The Press. — London, England, 1858-01-02 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JANUARY 2, 1858. with his latch-key. The scene would have a broad richness of effect worthy of GILLRAY'S pencil in former times. Even that great genius who depicted " The Rake's Progress," had he lived in our times, would have. had a fine subject in representing the political esca pades of Lord CLANRICARDE. The Noble Mar quis's speeches and proceedings have an un• conscious flavour of Hogarthian humour. Re outstrips the imagination of a pictolial satirist, and, by the unflagging vivacity of his ebullitions, he makes the attempts of pro fessional caricaturists appear tame in compa rison with his exposures of himself. For what can have more exquisite irony than Lord CLANRICARDE as a legislator for India? He has now been for thirty years before the public, and no legislative measures are asso ciated with his name. What, then, are his personal or political merits, that. " the man of GOD " should have brought him into the Council of the Queen, at a time when the whole Indian problem is to be laid before the Legislature? Lord CLANRICARDE rides to hounds as well as any man of his years in the empire, and it is but justice to say that he never minds being "spilt," whether in the hunting-field or in the Senate. Careless of the mud, the Marquis vaults into the saddle again, and dashes forward with defiant auda city, and an enviable amount of nerve. He has, also, a fair stock of Irish humour; and a philosophic historian of our time, in a political inventory of the resources of the living states men, marked down " wit and courage " amongst the pros in favour of Lord CLANRI- • CARDE. What was placed amongst the cons. we need not state. But if Lord CLANRICARDE were literally portrayed by Mr. LEVER, it is • to be feared that the critics would tell the novelist that his conception was too extrava gant, and that " nothing could be more fan tastic than Mr. LEVER'S notion of an Irish " Nobleman, whom he calls Lord CLANRICARDL, " rattling about the metropolis acting the part " of a Wildblood in the days of Queen VICTORIA, "and suddenly jumping into the Cabinet when "the affairs of the empire were in difficulty." There are sunrises and sunsets which seem so out of the order of scenery, that a landscape painter would avoid trying to reproduce them. So with Lord CLANRICARDE. He seems so out of date in our time, that "tile accomplished Marquis " would appear a grotesque piece of invention if delineated in a satirical novel. But, though scarcely fit to put in an Irish novel, Lord PALMERSTON thinks him quite proper in a British Cabinet. ItnennsrEa was countenanced by his age and by his associates. But we never heard that " Old Q." was made a Cabinet Minister. We are told, however, that the appointment of this" accomplished Marquis" is attributable to Canningism. We admire the genius of GEORGE CANNING, and we are grateful for sonic of the services which he performed for his country in times of peril. Bat it is not right to overload the ►uemory of the illustrious dead, and extract from it vicarious merit, for the sake of his surviving kindred. When the dis• grace of the Walcheren Expedition occurred, the fact of the general in command having been the son of the great Earl of CHATHAM did not save him from national condemnation ; and Chatham was even a greater name than that of Canning. We must ask, also, what is the meaning of " Canningism" at the Liberal side ? We know and reme►nber well what " Canningism " was at the Tory side ; but we cannot understand what it means in connec tion with Brookes's and the Reform Club. Between " George-Canniugisin " and " Pain- Canningism" there is certainly a wide diffe rence. GEORGE CANNING I►ad clear views and a definite system ; Lord PALMERSTON drifts from connection to connection. Wanting the .firm basis of principle, the Premier fails back upon the cliques. Taunted with having "no party," the Noble Viscount calls himself a " Canningite." He chooses a Speaker for the House of Commons, not from personal apti tude, but from recollection of Mr. DENISON'S having been a Canningite He.names a Go verner-General of India from similar reasons. And now, when Lord JOHN ItussELi. and Earl GREY are out of the Ministry, the Premier in vites Lord CLANRICARDE to join him, because likely will it be to degenerate in a guerilla system of warfare, the most difficult for us of all. For what can organised armies do against these nests of wasps ? Successes may bring to us glory, but it is not glory that we want, but peace. If we cannot conquer that, wo but slay natives in vain, and it is quite clear that it is not conquered yet. Indeed, if the Cal cutta correspondent of the Times is to be be lieved, we must be almost as far from the final settlement of the rebellion as we ever were. For what we were first told was a mere sepoy mutiny, and then a Mahomeda.n con• spiracy, is now described by that writer as an insurrection, not merely of the sepoys, but of all the classes from;which the senoys are drawn. The armed classes, the feudal retainers, the private guards, the clubmen, and the police, he tells us, aro against us to a man Collec tively, he says, these number three millions of people, and he adds that they are constantly recruiting the insurgent ranks. It is need less to say that if he is correct, and if this is the mass we have to cope with, it. must be a very considerable time before the conflagra tion can be stamped out. Is it necessary for us again to point out why all these armed classes and feudal retainers are against us? Would it not be superfluous for us to repeat that it is because our Govern ment has deprived them, through the confis cation of their former masters' principalities and jaghires, of the means of earning their bread ? It may bo all very well to say that we want no such unproductive classes in India; but will that alter the fact of their being there? Can we expect the accumulated results of a system pursued for centuries to be swept away in a day ? We might as well lament that India is not unpeopled for us to do with it