcutta. 
 Colvin, J.C., Bengal Civil Service, retired. 
 Comber, Colonel A. K., Bengal Staff Corps. 
 Cookson, Major-General J. G., Madras Cavalry. 
 Cookworthy, Major-General C, late Royal (Bengal) Artillery. 
 Cooney, J. E., late Bengal Medical Department. 
 Cooper, Lieut. -Colonel Richard. 
 
 Cornell, W., late Bengal Civil Service, Judge of Midnapore. 
 Corbyn, Deputy-Surgeon-Genei'al J. O. (retired), Bengal Army. 
 Cotton, General Sir Arthur, K.C.S.I., R.E. (Madras). 
 Cotton, Major-General Y. C, C.S.L, late Madras Engineers. 
 Cotton, R. R., late Madras Civil Service and Judge of Madura. 
 Couchman, Lieut. -Colonel W. D., late Bengal Artillery. 
 Couper, J. C. 
 
 Cower, George E., late Judge Small Cause Court, Madras. 
 Cowie, T. H., Q.C., late Advocate-General of Bengal. 
 Cowper, Colonel T. A. 
 
 Cox, W. S. H., of Charambody, Ootacamund. 
 
 Coxhead, T. E., Bengal C.S., Magistrate and Collector of Dinajpur, Bengal. 
 Crane, H. P., C.E., late Assistant-Engineer, Bengal, P.W.D. 
 Crawford, T. A., late Bengal Civil Service, and Collector of Customs, Calcutta. 
 Crawford, D. R., Indigo Planter, Tirhoot. 
 Crommelin, A. N., late Superintending-Engineer, P.W.D. 
 Crooke, F. J., late of Calcutta, Merchant. 
 Crooke, Henry, late of Calcutta, Merchant. 
 Ci-ozier, F. H., late Madras Civil Service. 
 Cunliffe, Major-General G. G., late Indian Staff Corps. 
 Currie, S., C.B., late Principal Medical Officer H.M.'s Forces, India. 
 
 Dacosta, J., late of Calcutta, Merchant. 
 
 Dalrymple, J. W., late Bengal Civil Service, and Commissioner of the Bhagul- 
 pore Division. 
 
 Dance, Major-General E. W., R.A. 
 
 Dandridge, Major-General C. C, late Indian Army. 
 
 Daniel, Major-General, late Madras Staff Corps. 
 
 Daniell, p. C, of Calcutta. 
 
 Davidson, James, Tea Planter, Debrooghur, Assam. 
 
 Davidson, Major-General R., late Bengal Army, and Deputy-Commissary- 
 General of Bengal. 
 
 Davidson, R. B., M.D., Tea Planter, Cachar. 
 
 Davidson, J., Puttarea, Sylhet, Bengal. 
 
 Davidson, S. C, Lebong Tea Estates, Cachar, Bengal. 
 
 Davis, F. W., Locomotive Department, Rajputana Malwa Railway, Ajmere. 
 
 Davis, Lieut. -Colonel A. H. 
 
 Davies, Major-General H. N. G., Bengal Staff Corps, retired, and late 
 Secretary to the Local Government, and Deputy-Commissioner British 
 Burmah. 
 
 Dawson, Major-General J., late Indian Army. 
 
 Dayrell. Lieut. -Colonel T., late Bengal Staff Corps.
 
 List of Members. i 
 
 00 
 
 Dennis, Major-General J. B., late R.A. 
 
 De Renzy, vSurgeon- General A. C. C, C.B., late vSanitary Commissioner of 
 
 Assam, and of the Punjab. 
 De Winton, W. B., Executive Engineer, Madras, P.W.D. 
 Dick, Major-General W. A., late Political Superintendent, Sind Frontier. 
 Dickinson, B., Tea Planter, Darjeeling. 
 
 D'Oyly, Major-General Sir C. W., Bart., late Bengal Staff Corps. 
 Doran, J. C, late Tutor to H.H. the Nawab of Bahawalpur. 
 Douglas, General C, R.A., late Director-General of Telegraphs. 
 Doyne, R. V., part Proprietor of Amgoorie Tea Gardens in Assam, Rampore 
 
 Gardens, Cachar, 
 Dunbar-Kilburn, E., late of Calcutta, Meixhant. 
 
 Dunn, W. H., C.E., late Executive Engineer, P.W.D. , British Burmah. 
 Dunn, Y. M., late Executive Engineer, P.W.D., British Burmah. 
 Dunsford, General H. F., C.B., Bengal Staff Corps, formerly commanding in 
 
 Assam. 
 
 Eardley-Wilmot, Lieut. -Colonel R., 14th Bengal Lancers. 
 
 Earle, Major-General W. H. S., late District Superintendent of Police, 
 
 Bareilly. 
 Edwards, J. N., late of Calcutta. 
 
 Edwards, R. M., late Bengal Civil Service, Commissioner of Rohilcund. 
 Eliot, Major-General John, Royal (late Bengal) Artillery. 
 
 Elliot, Sir Walter, K.C.S.I., late Madras Cwil Service, and Member of Council. 
 Elliot, Thomas, of Bor Sapori Tea Estate, Assam. 
 Elliot, Captain E.L., 1st Bengal Lancers. 
 Elliot, W. T. 
 Elphinstone, Alex. 
 
 Elphinstone, Colonel P. A. , late Bombay Staff Corps. 
 Elphinstone-Dalrymple, H., late Police Magistrate, Madras. • 
 Emerson, Major-General J. (retired), formerly Cantonment Magistrate of 
 
 Dinapore. 
 
