MR. LAYARD ON INDIA.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XVII, Issue 77, 25 September 1858, Page 3

MR. LAYARD ON INDIA.

A meeting has been held in St. James's Hall, Piccadilly, to hear an address from Mr. Layard, who had recently returned from India, on the present aspect of affairs in that country. Viscount Bury occupied the chair. After a few introductory observations by the chairman, Mr. Layard proceeded to address the meeting. He said that he had been requested by many : members of Parliament and friends in whose judgment he had the greatest trust, to speak that evening on a subject which was too portentous and far too serious to be treated lightly. He should have hesitated to address himself to such an assembly, if he had not something to say which he believed might

affect Indian affairs. It was his conscientious belief that the people of England did not know the truth in regard to the Government of India It had not been at any time his fate to make things pleasant, but without passing reflection upon any one, he would confine himself to a plain statement of facts. Not more than a year ago a wide-spread rebellion broke out in India, and they heard of their countrymen, countrywomen, and children falling victims to an indescribable fury on the part of the natives, the reason assigned being that we had treated the natives with too much kindness. Now, he hated figures, and detested averages. He remembered when he returned from the Crimea loud complaints were made that our countrymen were left without food, but the truth soon came to be known, and in this case also the truth would by-and-by be known. God forbid that he should ascribe what had occurred in India to any party, military or civil : he ascribed it solely to a system. It was his conviction that the system of annexation had been the great moving canse of the present mutiny in India. He was told uiat the Government of India did not recognise annexation as a fixed policy and a portion of its system ; but he denied assertion. When Sir Richard Hamilton placed Holkar, who was a minor, on the throne, he was reprimanded for doing so, as it prevented the Indian Government from pursuing a course of annexation which it had laid down to itself. Between the years 1851 and 1856, Lord Dalhousie annexed no less a population than 10,558,943, and an area consisting of 146,000 square miles. These figures were according to a return made to Parliament ; but it was a fallacious return, as it did not contain the assigned districts, such as Hyderabad, Sattara, and others. He could safely state that Lord Dalhousie had annexed territories containing 15,000,000 of inhabitants to our dominions in India. One of the most important of these annexations, and one from which they had most bitterly suffered, was that of Oude [cheers]. He need hardly call the attention of the meeting to the well-known despatch of Sir James Outram, in which an account was given of his interview with the King of Oude, when that sovereign, after alluding to the- fidelity of his family to the British rule for many generations, placed his crown upon his knees, and said that he had no more hope in the justice of England after having been told that a treaty which had existed for twenty years, and which he considered to be good, lawful, and binding, was no longer binding, because it had been disapproved by the Court of Directors. He would not dwell upon the fact of dispossessing the landed proprietors of Oude ; but this he would say, that nations never committed great crimes without ultimately suffering from them ; and Oude might be to India what Poland and Hungary had been and were to Russia, The honourable gentleman then adverted to the non-observance of treaties by the Indian Government with the native princes, particularly instancing the case of the Nizam of Nagpore. Another grievance of which the natives had to complain was the appointment of the Commission of Emans, as it was called — a sort of inquisition into the titles of men to their property. If the parties could not show a title for a hundred years, the property was taken from them altogether. No country in the world would tolerate such a system. Mr. Layard then pointed out the great abuses that existed in the system of police pursued in India, andread extracts from petitions presented to Parliament, in which cases of torture, practised to extort evidence, were set forth. Although these facts were notorious, yet there were persons hardy enough to deny them. He remembered an honourable gentleman getting up in Parliament and saying that there was no torture in India. He had not met a man in India who had not told him that the practice of torture had increased within the last twenty years. After alludiu^ to the imperfect manner in which evidence is tuken in civil and criminal cases, and pointing out the evil effects of the system of centralization which is so rigidly enforced, he arrived at the conclusion that justice is unknown to the poor of India. The system of selling the land.of the Zemindars for the purpose of recovering- revenue was fraught with mischief. Everywhere in India there was a perfect fear and dread of the European. He did not believe that the natives were ungrateful. He had seen the portraits of Mountstuart Elphinstone in the Deccan, of Sir Charles Napier in Scinde, and of Mr. Gubbins in Benares, in many of the houses of the natives. He regretted that a belief prevailed that an English Education tended to make the Hindoo a worse character than he was in his native state. Nana Sahib was a low, vulgar Brahmin, and spoke not a word of English. It was true that entertainments were given in his house at Cawnpore, where he came for a minute or two, but he never joined the company. English education in India was very incomplete. Another great disturbing cause was our interterference with the customs and usages of the natives, such as the law of adoption and the marriage of widows. It had been asserted that the missionaries were to be censured, but he solemnly declared that he had never heard a missionary labourer assigned by any native as a cause of the outrage. He admitted the East India Company had done well. Their arrangements were good, but the government of the East India Company had not made a prosperous or happy people. The faith of the natives of India in us had broken down. It no longer existed. Lord Dalhousie was accused of having been the chief cause of this. Certainly the principles of government upon which he acted (whether he or the country were responsible, he cared not to inquire), in the annexation of Oude and the confiscation of the estates of the people, had been the cause of tne rebellion in India. When he asked any natives a question in which the name of Lord Dalhousie occurred, they held up their hands and said, "For God's sake, don't speak of him ! " When that noblebleman left the shores of India there were no addresses of congratulation presented to him. When Lord Canning assumed the government of India, everything seemed to be in a perfect state of quietude ; but he had scarcely taken upon him the reins of government, before the whole thing was blown up. He was surrounded by a weak Council. We had no able men — giants in their days. It was unfair to say that Lord Canning was thwarted at Calcutta. He was not. The people saw imminent danger, and every man offered himself, volunteering to

