The Press. — London, England, 1854-12-02 00:00:00

DECEMBER 2, 1854. all fairness of antagonism, we deem it right to remind the Government that this is pos sible. As we have already said, nothing will be refused to the Administration—except con fidence. But a Ministry of clerks must not be surprised if an assembly of English gentle men should deal with them in the fashion usual in the case of culpable or suspected subordinates, and demand a full explanation of every act to which a suspicion of inis- Management attaches. REINFORCEMENTS FOR THE CRIMEA ArloTuna week has elapsed without bringing any cheering intelligence from the seat of war. The organs of the Government daily demand reinforcements with increasing energy. "If " our brave army is to be saved from annihi " lation—if our kinsmen are ever to return to " their country—no delay can be permitted. " At whatever cost, these succours must be sent. " Fifty thousand men are not more than the " emergency demands." Such is the language with which for two or three weeks we have been familiar. While we admit the necessity, we think the public has a right to demand whence it arises. " England," we are now told, "is not a military power. " If so, England should not engage in military enterprises, and should adapt its language and its policy to its con dition. If, however, the occasion was, indeed, such as to justify a change of policy, our pre parations should have been on a scale propor tionate to the emergency. Our Ministers should fairly have met the difficulty and ex plained it to the public, not in newspapers which they may disavow, but in their places in either House of Parliament. They should have calculated the probable amount of cost, warned us of the pecuniary sacrifices all classes would be called on to make, and at once announced that the immediate levy of fifty thousand men was but tin instalment of the demands which would be speedily made on the resources of the country. We know not what understanding had been arrived at with France, but an increase of the army such as the CHANCEI.LOR of the EXCHEQUER demanded, amounting to five thousand rank and file, to wage war on the Russian empire, was futile and derisive. Unless the allied army had amounted to the strength of one hundred thousand men, with suitable reserves at some convenient seaport in the Levant, it was presumption and madness to undertake the siege of Sebas topol. Every officer in either army whose judgment was of value deplored the determination and deprecated the risk. Not only were they aware of the insufficiency of the force, but the season they well knew was far too advanced. The Cabinet itself, indeed, had its misgivings, and we believe we are justified in stating that a mandate revoking the order to advance arrived at Varna too late to be obeyed. So far as our generals are concerned the leap teas not made in the dark. They leapt with their eyes open. We know not if our Ministers were perversely blind or obstinately incredulous, but they hat ample warning of the danger—they cannot plead this ignorance. It is with the Cabinet, then, that the blame remains, and the cause will be found in its faulty construction. United by no prin ciple, acting with no unity of purpose, and relying wholly upon adventitious support for its existence, the Ministers are compelled to adopt popular prejudices and to flatter popular delusions. In the absence of a fixed and definite policy they submit their judgment to the dictation of the Ministerial press, and falsely suppose that the suggestions of vanity or self-interest are the outpourings of public feeling. A heavy responsibility nevertheless attaches itself to that organ of public opinion which has so arrogantly transgressed its legiti mate bounds, so wantonly encroached on the functions of Government. In its haste to proclaim its triumph, vanity got the better of reason and discretion, and the projected expe- <.••••••• ~=3.l!imwmC THE PRESS. dition was announced several weeks before it took place : ample time was thus given to Russia to strengthen the incomplete fortifications of Sebastopol, and to pour vast reinforcements into the Crimea. Our readers cannot have forgotten the ignorant importunity with which the enterprise against Sebastopol was urged on the Government, and the false state ments with which the public was beguiled. No reinforcements were than deemed neces sary : the allied army was already larger than the occasion required ; it had but to appear, and the walls of Sebastopol were to fall before it. After the extravagant report of the fall of that stronghold had been proved untrue, did not every morning produce an article in the columns cf our daily contemporary announcing the day and almost the hour beyond which the garrison could not hold out? Nay, have we forgotten the chivalrous use that was pointed out for our fleet after the victory of Sebastopol restored it to liberty, when the Bay of Naples was suggested as the rendezvous of the allied navies, for the punishment of the King of Naples, against whom the claims of some second Pacifico were to be asserted and main tained under the threat of a bombardment. The errors of the Government must now, we admit, be amended. Reinforcements must be sent, our army must bo supported ; but the Ministry must act on its own responsi bility—the lives and honour of our soldiers must not be at the mercy of irresponsible advisers. The public indignation is fully aroused, and a meddlesome camarilla can no more be tolerated in a printing-house than in a palace. 