The Press. — London, England, 1855-06-16 00:00:00

17 JUNE 16, 1855. income tax, and less pleasures, people are in no mood for lively satire on painful subjects ; and a vast portion of the public, without any party views, turns with interest to see what will come of the movement. The mere fact of this new agitation being started is a remarkable thing in itself. It can not be said that the persons who got it up are professional frequenters of the platform. In their proceedings at the first City meeting and elsewhere, we noticed that there was too large an influx of Irish agitators " M.P.s." Veteran dealers in Irish " nationality" would soon give a bad name to the movement. It would soon fail in England, if it was believed to be a combination of noisy place-hunters, trying to make themselves formidable by vituperative vehemence and insulting per sonalities upon unpopular members of the nobility. But the organisers of the movement seem to have put themselves on their guard. They appear desirous of making the movement a bona fide expression of the feelings generally prevalent amongst the middle classes, and apparently they do not intend to allow itine rant chapmen and rhetorical pedlars to find in their society an advertising-van for bringing their flashy declamation into a good market. The tone of the meeting on Wednesday was upon the whole cautious, and regulated with a desire not to be brought into scrapes. Men accustomed to business—Mr. MORLEY, Mr. W. S. LINDSAY, Mr. TrrE—delivered plain, com mon-sense exposures of the various flagrant blunders committed, and it cannot be denied that these speeches will be read far and wide, though neither eloquent nor brilliant. The reception accorded to Mr. LAYARD appeared to show that the great concourse of persons for gave him his inaccuracies for having spoken mt " against the imbecility and wrong-doings "of the Ministry." They recollected how, during the perpetration of flagrant jobs, and the reckless sacrifices of hecatombs in the Crimea, Sir BENJAMIN 'HALL thought of his place and the " Coalition." They recollected how vehement this Cato of Marylebone hal been about Irish landlords and official scandals in other days, and how silent he was during the Duke of NEWCASTLE'S rule at the War-office. When they cheered Mr. LAYARD they thought also of the pertinacity with which Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTH harped upon Colonial Reform, and how enthusiastic had been his speculative philanthrophy. But they remembered that the Solon of Southwark was silent while thirteen thousand British troops were dying for want of food and clothes; and they thought alno how Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE was reduced to taciturnity ; and it was there fore no wonder that they cheered Mr. LAYARD, who has kept his constituency without flagrantly violating the promises which he made to it. But, without regarding the dramatis persona of the " Administrative Reform Society," we readily admit that there is much significance in the new movement. The object of the society is more abstract than is the case with democratic asbociations. It does not come home to the pocket like a " cheap-loaf" cry, nor does it excite the passions like a purely polemical principle. An agitation made on such a subject, and in such a style, implies that the powers of government are in danger of passing into the hands of the people out of doors. Nor can we wonder at such a revolu tion taking place. The Liberals and Re formers decide on supporting a Government which they declare to be incompetent and effete. In private they express themselves contemptuously to the Cabinet, but they vote for it in the House of Commons. They cry " Hush" to every exposer of a wrong, and cheer the Treasury speakers. The Govern ment has found the art of silencing them, but they have not found the means of silencing the people. For, after all, there is such a thing as " a public " in England. A faction may be cajoled, but the people are not to be bribed. Clamorous place•hunters may be subsidised, but a nation cannot be rendered mute by Mr. Herres. Jobs in public offices cannot atone for less profits, more taxes, and little laurels. Popular discontent will burst forth, though the voracious maw of the Whig oligarchy be satisfied. In this way, by giving free vent to the popular indignation, the Ad- THE PRESS. ministrative Reform Society can effect much, but it is evident that its leaders have some thing to learn themselves. Their speaking wunts electricity, and agitators must be attractive. Newspapers with their variety and sharp comments are formidable rivals to ineffective public performers. We could wish for more viridu vie in the eloquence of the new society; but, doubtless, it will improve when it has got decisively into action. DESIGNS OF RUSSIA UPON INDIA. IN Lord WELLESLEY'S time nothing was thought more possible than an invasion of our Indian empire by a European power operating from the north-west frontier, and no precautions were overlooked accordingly which tended to guard against the danger in the remotest degree. It is not too much to say that under Mr. Pirr's Government au invasion of India was scarcely less dreaded than an invasion of England itself. The reason of this was obvious. In the case of an invasion of England the danger might be nearer home, but it was far less difficult to cope with. To resist an invasion of England the whole male population of the three kingdoms would have turned out to a man ; but we had nothing to rely on in India but a handful of Europeans and a merce nary army drawn from the natives them selves. It is almost needless to observe that in the view which Lord WELLESLEY and Mr. PITT took of our position there they showed their usual sagacity; but with other times have come other counsels, and the modern school of politicians are apt to view the idea of an invasion of India as a visionary one. We do not ourselves share in this opinion. We think that the prevalence of it is calculated to beget a false security, fraught with great future danger to the empire, and we shall en deavour, therefore, as far as lies in our power, to correct it. The late Times correspondence