The Press. — London, England, 1854-09-09 00:00:00

856 f it tra tar r. The Life and Correspondence of Charles Lord Metcalfe. By John William Kaye. Lon don : Bentley. [Second Notice.] As will be seen from our previous notice, Metcalfe had many advantages in his personal circumstances over his competitors for public bonours. Foremost amongst them we place the training which he underwent, from the start, under the eye of such a statesman as Lord Wellesley. Hence there naturally re sulted a calmness of tone and official dignity in Metcalfe's public life which, we are com pelled to say, we should scarcely have antici pated from one who in domestic politics was an ultra-Radical of the most determined kind. Few men have come under our notice who united in the same degree practical ability with a certain sanguine hopefulness of cha racter which in other natures would have bor dered on the visionary. Listening to him in his chair, in readinghis letters, one might have thought him fanciful ; but with the ballast of responsibility his mind steadied, and floated securely where others would have foundered. There must have been personal qualities of a very high order to produce such a peculiar cha racter and to contribute to its successes. Such, in truth, there were. He acted without im petuosity, yet he was never censurable as dilatory. Difficulties he looked fairly in the face, neither making too much or too little of the obstacles in his path. He studied an Official question circumspectively without the formalism of a man bred to the desk, and without the pedantry of a pragmatical and self-opinionated nature. He was thoroughly honest in the best fashion, being not only truthful in all his relations with fellow-man, but in avoidance of that artful reticence which is incompatible with high honour. His tem per, also, was beautifully serene, and, though very capable of smarting under unmerited neglect, he would never vent his anger in unseemly spleen. Add to all these qualities his great experience and his systematic train ing, and we cannot be surprised at his political success. In the tesidency at Hyderabad he showed nearly all his best qualities. Mr. Kaye, as a biographer, has been obliged to dwell on certain incidents of that portion of Metcalfe's career which we could gladly forget. Even so pure a character as Metcalfe could not leave an official life in India without being assailed by the vituperation of India-house debates and the malignant insinuations of disappointed partisans. The affairs of William Palmer and Co., and the transient disagreement with Lord Hastings, we puss by, and ptoceed to the act which, more than any other, gives celebrity to the name of Metcalfe in Indian affairs. We allude, of course, to what is called his liberation of the press. Mr. Kaye should have entered at more de tail into the history of the Indian press ; and it would have been well if he had given his purely British readers some specimens of what the Indian press was in the days when Lord Wellesley placed it under a most pe remptory censorship. There are two sides to the whole question, from first to last ; and, while we cordially acknowledge the inesti mable advantages of a free press, we may admit that in certain phases of colonial life, when the principles of the dependency on tho mother country are unsettled, the administra tor must, from the mere necessity of the case, deal more summarily with anonymous censors than would be tolerated in England, where fixed institutions, accumulated property, and love of order present such vast resources to authority. Between the Indian press of half a century ago and the Irish agitators of later days there was a remarkable similarity. They were both political nuisances ; but in putting them down there was the danger of musing that arbitrary power from which all our constitu tional instincts recoil. Yet a wise statesman could have had no difficulty in dealing with either of theM. Lord Wellesley Was compelled to put down the freedom of the Indian press, just as , his brother, Wellesley Pole, crushed Catholic Convention. The power of THE PRESS. Government was felt; reckless virulence was restrained ; more moderate counsels prevailed amongst the Indian public ; and what was dangerous in the days of Lord Wellesley was harmless when Lord William Bentinck ruled India. In the following remarks of Lord Metcalfe there is weighty sense : Viewing the question more generally, it is, whether an arbitrary interference with the press shall be substituted for the freedom which has for many years been allowed. I have, for my own part, always advocated the liberty of the press, believing its benefits to outweigh its mischiefs; and I continue of the same opinion. Admitting that the liberty of the press, like other liberties of the subject, may be suspended, when the safety of the State requires such a sacrifice, I cannot, as a consequence, acknowledge that the present instance ought to be made an exception to the usual practice of the Government ; for, if there were danger to the State