The Press. — London, England, 1853-07-09 00:00:00

JULY 9, 1853. within a fortnight. Yet the Foreign and Co lonial departments have only the minister, his under secretaries. and the clerks ; while the two Indian offices are managed by a minister. two secretaries, twenty-four directors, and an immense auxiliary staff. The existence of needless and injurious delay, then, cannot be denied ; nor has auy valid excuse ever been offered for it. But a graver doubt remains yet unsolved, notwithstanding Parliamentary questioning and Ministerial replies. " Who governs India " —the Board of Control or the I hrectors ?" " Neither," answers Mr. MACAULAY ; " the " Governor-General manages matters ti►r him " self, and the home Administration, though " they often disapprove his acts, rarely " reverse them." And Mr. MACAULAY is MI apologist of the double Government! He proves that it is innocent of imputed offences, by demonstrating that it does, and that it can do, nothing. He pleads for its retention until tered, by showing its utter inefficiency. We should like to see in what spirit Mr. MACAULAY, the Edinburgh reviewer, would have dealt with an author who argued thus. Other Ministers, men more practically versed in affairs, have given di&rent replies. Mr. Prrr said, at the first founding of the Board of Control, " There " was no one step that could have been taken " previous to the passing of the act of 1784, by "the Court of Directors, that the Board had " not now a right to take by virtue of the au• " thority vested in it by that act." So, likewise, Mr. DUNDAS—" Without the whole " powers of government, the Board of Control " would be a nugatory institution." And — passing over other testimony—we have it from the historian MILT., that " The real, sole govern " Mg power in India is the Board of Control ; " and it only makes use of the Court of Diree " tors as au instrument, as a subordinate office " for the management of details, and the pre " paration of business for the cognisance of " the superior power." Can authority be stronger than this? The Directors, it is true, have the power of pry► - testing ; but their protests cannot be made public, and are, of course, so much waste paper. The Directors, it is trite, initiate a good deal of routine business ; but so does the head clerk of a government office. In this respect, so far as we can see, Sir C. Woon's nominees are no better off than their popularly-elected colleagues. They have the show of power, but not power. They are appealed to on all public occasions as supplying a check to the Minister, but they do not in reality supply any such check. Hence the danger. Parliament dele gates its functions to them ; those functions they do not exercise ; and the president—gene rally, as in the present instance, a Minister whom either age or incompetence has rele gated to this, the penal station of the Cabinet —governs India, at once inexperienced and uncontrolled. Can any arrangement be worse? To the abolition of this illusory government, and the substitution of an effective Crown appointed council, only one valid objection can be taken. It is said—and the argument is urged by no less an authority than that of the Westminster Reniew:—" You are destroying an " old English institution, the tendency of " which is to lessen the direct power of govern " meat, and you propose to substitute a bureau " cracy." We admit the fact. India must, in the Present state of English knowledge and opinion, be governed by a bureaucracy. This is not abstractedly desirable ; but to us it seems inevitable. The question is not between bureaucracy and representative government : it is between bureaucracy ably conducted — openly acknowledged—answerable for its acts to Parliament—and bureaucracy which excludes ability, disavows responsibility, works in the dark, and, receiving no ostensible pay, lays itself (with permission of the authorities) in the corrupt use of patronage. Which of these two is the preferable alternative ? or, rather, which of these two is the lesser evil? JAMAICA. WE are not disposed to enter into pretnature, and possibly fallacious, criticism on the Duke of NEWCAIiTLE'S plan for Jamaica. The studied obscurity of the Miuister's hulguage, THE PRESS. while it affects to explain. in reality conceals, his intention, is more probably a result of igno rance and indecision than of a preconcerted dissimulation. All external circumstances are in his favour, it' he only knows how to avail himself of them. Everybody agrees that some. thing must be done. Not many persons have rival projects in the field. There is a general feeling that matters cannot be much worse than they are ; and that almost any change must be for the better. The planters have ceased to hope for the restoration of differen tial duties. The colonists, weary of vehement anti profitless controversy continued for years, are ready to fall in with any compromise which shall give them repose anti union without a sacrifice of honour. Jamaiea, in 1145:1, presents the spectacle of a great crisis, which to all able administrator is a great opportunity. Whether the Duke of NKWeASTILE be such an administrator or no, his conduct iu this in stance will mainly decide. But nothing in his antecedents gives us reason to hope ; for, like all politicians trained in his school, the Duke of NEweAsTLE is essentially a Man of routine and precedent, combining a strong d e sire f o r cheap popularity with an equally strong reluc tance to break through the formulie of official custom. Now, the present is precisely an oc casion to which these formulae do not apply, and where abstract principles of colonial policy, such as draw cheers in Parliament, are likely to do mischief. Let the social state of Jamaica be for a moment considered. It is peculiar, artificial, almost