The Press. — London, England, 1857-10-17 00:00:00

1002 ration of the various chiefs there of native States. The only men we can rely upon, the only men to furnish us with money, carriage, and supplies the only men, in fact, who enable our establishments to subsist there and maintain the contest at all, are these very princes whom Lord DALHOUSIE appears to have considered it our interest, in every quar- ter, to sweep away. The letter further shows how deeply the wrongs inflicted by annexa tion are everywhere felt, and how difficult our political agents find it to keep such princes true to us, while our enemies are daily dinning into their ears the fate that sooner or later every native sovereign or chieftain meets with at our hands. We have thus not only the evils of the present to contend against, but the results of our bad faith during the past. Results which have proved too strong for us to bear up against so successfully elsewhere as our agent with the Rajah of Putteeala has done. We hope that the lesson will not be forgotten when peace shall be restored. If we wish the princes and people of India to be loyal and true to us, we must be loyal and true to our engagements with them. THE PRESS, OCTOBER 17, 1857. craving for " political capital " would of course be impertinent and absurd ! Again, when this country was informed that an " insolent barbarian " had insulted the in heritors of Itoman citizenship, nobody of course s4w that there was any connection be tween the Chinese war and the stability of the Palmerstonian Cabinet. Nobody saw that, bankrupt in resources, the Premier was driven to defraud the publics by eintezzling their enthusiasm. Nobody saw through the craft which induced Lord PALMERSTON to deplore the atrocities of YEN only until the atrocities of NASA SAHIB turned up. Hei e he had a better investment. Nobody, of course, sees that, by taking credit to himself for a " vigorous prosecution of hostilities," he is laying up for himself a store against a rainy day—that when the winds of popular indignation beat against a Minister who has no aptitude for social legislation, he may be able to full back upon the " capital " judiciously laid up during times of war and tumult. We shall not now discuss the exact degree of censure which should be applied to Lord PALMERSTON fur the system on which he has acted through life. We are, perhaps, not called upon to reprobate the unjust steward because he hath done wisely. All we would say is, that the mutiny in India will be quelled. That no Englishman doubts. And furthermore, that somebody must have been Prime Minister during the period. And fur thermore, that it is a piece of uncommon good luck for the Minister to have been floated into power at the close of one war, to have traded on the peace (not his own) till a second one broke out, and to have been enabled to pro tract his hour of office by the necessity of sup porting any Government through a third. POLITIC &L CAPITAL. IN all matters of human conduct it is futile to deny that there must be a right and a wrong. Those pet sons who ar..l always telling us that there is a great deal to be said on both sides are either humorists, whose game is the mockery of human reason, or simpletons, who lack either the will or the ability to think. Both are equally unpractical ; and as politics is eminently a practical science, both are equally unfitted for its pursuit. We would be far from asserting that this " right " and this "wrong" as determined by mortal faculties is irreversible. It may, of course, turn out in the long run that the right is wrong and the wrong is right. That we cannot help. But what we dislike is the style of man who takes advantage of this contingency to shirk the profession of any opinions at the present time. This class of men are infinitely mischievous and enfeebling to all true honesty and energy amongst us; and we sincerely believe it the duty of all those to whom the public are accus tomed to look for guidance or information to be careful how they lend their countenance to such emasculating modes of thought. That honest respect for an adversary, that willing recognition of one's fallibility, that legitimate formitio oppositi which once was considered characteristic of all equitable con troversies, seems well-nigh forgotten by a por tion of the English press at the present day, which prefers to act on the maxim that if you throw a handful of dirt some is sure to stick. To that which adheres to the throwers own hands the class is obviously indifferent. They don't mind being dirty themselves, provided they can dirty others. Just at the present moment we are being perpetually told that no one who offers any strictures on the governmental management of India can be actuated by any higher motive than that of creating "political capital." Now, what is " political capital?" Obviously a certain amount of popularity obtained by falling in with certain popular prejudices, upon which popularity the owner of it can fall back when particular circumstances go against him. No English statesman has ever been a greater adept at this sort of business than the present Premier. He has invariably bought in the cheapest market, and has as in variably got as much in exchange for his popu larity us the dearest market could offer. Every body now knows the truth of DON PACIFICO'S wretched business ; yet how did Lord PAL-MERB - strut, crow, and shake his feathers on that ever memorable occasion? And what an in- valuable "lot" of popularity did his well chosen phrases procure for him. His success with the British public on such occasions as these never fails to remind us of the system of traffic between polite and barbarous coun tries, in which a few gaudy and useless toys are accepted as equivalent for aid which repels aggression or sustains life. Yet to hint that such a system of exchange smacked of a WHAT HAVE MINISTERS DONE ? IT is not surprising that the