The Press. — London, England, 1855-11-03 00:00:00

NOVEMBER 3, 1855. rintees. A Government seldom interferes in such matters, either directly or indirectly, without importing an extravagance into the expenditure under which the best conceived operations fail to pay ; and Lord CANNING will do well to limit his assistance to the extent which would be accorded to the promoters of similar works at home. He should give all necessary facilities, and all reasonable powers, to the shareholders concerned; but the rest he should leave entirely to themselves. We believe that even under the present state of things money would be largely laid out in canals and roads if the Government would only grant the land on reasonable terms, and leave the proprietors unfettered as to their dealings with the public, and more especially as to the amount of their tolls; but, should the establishment of a landed proprietary through out India be facilitated in the manner that in a former article we have pointed out, then there can be no doubt that there would be found with out difficulty all the capital that the largest scheme of improvements could require. In India, as in England, the keenest in getting up canal and railroad companies would be those who had an eye not so much to traffic profits as to the doubling or trebling the value of their intersected lands. We could go on with an enumeration nearly endless of points requiring the new Governor- General's attention, but the more vital ones are those which in this and our two pre ceding articles we have named. There are, I besides, the salt tax and all its concomitant abuses. and the land customs and all the corruption and impediments to trale to which they give rise. There are the oppressive cir cumstances attending the Abkavee system, and the frauds on the Government by which they are habitually met; and there are the enormous evils of forced labour and compul sory tariffs. There is, moreover, a new diffi culty, which is becoming daily of more import ance, in the inadequacy of the circulation to meet the change in the whole rental of India to payments in cash from payments in kind. There is also the evil of which the Madras Torture Report exhibits the fruit—that of leav ing the collection of the revenue and the administration of justice in the same hands. These, like the rest, however, are points which for the present we must be content with merely naming; the details of such of them as we may have space for we shall hereafter dis cuss. Our object in the present and two pre ceding articles has been simply to sum up the more prominent measures regarding which the public u ill look for legislation at the bands of the new Governor-General, at the same time indicating the direction in which such legislation must tend. It is only as a true Conservative Reformer that his Lordship can prove himself a statesman worthy of the task assigned him—a real friend to Britain's best interests, and the benefactor and consolidator of our Eastern empire. WHO IS TO BE THE NEW COLONIAL SECRETARY? WHILE the public is being amused with absurd rumours of impossible Coalitions, it behoves them to beware lest under cover of these ridi culous clamours another Coalition be intended which shall be even a greater outrage on political morality than those suggested. The death of Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTH has opened one of the principal posts in the Government : is there no danger of its being filled in a manner little consonant with the convictions and anticipations of the people ? We shall not be deterred from sounding the alarm in time, because we may hereafter be charged by the men whose schemes we may have thwarted with having sounded it in vain. Let us suppose the case of a statesman who had long been popular with the nation whose destinies he had guided; let us suppose that during a long political career he had been credited with a variety of useful measures, and the possession of more than average patriotism ; let us further suppose that in process of time, by the inevitable necessity of things and the fickleness of humanity, his immediate followers and supporters had dwin- THE PRESS. died from his side, that an ungrateful people had upon this begun to question their former opinions, and foolishly to imagine that it was not less the leader than the party that was impotent. What, in such a case, should we expect to be the part of this illustrious states man ? Would it not be to bow to that popular voice to which he had so often professed obedience ? To retire with dignity from the service of his country, and, after one bold vindication of his conduct, to make no further efforts at sustaining a part of which his countrymen had judged him incapable? Would it be this, or would it be to virtually refuse submission to their will ? To lose no opportunity of embar rassing every Cabinet from which he was ex cluded—to grasp at the recovery of power with the eagerness of a child, and to shrink from no intrigue and no treachery in the pursuit of his darling object? Without deciding which would be the conduct of a highminded man and great statesman under these circumstances, let us go on to suppose that he had for a time regained his position, and been re instated in offices of the greatest trust and importance. Let us suppose, how ever, that, so far from vindicating himself, or giving the lie to the assertions of his enemies, he had so managed matters that to accuse him of the grossest incapacity had be come the highest charity ; that he had yielded to terms of peace which he was afterwards ashamed to confess, yet in vain stooped to conceal; that by this conduct he had die gusted our Allies, stultified his party, and damned himself ; that he had in consequence once more returned to obscurity, and that the nation at large had at length become con vinced of his real merits. Let us suppose all this to have occurred, and then that suddenly, without one word of warning, this same ex- Minister were lifted into one of the most im portant offices of State, and the destinies of millions of our subjects, fraught with difficul ties that require the clearest brain and the most vigorous honesty, committed