 Fahie, W. J., C.E., late Executive Engineer, P.W.D., Bengal. 
 
 Fane, E., late Madras Civil Service, and Member of Board of Revenue. 
 
 Fane, H. B., late Bengal Civil Service, formerly Judge of Mirzapore. 
 
 Farmer, H. A. S. 
 
 Farquharson, Major-General G. M-B., late Bombay Staff Corps. 
 
 Farrer, Colonel A., late Hyderabad Commission. 
 
 Fawcett, E. B., M.A. Cantab. 
 
 Fawcett, Lieut. -Colonel R. PL, late D.A.A.G., Bellary. 
 
 Fcnner, H. A. S., Executive Engineer, Punjab. 
 
 Fenwick, Major G.R., late Editor, Englishman, Calcutta, Civil and Military 
 
 Gazette, Lahore. 
 Fergusson, James-, CLE. 
 
 Fergusson, F. J., Barrister.at-Law, High Court, Calcutta. 
 Ferris, Lieut. -Colonel W. S., late Bengal Army. 
 Fisher, Colonel G. B., Bengal Army. 
 Fisher, W., late Madras Civil Service, Political Resident in Travancore and 
 
 Cochin. 
 Fitzgerald, Surgeon-General P. Gerald, late Madras Army. 
 Foley, The Rev. J., Missionary, Bengal. 
 
 Foord, E. B., late Madras Civil Service and District Judge, Chingleput. 
 Forbes, H., late Madras Civil Service, Member of Legislative Council, India. 
 Forbes, Louis, late Madras Civil Service, Member of Legislative Council, India. 
 Forrest, R. E., M.I.C.E., late P.W.D. 
 Forrest, Captain R. H., 2nd Punjab Cavalry. 
 
 Forsyth, Sir T. Douglas, K.C.S.I., C.B., late Commissioner, Punjab. 
 Forsyth, Major-General A. G., late Bengal Staff Corps, formerly Cantonment 
 
 Magistrate, Cawnpore.
 
 156 List of Members, 
 
 Fothergill-Smith, Dr. R. G., M.D. 
 
 Fowle, F. C, late Bengal Civil Service, late Judge of Tipperah. 
 
 Fox, Colonel E. S., late Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Fraser, Colonel G. W,, Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Freeth, Lieut. -Colonel W., late Madras Army. 
 
 Fulton, Lieut. -Colonel J., Bengal Army, retired. 
 
 Fulton, Major-General G. A., Madras Infantiy. 
 
 Gabb, Lieut. -Colonel, late Madras Staff Corps. 
 
 Gaitskell, Major-General F., C.B. (retired). 
 
 Gaitskell, Lieut. -Colonel J. G., Bengal Army (retired). 
 
 Gale, J., late Indigo Planter at Tirhoot, Bengal. 
 
 Garrett, John, late Director of Public Instruction, Mysore and Coorg. 
 
 Germaine, R. A. 
 
 Gill, Lieut. -Colonel C, late Madras Army. 
 
 Gillespie, Lieut. -Colonel Alex., late Bengal Artillery. 
 
 Gladstone, S. S., E.I. Merchant, late of Calcutta. 
 
 Gladwin, Rev. Charles, M.A., Bengal Ecclesiastical Establishment. 
 
 Glazebrook, W. A., Merchant. 
 
 Goad, G. S., of Nazira, Assam. 
 
 Goddard, Major-General R. E. 
 
 Godwin-Austin, Lieut. -Colonel H. H., late Bengal Staff Corps, late Survey 
 
 Dept., Assam. 
 Goodhall, Henry B., Barrister, late Deputy-Magistrate and J. P., India. 
 Gordon, Surgeon-General C. A., C.B., late Principal Medical Officer British 
 
 Forces, Madras. 
 Graham, Major-General J. M., late Deputy-Commissioner, Lakhimpur, Assam. 
 Grant, Thomas, Zemindar, Bhaugulpore, Bengal. 
 Grant, G. H., Zemindar, Bhaugulpore, Bengal. 
 Grant, A., CLE., late Chief Engineer, P.W.D., India. 
 Grant, J. R. 
 
 Grant, W, M., Bhaugulpore, Bengal, Zemind. 
 Grant, W., Barrister, Madras. 
 Gray, Major-General W. 
 
 Gray, Lieut. -General W. J., R.A., Bengal, retired. 
 Greene, Colonel G. T., C.B., Retired List, Bengal. 
 Gregg, IL, late of Burkhold, Cachar, Bengal. 
 Grey, Edward, late Bengal Civil Service. 
 Griffiths, L. E., late of Calcutta Merchant. 
 
 Hackett, Major-General J., late Commandant of H.M's 76th Regiment. 
 
 Hailes, Major-General J. C, late Bombay R. A. 
 
 Hall, Arthur, late Madras Civil Service, Member of Board of Revenue. 
 
 Hall, Major-General L. A., late R.A. 
 
 Hall-Stephenson, Major J. T. S. 
 
 Hamilton, T. F., Merchant, Calcutta. 
 
 Hamilton, Claud H., formerly an additional Member of the Council of the 
 
 Governor-General of India. 
 Ilankey, H., Bengal Civil Service, late Inspector General of Police, N.W.P. 
 Hankin, Colonel G. C, Bengal Staff Corps. 
 Harrison. Lewis, late of Calcutta. 
 Harriden, J., of Calcutta. 
 
