IS THE MAJORITY REPORT OF THE OPIUM 
 COMMISSION TRUSTWORTHY ? 
 
 A SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS 
 
 BY 
 
 Mr. JOHN ELLIS, 
 
 M.P. FOR THE RUSHCLIFFE DIVISION OF NORTHAMPTON. 
 
 24th MAY, 1895. 
 
 EXTRACTED FROM 
 
 “THE AUTHORISED PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES.” 
 
 On Friday, 24 th May, 1895, Sir 
 Joseph W. Pease, Bart., M.P., proposed 
 the following resolution : — 
 
 “ That this House, having had before itits Reso- 
 lution of the 30th June 1893, pressing on the 
 Government of India to continue their policy of 
 greatly diminishing the cultivation of the poppy 
 and the production and sale of Opium, and 
 having had presented to it the Report of the 
 Royal Commission, appointed 2nd September 
 1893, to inquire into various matters connected 
 with the cultivation of the poppy in India, is of 
 opinion that the system by which the Indian 
 Opium Revenue is raised is morally indefensible, 
 and would urge upon the Indian Government 
 
 that they should cease to grant licences for the 
 cultivation of the poppy and sale of Opium in 
 British India, except to supply the legitimate 
 demand for medicinal purposes, and that they 
 should at the same time take measures to arrest 
 the transit of Malwa Opium through British 
 territory.” 
 
 In seconding the Resolution, Mr. John 
 E. Ellis said he proposed to confine his 
 remarks to two points only, the attitude 
 of the authorities in India with respect 
 to the Opium Commission, and the pro- 
 cedure of the Commission itself. He 
 proceeded as follows : — 
 
2 
 
 I. The Attitude of the Indian 
 Authorities. 
 
 1. — A Letter from the Viceroy. 
 
 On N ovember 20,1893, two days after the 
 Commission met, there was laid before it a 
 very important document — a letter from 
 the Governor General of India — and it was 
 not to be found anywhere in the report 
 of the Commission’s proceedings. As 
 that contained a statement in support 
 of the existing system, and a warning as 
 to the serious political consequences that 
 might ensue from interfering with it, it 
 looked like an attempt to influence 
 unduly the course of the inquiry. 
 It was an extraordinary proceeding on 
 the part of the Governor General. It 
 would not be tolerated on the part of a 
 high political executive officer in this 
 country, and he would not dream of it. 
 He hoped his right hon. Friend the 
 Secretary for India would give his opinion 
 as to that letter and produce the docu- 
 ment, which came from the Governor 
 General, was laid before the Committee 
 at almost its earliest stage, and was in- 
 tended to influence its proceedings. 
 
 2. — Evidence to be Submitted to 
 Calcutta. 
 
 Hon. Members who studied the seven 
 volumes of the proceedings of the Commis- 
 sion carefully would find here and there, 
 not very carefully arranged — nothing was 
 carefully arranged in those volumes — - 
 communications from the Central Gov- 
 ernment to the subordinate governments 
 in Madras, Bengal, Central India, North- 
 West Provinces, and the Resident of 
 Hyderabad, giving instructions as to the 
 manner in which evidence was to be 
 collected, indicating the kind of evidence, 
 and requiring that lists of witnesses, 
 with their evidence, should be sent 
 to the Central Government. That was 
 a proceeding not calculated in any re- 
 spect to aid the Commission in finding 
 out the truth. This want of trust in 
 subordinate governments was very much 
 misplaced under the circumstances. Their 
 excise regulations and other char- 
 acteristics being different, they ought to 
 
 have been left to take their own 
 course in relation to the Royal Com- 
 mission as to witnesses and evidence. 
 What effect was such a course likely 
 to have on these subordinate govern- 
 ments 1 Precisely what he believed was 
 followed by the Government of the 
 North-West Provinces. They issued 
 instructions that none of their officials 
 should communicate direct with the 
 Secretary of the Royal Commission. He 
 wondered what would be thought, if, 
 when a Commission or a Select Com- 
 mittee was appointed in this country, 
 executive officers were found interposing 
 to prevent any of their subordinates 
 dealing direct with the Secretary of the 
 Commission or the Clerk of the Committee. 
 What had been the action of the authori- 
 ties with respect to the collection of 
 evidence and towards witnesses ? 
 
