The Press. — London, England, 1858-08-07 00:00:00

general officers receiving unattached pay, making the whole establishment 260, vice 231. The list so augmented is to consist of 50 generals, 80 lieutenant generals, and 130 major generals. The fixed establishment of general officers for the artillery and engineers is to be 48, as now. The proposed increase in the number of general officers is considered equitable in itself, due to the interest of the army, and necessary to the efficiency of the service. The Commissioners fully concur with the view of the Horse Guards Mein., as to the restrictions which onght to be placed for the future on brevet promo. tions—i.e., on the conversion of brevet into sub stantive rank ; but the principle proposed by the Horse Guards is the original idea of the Commis sioners of 1854. " Conspicuously distinguished conduct in the field " will be, among other things, a sin , ' qua non as a qualification for promotion from brevet to substantive rank. It is recommended that certain distinguished brevet majors (created since 1854), if reduced to half pay, shall be placed on half pay as majors, or, if on lull pay, he indemnified by receiving an increase of 2s. sd. per day while con tinuing in command of their companies Captains and brevet field-officers of this class, commanding troops of cavalry, would be also allowed an additional 2s. sd. per day. Regimental majors of all arms who have been male brevet-colonels under similar cir cumstances may be dealt with on similar principles, and receive Is. per day. No lieutenant colonel should be promoted by brevet to a colonelcy, except under the conditions and safeguards laid down to meet the cases ofpromotion to substantive rank. It is thought in the case of engineer officers employed in civil situations, that eight years of military service should be required to qualify them for the rank of colonel. The Commissioners do not appear to think that the warrant of 1854 has been long enough in force to allow them to judge of its operation upon the promo tion in the Guards. They reject the suggestion to shorten from six to five years the period of service as a field-officer required to qualify for unattached pay in the case of a major-general. They also refuse to countenance the abolition of lieutenant.colonelcies and the creation of a p.m permanent lank ot briga dier.general with increased hall-pay. To induce re tirement on full pay it is suggested that colonels and lieutenant colonels accepting such retirement shall receive 205., vice 17s. per diem, as now ; and they think that, as a general rule. no colonel should be allowed to retain the command of a regiment after sixty years ot age, unless reported to the Horse Guards as efficient. Such are the salient points of the Report of the Royal Commission. THE NEW ACT FOR THE BETTER GOVERN MENT OF INDIA. ON Thursday the act for the better government of India, which received the Royal assent on Monday, was printed. It contains seventy-five clauses, and is to commence, except as provided in respect to the Council, on the expiration of thirty days after the date of the passing, which was on the 2nd of August instant. The preamble recites that by the 16th and 17th Victotia, cap. 95, the territories in the possession and under the government of the East India Com pany were continued under such government in trust for her Majesty, and then proceeds to deal with the whole subject of the future management of India. The government of India is transferred to her Majesty, and is to be governed in her Majesty's name. The Secretary of State is to exercise the powers now exercised by the Company or Board of Control. After the commencement of the act any four Principal and four Under Secretaries of State may sit as members in the House of Commons. The Council to lie established is to consist, of fifteen members. Within fourteen days of the passing of the act the Court of Directors are to elect from among themselves or those who have been directors seven per sons for the Council, the major part those who have served or resided in India. No member of the Council is to sit in Parliament, and they are to be paid 200/. a year out of the revenues of India. The secretaries and officers on the home establishment of the Com pany are to form the establishment of the Secretary of State in Council. The Secretary of State is to sub mit a scheme fur a permanent establishment. The act prescribes the duties and procedure of the Council. Under the direction of the Secretary of State the Council is to conduct the business trans acted in the United Kingdom in relation to the government of India and the correspondence with India; but every order or communication sent to India is to be signed by one of the Sect etaries of State. The Secretary of State is to divide the Council into committees, and to regulate the trails. action of business. The Secretary of State is to be President of the Council, and a member of the Coun cil vise-president. The appointments to be made are .