 Harris, Major-General J. T., late Bengal Staff Corps. 
 Harris, Deputy-Surgeon-General W. H., late Professor Madras Medical 
 
 College. 
 Hastings, Surgeon-General T., Bengal, retired. 
 Hatch, Major-General G. C, Bengal Staff Corps. 
 Havelock, Lieut.-Colonel A. C, Madras Staff Corps. 
 Haydm, J., of Calcutta.
 
 List of AI embers. 157 
 
 Hefferman, wSurgeon-Major, J. J., late Madras Army. 
 
 Hellard, Commander S. B., late Indian Navy. • 
 
 Henderson, C. P., Henderson & Co., Calcutta. 
 
 Henderson, W., late Officiating Superintending Engineer, and Engineer-in-Chief. 
 P.W.D. 
 
 Hennessey, J. , Zemindar Maldah, Bengal. 
 
 Henry, James, ^^roprietor, Tea Estates, Assam. 
 
 Hill, T. N. 
 
 Hill, R H., Indigo Planter, Chumparum, Bengal. 
 
 Hills, Major-GeneralSir J., K.C.B., V.C. 
 
 Hills, R. S., late of Calcutta, Merchant. 
 
 Hilliard, Major-General G. T., Madras, retired. 
 
 Hodgson, Major-General F. G., late Madras Staff Corps. 
 
 Hodgson, H. P., Craigmore Estate, Nilgiri Hills. 
 
 Hodgson, Major-General H. N., late Bengal Army. 
 
 Hogg, Sir Stuart, late Bengal Civil Service, and Commissioner of Police, 
 Calcutta. 
 
 Plogg, Captain Hardinge C, 3rd Bombay Light Cavalry. 
 
 Hoggan, Major-General W. C, late Bengal Army. 
 
 Plolland, Colonel G. H., formerly Qr.-Master-General, Bombay, and Chairman 
 G. I. P. Railway. 
 
 Holland, Major-General H. W., C.B., retired Bombay Staff Corps. 
 
 Holland, Major-General T. W. 
 
 Holland, Major W. T., late Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Holroyd, Major-General C. (retired), late Deputy-Commissioner, Assam. 
 
 Holroyd, Major-General G., Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Plopkinson, Major-General H., C.S.I. , late Chief Commissioner of Assafh, and 
 
 Agent to the Governor-General North-East Frontier. 
 Hosack, D. D. F., Tea Planter, Assam. 
 
 Houchen, Major G. A. F., Retired List. « 
 
 Houghton, Colonel W. R , Bombay vStaff Corps. • >* 
 
 Hudleston, Colonel W., late Madras Staff Corps. 
 
 Hudleston,W., C.S.I., late Madras Civil Service, and Member of Council, Madras. 
 Hudson, Cunningham, of Calcutta, Merchant. 
 Hudson, H. W., Indigo Planter, Chumparun. 
 Hudson, W. H., Bengal Civil Service. 
 Hull, E. C. P., Merchant, formerly of Madras. 
 Hume-Williams, W. E., Barrister-at-Law. 
 Hussey, Captain L. J. W. 
 Hutchinson, Major-General G., C.B., CS.I. 
 Hutchison, Colonel L. R. de M., late Madras Army 
 Hutton, James, late Editor Calcutta Englishman. 
 
 Ingham, Brevet-Lieut. -Colonel R. B. 
 Ironside, W., late of Calcutta. 
 
 Jack, Evan A., late of Calcutta, Merchant. 
 
 James, A. G. F. Eliot. 
 
 James, John, Executive Engineer, P.W.D. 
 
 Jephson, Colonel H. J., late commanding 102nd Fusiliers. 
 
 Jenkins, Colonel E. G., late Bombay Staff Corps. 
 
 Jenkins, H. L., late Hon. Magistrate of Sibsagar, Assam. 
 
 Jennings, S., late Financial Department, Government of India. 
 
 Jermyn, Lieut. R. F., late Indian Navy. 
 
 Jones, H. M., late of Calcutta. 
 
 Jopp, Lieut. -Colonel Keith, late Bombay Staff Corps. 
 
 Johnson, Major-General Sir C. C, K.C.B., late Quarter-Master-General of the 
 
 Bengal Army. 
 Johnston, C. E.
 
 158 List of Mefnbers. 
 
 Johnston, Surgeon-General W., late Indian Army. 
 Johnstone, Major-General H. C, C.B., Bengal Retired List. 
 Joynt, Surgeon-General F. G., Indian Medical Department. 
 
 Keatinge, Colonel R. H,, V. C., C.S.I., late Chief Commissioner of Assam. 
 
 Kennedy, S. C, Merchant, Calcutta. 
 
 Kennion, Lieut. -Colonel T. E., late Bengal Artillery. 
 
 Kerans, Lieutenant P. G. , Cantonment Magistrate, Punjab. 
 
 Kernot, Dr. C. N., of Calcutta. 
 
 King-Harman, Major M. J., Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 King, J., late Superintendent Presidency Gaol, J. P., Calcutta, Member of 
 
 Municipality. 
 Knio-ht, J. B., CLE., late Member Bengal Legislative Council. 
 
 Lambart, Major-General W. E., Bombay Retired List. 
 
 Lance, C E., late Bengal Civil Service. 
 
 Landale, D. G. , of Calcutta, Merchant. 
 
 Lander, General J. E., Bengal Establishment. 
 
 Lane, W. G. L., late Bengal Civil Service. 
 
 Lang'ford-Locke, R., C.E., late Executive Engineer, P.W.D. 
 
