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VI. The Twilight of the Whigs and the Reform of the Indian Councils, 1886–1892

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2010

R. J. Moore
R. J. Moore
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
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Extract

In 1855 Sir Francis Baring described the Whigs as ‘a body of men…[who] when the people are roused stand between the constitution and revolution and go with the people, but not to extremities’. The Great Reform Bill and Russell's further franchise proposals from 1852 to 1866 were characteristic attempts to conciliate ‘the people’ by extending timely reforms which would preserve the balance of the British constitution. The Whigs had learned the moral of the story of the Sibylline books and accepted its relevance to the process of constitutional reform. Gladstone's Irish Home Rule bill signalled the passing of their moderating influence in the councils of liberalism. However, during the following six years they influenced the Tory government's response to the demands of the newly emerged Indian National Congress. From 1886 Lord Dufferin, the Whig viceroy, pressed for concessions that would ‘take the wind out of the sails’ of the Congress, and from 1889 his successor, Lord Lansdowne, pursued a similar approach. The Tory Councils Act of 1892 was no large constitutional advance. However, it embodied the principle of representation and the germ of the idea of election. That it went so far is attributable to the exertions of the Whig peers, at Westminster no less than in India. The Unionist Lord Northbrook, son of Sir Francis Baring and a former viceroy, proposed a crucial amendment to the Councils bill, and it was carried with the authoritative support of the earl of Kimberley, thrice Gladstone's secretary of state for India and one whom Morley recalled as ‘at the top of the Whigs that I have known’.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , 1967 , pp. 400 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1967

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References

1 Baring to Sir C. Wood, 15 February 1855, in earl of Northbrook, Journals and Correspondence of Francis Thornhill Baring, Lord Northbrook (2 vols., 1902–5, privately printed), ii, 55.

2 55 and 56 Vict. c. 14.

3 Morley, Lord, Recollections (2 vols., London, 1917), ii, 246–7.Google Scholar

4 24 and 25 Vict. c. 67.

5 Resolution of the Government of India on local self-government, 28 April 1915.

6 Lord Mayo's resolution on provincial finance, 14 Dec. 1870.

7 Ibid.; Hunter, W. W., Life of Lord Mayo (2 vols., London, 1876), ii, 58.Google Scholar

8 Lord Ripon's resolution on local self-government, 18 May 1882.

9 Ibid.

10 Ripon to Hartington, 31 Dec. 1881, cited in Gopal, S., The Viceroyalty of Lord Ripon, 1880–1884 (Oxford, 1953), p. 84.Google Scholar

11 Harrington to Ripon, 26 Dec. 1882, discussed in ibid. p. 85.

12 Hansard, cxlii, 6 March 1890, col. 83.

13 S. Gopal, op. cit. pp. 167–71; Ripon's minute of 10 Sept. 1884, and despatch of Govt. of India to sec. of state, 12 Sept. 1884, part printed in Philips, C. H. (ed.), The Evolution of India and Pakistan, 1858–1947: Select Documents (London, 1962), pp. 552–6.Google Scholar

14 S. Gopal, op. cit. pp. 65–75.

16 Ibid. pp. 113–66; Wolf, L., Life of Ripon (2 vols., London, 1921), 11, 119–50Google Scholar; SirBanerjea, S., A Nation in Making (Oxford, 1925), pp. 85–6.Google Scholar

16 Ibid. p. 89.

17 Cited in ibid.

18 Cited in SirLyall, A., Life of Dufferin ([1905], Nelson ed. n.d.), p. 362.Google Scholar

19 Dufferin to Northbrook, 10 July 1885, N[orthbrook] C[oll]., I[ndia] O[ffice] L[ibrary]; SirChurchill, W., Lord Randolph Churchill (2 vols., London, 1906), i, 374, 554–64.Google Scholar

