The Press. — London, England, 1858-05-01 00:00:00

usual. It is, however, principally confined to our relations with France. We subjoin a pas sage of rather more general application : The certain has again been drawn up. New actors are upo n the stage, havi n g a t least this title to favourable not ice, that they have been involuntarily, if not reluctantly, summon ed to the arduous duties of national representation. It will probably also be admitted, by many who are not their habitual partisans, that they may fairly lodge another c l a im. They succeeded to a great national dilemma, as t unsolved, and to a generally embarrassed state of foreign relations. At home an empty Exchequer stared, and as yet stares, them in the face: the Government of Lord Palmerston had earned popularity last year by part ing prospectively with their money ; and it has left them to settle the account and provide for the public service. The domestic history of the late Ministry (we omit some paiflful features of a more personal character) will be chiefly memorable for profusion in the public expenditure, carelessness as to the means of providing for it, relaxation in all the rules of public administration, and an unlimited multitude of legislative abortions. Indeed its few achieve ments in legislation have been chiefly such as to make the country thankful for the failures as the lesser evil. The present Finance Minister has lately informed the House of Commons that he cannot estimate the charge of com pensations under the Court of Probate Act past last year at less than two hundred aad filly thousand pounds per annum. At this modest price it is that the nominal testa mentary powers of the IF.pisoopal body have been extin guished, a vast body of well-paid and contented officers compulsorily turned out to enjoy salaries and do nothing in return, and new and valuable offices created to feed and occupy another set of functionaries, who may some day get compensated and sent out to feed on the fat pastures of idleness, in their turn, should Parliament, at any time, think fit to reinstate what Mr. Bright has well declared to have been the very wrst Government of our time. What titles Lord Derby may make, in the regions of legislation and administration, to public gratitude, remains yet to be seen; but he starts with infinite advantage in the power of establishing, at small cost, a favourable contrast with his predecessors. His opening address to the House of Lords produced a favourable impression. It carried, at least, the conviction that we were now governed by a man of con scientious earnestness as well as of brilliant powers. In foreign affairs already and at once we have derived immense benefits from the change of Ministry. The liberation of Mr. Hodge in Piedmont, and of Watt and Parkes in the Kingdom of the Two !Mollies, has probably been due to his cause. The political article in the Edinburgh we have already noticed in our political columns. It is weak because it has a weak cause, but the style is occasionally good. Other notice able articles in the Edinburgh are those on Edgar Poe, and M. Thiers' " History of the Consulate and the Empire," the latter of which contains a searching exposure of the author's gross partiality of tone, and gross mistakes of fact. It contains other papers on good sound subjects, but scarcely abreast of the topics which are just now most attractive to the public. The three most notable articles in the Westminster are, in our opinion, those on "Party Government," "Our Relations with the Princes of India," and " Army Organiza tion." The first we may dismiss briefly. The writer condemns Party Government because it compels men to vote against their convic tions, and prevents us from knowing which of the Ministry is mainly responsible for parti cular measures—thus practically destroying Ministerial responsibility altogether. We do not sympathize with this opinion, because we hold it better that Ministers should agree on principles and differ on details, than that they should agree on details and differ on princi plea. But we wou ld s h ort l y say this,—Don 't let the country stand " shiny. shallying " be tween the two theories. Either cease to de mand a majority, as an essential condition of every Cabinet, or give them the means of obtaining it. If the view in this article is right, then nine-tenths of the objections urged against the present Ministry are wrong. If these objections are well founded, then, in the name of common sense, let us have no more such articles as this. One curious passage we must notice before quitting the subject : An avowed dictator, if at all wisely chosen and fur very limited time, will often rule better than a cumbrous machine, especially if the honour which is to be his reward :will depend on the success of bis measures. But the lamentabl e result of the present rule of Party is, that the very Minister s who are so overpowerful to indulge in foolish and ruinous appointments, to misspe n d vas t sums of money, to entangle us in wars of hideous criminality, and to throw aesy forei gn lib erties by intrigue,—these same men are by the . ver y same agencies made feeble to r epress malversa lion, to enfo rce j ustice towards our weak dependants, or to I ,2,Tirt foreign a n d r i g