 Law, Colonel S. C. 
 
 Lawder, J. Ormsby, Executive Engineer, N.W.P. 
 
 Lawrence, G. H., late Bengal Civil Service, and Judge of Aligarh, N.W.P. 
 
 Lawrence' General Sir George St. P., K.C.S.I., C.B., Bengal, Retired. 
 
 Lawrie, Alex., of Calcutta, Merchant. 
 
 Lawson, C A., Editor, Madras Mail. 
 
 Leckie, P. C, of Cachar. 
 
 Leitch, H. J., Merchant, of Calcutta, and Proprietor of Tea Estates. 
 
 Leigh-Lye, Venerable C. H., late Archdeacon of Bombay. 
 
 Lei'ghton, G. R., late Bombay Civil Service. 
 
 Lepage, R. C, late of Calcutta. 
 
 Leslie, P., late of Cochin, Madras, 
 
 Lester, Major-General W. C, late Bengal StafiCorps. 
 
 Lethbridge, Roper, CLE., late Press Commissioner of India. 
 
 Liddell, W. B., Ootacamund, Madras. 
 
 Lindsay, Colonel Alex. , late Madras Army, formerly a Magistrate in Mysore 
 
 Livingstone-Learmonth, A. , late 3rd Madras L. 1. 
 
 Llewhellin, E. S., of Tirhoot, Bengal. 
 
 Llewhellin, G. W., of Tirhoot, Bengal. 
 
 Loch, John C, late Member of Legislative Council, Madras. 
 
 Lock'wood, Colonel J. C, late Indian Cavalry. 
 
 Longley, C. T., late Madras Civil Service, and Member of the Board of 
 
 Revenue. 
 Lord R. G., late Deputy-Surgeon-General Bombay Medical Department. 
 Louis, A. H., late of the Bombay Bar. 
 Low, Malcolm, late Bengal Civil Service. 
 Low, G. J., District Superintendent of Police, Oudh. 
 Low! S. P. (of Messrs. Grindlayand Co.) 
 Lucas, Lieut. -General A. W., C.B., Bombay Army. 
 Lushington, H., late Bengal Civil Service, Judge of Allahabad. 
 Lyell, Robert, late of Assam. 
 Lyons-Montgomery, Major-General C, Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 McAlpine, Kenneth, of Yellagode Estate, Bangalore. 
 
 McAlpine, Francis, of Calcutta. 
 
 MacAndrew, Colonel R. C, Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 McGillivray, Lieut. -Colonel S. F., late Bombay Staff Corps. 
 
 MacDonakl, J. M., Indigo Planter, Bengal. 
 
 Macdougall, Lieut. -Colonel A., Bengal, retired list.
 
 List of Members, 159 
 
 Macfadyen, P., late Member Legislative Council, Madras. 
 
 MacGreG:or, Atholl, late Madras Civil Service ancl Political Resident in Travan- 
 core and Cochin. 
 
 McKellar, Deputy-Surgeon-General E., Bengal, retired. 
 
 Mackenzie, J. F., Indigo Planter, Tirhoot. 
 
 Macintire, General A. W. , late Madras Artillery. 
 
 Macintyre, Lieut. -General J. 
 
 Macintyre, Major-General D., V.C, Bengal. 
 
 Mackian, J. D., late Bengal Civil Service. 
 
 Mackintosh, A. B., M.Q., of Calcutta. 
 
 Maclean, J. M., late Editor Bombay Gazette. 
 
 Maclintosh, John, of Calcutta, Merchant. 
 
 Macgrath, Colonel J. R., Madras Artillery, late Assistant to the Director-General 
 of Telegraphs in India. 
 
 Macnaghten, Melville, of Nischindapur, Bengal. 
 
 Macnamara, Surgeon-Major F. N., Bengal Medical Service, retired, late Pro- 
 fessor Calcutta Medical College. 
 
 Macbean, Colonel G. S., late Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Macbean, Lieut. -Colonel Forbes. 
 
 Macrae, Deputy-Inspector-General of Hospitals A.C., late Bengal Army, Pro- 
 fessor Medical College, Calcutta. 
 
 Magor, R. B., of Calcutta, Merchant. 
 
 Mainwaring, Major-General R. R., Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Mainwaring, Colonel W. 
 
 Maitland-Heriot, W. , of Howrah. 
 
 Malleson, Colonel G. B., C.S.I., late Guardian H.H. the Maharajah of Mysore. 
 
 Mallins, Surgeon H., Indian Medical Service, retired. 
 
 Maltby, E., late Madras Civil Service, and Member of Council. 
 
 Man, Lieut. -General, late Civil Employ, British Burmah. 
 
 Mangles, H. A., late Bengal Civil Service. • 
 
 Mardall, Major-General F., late Madras Staff Corps. 
 
 Marsh, Colonel E. N. 
 
 Martin, James A. N., Tea Planter. 
 
 Martin, Major-General, J. P., retired. 
 
 Massey, M., late of Calcutta. 
 
 Master, R. E., late Madras Civil Service, Member of Board of Revenue. 
 
 Maude, Colonel C, Bombay Staff Corps. 
 
 Mayne, J. D., late Advocate-General of Madras. 
 
 Mayne, Colonel A. G., late Cantonment Magistrate, Morar, Mhow, and Secun- 
 derabad. 
 
 M'Cleverty, General W. A., formerly Commander-in-Chief, Madras. 
 