either way. there would De more, I should think, in suppressing the publication of opinions than in keeping the valve open by which bad humours might evaporate. To prevent men from thinking and feeling is impossible ; and I believe it to be wiser to let them give vent to their temporary anger in anonymous letters in the newspapers, the writers of which letters remain unknown, than to make that anger permanent by forcing them to smother it within their own breasts, ever ready to burst out. It ought not be forgotten (as it frequently is) that the question of liberty of the press turns on the point whether the censorship shall be placed in a nominee of the Govern ment or in twelve men in a jury-box. Careless writers on our Constitution forget that noto rious libellers can be effectually punished with the aid of trial by jury, though the operation has its delays. To be sure there are writers of the Mr. Snake species in The School for Scandal who live by the badness of their reputation, who can be only " scotched," not crushed. But exposure renders them in nocuous. We confess that, in our view of the case, the freedom of the Indian press was a mere ques tion of time which must have forced itself upon the authorities. Recollecting the very decided views of Lord William Bentinck upon the subject, we think that Lord Metcalfe's acts in relation to it have been, to some extent, overpraised. In summing up the character of Lord Met calfe as an Indian ruler Mr. Kaye says : It would be a mistake to endeavour to enhance the merit of Charles Metcalfe's success by saying that circum stances were hostile to him, and that he rose to eminence in spite of obstacles which would have kept down other men. The truth is, that circumstances were in his favour. I have had nothing to record of those early hardships Which, a few years before Metcalfe's entrance into public life ' tried, as in a furnace, the endurance of men struggling for fame and fortune. It is interesting to read or to hear of a Munro lacking the means to provide himself with a pillow or a blanket —of a Malcolm starving in secret, because he would not borrow money to buy himself a dinner—of a Tucker disputing with the rats for the possession of a miserable cellar. Metcalfe had no such trials at the outset of his career. Everything went prosperously with him from the first. When he was a boy he wrote in his commonplace-hook, among other passages, the suggestiveness of which will be better appreciated by those who turn back to them after they have followed Metcalfe's career to the end and made close acquaintance with his character—" He is the most clever who is best able to profit by good fortune when it comes to him." It was his good fortune to he the son of an East India director, to be patronised in early life by Lord Wellesley ; and always to have an influential friend at Court. By this good fortune he was well " able to profit." One Governor- General alter another recognised his abilities, and ever in the most critical conjunctures sought his assistance and advice. All, with one exception, continued to regard him, long after their official connection had been severed, with the strongest feelings of admiration and affection. To the success of every Administration under which he served he largely contributed. It is not always that the impression of men's minds is stamped most indelibly on the circum stances of the times when they occupy the highest stations. It often happens, on the other hand, that their most enduring actions are those to which another's name is given in the history of the world. There are many names which more frequently occnr to the annalist of our Indian empire during the first thirty-eight years of the present century ; hut there is no one man who had really a larger share in shaping the events which are the staple of history, or who did more in his generation to make our Anglo-Indian empire what it is, than Charles Thevhilus Metcalfe. Lord Metcalfe returned to England, and resided for some time at his paternal seat of Fern-hill, near Windsor. He was ambitious of a seat in Parliament, but it is stated that his friends found him "impracticable," and he recoiled from the courses which appear to have been necessary, even with his Radical politica, to secure his election. At an impor taut crisis he wits selected by the Melbourne Ministry for the governorship of Jamaica, as a successor to Sir Lionel Smith. The post was SATURDAY, arduous, and the new governor had many dif ficulties to overcome. The ability that he dis played in his West Indian office is visible in the fact that at a trying period he was selected by Lord Stanley (the present Earl of Derby) for the still more arduous office of Governor- General of Canada. We regret that our space does not enable us to dwell upon the moral heroism and the physical fortitude shown by Lord Metcalfe in his Canadian office, while he was slowly dying under the excruciating dis order of cancer in the cheek. His sufferings are dreadful to contemplate, even when related at this distance of