The Press. — London, England, 1856-04-12 00:00:00

338 three questions first named—law amendment —army reform—civil service reorganisation. It is of this last movement that we design briefly to treat. Its history has been in some respects singular. No agitation lilts helped it forward; for Mr. Moasxtr and his friends could only retard, trot advance, say cause which they took in kawa. It come &et before the public supported by no emitsent name ex. , cept that of Mr 0114,1)5T0NE, iaosv linpgpto laxity, doubtless. neutralised his *tatty. Its chief author, Sir C. TREVELYAN, though widely known, and as an administrator respected, was, and is, regarded by the public as a clever pedant, energetic but visionary, and far too fond of system to deal with the complicated confusion of human affairs. We are not en dorsing this opinion ; we merely state its prevalence as a fact. Add to all, that the leading journal took up the scheme of civil service competition, when first launched, with an injudicious and exaggerating zeal ; while the other organs of opinion, one and all, de nounced it as bureaucratic, pedantic, Prussian, Chinese, hostile to freedom, incompatible with Parliamentary government, and democratic in its social tendency. To the storm of invec tive with which the project was assailed its defenders made no reply, or next to none. They acted more wisely: they waited. The public, ashamed of the panic into which it had been led, began to reconsider its hasty judgment; and in this month of April, 1856 not much more than two years since the words, " competition for civil service appointments " were first heard in public—a clear majority of thinking men accept the principle put forth in '54, differing only as to the method, the date, and perhaps the extent of its application. This principle, already in the course of last year affirmed by Parliament, Lord GODERICH again brings before the House of Commons on Friday. The cause needed—perhaps it will find—both an abler advocate and a more com prehensive treatment. Lord GODERICH dwells exclusively on two points —one, the substitu tion of competition for patronage as regards primary appointments; the other, promotion by " merit,' i.e., by the choice of an official chief, instead of, as at present, by seniority. He has overlooked objections which may be taken at the outset to both his propositions. As the Civil Service is constituted, the ablest youth who enters it, even in its highest de partments, must pass years in the mechanical drudgery of copying despatches, for the most part unimportant—a kind of work which levels all talents, renders enthusiasm impossi ble, and is even endured with least im patience, and therefore best dune, by those whom natural dulness unfits for more re sponsible duties. For this absurd practice the defence usually pleaded is the necessity of secrecy, and the danger of its being violated if copyists of a lower grade were employed. But what becomes of the plan when it is remem bered that the most confidential Cabinet circulars are trusted without hesitation to official printers—men of respectability, indeed, but taken from the class of ordinary artisans ? The clerk and the copyist must become distinct persons ; mechanical labour must be separated from intellectual. Until this is done, un limited competition, however sound in princi ple, can only serve to overload the public offices with wasted ability, and zeal that can find no vent. Nor is Lord GODERICH more fortunate in his demand for promotion by merit, standing alone as it does. Has it ever occurred to him to consider the relative position of two men, sitting in the same room, working at the same business, passing their lives together, one of whom shall have been promoted over the head of the other? Will they be friends? Will they make good each other's shortcomings, share each other's labours in a fraternal spirit ? Or if the reverse be the case, how will business be carried on, in the absence of that unanimity which ought to prevail among colleagues ? Lord GODERICH does not see, what the House of Commons will see, that if promotion is to take place otherwise than according to the rule of seniority (with some rare exceptions such as now exist), it must take place from office to office, not within the walls of one department. In a word, Lord GoDERICH'S scheme is incomplete, his two propositions li THE PRESS. requiring for their adoption the concurrent acceptance of two others ; (1) distinction of clerks from copyists; (2) flee passage from department to deptrttnent, so that the Civil Service may bveome as much an organised profession as iv the army. It remains to be seen Mother these detects will be supplied; unless they are supplied, Lord GODERICH'S resolutions most fall to the ground. THE COMPANY AND OUDE. THE most marked peculiarity of the East India Company, as at present constituted, is the entire absence of scruple in the prosecution of its objects, and its utter disregard of the dictates of either public faith or truth. Suc cess appears to be the only animating senti ment with it ; and success for the time is not very difficult with rulers who have three hun dred thousand bayonets to back them, and who allow neither the engagements of their predecessors nor the terms of public treaties to operate as restraints. Rapine and violence are easy operations when dealing with States which have been lulled by a reliance on cove wants into an implicit confidence, and which must therefore necessarily fall an unreststig prey. In the long run, however, it does not answer, and that (passive as the people of India are in general supposed to be) it is not improbable we shall shortly find. Al ready to the discerning eye there are not wanting symptoms that portend a storm which it will require all Lord CANNING'S sagacity to weather. Supposing, however, that such measures were certain to prove as successful as they are likely to be the re verse, this would afford no justification for the violation of those principles which more than her armies constitute every nation's power — the great principles of public faith and truth. To pretend that the assumed welfare of any people can justify the open violation of our treaties with the rulers of them, is in fact to assert the very principle which has made the Jesuits to be treated, even in Catholic States, as the public enemies of mankind. For, all that they have ever alleged is that oaths may be broken