 M'Mahon, Major-Cieneral A. R., late Deputy-Commissioner, British Burmah. 
 
 Melville, S., late Bengal Civil Service. 
 
 Melville, J. E. C, late Madras Civil Service. 
 
 Mewburn, G. F., late Member of the Legislative Council of India. 
 
 Myles-Sandys, Lieut. -Colonel T., late 2nd Punjab Infantry. 
 
 Mills, Major-General H., late Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Miller, Surgeon-Cieneral J. R., M.D., Bombay Army. 
 
 Michael, Colonel J., C.S.I., late Secretary to Government of Madras, Military 
 Department. 
 
 Monson, Major-General D., R. E. 
 
 Money, Colonel G. Noel, C.B., late Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Money, Lieut. -Colonel E., Tea Planter. 
 
 Money, E. M., late Bengal Civil Service. 
 
 Montgomery, Major-General C. L., Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Moore, W. P., Madras Civil Service. 
 
 Moore, Major-General T. M., late Bengal European Cavalry. 
 
 Moran, S., partner William Moran & Co., Calcutta. 
 
 Moran, W., Planter, Motiharee, Chumparun, and Broker (William Moran & Co.), 
 Calcutta.
 
 i6o List of Members, 
 
 Morgan, E. C, late Member of the Legislative Council of India. 
 
 Morgan, Major-General W. D,, Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Morland, E. H., late Bengal Civil Service. 
 
 Morris, H., late Madras Civil Service. 
 
 Morris, George Gordon, late Bengal Civil Service, Judge of the Supreme Court 
 
 of Calcutta. 
 Morton, Major-General W. E., R.E., late Bengal. 
 Muller, B. 
 
 Murdoch, A. W., late of Serajgunge, Bengal. 
 Murdoch, H. H., late of Calcutta. 
 Murray, Major-General W., Madras (retired). 
 Murray, Brigade- Surgeon J., late Madras Army. 
 
 Murray, Surgeon-General J., formerly Chief, Bengal Medical Department. 
 Mylne, J., Beheea, Shahabad, Bengal. 
 Mylne, D. H., Beheea, Shahabad, Bengal. 
 
 Nassau-Lees, Colonel W., late Principal Mohammedan College, Calcutta. 
 
 Nelson, Major-General J., late Madras Staff Corps. 
 
 Nelson, J., M.D., Lvdiacherra, Cachar, Bengal. 
 
 Newton, Lieut. R. C, 12th Royal Lancers. 
 
 Nicholetts, Colonel C. H., late ist Bengal European Light Cavalry. 
 
 Nicholls, Rev. W. W., Chaplain, Bengal Ecclesiastical Establishment. 
 
 Nicoll, Lieut. -General H., Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Nightingale, Lieut. -Colonel C. W., late Superintending Engineer, Punjab. 
 
 Nonnan, J. H., late of Calcutta, Secretary of the Sind, Punjab, and Delhi 
 
 Railway. 
 Nuttall, Major-General J. M., C.B., formerly Commanding at Dibrugarh, 
 
 Assam. 
 
 Oakshott, Eugene. 
 
 O'Connell, Major-General P., late Madras Engineers. 
 
 Ogbourne, C. H. , Underwriter of Calcutta. 
 
 Ogilvie, Lieut -Colonel A. J., late R.A. 
 
 Ogilvy, John F., East India Merchant. 
 
 Ord, Lieut. -Col. A. W., late 20th Regiment. 
 
 Orr, Major A. P. 
 
 Orr, Robert G. , of Madras. 
 
 Osborn, Colonel H. R., Bengal Staff Corps, retired. 
 
 Osmand, A. T., late of Macintosh, Burn & Co., Calcutta. 
 
 Onslow, A. P. , late Madras Civil Service. 
 
 Outram, Sir Francis B., Bart., Bengal Civil Service, retired. 
 
 Paget, Major-General, late 5th Punjab Cavalry. 
 Pakenham, Captain G. D. , late Bengal Light Cavalry. 
 
 Palliser, Major-General Sir C. H., K.C.B., late Bengal Staff Corps, and Com- 
 manding at Sialkot. 
 Palmer, Surgeon-General W. J., M.D., late Bengal. 
 Parker, the Hon. Sidney, of Dibrugarh, Assam. 
 Parker, J. L., late P.W.D., India. 
 
 Partridge, Depuly-Surgeon-General S. B., Bengal Army, retired. 
 Partridge, E. F., Proprietor Tea Estates. 
 Paske, Colonel E. H. 
 
 Paske, Major-General W., late B.S.C. in Civil Employ, Punjab. 
 Paterson, Major-General A. 
 Payne, A. J., Calcutta. 
 Payne, J. H. 
 
 Pearse, Major-General J. L., late Commissioner, Mysore. 
 Pellew, Fleetwood H., Bengal Civil Service, Commissioner of Dacca. 
 Perkins, Major-General J., late Oudh Commission.
 
 List of Members. i6i 
 
 Perkins, Major-General E. N., late Bengal Staff jCorps. 
 
 Phelps, Lieut. -Colonel A. D., late Madras Staff Corps. 
 
 Phillips, Major-General W. C, Retired List. 
 
 Pincott, Frederick, Member of the Anjuman-i-Punjab. 
 
 Pitt-Kennedy, J., late Member of the Legislative Council of India. 
 
 Platts, J. T., Inspector of Schools in the N. W. Provinces and the Central 
 Provinces. 
 
 Playfair, P., Merchant, Calcutta. 
 
 Ponsonby- Watts, Major-General J., Madras Staff Corps. 
 