from the Crimea has shown that at the outset of the present war Russia had already told off some regiments for service against us in India. This correspondence, however, contained no news for us, because we were aware that as far back as the autumn of 1853 the Emperor NICHOLAS had been putting into a state of the greatest activity the departments through which both military and diplomatic operations were to be organised against us ia that quarter. Indeed, those who have lived hitherto in a happy confidence in the honourable and pacific intentions of Russia would be sur prised to know the extent to which prepara tions have been continuously made by her for an eventual attack on our Eastern empire. Detailed plans for the invasion of India have been for a considerable time past lodged in the military archives of St. Petersburg; and the history of India, and the social and politi cal position of every native State, whether actual or absorbed, have long been the subject of peculiar attention and study there, as have been the feelings of the people throughout that empire. The Persian language has been sedulously cultivated, as also has the Hindos tanee, the root of which, the Sanscrit, bears a great affinity to Russian, and makes the acquisition of it by Russians comparatively easy. Everything worthy of note that trans• pires in India is habitually reported to the Russian Government by its employes, whose precis of the Indian intelligence that comes by each mail is of the exactest kind, going into the minutest possible details. We have con versed with a Russian holding a very subor dinate position in the diplomatic line whose knowledge of Indian matters was much more intimate than that of most of our officers who have spent their lives there, though ho had never even set foot in the country. Not a change of station in a regiment, battery, or detachment takes place in India without its being remarked. We have known another Russian, a consulate attaché, correct art Indian officer as to the troops at a station the latter had but lately come from. A battery of artillery had since been relieved which the Englishman was not aware of, but which the Russian had carefully noted down. It is need less to add, to those who know the Russian system, that every Russian subject who travels iu India keeps a journal of his observa tions, which is transmitted at the conclusion of his tour to the Foreign-office at St. Peters burg for that Government's information. Russians appear to have a peculiar talent for this species of espionage, a talent which the Emperor NICHOLAS particularly encouraged ; and in respect to no country has it been more freely exercised than in respect to British India. While such have been Russia's intellectual preparations, if we may so call them, fur an eventual invasion of India, her material pre parations have not been less active. The Caspian has been made Oussian lake, and has been admirably selected as a basis for her operations against us. The state of Sebastopol shows the amount of military stores which Russia can collect together to further• any ob ject she has in view ; and we believe that not less extensive stores are collected on the Caspian to be brought eventually against British India. The Caspian is said by some to he too fur off us to be dangerous, but it is nearer our frontier station than is Calcutta. Kokan, indeed, the province to which Russia has now advanced her arms. is not farther from Peshawur than is Allahabad, our central Indian station : it happens ominously to be the country from which BASER started when he invaded and conquered India. There is no thing between it and India but the outlying provinces of Persia, and Herat, and Candahar, none of which are friendly to us, if indeed they be not actually hostile. We do think under these circumstances that the time has now arrived when we must bring this constant aggression of Russia on the States intervening between it and cur Indian empire to a termination. While Russia is pressed as she is now at home, she is powerless to carry out her designs on India, and the ob• ject of this country must be to make her innocuous to us after peace shall have been made. It would he a very false policy to place limits on her power of aggression on Turkey without at the same time placing limits on her power of aggression on States there her conquests would be quite as dangerous to us. The curbing her in Europe is not more neces sary to our existence as a European power than the curbing her in Asia to our existence as an Asiatic power. Conditions of peace which shall effectually restrain her within her rightful limits in Asia as well as in Europe are essential to any satisfactory settlement of the present Eastern question. They are, moreover, condi• tions entirely within the right of one sovereign State to demand from another; they are con ditions to which Russia could not refuse to accede without showing that her pretended pacific intentions were a sham ; they are conditions of which the enforcement would raise our military prestige to the highest point throughout all the warlike States of Asia ; and, finally, they are conditions which would afford a permanent security to our Eastern empire, and relieve our Indian exchequer of the heavy charges which the dubious conduct of Russia has for so many years past been the principal cause of our incurring. THE PROGRESS OF THE SEIGE. SELDOM in the annals of history has any nation experienced so rapid and continuous a succes sion of triumphs as those which within the last three weeks have attended the arms of the allies. Scarcely a day has passed without some success. If Sebastopol could boast no new achievement, immense stores had been captured in the Sea of Azoff; and if announce ments from Admiral LYONS were wanting, great events had happened on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. The latest victories are the most important. Last week we had accounts from the Sea of Azoff that Kertch, Jenitchi, and Berdianski, had been taken or destroyed, and in them the provisions which the Russians had already conveyed thus far for the use of their troops. This week we learn the destruction of the large depots of