The Press. — London, England, 1855-09-15 00:00:00

SEPT. 15, 1855. have tottered, some statesmen been ruined, and an appetite for strong excitements has seized upon large portions of the popular classes,—in a word, events have occurred to show that the age of economy has passed away. In that one reflection there is deep room for thought. For some time to come there is danger that our national policy will be seriously influenced by the sentiments that spring from the love of strife. Even WALPOLE —the Minister of Peace—found the passion for war too strong for his resistance. FREDERICK of Prussia was a favorite on our signboards. The defeat of our arms in America caused anguish to the public mind, while our suc cesses in the Indies swelled the English heart with a prodigious sense of triumph. The tremendous struggle in the Crimea will pro bably cause a similar current of feeling. Yet, though we are justly proud of the heroism of our countrymen, there is in the history of the last year much to make us ponder deeply over our position. It has turned out that it took at least five times the number of men calculated on for taking Sebastopol. That we underrated the resources of our foe is apparent from the tre mendous resistance which was offered to us. The magnitude of that resistance, of course, enhances the glory of our triumph ; hut still the fact is plain that we were deceived as to the terrible nature of the struggle. Weaker nations would have succumbed, but it is the English spirit to wrestle with obstacles. Our reliance on the dauntless energy of our race is apt, however, to make us overlook diffi culties. We were certainly rash in making war with a peace establishment. Precious lives were sacrificed by wholesale to our official blunders. Numbers allowed themselves to bo duped by insincere promoters of a cry for Administrative Reform ; and our public service still awaits the hand of a bold and comprehensive statemanship. If our age is to be aggressive, and if the voice of the country be loudly raised for prolonged war, it behoves us to prepare for a pressure on our energies, and not to imitate the rash tone of over-confidence in our military system which caused such evils last winter. It is impossible to overlook the immense advantages of the alliance with France; and for its perfect consolidation the country has to thank the last Conservative Cabinet The value of that alliance cannot be over estimated. The head of the dynasty of BONAPARTE has been enthusiastically hailed in the crowded streets of London, while the Queen of England's progress through Paris was a glorious triumph. Even politicians opposed to our principles admit that the statesmanship which brought about that alliance deserves the warmest praise. But though we have triumphed at the Alma and Inkermann, and in the bloody bastions of Sebastopol, it is painful to think that the British navy has disappointed the national expectations. Our huge fleets have performed pigmy deeds. Our admirals have put in special pleas against pef il, and have readily demurred to appearances of danger. Our power has to some extent been checked, either by mis management, or imbecility, or divided counsels. Hence the expenses of the war have been vastly increased, and its continuance pro longed. Thus, on a calm retrospect, the gravity and uncertainty of war aro forcibly realised to the mind. We have been taught by expe rience how serious is the struggle in which we have entered, and we receive a strong lesson as to the measured policy, firm resolve, and attainable objects by which our future course should be regulated. OWNERSHIP OF INDIAN LAND. LORD STANLEY, in an excellent speech delivered the other day at the Manchester and Liverpool Agricultural Society Meeting, made the follow ing observations regarding the duties of pro prietors of land in England :—" I do not " hesitate (said his Lordship) to say that I feel " conscientiously that any man, whether he " knows it or not, is a wrongdoer as regards THE PRESS. " the community who retains in his own " hands or in his ownership land which he has " not the power to improve and which he has " the power to sell. The community has a " right to say to every one—either use your " property profitably yourself, or let others use " it for you." If this remark be true, as it undoubtedly is, of highly cultivated England, how much more true must it be of the neglected lands of our Eastern empire? These are, for the most part, composed of soils of unrivalled fertility —fifty-six bushels to the acre being not an un common crop on irrigated and newly-turned up land—yet the fairest portions have long since gone out of cultivation, simply from our neglect to maintain the means of irrigation and our ceasing to make the annual advances for• seed, &c., to the cultivators, which, from time immemorial, it has been the business of the Government in India, or of its grantee the jaghiredar, or its lessee the zemindar, to supply. Under the native Governments which preceded us these advances were made with great regularity ; but, excepting those parts of Bengal in which Lord CORNWALLIS granted leases for ever, our plan has been to do away with the zemindars as well as the jaghiredars altogether, while we refuse to perform our selves one of the most essential of their• funs tions,—viz., supplying the capital, without which it is impossible in any country to obtain adequate returns from land. The consequence is that while those permanently leased districts have increased so enormously in value as to give vast rentals to the zemin dars, which are daily more and more exciting our Government's cupidity, the rental of the rest of India has greatly decreased, and with all our annexations and resumptions it is found that our land revenue is in a state of hopeless decline. Matters have now arrived at that point which leaves but one of two courses open to us if we would avoid becoming bankrupt—either to cc mtnence at once making the necessary