 Porcelli, V. F., late Opium Department. 
 
 Porter, Colonel J. F., Planter, Bangalore. 
 
 Porter, G. M., Coppa, Mysore, India. 
 
 Povv^er, Major-General E. H., Barrister-at-Law, late Deputy-Judge-Advocate- 
 General of the Madras Army. 
 
 Powles, L. D. 
 
 Powney, E. Penton, late Madras Civil Service, Secretary to Government and 
 Judge of the Sudder Adawlut. 
 
 Praed, W. Mackworth. 
 
 Prendergast, T., late Madras Civil Service. 
 
 Price, Major-General R. H., Bengal, retired. 
 
 Pringle, R. K., late Bombay Civil Service and Commissioner in Sind. 
 
 Probyn, W. G., late Bengal Civil Service and Judge of Saharanpore. 
 
 Randell, Lieut. -Colonel G., retired Madras Army. 
 
 Raverty, Major H. G., Bombay Army (retired), late Political Agent. 
 
 Rawlins, Major-General J. S., late Colonel Commanding 1st Goorkha Light 
 
 Infantry. 
 Raikes, C, C.S.I., formerly Judge of the Suddur Court, N.W.P., Agra. 
 Ray, Surgeon-General G. H., late Bengal Army. 
 Reade, E. A., C.B., late Bengal Civil Service and Member of the Board of 
 
 Revenue, N.W.P. 
 Refrie, Robert, late of Bombay. 
 Reid, H. Stev^art, late Bengal Civil Service and Member of the Board of Revenue, 
 
 N.W.P. 
 Reid, Major-General G. R. A. N., late Bengal Army. 
 Remfry, John, late Hon. Magistrate, Calcutta. 
 Riach, Major-General W. A., Madras Staff Corps. 
 Riach, W. A. 
 
 Rice, Major-General W., late Bombay Staff Corps. 
 Richards, Lieut. -General S., Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Richardson, Robert John, late Bengal Civil Service; Judge of Tirhoot. 
 Ricketts, George, C.B., late Bengal Civil Service, Member Board of Revenue, 
 
 N.W.P. 
 Riddell, J., Proprietor Tea Estates, Assam. 
 Riddell, W., Singhia Factory, Tirhoot, Bengal. 
 Rideout, Colonel J. W., Madras Staff Corps. 
 Ridges, E. B., late of Calcutta. 
 
 Rigby, W., late Deputy-Conservator of Forests, Punjab. 
 Ringer, Deputy-Surgeon-General T., Bengal Amiy (retired), 
 Roberts, Clarence A., late Madras Civil Service, Judge of Chittoor. 
 Roberts, W., Proprietor of Tea Gardens. 
 Roberts, E. T., Barrister, late of Calcutta. 
 Robertson, General H. L. 
 
 Robinson, Phil., late Professor, Agra College, N.W.P. 
 Robinson, P. W., of Calcutta. 
 Robinson, Sir W. Rose, K. C.S.I. , late Madras Civil Service and Member of 
 
 Council. 
 Robinson, Lieut. -General A. 
 Robinson, G. P., Exchange Broker of Bombay. 
 
 M
 
 1 62 List of Members. 
 
 Rogers, H. M., late Bengal Civil Service. 
 
 Rogers, A., late Bombay Civil Service, Member of Council, Bombay. 
 
 Rogers, Arch., Attorney of the High Court, Calcutta. 
 
 Rose, Lieut. -Colonel R. Ily., late 2nd Queen's. 
 
 Ross, A., late Judge, High Court, N.W.P. 
 
 Ross, Surgeon-General J. T. C, CLE., Bengal (retired). 
 
 Roupell, J. B., late Madras Civil Service, Judge of Coimbatore. 
 
 Ruble, J. F. 
 
 Ruddiman, Captain T., late Madras Army. 
 
 Ryrie, R. 
 
 Ryrie, W. D., late of Calcutta. 
 
 Ryves, H. 
 
 Ryves, Lieut. -Colonel H. E., i8th Bengal Lancers. 
 
 Sampson, Lieut. -Colonel D., late Indian Army. 
 
 Sanderson, Brigade-Surgeon A., Madras Army. 
 
 Sanderson, Charles, late Solicitor to the Government of India, Calcutta. 
 
 Sandwith, Major-General J. P., late Bombay Staff Corps. 
 
 Sandys, Teignmouth, late Judge of Bhagalpoor, Bengal. 
 
 Saunders, J. O'B., Ym^xx^Xox Englishman, Calcutta. 
 
 Saunders, R. F., late Bengal Civil Service, and Judge, N.W. Provinces. 
 
 Scoble, A. R., Barrister, Q.C., late Advocate-General, Bombay. 
 
 Seton, George,, late of Calcutta. 
 
 Seton, G., Merchant, of Calcutta. 
 
 Seton-Karr, W. S., late Bengal Civil Service, and Foreign Secretary, Govern- 
 ment of India. 
 
 Shaw, Colonel E. W., late Indian Army. 
 
 Shearin, E., late Merchant, Calcutta. 
 
 Sherer, Major-General J. F., late Deputy-Commissioner, Assam. 
 
 Shewell, Major-General H., late Judge- Advocate-General, Bombay. 
 
 Silver, Lieut. -General A. C, late Secretary to Government in the Military 
 Department, Madras. 
 
 Sim, J. D., C.S.I., retired Madras Civil Service, late Member of Council, 
 Madras. 
 