as we will, as arraign the existence of any particular races of subjects there. It is the same in every country. Rulers cannot in Europe, either, alter the classes and races they have to govern ; they must be content to take them as they are, and make the best of them that they can. We cannot create cir cumstances—we must deal with them as they come ; this is the true philosophy, whether of politics or of common life. It is the only plan by which either in public or private affairs we can attain success. He is said to be a bad workman who complains of his tools, and he is surely a foolish ruler who is ever attributing his misfortunes to the nature of the people with whom he has to do. Itis the business of the statesman to study that nature and adopt his measures to it, and not run counter to it as we in India have done. He who acts so will seldom fail to govern men suecessfully, whatever their nature may be ; while nothing but failure need be looked for from him who is eternally questioning the wisdom of PRO. VIDENCE and dwelling on the perversity of man. If the Government would only seek the solution of the Indian difficulty in the better spirit we have described, they would not be very long in discovering it ; but no good can attend their attempt to cure the mischief their own wilfulness and ignorance has occa sioned by recourse merely to the rope, the bullet, and the sword. LORD CLINRICARDE AND " PAM . - CANNINGISM." IF there be sweetness in political revenge, Lord CLANRICARDE ought to be a happy man. " The accomplished Marquis " (as the Time.. calls him) was left out of the Aberdeen- Russell Coalition, and he n.)at beelines a member of the Ministry from which Lord Jolts Ressm.r. and Earl GREY are excluded. The contrast between Lord IiARROWCY IC tiring and Lord CLANRICARDE going into the Cabinet is provocative of mirth. We should like that the scene could have been performed in public, and that those religious politicians of the Record school, who told the nation that Lord PALMER•aON was "the man of Cron,' could have been permitted to behold the chuckle of s aisfaction on Lord CLANIIICARDE's countenance as he let himself into the Cabinet ILEMMIIMMIMIIIMINIIMME he (Lord PALMERSTON) was a follower of the father-in-law of " the accomplished Marquis.' ' Yet there must be something at the bottom of this appointment. The fact is, that, in spite of the boasted majority, the Cabinet is wretch• edly weak in the House of Lords. Lord LANS DOWNE is past his work; Lord GRANVILLE is feeble indebate ; Lord CLARENDON is no orator, and though very clever in office, ho wants weight ; and Lord CLANRICARDE is certainly equal to a series of slashing attacks in a style difficult to be met by the members of the Cabinet in the House of Lords. In excess of damaging personality Lord CLANRICARDE would be little restrained by decorum, and a few wrestling matches with him would be worse than disagreeable. Besides, it is the fact that the Liberals do owe him some political obliga- tions. He was the only Irish Whig aristocrat who showed any talent for public speaking in past years when the coalition with O'CoxxEct existed. But what a Cabinet it must be when its Members are afraid of Lord CLANRICARDE! Is this . the meaning of " their strength in the " country,"—" nninber of their supporters"— " the public with them"—" all the religious " world with Pani"—and the rest of the ejacu lations jerked out by Mr. HAYTER? It is a great and powerful Cabinet; but it shrinks before Lord CLANRIC.UtDE ! It is supported by the religious world, and " the man of Gon' begs the aid of Lord CLANRICARDE to help him in abolishing the East India Company, and in legislating for the temporal and spiritual wel fare of the mighty empire in the East. THE CONVICT PRISON SYSTEM. Ir is high time that a little daylight should be let in upon our convict system. The atmo sphere with which Colonel JE.1113 has bee❑ permitted to invest that system is 93 murky as to be impenetrable to the eye of the public. In fact, it is only by occasional explosions that we are reminded that we are standing on a mine of Jebbisin—for Colonel JEBB is the convict prison system just as Mr. RowLAND HILL is the Post-office, as S►r C. TREVELYAN is the Treasury, and Mr. CHADWICK was the New Poor Law. Sir G. GREY, as Home Secretary, is legally responsible for the doings of Colonel JEns, and it is full time that Parliament should make Sir G. GREY understand that the re sponsibility he incurs is most sei ions. But we will not do Sir GEORGE the injustice to suppose that ho really exercises an indepen dent and proper authority in the matters con cerning convicts. It is impossible that, as a man of humanity awl justice, he can delibe rately approve of all that is done in his name : he simply endorses and gives legal authority to the decrees of others. The system pursued in our convict prisons may bo easily described as in fact and reality an irresponsible despotism. No one can get at the real " secrets of the prison-house." Colonel JEBB, indeed, presents annually to Parliament a " Report of Convict Prisons, which just tells Parliament as much as, and no more than, Colonel Jinn chooses to toll— which is, in general, as near nothing of all that it would be desirable to know as may be. Sometimes he travels out of his road to pane gyrise a pet officer or to notice one who has incurred his displeasure ; arid we shall call public attention to one or two of his exploits in this way to be foun:l in his " Report" for 187 M, which, by-the-way, was not presented. to Parliament until August, 1857. But, in general, Jebbism consists in absolute darkness, and a sort of Oriental seclusion. There is the Rock of Portland, with its twelve or fourteen hundreds of convicts. No man not an official or a prisoner can get inside that gloomy dun geon —you might as well attempt to scale the heights of Gibraltar. No lady, except the wives of Sir G. GREY and Mr. GLADSTONE, was ever known to penetrate that rock. It is in deed a virgin fortress. Dartmoor is equally mysterious—buried in solitude and desolation. The government of these curious places is I