The Press. — London, England, 1856-05-17 00:00:00

458 day. It has alluded to the tendency of the House of Commons of late years " to become " a mere assembly of jobbing lawyers, and " men who seek a seat solely with a view to " individual interests ;—iti fact, of men who can " not afford to be independent " Unfortunately this is notoriously the ease. England is menaced with a Legislature powerfully swayed by speculators, by trading tribunes converted into senators, and by stipendiary represent*. tires. It is by a majority manufactured out of such course elements that the Whig oligar chy retains its rule. By means of some rotten iiarcitighs (like Peterborough. Caine, and such places), and by the territorial influence of soity civergrewa proprietary, the Whigs tan rittitter. of their own faction about seventy members. Many popular representatives do undoubtedly really represent some consider able constituencies ; but a still larger number are not " capitalists," nor " landed proprietors," nor " eminent merchants." They are men who hams got into the House of Commons in search of sotustliirg lucrative for themselves. They have notPthe trained habits, the public science, and the high ambition to reap his torical laurels, which characterise the profes• sional politicians, like BURKE, CANNING, SHERI DAN, HORS'ER, and ethers. There are amongst them "no ipromisa l ne young men," like the Macaulays and Charles Bullers of other days Crafty, not profound; bastling, not energetic; interested rather than, "ambitious," they are little more than trailers in,politics. Two luminaries of the past shed light on the perilous course which . England enters upon with a House of, Coraznons in which there is a " Liberal" patiy composed of mate •rials like that which we havealescribed. The wisest of ELIZABETH'S statesmen declared that England could never perish except by a House of Commons, , and -the penetrating MODITESQUIEII, who was as enthusiastic an ad mirer of' our Constitution as gaunt MOSTA LEMBERT, and a far more sagacious observer of the follies of mankind, said that the English Constitution would sink " whenever the Legis " lative power should become more aorrupt than " the Executive." Seeing what has passed be fore our eyes in the last three years, we might well tremble for " the future of England," if it should become a normal law in our modern politics to tremble before organised clamour, and to succumb to an anomalous force called " the Independent Liberal M.P.'s.". And " in dependent" they are—per antiphrasis. There is, beyond doubt, the certainty that the "Liberals" meditate a new movement in favour of what they will call " Reform." They intend to preserve their force by keeping up a factitious clamour, and Conservatives must be prepared to encounter their adversaries. Lord STANLEY, in his masterly speech at King's Lynn, alluded to the impropriety of a Minister keeping a measure of Reform impending over the country, for the purposes of a party. Such a policyrah much to be deprecated, and there can be no meal security against unscrupulous combiut}tiorrs k ,and revolutionary designs, ex cept in the firmness and vigilance of the Con servatives.l Nat let it be forgotten how much reason the Conservatives have for recollecting with pride their political course since the Re form Bill. If th ere had been no Conservative party, the country would have been surren dered to the d‘tiigns of those " who" (in Lord DERBY'S warning words in 1834) " wished to " set up a naked American Democracy in Eng " land.' The Ballot has been successfully op posed only by the votes of the Conservatives. The Church of England has been preserved from " Appropriation Clauses" by their energy and power. " Reform of the House of Lords " and levelling revolution was stopped fifteen years since by the Conservatives rallying for the Peers; and more recently we have seen that the " Liberals," if they were allowed their way, would "swamp" the Upper House with life-peerages. Our mixed Constitution is preserved only by the resolution of the Conservative party. The Whigs profess, in words, to admire the institutions of the country, but by their acts they show that they are ready to obey any kind of populat clamour got up by any de scription of ilehons. Thus, while living under 'a Constitutional Monarchy in form, the people of England might be exposed to all the 1 • •Ik. • THE PRESS. hazards and passionate violence indigenous to mere democracies. Tho whole course of the 11 7 11;-:-: i i recent tines has been to rule in the manner we bare described; and there can be no safety froea their designs, except by the Consenratives firmly resolving to remain a united party, pod to defend the principle of government lapiestitmlions against the liberal project of government by organised stipen ciiaries, mid applanolad by deluded crow*. We believe that the system followed by the " Liberals" is awl only dangerous, but, as a lasting means of rare, it is sure to be im practicable. A commercial community cannot be constantly cast into panics about changes, and with each an extended empire we Lane* not be embarking neon what Lord Rofilf RUSSELL, in one of his cool hours, called " a " sea of political speculation." THE DOUBLE GOVERNMENT FOR INDIA. IF any proof had been wanting of the evils of the system of a double Government for India, it would have been furnished by the proceed. ings in the Court of Proprietors on Wednes day last. In them we see a striking exempli• fication of its effects. For, though Parliament has decided that the Company noV only administer India in trust for the Crown, and has been careful to limit to a rate fixed by law the remuneration to be paid to the Go vernor-General, the India-house authorities have decided that they have power to evade the spirit, if not the letter, of the act. This they have done by voting a pension to Lord DALHOUSIE which virtually increases the emoluments of the office he held by half the whole sum which the Legislature has assigned to it. Having, under authority of Parliament, received two hundred and forty thousand sicca rupees per annum, which amounts to exactly thirty thousand pounds a year sterling, he is now to get what