 Simon, F., C.E., late Executive Engineer, Bengal Irrigation Department. 
 
 Simpson, C. F. R., of Tirhoot, Bengal. 
 
 Simpson, Clement, late of Madras. 
 
 Skinner, C. B., late Skinner and Co., Calcutta. 
 
 Skinner, R. M., late Bengal Civil Service, and Judge Kishnaghur, Bengal. 
 
 Smallman, H. F., Executive Engineer, P.W.D., Punjab. 
 
 Smallwood, A., Merchant, of Calcutta, and Proprietor of Tea Estates. 
 
 Smith, J. G. (Ritchie, Stewart and Co.), Bombay. 
 
 Smith, William, C.E., late Superintending Engineer, P.W.D., J.P., and Hon. 
 Magistrate, Calcutta. 
 
 Smithe, J. Doyle, late H.M.T.S. 
 
 Smyly, Major-General J. B., late Bengal Staff Corps, and Deputy Commissioner, 
 Punjab. 
 
 Snow, Lieut.-Colonel P. F., late Madras Army. 
 
 Spink, T. W., of Calcutta. 
 
 Spink, W., late Member Legislative Council of Bengal. 
 
 Stafford, Major-General J. F., late Bengal Staff Corps. 
 
 Stafford, Colonel P. P. L., late Madras Staff Corps. 
 
 Stafford, Major-General W. J. F., C.B., late Bengal Staff Corps, formerly com- 
 manding in Assam. 
 
 Stanford, A. L., late of Calcutta. 
 
 Stanford, G., late Hon. Magistrate and J. P., Calcutta. 
 
 Steele, Robert, of Calcutta, Merchant. 
 
 Stevens, P., Madras, Banker, retired. 
 
 Stevenson, John, of Midnapore, Bengal, 
 
 Steward, John, Member of the firm of Jardine, Skinner, and Co., Calcutta.
 
 List of Members. 163 
 
 Stewart, Lieut. -General C. T., Royal Bengal Engineers. 
 
 Stewart, Robert, late Member of Legislative Council of India. 
 
 Stewart, Lieut. -Colonel J. 
 
 Stewart, Major A. H., late 6th Dragoons. 
 
 Stone, A. F., formerly Tea Planter, Assam. 
 
 Studd, E. J. C, of Dhuli, Tirhoot. 
 
 Studd, H. M., of Dhuli, Tirhoot. 
 
 Sutherland, H. H., late Member of Legislative Council of India. 
 
 Sutton, Major R. N., late 8th Hussars, Rawul Pindi. 
 
 Sweet, Colonel T., late Madras Staff Corps. 
 
 Swiney, Major-General George, retired, B.S.C. 
 
 Tait, J. M., F.S.S., F.R.G.S., late of Calcutta. 
 
 Tayler, W., late Bengal Civil Service and Commissioner of Patna. 
 
 Taylor, J. S., Tea and Indigo Planter. 
 
 Taylor, Ralph N., late Madras Staff Corps. 
 
 Taylor, Lieut.-Colonel J. B., Madras Staff Corps, Cantonment Magistrate, St. 
 
 Thomas's Mount. 
 Taylor, Major-General H. D., retired. 
 
 Taylor, Commander A. D., late Superintendent Marine Surveys, Calcutta. 
 Taylor, Andrew, Uncov. Civil Service. 
 Templer, Lieut. C. B,, late Indian Navy. 
 Ternan, Major-General A., Bengal Staff Corps and late Deputy Commissioner, 
 
 Jaloun, N.W.P. 
 Theobald, Surgeon-General J. R., Retired List, Madras. 
 Thomas, Major-General G. E., late Bombay Staff Corps. 
 Thomas, E. B., late Madras Civil Service. 
 
 Thomas, G. P., Civil Engineer on Staff of East Indian Railway. 
 Thomas, E. C. G., Madras Civil Service, Retired. 
 Thomas, Theodore, Barrister-at-Law, Lucknow. 
 
 Thompson, F., Bengal Civil Service, retired, late Judge N.W. Provinces. 
 Thompson, Lieut-General T., late Madras Staff Corps. 
 Thompson, Major-General G. H., late Bengal Staff Corps. 
 Thompson, Major-General D., R.E. 
 Thomson, Colonel G. C, late Bengal Staff Corps. 
 Thomson, J., Chairman, Agra Bank. 
 Thomson, W., late of Madras. 
 
 Thomson, Walter, Zemindar Beheea, Shahabad, Behar. 
 Thorburn, E. A., late of Thomas and Co., Calcutta. 
 Thorp, wSurgeon-General E. C, retired, formerly Civil Surgeon in Assam. 
 Thorp, H., Indigo Planter, Moorla Valley, Segowlie, Chumparum, Bengal. 
 Tickell, Lieut.-Colonel J., late Indian Army. 
 Tod, E. P., Tea Planter, Terai. 
 Todd, J. E., Melang Estate, Upper Assam. 
 Todd, Lieut.-Colonel F. W., Madras Army (retired). 
 Tottenham, C. 
 
 Touch, Colonel J. G., Madras Staff Corps. 
 Trench, P. Chenevix, late Bengal Civil Service. 
 Trimnel, G. F., Deputy Surgeon-General. 
 Tronson, Captain J., Indian Navy. 
 Trotter, C, late Bengal Civil Service. 
 Tulloch, Major-General A., Retired List. 
 Tulloh, Major R. H. D., Bengal Army, retired. 
 Turner, A. M. (Turner, Morrison, & Co.), Calcutta. 
 Turner, H. J. C, of Grindlay & Co., Calcutta. 
 Turner-Jones, Colonel G., Bengal Infantry. 
 Turner, W. C., late Bengal Civil Service, and Judge of Agra. 
 Twynam, Major-General E. S. L., late BengafStaff Corps. 
 Tye, Ernest, of Budderpore, Cachar, late Hon. Magistrate and J. P.
 
