The Press. — London, England, 1853-06-25 00:00:00

170 form of government here which is adapted to produce the best results in India, Mr. MA cauLAY dwelt chiefly on the importance of these results, as a reason for comparative in difference to the machinery which affects them. Safe and popular in his illustrations, and sar castic in his tone, he interested the Rouse with• out vindicating the policy of Government, and the real question of the debate, which was adjourned on the motion of Mr. Fa*Nets ViL• uxas, is left in abeyance. We have yet to see the extent to which Mr. BIACKETVII appeal to the representatives of the commercial and ma- nufactining constituencies will be responded to by their sense of imperial obligations. The interests of the greatest dependency which any empire haspessessed from the beginning of his tory are now at stake, and their arbitrators with our Indian administration are upon their trial. Will they prefer a hasty to a deliberate meat—an experimental and anomalous to an authority well considered and consti tuted will they wait for a machinery as perfect as the fullest information can make it, or will they accept a scheme of government which adds to existing imperfections, a dimi *shed independence, and an uncertain re eponsibility PERSONAL LIBERTY-THE NUNNERIES BILL. UPON the dying embers of Roman Imperialism our rude progenitors east fresh brands from their German forests, which for a time seemed to extinguish the light of civilisation, but soon gave forth to modern society a vivifying heat in the principle of individual liberty. To en noble this feeling and to strengthen it—to extend freedom of thought and of action—to nourish the pride of self-reliance into that of constitutional liberty, has been the aim of all those free institutions which we owe to the wisdom of statesmen, aided by the moral strength of the people. The inherent dignity of individual manhood is the only source of strength in a community of freemen. Our ,laws have hedged round this citadel of freedom, and our public opinion has hallowed it, until the proud boast that an Englishman's house is his castle, secure from the exactions of tyranny or the prying eye of authority, is sanctioned by law, and gloried in as an hereditary birth right. So jealous, indeed, of personal liberty, as the security of a free state, have our laws been, that they have gone still farther, and have guard ed it even against the individual himseo man can by a binding contract 'sell himself to slavery. Personal liberty, confirmed by the manly wills of our ancestors to all who had strength to claim it, has, by the generous spirit of modern legislation, been insured to those whose weakness might prevent them from assert ing the right. The emancipation of our slaves at the national cost may be considered as the first step in this tender care for liberty. Our laws interpose the aegis of protection between fair tory women and children and their employers; between prisoners and their gaolers ; between the detaining creditor and his debtor ; between lunatics and their keepers ; nay, farther still, between the parent and child. lest discipline should harden into cruelty. In all these cases we see that personal liberty has not been con sidered merely a right to be claimed, but a Priaajige to be cherished and nurtured in every member of a free community, as the very soul of freedom which must pervade each 'fibre of the social frame. One class needing a helping-hand for this security in the enjoyment of the blessings of free institutions has been brought under the notice of Parliament by Mr. CnAm.serts's Bill " for the Recovery of Personal Liberty." They are those who, under strong religious impres sions, have taken upon themselves vows which they may afterwards regret, .and entered into religious houses whence there is no escape, however irksome the impAtionment may be eome. They are, in mauylespecto, the most helpless of all ; their natt* protectors, de terred by the spiritual terries of a religious stem, dare not interfere hitween them and persecutors ; and the coal sick prisoner, lough* for liberty and light', appeals in vain a hard spiritual director to a parent (if owed to see one) whose kindly feelings are THE PRESS. restrained, if not hardened, by spiritual threats. Powerless and hopeless, the poor victim waits in the gloom of a cell for a release from misery by death, in this or in a foreign land. Now, this is not a religious question on any fair view of the case, hbwever some of the Irish mem bers may endeavour to obscure it under a haze of declamation concerning freedom of conscience and delicacy of feeling. Let reli• gion use its own sanctions, we neither want to free the conscience from them, nor could we, did we try : the liberty we and Mr. CHAM BERS seek to secure is that of the person— liberty to breathe the air of heaven—liberty to come forth from an asylum which has become a prison. Suppose, as non-interference with Masonic lodges has been frequently alluded to and called a parallel case, that John Thomas has become a " free and independent " brother. After a meeting, in which he ventures an opinion that their secret is all flam, and he will divulge it, JOHN THOMAS has disappeared. His friends call at the place of meeting ; he is denied to them, or engaged in Masonic rites which prevent his appearing ; and, in fact, John Thomas never appears again. Suppose not one but several such eases to occur. Is there a sane man in England who could ob jest to placing Masonic lodges under inspec tion? Or again, fancy rules for an Odd Fellows' Society as follows :—Any person once becoming an Odd Fellow can never again be come even, and if he attempts to give up his oddities the deputy Grand shall have power to imprison him for life or transport hint to a foreign prison. Would Mr. TIDD PRATT be likely to sanction them ? And really this is the whole case. The debate on the bill has, on the motion of Mr. PHINN that it be referred to a select committee, been adjourned to the 20th ofJuly. Whether the discussion will be taken even then is doubtful, as the whole object, apparently with the con currence of Ministers, is to shelve the bill al together. As to its final fate, something, but happily not all, must depend on whether Lord JOHN is in his Popery or " No Popery " paroxysm, in the hot or cold fit of his religious fever. Should a discussion take place, we