is equivalent to a gra tuity of no less a sum than ninety-five thou sand pounds besides. This, it must be re membered, is in addition to the keeping up a palace for him at Calcutta, with all the appur tenances of plate, furniture, liveries, and ser vants; and in addition also to allowances for public entertainments, and for travelling ex penses, which have averaged something like fifty thousand pounds per annum more. Lord DArßoustz has thus received from the country, .in the shape of salary and disbursements on his personal comforts, a sum of about eighty - thousand pounds yearly, or six hundred and forty thousand pounds for the eight years during which he has held the office which he has just resigned. His few years of service, this pension included, will thus have cost the country the monstrous amount of three quar ters of a million sterling. We confess that for our part we see no warrant for so wasteful an expenditure in the present circumstances in which both this country and India are placed. We are no ad mirers of Lord DALHOUSIE'S policy, indeed we havelfrequently found occasion, as independent journalists, to call it greatly into question ; but, admitting his services for the moment to be as eminent as his warmest admirers describe them, it appears to us totally unnecessary to add to his already vast receipts this enormous sum. There may be precedents for the vote, but they are taken from the days of a lavish and wasteful expenditure in every department in the State—times when little scrutiny was exercised by the public or the Legislature as to the nature or extent of Ministerial grants. Nor were there other considerations in those days which rendered it natural to hold out greater inducements to a statesman to accept the Governor-Generalship of India than there exist at present. In the then state of things he resigned for it the certainty of high office in his native country ; in the present day he gives up merely the chances of power which the more even balance of parties has rendered precarious at the best. Then he was cut off from all communication, except at long distant intervals, with his friends and connections at home ; now he is practically as near to Eng land as Naples was in the earlier part of the SATURDAY -____ , most gpGeao:svt'e rol k Then eep t u h p e Grgtetp—nizieT and thtprivacy which has hospitality; expected u p w x r a u e s r s u e i n s t e c s e utu n tu s r i :t ourterarast . o While a Loi; i d fa D o Ar soeu6siv.... enabled him to save marry every lie o f h. nd e o u st im pr i imeal was y ien;ounee.simiTticoiekatouo,dte ntly !s deat u o amil ot e i xl u i n aus s eftilitte ; whil e now if : the be 11.116 an air a s coo l and re ash itarating than that of a l most any part ma of Europe. Lord DALHOUSIE, in fact, has often admitted that the complaint under which he has so long . suffered was rather nvotrise4 then eatertrraer Ivy the etia y f o India from England. In any case, however, we contend that it is not for the Proprietors to take upon them ' selves to vote ftre thousand re year from revenues which are not their own. While the interest of their stock depended on their careful management of it, it was of course for them to grant such pensions out of it as they pleased. The money so given was then theirs. Now it is so. no longer. The revenues of India are now not theirs but the Crown's, and a fixed rate of interest on their stock, under all circumstances, is gua ranteed. To the absence of any int erest , except as trustees in the revenues of India, their present position unites the absence of every inducement to the exercise of economy or control It matters as little to them whether those revenues can bear the burdens that they lay upon it, as it would if the funds voted away by them were to be pro vided by the King of Trmsuczoo. The result is already seen in an enormous and annually increasing deficit, for which Parliament, and not they, will have in the end to provide. And it does seem, therefore, on every ground, most fitting that to Parliament, which deter mines the salary of a Governor-General, and which must provide for any deficit, should also be left the duty of granting such pensions and rewards. Of one thing we are very cer tain, and that is, that if Lord DALHOUSIE has any regard for the opinion of his fellow-coun trymen, it is from Parliament alone that he will consent to accept such a favour under a message from the Crown. In the present state of public feeling regarding the India house and the mode in which it extracts its revenues from the Ryots, we can conceive nothing more damaging to the reputation of a statesman than the acceptance of a pension to be furnished from such a source. If Lord DALHOUSIE possesses but half the sagacity that is assigned to him by the public voice, he will not subject himself for the rest of his existence to the imputation to which the receipt by him of such a favour at the hands of Sir JAMES Hoerr and his brother Directors would necessarily give rise. LORD RANELAGH AND THE CARLTON CLUB. No questions are more interesting in our English social life than those which partake at once of a private and public character. Subjects that come exclusively under the first of these classes cannot be discussed openly ; but from time to time there are topics ventilated which combine the personal interest of something " behind the scenes " with the semblance, if not the reality, of political interest. Such a subject has now been mooted by Lord Rom - LAGII in his letter to the members of the " Carlton Club." " Club questions " admit of more social casuistry than any other topics of equal or less magnitude. Clubs are not only political but social gatherings, and the only funda mental maxim common to these little com munities is, that their members should main . - tam the conduct of " gentlemen." Even in the application of that rule there is often some difficulty, as the late Lord ALVANLEY showed , when the members of Brookes's refused to exclude Mr. O'CONNELL from their club on account of conduct which, if " done " by Mr. Brown Jones or Mr. Smith Tomkins, would have, probably, excommunicated either of those persons from any club. Having men