scarcely equal to the expenditure of that tage? This is one of the most remarkcountry - and can at the same time able cases which the whole fiscal history shrink from its undoubted duty of point- of the world presents. I do not suping out the policy by which effect is to pose there is, or ever has been, a counbe given to this principle, and show- try-probably there never has been ing how the financial wants of India are another country in the world-in which to be met? This is quite a different £6,000,000 of its Revenue has been decase from that which sometimes happens rived from a particular article, of which when a Member of the House condemns you could say, with so close an approxia British tax-if that is done by Motion mation to the truth-without any violathe House does not always receive it tion whatever of political justice, that with favour-but it is a matter broadly the £6,000,000 was virtually and subdistinct from the case before us, because stantially paid by the inhabitants of the Ministers of the Crown who sit here another country, who did not complain hold Office during the pleasure of the of the burden. Until you have gone House, and cannot hold Office when they through the preliminary inquiry, which have not its confidence, and they, there- you have not attempted, and supplied fore, are the persons to whom the House all the proof I demand of the inhas a right to look for the purpose of tolerable nature of opium, as a thing supplying whatever is necessary in order that ought to be absolutely proscribed, to meet the wants of the country when as something the use of which is imthe representatives of the people have possible, so that all use must be abusethought fit to cut off one of the cus- until and unless you shall show that to tomary channels of supply. This is not perfect demonstration, what right have the plan of the Indian Government; it you take away from the people of India is the Council of India that is respon- the immensely valuable assistance they sible for the finances of India. It does derive from this £6,000,000 of Revenue? not hold Office during your pleasure; it The other day my right hon. Friend the does not depend upon your confidence. Chancellor of the Exchequer was so You may, indeed, cripple its action, or happy as to possess a surplus of someendeavour to do so; but if you fail you thing like £6,000,000 if the hon. greatly compromise your own dignity. Baronet the Member for Carlisle sucYou have not the power to point to that ceeds in carrying this Resolution is he body of men and say "They are our ready to propose a second, to the effect servants; we have only to withhold the that the £6,000,000 shall be handed taxes, which we will not permit our con- over to the Indian Treasury to supply stituents to pay; it is their business to the first year's deficiency due to the provide money in some other way." abandonment of the opium Revenue? I You have no such right; the people of put this question to him as a test of his India are not your constituents; and sincerity. I see the seconder of the you have no such control over the Coun- Motion is willing. But of these two cil. This is a very serious matter as Resolutions let us take the second first. regards the responsibility of this House. Let us first vote upon the question that Nothing could be more ruinous, and few our surplus of £6,000,000 shall be thrown things could be more discreditable than into the Indian Treasury to meet its defor you to pass a vote which, on the one ficiency. If my hon. Friend succeeds in hand, must remain an idle expression of carrying that Resolution, we shall have opinion without practical result, or else, much less difficulty in discussing the if it were acted upon, must simply have other. Again, until you have proved the effect of throwing the finances of that this drug is wholly intolerable and India into confusion, and greatly com- ought to be absolutely proscribed, as promising the condition, the welfare, productive of unmixed mischief, you have and even, possibly, the peace and secu- no moral right to deprive a considerable rity of that country. Again, with regard portion of the people of India, who are to the people of India, a state of things engaged in the cultivation of it, of what having arisen in which a country inha- is probably their only means of subsistbited by 150,000,000 of people derives ence. But let us look for a moment at an enormous advantage, which has lasted the Motion of my hon. Friend. It says long, what is the title of the House of that the House condemns the system by Commons to deprive them of that advan- which a large portion of the Indian ReMr. Gladstone

venue is raised from opium. We must sure the House will avoid-as they freconsider what we can do under this Re-quently have to avoid-the snare set by solution. I do not know what altera- proposing an abstract Resolution of this tion of the Indian Government Act of 1858 nature. As a rule, this House proceeds would be necessary before it could be by Bill, and not by Resolution. The obeyed; but, if it is to be obeyed, it re- framer of a Bill is under the necessity quires of us nothing but this-that we of thinking out and through all parts of shall simply cease to raise Revenue from his subject, and of presenting it to the opium. Why does not my hon. Friend House in such a manner as will bear seek to stop the growth of opium in testimony that he has thought it through, India? Suppose we cease to raise a Re- and will give the House some means of venue from opium, what will be the effect? judging whether his means are adapted We cease to impose a transit duty on the and well-proportioned to his ends. The opium of the North-west; we cease to Resolution of my hon. Friend reads glibly exercise what is called the Government enough; but if put into a Bill it would monopoly in respect of the opium of the present a meagre appearance. What is North-east; and what is the effect but the difference as regards the House? an enormous stimulus to the trade? My These Resolutions are brought on one hon. Friend has not told us whether he after another—a dozen of them upon a is ready to propose the prohibition of dozen different subjects, in the course of the cultivation of the poppy; if he is a single evening, and we are called upon, not, all his artillery recoils upon him- at a moment's notice, to pledge ourselves self, for it is plain the effect of his irrevocably to the utterance of opinions Motion would be to immensely stimu- which I say are subject to doubt and late the trade in opium, and to increase hesitation in every way that can be conthe consumption of it. If he admits-ceived, and which ought never to be enand I do not think he can deny-the tertained with a view to adoption unless force of that objection, he must remodel his Resolution, and introduce the element of prohibition to make it effectual for his own purposes, and the necessity for doing this furnishes a strong argument in favour of the Motion for the Previous Question. If he is not prepared for prohibition his case is hopeless; if he is, he is not much better. By prohibition you deprive the Government of India of a very large Revenue; you disable it from meeting its engagements; you compel it to impose very heavy taxes upon a country already too much burdened; and you deprive a portion of the people of their means of employment in the raising of this commodity, on which they are very dependent; and with regard to the opium of the Northwest you will forbid the transit, and you will offer to the smuggler the moderate premium of 600 rupees a chest, or 88. per pound weight, under which an enormous contraband trade will grow. Does not my hon. Friend see that, supposing he could stop the growth of opium in the whole Indian peninsula, his measure would immensely stimulate the growth of it in China? Proposing to himself an end dictated only by benevolence, he has not considered the means by which alone it is possible that end could be attained. Under these circumstances, I am quite