 164 List of Members. 
 
 Tyrwhitt, Major-General Edmund, Bengal Army (retired), late Inspector-General 
 of Police, N.W.P. and Oudh. 
 
 Urmston, Colonel H. B., late Deputy Commissioner, Punjab. 
 
 Vaillant, L. A., late of Assam. 
 
 Van Gelder, J., late of Calcutta. 
 
 Vibart, Colonel A. J., late Bombay Army. 
 
 Vibart, Lieut. -Colonel H.M., R.E. (Madras). 
 
 Voss, C. W., Messrs. Young and Voss, Parla Kimidi, Ganjam District, Madras 
 
 Presidency. 
 Voysey, Chas., B.A. 
 
 Vyse, Captain C. F., Bengal Staff Corps. 
 Vyse, Griffin W,, late Field Engineer in Afghanistan. 
 
 Waddington, Major-General H. F., Bengal, retired, late Deputy Commissioner, 
 
 Central Provinces. 
 Walker, Colonel R. J., Bengal Retired List. 
 
 Waller, Dr. Walter K., late of Calcutta, Fellow of the Calcutta University. 
 Wallich, G. C. 
 
 Wallich, Surgeon-Major, M.D. 
 Wallis, C. F., of Calcutta. 
 Wallis, H. A., of Calcutta. 
 Wallis, W. R., late of Calcutta. 
 Walsh^ Colonel T. P. B., late Cantonment Magistrate of Ahmednagar, and J. P., 
 
 Bombay. 
 Walter, General J. M. 
 
 Ward, J. D., late Bengal Civil Service, formerly Judge at Chittagong. 
 Warden, A. B., late Judge of H.M. High Court of Judicature, Bombay, and 
 
 Bombay Civil Service. 
 Warren, James, late Hon. Magistrate, Assam. 
 Waters, Chas., late Principal Bangalore Central College. 
 Watkins, J. F., late of Calcutta. 
 Watson, J. P., Bombay. 
 Watson, W. L., late of Calcutta, Merchant. 
 Watson, Major-General J. T., Staff Corps. 
 Weston, H. J., Bengal Ice Manufacturing Co., Limited. 
 Westropp, Major-General R. M., late Bengal Army. 
 Wheeler, Colonel H. J., late Bengal Staff Corps 
 White, Lieut. F. J., Madras Retired List, late Deputy Assistant Commissary, 
 
 Bangalore. 
 White, Brigade Surgeon J. Berry, Bengal Ret., late Civil Surgeon, Assam. 
 Whitmore, C. Algernon. 
 
 Whittaker, Colonel B. R., late Bombay Army. 
 Wigram, Percy, late Bengal Civil Service. 
 Wilcox, Colonel G. R. C, late Bengal Army. 
 Wilkins, General St. Clair, R.E. 
 
 Wilkins, G. D., late Bengal Civil Service and Circuit Judge, Calcutta, 
 Wilkinson, Captain C. J., late P. & O. Superintendent, Calcutta. 
 Wilkinson, F. G., of Tirhoot, Bengal. 
 Wilkinson, M. C, late Merchant, Bombay. 
 Williams, J., late Assistant to the General Superintendent for the suppression of 
 
 Thuggee and Dacoity. 
 Williams, Colonel J. M., retired B.S.C. 
 Williamson, C, late of Calcutta. 
 Williamson, C. E,, late of Seleng, Assam. 
 Williamson, Geo., late of Calcutta. 
 Wilmot, C. W., late Deputy Commissioner, Bengal. 
 Wilson, James, Proprietor and late Editor I7idia7t Daily Ncivs, Calcutta,
 
 List of Members. 165 
 
 Wintle, Major-General E. H. C, late Magistate aud Judge, Small Cause Court, 
 
 Dum Dum, near Calcutta. 
 Wiseman, James. 
 Wood, W. C. 
 
 Wood, Major-General J. C, retired Bengal Staff Corps. 
 Woodhouse, Major-General R.R. 
 Woodhouse, Colonel H. A., Bombay Staff Corps. 
 Wordie, J. C, Proprietor of Tea Estates. 
 Worke, L., Merchant, Calcutta. 
 Wright, T. H., Assistant Engineer, P.W.D., N.W.P. 
 Wright, Surgeon-Major D., Retired List, late of the Residency, Nipal, 
 Wright, H. G., late Collector of Salt Revenue, Punjab. 
 Wright, Surgeon F. W., 33rd Regiment, Bengal Native Infantry. 
 Wyatt, G. Neville, Indigo Planter, Tirhoot. 
 Wyllie, James, East India Merchant. 
 Wyndowe, Deputy Surgeon-General S. J., Madras, retired. 
 
 Yeld, Surgeon H. P., 15th Bengal Cavalry. 
 Young, Major-Genei-al, C.B., R.E., Bengal, retired. 
 
 Yule, Sir G. U., K.C.S.I., C.B., late Bengal Civil Service, and Member of the 
 Supreme Council of India. 
 
 WooDFALL & KiNDEK, Printers, Milford Lane, Strand, London, W.C
 
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