The Press. — London, England, 1855-04-28 00:00:00

APRIL 28, 1855. being intrusted up to the last with the seals of the War-office. It would take columns of our space to show how his answers eliminate himself and his colleagues. The style of his whole evidence in its tone and admissions is faithfully shown in the following " question " and " answer" on Monday. On the important point of the want of a road from Balaklava. his Grace was questioned— When did you receive the first information of the break up of the road ?—Rather of a road not having been made. Ido not recollect the exact date. It was one of those facts which grew upon one as events followed each other. One might suppose that his Grace, whose art ful apologists have spoken in a leading journal on Wednesday of " his fair memory, and some " power of relation," might have recollected the date of a fearful crisis in the campaign. But his Grace supplies the key for under standing not only the entire of his evidence, but also the greater part of the blunders com mitted in the entire campaign. As we stated last summer, there was no military mind of any kind in the Cabinet. A red-tapist politician of the " Taper and Tad pole" school was placed in the War-office, and all our military affairs were entrusted to his in experienced powers. In every other Cabinet, as we showed, there was always a military man, except in that of the Aberdeen-Russell Coalition. If Lord HARDINGE was fit for the office of Commander-in-Chief, most certainly he should have been in the Cabinet, and the Duke of NEWCASTLE should have insisted upon it. At the commencement of the war, after a long peace, military experience was a grand requisite in the Ministry, and his Grace ought emphatically to have urged the necessity of Lord HARDINGE being placed in the Ministry. But his Grace's disastrous love of power intoxicated his mind, and his colleagues scan dalously acceeded to his being placed alone in the most important office of the State. His extraordinary post —so unsuited to his powers, like everything in the campaign— " grew out of the circumstances" of a coalition that violated all the principles of English politics. Terribly has his Grace been punished for his temerity, and wofully has the best blood of England paid the penalty of the servile acquiescence of the Whigs in con ceding all the offices of the State to a clique of ambiguous politicians, who sickened the people with the dreadful consequences of their preposterously-lauded " administrative abili ties." No professed adversary could have more gravely impeached their misconduct than the confessions of the Duke of NEW CASTLE. His deeds destroyed his Grace's re putation, and his words have incriminated all his colleagues. TORTURE BY OUR OFFICIALS IN INDIA. IN an article published by us last year we commented in terms of just severity on the fact, then recently established, that torture was frequently resorted to in the collection of the revenue and for the purpose of extorting confessions and evidence in criminal cases in India. We further remarked on the dishonesty of the Directors in taking advantage of the general unacquaintauce with Indian subjects prevailing in the House of Commons to meet the charge with a direct denial, or, in other words, in setting up a defence which was utterly untrue. The accusation then made must now be considered as proven ; for we suppose that those who have hitherto shown the firmest faith in the humanity and truthfulness of the present rulers of India will admit the force of the evidence afforded by the following letter to the Chief Secretary to Government at Madras from the Chief Magistrate and Superintendent of Police at that Presidency. It is dated the 19th January last, and runs as follows: Sir,—Parties are flocking to the Presidency from all parts of the Mofussil (interior) to make their representa tions before the committee appointed to investigate alleged cases of torture. There are at present about three hun dred persons in attendance, and the number is increasing daily. Some of these individuals have now been upwards of twenty days waiting for their turn to be heard. My avocations in the two offices of police and small-cause courts require my daily attendance, and I hare been able THE PRESS. to devote only two days a week to the work of the com mittee, on which two days members meet, for they also have not been able to spare more time from their respec tive official duties. I have the honour to request that the Right Hon. the Governor in council will be pleased to relieve me from my duty in the small-cause court till the committee can close proceedings, which we hope may be in March. I beg to add that it may be of some impor tance that persons coming to the Presidency for the pur pose of stating grievances or supposed grievances should not be kept waiting, for in several instances we have found that parties have gone away under circumstances which lead us to the belief that they have been induced to with draw under promises.—l have the honour to be, &c., &c. We have given this letter in extenso lest we should be charged by any one with unfairness in the selection of particular passages ; and we think that the result of the publication will be a conviction in the minds of all that torture must have been so extensively resorted to in the Madras Presidency as to make ignorance of its use on the part of any one impossible ; and that thus, while the East India Company have been deluding the people of England with tales regarding their humanity and love for the natives, and the kindness and paternal character of their rule, they have been all along conniving at the perpetration of atrocities by wholesale for the purpose of screwing out the revenue from the people, and in their criminal courts carrying on that reign of terror under which neither the property nor the life of any native is safe who dares to brave a collector or one of his subordinates in India. It may be thought, to be sure, that this is only true of Madras, but it will be found equally true both of Bombay and Bengal if similar committees be only there appointed. The public has hitherto been apathetic on the subject of Indian grievances, but we will do it the justice to believe that these impor tant disclosures will not be without their effect. The nation which paid twenty millions to abolish slavery in the West Indies, and