The Press. — London, England, 1855-08-18 00:00:00

AUG. 18, 1855. institution of a Commission calculated honestly to work out the result. Sir CHARLES WOOD'S directions were, to " call upon every collector " in the Presidency to report fully whether " such an unjustifiable practice is suffered to " exist, and whether they have reason to be " lieve that an occurrence of this kind can u have taken place without their knowledge in " any part of the territories under your govern. " ment." In other words, the question was to be left to the testimony of the very men whose character was at issue, and who could have only replied affirmatively as regards their own districts at the risk of dismissal to themselves. Lord HARRIS went to work in another fashion. Writing on the part of the Madras Govern ment to the Directors at home, he says : We have extended our tinstructions to all sub collectors, judges, subordinate judges, civil engineers, and medical officers employed in the provinces. We have also directed that all officers of the army, and of the Commissariat Department especially, should be required to afford all information in their power. But, besides these applica tions to officers in the Government employ, we have addressed persons residing in the provinces independent of the Government; and we have appointed at the Presi dency a Commission, consisting of Mr. E. F. Elliott and Mr. Stokes, Civil Service, and Mr. J. B. Norton, to receive an I investigate any complaints which may be presented by tslem of any class. As Mr. J. B. NORTON IS a barrister known to entertain views hostile to the system of the Company, we must look upon his appoint ment—and indeed on the whole proceeding— as evincing a fairness very honourable to L )rd HARRIS. To him chiefly, we repeat, the p tblic are indebted for the complete and a itisfactory exposure that has been made. It has been attempted by some persons to show that the use of torture in the Company's territories has been exceptional ; but the Commissioners state that even in the short time they sat they had received fourteen hundred and forty letters of complaint from all parts of the country—of which five hundred and eighty six were set apart by them for investigation. Then, again, there is further proof of the fre quency of it in the limitation of inquiry regarding torture to cases that had occurred within a year of the Circular issued after the Commission had closed —on the ground, among others, that, " while it would impose " much labour on the European officers, and " occasion certain hindrance to the public " service, it would be unattended with any " countervailing benefit. The object is not " vengeance for the past, but security for the " future." We do not altogether concur in the propriety of such limitation; but the state• ment conveys convincing proof of the great frequency of cases of torture and the neglect which charges against officials in respect of it had previously met with. Mr. WALTER ELLIOTT, in his minute, indeed, says on this subject : I can state, from my own knowledge of the precisely similar revenue and police management in parts of Bom bay in which I have served or have visited, that similar practices must and do prevail; end the relation of the atrocities perpetrated by the Zemindary police, and the far more degraded condition of the peasantry in the per manently-settled districts, leave no room to doubt that the same excesses are to be found in an even greater degree in Bengal. The only part of the country subject to the Commissioners' inquiry in which the practice of torture appeared to be entirely unknown was that within the limits of her Majesty's Supreme Court of Judicature at Madras—a most significant fact, but one which the readers of this Journal will have seen long since anti cipated and accounted for. The truth is, that the spots within the limits of her Majesty's courts' jurisdiction in India are the only spots iu the whole territory in which the judges are both competent and independent, and in which, by consequence, any real protection for person or property is to be found. The Madras Government itself admits this when, in accounting for such extensive abuses pre vailing, it alleges— The difficulties in the way of the aggrieved parties ob taining redress—the European officers to whom alone they could appeal with confidence for defence against op pression being overwhelmed with multifarious duties, and burdened with the charge of extensive tracts of country which it is beyond their power efficiently to supervise. And again : The enormous extent of their charges, the numerous duties imposed on them, render it absolutely impossible for magistrates to investigate more than a small propor tion of the complaints which come before them. Now, these allegations of the Government of Madras being assumed to be true, what THE PRESS. becomes of all the self-laudations we hear periodically from Leadenhall-street as to the wonderful perfection of the government of India by the East India Company ? Why, here, by their own Governor's confession, it consists in putting under their sons and nephews extensive tracts of country which it is impossible for them efficiently to supervise, and establishing a system for administering justice under which it is equally impossible for the magistrates to attend to more than a tithe of the cases that are brought before them. This may be admirable government according to the Leadenhall-street standard— and indeed it is notorious that the Directors follow pretty much the example of their magis trates in respect to their own treatment of the cases that are brought before themselves— but to any one dwelling out of that atmo sphere such a system of ruling a country will appear intolerable ; and we hope that the day is not very distant when it will be wholly swept away. We cannot terminate our notice of this Par liamentary paper without quoting the conclud ing paragraph of Mr. WALTER Ettiorr's minute. The views contained in it we consider admira ble, and they are entirely in accordance with the doctrines which we have so repeatedly laid down : I have already remarked that I consider the most fertile source of oppression is to be found in connection with the indirect exactions levied by public officers from the ryots. The practice, I consider, cannot be checked so long as annual ryot-war settlements of the revenue con tinue to be made. The machinery for such a purpose re quires the employment of a very large body of inferior revenue officers, many of them receiving rates of remune ration lower than those of ordinary domestic servants. They are always men of education,—that is, they are the best educated individuals in the community ; they are expected to maintain a decent appearance, and the nature of their duties often requires them to keep a conveyance. It is absolutely