anomalous. It combines ele ments of discord seldom found together—an absentee proprietary, a ruined agriculture, a dominant and a subject race, associating oil terms of pretended equality but real distinc tion, a franchise exceedingly limited, anti a local Government unusually powerful. There is little trade, general ignorance, a want of proper local organisation, anti a deficiency of internal communication. Add to all this that, setting aside the want of sufficient civilisation, Jamaica is one of those colonies which, unlike Australia and Canada, can never hope to stand alone. She is weak, surrounded by jealous neighbours, and hated for the example she affords of negro independence under a civilised Government. Between Cubans and Americans there exists little sympathy ; but they agree in cordial detestation of a state of things which seems to indicate that negro freedom is not necessarily synonymous with anarchy. Jamaica, there fore, cannot look forward to ultimate separa tion from'the British dominions. As in the ease of Texas—am in the future case o f Mexico—the declaration of her independence would but precede her final anti miserable subjugation, or, unsupported, she is de fenceless ; and, even granting that St. Domingo retains, and Cuba vindicates, her liberty, the prospect of an African confederation, composed of many separate states, seems hopelessly dis tant. For so complex a machine of politics the highest administrative talent is required ; and of this talent the African race, in its pre sent stage of progress, seems utterly devoid Jamaica, then, must be legislated for, not as a temporary, but, like India, as a permanent possession—so far as permanence can be pre dicated of any human institution. Confessedly, her institutions are defective. Confessedly, it rests with the British Parliament to amend them. Confessedly, the democratic institu tions, which are the natural and legitimate development of an Anglo-Saxon colony, do not suit a population lately escaped from slavery. and of which the great mass is still deep sunk in sloth and barbarism. Yet while democracy, pure and simple, is impossible, nu territorial aristocracy wicit3; and the principlu of tau 219 ua►rhy is indifferently represented by a stipen diary governor, replaced every five years. Such are the polities of Jamaica. Reform is indispensable ; it must be carried out by Parliament ; it involves the necessity of constructing a government, not, in the main, dependent upon any one of the three great constitutional principles of modern times ; and this government ►s to be, n o t tr►unsitional, but final—ealculated, not for the mo►uent, but for a generation or mom. For such work a statesman is required, and one of ver y different calibre from the Duke of NEWCAsTI.E. THE SIMONY BILL. emineuM EN of all classes and descriptions, from those whose opinions our contemporary the Guardia/I represents down to the Rev. S. OsaoaNx, the lively correspondent Of the Times, term to have , made up their minds that the sale of advowsons and next ln•esentations is tWa+alsiiallallly al aran►hit ti) tilt+ Chitral US w►'ll as th►' subject of illegal contracts. Though we do not question th►+ accuracy of this I►oKi ion, it see MS clear that, it' any turasur►' he passed into a law for the Inn -pose of reiaet nig the evil, it. ought to receive more con sideration than the bill to render illegal the male of a next presentation brought in by Dr. lt. l'uo.umony, which was read for the first titne, at midnight, on June 16th, and was the subject of discussion at the morning sitting on Wednesday last. in these days every invasion of the right of property (especially of Church property) is attended with danger; and ti n ' provisions of this bill seem to us most objec tionable in print iple. as being nothing more than a step towards the prohibition of the sale of an advowson and the subversion of our whole system of Church patronage. Dr. PHII.- I.lMonli and his co-mates of the 1 iladstonian school are for ever led astray, by their at tempts to reform the Church abuses of the present century, by a reference to the eccle siastical institutions of the fourteenth ; and, however we may join with them in deploring that a parish should be committed to the charge of incumbents who have been pre sented through the medium of hard ((ash, it by no means follows that they will perform their duties one whit less effectively than the recipients of Crown or Episcopal patronage, whose preferment is almost in every came due to "letter and affection." It seems absurd to say—knowing as we do how the greater 'por tion of Church patronage ii 4 dispensed—that the power to sell presentations as now per mitted by law has a tendency to stop the pre ferment of worthy individuals; and we are disposed to think that in these days the con duct of the incumbents is perhaps better regu lated, by the watAlfitlness of their superiors, than by any attempt to control their appoint. moat. No one would more willingly than our selves violenr in any measure which is likely to advance the ellillie of the Church ; but Dr. PIIII.I.IMoRK 111141 his friends should remember that, by their vote on the Canada reserves, they have opened the door to the confiscation of ecclesiastical property ; and, if they really have the interests of the Church of England at heart, tiny should be careful how they bring forward any rash or ill-digested pro- I• jects. MAZZINI AND HIS APOLOGISTS. IT is not a matter of surprise to Uri that our ►pinions on Italian polities should not be agreeable to our " Liberal " contemporaries. Such us those opinions are we shall continue to set them forth to the best of our power, without stepping aside to indulge in angry con troversy ; nor should we notice an attack which hay been wade upon ua by a, weakly cuuteut• I