Page:Speeches & Documents on Indian Policy, 1750-1921 Vol 1.djvu/357

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON, 1858 323 principle it is wise, and nations do themselves great mischief by rapid and ill-considered altera- tions of their institutions. But equally unwise and equally injurious is it to cling to existing arrangements simply because they exist, and not to admit changes which can be made with advantage to the nation. "What can be more cumbrous than the existing system of Indian administration which is called by the name of the ' double Govern- ment ' ? In the debates of 1853, when the last India Bill was passed, the right hon. gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr, Disraeli) asked who was the Government of India, and to whom he was to look as the authority responsible for the administration of that vast empire. Why, sir, there is no responsibility, or rather there is a conflict of responsibility. The Directors possess a power paramount, as the right hon. gentleman said, to everything else, the power of recalling the Governor-General, by which any great system of policy may be at once interrupted. And they have' this power, although the Governor-General must have been appointed by the Crown, and the ap- pointment sanctioned by the Directors. The func- tions of Government and the responsibility have been divided between the Directors, the Board of Control, and the Governor-General in India ; the Board of Control representing the government of the day, responsible to this House, responsible to public opinion, appointed by the Crown, and exercising functions delegated by it ; the Court of Directors, elected by the gentlemen and ladies who happen to be holders of India Stock, many of whom are totally ignorant of everything relating to Indian interests, and perhaps knowing nothing