impossible for them to do all this on the pittance allowed to them, and their means are eked out by illicit contributions derived from the ryots. I believe that a more permanent tenure of the land which shall save the people from constant annual interference, while it allows of a large reduction in the present descrip tion of inferior agency and the better remuneration of those that remain, with the location of a larger number of European or other qualified controlling authorities through out the extensive revenue and police districts into which the country is divided, are quite as essential to a successful repression of torture as any of the other methods that have been recommended. With Mr. WALTER ELLIOTT We entirely concur, and we are sure that there is no man of common sense in the community who can fail to see that for the perpetration of these atrocities it is the Government of India that is principally to blame. To hand over the ryots to the mercies of subordinate officials • who have to support themselves and their families, maintain a decent appearance, and keep a conveyance into the bargain, on a less salary than they have to pay as wages to one of their own domestic servants, is to invite, or rather create, the extortion which the Directors now affect to join in condemning. The more especially is this the case when the only ap peal complainants have against such oppres sion is to magistrates who have not time to investigate a tithe of the complaints that are daily made before them. It is a farce to lay the blame of such things on the native cha racter when there is scarcely a man of the same class in any other country, our own in cluded, who, placed in similar circumstances, would fail to extort money to the same extent if not precisely in the same manner. Appoint ments of this nature, virtually unpaid, involv ing a large personal expenditure, and accom panied by power unlimited—power of which the abuse is manifest, universal, and habitual —could only after a time be looked on in any country as licenses for extortion from the whole community. THE NEW VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE. " WHO, and what, is Mr. LOWE that he should " be made a Privy Councillor, and a Vice-Presi " dent of the Board?" is a question on the lips of many. Even with the autobiographical aid of the gentleman himself we cannot profess to be able to answer the query. That " Boe LOWE " was an " Oxford Tutor," and a barrister at the Antipodes, are the patent facts in his personal antecedents, with which people are 775 familiar. In his speech at Kidderminster Mr. LowE boastfully recorded how, at twenty-one years of age, he beg a n th e wor ld w ith fi ve shillings, but he did not condescend to state n a to rt t s he he nu t g u g rn et e s d w h h i i s ch fiT ie t n " o c i r v o h w o n ld o s f . 1. b g Y I o r * y . . 11 " a i t ' DE 0E wrote the history of Colonel Jack, a boy who never went to school," an d it wou ld be a tak i ng title for a Rail wa y V o l ume t o ad vertise " Boa LOWE at the Diggins,' or Me moirs of a Gent who got an Oxford Educa tion upon Five Shillings." This boastful as sertion about his limited means, and (implied) unlimited abilities, must be read like para graphs about the last American marvels— headed " wonderful if true." After a few more addresses to his constituents, Mr. ROBERT Lows will make Kidderminster as re nowned for good stories as Kentucky. Of Mr. LOWE'S career at the Antipodes we have heard contrathctory accounts. Nothing has been recorded of him in that region to justify his rapid elevation. We have even heard some persons, well qualified to give an opinion, predict that " Boa LOWE will be " found out to be a complete mistake." Nor shall we be surprised at it. His first speech in Parliament was well conned, delivered at the right moment, and was successful. But since then he has made no way as a speaker, though he often showed a disposition to be offensive, when he calculated on impunity. He is more saucy than sarcastic, more smart than! sparkling in his rhetoric, and his logic is not sustained. He can carp at an adversary, but he cannot confute him skilfully, and he is deficient in tone as a debater. So far from improving on his legs, his delivery of late has partaken of a strange fumbling manner ; and at reply, though he can always be curt, he wants readiness and illustrative faculty when he has not got his lesson by rote. Such is Mr. LowE as a speaker. What he may be as a writer, we do not care to inquire. We should be sorry to suppose that some of the writings attributed to Mr. Lows by com mon rumour ever proceeded from his pen. They would do equal discredit to his head and heart, and their style would support the name, not of an "Oxford tutor," but of an alumnus, who spent his first " five shillings " upon some academy in Billingsgate. Mr. COBDEN, in a letter to the Times, recently read a severe lesson to any honourable, or "right honour able " members who would enter into rivalry with the reporters. The stenographic reports are done with extraordinary accuracy; and harsh censors who are silent in debate, though vehement in type, would do well to imitate the fidelity to fact and language exhibited by the Parliamentary reporters. We know of no special qualifications of Mr. Lows for the Vice Presidency of the Board of Trade. His speech on the Decimal Coinage question abounded in blunders. He elabo rately showed that he had not accurately studied tho subject, and that he had taken great pains to go wrong. He stumbled over the modus deeimandi ; he chopped midship man's logic about florins and pennies, con founded fractions with decimals, (and asked questions which would have enraged COCKER. Commercial members smiled ; and he sat down after a bad speech, made with the best intentions to do himself credit. One of his predecessors, Mr. SHELL, was also singularly unfitted for the post now held by Mr. Lows. But Mr. SHELL had been a distinguished Par • liamentary speaker for several years; and people are well justified in their surprise at the sudden promotion of Mr. Lows We shall not here say what we have heard upon the subject. But we are convinced that Mr. LowE will dissatisfy those who have weakly consented to his promotion. Like the manufacture of the town that he represents, Mr. ROBERT LOWE will yet he shown in Parlia ment to be " not the real thing." He ought to be careful in his mode of speaking of other men in public life, and he should steadily avoid whatever would suggest that his surname had more appropriate felicity than is usual amongstmen. the He ha s a gpopte some llat i o n g s e n o t f l e E h n i n gsh t l in gentl e- Parlia ment, and Mr. LOWE may be assured that men far cleverer than himself have soon been hum bled when carrying their p retensions too far. More formidable persons Mr. Lows ever