improvements throughout the whole territory, or to do as Lord STANLEY ad vises in regard to similarl)• circumstanced property in England—to sell the land. The land in possession of the Company may be estimated after the recent annexations at about five hundred and fifty million English acres. A very large proportion of this is capable of cultivation, most of the jungles bearing traces of having been under plough at sometime, and many of them having been allowed to run to waste within the memory of man. At the same time, the cultivation of those parts of India which are still tilled is conducted in the cheapest and most slovenly manner by which a crop can be raised—a necessary consequence of rackrent tenures, and of the impoverished state in which the ryots at present stand. Now, for the Government to attempt to supply the enormous capital which would be requisite for the restoration of agriculture over so vast an area is a thing clearly out of the question. Its money would only be wasted in mismanagement, or swal• lowed up in the peculation of subordinates, even if it had at its disposal the funds requi site for the attempt. But the Company is not in a position to lay out ten millions a year for the next twenty years in agricultural improve ments, and it may be safely affirmed that it never will be. Even if it were so, the money in the hands to which the expenditure of it must from necessity be confided would be sure to be almost wholly thrown away. The only alternative left us, therefore, is to commit the improvement of India to the proper parties—the natives themselves ; and this we can only do by giving due encou ragement to their investment of capital in land by means of long leases or sales. For the ordinary cultivator a lease might be suffi cient, but the wealthier capitalist would only invest his accumulations in land on condition of obtaining the freehold from the Company by sale. If this were possible, w•e know that a very large amount of money would be so in vested to the equal benefit of the capitalist, the cultivator, the Company, and the community at large. Rich natives would not leave their money in four and five per cent. Government 871 paper, if they could, as they might then easily do, make so very much more by the purchase and improvement of land. Nor are the natives insensible to the pleasures and honours of proprietorship when not rendered nugatory by the perpetual interference of the collector and the extortions of his peons. Enact a law, allowing every peasant in India to become the proprietor in fee-simple of his holding on the payment to the collector, either in cash down or by instalments, of from twenty to twenty-five years' purchase of the rental, as indicated by the selling rates of the Government funds in India for the day ; let every village community be come the absolute proprietors of their village lands on the same terms, if they should wish it ; put waste and deserted lands, of which there is neither owner nor occupier, up to auction to be sold, subject to such reserved price as may be fixed by Government to the highest bidder ; and grant leases of their laud to those who cannot afford at present to pur chase, with a power of conversion into freehold whenever they may he in a position to pay the money—do this, and leave the rest to the natives themselves, and India will be soon changed into that garden for which nature in its luxuriant bounty intended it, and which nothing prevents its now being but the short sightedness of those who hold its destiny in their hands. Directors look upon their five hundred and fifty millions of acres as a mine of wealth too valuable to be shared with those most interested in the cultivation of them, forgetting that even a gold or a diamond mine would be profitless in the hands of men who would not hold out any inducement to capi talists to work it, while they had not the means of working it properly themselves. If Lord STANLEY'S maxim be good for England it is doubly so for India, and ought to be framed and hung up in letters of gold for constant contemplation by all who have at heart the perpetuation of our sovereignty, and the cause of advancement and happiness, iu our Eastern empire. THE LIBERALS AND THE WAR. QUESTIONS of foreign policy have been always the rocks on which the Liberals have split. The fact is not only curious htt important, and it demands some consideratia ; for there is every likelihood that in the next session of Parliament there will be a serious Ministerial crisis. After the American war, the Shel burne and Foxite Whigs quarrelled about the terms of what was called " The Treaty of Paris," in 1783, and political parties became disor ganised by the subsequent Coalition. In 1791, when Mr. Pres Cabinet was waning in influence, its existence was prolonged by the schism in the Whigs, upon the progress of the French Revolution. During the Peninsular war, in spite of the painful Court scandals, and the personal struggles between Lord CASTLEREAGH and Mr. CANNING, the Ministries of Mr. PERCEVAL and Lord LIVERPOOL were enabled to surmount extraordinary difficulties, by the standing differences of opinion between the Opposition parties of the Granvilles and the Greys, disunited from each other upon the subject of foreign policy. In 1830, when the Reform Bill Cabinet was formed, the main question of foreign affairs at that time—the recognition of the House of Orleans—had been settled by the previous Cabinet of the Duke of WELLINGTON. Yet it is well worthy of notice, that when in subsequent years the Whigs prospered with a cry of " Justice to Ireland," the Melbourne Ministry was in constant peril from the policy pursued by Lord l'AurignsToN in Spain and elsewhere. Nor is there any fact on this subject more worthy of notice than that when Sir ROBERT PEEL resigned in 1846, on the corn question, Lord JOHN Rus- SELL and the Whigs were prevented from forming a Cabinet, and carrying their own economical policy, on account of the objet• I