they have been subjected to severe scrutiny. No such scrutiny can be applied to my hon. Friend's Motion on the present occasion. He has not supplied us with those first elements of conviction in regard to this drug, which it is his absolute business and obligation to separate entirely from every other stimulant, before he can call upon us to treat it exceptionally. Without wounding the feelings of the hon. Member by negativing his Motion-without dealing in positive and dogmatic assertion on our own side-I think we are justified in pointing out to the House the serious responsibility under which the affirmation of this Resolution would place us, and inviting them to take the safe and prudent course of determining that, without preliminary inquiry, and without clearing up many points on which we are in the dark, we will not undertake to commit ourselves to a judgment in a matter so solemn and so important.

MR. HENLEY said, that no doubt at the first blush the Resolution of the hon. Member for Carlisle was one which it was not very easy to resist. But it was impossible that the House could shut out from consideration the fact that a large portion of the Revenue of India was raised upon opium. No doubt it was true that a very considerable number

of the Chinese-who were the wisest | by the House. He denied that it was people in the world-insisted upon mak- his duty to carry out the scheme. What ing an improper use of this article, and were great statesmen put upon the front that they made beasts of themselves: Bench for? The argument from the and therefore we were asked to deprive Treasury Bench had been nothing but the people of India of a very consider- money, money, money, regardless of able Revenue. Now he would put this morality and Christian duty. He would question-"Are we the people that can tell the Prime Minister that when this honestly do it?" What do we do at debate was read to-morrow the people home? how many millions do we raise of England would be astonished at the upon the article gin? how many of our political morality put forward from the people drink gin, and make themselves Treasury Bench. He appealed, howbeasts as much as the Chinese? He ever, from that Bench to the House, and could not separate the two questions. hoped that the House of Commons, reIf the hon. Baronet carried a Resolution presenting the nobler instincts of the that no more money should be raised people, would declare by their vote that from gin, and if people at home were this national disgrace should no longer ready to put their hands into their pockets continue. for supplying the deficiency in the Revenue, then he thought we could go with clean hands to the black gentlemen 16,000 miles away and say-"You shall find money for Revenue some other your way." Then we should be acting honestly. But so long as we raised so many millions of Revenue from alcohol, and our people made beasts of themselves with it, he did not think the House could honestly assent to such a Motion as that before them. We were a white people, and we called ourselves a Christian people, and he thought we should pluck the beam out of our own eye before we sought to pick out the mote that was in our black brother's eye.

SIR WILFRID LAWSON, in reply, said, he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that the colour of the skin made no difference in the sin. As to the criticism of the Prime Minister, he (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) had quoted the evidence of doctors, of East India Directors, and of a Select Committee of this House, in order to show the injurious nature of the traffic in opium. Such evidence ought to be quite sufficient to convince anybody who did not sit on the Treasury Bench, and probably they would be convinced by no evidence whatever. As to the prohibition mentioned by the Prime Minister, if we allowed the Chinese Government to do so, they would prohibit the importation of opium, and that of itself would stop the growth. Then the right hon. Gentleman said the Resolution would interfere with the whole finances of India. But he merely wished to condemn the system, leaving the Government to carry out the Resolution in the spirit in which it had been adopted

Mr. Henley

Duff.)

Previous Question put, "That that Question be now put.' -(Mr. Grant The House divided:-Ayes 46; Noes 150: Majority 104.

PARLIAMENT SLIGO BOROUGH WRIT.
COLONEL FRENCH, in rising to move
"That Mr. Speaker do issue his Warrant to

the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland to make out a
in this present Parliament for the Borough of
Sligo, in the room of Major Knox, whose Elec-
tion has been determined to be void,"
said, under ordinary circumstances he
should not have thought it necessary to
make any Motion upon the subject, but
have left the matter in the hands of the
Government. The seat, however, had
now been vacant for twelve months; the
Report of the Election Commissioners,
following the Report of the Election
Judge, had been upon the Table for a
considerable time, and yet the Govern-
ment did not seem inclined to move.
Accordingly, he thought it right to in-
troduce this Motion, with a view of draw-
ing from the Government a declaration
of their intention either to allow the
issue of the writ, or to take ulterior
measures, with a view of disfranchising
the borough. He was one of those who
had always looked with suspicion upon
the power claimed in these days to sus-
pend the issue of writs, believing that
practice to be altogether unconstitu-
tional. Parliament was so jealous as
to the completeness of the representa-
tion of the different boroughs that it
had even authorized the Speaker, at a
time when Parliament was not sitting,

new Writ for the electing of a Burgess to serve