The Press. — London, England, 1856-01-26 00:00:00

76 has been effected by themselves or by their nominees, the Governors-General, acting with their sanction, but in most cases in open hostility to the Directors' views. A. low and sordid policy is, in fact, naturally repug nant to any but the men to whose guid ance the affairs of this leading City Company have been. so long committed. Men like CORNWALLIR, WELLESLEY, HASTINGS, BEN TINCK, and ELLENBOROUGH, instinctively loathed it ; and it was in spite of opposition that they carried every one of those measures that can be said to reflect the slightest credit on the administration of British India. What they might have done for it under happier cir cumstances can only be surmised with toler able accuracy by those who know by expe rience what an undercurrent of this kind can effect in impeding the course of the pure and singleminded among statesmen in every land. Pm, in his India Bill of 1784, for instance, declared that the principles of justice and the honour of this country required that the com plaints of the rajahs and zemindars and other native landholders of British India should be forthwith inquired into and fully investigated, and if founded on truth effectually redressed. But the details were urhappily left to the Directors, and they have ever since managed to 4 evade the injunction, as they have evaded almost every similar injunction having the mere welfare of the natives, and not the exten sion of their influence, patronage, and emolu ments from Indian contracts, for their end. In the same manner the India Bill of 1833 opened every kind of employment in the public service to the natives, yet for twenty two years the Directors succeeded in making the enactment nugatory and the door was only really opened to natives when the taking away of the civil and medical patronage from the Directors made it a matter of no per sonal importance to them on whom it was bestowed. But the most remarkable case of all has been that of the Supreme Courts. With such a set of men at the helm, it was soon seen that the only possible check against misgovern ment lay iu affording to the people the guarantee against oppression and illegal en croachments on their property enjoyed by the people of every other dependency of the Crown, in the shape of Crown-appointed judges, presiding in duly established Courts. Accordingly, in 1773, such Courts were es tablished in India, wish jurisdiction embrac ing all living within British rule. But the Directors and their agents soon managed to get up a cry against these curbs to their exac tions, and they had influence enough to cause the Act to be so modified as to make it in operative beyond the Presidency capitals, where it is still in force. The glorious results exhibited there show what might have been the effects had the Minister remained firm, and the jurisdiction remained as extensive as at first proposed. Through the security af forded by these Courts, the people at the Pre sidencies do really enjoy those blessings of British rule which are often so much vaunted of. but which the millions in the interior neither see nor feel. At the Presidencies only is seen the constitutional spectacle of a Go vernment subject to, and not above, the law. Here only is the wantonness of might re strained, and here only does right habitually triumph. Here only are those unseemly col lisions between the Government and the people unheard of that so perpetually take place in the interior of the land—here only are those spoliations unknown which bring disgrace on the British name—here only the Government knows exactly the extent of its power and the subject the limit of its subjec tion, while the reverend Majesty of the law, the reflection of the Biitish Sovereign in person, sits on the judgment-seat, to hold even the balance between both. Beyond those narrow limits the incubus of India has it all its own way. There the sons of the Director); oppress the country as they please, with none but their brothers and cousins presiding in the local courts to check them. There the only alter native for the natives aggrieved by such mis government is to appeal to the fathers and uncles of the wrongdoers in Leadenhall-street for redress. But there, too, blood is found to be thicker than water, and the ties of relation- TILE PRESS, ship more powerful than the tears of injurod men. After all, perhaps, the persons are less to blame who profit by the system, than the public will be if they continue to tolerate its existence after being made aware of its effects. RETIREMENT OF MR. MACAULAY. WE have not been surprised by the announce ment that Mr. MACAULAY intended to resign his seat for Edinburgh. It has long been no secret that the most brilliant of Whig reviewers has fin• some time been in very indifferent health. Sir GIBSON CRAIG attributes " asthma " as the cause of the withdrawal from public life of the Member for Edinburgh, though we have heard a different name for the malady ; but such matters are not in the cognisance of the journalist. We cannot, however, allow the departure from the Parliamentary scene of so eminent a man to pass without notice. It is about thirty years since Mr. MACAULAY'S name became familiar to the Inns of Court and " the town "of London Life. His articles in Knight's QuarteHy Maguz.ine, his speeches at debating clubs, his authorsb ip of the essay on " Milton " in the Edinburgh for 1825, intro duced him largely to public notice. Seldom has a young man been so fortunate in his career. A rotten borough returned him to Parliament, for a Whig Marquis patronised him at the outset. He had never to endure the toils and labours which other men of greater force, like BURKE and BROUGHAM, had to undergo. When some cynical critic was once sneering at Mr. MACAULAY'S powers, the late Mr. SHELL exclaimed, " Disparage " MACAULAY, sir ! Monstrous 1 He's the " cleverest man of the day. He made four " speeches on the Reform Bill, and he got ten " thousand a year !" _ . In truth, Mr. MACAULAY was so fortunate as to deserve his early name of " lucky Tom." After three years' representation of Caine and Leeds, from 1830 to 1833, he went out to India for four years. He returned when the Whigs were weak, and, under the auspices of Lord