The Press. — London, England, 1855-07-14 00:00:00

JULY 14, 1855. Sovereigns, and also of other Potentates on the Continent of Europe. The kingdom of Tehree or Oorcha, on the other hand, lies in Bundelkund, one of the most unhealthy and unprofitable of the districts of India. Its people are warlike and untractable, and the attempt to screw a revenue out of them would be somewhat like shearing swine. The State of 'relit ee is small, consisting of only a few hundred thousand acres; the population is scanty; cultivation is carried on with difficulty ; and at the capital there is not, according to SLEEMAN, a decent house, except the Rajah's palace, nor i s there a single banker, or even respectable shopkeeper, in the place. What the private treasury of the Rajah may contain we cannot tell, but many readily surmise a beggarly account of empty cash boxes is all that one could reasonably look for in such a place. The Rajah of Nagpore died, as we have stated, about a year ago without issue, and the Indian Government immediately seized upon the territory, refusing to allow the un doubted right of the Royal Family to adopt. Nay, more, it not only seized upon the terri tories of Nagpore, and its public property and public treasure, but it actually sent troops to surround the palace where the Royal Ladies were, and, under threat of personal violence, plundered them of the whole of their private money, jewels, and even personal ornaments, that they possessed. Thus went at once their accumulated savings of many successive years. This last was an act of peculiar atrocity, and for which there was not a shadow of pretence. However unjustifiable (and all who are acquainted with the Hindoo law must know it to have been most unjusti fiable) the seizing upon the territory as a lapsed inheritance, yet nothing could warrant this robbery of the private fortune of the Royal Ladies and children residing in the palace, and who had done no wrong. They had not, by levying troops to oppose us or otherwise, given the slightest colour for the confiscation, as might have been the case had they gone even in self-defence to war. It was a more wanton and gratuitous violation of all decency and justice than the celebrated spoliation of the Begums, so denounced by SHERIDAN, in WARREN HASTINGS time. The Indian Government seems to have been desirous of silencing in some degree the clamour that this nefarious act created; and the death of the Rajah of Tehree has afforded them the op portunity they sought. He likewise died without sons, and the Rondula chiefs have been allowed to select a successor for the Royal Family to adopt. This done, the fact is now cited as a proof of the unfairness of charging with rapacity a Government capable of so disinterested an act. The contrast which we have drawn between the condition and value of the two States of Nagpore and Tehree will, however, be sufficient to account for the latter being selected for this generous display. There are no people more ostentatious with their small donations at church or meeting than those who are engaged in the wholesale plunder of the confiding constitutents who place their thousands in their hands. An attempt has been made by the Govern ment organ in India to explain the difference of conduct towards these two States in the enunciation of a principle which is as un tenable as it is new. It is said that we have a right to do as we please with the Nagpore State because a predecessor of its Sovereign was placed by us on the throne ; while, as re gards Tehree, the late Sovereign, not having been similarly indebted to us, the Royal Family there have a right to supply a failure in heirs male of the body as they please. It is not, however, the fact that the late Rajah of Nagpore was in any way indebted to us for his throne. He succeeded his ancestors before him according to Hindoo law and custom, which recognises the adoption of a collateral relation in the male or female heir where there is no direct successor to the throne. It is true that in 1818 the then Rajah of Nagpore was defeated by us in war and deposed, and the next of kin was elevated to the Crown. THE PRESS. This, however, is no more than we did in the case of Queen CHRISTINA of Spain and Queen DONNA MARIA of Portugal, and than has been done in respect of various princes in Europe by various powerful Sovereigns, from the days of CHARLEMAGNE to the present time. But that the lending our aid to the deposition of a hostile Sovereign, and the support of a com petitor more favorable to our views, should confer upon us a right thereafter in all suc ceeding time to deal with the fundltmental and recognised laws of succession in that State as we please, is a claim so preposterous as never to have entered into any but an Indian Governatorial mind. A reference to history will show that the true reason why, in 1818, we supported the right of the next of kin to the throne of Nagpore, instead of annex ing the country ourselves, was that, in the then powerful position of the other great Mailman States, any attempt to annex Nag pore would have stirred up against us a con federacy so alarming as to have rendered it difficult, if not impossible, to maintain the conquests in India which we had already made. Is it wise to show our native subjects that the moderation which they then respected in us was merely the result of our weakness, and that in these days of our exaltation it is only the worthlessness of a province that can save it from our rapacity ? Are the people there so blind as to be unable to draw a moral from the rule as applied to the rich and flourishing kingdom of Nagpore, and its exception as exemplified in our dealings with the miserable and poverty-stricken little State of Tehree, situated in the unhealthy wilds of Bundel kund ? DISCUSSION ON THE CIVIL SERVICE. THE Parliamentary discussion on Mr. VIN CENT SCULLY'S motion this week induced the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER to rise on behalf of the Cabinet. He threw cold water on the motion, and he did it in a tone which indicated the Ministerial