The Press. — London, England, 1857-07-04 00:00:00

I . The embrace of brother and sister he must never look for again ; even the mother is taught to regard him with horror. If he is unmarried, none but an outcast will give his daughter to him in marriage, and wherever he turns he is an object of loathing and of dis gust. The consolations of his religion are denied to him; the temples of his gods are closed to him, as are the ministrations of his priests. He lives the life of the accursed, he dies the death of the dog ; and, when he is dead, the funeral rites of his creed are with held from him, and, instead of an eternity of happiness, he looks forward only to an eternity of woe. Such are the penalties of loss of caste to the Brahmin and Itajpoot There are natives in Calcutta who affect atheism, and profess to ridicule it; but these are not the men of whom our army is composed. They are men who laugh at all creeds—the Christian and Hindoo alike—and who show their libe rality by the shameless and horrid licence of their lives. These it is now the fashion of our Government to patronise ; but it will find such freethinking in the long run an ill ex change for the honest, though mistaken, super stition which it supersedes. We quite agree with the Times in thinking that the system of double government which leads to such disasters as have occurred in Bengal during the last few months cannot last. India has been governed by its present complex agency long enough. Les.denhall-street may be all it. boasts itself to be, but it is clear that its wisdom is not our wisdom ; and be it what it may, it no longer suits us. We have plenty of other use for our money than to waste it in subsidies to prop up their bankrupt credit, or in expeditions to restore their failing power. As long as India asked nothing of us we might have been content to leave it to the Directors to deal with as they pleased. That day, however, is now past, and past for ever The time has come when the burdens of India must be shared by us, when its disasters must be participated in by us, and when the follies and crimes committed there must fall back upon ourselves. Wu have now become responsible for India; and we must transfer the trust to those hands in which we are accustomed to see the responsibilities of the empire rest There are not wanting among u 3 statesmen of Indian experience ; still less are there wanting among us men of superior rank in the country who are perfectly willing to lend them all the aid which local and special knowledge of the subject can confer. These would make a more fitting council for the Indian Minister than any that the elec tions of the proprietors of India stock could produce. With such a council, aided by the wisdom of Parliament, the errors of the past may be redeemed—the clouds that now lower around us may be effectually dissipated—and centuries of good government may make the follies be forgotten which jeopardised at one time England's Eastern empire. THE PRESS, JULY 4, 1857. opinion on Ministers' Money which the pre aent Prime Minister expressed two years ago. In a strain of awkward malevolence it is con tended that party favours should have pre vented a prelate of the Establishment from expressing his opinion. We shall expose in detail tile singular maladroitness of the article, whose writer directs his blows right and left, careless where they may fall. We are first t4ild that " the late Lord PLUNKET was the " man whom of all his countrymen the Whigs " most delighted to honour ;" and we are next informed, in the same sentence, that he was prone to "lavishing places and preferments " upon every member of his family, with a " profusion and partiality that excited the " astonishment, and very often the indignation, "of the public." Why did not "the Whigs " check this " profusion and partiality," and do something to avert the " indignation "? In striking at the present Lord PLUNKET, the writer thus gives a backhanded blow to his friends " the Whigs." We are afterwards told that to " the success " of Liberal principles and the Liberal party " the Noble Lord is indebted for all that he " possesses,—for his mitre, for his coronet, for " his wealth, his rank, his luxury, for every " shred of his purple and fine linen, for every " glass that sparkles, and for every dish that " steams upon his table." We are instructed that but for the Whigs and Whig principles the Bishop of MASI would " never have ex " changed his hot punch for his cool claret ; "he would never have been translated to " turbot, or preferred from the mutton chop to " the haunch of venison." We are accustomed to the political cant which claims for " Whig principles" all the social progress of the age, and we are familiar with the panegyrics of Lord JOHN RUSSELL on the example of Lord SOMERS, and the prin ciples of Fox ; but we never before heard of " Whig principles" manufacturing sparkling glasses, and cooking steaming dishes, and rivalling Ulster iu producing fine linen. So miraculous, it seems, are " Whig principles," that they can even rival the inexhaustible bottle of the " Wizard of the North," ant change hot punch into cool claret, in the same way as the possession of office alters blustering patriots into frigid placemen. Even fishermen and fishmongers, and pur veyors of meat, have much to learn from " Whig principles," which are warranted as the best means for hooking turbot and reforming chops of mutton into haunches of venison " Well done, water !" cried an enthusiastic tourist on the sight of the Falls of Tivoli. " What a row ! " exclaimed FANNY ELLSLER when she saw Niagara ; and when we thus read of the mai vels in natural magic attributed to " Whig principles," we can only say, " Bravo—Flummery ! " It happens, however, not to be the case that the Plunket family owe all they possess to " Whig principles." Were the massive brain, the argumentative power in a coart of law, the eloquent tongue, and the overwhelming intel lectual vehemence of Lord PLUNKET attribut able to " Whig principles "? Had the natural genius of the man himself nought to do with his honourable rise from "obscurity and poverty" ? Was not Lord PLUNKET for years at the head of the Chancery Bar in Ireland ; and were " Whig principles," forsooth, in the ascendancy on the Bench when Lord MANNERS presided. or were they popular amongst the dispensers of