The Press. — London, England, 1856-12-13 00:00:00

1180 CorrtspnaDtatt. ELECTORAL INEQUALITIES. Letter VI. TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir,—As I promised in my last, I now pro ceed to show that the present electoral ad justment engenders bureaucracy, and tends to corrupt the press. Ministers, when supported by a party who by the Constitution have a fixed preponder ance in the electoral body, and by conse quence in the House of Commons, may dis pense with persuasion, for they have in their pockets the votes of a majority large enough to overpower the Opposition, and to provide against all vicissitudes of opinion among those of their own party who aspire to indcpend• ence. In such a state of things the natural indolence of mankind, fostered by security, exerts its influence, and all that can be ex pected—at least all that is necessary—is, that Ministers should give a concise statement of the nature of the measure they wish to carry. For appearance sake there may be the form of debate, some of their young supporters may take the unnecessary trouble of arguing the question and meeting the objections of an im potent Opposition ; but the measure is de facto carried so soon as it is tabled, and, but for the necessity of some constitutional forms, was essentially enacted by the member of the Government by whom it was prepared. Sometimes, indeed, such a Ministry run their heads against a wall, by introducing a mea sure of more than ordinary stupidity, or in volving a principle of spoliation-betises which a party in secure possession of power has a fatal tendency to commit ; but it costs them little to withdraw the measure or even to assist in outvoting it. They look a little foolish at their mistake, and have to pocket a few compliments from the minority, but, un less they are in the Deus volt perdere cycle, and go on blundering perpetually, their real power remains unshaken. Now, we may say that in a House of Com mons so constituted there is freedom of dis cussion, a►►d we may call it a deliberative body ; but the freedom of discussion is only the privilege of saying what will have no effect on the audience, and there is as much of the reality of deliberation in a Cathedral Chapter when it receives the Queen's conge (retire. Ministers, with such a Parliament, govern the country quietly in their offices, appealing to it only as a form necessary to give their measures the force of law, in the same way as the Great Seal is necessary to be aff►xed to charters. Such a Government, in short, so far as regards the House of Commons, with one difference, is a pure bureaucracy, resembling the Govern• ineut of Austria—that is to say, a Government of Jacks in-office. The one difference which prevents the com pleteness of the parallel is that freedom of discussion which we have already said is of no avail with the audience to whom it is ad dressed, but it is potent beyond the walls of the House of Commons. Once spoken, the " debates " become public property—no longer simply the speech of the honourable member, but the text for the leading article of the morning papers, and the topic of unlimited discussion and of fearless and remorseless criticism by the country in general. Thus the liberty of speech, transformed into the liberty of the press, constitutes the safety-valve against a pure bureaucracy, pre venting English statesmen from ever degene rating into thorough Jacks-of-office But the valve is not in good working order ; it some how turns slowly and with difficulty to allow the passage of opposition opinions, and opens with a will to spread abroad those of the party in power. The Reform Bill rusted the hinge in (ne direction and oiled it in the other. Newspaper editors are human beings (we be lieve this to be a fact, though we have met those who doubt it). Being human, they prefer to float with the current of success rather than lag behind in the eddies of adversity. Like other people, they are inclined to worship fortune, and to suppose that right is on the side of might; and it is only a few bilious men among them who venture to doubt the virtue of those in power, or believe the good, inten- i& THE PRESS. tions of the minority. True, the mincrity has its own organs, who, having no existence except as such, must support their cause through good and evil report; but the pro tracted exclusion of their party from power, the repeated defeats it undergoes, and the apparent unassailability of the opposite party, has a depressing effect upon them. The old stagers seeing the impotence of all their at tempts to win back the nation to its an3ient faith, begin to think there is something super natural in the business—they look upon politics as a congeries of special providences. Eng land, according to them, is always being punished for her sins—in particular for eman cipating the Catholics ar.d endowing May nooth ; and the most direful calamities are pro phesied, to the extreme astonishment of men with sound digestions. It is time these politi cal expletives should be discontinued, and that the Conservatives should learn the real reason of their exclusion from power, and direct their energies to provide a remedy. But " our goodnatured friend," the very candid Whig, will say,—Your case is hopeless on your own showing. You aver that you are in a minority, not only in the House of Com mons, but in the electoral body ; and yet it is in this House of Commons, chosen by this electoral body, that you must seek your remedy. which you say is to convert you from a minority into a majority. And you expect to accomplish this while your press, through which alone you can expect to persuade men to vote against their interest, has become hypochondriac and superstitious Why, the thing is simply impossible ; and you had better submit quietly to our supremacy, no matter how attained, than uselessly agitate the country. To which we reply,—Ml you say is quite true ; but we have an appeal even from the House of Commons. Whereupon our can did friend puzzles his constitutional head on the uestion whether the House of Lords or the Queen can legally interfere in such a case ; and just when he is about to knock us down with precedents and privileges of Parliament, we bewilder him still more by telling him calmly that our appeal lies neither to the Queen nor to the Lords, but to the genius of England. We appeal to FAIR FLAY. We come before her, and say all we ask is bare justice and no favour. We country people have not half the say in the government of the country which the town people have. We are eleven millions in England and Scotland, and we have only 189 members; whereas the town people are only eight millions, and yet return 336 members to Parliament. Whereupon the genius will turn to John Bull, to whom, as is well known, she has been long engaged, and declare, with a good round oath, that she never will be his if he does not give up his humbug; that he must either cease proclaiming himself the justest and most liberal of men, or else he must treat his tenants alike, and put the county consti tuencies exactly on a par with those of the towns. AND JOHN BULL WILL DO IT.