The Press. — London, England, 1855-10-13 00:00:00

OCTOBER 13, 1855. never absorbed a State, or even a tribe, more civilised than itself. On the question of practical policy, the Standard writes : As to the of Russia, deprecated by our weekly contemporary, if the Russia spoken of be the Russia of the middle of the last century, the Russia that existed at the accession of Catherine, nobody, we think, dreams of dismembering it ; but to give opportunity to the people of Finland, Poland, Bessarabia, and Georgia to liberate themselves from the galling fetters of the Czar, would be, in our opinion, no great clime, or even impru dence. We are not so romantic as to hold that we are bound to take any active part in the restitution. The analogy of law in ordinary life would say that we are 10 spoil the spoiler as we may, And from the robber rend the prey. And when the robber threatens ourselves, we plainly are under no obligation to spare him because he is a robber, and has constantly pursued a generally successful career of rapine for a century. We do not understand how the Allies can give opportunity to the people of Finland, Poland, Bessarabia, and Georgia to liberate themselves except by affording active assist ance to them, and by warring with Russia on the soil of those countries. At present we have enough to do in the South, where Russia is weakest : shall we at once engage in a con test with her power in the North, where it is strongest; or shall we wait till Russia is driven back from the South ; or, in the spirit of revo lutionary propagandism, shall we issue a manifesto to the people of Finland and Poland, calling on them to rise against their Govern ment, and to depend on our assistance as soon as we can devise a plan for sending it? The ideas of journalists are often large and free. Their eye is accustomed to sweep over maps, and their mind to survey questions from a purely historic point of view. It is a generous tendency to look only at what is desirable in policy, and to reconstruct States according to theories of abstract reason and equity. If Russia is a robber, and if the States of Fin land, Poland, Bessarabia, and the rest have been unjustly annexed, why not liberate them ? What can be easier than to dispense justice in this way with a few strokes of the pen ? The enthusiastic journalist is relieved of his glow ing conceptions, and thoughtless readers are well pleased. In ordinary times there can be no great ob jection to this style of writing. If the senti ment of newspaper readers is pleased, it is enough. It would be unreasonable to require them to reason on all that is presented to them. But at the present moment a grave responsibility rests on the journalist. He should weigh his words with more caution than usual. Visionary plans of? retrinution may be attended with fatally-injurious consequences. Are we sure that Poland and Finland would welcome our interference were we prepared to offer it? In the former country we suspect that a servile war—such a war as might be caused in the southern States of America by inducing the slaves to rise against the planters—would alone be practicable. Huma nity shrinks from the thought of such a con flict. But if the population of both countries be ready to rise, the question remains—how are we to assist them? Are we sure that our ally, the Emperor of the FRENCH, would ap prove the project? And while so little proba bility exists of the enterprise ever being undertaken, is it wise in a Conservative journal to hold it forth as one of the objects for which the war is to be continued ? On the general principle of a pacific settle ment, we hold that our security must depend, not on the prostration of our foe, but on our own strength. The equilibrium of Europe, to be assured, must rest, not on petty conditions of limitation in this sea or that, not in adding to the barriers which already exist to divide States, but in affording to the great commu nities of the world the freest scope for the de velopment of their forces. To avow that we have no security for the future but that which arises from the powerlessness of the nation with which we are at any time contending, is to submit ourselves to a kind of political atheism which must lead to the most shocking conse quences. It must render all quarrels mortal, and make peace impossible until one or other of the belligerents is destroyed. We cannot, from the necessity of things, have any positive security that the nation with which we are at war will never provoke us to war again unless THE PRESS. we ravage it after the manner of Amu. It is impossible to draw the talons of a nation— to leave it strong for peace but harmless for war. Whatever strength it possesses inter nally, that strength it cannot be prevented from manifesting externally in some way or other. In opposition to the principle we hear pro pounded, that peace, to be secure, must depend on the humiliation of an opponent, we say that we can only expect the peace to be lasting which rests on moderate terms, and which leaves no sense of injustice or desire of re taliation. Are we to suppose that, in the pos sibility of future disturbance, the policy of England will be regarded with greater suspi cion because she proved herself on this occa sion devoid of selfish aims and revengeful sen timents? It would be equally an error to rely entirely on the justice of our cause or the might of our arms. May they never be divorced ! Our force must in future be suffi cient to give effect to our policy ; but that force will never be efficient unless our policy at the same time be recognised as moderate and healing in its character. THE NEW GOVERNOR-GENERAL. THE new Governor-General seems likely to have his hands pretty full when he arrives in India, though his difficulties will not be such as an ordinary amount of talent, backed by good common sense, mtght not surmount. He will do well, however, to give up all idea of following the model which in his India-house speech he proposed to him self. The present Governor-General's best measures, some of those for the Punjaub, were unacknowledged plagiarisms from the late Sir CHARLES NAPIER'S government of Scinde; his worst--Lord CANNING will reap enough of the bitter fruits of, without any addition of his own to the score. If the new Governor-General be not above receiving some suggestions from a quarter much better