On 28 May, before leaving his office to attend a meeting of the Cabinet, Wood expressed doubts as to there being time
24
enough for an Indian bill* At the Cabinet, Russell urged
his colleagues to proceed* His position gained strength when the Duke of Argyll arrived with a private letter from Dalhousie, which
19
H* Reeve (ed*), Greville Memoirs, VII, p* 52*
20
Wood to Dalhousie, 24 May 1834* 21
This was alleged during/debates on Wood's Bill (e*g*, by Lord Stanley, Hansard, cxxviii, 23 June 1 8 5 3, col* 608)* 22
Aberdeen to Wood, 18 May 1 8 5 3, Aberdeen Pap., op. cit., fol. 1 3 8.
23
Queen to Aberdeen, 27 May 1 8 5 3, in Letters of Queen Victoria, II, p* 543.
stressed that to leave the forms of government undecided would 25
have an unsettling effect upon India* Sir William Molesworth, the radical, persisted in pressing for the abolition of the
Company* Herbert, Gladstone, Granville and Clarendon favoured a continuing bill of a short duration* Lansdowne and Graham wanted to delay any legislation until the autumn* In the end, Russell carried Aberdeen, Palmerston, Wood, Newcastle and Argyll
21
with him to secure a majority in favour of immediate legislation* Wood "had to work like a horse" to prepare his Bill for present**
27
ation to the Commons on 5 June* There are indications that the breach in the Cabinet was still wide when he rose to deliver his opening speech* On 2 June, Aberdeen wrote to Russell that it was "unfortunate that Wood9s Bill should be launched tomorrow, in the expectation of a general support on the part of the
28 ' .
Government*" A parliamentary reporter described the atmosphere on the government benches in the Commons as one of expected
29
dissension* A few days later, Wood told Dalhousie that the 25
Wood to Dalhousie, 8 June, 6 and 8 October 1853* W.P*;
Duchess of Argyll (ed*), Duke of Argyll*s Memoirs* London 1906,
2 vols*, I, p* 420*
26
Wood*s journal, book C, Hickleton Pap* 27
Wood to Grey,4 June 1853* Howick Pap*
^Aberdeen to Russell, 2 June 1853» P*R*0* 30/22/11*
^£E* M * Whitty], History of the Session 1852-3***, P* 150* Whitty reported suspicions in the House that Wood spoke only for the Whigs, but Wood's account of the division in the Cabinet
suggests that there was no split of a Whig-Peelite nature (journal, book C)*
government had been "anxious to make no more change than we
could help, for the present House of Commons is a very uncertain 30
one*" The Act can hardly be described as the product of a united government with a settled intention* It is clear, however, that for Wood and certain other liberals the form of the home government for which provision was made had more than a short-term appeal*
In 18339 Macaulay, then Secretary of the Board of Control,
had explained to the Commons the Whig government1s perpetuation of the Company*s administration:
Thatihis house is, or is ever likely to be, an efficient check on abuses practised in India, I altogether deny *••• What we want is a body independent of the government, ••• not a tool of the Treasury, nor a tool of the opposition
••*• The Company ••* is such a body*31
During the 1853 debates, Wood made similar appeals to this
principle«of "double government", as it was called* The radicals wanted "single government" by an Indian department with a
responsible minister at its head* Wood contended that this
;Wou}.d/ ";intr;oduce x>arty considerations into the administration of
32
India*" Furthermore, because of parliament's ignorance of India, a single or standard departmental form of organization, such as existed at the Colonial Office^ would conduce to worse rather than better government* He argued that "in the present state of information with regard to India, the experience of 30
Wood to Dalhousie, 8 June 1853* 31
Cited in C*H*I* * VI, p*4*
32 "
persons whose lives • *• [had] been devoted to Indian subjects • •* [was] a better security for good government than the sole check
33
to be exercised by the House of Commons♦ " Single government would exacerbate the errors of a past replete with examples of great injustices committed in India by well-meaning English
34
theorists who had lacked experience of Indian conditions*
Wood developed the case for double government in private letters and memoranda* Writing to Dalhousie, he expressed "great mis givings as to the effect of more parliamentary interference", and opined that "great evil" could arise through "the habitual
35
misrepresentations of party*" His private notes on the debates over his Bill refer to speakers' "mistakes in facts & figures" and contain lamentations that "but a few [men] now or ever will be able to correct [them] in the House of Commons* But beyond his apprehension of party misrepresentation and parliamentary ignorance, lay a fear that, through parliament, India might be subjected to exploitation by English interests* In 1853» he distinguished the industrialists of Manchester as a pressure
group that sought Indian legislation from self-interested motives* "The Manchester people," he wrote, "want to pull down the
^Ibid*, cols* 1148-9*
xL
^ Ibid., cols* 1104-5, 1121-2. 35
Wood to Dalhousie, 24 May and 21 August 1853, 24 September 1854, W*P.
