The Press. — London, England, 1854-06-10 00:00:00

530 expected from the individual members of the present Cabi net. In the absence of any distinct explanation of the reason, conjecture is driven to ask whether it is that the accord amongst Ministers is not so great as their lan guage has induced us to suppose; whether it is that some minority in the Cabinet is permitted, as gossip asserts, to disturb their councils ; whether any effeminate scruple to exercise "dictation" over the House of Commons weakens their resolve ; or whether they act under a stol more pies tionable desire to diminish their own responsibility by shuffling it off upon the shoulders of the Commons ? Whether it has operated consciously as a reason for the conduct of Ministers or not, there is undoubtedly a growing tendency to avoid Ministerial responsibility by taking the Commons into partnership with the Executive and making the House share the Executive responsibility. This in troduces a total confusion into the very nature of respon able government, which it in fact neutralises by more the diffusing the responsibility, for it enables Ministers to drag into a complicity with their acts the Parliament, which is the arbiter of their Ministerial life and death. It may be a mode of evading pressure from without; it may be a device for avoiding the consequences which hang upon the heels of a Ministry undertaking very complicated legislation and desiring to carry some measures by the sacrifice of the rest, or to remain in office for their chief mission by surrendering their conviction upon minor points. But the ultimata result of such a course, if it should be carried on long enough and far enough, would be to change the constitution of our country by a process which is assimilating the House of Commons to the American Congress. The cause is obvious. A Coalition Cabinet, as it has no distinctive policy, can have no initiative energy or collective force. Instead of attempting to guide the Legislature it looks to the Legislature for direction. A mere log, it drifts at the mercy of popular impulses and chance currents. Destitute of a controlling will, of foresight and energy, it is sure, sooner or later, to be overtaken by mischance, when the discovery is made that its impotence was a source, not of vexation merely, but of the greatest possible danger. THE SALT DUTY IN INDIA. LAST week Sir JOHN PAXINGTON asked the Pre sident of the Board of Control " whether any " correspondence had taken place between " the Board of Control and the Government " of India on the subject of the salt monopoly " in India since that monopoly was condemned " by a majority in the House of Commons in " the last session of Parliament; and whether " the duties on salt in India had been, or were " likely soon to be, reduced." Sir CusaLxs WOOD stated in reply that " the Government " of India had employed an intelligent officer " to inquire into the subject," and that " till " the inquiry was completed he would be un " able to state the result." The inquiry, however, alluded to by Sir CHARLES Woon appears to be only an inquiry respecting the future mode of levying the duty, leaving the question of reduction of it wholly untouched. Still if, as regards that point even, there had been any necessity for inquiry, Sir CHARLES WOOD'S reply might have passed ; but it is a fact within the knowledge of all connected with India that there is not a point regarding the subject of salt duties that is not perfectly well known at present ; and that there is not an India-house official who is not thoroughly informed on every detail of the question. To talk of " inquiry " under such circumstances is nonsense. Inquiry is unne cessary for purposes of information ; and the only object, therefore, in instituting one must be to put off indefinitely compliance with the decision taken by the House last session. Indeed, if we had any doubt on this head, we should only have to turn to the " General Report on the Administration of the Punjaub" lately published by the Directors ; for there we find measures deliberately adopted and deliberately approved of in regard to taxing salt in the Punjaub which are of a nature as diametrically opposed as they can be to the principles laid down by the House of Com mons. Salt, which is a natural product of the Punjaub, and which was formerly only lightly taxed there, has now been assessed at a rate which enhances the cost to the consumer to the enormous extent of sixteen hundred per cent.; while in one part of the country where the mountaineers have made a successful re- sistance in arms to the imposition in its full extent the Government find consolation in the thought that " the light duty " (two hundred THE PRESS. per cent.) "at present levied may be raised " when the progress of civilisation shall have " brought the mountaineers within the influ " ence of moral compulsion." According to this view, a tat of two hundred per cent. on the 'first necessary of life is a light duty ; and the first fruits of " the progress of civilisation" are to be an increase of the infliction to the extent of sixteen hundred per cent., as now levied on the weaker, more helpless, and more thoroughly subdued portion of the people. And, in order to prevent these latter from sharing by any possibility in the advantages of the more moderate assessment won by the others for themselves at the sword's point, the report goes on to detail a series of measures the most vexatious that perhaps ever were pursued in any country. The Buhadoor Khayl mine, it tells us (that at which the lighter assessment is levied), is guarded by a military force ; the line of preventive estab lishment which runs along the Indus prevents the lightly-taxed salt from underselling the produce of the Cis-Indus mines ; as an addi tional measure of precaution, the penal provi sions of Regulation XIV. of 1843 have been introduced with certain modifications to suit the Punjaub ; and the repression both of the illicit manufacture of salt and of smuggling is believed, the report goes on to say, to have been effective. Among the modes of repres sion are the making all carriages and packages liable to search on reasonable suspicion (which in India means whenever the collecting peon is not paid a sufficiently high bribe for his forbearance); the ordering that salt in excess of two pounds weight