informed on Indian affairs than he can be ex pected to be, he will find laid down for him in the present article a line of policy which if duly followed must inevitably obtain for him the greatest popularity and the greatest possi ble success. To begin with his foreign policy. It will be 1 1 very fortunate for him if the mission to Burmah shall have accomplished its objects when he arrives in India, and not be the means of involving us in another war. Sup posing it, however, to have got as safely out of the business as it was sent foolishly into it, his Lordship will do wisely to let that pompous Embassy be the last of its kind. He had better trust to less stately agency for the carrying out his diplomatic views. Natives do not understand diplomacy on the European system. Their own ambassadors are gene rally clever clerks. The honours and the privileges of ambassadors are things wholly unknown to them, and thus they are often led unconsciously to violate etiquette and add new complications to the old ones, which get hopelessly entangled. If a well trained young assistant, accompanied by a good native agent, had been sent in the first instance to Rangoon, we never should have been involved in tha war which has led to the annexation of that useless and most costly province. Turning from Burmah, Lord CANNING will do well to take some better security for the safety of his northern frontier than is possessed at present. Bengal should never be left denuded of troops, however friendly the Sovereign may profess himself who sits on the Nepaulese throne. Moving onwards, the Governor-General will find quarrels between the King of CASHMERE and his nephew, in which he will be wise to refuse to interfere. Then comes Dom. MAHOMED, the ruler of Caubul, who will never be true to us while we hold an integral portion of his country, though this unhappily we cannot at the present moment give up. But though DOST MAHOMED does not love us, he has no wish to renew the war with us ; and probably while he lives we may in that quarter look for peace. His death, however, whenever it may occur, 967 will more than probably be the signal for a powerful attack on us by the chiefs of Affghanistan. The next people to be con sidered are the chiefs of the tribes on the north-west frontier; and it will be Lord CasNnie's own fault if with them he be not at peace. If he will only c on fi rm th em i n t h e i r possessions, cease to harass them for rent for their lands, which they have never paid to any previous Governments, abolish • fiscal exactions of a novel kind introduced by his predecessor, and where the right of tolls has been taken away give them compensation for the income they have lost—if he will only act, in short, in respect of these chiefs as he would acts towards the humblest persons in posses sion of vested rights at home, these hitherto untameable mountaineers will very soon be come the staunchest adherents of the British Crown As regards the Nizam, there will be little difficulty in keeping matters quiet with him if his Lordship will only show a disposi tion to respect his dominions instead of a desire to annex them, turning every little difference with him into a pretext. And if the King of OIIDE or any other sovereign in dependent alliance with us should show him self hopelessly imbecile, that should not be used as an occasion for seizing the country for the Company, to whom it under no pre tence whatever can belong. In conjunction with the Court and great nobles and people generally, the Governor-General should make such arrangements in that case for a Regency as should obviate the evil until a more compe tent scion of Royalty had succeeded in the course of nature to the throne. Cutch under Porrixozz, and Nagpore under JENKINS, afford instances where the interests of the Royal Family, the nobility, the people, and of ourselves were equally served by a moderate and honourable policy of this description. Annexation is in the present state of India often worse than a crime; it is, in most instances, a grand and most fatal mistake. Sir JOHN MALCOLM looked on the native States as the safety-vales of our empire, and Sir JOHN knew India more thoroughly than perhaps any man living at the present day. The next persona to be considered are the jaghiredars and enamdars, the hereditary nobility and freeholders of our Eastern em pire. These the new Governor-General will do well to reassure by putting an end to all the vexatious proceedings to which they are subjected at present. Three or four hundred thousand a year are all that the Exchequer can possibly gain by confiscation, and to secure this hundreds of the most influential men in India are reduced to beggary. Thou sands of others of the same class are by the same act put into a state of uncertainty re garding their properties, that leaves them in doubt as to their future means of subsistence ; chile scores of thousands of old retainers have nothing before them but starvation, and are prepared to lend their swords to any partisan who will lead them to revenge. The outbreak in the Bombay Presidency the other day had its origin in a jaghire confiscation of this kind ; and there is no doubt that wherever an opportunity occurs we shall find how vast is the number of this class who have been but watching their time to rise against us. We have conquered the several Sovereigns of India by the sword—we are now exterminating the whole of their quondam vassals by means of special commissioners and their pens. The task will be found a harder one in the long run than we bargained for, and it would be well were we to desist while we can do so with honour. What goes into the pockets of an hereditary nobility is not really lost to the State. They have their uses, like the Corin thian column of an edifice ; and, in the view of the soundest thinkers on Indian matters, we shall have destroyed what might have been converted into the best supports of our power, when we shall finally have succeeded in sweeping all the jaghiredars and enamdars of India away. Loyalty is a noble sentiment, but the Government that looks for it must reciprocate. No men in any country could ever love a system from the continuance of which they had nothing to gain and all to lose. We forget the date of the Act of Charles the Second, which changed the feudal tenures of England into free and COMIXIOI2 swage, but we a