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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
“Parliament”, complained John Bright two years after the transfer of Indian government to the Crown, “cares about India little more than the Cabinet”. Indian affairs continued to attract little attention at Westminster until the advent to power in 1874 of a Conservative administration committed, under Disraeli's leadership, to a vigorous defence of Britain's imperial pre-eminence. The subsequent emergence of India as the focal point of the Prime Minister's imperial ambitions aroused bitter Liberal criticism and ensured a break with the tradition that sought to insulate India from party politics in Britain. It is with the response to these developments of the House of Commons, an integral part of the machinery of Indian government, that this paper is primarily concerned. Following a preliminary examination of the reasons which lay behind Parliament's habitual neglect of India it takes as its particular focus the manner in which the House of Commons fulfilled its responsibility to India at a time when the conduct of Indian affairs became a major political issue.
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3 There were exceptions, most obviously in Lancashire, and we are told that the advocacy by Henry Fawcett, “Member for Hackney and Hindustan”, of Indian interests “proved a good campaign asset”, and that his constituents were “absorbed in his exposition of Indian affairs.” Holt, W., A beacon for the blind, London, 1886, 227.Google Scholar On the other hand the Irish Nationalist, O'Donnell, F. H., found his digressions on India an electoral embarrassment.Google ScholarO'Donnell, F. H., A history of the Irish parliamentary party, London, 1910, II, 412.Google Scholar
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20 The appointment of the aggressive and flamboyant Lord Lytton as Viceroy in the same year was also taken by some Liberals to mark a turning point in Anglo-Indian relations. In Lytton's view, notes Gopal, “the Government of India should remain a despotism conducted in the interests of the British people and particularly, whenever possible, in the interests of the Conservative party”. Gopal, S., British policy in India 1858–1905, Cambridge, 1965, 127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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39 ibid., CCXLII, 48–133, Commons, 23 July 1878. The Act was repealed in 1882.
40 ibid., CXCIV, 1070, Lords, 11 March 1869.
41 ibid., CCXVIII, 993, Commons, 21 April 1874; CCXXVIII, 924, Lords, 31 March 1876; CCXLIII, 662, Commons, 12 December 1878; CCXLII, 1559, Commons, 8 August 1878.
42 Gladstone had resigned the Liberal leadership in 1875 and his indictment of t he Conservatives' external policies did not go unchallenged within the party. Despite these divisions, and t h e anticipation that the general election of 1880 would be closely fought, the Liberals were returned with a comfortable majority: Liberals 353; Conservatives 238; Home Rulers 61.
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