—I am, &c., J. A. G. ADMINISTRATION OF BRITISH INDIA. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—Having read the first report of her Majesty's Commissioners appointed to consider the reform of the judicial establishments, judicial procedure, and laws of India, I beg to offer a few remarks on the minute of Mr. Macleod, one of the Commissioners, in which he objeets to the employment of the natives of India in the higher offices under the British Government. Mr. Macleod affirms that "the British empire in India is the domination of a single European race over a number of Asiatic races, but that it is, never theless, a blessing to India." I doubt much that the domination of Bntain has been a blessing to India hitherto., whatever it may be to India hereafter. It is true that, under the British rule, the lives and property of the natives of India are protected from foreign aggression, but it is equally true that, under the same rule, more natives die from starvation and the want of the common necessaries of life than used to fall before by the sword of foreign conquerors; and the mass of the people have little or no property left in their posse'.sion to be protected. It is also true that, under the British rule, torture is often resorted to for realising revenue from the poor culti vators of the soil ; and native manufactures of all kinds are fast disappearing. Had the rule of Britain SATURDAY, been a blessing to India, the evils I have men tioned would probably not have sprung up under it. Mr. Macleod observes that "the men who govern India are not a portion of the people of India, and that this circumstance, which at first sight may seem calculated to aggravate the evils commonly attendant on the rule of race over race, really removes them by setting the rulers free from the partial interests and pas-ions by which they would otherwise of necessity be swayed." Suppose France should conquer Britain, and send Frenchmen to govern it, assigning as a reason that Frenchmen, not being a portion of th e people of Britain, cannot be swayed by partial in. terests and passions, would Mr. Macleod admit the reason to be sound and just? I suspect he would not. Mr. Macleod, in one part of his minute, states that, " supposing even that a genuine native, considered one of themselves by the mass of the Hindoos, were placed on the bench of the proposed High Court, the Hindoos generally would not be pleased by the appointment, and the Mahomedans would decidedly dislike it;" and in another part of lila minute he asserts that "if the measure for opening unheard-of roads to the bench proposed for Bengal should not be brought into operation in any of the other Presiden cies, it would produce disappointment and discontent there, and probably not there only, but elsewhere, through the natural sympathies of men who belong to the same class." These two statements of Mr. Macleod are evidently inconsistent with each other. If the appointment of a native to the bench in Bengal is not likely to please the natives in general, the ex clusion of a native from the bench in any other Presidency is not likely to cause disappointment and discontent amongst them. Mr. Macleod alleges that " when the barrier which fences off men not of the close Civil Service from the offices appropriated to that body was broken down, natives would have no chance of success in the stru2gle for the places thrown open ; that they would have no chance even of keeping what they now have; that it is by the present system, and especially by the instramentality of the Civil Service, that they are protected, cherished, favored, and maintained in possession of a multitude of public offices; and that when that protection was removed, the energy of the Anglo-Saxon race would triumph over them and trample them under foot, leaving to them nothing that was worth taking from them." Mr. Macleod has strange notions of the abilities and character of the natives of India, and must have lived in their country when there were no English schools er col leges for their instruction, and when few natives could be found who could converse with him in English. I, however, have a much higher opinion of the intellectual and moral qualities of my country men than he has, and am happy to say that schools and colleges are now being established in India for their education. I have no doubt that when a university is also established in India, and the natives are allowed the same facilities for competing for civil appointments as are allowed to the English, they will nave no reason to fear or complain. The natives have not yet had a fair trial, the civil ap pointments being allowed to be competed for only in England, where very few natives are able to go. When they have a fair trial and fail, they will deserve to be trampled under foot. Mr. Macleod has inserted in his minute, in support of his opinion "that natives of India are more numerously employed in the public service under the British Government, and are better paid for their services than is commonly supposed," the following statement of natives of India employed in 1849, and of their salaries, converted into English money, at two shillings per Company's rupee :- 1 8 12 . 720 to 840 „ 68 60 . 300 to 480 „ 277 1,173 1,147 To show that the natives of India are numerously employed as public servants, and well paid for their services, Mr. Macleod should have inserted another statement, exhibiting the proportion which the num ber of natives employed in the public service bears to the population of their country, the proportion which the number of British subjects employed in the public service of Britain bears to the population of that country, and the proportion which the average salary of a native servant bears to the average salary of a European officer in India. Why Mr. Macleod did not give a statement of the proportions referred to may be easily guessed. Mr. Macleod also seems to be of opinion that a salary of 3601. a year to a native servant in Judie is more than equivalent to a salary of 5,0001. a year to an English civil servant in the same country. I can assure Mr. Macleod that lie is quite wrong in enter taining such an opinion ; that 360/., instead of being more than equivalent to 5,0001., are actually less