 3.- — A Missing Return. 
 
 But before he dealt with that he should 
 like to point out that there was one great 
 omission with respect to this matter. 
 The hon. Baronet who moved this Motion 
 had alluded to the soldier argument. 
 They often heard that the regiments 
 drawn from certain parts of the 
 country could not live without opium; 
 that it was their daily stimulant, and 
 they must have it. A circular was 
 issued to the officers commanding every 
 regiment and battalion in the native 
 army asking them for numerical returns 
 as to the numbers of opium smokers, 
 &c. But he had looked in the Blue 
 Books in vain for any of these figures. 
 Where were the replies to these circu- 
 lars ? Parliament should have been 
 furnished with them, whether they upheld 
 the action of the authorities on the opium 
 traffic or were against it. 
 
 4. — Misleading Circulars. 
 
 Then, when the House came to the issue of 
 circulars to persons who desired to give evi- 
 dence, there were strong illustrations of 
 what he would almost venture to call the 
 perversion of terms of reference to the 
 Commission. All would agree that 
 when a document was quoted it should 
 be quoted accurately, and if it was said 
 that the Government had resolved on a 
 
3 
 
 certain policy the exact words should be 
 given in which that policy was laid down. 
 He had strong complaint to make with 
 respect to this. One official of the Indian 
 Government — Mr. Lyall by name — issued 
 a circular, and in that circular quoted the 
 objects of the Inquiry most inaccurately. 
 It was quite true that two days after- 
 wards correct copies of the House of Com- 
 mons Resolution were sent out. Whether 
 Mr. Lyall’s attention had been called to 
 it or not he did not know, but in his 
 circular the terms of the reference 
 were misquoted and the circular was 
 misleading. 
 
 5. — Selection op Witnesses. 
 
 Let him now turn to the witnesses. 
 A certain medical practitioner, Isau 
 Chandra Roy, M.B., received a circular 
 desiring him to give evidence on 
 particular points. Surely when evidence 
 was asked for, it was not usual to 
 prescribe in the first instance to a person 
 the points on which it was desired 
 he should give evidence. He was 
 usually asked the points on which he 
 desired to give evidence, and then it was 
 seen whether or not they fell within the 
 terms of the reference. On 4th Decem- 
 ber a letter was sent to this gentleman, 
 who sent in his evidence, it not 
 being favourable to the existing system. 
 A date was fixed for his examination, 
 and on 3rd January the officer who 
 asked him to give evidence and sug- 
 gested points on which he should give it, 
 wrote to him that : — 
 
 “ Under instructions received from the Gov- 
 ernment you are not required to attend to give 
 evidence before the Royal Commission on 
 Opium.” 
 
 The same treatment was meted out to 
 others whose evidence was not favourable 
 to the Central Government. Mr. Roy 
 attended on the Commission after he had 
 been told he need not, and stated that 
 not only had he received that treatment, 
 but others had been treated in the same 
 way. The evidence of Rai Bahadur 
 Jai Prakishlal, C.I.E., Dewan, or 
 chief officer of the Dumraon Raj, a 
 gentleman of high position, was not 
 favourable to the Government, and 
 though present at the Commission he was 
 not called as a witness. He had most 
 
 important and unfavourable testimony to 
 give respecting cultivation of the poppy. 
 The list of witnesses at Lucknow con- 
 tained a large number of names of 
 persons who were not called. There 
 were 24 called, 23 of them being 
 favourable to the system. The whole 
 list was called for, but never produced. 
 Among those not called were a number 
 who were opposed to the cultivation of 
 poppies, and it turned out that two of 
 them were actually officers of the Indian 
 Government, who were prepared to say 
 that the suppression of that cultivation 
 would have no injurious effect either 
 upon the revenue or rents. 
 
