The Press. — London, England, 1857-07-25 00:00:00

714 such neglect. It is not, thank GOD, even now too late to benefit by these lessons, if the public will only divest their minds of party feelings and party trammels, and seek for counsel in those quarters in which it must be clear that sound advice alone is to be found. It does so happen that on this question the advantage is on the Conservative side, and that, from Lord ELLENBOROUGEI in the House of Lords, and from Mr. DISRAELI in the House of Commons, we are likely to learn much more as to the past, the present, and the future of the crisis, than from any nobleman or gentle man on the Ministerial benches. In times like these the country can only look for safety to those who clearly show forth to it that the key of the situation is in their hands. The fallacy put forth at the outset by the Government is now, we hope, abandoned by all—the fallacy that this has been a mere Sepoys' mutiny, and that iu it there was no occasion whatever for alarm. If, to be sure, by alarm bo meant unmanly fear, that is what nobody could ever lay to the charge of the Noble Earl who has stood most prominently forth on this occasion. He who voluntarily faced the terrific fire at Maharaj pore was not likely to be in any state of personal panic at the events which are now taking place some thou sands of miles away. But to suppose that any statesman really acquainted with the position of our Indian empire should feel otherwise than alarmed at the present condition of it, would be to suppose him careless of the in terests and of the honour of his country in the last degree. For nothing can be plainer to such a man than that our officials have been to the very last in a state of total ignorance regarding the true condition of the empire they had to govern. And, indeed, if they are even now alive to it, they have to thank the very • advisor whom at the outset they sought to silence. Even still, indeed, they show by the replies to the questions put to them that their eyes are but half opened to the stern realities of the situation they have to face. It cannot be too strongly impressed upon the minds of the British public that this is not simply a Sepoys' mutiny. The whole con duct of the outbreak shows that it is an affair that neither was nor is confined to the Sepoys' ranks. The case of the chawpatties or cakes that were sent through the country is one that neither did nor could have taken place with out the aid of the village communities in the several districts through which the cakes were passed. Then, again, the Sepoys are all men belonging to the rural population, and it is not likely they would have resorted en masse to so desperate a step without communicating with their relatives and friends. Besides, it is known that for a long period the greatest dis affection among the people of India towards our Government has prevailed, and late Indian papers inform us that this spirit had, by several of the collectors, been distinctly pointed out. Indeed, it would be impossible that disaffection should not prevail, consider ing what lately has been the spirit of our rule— annexation, confiscation, abolition of pensions, and a curtailment of allowances on every side, accompanied by a contemptuous disregard of the religion and feelings of the people, whether Mahomedans or Hindoos, such as had pre viously to the advent of Lord CANNING'S pre decessor been quite unknown. Knowing this to be the true state of affairs, we await with less anxiety than the Govern ment appears to do the coming Indian mail. While we think so speedy a fall of Delhi im probable, we are perfectly assured that even if successful there we shall be almost as far as ever from the conclusion of the affair. No doubt the fall of Delhi would be a great gain, as the spectacle of its continued defiance of us would inflict on us a very great moral loss. But onr rulers must not deceive themselves with the idea that when they shall have taken Delhi their difficulties will end. The late Sir CHARLES NAPIER used to say that he should not fear meeting a hundred thousand natives in pitched battle, but that a guerilla war in India was a thing which neither he nor, he believed, any other general could cope with And with no less than five and twenty different stations on the Bengal side up in Arms the proportions of a guerilla war may \ THE PRESS, JULY 25, 1857. be said to be almost reached. It is true that some of the native Princes have offered us their assistance, and that the people have been tolerably quiet so far as things have gone. But those who know anything of the matter will know how very little such offers on the part of native Princes are worth. They will also know how little reliance can be placed on the fidelity of our own rural population if once it be made clear t) them that our prestige is gone. The true mode of England's regain ing her position is not by trusting to the aid of men whom we ought to be ashamed to ask for aid considering the manner in which we have treated them in our day of pride and power. If we are to retrieve our fortunes it must be by our own right arms, and not by leaning on such fragile reeds as these. In the same way, while we hope that both the Bombay and Madras armies . will prove faithful, it will be but folly to be too elated on that account. For it will be impossible to denude those Presidencies of a man with safety for the coercion of Bengal. In the Madras army itself and in the Hyderabad contingent there is a large proportion of fanatic Mahemedans whom, in any case, it would be very dangerous to bring into direct contact with the disaffected Mahomedans of Upper India and with the mutineers of Bengal. But, besides this, there are reasons against the move in the state of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies themselves. They are full of discontented spirits inflamed against us in the highest degree. The rent-free tenure iuqurios, the accumulations of territory, and the confiscation of hereditary pensions have there, more than in any part of India, done