MELBOURNE, became a Cabinet Minister. It was expected that he would have been a leader in the Senate, but Nature never intended him for a practical ruler of his kind. Mr. MACAULAY belonged in politics to the Edinburgh-Review school of literary Whigs. Brilliant writers rather than profound authors, lively reviewers rather than powerful orators —they always ornamented, if they did not often rule their connection. JEFFREY sparkled in print ; HORNER theorised in pamphlets and Parliament; MACKINTOSH lectured profoundly though drowsily ; and BroucitiAm wrote, spoke. thought, and talked de omnibus rebus. Of Scottish lineage on the father's side, Mr. MACAULAY had - an English mother. His father ZACHARAY ?sIACAULAY, an African merchant, was " a humanitarian," and associate of what used to be caned " The Wilberforce set" (a phrase which has a far different meaning in our own times). His mother was a Miss MILLS, and she is reported to have been a very superior woman, of considerable accomplish ments. Educated at Cambiidge, destined for the Bar, and within earshot of the London platform (as it was in 1823-5), Mr. MACAULAY early acquired a taste for the part of a public speaker. At Freemasons'-hall, he supported with his fluent tongue and forcible language the connection to which his father was at. taehed; and when he came into Parliament, hs espoused the cause of the territorial Whigs with ardour, and never swerved from their standard. But Mr. MACAULAY could scarcely be called a statesman. He never led a connection in the House of Commons, nor did he ever stamp the passing politics of his time with convic tions of his own. He argued for the Ballot, but he made no converts to his views of secret suffrage. He railed against the Church of Ireland, but the Protestant sentiment of the empire is on the increase, notwithstand ing the eloquent latitudinarianism of the bril liant essayist. Of no legislative measure has he any parental recollection. In Parliament he spoke essays ; he lectured on the past, rather than debated on the present. A brilliant illus- SATURDAY, trator of foregone conclusions, his politics wanted germinating force. There was vast cleverness in his language; there was little that was practical in his suggestions. What the decorator is to the architect, a political rhetorician is to the statesman. All the practical problems of the age Mr. MACAULAY left as he found them Old and familiar thoughts he gracefully attired in the lacework and embroidery of his own picturesque style. In everything that came from his lips in Par liament there was singular brilliancy of man ner; rarely any originality of matter. Nor had Mr. MACAULAY any readiness in debate. Ho could not reply suddenly to an antagonist, and his speeches were almost as seasonable in one period as in another. By degrees the House of Commons felt that the Member for Edinburgh was better fitted to comment on the past than to council on the present. Even admiring Whigs re peated Mr BURKE'S saying as appropriate to Mr. MACAULAY :—" Retrospective wisdom and " historical sagacity are things of excellent " convenience, and serve admirably to reconcile " the old quarrel between speculation and " practice." He could dazzle and declaim, but he could neither create nor rule; he could always shine—he could never sway. Nature gave hint the imagination of an artist, not the powerful volition of a monarch amongst men. Yet it would be gross injustice to set down Mr. MACAULAY as a declaimer in politics. He took always a reasonable view of whatever case he spoke upon. His sophistry shone with the brilliance of genius, and his rhetoric was interwoven with all the ingenuity of thought. If not a statesman, he was at least an elegant lecturer on statesmanship. " Al " ways brilliant, often convincing," was the formula once applied to hint by a most accom plished literary Whig, and his political career might be recorded under such a text. It was supposed by many that Mr. MA CAULAY would play a part in public similar to that of BURKE. But no two men could be more unlike. BURKE was a being of intensely passionate temperament; he was vehement and irascible, with the faults and virtues of a moral enthusiast. His convictions flashed into his mind, not only from the induction of his intellect, but from the intuition of his heart. The principles which guided his course were far larger and deeper than those con ventional modes of Lansdowne-house Liberal ism to which Mr. MACAULAY paid feudal homage. BURKE was great as a man, as an orator, and as a writer. MACKINTOSH was not, perhaps, wrong in calling him " the greatest , " philosopher in action thn world ever saw : But action demands enthusiasm and a domi nating will—a something (call it what you please) that can subvert or uphold—that can help to establish or overwhelm systems or empires. It is no disparagement of Mr. MA CAULAY to say that such powers were not as signed to him. It was for a literary man that he was specially designed ; and in another department of THE PRESS we have recently paid a willing tribute to his fine language, varied reasoning, and vast reading. His absence from the House of Commons leaves a blank in the Whig party. Where now is there a single Whig of any genius in Par liament? It is with pride that the Conserva tives can point to the rare endowments and first-class literary powers of Nll'. DISRAELI and Sir BULWER LyrroN. The Premier scarcely belongs to the Whigs; and Sir CHAR'.Es Wool) is now their greatest Ministerial orator ! THE LATE DEBATE IN THE PIEDMONTESE CHAM BERS upon the adoption of the New Loan, was most spirited. Count Cavour spoke well, but the best speech in its favour was made by Count BON "All Italy" he remarked, "has applauded our par ticipation in the war against Russia. The victory of the Tchernaya has been a fete for us anti for Italy. Has not the political importance' of Piedmont in Europe since then increased, and is this the moment for asking us where we are leading the country We lead you to see our army honoured; our General in-Chief called to the European Council of War ; our King traversing Europe in triumph! Where do we lead you ?We lead you—l ought rather to say (addressing the Right), we drag you—there whither eight centuries of noble traditions beckon us." N 1