The Press. — London, England, 1854-07-22 00:00:00

JULY 22, 1854. present Ministry (we should be glad to know, by the way, who has confidence in it) ; and their next was expressive of a determina tion to substitute for any further reliance on it a recourse to those methods of making their grievances known in England which the con stitution allows. Deprived necessarily by their position of any share in the representa. tion, they have decided to appeal to the jus tice and good feeling of the British Legisla- ture. The resolutions adopted at this meeting will probably not be favourably regarded by Sir CHARLES WOOD. But, happily, h . e is not the nation; and all men of sense in this country will view the proceedings of the Madrasees with unmixed satisfaction. We have long felt that the natives of India had substantial cause of complaint, though amid the darkness with which the India-house en velops everything it was difficult to see exactly where the mischief lay. The Madrasees now propose to point this out to us themselves, and we have no doubt that they will do so in terms both temperate and respectful. To ourselves it has seemed incomprehensible how the India-house should have been able to mystify the people of England on the subject of the natives of India so long ; f o r the speci mens of those races who are daily to be met with at the balls and parties of her Majesty and the leading nobility must be sufficient to prove to any one not absolutely blind that a people farther removed from barbarism is no where to be found. Their manners are marked, not by rudeness, but by Italian court liness and refinement. Was RAMMOHIIN ROY a barbarian, or With DWARKANATH TAGORE, Or is ALI KHAN, of Surat, who is now in Eng land ? Yet these men were, or are, no strong exceptions to the common run of their countrymen. They may be taken as types of the classes of natives throughout India to which they belong. Then, again, as to public spirit, the last mail acquaints us that a native millionaire of Bombay, who had already de voted more than two hundred and fifty thou sand pounds sterling to works of public utility or charity, has now devoted a large sum in addition for the purpose of supplying that want of pure water for the community which invariably recurs in every hot sea son, and which it was the Government's own duty long since to have removed. It is need less to add that the work will be one of benevolence, as the water is to be supplied free of charge. Nor is the sagacity of the native and his capacity for business less conspicuous, as the position attained by him in that career which alone is open to him incontestably proves. The millionaire whom we have just alluded to made every shilling of his enormous fortune himself. The son of a poor bottle dealer, he has by his own energy and talents raised himself to be the owner of several ships, to be the largest China merchant in India, the possessor of the finest equipages and town and country houses at Bombay, and the owner of some millions sterling. But, though by his charities he has become con spicuous above his countrymen in his wealth, he is not singular in his success. There are numbers of other natives in the three presiden • cies almost if not quite as rich, and who have made their fortunes in the same manner by commerce and trade. In a late war in India one native banker contributed four hundred thousand pounds on the spot to the loan then opened without contracting his circulation in , the smallest degree, and a principal European house at one of the presidencies was some years since saved from bankruptcy by a loan of half that amount from a native friend. Indeed, the whole of the brokerage of i the trade of India with England and Chinais conducted by natives : in nearly all the houses there are native partners, and no English mercantile house has ever found itself able to exist in India without their aid. Nor are the honesty and good faith of the natives in their commercial dealings less con spicuous than their success—a fact, indeed, which their success goes far to demonstrate, ithout honesty and good faith it would been impossible for such commercial nce to be attained. Another remarkable of their integrity may be found in the tents. THE PRESS. readiness with which their bills of exchange on Caubul, Bokhara, and other places in Central Asia are taken—places wholly beyond our jurisdiction—and for the payment of which the good faith of the drawer is the only guarantee. With facts like these before us, it will require something more than Sir CHARLES WOOD'S assertion to convince us that men so eminently gifted with every quality conducive to success should not thrive as well in agriculture as in commerce, if in the former line those qualities were only afforded equal scope. For the natives cf India are essen tially an agricultural people : the only reason why capital has shrunk from agriculture in that country the reason which in England would drive it equally from the land. A land lord here who, coming into possession of a property long totally neglected, would neither expend a farthing on his land himself nor afford any one else the slightest induce ment to do so, would be deemed a lunatic if he expected anything but a beg arly rent-roll and a pauper tenantry as the result. Why, then, should we wonder if the same system be productive of precisely the same cense• quences when pursued by the East India Company at Madras ? POOR LAW REPORT. Tix sixth annual report of the Poor Law Board is before us, and we propose to supply our readers with a short analysis of its con- ______ The amount expended on pauper relief in England and Wales during the last year (1853) amounts to 4,939,0641., or, in round numbers, a little under five million sterling. This sum exceeds by 40,0001. the expenditure of 1852, and constitutes an average charge of ss. 6d. per head on the entire population. The in crease, slight as it is, may be ascribed mainly to a rise in the price of provisions, and not to an aggravation of pauperism ; indeed, 1852 was a year of exceptional prosperity, and the charges of 1853 aro lower than those of any other year since 1842. Of paupers, the total number in receipt of relief on the Ist of January, 1853, was 799,443. In 1852 the corresponding number was 835,300, showing a decrease of nearly 30,000. The same comparative returns, taken on the Ist of July of each year, show a decrease of more than 56,500. The pauperism of last year may be roughly classed as follows : Insane persons, a little over 15,000 Vagrants, rather less than ... 