when, in the opinion of the persons bound by them, good would come of their violation,; there never having been a casuist, even among them, who would pretend that oaths were not binding in the contrary case The doctrine has most justly been stamped as an abominable one, because opening an easy path to every kind of villainy, and destruc tion of all confidence between man and man, between sovereign and subject, and between independent rulers of different States ; yet, in famous as it is deemed in Europe, our ,repre sentative in India revives it under the sanc tion of the Company, and boldly breaks through, on similar pretences, our most solemn stipulations with the Sovereign of Oude. As a deviation from the broad path of truth in one instance is generally found to require a deviation from it in others to cover the first lapse, so it will surprise no one to discover how totally fact has been departed from and fiction adopted in the proclamation of the Governor-General annexing that kingdom to our rule. His Lordship will be found laying it down as a justification for his proceedings that, though it was insisted on in our treaty with the Sovereign in 1801 that the kingdom was to be governed in such a manner as to conduce to the prosperity of the people, the successive rulers had continually disregarded that so-called chief and vital stipulation, and this notwithstanding the continued exertions of successive governors-general in their be half. Astounded at the assertion, we natu rally turned to ;history for verification of our own impressions ; and of our investigations this is the result. The King of OUDE is there stated to be our most ancient ally, we having guaranteed his dominions to him as early as 1765. Guaranteed them, not be it remem bered as a special and gratuitous mark of favour—(as Lord DALHOUSIE, in the case of all our guarantees to native States, would seek to make out)—but guaranteed them because the then Sovereign was strung comparatively, and we were relatively weak, and it was of vital im- SATURDAY, p p o o r r t ta n n f e e s n t i o n a u soft the o s e cnuhrieetfh eoff r i t e h n e d t sh he n i a e n x d i s t s i ti n p 6; native S t ass l t a uli. t nib e es s ttis . od ywt l hh l ft l he t 7 h 7 ifiet 3 vnfe t o h ruu e hr C edur o n i m dotr p fei a tion n e y uotdn :s evo s euf i ons g rai n ena e n . d d some annualtmeaidni pounds. The latter also agreed to maintain a brigade of troops for our support. In 1775 the British Government undertook to defend the Oude territories against all foreign ene mies, the Nuwab making large cessions of territory on that account. In 1781, and 1797 ' and 1798, further cessions of ter r it or y were made by the Nuwab, and the annual subsidy paid by him was increased to seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds. In 1801 the treaty was made which Lord DALHOUSIE quotes, and by which, in consideration of the British Go vernment undertaking the defence of his terri tories against all enemies, whether foreign or domestic, the Nuwab ceded to the Company, in lieu of all subsidies, territory of the annual value of thirteen hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Lord DALHOUSIE affirms that the vital stipu lation of this treaty, that regarding the good government of the people, has been habi tually violated in spite of our representa tions, and he talks of villagers constantly plundered and establishments habitually un paid. A reference to history, however, will show that as a rule remonstrances have been only made by us as preludes to some pecuniary demand, and that if the people of Oude have been really plundered (though it is very clear from their condition that the reverse of this is the case) the East India Company has been at any rate by far the largest participator in the spoil. No less than four millions seven hundred and thirty nine thousand pounds sterling have been drawn by the Company in the interim from the King and his predecessors, iu the shape of gifts or loans ; and in consideration of a por tion of this, not only was a large district made over to the then Nuwab'of Oude, in 1816, but he was afterwards induced by us to assume the higher and more independent title of King. The district was an unprofitable one, and the bargain was of course an excellent one on our side. But the lands made over were not a de sert; and if Oude was really as shamefully mis governed as Lord DALHOUSIE and the Company now aver, how infamous must have been the conduct of the Governor-General and the Directors of those days, who so deliberately sold so large a portion of their own subjects to the then Sovereign of it, in consideration of the payment of a million sterling down. On either horn of this dilemma Lord DALHOUSIE, the Company, and the Ministry must be con tent to rest. Either the allegations of the proclamation are wholly groundless, or a load of infamy is thrown upon the preceding Indian Governments, and upon the East India Coin. pany, as a body, from which it is impossible that they can hone to escape. For our parts, knowing well the high honour of the Marquis of Hasrisas, under whom these things took place, - eve have no hesitation in proclaiming his memory to be entirely free from so deep a stain. His removal of the then Resident at Lucknow, and the course pursued by him generally towards that State, show that he was not a believer in the wholesale but interested denunciations of the King of DUDE. Nor was a personal visit which Lord AstitEasT, a subsequent Governor-General, made to Lucknow, in 1826, productive of a different impression on that nobleman's mind. The King appealed to the flourishing appearanc e of his country in proof of the success of his administration : and in truth the lands were covered with cultivation, the pe 'pie appeared to be contented, the assessment was light, and the revenues were levied without difficulty. The unfavorable accounts were found t o have been much exaggerated, and to have originated principally in the turbulent spirit which pre vailed on the confines of the British districts, where a race of refractory landholders, Rajpoots by tribe, and soldiers by profession, considered it a disgrace to comply peaceably with the demands of the State. The villages were populous, no complaints of over-assess ments were heard, and the face of the country was a perfect garden, equal to the best culti vated districts in the Company's territories, as