both Houses of Parliament. An hon. Gentleman says I am all wrong in my
figures. I shall be glad to hear his figures afterwards. But that is not
the fact; but if it were the fact, it would amount not to a political,
but to an entire social revolution in this country. And surely, when you
live in a country where you have, as in Scotland, a great province under
one Member of the House of Lords, and seventy or eighty miles of
territory under another, and where you have Dukes of Bedford and Dukes
of Devonshire, as in England--surely, I say, we ought to be a little
careful, at any rate, that we do not overturn, without just cause, the
proprietary rights of the great talookdars and landowners in India. It
is a known fact, which anybody may ascertain by referring to books which
have been written, and to witnesses who cannot be mistaken, that this
edict would apply to more than 40,000 landowners in the kingdom of Oude.
And what is it that is meant by these proprietary rights? We must see
what is the general course of the policy of our government in India. If
you sweep away all proprietary rights in the kingdom of Oude you will
have this result--that there will be nobody connected with the land but
the Government of India and the humble cultivator who tills the soil.
And you will have this further result, that the whole produce of the
land of Oude and of the industry of its people will be divided into two
most unequal portions; the larger share will go to the Government in the
shape of tax, and the smaller share, which will be a handful of rice per
day, will go to the cultivator of the soil. Now, this is the Indian
system. It is the grand theory of the civilians, under whose advice, I
very much fear, Lord Canning has unfortunately acted; and you will find
in many parts of India, especially in the Presidency of Madras, that the
population consists entirely of the class of cultivators, and that the
Government stands over them with a screw which is perpetually turned,
leaving the handful of rice per day to the ryot or the cultivator, and
pouring all the rest of the produce of the soil into the Exchequer of