` ~~~ THE PEESS, AUGUST 7, lB5B. to be with the approbation of her Majesty, and the appointments now made in India are to be continued to be.made there. All appointments and admission to service are to vest in her Majesty. All the real and per sonal property of the Company is to vest in her Majesty fur the purposes of the government of India. The cash and stock are to be transferred to the Secretary of State in Council. The existing establishments are to remain under the present condition. The Board of Control is abolished. A person succeeding to the office of Governor-General may exercise his powers before he takes his seat in the Council. The Secretary in Council may sue and be sued. The members of the Council are not to be personally liable. The Directors elected by the General Court of the Company are alone to be the Directors of the Company. It is is no longer obligatory or the Directors to summon Quarterly Courts. There are other general provisions to carry out the act, and, after stating that it is to commence in thirty day. from the passing, it declares by the concluding sect Lion that the act shall be proclaimed in the severe Presidencies as soon as conveniently may be after it has been received by the Governor• General of India; and until such proclamation be made all acts and things done in the name of the Company or other wise in relation to the government of India shall be valid and effectual. VOTE BY BALLOT. THE Executive Committee of the Society for Pro moting the adoption of Vote by Ballot have issued the following address to the public : The late divisicn on the ballot affords us an opportunity of reviewing the progress of the question. When Mr. Grote quitted Parliament the Brea' question of corn law repeal ab• aorbeil public attention, and the ballot was not agitated in Parliament or the country from 1811 to 1818. In the Parlia ment elected in 1847 the ballot was brought yearly before the House of Commons by Mr. Henry Berkeley, the numbers voting being as follows: Ayes. Noes. 1848 B 6 1849 1850 1851 1852 144 On two occasions, it will be seen, Mr. Berkeley obtained a majority, but in each case at too late a period of the year to allow of further progress being made with the measure. The effect of these reiterated discussions ‘s as to increase the number of the supporters of the ballot in the Parlia ment elected in 1852. Shortly after the general election of 18.52 this society was established. We have sedulously attended to securing the presence, at the yearly divisions, of members favourable to the measure ; and the result of our labours is an increase in the number of Mr. Bet keley's supporters, on each division in the last and present Parlia• ments. The following are the numbers : Ayes. Noes. 1853 1854 157 1855 1856 ( with pairs) .. 156 (with pairs) 196 This division was snapped in the absence of many friends. Ayes. Noes. 1837 (pairs included) 219 (pairs includ.) 287 1838 (do. do.) 222 (do. do.) 319 This state of things shows progress. It is the result of the labours of the society, of the personal exertions gra tuitously given of members of the executive committee, and of a systematic course of (I) parliamentary, (2) elec toral, and (8) educational agitation. 1. The views of every member are ascertained imme diately on his election. If opposed to the ballot, a con densed library of evidence and reasoning on the question is placed in his hands. By circulars, and the labours of members of thesociety, who are also members of Parliament, the attendance of the pledged supporters of the ballot is secured at divisions. The course taken by every member on the question is brought before his constituents and the public. :I. Whenever a vacancy occurs in the representation the constituency is visited, and the question of the ballot agitated by deputations, lectures, and the distribution of tracts. An extensive correspondence is kept up with electors in all districts, informing them upon matters con fleeted with the progress of the cause, and engaging their personal co operation in discussing the question with oppo- nents, in distributing tracts, procuring petitions, and soliciting the votes in Parliament of their local members. 3. The boroughs and counties are visited by deputations of the society, and meetings held in favour of the ballot, which the electors are specially invited to attend. Tracts on the question are circulated among the electors and other inhabitants ; in all 500,000 tracts have been distributed by the society. Oar aim is to leave no one destitute of the means of perceiving how injurious open voting and its results are to himself and the community. To the influence by which it is supported we oppose the power of reason and the claims of justice, and we meet by facts the sophisms by which open voting is defended. Further and increasingly strenuous exertions are necessary to set the seal of final success upon the past. The ground we have gained demands and inspirits to redoubled effort. The ballot is not gained, but it has progressed. We are drily gaining the co-operation of men of wealth, intelligence, and influence, who are fast swelling our ranks. The ballot, thanks to the Parliaments and people of our , colonies, is, with the assent of the Queen, on the her Ministers, an established