great contest in which this country is engaged in India should rouse and engross the attention of the people. As each succeeding mail tells us of bloody and renewed struggles between the heroic fo•.v and rebel swarms, and week after week passes by without bringing the welcome announce ment of the arrival or near approach of those heavily-freighted transports from England, it is impossible to suppress the reflection that, after all, we have not done all that we ought to have done towards the succour of our country men—and that, iu point of fact, our Government have not acted upon this grave occasion with that energy and vigour the crisis demanded, and the country had a right to expect. We are not going to enter upon the question as to whether in the earlier stages of this insurrec tion Ministers conducted themselves upon the principles of common sense. Their expressed opinions upon India, which we have already quoted (PRESS, October 3) and need not re peat, rendered it plain that from one false step they then drifted into another, until they were reduced to a situation so unhappy that, while they could not relinquish their own opinions without contempt, they could no longer have maintained them without ruin. This is a point we need not reopen ; but what we wish to discover is, whether, w►th the great means at their command, with the wealth of a rich nation and the valour of a brave people willing to support theta in every enterprise, deter mination and judgment can be discerned in their ultimate actions ; and whether they have exhibited a fertility of expedient and a depth of resource equal to the necessities and beyond the hopes of the country. It is true that the dili Bence Ministers have employed, and the vigour they have displayed, in despatching an army of relief, is daily dunned into us by the Ministerial hurdygurdies, and that the subject is the constant topic of Ministerial boast and triumph; but these particular advantages would seem to be balanced by particular evils, if, without regarding the description, we examine the substance. In the way, then, of affording speedy succour to our struggling troops in Wia—for its value depended upon its prompt application--what has been really Bono between May and October? That is the main question to bo considered. In our last issue we published a carefully com piled and accurate return of the forces de spatched within the above period from England, including as in India the brigade originally sent out to China, and this return proved that Govern. ment had taken exactly four months to embark an army of 26,825 men ! Without passing any opinion upon this force as a force equal to the emergency, and with every desire to extend to the Government in their suppression of the insurrection a liberal interpretation of their position in May, we must confess that we fail here to discern any remarkable display of vigour or expedition. The men were mostly brigaded in camp, transports were numerous and ready, stores were plentiful., and yet, with every advantage in their favour, the Go vernment, in a moment of the gravest na tional apprehension and peril, can do no more thin despatch in four months a force, that four weeks were sufficient to em bark. Comparisons, though seldom satis factory, often help us to a just conclusion; and we think that if we recall in mo ments of national peril the conduct of former Ministers within this century, we shall be better able to determine what praise is due to the " vigorous operations" of the present Ministry. " Vigorous operations !" Why, the very term " stinks " in the nostrils of the'people of England, amid the steam of that innocent blood wafting from India. It is in India alone that vigorous operations may be looked for, whether they be in the advance of a Havelock or in the butchery by a Nana Sahib. The Ministers, if they cannot equal HAVELOCK in his activity, promise us to rival the rebels in their ferocity. But, of all the glorious triumphs of HAVE LOCK, is there one for which the Government can claim the remotest credit? •Cawnpore has been recaptured by a skill and courage which has baffled overwhelming numbers, Lucknow has been miraculously preserved, Delhi held in check, and the Punjaub overawed; but are these successes, positive or negiatve, attri butable to any efforts by the Government at home? There is not a single victory, a single gallant repulse of the enemy, a single heroic defence of desperate struggle, a single step in the whole campai g n , which can in any way be attributed to the support their energy had provided for those heroes now four months nobly struggling against a terrible peril. Between the flashy arrogance of one Minister, the stupid confidence of another, and the musty pedantry of a third, we need not be surprised at this result. It has not been for want of time that stout arms from England have not assisted our brethren in India, but they have been prevented by the accumulated aggravations of folly, and by the lamentable blunders of a " bold and re solute " Ministry. Who that has studied in detail tho features of this insurrection can doubt now what would have been the effect upon the fortunes of the war if in June and July a few thousand men had been thrown into India overland? And We maintain that the means even so early in the year were at the ready and com plete command of the Government. An frilly need not have been sent, but a division, a brigade, a few hundred men, would have proved sufficient, if fed by repeated detach ments. Their arrival would have impressed the natives with the promptitude of our action and the readiness of our means; and we do not hesitate to say that it would so far have influenced events as to have preserved the security of Central and Southern India, have restored confidence to the well-dis posed, have confirmed the waverers to our cause, have checked revolt, perhaps have saved Cawnpore, but most certainly have laid