shall be subject to de. tention within a circle of ten miles round each mine if not covered by a pass ; the pro hibiting any but those licensed from exca vating the article; the putting down by law the manufacture of salt which used to be car ried on in the districts of Mooltan and Jung in a rough way to a considerable extent; and, finally, the prohibiting the transport of salt from the right bank of the Indus to the left bank. Let any one picture to himself such a state of things introduced into a country in which the salt-mines had previously only paid a small royalty, and in which, beyond that im post, the excavation and manufacture and sale and transport of salt had been perfectly free, and he will have some idea of the exaspera tion which such a mode of dealing with an article which it is impossible for man to do without must have engendered, and be pre pared to anticipate the result. That result was, that the European head of the preventive establishment and his European assistant were set upon by the people and murdered ; while the mountaineers only escaped the in fliction of the tax to its full extent by an in. surrection, which nothing but the withdrawal of the obnoxious regulations, as far as their district was concerned, enabled the Govern ment to put an end to. Yet, with all this unmistakable evidence of the feeling of the people before it, the Government of India gravely tells us "the price of salt, though " higher than formerly, is yet not too high, " and the poorest classes can afford to buy it." And the home Government, in its despatch to Calcutta on the subject of these measures, dated three months after the resolution of the Commons, expresses the " high satisfaction " and "just pride " with which it views them, and characterises the measures themselves as " wise," " successful." " enlightened," and " beneficent " ! When such are the Indian Government's latest measures in relation to salt, and such their opinions last recorded, have we not reason to speak of Sir CHARLES Woon's talk about inquiries by intelligent officers as a mere evasion of the q u estion put to him by Sir JOHN PAKINOTON, " Whether the " duties on salt in India had yet been, or• were " likely soon to be, reduced ?" THE NEW BISHOP. A WEEK ago people asked, Who is to be the new Bishop? The inquiry now is, What is the new Bishop ? He has never been heard of out of his own parish of Warrington, and there he is only known as the brother of aWhig Lord,—as having Tractarian leanings, and as SATURDAY, being " a pleasant man, and a joker of jokes." In an age which we are accustomed to con sider as essentially corrupt, the see of Sodor and Man was filled by the eminent divine ISAAC BARROW, who had no other claim to pre- ferment than his merit. Mr. Powys has never distinguished himself,—or even that we know of attempted to distinguish himself,— either in literature or the pulpit. His sole title to a mitre consists in his Whig con nection. As the last Bishop was a Tractarian, it was to be expected on Coalition principles that the present one would be a Whig. We be lieve that Lord ABERDEEN'S part in the matter is carelessness for the interests of a Church with which he has no sympathy. But the worst enemy of the establishment could not devise a more effectual plan of bringing it into contempt, or of rendenng it powerless against the activity of Romish aggression, than by packing the Bench of Bishops with men who are either notoriously adverse to the principles of the Reformation, or care very little about them. The new Bishop, as a clerical joker, must be familiar with the story of the old lady who committed one of her deceased friends to Beelzebub's bosom, instead of to Abraham's. When informed of her error, she replied that she " couldn't see it much mattered." The same kind of indifference will probably be displayed by the magnates of the Romish Church when, instead of a nomination by Mr. GLADBTuNE,—that Magna spes alters llomEe,— of a brother disciple of LAUD, notoriously attached to " flexion and genuflexion, posture and imposture," they receive the intelligence of the promotion of the Rector of Warrington. 'I THE STONOR REPORT. IT is impossible to peruse the Report from the Stonor Committee without feeling that it has damaged to some extent the reputation of the Colonial-office. At the suggestion of Mr. MERI YALE. the permanent Under Secretary, Mr. STONOR applied by letter to the Duke of NEW CASTLE for the vacant judgeship at Victoria, and enclosed several testimonials. Amongst others was a letter from the Lord Chief Jus tice of England, dated 14th of September, 1853, offering to bear Lord CAMPBELL'S testi mony to Mr. STONOR'S "uniform honourable " (sic) and gentlemanly conduct." Whether Lord CAMPBELL heard of the Sligo transactions or not is not stated, but doubtless his recom mendation weighed with the Secretary of State. Another party more directly responsible knew all of Mr. STONOR'S antecedents, and on Mr. MERITALE'S share in the appointment the Committee reports " that he (Mr. MERIVALI) " was generally aware at the time of the Report " of the Sligo Committee, and that he did not " think it was his business to call the attention " of the Duke to it, as he supposed it must hare " been known to him ;" and many people will feel that it is certainly strange that the Duke of NEWCASTLE was so ignorant of Sligo, not withstanding his intercourse with Mr. SAD LEIR, Mr. KEOGH, and Mr. O'FLAHERTY. In his evidence Mr. MERIVALE candidly states (302) that "he well knew Mr. STONOR'S father " and family," and he enters into particulars showing his friendship for him. He adds elsewhere (p. 260) that he " loosely " men tioned either to the Duke of NEWCASTLE, or Mr. ROBERTS (his Grace's private secretary), the fact of the Sligo Committee Report. But it is worth while observing the apparent warmth with which Mr. ROBERTS denies that he had been informed even " loosely " about the damaging facts of the Sligo Report : Up to the appointment of Mr. Stonor.„then, you were not in any way aware of a committee of the House of Commons having reported in such a manner as to cast any impeach ment on his character ?—I never was acquainted with sh fact of the kind, otherwise I should have considered it both inconsistent with my position with the Duke of Newcastle, d inconsistent with any public position which I held, N hare