The Press. — London, England, 1857-12-26 00:00:00

THE PRESS, DECEMBER 26, 1857. 1242 would probably be sufficient for the full and final relief of Lucknow, it would be quite in adequate for the subjugation of Oude. This we explained would be a work of time, unless effected by negotiation with the zomindars of Oude. The news that has just arrived accords with that statement entirely, for it tells us that. even with the immense addition to his forces that Sir Comm has nor► received, the reducing Oude to entire subjection is " a task "which will occupy them for some months to " come." And during the whole period the public anxiety will still continue, for war, even VI India, is not always without reverses; and, supposing everything to go on prosperously, there will still be the long list of casualties to deplore that must in the nature of things occur before the affair is finished. For these, and for the enormous sums of money wasted in the contest, and its after con •equences, we say again and again the Minis ters are responsible ; and it will be in vain for them to try and devolve the burden on other shoulders than their own. Still more idle will it be to try and make the public forget in its victories the cause that led to the present state of things. The triumph over a foreign foe who has forced us into a war by his wanton aggressions may add strength to a Govern. ment, because, in that case, the sympathies of the public are with it from first to last. People think not of the cost of the con test, because they know the quarrel to have originated in no fault of their own. But very different is the case in a war like this. Here it is not a foreign enemy that we are fighting with, but subjects whom the evil mea sures of the Government have induced to throw off the yoke. For equal is the blame that is to be attached to it, whether the revolt really arose out of the affair of greased cart ridges, or from the annexation of Nude. Indeed, in the former case the conduct of the Government is, if possible, still more inex cusable; and still more disgraceful are the mea sures it has adopted professedly in conse quence of what it calls a purely sepoy mutiny, in the shape of disarming the independent Europeans in India end subverting the free dom of the press. This would have been bad enough in any case ; but to do it out of defe rence to a mutinous army was dishonourable and dastardly in the highest degree. Thus, in any event, even by its own showing, the Government is entirely responsible for the situation ; and no amount of glory gained by our army in India will, we trust, induce the nation to forget for an instant the blood that has been shed, the treasure that has been wasted, or the enormous cost that will have still to he incurred. What England looks for in India is a possession at once honourable and profitable ; but it never can be either an honour or a profit to us if it is to be, as Minis ters have made it, a sink at once for our money and our blood. This, then, is the question that the public must fairly address itself to—not whether HAVELOCK or Sir COLIN CAMPBELL IS victo rious, but at what cost we are gaining such victories-1010 it is that has brought about the necessity for this waste of life and money, and where finally the whole thing is to end Will anything that our heroes in I: Alia can do for us give us back WlLLonettsv, and NEILL, and WHEELER, and NICHOLSON, and BARNARD. and LAWRENCE, and the thousands of others worn to death or slain ? Will it bring us again the treasure that has been plundered ? Will it restore to us those dearest of treasures, the poor murdered innocents of Delhi and Cawnpore ? No deeds of arms can obliterate the past, and no gazettes or Ministerial glozings will ever. we hope, induce the country to forget under whose rule, and owing to whose misconduct, such disgrace and losses were brought about. The honours and rewards of our soldiers are one thing—with their acts the glory of the country is imperishably hound up but it would indeed be degrading to its intellect if it were unable to distinguish the acts of the authors of its dishonour from those of the courageous men who at the sacrifice or peril of their lives have strived to wipe the dishonour out. -The heroism of the soldier suffers no diminution on account of the origin of the war in which at the bidding of his Sovereign he fights. Far different is the case of the Minister through whose evil counsels wars, and particularly civil wars, are incurred ; and it must be clear by this time to the humblest capacity that, hoverer brutal our enemies may have been by nature, their brutality would never have been turned against us, but for the continuous disregard of the rights held most sacred in every country, culmi nating in the transactions that followed upon the annexation of Oude. REPRESENTATION OF PROPERTY. LIKE all new proposals, the suggestion for giving representatives to the professional classes must encounter much ho stile prejudice and many political objections. In England it is always necessary that a change should be, not merely legal, or safe, or useful, but that it should be suited to our customs and national habits. " Will it work well ? " is the test applied by many minds when a new scheme is started. We have a free constitution, insuring perfect liberty of thought, but we have also in stitutions the products of time; and even when innovation is forced on us by necessity, we are still accustomed to pay a reasonable deference to long prescription, and manners handed down from our forefathers. It might, therefore, be premature to offer any opinion about the feasibility of the pro posed scheme of professional representation. It is only now that it is being canvassed through the country, encountering flippant ridicule from some, and shallow approval from others. The signature of so many names shows, beyond doubt, that there is an eager desire amongst many influential classes that intelligence and education should not be swamped in a multitude of ten-pounders. How the scheme would work in a party sense is very doubtful. Dissenting ministers of all denominations would ex officio be entitled to vote as well as clergymen of the Establish ment ; and there