1131. But the waste of the public money on these viceregal progresses throughout India is, though a great abuse, the least of the evils in volved in them ; for as " purveyance," the instrument of the most crying oppression iu this country some centuries ago, is still pm tised to the fullest extent in India, the people of the districts through which the Satrap passes are subjected to an extreme amount of pecuniary loss and personal injury. When it is understood that one of these great public functionaries is always ac companied by a vast camp, including his guard and retinue, and when it is con sidered that carriage for the baggage of all these is procured by pressing all the carts and labourers to be found in the surrounding country ; when it is further understood that supplies for all the camp and forage for all their baggage animals have to be furnished by the villages through which they pass, no matter what the wishes of the villagers on the subject may be, and that such supplies are only paid for at the rates the purchasers them selves choose arbitrarily to fix ; when all this is considered, it will hardly bo wondered at that progresses thus conducted are looked on by the people on whom they are inflicted as a pure and unmitigated curse. The pretences alleged in favour of such pro gresses arc, that it is desirable for the Gover nors to see personally into the condition of the governed, and that it is necessary that in doing so they should maintain the greatest state. But to this the reply is easy, and such as no one conversant with India will gainsay— namely, that, while periodical visits made for purposes of inquiry without state would really be a benefit to the people, progresses of this kind repel instead of inviting confidence on their part, as during such a progress the great man is generally inaccessible, while the news of such a progress being about to take place is the signal for every villager who can escape to abscond with his cattle from the line of route indicated. Then, again, the allegation of the necessity of maintaining such state in order to secure the respect of the people is met by the fact that the greatest contemner of pomp, the late Lord WILLIAM BENTINCK, was one of the most respected of all the Governors-General ; while no one in India was ever more respected and admired than the late Sir CHARLES N API'S% though when travelling a small tent was his only shelter, and a very few camels carried all his baggage. Nor do even the advocates of all this waste of money on pomp act consistently in cases where the expenditure has to be paid for out of their own pockets. For though while travelling there never was a nobleman more wasteful of the public money than Lord DAL HOUSIE, because while travelling all his ex penses are paid for by the State ; yet when stationary, as at Chenee or Calcutta, there never was an Indian functionary so penurious, for the simple reason that, when stationary, his expenses are payable by himself out of his private purse. In the case under notice, however, it is not the extravagance of the Marquis of DALUOURIK that is in question, but that of a far inferior personage, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. The office is one that was created by the act passed last year, and we hope that at an early period Parliament will decide whether it was for the mere purpose of wasting th• public money in this way that the appointment was made. We cannot doubt what its decision would be. While our public functionaries in India are at liberty to squander away their own money in fooleries to any extent that pleases them, the public income of India must be devoted to the more fitting purpose of public improvements there, or to one un happily equally urgent under present circum stances—the augmentation of our revenue to support the expenses of the war. It is a war in which India is equally interested with England, and so far from the natives of that country grudging to see their revenue saddled with a share of the expenses, we are very sure that they would hail this with the greatest satisfaction if, in consideration of the contribu tion, they could only be relieved from the inflic tion of these wasteful and oppressive guberna torial progresses, which the common sense of Europeans and Asiatics alike condemns. _ WASTE OF THE PUBLIC MONEY IN INDIA. AT a time when our armies—officered by the scions of the noblest houses in England, and accompanied by Princes of the Royal blood of England and the Imperial blood of France — are undergoing unheard-of privations in their country's cause, lying for weeks unsheltered from the inclemency of the weather, and con tent to live upon the soldier's humble fare ; at a time when every household in England is also, if not equally, bearing its share of priva tion in order to lend suecour to the wives and children of our killed and wounded, or to fur nish to the revenue the means of carrying on the war—it is not without feelings of strung indignation that we read in a late Indian newspaper of the reckless waste of the public income in India by a newly-appointed Satrap, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. The cousin of the British Sovereign is content to rough it in the Crimea as he can, while a train of seventy elephants—equal to five hun dred and sixty baggage mules—are furnished at the public expense to carry the baggage of this mushroom public functionary in Bengal. It is thus that the public income of India is wasted in furnishing gratification to the up start pride, the senseless taste for pomp, and the effeminate indolence of our civil service in the East. The children, for the most part, of hardworking fathers engaged in commerce or trade, these men claim for themselves, when transferred to India, a retinue more extrava gant than in Europe is accorded to the occu pants of a throne ; and to gratify this passion the public money is squandered, and the most necessary public improvements are post poned. The money thrown away annually on processions through the country by the public functionaries in India would, if devoted to the proper purposes of Government, go far to relieve the Company from the stigma of neglect of its proper duties to which it is now so justly amenable. But NERO fiddled while Rome was burning, and costly pageants and City feasts are still provided for out of the Indian public income, while, by the Indian Minister's confession, the revenue of our empire there is considerably below our ex penditure. I • • 41). ti t