 6. — How the Case was Engineered 
 in Rajputana. 
 
 The most striking illustration of the 
 way in which the case was worked up 
 and engineered by the Indian authori- 
 ties was afforded by the case of 
 Rajputana. On the 9th September 
 the Government of India directed 
 the Agent-General of that State to 
 give instructions for the appointment 
 of witnesses and the nomination of 
 a representative European officer, and 
 that an abstract of the evidence 
 should be sent to the Central Govern- 
 ment. Upon the 22nd September, 
 Colonel Trevor, the Agent General, 
 issued a circular to all political officers 
 in Rajputana, and on 5th of October, 
 Colonel Abbott was appointed to give 
 evidence and to produce witnesses. The 
 circular that Colonel Abbott drew 
 up was of a most extraordinary 
 character. It filled two or three pages 
 of the Blue Book, and certainly he had 
 never seen before such leading questions 
 as it contained, questions and instructions 
 showing a want of fairness of mind and 
 of judicial temper on the part of those 
 who were getting up evidence to be laid 
 before a Commission, that was sur- 
 prising. The witnesses were assembled 
 a week beforehand, in order that 
 Colonel Abbott might have interviews 
 with all of them before they were ex- 
 amined. Apparently the evidence so 
 obtained did not satisfy the Government, 
 because after they received the Report of 
 Colonel Abbott as to what he had 
 done, Mr. Bayley, Assistant Agent 
 to the Governor General, wrote a 
 
4 
 
 long letter, in which he pointed out j 
 that on looking over what Colonel 
 Abbott had stated, Mr. Dane was afraid 
 that the subject of the loss that the 
 Revenue would sustain by the suppression 
 of the cultivation of poppies had not been 
 put forward with sufficient clearness, 
 and directed Colonel Abbott to take 
 further steps in order that the Commis- 
 sion might be fully informed upon that 
 head. 
 
 7. — An Inversion of Ordinary Rules. 
 
 Speaking on his responsibility as a 
 Member of Parliament, he could say 
 he had given the House only a slight 
 and fragmentary illustration of what he 
 could lay before them under this head of 
 witnesses and evidence. The whole thing 
 was the most complete inversion of the 
 ordinary rule to which we were accus- 
 tomed in this country when it was desired 
 to elicit the truth upon any question. It 
 was the duty of the Indian Authorities 
 to take the utmost care that the truth, 
 the whole truth, and nothing but the 
 truth was (so far as they had any con- 
 trol) laid before the Commission. But 
 by this process of misleading circulars, 
 prescribed questions, suggestions in a par- 
 ticular direction, examination and filtra- 
 tion of evidence, and withholding of 
 certain witnesses, the precisely contrary 
 course was taken. The Commission was 
 fed by the Authorities with certain evi- 
 dence, and that only. The result was 
 much what might have been expected. 
 
 8. — “Whatever Government thinks 
 is Right.” 
 
 The whole matter was summed up con- 
 cisely by one witness in his written reply 
 to questions sent to him : — 
 
 “ That is the general opinion, hut whatever the 
 Government thinks is right.” 
 
 Nothing could bring home to the English 
 people more clearly the character of the 
 evidence that had been given before the 
 Commission than those words, and no- 
 thing more contradictory to our English 
 ideas of getting at the truth than the 
 course that had been adopted by 
 the Indian Government in this matter 
 could be conceived. That House itself 
 
 even, would not be sitting in its present 
 form if the people of this country had 
 during the centuries held the notion that 
 whatever the Govei’nment thought was 
 right. He protested against the idea 
 that had got into the minds of some of 
 these poor people that they were bound to 
 think as the Government did upon this 
 subject. 
 
 9. — Shadowing a Commissioner. 
 