to his sole charge. What might we expect to be the be haviour of a free people under such an un paralleled insult as this ? The friends of Lord Jona RUSSELL are enter taining a hope that a mantle may be thrown over his recent disgrace, by his readmission to the Cabinet of Lord PALMERSTON. It is well known that the Premier supported him origi nally, and only gave way at last upon compul sion. He is weak in Parliamentary support — still weaker in political principle. A vacancy has occurred by which he may secure some small accession of the former—it is not pro able that he will be actuated by any consi deration of the latter. Could a more favorable opportunity have occurred to the supporters of our late Plenipotentiary ? We think not. It may be worth while, therefore, before this new Bedford compact is in suspense, to glance back at the causes which forced Lord RUSSELL to withdraw from the Mi nistry amid a storm of public indignation. A reference to the debates in the House of Commons during the months of May, June, and July last—especially to those of the 24th of May and the 6th of July, is instructive. To those who attentively compare the separate statements de livered by his Lordship on these two occasions, three simple truths, emerging from a cloud of, verbiage, will be distinctly apparent. First, that Lord Join; RUSSELL accepted the Austrian proposals ; secondly, that when he found his colleagues would not assent to them, he con cealed that he had done so himself, and adopted the language of Moloch, though be continued but a Belial at heart ; and thirdly, that he actually reprobated the insincerity of Russia for refusing to limit her fleet in the Black Sea, while he had himself consented to treat on the basis of non-limitation. " Why should Russia hesitate to make peace " in order to have seventeen or eighteen men of-war at Sebastopol, unless she meditates " future aggression upon Turkey ?" says our sagacious Plenipotentiary on the 24th of May. But, notwithstanding the above declaration, we find from his speech on the ensuing Bth of July that he had assured Count Beet he would do his best to get the Austrian pro posals adopted by our Cabinet. Is not 1039 his downfall to be attributed less to an error of judgment than to the means he took for disguising it? Can any one doubt the extreme peril of intrusting power to one who scruples at no dissimulation in order to screen himself? How are we to redress the blunders which an honest and even capable Minister may sometimes commit, unless he is willing to tell the truth? How, in fine, is any Ministry to expect the confidence of the country if it retains members who so sadly abuse the privileges of official reticence ? Such an appointment as that of Lord JOHN RUSSELL to the Colonial•ofl'ice the country would never tolerate ; and the very possibility of it only shows the extremities to which Lord PALMERSTON is reduced, and sufficiently ac counts fur the unwillingness of any member of principle or statesmanlike ability to take part in his Administration. "217, STRAND," AND THE CONVICT BANKERS. TARING up the Red Book the other day, we lighted accidentally on " 217, Strand," with the names of " Strahan, Paul, and Bates," opposite to it. In the next edition of that more useful than entertaining " annual," a different address, in a more wholesome, but less fashionable place, will be given. We hap pened to be more struck with the change in their situation, as we some months since strolled through the suite of reception-rooms in the pri vate residence at " 217, Strand." What a respect able appearance of perfect " respectability ' was over the whole arrangement of those gentlemanlike apartments ! They were fur nished, not flashily or gaudily, but in an elegantly quiet style of chaste decoration. You ascended by a Portland-stone staircase to the lobby. To the right was a dining room, in which one could have been comfort able even in a November fog. At each side of its fireplace were two carved pieces of curious woodwork, with scriptural subjects, and richly framed oil-paintings hung upon the crimson walls. It was a capital snuggery for a cheerful company—not less than the Graces, or more than the Muses. Then who could have thought, on saunter ing through the other rooms, that they who dwelt therein would be condemned before the year was over to fourteen years transportation as convicts, and that their names would be classified henceforward in the dismal cata logue of criminal gentlefolk which numbers in its items those of Dr. DODD and HENRY FAUNTLEROY ? The whole place looked so conventionally regular, and so comfortably arranged, that none could have imagined that the spectre of crime was 111..-Arting an abode apparently filled by the household virtures. There was the nice old fashioned library, with its shelves loaded with classic tomes of his tory, bending beneath British essayists, with printed reams of admonitions on Prudence, and the long etcetera. in her train. A few new hooks were carelessly tossed in a corner, and " Dissuasions against Popery," and " Melvill's Sermons," were to be seen amongst them. Lying on a worktable was a large album, filled with water-coloured sketches from a female hand, of the various country seats where she had sojourned. That album, with its feminine autographs, and the dates of all the fair one's drawings, was also ticketed for sale. It stands recorded by the valet of Lady BI.ESSINOTON that at the auction of Gore-house, while all the bustling throng was chattering and staring, Mr. THACKERAY bad teals in his eyes. At " 217, Strand," the author of " Vanity Fair" would have found many a memorial of human nature which would have given him subjects for his peculiar style. We could not help remembering our obser vation of the fraudulent banker's former town abode, as we read Baron ALDERSON'S sen tenec of their punishment. Their case was an extraordinary one in all its phases, from first to last, and in no respect was it more singular than in the perfect confidence with which the convicts re lied u p on their. plea under " the disclosure " clause. The discus sion of that plea is too purely technical for • • ••••limimmomimimmillil 1