their work. At the same time the people are hardy and inured to arras. Such men have only waited a convenient opportunity to rise and throw off our yoke ; and the Govern. ment may rely on it that if it furnishes this opportunity by denuding the provinces there of troops, they will not be very long in break ing out. We repeat. then, that if we are to restore order to India we must restore it our selves. England must spare neither men nor, money for the task. That task is one which no temporary victory at Delhi will much lessen, and which no bad news from India would in our eyes materially increase. It is the task of rebuilding our Indian empire in the East, the very foundations of which are utterly rotten and destroyed. To the con sideration of this task the House of Coin mons will have to address itself on Monday evening ; and we have no doubt that the Conservatives of England and their leader, Mr. DISRAELI, will prove equal to the occasion. The man who most unflinchingly scans the danger is gene rally the bravest in facing it ; and now that all reserve is thrown to the winds, we have no fear whatever of the ultimate triumph of England. LITERARY POLITICIANS. WE arc glad, for the sake of Literature, that so brilliant an author as Mr. THACKERAY has not been permitted to run the risk of mis applying his time and talents to politics ; but, though we do not commend his ambition, we can sympathise with the disappointment of his hopes. Mr. CARDWELL, however, was cer tainly the better choice for the electors to have made. Mr. THACKERAY is a man of shining abilities and sturdy energies, but we doubt whether, without much exertion, he could succeed in the House of Commons. He has not a political mind ; he wants facts, habits of logical thought, and appreciation of sustained reasoning. Mr. TUACKERAY could hardly ex pect to be more successful than the late CHARLES BULLER, yet Mr. BULLER was a failure because he dealt too much in persiflage, and discussed grave subjects from a humorist's point of view. But CHARLES BULLER had great attainments, was a good political econo mist, and his knowledge of public life could scarcely be acquired by Mr. THACKERAY with out prodigious exertion. Even to obtain such a reputation as CHARLES Bem.za enjoyed it would not be worth the while of Mr. THACKERAY to withdraw himself from literature. It is a mistake to suppose that there is aught hi literary pursuits any more than in legal studies which unfits a man of talent for polities. Everything depends on the man him. self. BURKE was a literary man, and so was CANNING, but both had a natural inclination to politics. In France, Guizox, THIERS, and many more eminent persons, were politicians as well as authors; but Mr. THACKERAY has never shown any aptitude for public life. He seems never to have had any vocation fur it, and he has not weighed the loss of time, the great in dustry, the study of social questions involved in the pursuits of a politician. Neither does he seem to have considered whether he could become an effective debater. Voice, elocution, delivery, presence of mind, and self-control under excited feelings must all be learnt by a man aspiring to Parliamentary distinction. These accomplishments cannot he acquired in a day or a year. They take time, thought, and study. Let a literary man apply his energy to politics, and, like a barrister, he may succeed or fail. All, as we said, depends on himself ; and we cannot say that as yet Mr. THACKERAY has shown many of the qualities which are necessary to Parliamentary success. Still, if ha turned to politics and worked hard we believe that he might succeed up to a certain point ; but the reading public and his numerous admirers would never be compen sated for his relinquishment of the pursuits in which he has invested his name with a cele• brity far greater than he could attain in the Senate. EARL COWLEY AND THE PERSIAN TREATY. WE perceive that Captain LYNCH has written to one of our contemporaries to deny his having had anything to do with the late Per sian Treaty except only as a simple translator, and our contemporary, governed no doubt by the rules which all respectable journalists feel bound to obey, has accepted this denial, and allowed the matter to drop. We also respect Captain LYNCH'S word, and nothing can be farther from our intention than in any way to controvert his assertion ; but at the same time the Gallant Captain must pardon us if we pro fess that a more extraordinary and mysterious proceeding than the whole of the behind-the• scenes work of this Persian Treaty has never yet come before the public. We observed largely on the matter at the time, and there fore we feel bound at present to make a few remarks on the closing scene of this very re markable transaction. And now let us shortly state the facts of the case. Lord COWLEY re ceives an order from the British Government to conclude a treaty with an Ambassador accredited as he is himself to the French Court, and no doubt the terms he Was to require were at the same time furnished to him—which, let us remark in passing, were about one half as favourable to us as those which we might previously have obtained at Constantinople. During three whole weeks, notwithstanding the impatience of the Eng lish Cabinet, who were almost nightly ques tioned in the House on the subject, nothing whatever was effected in the matter, and it became notorious to every man in Paris who was in a position to obtain anything like accu rate political information that the whole affair was at a dead lock, and the Persians them selves made no secret of it that such had been the want of tact displayed by the British negotiator in his first advances, that no further progress could possibly be expected. At this stage of the affair Lord COWLEY is heard (by a gentleman of unimpeachable veracity) at the Spanish Ambassador's, and in reply to a person of high rank, who asked him how he " got on in the Persian negotiation, to declare " That " he could make nothing of the Persians, " that they could not or would not understand