 He should like to conclude his por- 
 tion of this aspect of the matter by 
 alluding to the behaviour of the author- 
 ities to a Royal Commissioner. At 
 Bankipur, on 3rd January 1894, the hon. 
 Member for Holmfirth laid before the 
 Commission particulars of the police of 
 the district of Gya having been round 
 inquiring of the people into his (Mr. 
 Wilson’s) movements, whom he had seen, 
 what had been said by and to him by 
 the inhabitants, etc. On the 4th January 
 Mr. Macpherson, collector of revenue, 
 appeared before the Commissioners and 
 explained — • 
 
 “ I had heard in Calcutta from Mr. Dane that 
 anti-opium people had been over our district 
 hunting up evidence they seemed to think of 
 importance.” 
 
 He had therefore spoken to the local 
 superintendent of police, who had set 
 his men to work. Those who were 
 engaged in endeavouring to elicit the 
 truth on this question ought not to 
 have been pressed by the police in this 
 way or spoken of in this manner, nor 
 should Mr. Harris, the superintendent 
 of police, and his myrmidons have 
 been permitted to track out the move- 
 ments of the hon. Gentleman and his 
 friends, who were engaged in the work. 
 They could not expect fair evidence to 
 be given to the Commission if the 
 police were set to work like that. 
 
 II. The Procedure of the Commission. 
 
 1. — The Secretaries Indian 
 Officials. 
 
 Turning now to the second part of 
 his subject, the procedure of the Com- 
 mission itself, his hon. Friend the mover 
 had dwelt upon the fact that the two 
 secretaries were Indian officials. He 
 did not suppose they would have any 
 contradiction from the other side of the 
 
5 
 
 House with regard to that, as they had 
 in regard to another matter. Mr. Hewitt 
 and Mr. Baines represented that great 
 despotic bureaucracy which governed, 
 and, to his thinking, on the whole so well 
 the Indian Empire. He endorsed what 
 had been said by his lion. Friend that 
 this Commission ought to have been 
 supplied with a secretary from among 
 the many competent men to be found 
 in London who was not imbued with 
 the traditions and methods of the 
 Indian Government, and who above 
 all was acquainted with English stan- 
 dards of justice and fair play. Such 
 a man would have taken care that the 
 Commission should be treated with 
 respect, and that the witnesses should be 
 summoned and dealt with in a fair way. 
 Then there was the special agent, Mr. 
 Dane, who was one of those who com- 
 mitted himself very strongly in 1890 to 
 an opinion on this opium question. 
 
 2. — The Treatment of Witnesses. 
 
 Coming to the treatment of wit- 
 nesses, he entirely endorsed what 
 his hon. friend had said with regard 
 to the questioning of certain mem- 
 bers of the Commission. Sir James 
 Lyall, undoubtedly, had been in the ser- 
 vice of the Indian Government, and 
 there was no question as to the posi- 
 tion of Mr. Eanshawe, who was Post- 
 master General in the Indian service. 
 He had read with a feeling of almost 
 shame and indignation the manner in 
 which these two gentlemen had thought 
 fit to examine witnesses. They had 
 asked them with regard to their private 
 affairs and their income ; persons of the 
 humblest class were asked questions of 
 a character which one would expect 
 only from an Old Bailey practitioner. 
 He did not think that the majority of 
 that House who voted for the Commis- 
 sion — he himself voted against it — de- 
 sired our fellow-subjects in India 
 to be treated as some of them had 
 been by some of the members of 
 the Royal Commission. He ven- 
 tured to say that any hon. Gentleman 
 filling the position of Chairman of a 
 Select Committee of that House would 
 have at once called any of his colleagues 
 to order who so treated witnesses coming 
 before the Committee. The humbler 
 
 the position of the witness, and 
 the more nervous he was, the more 
 kindly should be his treatment, and 
 the more also should the chairman and 
 the members endeavour to set him at 
 his ease. One witness remarked in 
 respect of a private and personal ques- 
 tion, he did not know if it would affect 
 the character of his evidence, but said 
 of course he had no objection to say 
 if the question was pressed. Mr. 
 Fanshawe at once said : “I must press 
 the question.” He wished to pay his 
 tribute of respect to his hon. Friend 
 the Member for the Prestwich Division 
 of Lancashire, who conducted his exam- 
 ination in a very different way ; and 
 who, when a witness demurred to answer 
 ing questions of rather a private nature, 
 said that certainly he would not press 
 them. There was the greatest contrast 
 in this respect between the conduct 
 of the hon. Member for the Prestwich 
 Division of Lancashire and that of Sir 
 James Lyall and Mr. Fanshawe. 
 
