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

. 11 415 if ri e " 0/ t ttls - = I STAMPED .... SIXPENCE. UNSTAMPED ..FIVEPENCE. No. `?4l.—x'ol.. Z'. LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER P 2,1857. Vress. redeemed his honour, or he has gratified his wish ; and he does not grudge paying the penalty of the offence. We state these things plainly, because it is extremely desirable that our fellow-country men should understand the nature of the people with whom we have to deal. Their mode of acting is different from ours, and in physical force they are greatly inferior to us; hut it would be most unfortunate for us if we were to underrate their powers of endurance or of injury, as it would certainly seem that the Government has done. Or, if it had not done so, it must have wilfully misled its organs, and been guilty of a shameful perver sion of the truth. The more charitable con clusion would be that it has been itself de ceived, and is really totally unable to compre hend the people with whom it has to deal. If it had not been so, Ministers could have scarcely wasted three months after the first arrival of the intelligence of these mutinies in doing nothing but proclaim ostentatiously that there was nothing to fear. Neither would they have sent the troops when they began to send them in the slowest ships, and gone about for the last three mouths telling all that the neck of the rebellion was broken, and that the work of our army was done. Nor would the Governor-General have waited so long' before beginning to prepare a commis sariat and transport for the enormous force of Europeans that we have now sent out, and every man of whom will be required before the affair is over. They all underrated the crisis, because they were perversely blind to the consequences of their previous suicidal acts. To the very last they were unable to see the amount of animosity they had deliberately brought upon themselves by their nefarious annexation of Oude. Still more unable were they to perceive what must be the almost inevitable consequences of their conduct in following up the annexation by the wholesale destruction of all the proprietary rights of the zemindars there. Unless the Government will address itself fairly to these points, they will find that one outbreak will follow another, till the task of restoring order be wholly beyond the power of man. Our European soldiers are brave, but they are not übiquitous and cannot sup press rebellions in every part of India at once. We have the Oude rebels to deal with, and the Dinapore rebels, and the Gwalior rebels, and the f: augor rebels, and the Mehidporc rebels, and the Joudpore rebels, besides the rebels of a dozen other petty places, and the Bhcels of Kandeish ; and to the Saugor rebels we may add the whole of Bundelcund. But that is a province which alone would require a consi derable force to subdue it, being full of forts and strongholds, and more difficult of pro duction, if properly defended, than even the province of Oude. If, then, order is to be restored, if anything , like the proper relations between sovereign and subject are to be restored, the Government must cease to look on terror as its only instru ment, and no longer place its sole reliance on its number of European troops. The largest force that we could send to India, or at any rate long maintain there, would be wholly ina dequate to the calls on it that would thus he made. The causes of disaffection in each dis trict must be probed ; and with those causes, as in the case of riots among our own some times misguided people, the Government must fairly deal. Natives are not inaccessible to reason though utterly impervious to force and we have no doubt whatever that with very little trouble, provided we were only inclined honestly to do justice, the whole body of native princes, and chiefs, and zemindars, and people might be enlisted firmly on our side. With the native princes and chiefs the promise of non•annexation in future would he all-power ful ; and with the zemindars au engagement to observe also in future their immemorial rights. With the people there is seldom much difficulty in finding where the shoe pinches ; for, in nine cases out of ten iu India, it arises out of the extortions of the muney-lenders, or some cruelty or oppression on the part of the myrmidons of the collector, or of the native police. In either case the remedy is easy, and is in the Government's hands. IWe throw out these remarks for the con sideration of our readers, because it is of the last importance that they should not be led away by delusive telegrams into thinking on the first gleam of sunshine that all is over. A mighty revolt is before us ; it is by fairly meeting it alone that it can successfully be dealt with ; and it never will be dealt with either completely or successfully except on those principles of moderation towards all but the actual mutineers which we have above sketched out. LONDON, SATURDAY, DECE:IIBFIR 12, 1857. THE telegram which has just arrived, and which is given in full elsewhere, is calculated to allay the previous apprehensions entertained for HAVELOCK and OUTRAM at Lurknow. We suppose we may assume that what is stated regarding Brigadier GRANT'S column is an error; and that instead of the 3,500 men he had with him being reinforced by 5,000, it is meant that they have been reinforced to 5,000, or, in other words, that five thousand men form his present force. From such a number, headed by such a man as Sir COLIN CAMPBELL, we are entitled to look for great results. They will not enable him, as some seem to suppose, to put down the rebellion and reconquer Oude ; but they will enable him, we trust, to perform the service most pressingly required—namely, the full and final relief of the garrison at Lucknow. The entire conquest of Oude, our readers may rely upon it, will be no easy task, unless the Government of India does now what it ought to have done in the outset—that is, promise redress of those grievances of which the zemindars have a fair right to complain. In that case we have no doubt that they would at once separate their cause from that of the mutineers. Except, however, by the aid of measures of this kind, the complete occupation of Oude will be no very easy proceeding, and it will be impossible to preserve tranquillity on any other terms, even after it shall have been won. A reign of terror may appear to the Government a more simple mode of dis posing of the question than the probing the causes of the rebellion to the bottom, and, where we have given ground for resistance, retracing our steps. But, however suc cessful that method might be in Europe, it is the very last one to be effectual with men of Eastern climes. What, of all things, they care least about is the shedding of their own or of their opponents' blood. Their running away from us in battle may seem to us cowardice ; but the bravest of Asiatics are not ashilmed to do so when they see the wave of victory begin to turn. They have not the chivalrous feeling of the Euro pean, which leads the latter rather to perish where he stands. But if any one doubts their real courage he has only to see how unflinch ingly they face death in the most horrible of , its forms—that of being blown away from a gun. Slaughter, instead of taming them, seems rather to bring all their ferocious passions more strongly out. The more they suffer the more do they determine on revenge, and in seeking this object they seldom trouble themselves about the consequences to them selves. Nothing is more common than for a native deliberately to murder the mart who has injured him, and then go himself to the magis trate and give himself up to certain death. He cares not for this; he has, as he imagines, THE PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN THE CURRENCY DEBATE. MR. DISRAELI, in his excellent speech of last night, found himself in sympathy with many who are usually his opponents and in opposi tion to many who are usually his followers. We believe that he was thoroughly right in saying that the time had come when the difficulties temporarily and unsuccessfully dealt with in the Act of 18-14 are " ripe for legislation " ; and the very freshness of the combinations we have noted give us the best demonstration that this is so ; for no consequence of party feeling, nothing but the result of long and careful discussion, could resolve the convictions of the House into such anomalous groups of thought. In fact, the Act of 1844 is already under stood by all who have studied the question as well as it ever can be understood by the same persons. Some have a kind of twist on the subject of currency which no amount of in quiry would change. Others are the slaves of a tradition. But all who take a sound in tellect and a mind really free from prejudice into the inquiry must agree, we think, that the Act of 1844 was, as Mr. DISRAELI said last night, " founded on views which " aggravate a commercial crisis, and framed " under the misconception that the Directors " of the Bank could, it' " increased circulation " own pleasure." We trate this position in a In his speech of ye: RAELI pointed out very taut point in explaini tion of the Act of 1844, on the difference of foreign drain of gold, ani Now, there he touched • our currency difficulty LATEST EDITION. ption that the Directors if they ple).4";'mp.,an n on the.' Or will egole . .t.: : ' .01 poputir .sterd clea a. Ling t ;7: 4, is fa; •,v 4L . -ri L 4. 4 .4 4. and ilk• I upon the " The foreign drain,'