institution in the dominions. The work must be carried on. There more meetings, more tracts, more conferences, no Lion. Every borough arid every county which has yet must be visited. Every constituency whose trtives have not hitherto supported Mr. Berkeley' must be invited to memorialise its members to vot ballot. We are approaching the sixth Year of ou r We ask of you to replenish our pecuniary means taining it—we appeal to you to create confidence cause and dismay in its opponents, by enabling Le t on our work with increased activity and spirit. you, not only to subscribe yourselves, but to ins friends and neighbours to join us. We are coufitleot shall not ask in vain. SIR HUGH RosE has been appointed to the of the 45th Regiment. THE QUEEN has been pleased to direct patent to be passed under the Great Seal, the dignity of a Baron of the United hi Great Britain and I Pdand unto General Campbell, G.C.8., Commander•in-Chief in Indies, and the heirs male of his body begotten, by the name, style, and title of Baron of Clydesdale, in that part of the sad United dom called Scotland. IT is rumoured that a peerage i 3 to be upon Mr. Pemberton Leigh. _ - DESPATCHES were sent off yesterday eveni the Colonial-office to the Governor-G: Canada. `'iabi an Voila. LIBEL—EASTWOOD v. HOLMES ANOTHER. THIS case was tried at Guildford. The plaintiff dealer in antiquities, and the defendants are' prietors of the Athenceum newspaper, and was brought to recover damages lor a libel , in that paper on the Bth of May last. TI dants pleaded that the :tatemeut which was to he a libel was true. Mr. Edwin James, Q.C., and Mr. Moil for the plaintiff; Mr. M. Chambers, Q.C., Lush, Q.C., appeared for the defendants. Mr. JAMES, in openicg the case, said plaintiff had for more than twenty years cs the business of a dealer in curiosities and ties, and he brought the present action with to vindicate his character from a very serious tation that had been cast upon it by an article appeared in the d,fendants' journal, and charged him with defrauding the public counterfeit antiquities. The learned counsel stated that in the comse of last year a large of ancient relics were discovered in an excar Shadwell, and these relics, a great portion turned out to be what were known among ries as " pilgrims' signs," he should show r doubt were perfectly genuine, and came possession of the plaintiff as such, and be p. them a considerable sum of money. The article was the subject of the present action appeare , ' Atheneum of the Bth of May, in the present and it purported to be a report of what took - one of the meetings of the British Arent,. Association, and it represented that the proceedings concluded by Mr. Cumming reading a paper subject of the " Recent Forgeries in Lead • that paper he stated that certain leaden which were represented to be pilgrims' sigttt have been discovered in the course of an e: upon the batiks of the Thames, for the pi making a new dock, were forgeries, and Cumming had himself examined 800 of tbt Mr. Planche had also seen a great many, the number of these forged articles in the . was supposed to be upoo. The paper went state that these articles were entirely court and that the metal of which they were appeared to have been rubbed with some stroll: to give it the appearance of age, and that ' been smeared with river mud. The paper. by expressing a regret that the law woe punish parties who were guilty of such a di fraud. Mr. GEORGE EASTWOOD, the plaintiff, examined.—He deposed that he had earned business of a dealer in curiosities and ant between twenty and twenty-five years, believed be was one of the best judges things in the United Kingdom. In June, 185 Edwards, whom he knew as a dealer in ant called upon him, and showed him forty articles of lead, which comprised different subjects, known amocg antiquaries as pilgrims' sign examined them, and made up his mind mime that they were genuine articles of antiquity, a purchased them, and afterwards he purchased articles of the same kind of him, in number . ing to 1,100. He was told that they had been the Britis,l A ustrthin the advice of here r ",, more agi tti het not b ee , )se repyesea• dey's tocsi n vote for the our struggl e . ins for eus. deuce in 0 u r T. II to e We s o invite y our confident It e command rect letters tl, granting ,ingdom of Sir (Ai n the East iy lawfully aron Clyde, ited King- e conferred ening from /eneral of :S AND laintitf is a are the pro- f the action il published The deka. was alleged wkins were ~ and Mr. id that the i carried on lnd antiqui- with a view •ious impa- •ticle which and which c by selling unset then .ge number :taxation at n of which ng antiquit- y without a ie into the he paid for article that iared in the resent year, iok place at ;liteulogical oroceedings excavationp i, : r id ;' s a o ra iln t n nicd d i l t e h tso n: purpose of d that Mr. them, that , and that aggregate went on to !outterfeit, composed strong acid t they had • concluded would not disgraceful was then riled on the antiquities and he s of such 1857, a Mr. antiquities , :ides made and were igns. He nme distely ty, and be aced other er amount- leen found