The Press. — London, England, 1857-10-24 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 24, pat forth, because they flatter the vanity and screen the incompetence of our Indian civil administration. Indeed, this drivelling cry, which, if it prevails now, will cost us our empire hereafter, has been already raised. Who that has been in the habit of perusing the Times and other Ministerial and Direc torial organs will fail to sec how well Mr. Norton had taken their measure in the para graph which he thus so early put forth? The falsity of such reasoning he very fully demon strates. He asks when any revolution in India was brought about by the people not of the middle classes ; and he observes that it is not that disaffection exists only in the army, but that with the army the disaffection is organised, while among the people at large it has no or ganisation. He quotes the opinion of a gentle man whom he describes as one than whom no man more thoroughly knows the feelings of the people; and who being applied to on the part of Government to state what those feel ings were, informed the applicants as follows. That the people generally were disaffected, and that they had ton much cause for it ; in deed that there was disaffection enough in the land for half a dozen rebellions, supposing that the people could combine. He shows how little generally the governing class in India is acquainted with the real opinions and condition of those subject to its sway; and how much the absence of rebellion has been misinterpreted hitherto into a sign of their contentment. He enters into the question of the army, and shows how the old bond of feeling between the sepoy and his officer has broken down ; and how the duties of the army have been gradually changed. He points out many serious military defects. He comments strongly on the shameful way in which Lord Dalhousie dealt with the late Sir Charles Napier, and indeed with all who had the honesty to abstain from flattering his lordship at the expense of what they knew to be the truth. The zeal with which his lordship's administration was generally cried up at the time by Europeans in India he sufficiently accounts for by the large increase of patronage which annexation after annexation produced, and by the greai• tude of some for past favours and the antici pation by others of favours to come. Of course any one would err egregiously who should be guided by a criterion so deceptive as this. He refers to the prophetic warnings of the late Sir Charles Metcalfe as to the feelings with which our rule in India is really viewed. He alludes to the monstrous defects of our judi• cial, and police, and revenue systems, and shows that our civilians voluntarily blind themselves to the disaffection that such mis government must necessarily create. He deals unsparingly with Lord Dalhousie's wholesale annexation system, and points out the bitter hostility that has been engendered by such flagrant and repeated acts of faith. lie shows the utter unscrupulousness of such proceed ings, which are neither more nor less than open robberies, disguise them as we may. He quotes on this subject the opinion of all the most celebrated of our Indian statesmen ; of some of the Directors alhded to in Mr. Dis raeli's great Indian speech, and of some of the leading Indian journals, more especially the Madras Atheneum. Among the English writers on the same subject he makes honourable mention of Mr. Dickinson and his pamphlet on the " Bureaucratic Government of India," and the writer of what he styles in various places the " able " and " terrible " articles on Lord Dalhousie's administration, published in the last October and January numbers of the New Quarterly Review. From the latter work he makes large extracts, which exhibit not only the injustice and immorality of the annexation policy, but also its extreme folly, considered in a mere political and financial point of view. The last straw that broke the camel's back was, in the opinion of Mr. Norton, as in that of Mr. Disraeli and of every other compet( nt judge of the matter, the annexation of Oude Indeed, that is now so generally an admitted fact that it may be considered as settled beyond dispute. Mr. Norton also gives quotations from local journals showing the deep discontent engen dered by the Enam or Rent-free Inquiry Com missions, and by the unwise e.onfiseations of landed property that have resulted from its acts, go further iuutauoes seyoral C4BOll The Rebellion in India : flow to Prevent Another. By John Bruce Norton. London : Richard son Brothers. THE author of this volume—written in India, but published here—is a barrister very favour ably known at Madras. He practises in both her Majesty's and the Company's Courts, and, therefore, is well qualified by experience to speak as to the comparative merits of each. In the latter he has held the office of Govern ment pleader, and in the former it is under stood that he was offered that of A dvocate- General, but declined it on the honourable ground that his motives might be liable to misconstruction in accepting such an office from a Government to which he had uni formly been opposed. On this point, how ever, we speak under correction, our only authority for the statement being that it was so reported in the Indian journals some time ago. To his eminent qualities we can testify with more certainty ; indeed, he has long taken the lead in all matters relating to the reform of abuses at Madras. His exposure of the absurdities so frequently exhibited in the judgments of the Company's judges there has done much to make the administration of justice more careful and conscientious than it was previously ; while his dentin eiationg of the cruelties practised on the ryots led to the establishment of the Madras Tor ture Commission, on which Lord Harris had the manliness to place him as a member, with what result the fearless exposure made by that commission sufficiently shows. We may remark that it is with sorrow, though not with surprise, that we learn from his present work that since the cry on that subject has died away, the evils then laid bare have been left unheeded, and that the ryots have been al lowed to remain as subject to these inflictions as they were before the commission sat. Such has ever been the way with the Company, as even Macaulay, their great advocate, long since pointed out. Penning despatches full of humanity and fine feeling, to refer to when attacked ; but taking no care whatever to see that their servants carried their injunctions out. On the contrary, giving them orders on the subject of the necessity of collecting for them the largest possible revenue, which they must have known to be wholly incompatible with the views of general benevolence