1,500 Adult, able-bodied persons ... 126,000 (The last item indicating a decrease of 11,090 since the corresponding period of last year.) It is thus shown that five-sixths of the in mates of workhouses are persons bona fide disabled from industrial occupation by age, infancy, or infirmity. Not much assistance has been given to in tending emigrants, it being probably thought that the work of depopulation proceeds fast enough, and that the demand for labour in this country already ex Beds the supply. Less than 500 have been sent out, while in '52 the number was 3,271. A table is given, which we insert, throwing light on the comparative prosperity, or the re verse, of various counties. We must, however, observe that statistics of this kind, to be useful, ought to be carried back farther than one year : The following are the rates per cent. of the increases and decreases on the expenditure of 11458, as compared with 1852, in the several counties of England and Wales :— INCREASE PER CENT.: — Bedford Berks Buckingham .. 3'l Lincoln Cambridge.... 41 Middlesex .... 21 Wilts Chester Cornwall Cumberland .. 2'4 Northampton Derby 3'4 Nottingham .. 11 Caro arvon .... 31 Devon o'4 tisk,' d i e.ii bet Essex 4l Somerset .... frci Mcrioneth .. 121 Gloucester o'9 Southampton . 21 Pembroke .... o'l Hertford ll Stafford 2l Radnor , lB 675 DECREASE PER CENT.: — Durham Ol Warwick 3l. Anglcsea .... 31 Hereford .... I'l Westmorland . 11 Brecon Lancaster .... 61 Worcester .... 01 Glamorgan Leitester .... 31 York /.'.. Rid.) 10'2 Northumberld. 21 York N. Rid.) 11 Salop THE SPANISH INSURRECTION. TUE politics of Spain have for a long time been the most picturesque and the least important in Europe. No other history is so interspersed with melodrama as the Spanish. Sovereigns in peril, mysteries and Court intrigues, degraded Minisiers, and lucky soldiers of fortune, meet us at every page. Pity it it is that so much bravery and enthusiasm should eventuate in such contemptible results! " The " provinces rise, the Constitution is proclaimed, and " the nation is to be regenerated." So has run the news from the days of IttEoo, and Spain seems as far off as ever from a proud throne, supported by a unanimous people. If ISABELLA had been a Sovereign of sense and spirit, she might have done much to assuage the evils of protracted civil wars ; but, infatuated with the love of unworthy pleasures, she has tempted the insurrection, that now dares her armies, and con fronts her palace. Province after province has pro nounced in favour of the movement. It bursts up in all directions with the fierce intensity of genuine discontent. Whether NARVAEZ at the head of the royal forces will be able to subdue it cannot be told for a few days. He is himself a remarkable man, bold, versatile, and subtle. But he has no common men opposed to him. ESPARTERO and O'DoNNELL are both above the average of Spanish leaders. 'Though dilatory, like many Spanish statesmen, ESPARTERO administered the affairs of the Regency with a " respectability " unusual in the ministerial annals of Madrid, and O'DONNELL has many brilliant qualities to conciliate the regard of personal followers. Their objects are not yet plainly visiole. Have they the desire of proclaiming another regency—that of Isanzu.A's daughter—and deposing the Queen herself ? Would such intentions be acceptable to the Spanish people, or permanently practicable? One thing, however, is quite clear, that the jiresent system, along with some of its more peculiar fea tures, must be entirely changed. There is a spice of something like moral indignation in the insurrec tion which elevates it beyond the habitual disturb. ances of Spain. THE "DEBATS" ON OUR CABINET. ONE of the advantages which we derive from a Coalition in the eyes of foreigners may be seen by reading some remarks in the Journal des Debate of Tuesday last, in answer to our protest against the assumption that Lord ABERDEEN'S band of "free " companions" represented such a Cabinet as the English Constitution contemplated " Another English journal, the PnEss," says the Debate, " has accused us of having misapprehended the spirit of the English Constitution when we remarked that a Ministry comprising fifteen persons, and ctrnposing a little parliament in itself, could not be a Ministry of action. We do not wish to disparage the parliamentary system, as we might be reminded of the fable of the fox which had lost his tail. But what we said was that fifteen persons, representing nearly the same number of distinct opinions, could hardly form an homogeneous Administra tion. Discussion is the function of Parliament, not that of the Cabinet. Sir Robert Peel might with impunity have twenty-five colleagues in his Ministry, because he was really Premier—the chief and head of an unanimous Administration. But in the existing Ministry where is the chief ? Where is the head ? What is the name of the Prime Minister ? And how can a Government in cluding three or four Prime Ministers do anything? Lord John Russell's organ will ask us perhaps, Why do you meddle with our affairs?—to which our simple answer is, You meddle continually wits► ours." Now, the Wats here simply mistakes the violation of the Constitution committed by the Ministers for an ordinary result of our parliamentary system. It supposes that a Government living by sufferance and depending from day to day on the general loyalty of the Opposition to carry the measures rendered ne cessary by the war—a Government made up of noto riously heterogeneous materials, and the bead of which apologised for taking office—is as much a result of our system as was the late Administration, or any other, where the idem nolle et idem relit of Cicero, the only true bonds of political friendship and honour, were visible in every part. But our French contemporary is certainly excusa ble for mistaking the Aberdeen jumble for a result of our parliamentary system. No system can ensure perfection, but ours at least provides that, where the country has been insulted by such a pretence of Go vernment QS the present, Parliament, at the proper Y a I 1 for wit have enaine Proof