20 Sir H. James to Lady Ripon, 9 April 1885, in L. Wolf, op. cit. ii, 173.

21 Northbrook to Ripon, 7 Aug. 1885, Ripon Papers, B.M. Add. MS. 43573, fos. 171–3.

22 The Times, 4 June 1885.

23 Hansard, ccic, 10 July 1885, col. 280.

24 Memorandum [late Nov. 1885], in Churchill, op. cit. ii, 11.

25 Hansard, cccii, 21 Jan. 1886, cols. 32–33.

26 Kimberley to Gladstone, 4 March 1886, Gladstone Pap., B.M. Add. MS. 44228, fos. 223–4.

27 Hansard, ccciii, cols. 410–15.

28 Ibid. col. 417.

29 Ibid. col. 815.

30 Ibid. col. 1182.

31 Ibid. col. 1183.

32 Kimberley to Gladstone, 19 March 1886, Add. MS. 44228, fos. 228–30.

33 Kimberley to Gladstone, 19 March 1896; Hansard, ccciii, 19 March 1886, col. 1374.

34 The Times, 23 March 1886.

35 Hansard, cccv, col. 1161.

36 Ibid, cccvii, cols. 4–6; see also Kimberley to Gladstone, 8 June 1886 (written only hours after the government's defeat), Add. MS. 44228, fos. 252–6. To assuage Indian disappointment at the lapse of the proposed committee Kimberley suggested that Dufferin should appoint a commission to inquire into extending the employment of Indians in the civil service. This was the genesis of the Aitchison commission.

37 Churchill, op. cit. ii, 71.

38 Cited in ibid. pp. 116–17.

39 Morley, J., Life of Gladstone (3 vols., London, 1903), III, 301.Google Scholar

40 The Times, 15–26 March 1886.

41 Op. cit. ii, 117.

42 Kimberley to Gladstone, 19 March 1886, loc. cit.

48 Hansard, cccviii, 7 Sept. 1886, col. 1474; cccxii, 22 March 1887, col. 1144.

44 Ibid, cccxxxv, 6 May 1889, col. 1227.

45 Salisbury to Cross, 23 July 1902, in Viscount Cross, A Political History (privately prtd. 1903), p. 123.

46 Dufferin to Kimberley, 6 April 1886 (copy of extract), and Dufferin to Northbrook, 23 June 1886, N.C.

47 Dufferin to Cross, 29 March 1887, C[ross] C[oll]., I.O.L.

48 To Kimberley, 21 March, 26 April and 17 May, enclosures 3–5 in Dufferin to Cross, 13 Aug. 1886, C.C.; to Northbrook, 23 June 1886, N.C.

49 Resolution of Congress, 1885, in C. H. Philips, op. cit. p. 151.

50 Dufferin to Kimberley, 21 March 1886.

51 Ibid.

52 Dufferin to Kimberley, 21 March 1886; see also Dufferin to Northbrook, 23 June 1886.

53 Dufferin to Kimberley, 6 April 1886.

54 Dufferin to Kimberley, 26 April 1886.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid.

57 Northbrook to Dufferin, 30 July 1886, and Dufferin to Northbrook, 16 Oct. 1886, N.C.

58 Resolutions of Congress, 27–30 Dec. 1886, enclosure in Dufferin to Cross, 4 Jan. 1887, C.C.

59 Banerjea, op. cit. pp. 91–2.

60 Dufferin's speech of 16 Feb. 1887, encl. 1 in Dufferin to Cross, 22 Feb. 1887, C.C.

61 Dufferin to Cross, 1 and 20 March 1887, C.C.; also Dufferin to Northbrook, 11 March 1887, N.C.

62 See Lyall, op. cit. passim.

63 Dufferin to Northbrook, 23 June 1886.

64 Dufferin to Cross, 4 Jan. 1887. See Cumpston, M., ‘Some early Indian Nationalists and their allies in the British Parliament, 1851–1906’, English Historical Review, lxxvi (1961), 279–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65 Dufferin to Cross, 18 Jan. 1887.

66 Dufferin to Northbrook, 23 June 1886.

67 Dufferin to Cross, 4 Jan. 1887.

68 Dufferin to Cross, 20 March 1887.

69 Ibid.

70 Dufferin to Cross, 9 May 1887, C.C.‘Repeal [of the Union]’, Dufferin wrote in July 1886, ‘has always really been a dead horse until it was married to the land’ (cited in Lyall, op. cit. p. 417).

71 Dufferin to Sir W. Gregory, Oct. 1887, in Lyall, op. cit. p. 447.

72 Lyall, op. cit. p. 448.

73 Dufferin to Cross, 10 April 1888, C.C.

74 Dufferin to Cross, 17 Aug. 1888, C.C.

75 Ibid.

76 Dufferin's minute of November 1888, encl. in Dufferin to Cross, 11 Nov. 1888, C.C.

77 Report of Committee on the Provincial Councils, 10 Oct. 1888, encl. in Dufferin to Cross, 20 Oct. 1888, C.C. The members of the Committee were Sir G. Chesney, Sir C. U. Aitchison and J. Westland.