can be no doubt but that a considerable number of medical men belong to the " Liberal " denomination. The most re markable thing about the scheme is that it has received the approval of so many practical politicians of opposite connections. It must, also, be accepted as a confirmation of the fact that many Conservative minds are far from being contented with the existing state of things in relation to the proportions of representation in the House of Commons. " With regard to Parliamentary Reform," said Mr DISRAELI last summer in his able speech at Newport, " I have no prejudices in " favour of the existing system ; and when that " great change took place in 1832, I believe " that its conception was not altogether free " from the spirit of faction." It is necessary for us now to call attention to that important observation, because there is some danger lest the public mind should be misled by specula tive schemes, or lest, on the other hand, it should settle down into an indolent acquies cence in the present system as the best that could be devised. It is certain that " Reform" of some kind will be proposed, and it is right to see and perfectly understand how the pro perty of the country is not adequately repre sented. The fact of the property not receiving due consideration is evident from a glance at a single portion of the returns of property tax and population obtained by the Right Hon. Member for Bucks. Let us take Yorkshire for example. The annual value of property rated to the income tax in the year ending sth April, 1857, stood thus : North Riding East Riding West Riding £5,653,412 And the population for the three Ridings, according to the census of 1851, stood at 1,095,031. In the North Riding of Yorkshire are Malton, Northallerton, Richmond. Scar borough, Thirsk, Whitby, and York City, with eleven members between them, to an annual value of rated property 316,1161. and a popula tion of 87,207 while the same Riding, under the head of counties, has but two members to its 1,287,588/. of rated property, and its 178,224 of populaticn. For the sake of brevity, and to make the facts still more plain, we shall mass the total annual value of the rated pro- perty in the boroughs of Yorkshire, and the total of their population. There are eighteen boroughs in all th e three Ridings, and their united annual pro perty tax amounts to 2,584,272/., while their population stands at 742,963. Thus they have considerably less than half of the property of the shire of York, while their united population stands to that of the three Ridings as seven and a half to eleven. Thirty one members represent the less property and population of the united boroughs of York, while only six members are assigned to the Ridings taken as counties. There is no neces sity for us here going into an inquiry as to the exact number of Conservative or Liberal M.P.'s in the representation of York, because we only cite the case as showing the dispro portion in which landed property is repre sented ; and on the average of the six last general elections it has been calculated that Liberal M.P.'s are returned for cities and boroughs in the proportion of two to one against Conservatives. The balance was to have been redressed, according to the Reform Bill, by the Conservatives from the counties, but the " factious feelings " alluded to by Mr. DISRAELI prevailed, and justice has never been done to the landed property of the realm. There is another mode of seeing the way in which property has not received its due share in the representation. Lord Nlicaticav produced considerable effect in one of his speeches on the Reform Bill in 1831 by draw ing a contrast between some of the old boroughs and the great outlying districts of Marylebone and the Regent's-park. " I would " take the foreigner through that interminable " succession of streets and squares, and lead " him to observe the brilliancy of the shops " and the crowd of well-appointed equipages. " I would lead him round that magnificent " circle of palaces which surrounds the " Regent's-park, Sic." But this line of reason ing.can be retorted by carrying it a little far ther. The classes in those districts that sup port the gorgeous shops, and fill the squares, and contribute to the " brilliancy " spoken of by Lord MACAULAY, are certainly not repre sented by the choice of the ten-pounders. Is the property of the metropolitan boroughs adequately represented ? Do the sentiments of the great merchants and the leading inha bitants who live in the " modern Babylon " find adequate representation in the peculiar school of politicians called "metropolitan members " ? No one of common sense could answer these questions affirmatively. The localising of the representation, also, consequent on the Reform Bill, has done much to depreciate the representation of property. Independently of the county representation, we must recollect that iu former times great masses of property were represented by the new capitalists who acquired borough pro perty. The third-rate manufacturing towns now send up a class of members who are not capitalists iu any true sense, nor are they to be ranked amongst "landed gentry." We should be sorry to see this particular class excluded from the House of Commons, for they repre sent the bustling and pushing activity of the middle orders ; but it must be admitted that they have encroached too much on the in terests of real and substantial property. Without, therefore, pronouncing a hasty opinion on the scheme for the representation of the educated interests recently propounded. let us not lose sight of the fact that even if that scheme were ratified by the Legislature, there would remain for settlement the great con stitutional question as to the injury effected by modern changes in the Parliamentary representation of the landed property of the empire; and we need scarcely remind our readers how closely the interest of the Church is connected with that most serious issue' Conservatives will take different views of the educational interest recently propounded. but they are all of one accord in the conzlusion that property, as opposed to mere numbers, requires inure consideration in any scheme of Reform that may be propose 4 •