time. But the courage which he displayed was witnessed by one who could appreciate greatness of Spirit. Mr. Kaye thus records the feelings of Lord Derby (then Colonial Secretary) to Lord Metcalfe : At a later period there seem to have been obstacles to his elevation to the peerage, well understood by men acquainted with the Ministerial secrets of the day. Some of Metcalfe's friends wrote to him that there were so many men in England hungering after nobility that Peel had declared he would not complete the work of the Whigs by swamping the House of Imrds. But the case of Sir Charles Metcalfe had now become a special and exceptional one. There were both public and personal reasons why at such a time it should be clearly and unmistakably manifested that his services were appreciated by the Ministers, and that he was supported and upheld by the Crown. In the great struggle which was pending between the Governor-General of Canada and the popular branch of the Legislature, it was expedient that all possible weight should be given to the authority of the former—that in such a juncture the trumpet of the Imperial Government should give no uncertain sound. But 1 believe that when Lord Stanley suggested to the First Minister that the time had now arrived for conferring upon Sir Charles Met calfe a special mark of her Majesty's favour, he was moved as much by his generous admiration of the heroic con stancy of the man who, under the pressure of the severest bodily suffering, was steadfastly pursuing the path of duty, and with surprising energy and resolution fighting the battles of the Crown—as much, I say, by his generous admiration of the patience and fortitude of the man as by his sense of the prestige and authority to be con ferred upon the Governor-General. He was eager to alleviate—as far as human agency could alleviate or compensate—the sufferings of so brave and true-hearted a AIM At the instance of Lord Stanley, Sir R. Peel submitted to her Majesty the name of Sir C. Metcalfe for the honour of a peerage, and her Majesty thus replied:— Windsor Castle, November 30, 1844. The Queen hastens to answer Sir Robert reel's letter of this morning relative to Sir Charles Metcalfe. The Queen most highly approves Sir Robert Peel's suggestion that Si! Charles Metcalfe should be raised to the peerage ; for he has shown such a desire to do his duty in the midst of so many difficulties, and such extreme disinterestedness, that he richly deserves this mark of the Queen's entire approbation and favour. The terrible disease of which he died conti nued to make progress, but he did not flinch from the difficulties of his post, although Lord Stanley wrote to him as follows: — My dear Lord,—Your confidential despatches, Nos 52 and 54, the latter of which reached me on the 14th inst., touch upon subjects of the greatest interest, as bearing upon the future prospects of Canada. I sincerely deplore the report which you send me in No. 52 of your own state of health, and highly appreciate the honourable feeling which in such circumstances leads you to express a reluc tance to be relieved whilst affairs are still unsettled. Ido not attempt to conceal from you the importance, in a pub lic point of view, which I attach to your continuance in Canada at the present moment, or the extent to which I think the difficulties of the province would be aggravated by any change in the Executive there ; but, whilst I say this most sincerely, I must say with equal sincerity that I should consider myself most culpable were I to accept of the continuance of your services at increased risk to your health ; and I must, therefore, leave the question altogether in your hands, only giving you an instruction opposite to that which I should think necessary for many men, not to permit public considerations unduly to overweigh the corn• siderations which you owe to yourself. I venture to hope, however, that as your general health is not impaired, and the climate is not unhealthy, moderate employment would be even more beneficial, as well as more agreeable, than a life of constrained inactivity in this country. Mr. Kaye thus records the last sad scene of his dying hours : But still he bore up manfully affainst the weight of his sufferings. He would mint betske himself to the sick room, or adopt the habits of a confirmed invalid. He was very regular in his hours. At nine o'clock every mot ning he was ready for family prayers. After breakfast the news• paper, or some more substantial work, was read aloud to him ; he dictated letters to his friends, and transacted any necessary business. At four o'clock he was always present at the dinner-table; and afterwards, as the days lengthened, he was generally dri'en out for an hour or two in a close carriage. In the evening it was his choicest pleasure to listen to music. The performances on the harp of his sister, Mrs. Smythe, who dwelt with him, and whose continued ministrations did much to soothe the anguish of his last days, were a solace to him ever grate fully acknowledged. mommumemilmMillMMlNl \