briefs? There is a graphic portraiture of Mr. PLUNKET'S style of forensic argumentation in the younler CURRAN'S " Sketches of the Irish Bar." Were the talents therein so truly portrayed to be attributed to " Whig principles," and is nothing to be ascribed to the energy of the man who bravely employed the brilliant ficulties bountifully bestowed on him from on High ? Was it, forsooth, from " Brookes's Club " that his mens divinior descended? It is positively false, also, to assert that " the wealth " of the Plunket family (for all its members are equally assailed) is attribut able to party favours. Dr. PATRICK PLUNKET, the elder brother of the orator, was a leading physician at :Dublin, and left the great advo cate a fortune of sixty thousand pounds. Mr. PLUNKET had been Law Officer under the Granville Ministry in 1806, but retired from Parliament on the ground that he could not absent himself from his professional duties. The fortune bequeathed by his elder brother justified him afterwards in enter ing the House of Commons, without neglect ing his duties. " Whig principles " had nothing to do with " wealth " earned by honourable industry ; and it is historically untrue to say that Mr PLUNKET was the advo cate of " Whig principles" at all times. He stood by the Liverpool Cabinet in 1815, in the discus sions which ensued after NAPOLEON'S escape from Elba; and again, in 1819, in the " Peter loo massacre," when he rent into shreds the " constitutional " arguments and the " Whig principles " of MACKINTOSH and other Whig barristers. Was it on " Whig principles that Mr. PLUNKET took office under Lord LIVERPOOL in 1822, and held it under the Marquis Wellesley ? But our readers will ask, why should the' present Lord PLUNKET be singled out for the scurrilous abuse poured down upon him ? We can only suppose that it is because the Bishop of TUAM is at the head of the Protestant movement in the West ,of Ireland. " Whig principles" in England mean catering to Exeter-hall, and to the Dissenters ; in Ireland " Whig principles" are patronage of the priests. Lord PLUNKET is a most inoffensive peer; he has taken no part in the politics of " party ;" and to mark him and his family out for vitu peration, because his Lordship gave a vote similar to that of the Premier two years since, is a most ridiculous specimen of reckless rancour. The view put forward by our contemporary, that because a father received great favours from a party the son should not act on his own opinions, is truly absurd. Let us see how it would apply. Lord HARROWBT voted with Ministers on June 18th. But Lord HARROWBY'S grandfather got his peerage in 1776 from a Tory Cabinet, and his father was a Tory Minister for years. Suould we be justified in taunting the present Lord HAD ROWRY with the favours conferred by the Tories for two generations? Or let us take the case of the Marquis of NORMANDY. What would our contemporary think of the justice of an attack on Lord NORMANBY on the score of the favours of every sort showered by Tory Ministers on the three predecessors of the • Noble Marquis in the Peerage? The fact, however, is that the Whigs :feel sore at the famous title of " Plunket " being now decidedly on the Protestant side in Ireland. So, also, is the title of " Donough more," so worthily worn by the present repre sentative of the gallant and brilliant family of Hely Hutchinson. The late Lord CLONCURRT in his reminiscences has given a strong picture of what agitators are ; arid it is with pleasure we observe that the present Lord CLONCURRY has decidedly joined the Conser vative party, and votes with the Earl of DERBY. In former times these three titles were borne by those who desired that " Protestant as cendancy" should not monopolise the offices of State; the present holders of these coro nets are resolved in the cause of " Civil and Religious Liberty" to prevent the erection of a Roman Catholic ascendancy in the realm. Finally, the Bishop of TLJAM is taunted with "illiberality and ingratitude" to the Whig party. "Ingratitude " is the last word that polemical Whig should advance in public con troversy. The standing reproach to the Whigs is that they treated BURKE, SHERIDAN, MACKINTOSH, and many more, with " ingrati tude." In 1806, a celebrated correspondence took place between Mr. CURRAN and Mr. PoNsoNBY which casts much light upon the " ingratitude " of the Whigs ; and Sir ROBERT PEEL said in Parliament of the treatment of Lord PLIINK ET by the Whigs in 1841 : The noble lord (J. Russell) had a Chancellor, the most eminent man the bar of Ireland ever produced, and six weeks before the noble lord quitted office (loud and pro longed cheering from the Conservatives), he, so sensitive as to Irish feelings—he, so jealous of offence to Ireland— he, having that man as Chancellor whose connection with them was the pride and boast of the Whig party—he signified to the Irishman, to Lord Plunket, to the Chan cellor, that it was expedient for him to retire. And for what In order that he might gratify the vanity of a Scotchman. Enough. We believe that we have shown that the malevolence of " The Libel on a Bishop " was far surpassed by its maladroit ness. . _ THE ATTACK ON THE BISHOP OF TUAM. AVE were amongst the number of those who felt equal pain and surprise at the extraor dinary attack made by a weekly contemporary on the present Bishop of TIMM. The language of the article in question would have forbad oar noticing it but for the circumstance of a leading organ copying it at length, and even justifying its grossness as " a harmless little squib." It is not customary for English jour nalists to taunt an adversary with " the " unnumbered favours which raised his family " from poverty and obscurity to riches and con• " sequence " Such is not the,style of " squibs" that may be let off with impunity in London clubs ; and it becomes a serious matter when the offensive paragraph headed "A Libel on a Bishop" is justified by the Tinies. The ex ample must not be raised into a system, and the article in question has therefore acquired an importance which its insulting language could never had obtained for it in the first instance. The " Libel on a Bishop " states that " it is " morally impossible that the Bishop of TUAM " Could have voted against the Ministers' " Money Bill." It imputes to him as a grave utience that his Lordship holds the same r . ~.