must be prepared for inter• minable Irish talk, and to see weapons from the armoury of freedom again wielded in the cause of tyranny. Still it cannot but afford a salutary lesson to the true friends of our free constitution to observe how necessary it is to guard against the assaults of religious tyranny under the disguise of tolerance or equality, and the advance of a servile spirit of priest craft under the stolen banner of liberty. SILVER IN INDIA. tli has discussed the important question raised in our pages a few weeks ago (the Pans, p. 123), as to the propriety of making gold a legal tender in India, and thus relieving the trade of these countries from the necessity of purchasing silver coin or bullion at an enhanced price to remit to India in liquidation of the balance of trade due to that country. The subject is a grave and a pressing one, in every way entitled to dispassionate scrutiny and debate ; and in no quarter could it be discussed more becomingly than in the columns of the Economist. We only regret that in the article we allude to it should have been made the vehicle for something like per sonality towards Mr. DISRAELI, and groundless imputation against the Protectionists. The latter is the more infelicitous, inasmuch as the entire drift of the article is a defence of the East India Company's monopoly of one of the precious metals, in opposition to Mr. Dis BAKU'S suggestion for a free trade in both. So far from deprecating the strictures of our contemporary, we invite them, in the fullest confidence that the trade of the United King dons will be the ultimate gainer by the legiti mate investigation of this subject. It is one which is already arresting attention, as regards not only India but our other colonies in the East which are under the influence of its cur rency. We have received a letter, which space obliges us to defer, as to the injurious effects of the silver currency of India upon the coffee cultivation, of Ceylon; and it begins to be felt SATURDAY, that the vast field for commerce which is daily expanding in Australia will prove to be com• paratively unprofitable, so far as any direct trade with the neighbouring territories of the East India Company are concerned, if, in ex change for their own productions, they persist in refusing to receive the grand staple which Australia has to offer them in return—her gold. Returning, therefore, to the subject in a sober spirit, unmoved by the tone of the article in the Eowsentist, we are•desirous to call atten tion to the facts which it has fallen into error in its endeavour to controvert. But first we must notice the circumstance, that, whilst we have advocated the change proposed as a relief to the trade of the United Kingdom with all its Asian possessions, our contemporary resists it, on the narrow ground of some pro bable inconvenience in liquidating the local debt of the East India Company. That debt having been borrowed in silver, the writer asserts that it would be a "flagrant dishonesty" to declare gold a legal tender for any propor tion of its payment. But surely the mere difference in value between the two metals, when the time comes for paying off a debt of some 46,000,0001., will not be regarded as an obstacle sufficient to defeat the proposal of a signal and immediate benefit to the commerce of Great Britain with a country which, next to the United States, is the largest consumer of British produce in the world, taking annually between 7,000,0001. find 8,000,0001. of our exports. Inconvenience to individuals, or actual injury to a claits, was not permitted to oppose an obstruction to the adoption of a free-trade policy for this country. Parliament thought it saw in " par tial evil universal good ;" and, in like manner, it will hardly be recognised as a legitimate barrier to the liberation of our commercial intercourse with India, and the relief desired for the trade of the empire, that it would lead to the liquidation of some part of the local Indian debt in gold instead, of silver. But, supposing such a result to be anticipated, it will be the business of Parliament to ensure the observance of good faith with• tke public creditor, and so to adjust the payment of the East India Company's debt as to protect the lenders from loss. At whatever cost to ..the public such an arrangement may be made, the amount of sacrifice would be a bagatelle when contrasted with the magnitude of the goad to be achieved by it. Thus disposing of the main difficulty of the Economist, we come to the proof of the entire correctness of our own assertions, which have been mistakingly disputed. We stated that the recent discoveries in California and Austra lia had produced a plethora of gold and a deficiency of silver, and we instanced proofs in the unprecedented deposits of the one in the Bank. of England, and the universal complaints of the scarcity of the other through out the provinces, whilst silver has been flowing out of the country to India at the rate of 3,000,0001. per annum. The Economist asks us, do we mean " gold and silver coin, or gold and silver metal" . and, admitting that coins of both descriptions have been deficient, the writer denies there exists either a plethora of gold or a deficiency of silver. Of course our statements have re ference, not to coined money alone, but to bullion and the metals in every shape. By a plethora we do not imply that the abundance of gold amounts to an evil to be abated, but to an influx of such an unusual magnitude as to de range all previous calculations as to the relative proportion of the precious metals. But, whilst our contemporary questions the fact of this profusion of gold, his own argument respect ing the deficiency of coined silver is almost sufficient to establish it. He admits that the issue of silver from the Mint has been all but suspended, owing to the urgent demand fur sovereigns, which it was found impossible to coin quick enough, even with an increase of power sufficient to turn out " three times the usual number of pieces." And the reason was this, that bullion has been flowing in from Aus tralia in such quantities that the consumption of our manufactures has been insufficient to pay for it, and we have been forced to send back sovereigns in exchange for bullion. One is really at a loss to comprehend this declaration of the Economist in denial of the profusion of gold. It seems like denying.sun-