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

gre , /2,,c I N0.233.—V0L.V. LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17,1857. STAMPED .... SIXPENCE. UNSTAMPED ..F 1 VEPENCE. Cie 34.1ress. LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1857. THE news from India that came by the last mail is satisfactory so far, that in some respects it is more encouraging than it might have been. The Mohurrum having passed off safely is a great point gained. Still, it will not do to (jump to conclusions, as some are doing, and suppose that we have virtually broken the rebellion's back. There are many indications in the intelligence just received that this is far from being the case. It was NAPOLEON, we believe, who used to say that the success of battles depended less on the number of the enemy that are killed than on the number that are frightened. It is for this reason that the experienced Commander waits till the infantry he is opposed to have been torn and awed by grape and round shot, before he launches at them his squadrons whose clanging trumpets, brandished satires, and thundering crash of horses, as they tear down at the charge, complete the terror of the wa verers, and so turn the scale. Who that has passed through such scenes as these can fail to see on the instant when a struggle is vir tually terminated, and the cessation of the contest become a mere matter of time. There are many who appear to think that this point is already attained by us in India, but we confess that we are not among the number. The mutineers may have made no impression on us lately; but we, on the other hand, have made little impression on them. We seem to bo safe on all points, it is true, but it is not our safety, but their destruction, that is what we have got to look to. And to wards this object we have not as yet made any real advance. It is plain that the natives them selves are of the same opinion, or we should not have tales of fresh mutinies by this mail, and fresh desertions from our banner of the contingents of native States. As long as the ulcer continues to spread we may be sure that our caustic has not touched its core. Indeed, so little awe do we appear to have established, that Colonel NEILL tells us in his despatch that he considered even the Sikh regiment at Allahabad as not to be relied on, and that he had been within an ace of coining to blows with it when he decided, in consequence, to remove it from the fort. Had ' he attacked them there is little doubt that the Sikhs in our service in the Punjaub would have revenged the act by turning against us in a body, as there is nothing to prevent them doing, now that all our Hindostanees there have mutinied, been disbanded, or been sent away. Nor is the late news regarding the state of the Punjaub finances quite so good as the previous mails had led the public to expect. Then we were told that the Maha rajah GIIOLAE SINGH had lent a largo sum to our Commissioner ; it now appears that he had only promised to lend it—a very different thing. There would, however, be nothing extraordi nary in the old traitor's really lending us any amount we wanted to expend in levying and equipping Ponjaubees and Sikhs. He afforded us equally efficient aid in the second Sikh war, and of course it was not his fault if the levies showed their ingratitude to him and to us by joining the enemy at the most critical period of the campaign. Why, even animal instinct surpasses the wisdom of our agents there. That at least keeps its possessor out of the trap where it has once been caught ; while we go on enlisting the very people who so signally betrayed us in the Sikh and Affghan wars. There are other points which are now dis cernible, and which are likely to prove con siderable difficulties in the approaching cam paign. In the first place, the Europeans appear to a certain extent to have lost their discipline, and without the strictest discipline no permanent success can be obtained. We know that it is very hard indeed to maintain it trader the circumstances—never, indeed, were officers in a position more arduous than they are placed in at present in India in this respect. Separated in small detachments over a country where they have nearly all the population against them, they are masters of their men by the articles of war ; hut de facto they are the reverse. It will redound more than anything that has ever yet been recorded in history to the army's credit if it escape with honour out of the ordeal through which it will have to pass. The ordeal most trying—that of observing, from pure loyalty and self-respect, a degree of discipline which, if the soldiers be not deeply imbued with these sentiments, it would be impossible for any commander to enforce. Knowing, how ever, what may be done with soldiers when their sense of honour is appealed to, we have no doubt that they will nobly support their officers in this, the most arduous of their tasks. But this can only be done by the good men putting forth all their exertions to keep in order the bad. Under such