h t f u l freedom b y pure l y mora l . " ratif ir May dread to offend great families ors single eolleagup, to a nnoun c er t h e enm i ty G I f ana ti cs , t o resist fon* 11144,1049 COitrt, sad, *To Ol t k 0n044 ihs THE PRESS, MAY 1, 1858. Here peeps out the cloven foot of Demo cratic Despotism that worst abuse of the worst form of government, which it has been reserved for a writer of the present day to elevate into an object of en thusiasm. At all events, we may very safely say this,—that Englishmen will look at home first, and will not establish a despotism here that we may be better able to put it down elsewhere. From the Indian article we quote as follows : The details of our dealings with Oude cannot be pro duced here. A majority of readers (and not the least thoughtful part) will not believe them, unless fully and minutely proved ; and that takes, not an article, but a book; and when the book is writt-n (as " Dacoitee in Excehtis "), though every statement be guaranteed by quotations from Blue-books and from Mill's History, they still say that it is too bad to be true; it must be garbled ; they must read the Blue-books themselves before they believe it :—and since they have no time to do this, it is impossible to convince them. We therefore merely say ; —it is perfectly certain that at least the people of Oude believe the story in the very darkest form which it can assume in our English narratives; for these are compiled from the ex-parte documents furnished by the very men who are liable to be inculpated by them. We professed to annex Conde for the benefit of the people ; but in Outram's advance to Lucknow, the people were found so hostile, that terrible accounts came home of our wide-spread burning of their villages, which the writers justified by military necessity. If Oude was ill governed of late, at any rate it was well governed and in high prosperity down to the day that we first interfered with it. Such is the testimony even of our own historians, as of James Mill ; therefore it is beyond a doubt, that such is, will be, and must be, the permanent tradition in the hearts of the people. Nor are the violence; of this dreadful war (while we write) at all ended; if we can believe the public letters from India, they are as yet only in the beginning. The tyrannical spirit is confined to no latitudes and to no race; it grows apace with power and with fear. We are shocked at the American sentiment towards his "nigger," but we have a nigger of our own in India. Listen to the outcries of the popular press: it will tell us that nothing can succeed with Indians but violence. For sooth, "Orientals " are so accustomed to be ill-treated, that they will despise you and rebel if you treat them well. Just so our grandfathers and great-grandfathers used to speak of the Irish : it is the universal doctrine of the tyrant. Onr ears have scarcely rested from the outcries of joy about the blowing of men from guns ; the hanging goes on unabated, but it is no longer proclaimed to be good fun. A veil is now drawn over it ; men are " disposed of;" not hanged ; but the belief is not yet laid aside, that wholesale summary atrocities are politic to terrify, whether you have or have not men's conscience on your side. It is only in our own cowardly moments that we fancy man kind to be so cowardly and so base. The plain fact is, that the unarmed, and those who are not writhing under a sense of injustice and indignity, are restrained from guilt by far less ghastly in fl ictions; but the armed and the in dignant are only exasperated into frenzy, when oar violence; find no justification in their consciences. And when the crisis is past, and we wipe our hands of blood, what then is our legacy to the future British rulers of India? To ourselves we may justify our indiscriminate severities by the massacre of Cawnpore, but the Indians will have forgotten that massacre, as swallowed up in the afterdeeds. If we had retaliated atrocities on the heads of none but the actual perpetrators, this would not have lowered our fighting prowess, or given us one victory fewer; and after the victory, oh ! how would the moral glory of the English name have shone pre-eminent, and how much brighter would be our prospect! It is now too late. We must accept as a fact , that the military part of the Indian population in the north will in the future hate us more than ever, unless some New, onzaT, AND sraucnio changes obliterate these deadly remembrances. We regret that we have no space for some remarks en " Army Organization," which is admirably written, nor " The Boscobel Tracts," the most interesting paper we have yet seen on this subject, except one sometime ago in Blacktcood. The same inexorable necessity compels us to award a much more oursory notice to the National than we could have wished. Some good reviews of ancient and modern literature ; an essay on " The Old English Nobility ;" a notice of Lord Grey on Reform funda mentally consistent with the views we have from time to time expressed in this Journal, and adding another to the already numerous protests against the silly and intemperate attack of the Times—and a very pleasant article on the Waverley Novels, are perhaps the best papers in this valuable publication. The London Quarterly