36
Wood Papers, bundle 11, which Wood endorsed "Various papers referring to the India Bill of 1 8 5 3"* See paper marked "Two first nights debate upon the India Bill"*
37
Directors because they don't grow cotton • ••*" Against such hazards, the existence of the Company afforded good security* His private notes contain this reflection on his Bill:
• •« the policy of preserving such a body independent of the Parties and uninfluenced by the politics of England is the main argument upon which the proposal is based* 3 8
Wood was not alone in finding the principle of the "double government" attractive* John Stuart Mill, with whom he professed
39
to "agree generally", had argued for it before the House of 40
Lords' committee on Indian affairs in 1 8 5 2* Mill was later to 4l
express it succinctly in his Representative Government* There he insisted that "government of one people by another •*• cannot exist*" Direct rule of a dependency would pervert every rightful purpose of government; the "utmost" a people could do was "to
4 2
give some of their best men a commission to look after it*" Mill was, in 1 8 5 3, an Assistant in the Examiner's Department at
43
the East India House* Like him, Sir James Melvill, the
Company's Secretary, was a staunch advocate of the principle of "double government"* He argued the case in a memorandum which
■^Wood to Dalhousie, 24 March 1853* Manchester's Indian policy is discussed at length in ch* 7 , below*
^ P a p e r endorsed "Stanley's Motion", W*P*11* See also Wood to Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the E*I* Coy#f1 June 1853* Pari * Pap* (H*C*), 1 8 5 2-.3, lxix*
^Hansard, cxxvii, 3 June 1853* col* 1153* Wood quoted Mill's expression of the principle on this occasion (cols* ll48~50)♦ ^ P a r l * Pap* t 1 8 5 2-3, xxx, paras 2972-4*
^*J*S*Mill, Representative Government, {l8 6l"], London 1944 (Everyman ed'n*)•
^2Ibid*, p* 384* 1
43
appears in the papers of Lord Granville, who introduced Woodfs
44
Bill to the House of Lords* A paper on "double government11
45
was also sent to Granville by Sir Charles Trevelyan, a central 46
figure in the liberal tradition in India, and one whom Wood 47
consulted about his Bill* He urged vigorously the unfitness of the English people as represented in parliament to wield power, unchecked, over India* He wrote:
•** above all, India has to be protected from the
selfishness & rapacity of human nature which find free scope under the elastic machinery of a representative government*
Mill, Melvill and Trevelyan all saw "single government" as sacrificing the sacrosanct constitutional principle of providing effective checks upon the exercise of power* Melvill; believed that "single government" would place despotic power in the hands
Paper endorsed "Arguments for Double Govt*", n*d*, unsigned, Granville Papers, P*R*0* 30/29/21* I have ascribed this to
Melvill as it appears to have been written with the same hand as letters in Wood's Papers (bundle 2) which bear his signature*
45
Paper headed "Thoughts upon the Double Government", signed "Treasury* June 1853"* Though Trevelyan's name does not appear on it, this paper may be ascribed to him safely* He was Assistant Secretary to the Treasury at the time, and the handwriting is that of a copyist (probably C*E* Boothby) who transcribed many fair copies which bear his signature (e*g* Gladstone Papers, B*M* Add*MS* 44353)♦
46
See, E* Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India* Oxford 1959, passim*
47
Trevelyan to Wood, 31 March 1853 (copy), Trevelyan's letter Books, Bodleian Library* Wood quoted Trevelyan's views in his speech of 3 June, op* cit*, col* 1151*
of the Indian minister and he expressed alarm at "what would be likely to result from the enormous population of India being subject to the will of one man*" Mill affirmed that it would
introduce "the most complete despotism that could possibly exist"* "Despotism", wrote Trevelyan, "has to be reconciled with the
forms & spirit of freedom*" He likened the "forms" of "double government" to those of the "composite" government of England, and valued its "comprehending in its constitution every practical check against maladministration as all good governments do*"
For Mill, "double government" supplied the "forms" by subjecting "all Indian proceedings" to review by "two separate bodies
independent of one another*" Melvill felt that for an Englishman there was something abhorrent about a unitary system of governments
That perfect simplicity which is called for is not consistent with our National habits* The British Constitution is a most complicated machine but we
should not do so well with one of simple construction* "Double government", through its appeal to constitutionalism, had a considerable purchase on the conscience of mid-Victorian
liberalism* Its attraction for a Whig who revered the "mixed" form of/British constitution is abundantly clear*
