The Press. — London, England, 1857-09-26 00:00:00

bt rit6ol LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1857. STAMPED .... SI XPENCE. lINSTAMPED ..11VEPENC No. 230.—V0L.V. Cl)l2c V ress. LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTE3IDER 26, 1957. THE petition of the British inhabitants at Calcutta, which we give in full in another column, will not fail to receive the attention of the nation to whose representatives it is addressed. It is in all respects a most remarkable document, and will do more than a thousand arguments to scatter to the winds the web of sophistry which the Directors and their organs are daily weaving here. It is not the petition of any section of society, but the united appeal of all our fellow-countrymen who are not the servants of the Company, and neither afraid, therefore, to expose its inca pacity, nor interested . in screening its misdeeds. It is the cry of the afflicted of our own colour and of our own blood. It is their protest against a despotism the most crushing, the most selfish, and the most insensate that has ever been intrusted with the destinies of any portion of the human race. The petitioners tell us that they view with daily increasing anxiety and alarm the condi tion and prospects of British India. That the whole of the North• Wost Provinces have been lost to us, and that danger the most imminent threatens all that is left to us in Bengal. That over thousands of square miles European women court death as a blessing for their children and themselves. That on every highway lie our countrywomen's mu tilated remains. That the power of the East India Company is absolute, their Legislative Council being composed entirely of official persons ; that they possess besides the whole patronage of the State ; but that, with all these vast powers, and with all the overwhelming machinery at their disposal, they allowed themselves to be taken unawares by a conspiracy embracing a hundred thousand of their own Sepoys, and extending over an area many times larger than the British Isles. That, on the breaking out of this, the Government was found with no efficient Commissariat, no organised means of procuring intelligence, and, with few excep• tions, no men of sufficient capacity for the emergency. That our largest and most im portant arsenals had been left wholly unpro tected by European troops, and had conse quently fallen an easy prey to the mutineers. That even when a number of regiments were in open revolt, when many treasuries had been plundered, and various stations had fallen into the hands of the rebels, the Government still spoke of the affair as a passing and groundless panic. That in the teeth of events the most startling, and in defiance of warnings the most emphatic•, they persisted in ignoring the danger for which they had made no prepara tion. That the only measure which their sagacity could originate was one uncalled for by the occasion, repugnant to British feeling, and subversive of the principles of the British Constitution —namely, the passing a law de stroying the liberty of the press, and placing every journal of India absolutely at their feet. That the whole trade of the country has suffered more or less, and that of many branches of it the ruin is complete. Finally, that they anticipate the horrors of an Indian famine to add to the wretchedness of their state. In the face of these evils the petitioners appeal to the British nation, from whom alone they tell us they can hope for a remedy ; the powers to whom the Government of India has been delegated having proved themselves wholly unequal to the task. The East India Company, they assure us, has neither men, nor money, nor credit; what credit it had having by its own late financial operations been de stroyed. Its army, the petitioners tell us, has dissolved itself, its treasuries have been plun• dered, it propositions for a loan, even at six per cent., will not find subscribers, and the result of the present troubles will be a vast addition both to the annual deficit and to the public debt. Under good government the petitioners say that the boundless resources of the country will prove ample to meet the necessary demands on the State ; but the past system, they assure us, has been antagonistic to the encouragement of British settlement and enterprise in India, and has failed entirely to preserve the power of the Queen, to win the affections of the natives, or to secure the confidence of the British in India. They pray, therefore, for the removal of the Go vernment of the country from the East India Company, substituting in its place the direct Government of her Majesty the Queen ; with an open Legislative Council suitable to the requirements of the country, and compatible with the British supremacy ; Queen's Courts presided over by trained lawyers in lieu of the present incompetent Company's Courts. and English to ba made the language of those courts as it is of her Majesty's Supreme Courts of .Judicature at the Presidencies. It may serve the purpose of the Company and its abettors to try and throw ridicule on this petition ; but our readers will not fail to observe that both the charges made in it against the Government, and the remedies suggested, are in entire accordance with what has been constantly put forth by ourselves. And it might have saved those who sneer at these views an exposure of their own igno ranee, had they, before uttering their oracles, referred to what METCALFE, one of the greatest of Indian statesmen, has said. They would have then found that he, too, looked upon the extension of the independent European element in India as the only means by which the permanence of our empire there could be secured—the only manner in which, as he described it, we could hope to take root in the soil. He held it, therefore, worthy of all our fostering care ; and he advocated the transfer of the government to the Crown, the introduc• Lion everywhere of professional judges, and the substitution of English as the language of the Courts, as important aids towards that great end. If he did not touch upon the question of seats in the Legislative Council, it was because such an institution did not exist in his time. Had it done so we may be sure that his opinions would have been as sagacious on this point as they were on almost every other that he touched. Indeed, it seems absurd to suppose that the Legislative Council would not gain greatly by the addition to its body, through the nomination of the Crown, of some of the leading members of the indepen dent British community in India. They would give a weight and influence to its pro ceedings which these do not possess at pre sent; and the best guarantee for their fitness would be the eminent position which, owing to their talents and their wealth, they at pre sent hold. They would surely be more fitting councillors than such persons as we have seen named—men who had been passed over in the selection of couneillors for their own Presi dency, or who had been degraded from the Sudder Adavvlut Bench. The demands of this petition, therefore, being so reasonable, and those from whom it emanates being persons of such weight, it will be impossible for the nation to treat it, as the Directors desire to see it treated, with con tempt. The petitioners are men who have a far larger stake in India than all the Directors put together ; they are the representatives of those great mercantile interests to whose ope rations we owe nearly all the benefit that we derive from our empire in the East. They are competent witnesses, and they are witnesses from the spot. There cannot be a question as to their honesty and good faith. Is it, then, possible for us to reject their appeal ? Can we persist in maintaining this obnoxious system of government in face of the feelings thus on all sides expressed ? Have we not a task before us difficult enough of accomplish. ment already, without embarrassing ourselves with the support of a body which is univer sally odious, and the detestation borne towards which is the greatest obstacle to our success? The natives of India are utterly alienated; can we afford to alienate all the British inha bitants as well? If we would restore our prestige in India, let us be wise in time. Let us rid ourselves of the body whose nepotism and incapacity have brought these disasters upon us, and whose ignorant dealing with them is daily extending the disaffection they have caused We are anxious for the good opinion of Europe ; let us not forfeit it by striving to perpetuate the misgovernment which, cut of the mouths of our own fellow countrymen in India, has been condemned. We desire to enlist the enthusiasm of Eng land in our favour; let us not insult it by adopting the cause of a set of imbeciles, whom every generous spirit must despise. Let us throw away the dishonoured emblems of the Company, and substitute for them the name and authority She has never wronged she is not obnoxious to in India either ; on the in the greatest reverence Round her name would • ins of England and of In , ws present a noble si‘, Europe, and an honourei. and people throughout th, ever been the strongest of our beloved. Queen. l her native subjects; her English : .•ects _ Ito) contrar., .1, ; ., "Jr, ue an. .• i i .W • y At . 44 44 , rallyair ••• . I:. .. 41, _ ' . ridia via; :. •, ' .•_. fight te4t : : •-!,. `' s C .. 1 ed froiri k .:x. : :tik the Eml !..i..:,- ' Y .. ;,9 print_ , •