 3. — How Memorials were Treated. 
 
 Passing from that he desired to 
 call attention to the very different 
 treatment which was accorded to 
 the memorials of various bodies, and 
 pointed out that while all the pro- 
 opium memorials were allowed to go 
 into the appendices without a word of 
 comment, an official was set to work 
 by the Indian Government to tear to 
 pieces the anti-opium memorial from 
 Calcutta, this official being a person, be 
 it observed, charged with the collection 
 of evidence. Surely this Commission 
 ought to have been above that sort of 
 thing. 
 
 4. — How our Policy with China was 
 Dealt with. 
 
 With regard to evidence as to our 
 opium policy with China, the Chair- 
 man of the Commission, Lord Brassey, 
 actually stopped two witnesses of great 
 competency from giving evidence as to 
 this, and said — • 
 
 “We may take it that we all regret that 
 policy of the past, that we accept the state-, 
 ment that was made on behalf of the late Gov- 
 ernment by Sir James Fergusson that such a 
 course of policy as that would never he per- 
 mitted again ; that, I think, is agreed.” 
 
6 
 
 Would it be believed, however, that after 
 this the Commission allowed 150 pages 
 of the most controversial matter upon 
 this opium policy with China to appear 
 in their Report 1 If Mr. Dane, who 
 wrote this, had been examined before a 
 Committee of that House, half his state- 
 ments would have been made mincemeat 
 of. Such a procedure would not have been 
 allowed by a single Private Bill Committee 
 upstairs. These 150 pages were saturated 
 with mis-statements and inaccurate par- 
 ticulars, and altogether the contribution 
 was not worth the paper on which it 
 was written, and he deprecated even 
 the cost of printing such a document, 
 which had not formed the subject of 
 any cross-examination. 
 
 5. — -Misleading Quotations. 
 
 Then in the Maj ority Report he regretted 
 to say there were the most misleading quo- 
 tations which had ever been his lot to see 
 in any public document. There were 
 two missionaries named Ashmore and 
 Bone, and in the case of Mr. Ashmore the 
 statement put into his mouth by the ma- 
 jority in their Report was not borne out in 
 the least degree on turning to his evidence. 
 In the case of Mr. Bone something 
 worse had been done. They pretended 
 to give his words, but they absolutely left 
 out two or three sentences which had a 
 vital bearing on the issue without any 
 indication of the omission. He never 
 saw such a specimen of misleading quota- 
 tion. Such things deprived the Report 
 of the Commission of any real value. 
 
 6. — A Fraudulent Table. 
 
 Then there was a table given on page 12 
 of Volume 6 of the Report of certain 
 figures in which a large number of years 
 were left out. The whole argument 
 based on these figures disappeared when 
 they supplied the figures that were left 
 out. He could fill pages of The Times 
 newspaper with the inaccuracies con- 
 tained in the Report ; the time they had 
 had to examine into the matter had 
 been all too short. 
 
 7. — Unauthorised Papers. 
 
 Turning to the unauthorised papers ap- 
 pended to the Report, he said he had in- 
 quired as to how these precious documents 
 
 came to be there. He had had a correspond- 
 ence with Lord Brassey, who informed him 
 that no request was made to either Mr. 
 Dane or Mr. Baines to write these 
 papers, but when they appeared it was 
 thought desirable to put them in. He 
 (Mr. Ellis) believed their insertion was 
 never brought before the Commission at 
 all. There was a Supplemental Historical 
 Note by Mr. Dane occupying 35 pages ; 
 an account of the recent action of the 
 Government of India with regard to 
 poppy cultivation of 9 ; and a history 
 of the movement in England against 
 opium of 6, — 50 in all. As to the last, 
 they might as well ask the Secretary of 
 the Licensed Victuallers Association to 
 write a history of the temperance move- 
 ment. 
 
