The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-22 00:00:00

810 - action to all those creeds which the State pro fesses to think false, and to refuse it to the only one she professes to believe true. It may be said, of course, that the curtail ment of her liberty is the prise which the Church pays for the enjoyment of State pro tection, and the security of her own endow ments. This may bo so, hut it does not lessen the inconsistencyof the State. We know that a protectorate is often . but another awe for_ tyranny. But the frequency of the imposture does not diminish its turpitude. A husband vows to cherish and protect his wife, and for such protection the law has made her pay pretty dearly. But whoever considered that it was an extenuation of the husband's offence that he had the law upon his side ? In this case, however,. we maintain that the State has not got the law upon its side. The Royal supremacy, which this exemption is supposed to impair, has never extended to the interpretation of Scripture. The Crown can forbid the promulgation of doctrines, or the continuance of practices, which strike at its own independence, or interfere with the allegiance of its subjects. But here we maintain that its law ful power ceases. When the clergy differ about the meaning of their own formularies, the civil power endeavours to ascertain what has been the usual law of the Church upon the subject — on which side is the preponderance of prece dents—to find out, that is, what is the will of the Church herself upon the point at issue. But it has never dreamed of such a thing as deciding upon doctrines ab initio, and forcing them on the acceptance of the Church. To interpret the words of a formulary, and to change an article of faith, are two totally different things. And the language of the judges in determining ecclesiastical causes has always been inconsistent with the claim of any original doctrinal authority upon the part of the Crown. At the present day more especially, and with the present constitution of the House of Commons, it would seem to be an outrage upon common justice that any such right should be asserted. For let us suppose, what is quite possible, though perhaps not pro bable, that at some future time the majority of the House of Commons should be Dissenters. If the authority now claimed for that assembly be legal, it would be in their power to compel the Church to celebrate divine service accord ing to any system they might choose. They might forbid the use of the surplice, of kneel ing at the sacrament, of infant baptism, or any other doctrine or practice of which they disap proved. Yet will anybody gravely maintain that this is what was intended by the Act of Supremacy ? Yet it is this foolish and untenable opinion in deference to which Ministers have been ill advised enough to run counter to the existing law of the land, and to recommend to her Majesty the violation of her Coronation Oath. Astonished at themselves apparently for having committed au act of justice, and frightened by those godless grumblers who hate all religious sincerity because it is a standing protest against themselves, the Government has undone its work of Tuesday last, and asserted its right of oppression in a more offensive style than ever. A clergy man is not compelled to perform a ceremony he condemns; but he is to surrender his parish church for the performance of it by any less scrupulous brother. Now this is only the violation of conscience in another shape. It is every man's duty to defend the rightful privileges and possessions of his order, and to hand them down unimpaired to his suc cessors. By the unquestioned law of the land the custody of the Church is vested in the parson, and no one—not even the church warden—has a right to enter it without his consent, except dining the celebration of divine service. If this law be deemed incon sistent with the public welfare, let the subject be discussed in an open and manly way. If finch be the will of the country, let the rights of the Church be annulled. But this under hand work is disgraceful both to the people and to Parliament. Why employ a thief to sneak in at the window if entrance can be fairly obtained at the door`? But by far the most serious element in this precioua r picee of legislation is the direct THE PRESS, AUGUST 22, 1857. infraction of the Coronation Oath involved in I it. We have stated what is the law of the land. Now, what does every Sovereign of this realm promise oat his or her accession to the ' throne ?, "To preserve unto the bishops and " clergy of this realm, and to the churches " committed to their charge. all such rights " and privileges as by law do or shall apper- " Win unto them, or any of them." Can,any words possibly be mote emphatic or precise!" Have, then, her Majesty's Ministers acted in total ignorance of the obligations to which their Royal Mistress has p:edged herself, or have they coolly resolved, as liaLLam says of CHARLES 1., "to snap like tow the ancient " statutes of the realm"? And, after all, what is the amount of relief for which it has been thought worth while to infringe the sanctity of law, and to violate the honour of the Crown? It is scarcely appreci able. For, in the first place, we very much doubt whether the clause will not be wholly inoperative, and whether half a dozen clergy men will be found in the kingdom so lost to all sense of decency and good feeling as to intrude into a church which does not belong to them. But, supposing a portion of the clergy to be thus degraded, it certainly seems to us that the trouble incurred by parties who have been refused marriage in a particular church will all consist in their search for another clergyman. Except in the case of the very poorest classes iu the community, who are not very like to come into the question at all, the trouble of going a mile or two to an other church will be as nothing compared to the previous trouble of finding a willing parson. This will be the real rub ; and the proviso about the edifice is merely a back handed insult to the clergy at large to prevent their coming out of the question without some token of the illwill of their liberal legislators. We can scarcely believe that this clause will be