In the controversy over the retention of the Company, Wood was puzzled by the radicals9 assumption that single government
48
would make the Indian minister more "responsible"* Ministerial responsibility for India must exist under either double or single
government* The radicals appealed to the parlous condition of India in support of their case* Wood recognised that the progress of administrative reform under the Charter Act of 1 8 3 3
had been disappointing, but he believed that improvements might be made without sacrificing the advantages of double government*
In 1 8 3 3, provision had been made for the appointment in India
of a commission to reform the law and legal procedure* Although the commission had sent home recommendations for improvements, neither the Court nor the Board had been able to decide upon a
49
course of action* Under the 1 8 5 3 Act, Wood took power to establish a commission in England for the purpose of framing draft codes and procedures for enactment in India* Again, in 18339 Macaulay had introduced the principle of competitive examination for appointments to Haileybury, the Company’s
training college for civil servants, but the Court had sabotaged 50
his arrangements* Wood now provided positively for competitive entrance examinations to Haileybury, and soon appointed a
committee of educationalists, under Macaulay’s chairmanship, to report upon the best means of applying the competitive principle* By using his position as the minister charged with proposing
Indian legislation, Wood was able to provide for improving the laws of India and for recruiting civil servants of the highest available calibre* But even in matters which required no
legislation, he found plenty of scope for discharging his 49
See ch* 4, below* 50
ministerial responsibility within the framework of the double government* The procedure for preparing despatches enabled him to exercise a decisive influence upon administrative policies*
The process usually began when, under instructions from the Chairman or the Deputy Chairman of the Company, a clerk prepared an unofficial draft despatch* In a form approved by the Chairman, this document was sent to the President of the Board, in "previous communication", for perusal, amendment and
51
return* Thereupon, it became a "draft11 despatch and was placed before one of three committees of the Court, and later before the full Court* The draft was sent to the President of the Board for final approval* Though this system made the
minister more of a check on policy than an originator, he might initiate despatches by requiring the Court to have a draft
prepared* Wood exercised this power with great effect, inaugurating large reforms in Indian policy* He set in motion the drafting of the famous education despatch of 1854* When the Court’s first "communication" on the question fell short of his expectations, he planned the despatch himself, and,together with his private
52
secretary, wrote it in its final form* He followed a similar 51
The procedure for preparing despatches was described by
J*C« Melvill in his evidence before the Lords' committee (Pari* Pap* (H*C*}, 1852-3* xxx, paras 1 8 7-9 1* 246-57)*
52
See ch* 6, below, and the writer’s "The Composition of ’Wood’s Education Despatch'", Subsidiary paper No* 2, below*
procedure with a despatch which authorized the construction of large public works from surplus cash balances in the Indian
53
treasuries* Public works was the department of administration at which radical critics of the double government most frequently pointed the finger of scorn* Education was moit frequently
regarded by Christian missionaries as the key to the improvement of India* Over both matters, and within the framework of the
double government, Wood was able to exercise a decisive authority* The double government did not, in itself, detract from
the responsibility of the Indian minister* It might be contended that if the minister could run his own course in spite of the Court, then the appearance of a check upon him was illusory* There is some truth in the contention, not so much with regard to the formation of administrative policy as in matters which required parliamentary enactments* As despatches were sent to India in the Court's name, Directors could always oppose
ministerial policy by withholding their signatures* If, as he might, the minister insisted upon the despatch, they could
threaten to resign their places, thereby bringing publicity to bear upon the question* The same facilities for registering
their disapproval were not as readily available with legislation* The minister was free to frame bills without referring to the Court* Indeed, where, as in 1853* the very existence of the
Company and the disposal of its patronage were involved, it would have been surprising if the minister had consulted the Court# Nevertheless, the Court might still resign, or have recourse to writing letters of protest, which could be called
54