 8. — Mr. Wilson Closured. 
 
 He would now come to the last 
 feature in the proceedings of the Com- 
 mission, which had, even after all he 
 had seen, filled him with astonish- 
 ment. The Royal Commission, on the 
 last page of their Report, referred to his 
 hon. Friend the Member for the Holm- 
 firth Division. They say : — 
 
 “We desire to make a special reference to the 
 Report which we understood to he in prepara- 
 tion by our colleague, Mr. Wilson. The criti- 
 cism or suggestions which it may contain have 
 not been submitted for our consideration. We 
 regret that in the discussion which took place 
 during the preparation of our Report we were 
 not placed in possession of the views of our 
 colleague.” 
 
 Why not? What right had the Com- 
 missioners to use that language 1 Lord 
 Brassey, the Chairman of the Commis- 
 sion, wrote two letters to his hon. 
 Friend on the 2nd and 7th of January 
 of this year, enclosing a copy of a letter 
 that he addressed to Sir James Lyall. 
 Lord Brassey told his hon. Friend that it 
 would be unprofitable to enter into a 
 prolonged discussion, and that he did not 
 anticipate that their further delibera- 
 tions round the Table would occupy many 
 days. In his letter to Sir James Lyall 
 Lord Brassey said : — 
 
 “ I strongly insist that the completion of our 
 work has become of extreme urgency, and 
 having received two communications within the 
 last few days, I feel my duty calls for some 
 decided course of action. ... I shall in 
 any case relieve the Commission from further 
 collecting work on the 26th.” 
 
7 
 
 That was a proceeding for a Chairman ! 
 Giving notice that in three weeks time 
 the Closure would be applied ! Having 
 thus closed the mouth of his hon. Friend, 
 the Commissioners thought fit to reproach 
 him with not having his assistance 
 in discussing the Report. His hon. 
 friend would have been extremely ill- 
 advised if, after receiving the Chairman’s 
 letter, he had in any way obtruded his 
 advice on the Commission. It was not 
 a case of closure by compartments : it 
 was the guillotine all at once. That 
 method of conducting a Royal Commis- 
 sion was, he believed, unprecedented. 
 He did not wonder that there was some 
 little impatience on the part of the 
 Secretary of State for India, for the 
 Commission had been dragging on for 
 three months in India and twelve months 
 in this country, and during that time the 
 Chairman of the Commission did not 
 think it inconsistent with his duty to be 
 out of the country a good many months. 
 There was at the time no effort being 
 made to prepare a report or to bring 
 the inquiry within reasonable distance 
 of a conclusion. 
 
 9. — The Secretary’s Action. 
 
 He must say one or two words on the 
 action of the Secretary. Mr. Baines had 
 in two particulars shown that he was 
 utterly wanting in the discretion neces- 
 sary in an office of that kind. In the first 
 place he deliberately and of his own 
 motion suppressed a note which the hon. 
 Member for the Holmfirth Division 
 desired him to insert if certain corre- 
 spondence was put in. In the next place 
 he prematurely disclosed the Report of the 
 Commission. It was a most extraordinary 
 thing that an officer of the Indian 
 Government should have disclosed this 
 Report on Saturday the 20th April 
 to a particular newspaper, and that 
 one a powerful friend of the existing 
 system. It appeared in that news- 
 paper on the 22nd, and it was not in 
 the hands of Members till May 7 th. 
 The Secretary of State said he had 
 reasons to believe that the Report 
 would be laid on the Table on the 
 22nd, but if it had there was no reason 
 why it should have been given out 
 to a particular paper on the 20th. 
 He said that on both these two aspects 
 
 of the question — on the conduct of the 
 authorities and the procedure of the Com- 
 mission — the illustrations he had given, 
 and which could be supplemented by the 
 score, had gone far to vitiate and weaken 
 the claim of the Report of this Commis- 
 sion to their respect. 
 