circumstances, it is a great satisfaction to have at the head of our army in India a man like Sir COLIN CAMPBELL, a most admirable officer and a strict disciplinarian, who is both respected and loved alike by officers and men. The next thing to be considered is the diffi culty that will be found in respect to carriage. Troops can do nothing without carriage, as we found to our cost in the Crimea; though Lord ELLENBOROUGH had vainly attempted to impress the truth upon the Duke of NENV CASTLE at the outset of it, when, if his advice had been accepted, the disasters of the early part of that campaign would have been avoided. Colonel NEILL clearly feels this difficulty greatly at Allahabad, and it will not be felt less lower down the country, we may depend. We have no doubt that Lord ELLENBOROUGH and the Conservative leader in the House of Commons had this in view when they recom mended the adoption in our main operations of the line of the Indus as a base; for along that base lies the great camel country of India; and of camels from the deserts, carts from Rajpootana, and ponies from the hill countries beyond the Indus, we might have had as many as we could require. Nor is this all ; for the commonest country boats will do to go down the Ganges and the Jumna, while steamers alone can go up them at a pace at all adapted to the re quirements of war. Thus in the one case there would not only have been ample land carriage, but the whole of the craft of those rivers might have been made available for our operations. In the other ease, we can only use vessels scanty in number, very liable to he disabled and put out of order, and for which it will be in itself an enormous busi ness to provide an adequate supply of fuel. Then, again, with steamers only, our opera tions must necessarily be confined to the navigable channels of the river and their im mediate neighbourhood ; for any attempt to march our Europeans without carriage against the highly-equipped rebels in the interior would signally fail. It would be like follow ing the will-o'-the-wisp ; and, by com pletely prostrating our soldiers in the pug• suit, it would be playing the rebels game. As to land-carriage, there may in a military sense be said to be none procurable in Lower Bengal ; and we think, therefore, that it will tax Lord CANNING'S powers not a little to plo vide it for even a quarter of the number of .troops that will be now pouring in. The Nobleman we have before named is the man in England of all others most competent for such a task ; but after the imbecility shown both here and in India, we should not wonder if the army we have sent out were left to languish at Calcutta or make its way up the country as best it can. It is easy to amuse the public here with details of the number of troops that have been sent to tho seat of war ; but we should like to know what provision has been made for tbeir moving when they get there. We should be glad to hear what has been done in the shape of com missariat and transport arrangements, and in the way of procuring horses and saddles for the cavalry and horses and batteries for the artillery when they land. In the way of pro viding those requisites, in short, to make these branches of the army effective which the sagacity of the War-office decided in. nearly every case to have left at home. There retn&ns one subject to be remarked on in the news arrived lately, which, we think, will be admitted on all hands to prove the cor rectness of the policy which we have all along advocated in respect to native States, We have always protested against the annexation of these, not out of any peculiar admiration for native institutions, but on the broad principle of right, and on the more interested ground of direct advantage to ourselves. We have over and over again, during the past three years, explained the position in which the absorption of every native State would leave us, if mutiny should infect our Sepoys, as it might be expected to do, when there remained nothing between them and the supreme authority. We showed the obstacle that large native States, interspersed amid our territories, would inter pose to any general outbreak in the army proving successful, as but for such check it necessarily must. We, therefore, strenuously contended for the preservation of these States, not merely as an act of justice and good faith to the ;princes of them, but as an act of the very best policy as regards ourselves. And what has this rebellion shown ? Why, that if India had been all abe^ -- " Lord DALHOUSIE'S admirers been all lost to us at would not have been native chief's soldier sula. There would h own Sepoys, and our everywhere proved fall the Putteeala Rajah, p Thursday last, explains are deriving along the , Z ~' lbsorbed by us as Lord 3 desired, it would have t a single blow. ...There n a native ~ ower ity. left in the oiii ii rPi i have beep, el ... own Se 4..1hi1i40 • ..• 4 Ise. Th e‘, r,.. ',, •,::. publishe 'i, ~ • . IF ns how ...,',. • .....t:., ... e Sutlej ' i' , . ' •;-: • . . 4 - L ,..„, • . Isil c,f4