sacrifice life and property to serve the Government, but their offer was refused ; but he could not have known the extent of the danger, and under the circumstances Lord Canning did not deserve the blame that had been cast upon him [cheers]. A great deal had been said about Mr. Colvin's proclamation, but Sir Henry Lawrence had issued a proclamation even more merciful than that of Mr. Colvin. He did not wish to deny or palliate the atrocities that had been committed in India. With respect to the alleged cases of mutilation, after the most vigilant investigation he had not been able to find out one authenticated case [cheers] . In India it was a great rising of the people, and he believed that they meant to exterminate I man, woman, and child, but they did not mean to insult or mutilate. What said Mr. Russell in the Times ? He stated that there were 500 native Christians in Lucknow that were not molested. On the other hand, there had been numerous cases of fearful revedge on the part of their own army. At Jhansi, persons whom the Ranee sent out to treat were hanged. No doubt she was a great monster, but that was no reason why her ambassador should have been hanged. Again, he heard an educated English gentleman declare, in the presence of a large assembly, that he had watched for two days a Sepo^who was wounded so that he could not get away, when the crows and the eagles had begun their horrible repast on his eyes and his vitals. After alluding to the strong feeling which was excited in this country by the first intelligence of the horrors perpetrated by the Sepoys, and the loud calls for vengeance, the honourable gentleman said that, when standing over the wall at Cawnpore, one feeling more bitter than all the rest that rose in his mind was, that we might possibly by our acts justify that deed of hell [cheers]. He appealed to the members of Parliament who were then present, as they would soon have to vote upon a certain question, not to set their faces against all justice [cheers]. He appealed to the people to raise their voice against this thirst of blood [cheers]. He would not spare the guilty ; punish them, but spare the innocent. He did not wish to allude to the subjects of the day. He would not touch upon party contentions. " For God's sake let us forget party when an empire is at stake" [cheers]. He would not ask whether it was prudent or wise to publish a certain document ; but this he would say, that whoever was at the head of the Government of India ought to be guided by the two principles laid down in the concluding paragraph of that despatch, which ought to be written in characters of gold, and put up in every public place in India [cheers]. "We shall conquer India again. Our skill and science, and the indomitable courage of our troops, will do it ; but when we have reconquered it, what shall we do with it ? There is no doubt as to the course we should pursue. Whatever may be the result, it is our duty to pursue it. It is all very well to see the statesmen of a great nation quarrelling for party purposes when they are about to lose a vast empire. You may have a Council, and must have a Council which shall control your Indian Government at home, but India itself must be governed in India [cheers]. You must open your Council not only to a European, but to an Indian element. You have already done it on a small scale in Ceylon. There you have a population raised from 700,000 to 4,000,000. You have planters raised from six to 600 ; you have n Council founded upon liberal and civilized principles, where Indians, even Buddhists, and almost native half-castes, are represented. The experiment has been most successful. That experiment you must try in India. If you do, and if you lose India, it will be no dishonour and no disgrace to you that future history should say, that you made the people of India civilized, prosperous, and happy, and, if it can be effected by our example, let me add Christian " [great cheering]. A vote of thanks to Mr. Layard was then proposed by Lord Bury, seconded by Sir E. Perry, and carried by acclamation.

A strange affair has recently occured at Versailles. One of the notabilities of the town since the year 1817 has been an aged woman, known as Mdlle. Savalette, who was always remarked for her old-fashioned dresses. She changed her lodgings every three months, and never received visits, but used to amuse herself by visiting concierges and listening to their gossip about their masters. She was supposed to belong to a noble family, and it was known that since 1829 she had been in receipt of a pension of 1.000fr., granted by Charles X., and that members of the legitimist party from time to time made her presents. Three days ago she was found dead in her room, and on the usuel medical examination of the body being made, it turned out that she was a man, 80 years of age. The sole solution of the enigma appears to be that the real Mdlie. Savalette having died some years ago, the deceased possessed himself of her papers, and to obtain possession of her revenue passed himself off for her.

The ordinary course of Parliament has been diversified by an episode of rare occurrence in these days. An editor of a country newspaper, bearing the two ominous names of Washington Wilks, had intimated in his journal that Mr. Clive, the chairman of a certain railway committee, had exhibited, in a certain case, a strong "leaning" towards one railway in preference to another, imputing to him in so doing corrupt motives ; and Mr. Clive, in vindication of his honour, had Mr. Washington Wilks called to the bar of the House, and consigned to the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms. The issue was not calculated to vindicate anybody's honour, Mr. Washington Wilks having been discharged from custody upon withdrawing the offensive article (which, it may be presumed, he would have done without pressure from the House of Commons) and paying the heavy costs attending the hospitality of the Sergeant-at- Arras. This process of imprison-, ment and liberation not only leaves the case where it stood, but has rendered it rather worse, by opening a discussion upon Mr. Clive's conduct as chairman of the committee, which develops strong and contradictory assertions and opinions on both sides. So long as the calumny was confined to a provincial paper, it really did no great mischief; but now that it has become a topic of debate all over the kingdom, one cannot see the end of the mischief. — Home News, June 1 7,