which points with horror to the treatment of the coloured races in America, will not surely be guilty of the infamy of allowing the destinies of the natives of India to be any longer committed to the hands of those who are thus proved so flagrantly to have betrayed their trust. As long as charges against the Directors were confined to mere assertion, we are not surprised that many people should have hesitated to condemn them in the face of the solemn and seemingly truthful denials on their parts by which such charges were met ; but now that a total disregard alike of the first dictates of humanity and of truth has been established against them, the sin would be the nation's own if it did not check that exercise of their power which they have so shamefully abused. As far as the people of India are concerned nothing could have been more fortunate for them than the establishment of the torture committee by Lord HARRIS. It was appointed for the purpose of clearing the Company of a most horror-striking charge by a Governor too little acquainted with India to give for an in stant credence to it ; but the result has been the conviction of those whom it was intended to clear, and the clearing of those whom it was intended to condemn. In point of fact, India owes much, if not all, of the misrule to which it is subjected to the apathy or incredu lity of the British people. The denunciators of the Company are almost invariably dis believed; whereas, in point of fact, there are few instances in which, as in this instance of torture, they do not rather understate the case against the Company than overstate it. Indeed, the overstating it would, in most in stances, be absolutely impossible. That truth is stranger than fiction may be safely predi cated of India. Its Government has hitherto escaped inquiry in the same manner that the recent war mismanagement so nearly escaped it—official power overbearing those who have sought to arouse the public. But whenever England shall begin to care half as deeply for its millions of subjects in India as it does for its thousands of brethren before Sebastopol, it will learn that apathy, and favoritism, and routine, and neglect, and mismanagement, have not caused more human misery in the Crimea than have been inflicted through simi lar causes by the Company in almost every year of its possession of the Government of India. OUR MILITARY STATE. THE military position of England at this time is a subject fur serious consideration. Our forces are manifestly inadequate to the struggle in which we have engaged. We have gone to war with Russia, the greatest military Power in the world, in order to prevent her from becoming greater ; because her further increase would be fatal to the liberties of Europe. She threatens to absorb Turkey, to encircle Austria, to reduce to vassalage Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia, and to force the Continent to a league against England and France. Jn the East she me naces Persia, aims at the occupation of Asia Minor, and looks forward to the attack of our Indian empire. It is necessary to check her encroachments and reduce her strength. We have undertaken her humiliation. We have pledged ourselves to destroy her fleets, to raze her fortresses, to diminish her resources, and to render her harmless for the future. It was a fearful task at the commencement of the war; it is more so now. The peace establishment of Russia was 600,000 men, while we had only 102,000. The dispropor tion has immensely increased. Levy after levy has been made until her army has almost doubled its numbers. Since the death of NLCROLAS she has called into existence a fresh force of 150,000 men. Every day she adds to her strength, expands her dimensions, and becomes more colossal. What have we done ? Diminutive as our forces were, are they not less diminutive in com parison now? Have we made up for our pre vious apathy by our present exertions ? Have we compensated for the smallness of our per manent establishment by the vastness of our additions ? Have we raised fresh armies for the field, and organised an immense reserve at home ? Have we held out inducements to procure an unlimited supply of recruits, and to attract the flower of the population to our ranks ? We fear not. Our energy has been so small, our augmentations so ill-conceived and so miserably carried out, that we almost seem to have stood still. We fixed our standard low, but even of it we have miser ably fallen short. We asked last spring for an increase of 40,000 men, and this year we de manded 36,000 more. Together we ought to have had 76,000 additional British troops. We have obtained only 49,000. And these are not mature and hardy men, but boys who have not attained their full strength, and are quite unfit for the hardships of a campaign Little as we have effected, we have already exhausted our resources. Nor is the Militia in a better state. Instead of 122,000 rank and file, it scarcely numbers 50,000. Instead of well disciplined men, ready to volunteer and capa ble of the duties of active service, it is com posed of raw recruits. All the best men have been sent home, and the regiments are in a state of disorganisation. We cannot maintain our expeditionary army at its full strength, and Lord RAGLAN is crippled by want of men. It is true that we have an ally, whose re sources have been developed with greater energy. But are we to rely for victory on him ? Shall we not take our due share in the conflict ? How will it consort with the dig nity of England to bear an insignificant part in the conduct of the war, attendants of triumphs not our own ? Will such an in feriority be honourable? Will it be safe? Our weakness was not unavoidable. Due foresight and energy would have placed us in a far better position. In I Hl3 we had 750,000 men in arms, when our population was little more than half its present r Why - we now so lamentably behini is want of men, for the nat populous. It is not want nation was never so enth) want of resources, for the wealthy, or so bountiful. with the nation, but with want is a want of capacity, lected the warnings of 18t sided over the plans of WM t number. Why are kindhand? It is not cation was never so tt of spirit, for the ;husiastic. It is not nation was never so The fault is not h the rulers. The y. Incapacity neg- -353 ; incapacity pre- ' 1854; incapacity 391 -\. \ \