ADMINISTRATION AND FINANCE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 39
school, in which she may learn the principles of the King of Naples and the practices of Mrs. Stowe’s Legree.”
Others, notably a certain Richard Congreve, a disciple of Conte pleaded that India should be left to work out her own destiny. He maintained that the rule of one people by another is demoralizing and not wise for the better development of humanity. In order to prevent any other nation from stepping into India after the English had left he proposed that an international board be appointed to regulate the administration which was ultimately to devolve upon the Indians when they became capable of self-government.
None of these views, however, fall in with those of the British Parliamentarians who decided differently. They were determined to abolish the East India Company and take the government of India immediately-under the Crown : they desired to substitute direct government for the double government. As a result of this neither the petition nor the independent public opinion proved of any effect and Palmerston introduced his Bill for the Abolition of the Company and the future government of India. Before the Bill was passed, the Conspiracy Bill threw out the government of Palmerston which was succeeded by a conservative one under the leadership of Lord Derby. After Lord Palmerston’s Bill had gone out by his overthrow, Benjamin Disraeli, the Chancellor under Lord Derby introduced his India Bill. John Stuart Mill’s comparison of the merits of the two bills is very instructing and later events have borne out his contentions. He says :—
“The means which the Bills provide for overcoming these
difficulties (of the government of one nation by another)
consist of the unchecked power of a minister. There is no
difference of moment in this respect between the two Bills.
The minister, it is true, is to have a Council. But the most
despotic rulers have Councils. The difference between the
Council of a despot, and a Council which prevents the ruler
from being a despot is, that the one is dependent on him,
the other independent; that the one has some power of its
own, the other has not. By the first Bill (Lord Palmerston’s
Bill) the whole Council is nominated by the minister; by
the second (Disraeli’s Bill) one half of it is nominated
by him. The functions to be entrusted to it are left, in