78 Gov.-Gen. in Council to sec. of state, 6 Nov. (Public no. 67), 1888. For the minute see p. 408, n. 76, above.

79 Dufferin's minute.

80 Ibid.

81 Dufferin to Lord A. Russell, 5 Nov. 1888, cited in Lyall, op. cit. pp. 464–5.

82 Dufferin to Cross, 3 Dec. 1888, C.C., with which the speech, of 30 Nov., is enclosed.

83 Dufferin to Cross, 3 Dec. 1888.

84 S. Banerjea, op. cit. p. 92.

85 Viscount Cross, op. cit. p. 121.

86 Salisbury's memorandum of 31 Dec. 1888, in Lady G. Cecil, Life of Salisbury (4 vols. London, 1921–32), iv, 194–6.

87 Lansdowne to Cross, 1 January 1889, cited in Singh, H. L., Problems and Policies of the British in India, 1885–1898 (London, 1963), p. 98.Google Scholar

88 Lansdowne to Northbrook, 13 Jan. 1889, N.C.

89 Ibid.

90 Northbrook's letter does not appear in the Lansdowne Coll. at the I.O.L., but Northbrook noted its contents and date on the back of Lansdowne's letter.

91 The Bengalee, 16 March 1889. On the occasion of the Lords' debate over the Morley-Minto reforms, Cross recalled: ‘A paper of Lord Dufferin's… got out surreptitiously in some way, and this forced our hands at that time and made it necessary to do something… I had the greatest possible difficulty with my colleagues in the Cabinet in inducing them to permit me to introduce…even the Bill as it was passed’ (Lords' Debates, 4 March 1909, col. 276).

92 Banerjea recalled that after a long conversation with Dufferin at Government House about the reform of the councils, Dufferin introduced him to his private secretary, Sir Donald Mackenzie, with the words: ‘Give Mr Surendranath Banerjea whatever information he may ask from you’ (Banerjea, op. cit. p. 93).

93 The Bengalee, loc. cit.

94 Ibid.

95 Sec. of state to Gov.-Gen. in Council, 1 Aug. (Public nos. 80 and 81) 1889; Lansdowne to Northbrook, 25 March 1889, N.C.

86 Ibid. The draft bill, together with extracts from Lansdowne's despatch summarizing the opinions of Indian authorities upon it (Gov.-Gen. in Council to sec. of state, 23 Dec. (Home no. 75) 1889) appears in correspondence between the home and Indian governments concerning the councils (Parl. Pap. (H.C.), 1890, liv, 91–8).

97 Lansdowne to Northbrook, 10 May 1890, N.C; Gov.-Gen. in Council to sec. of state, 24 Dec. (Home no. 76), 1889.

98 Ibid.

99 Hansard, cxli, 21 Feb. 1890, cols. 862–5.

100 Loc. cit.

101 Loc. cit. cols. 865–9, and cxlii, 6 March, cols. 62–3, 73, 81–2, 93–5.

102 Ibid. cols. 72–5.

103 Ibid. cols. 75–6.

104 Ibid. cols. 87–9.

105 Ibid. cols. 93–8.

106 Ibid. cols. 98–100.

107 Ibid. 13 March 1890, cols. 672–5.

108 Ibid. col. 675.

109 Kimberley to Arnold Morley, 27 March 1892, Gladstone Pap., B.M. Add. MS. 44229, fos. 17–22.

110 Lansdowne to Northbrook, 10 May 1890, N.C.

111 Hansard, loc. cit. col. 1519.

112 Ibid, cxli, 3 March 1890, cols. 1670–96.

113 Viscount Cross, op. cit. p. 127.

114 Salisbury to Lansdowne, 27 June 1890, cited in Newton, Lord, Lord Lansdowne, A Biography (London, 1929), pp. 73–4.Google Scholar

115 Lansdowne to Northbrook, 6 Sept. 1890, N.C.

116 Ibid.

117 20 June 1892.

118 Hansard, 4th ser. i, 15 Feb. 1892, col. 415.

119 Ibid. col. 416.

120 Kimberley to Arnold Morley, loc. cit.

121 Hansard, in, 28 March 1892, cols. 79–80.

122 Ibid. col. 91.

123 Since this article was submitted for publication I have assessed the role of the Whigs in Liberal policy toward India in Liberalism and Indian Politics, 1812–1922 (London, 1966). Some of the issues raised only briefly here are there considered at greater length.