convic tion that Administrative Reform is only a popular delusion. At another time his dry as-dust manner, his bookworm pedantry, and his allusions to the precedents laid down !by the Romans, would afford ample food for mirth. A pedagogue passing for a politician, a didactic expositor of past states of existence put forward as a departmental Minister in an age of tumultuous activity, is a ludicrous illustration of the existing system. We never hear Sir CORNEWALL LEWIS speak on a praeti • cal subject without thinking what a satire Dean Swirr would have penned upon " The Great Unreadable " of our contemporary lite rature, turned into " The Great Unpractical " of the Exchequer. But the tone of Sir CORNEWALL LEWIS'S speech on Tuesday is too serious a subject for jocose observation. Our CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER was always believed to be a partisan of the utilitarian school of political economy, and his literary Whiggery has been influenced by some mixture of philosophical Radicalism. Yet this is the statesman who, speaking as a Cabinet Minister, moved the previous question on last Tuesday, proposing, in pedantic English leading to a plain conclu sion, that the bore of Administrative Reform should be quietly cashiered. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER seemed to think that the time had already arrived for the Ministerial " Massacre of the Innocents." The spirit of the House of Commons, we were glad to observe, was not in unison with the supine spirit of the Cabinet. It was im possible to listen to the debate of Tuesday without being convinced that Administrative Reform must be practically dealt with by the coming Cabinets. The question was brought forward on Tuesday under some disadvantages. Mr. VINOENT SCULLY'S Parliamentary position did not well qualify him for the exposi tion of this important subject, and a long 655 personal discussion between the not too ac curate Mr. LINDSAY and the too unpolite Sir CHARLES WOOD interfered with the flow of the debate. Nevertheless, good was accomplished. Certain persons were compelled to show their colours on this question of the day. The weakness and fallacies of the Ministerial view of it were well exposed by Sir STAFFORD NORTH. COTE, though his speech was rather too much in the tone of a favorer of a bureaucracy ; and Sir FRANCIS BARING proved how much vis inerihe there is for the Administrative Re formers still to overcome. Mr. GLADSTONE, however, made the principal speech of the debate ; and we were anxious to see how that subtle disputant would deal with a subject offering so many topics for the dis play of his peculiar powers. His speech was able and argumentative ; but we could not help feeling how much more forcible it would have been with more directness of style. We remember no orator of Mr. GLADSTONE'S rank who so often fails to clench his conclusion, because even at the last moment he is re luctant to give the force of decided opinion. After he has bored the hole, and driven in the nail a long way, with uplifted hammer he pauses on the last stroke. In this respect he differs from the sledge-heaving force with which Mr. DISRAELI strikes at a given object. Thus on Tuesday we were reminded of the more decisive way in which the Member for Bucks pronounced on the subject of Adminis trative Reform. Three weeks since (June 17th) Mr. DISRAELI expressed his opinions on the whole question with the emphasis of strong conviction and deliberate thought, to the effect " that great changes are necessary in " the civil administration of the country ;" and, not contenting himself with generalities, the Member for Bucks asserted that "entrance " into the Civil Service should not be obtained " by nierefavoritiem, but by a real and substantial " test of fitness ;" and his original suggestion of " more spiritual rewards " far transcends in force any of the guarded comments of Mr. GLADSTONE on Tuesday. Vigour of will is all that Mr. GLADSTONE wants to become a great man ; but unfortunately it is a grievous defect in his most accomplished nature that his power of volition does not increase with his years. Without will there cannot be resolu tion; and without a thoroughly determined character a statesman will doom his party to the curse of vacillation. Instability of design is poorly atoned for by the highest ingenuity of its apologist. Parts, however, of Mr. GIADSTONE'S speech on Tuesday were excellent, and told home upon the House. The stupid fallacy that a reform of the Civil Service would produce a great many men above their work, was dis posed of by him by a bold interrogation— " There might be a great many disappoint " ments under a new system, but are there no " disappointments now ?" And nothing could be stronger than the Right Honourable Gen tleman's account of the present state of the Civil Service :—" Your public servant finds " himself doomed to a life of mediocrity, to a " life of dissatisfaction and discontent, which " is, indeed, the chronic state of the Civil " Service." These are strong testimonies from a politician with the protracted experience of Mr. GLADSTONE. The Prime Minister wound up the debate in a speech which showed that he had no aptitude for the post of Leader of the House of Commons. In the judicial power of giving a condensed summary of the arguments in a debate, and balancing the reasons at both sides, Lord PALMERSTON was never a proficient. Few speakers have ever been less instructive in debate than the still gay and formerly clever Viscount. He never had deep convictions of any kind. A prescient sagacity as to the power of true moral opinion, as distinguished from ephemeral caprice, never influenced the public life of the changeling Premier; and his tone on Administrative Reform is but of the see-saw conventional style, which means anything or nothing, according to the convenience of the speaker. We have no doubt that the Premier thinks it a sad bore that he cannot scnd a card to Administrative Reform, and smother it quietly down amidst the feathers and flounces of a fashionable reunion, oottit it