which they affected so strong a desire to enforce. Mr. Norton's opinions as to the causes of the rebellion differ wholly from those that have been generally expressed by the Minis terial organs of public opinion here. He does not favour the theory of spontaneous combus tion, or that of sepoys being like children, or of natives being liable to sudden panics, or of the whole being a wonderful and incompre hensible mystery, or of any other of the Direc torial absurdities of a similar kind. He takes the plain, common sense view that Nature fol lows everywhere Nature's laws, and that the people of India have rebelled simply because they have been subjected to an amount of misgovernment that would have equally, and much sooner, produced a rebellion among our selveri. Nor does be fail to give numerous illustrations and most convincing proofs of this view, while anticipating what will be said on the other side ; and thus, with wonderful prescience, he foreshadows the line of argu meat that the organs of the Government would put forth : When the present rebellion has been suppressed (I write while it is still unchecked) and its immediate authors pu nished, I doubt not we shall be told that such outbursts visit India periodically; that we are stronger than ever, since the native soldiery has seen the hops lessness of revolt. Historical precedents of former dangers, which threatened our empire with ruin, and which have been averted, will be quoted. It will be asserted, that the origin of the present crisis is purely military disaffection, such as that which formerly led to the mutiny at Vellore, or all but broke out among even the European officers of the Indian army in Clive's time. It will be declared to be entirely isolated from the people ; that the masses took no share in it, and that it does not afford any proof, indeed scarcely leads to any inference, that the people at large are disaffected. Indeed, the apathy of the people to the events passing among them will be cited u a convincing proof that the Government is in the main popular ; and thus the rebellion will be vouched as a test both of our strength and our popularity. Those remedies, it will be arid, are sufficient which seek to improve the condition of the native army, or by the increase of the European regiments to counterpoise and overawe the turbulent native troops. These and the lute line yf srpment viii be egcluJously 1857. with which he has been professionally con nected, and which exhibit a series of outrages upon all rights and a denial of all justice that is, we should hope, unparalleled in the whole civilised world. Ho describes the career of the unfortunate petitioner for redress bandied about between collector and. Government till, on the failure of all attempts to obtain either inquiry or redress, the miserable victim commits suicide or re signs himself to despair. He draws a picture, indeed, that those he appeals to, and who are unacquainted with the Indian system, might almost deem to be incredible, had he not in the outset disarmed the supposition by the following unanswerably convincing words : If what appears in these pages be assailed as prejudiced exaggeration, let my credit at least derive whatever strength is due to it from the fact, that no single state ment which I have ever yet put forward, however startling and incredible, whether it appeared in the exposure of the administration of justice in Southern India, in the repre sentation of the condition of the Madras Presidency, or in the Torture Report, has been shown to be untrue, or even incorrect. Statements so vouched for must command attention, and we do most earnestly recom mend them to the careful perusal of all who really have the honour of their country and the good of India at heart. Nay, more, to all who would maintain the sway of England over it ; for it is impossible that this can be up held, in the face of such universal injustice, by the mere pressure of military force. India is not a party question, and we have never desired to see it made one. It is a question of which a true and accurate solution concerns not the men of one political connection only— it concerns us all. If any one is now endea vouring to turn it to party purposes, it is clearly the people in power ; their object being to throw dust in the eyes of the nation, in order to induce it to condone their miscon duct antl mistakes. That they can seriously believe, in the face of the evidence that is daily accumulating, that their policy has been either wise or righteous, it is impossible to suppose ; and it is little to their credit that they should attempt to brazen the matter out, instead of frankly coming forward and admit ting that they have been wrong, and endea vouring by future honesty and devotedness to atone for what is past. Their conduct is the more reprehensible as they must know as well as we do that, sooner or later, it must come to this. Indeed, we can see surging up a feel ing among the masses upon every side that is likely to prove most dangerous, if the system of continued trifling with the subject be much longer maintained. The middle classes of this country have thoroughly made up their minds as to the gross misgovernment of India, if its Ministers have not; and so. too, have all in India save the mere official class, both na tives and whites. Our warnings have been often given and as often neglected, but we do not hesitate to warn the Legislature once more. If the honour of the country is to be vindicated, if its dominion over India is to be preserved, and if all those dire disasters are to be avoided which on the separation of India from the mother-country would assuredly fol low both abroad and at home, then must Par liament take up this question in an honest spirit of determination to do justice irrespec tive of party interests, and the past system of dealing with that unfortunate country must entirely be changed. As regards the Conser vative party generally, there is no need of giving any warning to them ; for in the past session, and during the recess, they have shown that they fully appreciate the crisis, and are prepared to meet it as it should be met. But if there be any of them unconvinced, we would recommend them to read the book before us, and that of other independent writers like Mr. Norton, when they will see how very different is the real misrule of India from the picture of the paternal and beneficent government which the organs of the Ministers and of the Directors are fur ever presenting to our eyes. And it may tend still further to increase their confi dence in their leaders to see how such men, writing thousands of miles o ff, h av i ng no political or personal connection with them whatever, and havipg pot yet eves WWI OM 1041