 10. — The True Functions of a Royal 
 
 Commission. 
 
 From the first letter of the Viceroy, 
 that most extraordinary document 
 which was laid before the Commis- 
 sion on the 20th November, down to 
 the closuring of the hon. Member 
 for the Holmfirth division, there was 
 one persistent intention on the part of 
 the authorities in India to regard this, 
 not as a free inquiry, but as a defence of 
 the Indian opium policy of the Govern- 
 ment. He acquitted the Government as 
 a whole, and particularly the right hon. 
 Gentleman the Secretary of State for 
 India, from the slightest complicity in, 
 or approval of, the proceedings. He was 
 quite aware they could not have this 
 kind of procedure in this country. The 
 procedure adopted was one ill becoming 
 the reputation and the dignity of a Royal 
 Commission. A Royal Commission had 
 great functions and powers, and it 
 ought to pursue an even tenour in 
 its course. It ought, on the one 
 hand, to resist, as the Judicial Bench 
 would resist, all pressure of the Execu- 
 tive Government, and on the other 
 hand ought not to listen to words of un- 
 truth, but freely admit all evidence, 
 without fear or favour, without a 
 partial hand, above all, be guiltless of 
 any suppressions of testimony. 
 
 11. — Moral Movements Irresistible. 
 
 This movement, however, depended, not 
 upon Royal Commissions and their Re- 
 ports. Those of them who took some part 
 in trying to get off the Statute Book cer- 
 tain Acts of Parliament some years ago, 
 knew they had against them more than 
 one Royal Commission, more than one 
 Select Committee of the House of 
 Commons, with a majority against them, 
 and yet these Acts of Parliament dis- 
 appeared by almost universal consent 
 in 1886. So it would be in this 
 
tl 
 
 matter. Those great moral forces on 
 which this movement rested were, 
 to a large extent, independent of 
 their action in this House, even indepen- 
 dent of the lives of particular Govern- 
 ments, and he was convinced that they 
 would, in time, sweep away that system 
 which he declared — which six Members 
 of the present Cabinet and a dozen other 
 Members of the Administration declared 
 in 1891 — to be morally indefensible. 
 
 The Secretary of State for India 
 (Right Hon. H. H. Fowler), 
 
 in opposing Sir Joseph Pease’s motion, 
 spoke of the “ unprecedented ” attack 
 made on the Commissioners by the 
 Mover and Seconder of the Resolution — 
 it having been the very ground of Mr. 
 Ellis’ charges, that their proceedings 
 had been “unprecedented.” Subsequently 
 he referred to Mr. Ellis’ speech as 
 follows : — - 
 
 “ Kemember it is upon the terms of this 
 motion that the House is going to vote to-night. 
 
 8 
 
 “It is not upon the question whether one 
 witness was fairly cross-examined or not, or 
 whether one police officer was judicious or 
 inj udicious. I know the cases to which my hon. 
 Friend has referred, and I agree with much of 
 what he said in reference to some of those cases. 
 But as to the question of general unfairness in 
 dealing with witnesses, that was investigated by 
 the Commission ; the Commission has given a 
 distinct ruling on the question, and has 
 acquitted the Government of India on every one 
 of the charges brought against it.” 
 
 He made no other reference to the 
 charges contained in Mr. Ellis’ speech. 
 
 Mr. R. G. C. Mowbray, M.P., 
 
 a member of the Majority of the Com- 
 mission, next spoke. His only attempt 
 to meet Mr. Ellis’ charges consisted in a 
 denial of the statement “ that all the 
 evidence passed through the hands of 
 the Central Government : ” a statement 
 | which, as will be seen by reference to 
 p. 2, heading I., 2, had not been made 
 by Mr. Ellis. 
 
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