years in the service of the Crown or the Company. One-third of this
number was to go out every second year, but to be re-eligible.
Nominations by favour were to be abolished. The governorship of Bengal
was to be separated from the office of Governor-General. The legislative
council was to be improved and enlarged, the number to be twelve. The
Bill passed the House of Lords on June 13.]

I feel a considerable disadvantage in rising to address the House after
having listened for upwards of five hours to the speech of the right
hon. Gentleman. But the question is one, as the right hon. Gentleman has
said, of first-rate importance; and as I happen from a variety of
circumstances to have paid some attention to it, and to have formed some
strong opinions in regard to it, I am unwilling even that the Bill
should be brought in, or that this opportunity should pass, without
saying something, which will be partly in reply to the speech of the
right hon. Gentleman, and partly by way of comment on the plan which he
has submitted to the House. There is, as it appears to me, great
inconsistency between the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and that
which he proposes should be done; because, really, if we take his speech
as a true and faithful statement of the condition of India, and of the
past proceedings of the Government in that country, our conviction must
be that the right hon. Gentleman will be greatly to be blamed in making
any alteration in that Government. At the same time, if it be not a
faithful portraiture of the Government, and of its transactions in
India, then what the right hon. Gentleman proposes to do in regard to
the home administration of that country is altogether insufficient for
the occasion. I cannot on the present occasion go into many of the
details on which the right hon. Gentleman has touched; but the
observations which I have to make will refer to matters of government,
and those will be confined chiefly to the organisation of the home