contains many sub stantial articles, but we have not noticed any thing that asks for special comment in the way of either praise or blame. William Paterson, the Merchant Stamm% and Founder of the Bank of England. By S, Ban nister, Xi.. Edinburgh ; Ninuno. Taxi is e small 00Lavo volume relating the principal 'sante in the life of Peterson, the founder of the Mak et Fmgland, Pater op vfm a poi opectmen 419 of the favourable sort of Scotch speculators, from whose energies the empire has often benefited. He was, instinctively, a projector, and was not, like " Missisippi Law," a merely clever charlatan. Paterson based most of his schemes upon science and facts ; his views were always ingenious, and often original; and he used his pen actively to promote his designs. His tracts were innumerable ; and he appears to have had the art of advancing in the world, and. procuring the favourable notice of dis tinguished persona. But we cannot say that this biography of Paterson is very attrlictive, or that it is calculated to interest the general reader. The history of commerce, since Paterson's days, com memorates many still more remarkable characters, though, undoubtedly, a large measure of respeet ought to be accorded to the memory of one who entertained sound views on many difficult and obscure questions in political economy. To impart general interest to the life of a practical political projector like Paterson could only be done by literary art, a graphic style, and s skilful presentation of the commercial world in the days of Paterson. Such resources are not possessed by Mr. Bannister, who is an unpractised author. The volume is filled up with a great number of extracts from Paterson's various writings, which read heavily ; and even the curious project of the Darien Colon", with its attendant circumstances, is not described in a way calculated to interest. The lamented Eliot Warburton might have written a graphic work on Paterson, and it is no discredit to Mr. Bannister that he has not succeeded, because (except in experienced hands) there is much difEculty in giving variety of interest to the life of a civilian whose career does not abound in striking incidents. Adam Smith in fluenced the world incalculably beyond Paterson, but it does not follow that the life of Smith would necessarily be interesting, and we know that even Dugald Stewart's biography of him is not very at tractive. The estimate of Paterson by Mr. Bannister is fair enough : He was, indeed, no common man. His very early imc ceases, which did not spring from adventitious einem stances, denote his superior intelligence. The Bank of England was perfected through that superior intelligence — not on account of his wealth; for, although then a uterelisat in good credit, his fortune was moderate, the accumulation of riches never being his ruling passion, well as he recog nised their _proper valise. His admittance as a Beak director has the same significancy to his honour, inasainsh as the wealthier men of London, his colleagues, were at that time by no means of a temper to be guided by a native of beotland, unless his intellectual superiority was well attested. He is known to have planned his great colony in Darien, in Central America, with powerful support throughout Western Europe, and as i field of 'lineal Des- mopolitan enterprise ; not as one peculiarly Scottish, until it was limited to the resources of the Scottish people, In consequence of the hostility of the English sad Dub& privileged companies. Under his vigorous management the Scots adopted it with unanimity and surprising enthu siasm. He bad impressed them and others with the truth of hie commercial doctrines; and the William Paterson of Dumfriesshire, who clearly did so much in 1694 and 1693 in those two enterprises, can be identified beyond all doubt with the doer of other things not less important, and be demonstrated to have been the author of valuable books. It is, then, to be safely concluded that his antecedents and personal qualities were consistent with his great actions, and worthy of no ordinary respect. • We shall have another occasion for reviewing the career of Paterson. We see that his writings, col lected in two large volumes, with a biographical in troduction, are announced for publication, sad we shall defer until then some comments on the character of Paterson's commercial and economical views. PUBLICATIONS 29. Parallel Lives of Ancient and Modern Heroes. By Charles Duke Yonge. Chapman and Hall Christian Gellert. By Berthold Auerbach. Sampson Low Poets and Poetry of Germany. Two Vols. Chapman and Hall The English liumourists of the Eighteenth Centxry. By W M. Thackeray. Smith and Elder Cooing Monte. - By the Author of " A Trap to Catch a Bttnbesm." Wright and Co. The Common °keel,' of the Country. The Poetical IT of Professor Wilson. Blackwoods The Cruellest Wrong of AU. By the Author of " Mar-. garet ; or, Prejudice at Home," .fie. Smith and Elder Colons*, the . Painter. Blaskwoods Fraser's Magazine. J. W. Patter—Davenport Dann. Chapman and Ha ll—Le Follet. Simpkin and Marshall— Canines New Monthly. Chapman and 11011—Blesetwools. Blackwood—Titer/ 4 . firoolDbridge, /*ten to the President ea Me "PA* sod Donate PA*: TrublnN—Can we ddapt P 4 ficisogi NPm 00 , 1 1Y• friloitingon,