The Press. — London, England, 1858-10-09 00:00:00

4.17)4e rt6l;iii LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9 1858. STAMPED ....SIXPFNCE. UNSTAMPED..FIVEPENCE. No. 284.—V0L. VI. tglt pcss. LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9,185 S. LORD CAININING'S DESPATCH. WE have now before us that explanation of his Proclamation of March last to the population of Oude which Lord CANNING promised in the letter suppressed by Mr. VERNON SMITII. It bears the marks of great study and of long pre paration, and its characteristics are—a high sense of public duty, a consciousness of being in the wrong, considerable diffuseness, much divergence from the issue, and very indifferent, not to say clumsy, arrangement. The first and main conclusion which we draw from it is—that there ought not in good policy to have been any Proclamation at all at that period, and that Lord CANNLNG is himself now of that opinion. The Despatch is divided into fifty paragraphs Of these the first seven relate to Lord CANNING 'S personal feelings and personal position as affected by the Despatch of Lord ELLENHOROUGH. Of those which follow, the paragraphs up to number fifteen are an attack upon that Despatch con sidered as a State Paper, and the remainder con sist partly of a justification of the Proclamation and partly of a dissertation upon the merits of the land-settlement in Oude, which appears somewhat unnecessary and altogether irrelevant to the issue. Nothing can be more ungenerous upon the part of political writers or of the public judging at their ease, and after the crisis has passed away, .than to deal hardly with those who were in the midst of the actual events, and upon whom the respon sibility of direction and government devolved at the moment. It is as impolitic as it is unjust. We bear in mind that Lord CANNixo was Governor-General of India when the most astounding mutiny broke out that history has ever recorded; we bear in mind that he has continued Governor-General throughout its ter rific outburst ; and we must not f3rget that essentially that mutiny, and the rebellion which it provoked, have been extinguished. We are prepared therefore, we are anxious, to treat Lord CANNING with every consideration, and to place upon all his acts the most favourable interpreta tion. We entirely appreciate his devotion to his country, and we entirely believe that a more conscientious and highminded Public Servant does not exist. Nothing can be more admirable in expression and in feeling than that portion of Despatch which relates to his personal posi tion ; nothing more dignified and more becoming than the manner in which he accepts the rebuke which he received from the Government at home. We wish we could end here. We wish that Lord CANNING had not by the publication of what he conceives to be a justification compelledus to criticize and in criticizing to condemn his policy as exhibited in his mode of dealing with the rebellion iu Oude. We propose in examining this justification to Invert the order in which Lord CANNING has LATEST EDITION. himself dealt with events, and to consider, first, the merits which he claims for the Proclamation, and, secondly, the defects which he imputes to the Despatch of Lord ELLENBOROUGIL What should a Proclamation be ?—a Proclama tion from the Conqueror to the Conquered, from the Ruler victorious to the Rebel beaten, from the Educated to the Illiterate and Ignorant. Surely it should be distinct in its language and unmistakeable in its tendency. It should be so framed and so worded that every man who has a home and can command a meal by his labour can judge from it how his position and his interests will be dealt with. Was Lord CANNING'S such a one ? By no means. The whole gist of Lord CANNING'S defence of his Proclamation is that it said one thing and meant another. The entire of the assertions with regard to its favourable influence rest upon its modification in application by the action of indi vidual public servants who either perverted or neutralized it. It was the explanation conveyed by Colonel STUART, it was the personal manage ment of Mr. MONTGOMERY, that effected the good, and insured the progress in pacification, which Lord CANNING claims as the result of his Procla mation. As a reality, the Proclamation would have been monstrous ; as a mere assertion of position, it was impolitic and futile. We are not disposed to deny that in the pre mature publication of the Despatch Lord CAN NING has a fair ground for complaint; and although Lord CANNING produces no evidence whatever that it did so actually, we will not undertake to deny that some mischief may not have been produced in India by the telegraphic communi cation of Mr. DisitAELfs announcement in the House of Commons that the Government dis approved in every sense of the policy indicated in the Proclamation. But we must remind Lord CANNING and the friends of Lord CANNING that the premature