permitted to stand. It violates, at one comprehensive blow, logic, law, sense, equity, and truth. It will sow innumerable heart burnings, jealousies, and quarrels among the clergy themselves, and be an admirable stimu lant of that party spirit which was just now beginning to subside. But, worse than all, it places her Majesty in a position which all loyal subjects, and all lovers of her popular and prosperous reign, must deeply regret to see. This crowning act of the session ex ceeds even the expectations we ourselves had formed of it. We did not think quite so much oppression and perjury could have been crammed into the space. But even Lord PALMERSTON improves, and next session may possibly do him still more credit. THE ETHICS OF INDIAN EMPIRE. THE late Sir ROBERT PEEL once stated that " the rights of empire" were an unsolved pro blem in political morality. He might just as well have said that the rights of crowns, or aristocracies, or republics, were " un• solved." Sir ROBERT PEEL was never clear upon principles, except in the currency question, on which, as Dr. ARNOLD of Rugby said, " PEEL certainly had one idea." The Indian question, in its present phase, has again plunged us into the " rights " or wrongs of our mode of ruling India, and there are not twelve persons assembled in any social party in this nation in which every variety of senti ment is not expressed on every variety of person. Quot homines—tot sent4raice. For our parts, looking at the question from a purely English and Imperial point of view, we are disposed to think that little can be done in this vast crisis by trying the question by primary tests of right or wrong. Enormous errors, and gross blunders in practice, ap proaching to official criminality, have been committed; but these errors have been posi tively committed in the face of the routine which had been established. Call that system, that moan regendi, by any name you choose, or estimate it as you will, we had an Anglo- Indian, just as we had for many centu ries an Anglo-Irish, mode of Government. The authorities in the East have failed to administer well the system which they inherited from their wiser and more experienced pre decessors. They have roved themselves, under trial, to be mediocrities, and something worse. In nothing is Mr. DISRAELI more to be commended than for that close and practical view of Indian affairs which Englishmen like to mart with in grave emergencies. We believe that the question of the s " ethics of Indian empire " has suffered from the exag gerations of the assailants of WARREN HAST iNos. Those eminent persons laid themselves open to the charge of being mere declaimers, though many of their views were funda mentally sound. But Mr. DISRAELI has tried the Anglo-Indian authorities by the system which they were called upon to administer, and which they have failed in wielding. We are as convinced, as we are of any of the fundamental truths in politics and morals, that England can never continue the mode of governing India which has prevailed up to the present time. The system runs counter to English ideas and to English interests. It is entirely alien to our colonial system, where self- government is established under a variety of forms. It is also totally incon sistent with the working of our Constitution. There is responsibility in every other depart ment of the State. The Crown, Parliament, and even the British public itself, all exist under mutual control, and a publicity that is at once pervasive and permanent. But be tween the action of the Crown and Parliament upon our huge Indian dependencies " the Company " intervenes, and what " Chancery " was once to an Englishman in search of equity " the Company " is now to Anglo-India in search of justice. Thus, in probing the question of the " ethics of empire in India," we are at once made to feel that sooner or later the British public mind must apply itself to the question of the Company. We say emphatically that the more the question is studied the more certainly will it revert to the consideration of the Company. The abstract question of our political right to power in India may be safely put aside when we recollect that if we had not been there either our Dutch or French rivals, who dis puted our standing in the East, would have held more or leas of territory in Hindostan. If we left India to-morrow another ascendancy of one kind or another would take our place ; and this consideration makes mediocre offi- cials callous to questions of right and wrong, instead of quickening their energies to give India the best administration that can be devised. In his spoken Indian essay of 1833, Mr. MACAULAY panegyrised the Company, and endeavoured to settle the question of ruling India by saying, " if we discard the Company, " we must find a substitute for the Company." That is putting the question in an exaggerated view; and what the House of Commons recently admired so much in Mr. DISRAELI'S humorous speech was that the Right Hon. Gentleman avoided attacks either on the Com pany or on the Board of Control, as officially constituted, and that he fixed attention on the neglects of persons now in power, and on the casehardened conceit which seems to have benumbed the authorities in Calcutta. Mr. DISRAELI made it plain, whether the system as it stands be right or wrong, that it is badly administered ; and as we try a man by the measure of his conduct or abilities. so we have now a right to try the authorities and " the system" by their antecedents. It is not twenty years since the plan of having an Indian budget annually laid before Parliament was ridiculed by rhetorical gentle men who proposed to leave everything to " the Company. Well, we have now got an Indian budget, and the practice is undoubtedly at tended with vast advantage, and will secure a progressive attention to Indian questions. We have thus squared in some measure the Indian financial system with our English practice. If the Royal Commission of In quiry, as suggested by Mr. DISRAELI, were issued, we should be giving India the great advantage of a closer linking with the Crown. India wants the aliquid preestans a regale which the great orator and statesman of Rome de clared to be necessary for the completion of