publication of Lord ELLEN BOROUGH'S Despatch could not have taken place, and Mr. DISRAELI'S reply could not have been given, if Mr. VERNON SMITH, the Minister with whom Lord CANNING conceived himself to be dealing, had not most unworthily withheld from Lord E LLEN BOROUGH, the Minister with whom he was really in relation, an important explana tory letter which Mr. VERNON SMITH could not but have known was a communication to a Government and not to an individual. But for this wrong-doing on the rat of a very careless or very dishonest public servant it would not have been known, at all events during the continuance of the rebellion, that the Government in England regarded with disappro bation the policy which they conceived, and which every man of common sense would con ceive, to be indicated by the Proclamation of the Governor-General ; nor would it have been telegraphed through the length and breadth of India that the Cabinet of Lord DERBY enter tained doubts as to the justice of the annexation of Oude. If any mischief has really ensued from this publicity, it lies at the door of Mr. VERNON SMITH, not at that of the Cabinet. We doubt much, however, if it has had the effects attributed to it by Lord CANNING, and probably we may relieve the Minister for India of Lord PALMERSTON'S Administra tion from any imputations other than those which have already been affixed to him. In a Government like ours, in which the Representa tive Element has a preponderating power, the Executive will always have to deal with the stumblingblocks thrown in their path by prema ture open discussions of policy. It is one of the evils of our mixed Constitution, and it will con stitute one of our main difficulties in administer ing under the new organization the affairs of a country which, like India, has been accustomed to and requires despotic government. At the same time, we are disposed to think that the In dian population by this time must so far compre hend the character ofour Institutions as to be aware that theoretical doubts stated in discussion by no means imply vacillation in action. They must perceive that perseverance in a war by the Na tion is not incompatible with expressed dis approval of the policy which a particular Cabinet initiated. Even had the contest in Oude lad the character purely of a legitimate war on the of the people of Oude, instead of a rebellion with extenuating circumstances, the Government of Lord DERBY, finding the Nation engaged in it, must have gone through with it as they did in the case of China. We believe that our Eastern subjects understand this, and even if Lord ELLENBOROUGH'S Despatch had been a Proclamation instead of a confidential communication to the Governor- General, it would not have been necessary for him to declare any resolution as suggested in the ninth paragraph of Lord CANNING'S Paper of the doubt which has been raised as to the abstract justice of the British annexation of Oude. Surely, too, it is most illogical of Lord CAN NING to make it matter of objection to Lord ELLENBOROUGII'S Despatch that he does not make a positive declaration on this point. The justifica tion of Lord CA.NNLNG'S application of his Pro clamation through Colonel STUART and Mr. MOSTGO'EERY, upon which he really rests his case, depends entirely upon its being a matter of doubt whether the People of Oude could be dealt with as actual and ordinary rebels, or whether the circumstances of their relations to the British Crown did not invest their po sition with an exceptional character, and in some degree entitle them to be treated with the consideration due according to the law of nations only to legitimate belligerents. It is by the existence and acknowledgment of the doubt which he deprecates that Lord CANNING can alone be justified for his conduct. If the Population of Oude had undoubtedly the position and rights of legitimate belligerents, his Proclamation was monstrous ; if they were unquestionably rebels, pure and simple, his modifications of it in appli cation were inexcusable. With the history of the revolt and of the land settlement and land tenure in Oude, which Lord CANNING has written with the evident purpose of overlaying the matters really in issue, as be tween himself and Lord ELLENBOROUGR, we may take occasion to deal at some other time. It is the natural and irresistible propensity of every man to write a history when he feels that he has a bad case. Our object has been to disentangle the latter from • former - it - it really exists, THE very the latter from the former, and to present it as it really exists, for the judgment of the LORD STANLEY tO `4 li t:• llh4 d THE speech of Lord STANLE • very remarkable and impo . A j iL l y , com prehensive words which • • r; • ..) ' l lr iZI audience at Fishmongers' H I 6 r . will be found the great • - ' II I, I Q 41 4,;„ "sttintends to take as gui. ll • A vast British dependency on the ." 1 "-S l t b- r" the