The Press.
London, England, 1855-12-29 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

forwarded their reports through an English
Ambassador at Constantinople to the English
Foreign Secretary. The Turks took heart
upon England coming to their relief in Asia
Minor. The Rtwslans
.took alarm and in-
creased their force under MOURAVIEFF. Loans
were raage to the Turkish Government to
help the arming of the soldiers of the Crescent.
Neither French nor Sardinians were appointed
to the army iii. Asia Minor, but English
officers of taot and experience were Apt
thither under the avowed cognisance of the
English Cabinet. AS the same time a Turkish
Contingent of twenty thousand men was
formed. English officers and an English
medical staff were appointed to it, and it was
placed under the Standard of England. Of
how little use has that large reserve been to
the Crimea! Yet of what prodigious utility it
might have been hovering in the rear of
MOURAVIEFF, or sallying on the flank of Wit:
LIAMS

And now it is asked, "Why was not that
" Contingent sent to Asia Minor? With our
" immense resources in transports, why was no
" help given to General WILLIAMS?" That
question may yet assume a most serious Par-
liamentary shape, and faces may lengthen in
the Treasury benches as the capacity of Lord
PANMURE for his part will be subjected to dis-
cussion. There were many blunders in detail
during the rule of the Coalition, but so deli-
berate an error, or so grievous a strategic mis-
take, was not committed as leaving Kars to
its fate. Civilians and military men are agreed
on this point, and even thorough-going Minis-
terialists have not a word to say for Lord
PANMORE.

THE LOCAL COURTS IN INDIA.
WE understand that petitions are likely to be
presented in the next session of Parliament
praying for a change in the constitution of the
local courts in India. While the administra-
tion of justice by her Mikjesty's Supreme
Courts of Judicature at the Presidencies has
given the most entire satisfaction to all over
whom their jurisdiction extends, the action of
the Company's courts, owing to the total
absence of independence and legal training in
the Judges, is felt to have been the occasion
from time to time of much injustice and
wrong. In cases in which the Government
has appeared as a party this has been par-
ticularly felt ; and, indeed, the admitted
partiality exhibited by its dependants in such
suits has been one of the strongest causes of
the present general feeling of the absolute
necessity of some change. In England it has
been considered objectionable that even a
county-court judge should be dependent from
time to time on the Government of the day for
the amount of salary that he received. How,
then, can the native nobility and merchant
princes of India, when suitors against the
Company, be content to see their lands and
fortunes made contiirgent on the verdict of a
removable officer of the body ho is suing or by
whom he is sued? It is true that in such
cases an appeal lies open to the parties, unless
the decision happens to have been given by
the officer as a political award ; but no man
saving one of enormous fortune could undergo
the expense of au appeal to this country; and
for practical purposes with the decision of the
Company's Judge the case is closed. At the
same time, these same officers being called on
to adjudicate in one case juridically, and in
another'politically, the boundaries of such juris-
diction become mixed and ill-defined—the sepa-
rate principles which should guide the officer in
his separate judgments get jumbled up to-
gether in inextricable confusion in his brain—
the subject of the decision seldom knows whe-
ther the person deciding is guided by his
instructions as a political officer or by his
regulations as a judge—the advocate feels
only the oppressiveness of the case, without
seeing how he is to meet it—and the result,
in nine instances out of ten, is a tangled and
complicated mass of injustice, which it would
require the patience of a Job and the inge-
nuity of a Sugden to unravel. Nor does the
Government itself derive any real or substan-
tial benefit from the system. On the contrary,
though it gains its suits, the process is fatal to

SATURDAY, -‘

its influence upon the people at large. Even
when it has right upon its side its right is
seldom felt or admitted, because under so
arbitrary a mode of procedure it is impossible
for the oasual speabiler to know whether it is
to right or to might that the verdict should be
properly assigned.
It must be clear toevat, one who reflects
upon the subject that this is a state of things
which cannot touch Lou tw be maintained. It
witer
must ba abriouse ' , that it is as much to
the true interest ii Government as it is to
that or the people that it should be with as
little delay as possible put an end to. In the
first rough cast of the Government of a dis-
tant empire, then but very partially subdued,
anomalies might be tolerated which, with the
consolidation of our power, and the progress
of the arts of peace, must necessarily be re-
moved. Realms brought under subjection by
arms require capital and commerce to develop
them • and capital and commerce can only
flourish in lands where equal laws and compe-
tent and independent tribunals make property,
as well as life, secure. To give this security,
in its most ample form, in India nothing is
required but to extend to those parts of it
which have been long under our sway. and are
now securely settled, the same principles of
judicature which have proved so successful at
the Presidencies, under the able and impar-
tial administration of the Supreme Courts.
Receiving their commissions from the Crown,
the Judges of these enjoy the respect of the
natives to a much greater extent than is ever
accorded by them to the most upright of the
Company's Judges. Trained to the law in
England, they bring with them to their task
that reverence for the Constitution, that tenlei-
ness towards both person and property, and
that calm and impartial spirit of investigation
which so conspicuously mark the Bench of
England. Above all, their submission to
authority is regulated by the knowledge that
the subservience which would make the Crown
an instrument of injustice to its people is, in
point of fact, the greatest outrage on, and in-
sult to, it, that could be committed. Nor has
the influence which this spirit has had upon
the people of the Presidencies been other than
might have been expected. While all over the
Mufussil commerce languishes, at the Presi-
dencies it has ever flourished. While there
we hear on all sides the mutterings of rebel-
lion, at tlic Presidencies the people are loyal,
satisfied, and happy. When kitten, then, is the
chief want of India, can we with reason refuse
so moderate a request ?—a request not for
anarchy, democracy, or the subversion of
authority, but merely for the substitution of
properly educated Crown-appointed Judges for
the self-suflicient and ill-educated progeny of
the Directors, who make the local Bench of
India a reproach to us, and our laws alter-
nately an object of ridicule and hatred.

AMERICAN OPINIONS ON RUSSIA.
ENGLAND does not understand America, and
America does not understand England. The
one cannot comprehend the connection be-
tween democracy and tyranny—the other can-
not comprehend the connection between mon-
archy and freedom. The consequence is that
whenever our Transatlantic brethren undertake
to enlighten the world on the subject of
Russia, their statements are always either
ludicrously or mischievously exaggerated. On
the one side peeps out that respect for
physical force which is characteristic of
democracy —on the other that hatred of
being ruled which is characteristic of Char-
tists and children. From Colonel SHAFFENER'S
account of the Russian empire, we should be
led to suppose that nothing could resist the
aggressions of that powerful and fortunate
country. Every class, from the lowest serf
who worships the noble, to the hightest noble
who worships the Emperor, is resolutely bent
upon " a vigorous prosecution of the war:'
Nature does all she can to help their enthu-
siasm. The harvests are abundant, the popu-
lation is numerous—and however many men
you may take to satisfy the exigencies of war,
more than enough will remain behind to pro-
secute the arts of peace. It would be strange

DECEMBER 29, 1855.

indeed, if a people so blessed beyond their I
neighbours in all that makes war easy, should
have been constantly beaten by those to
whom it is a previous burden. We find accord-
ingly the regular old story repeated by Colonel
SHAFFENER. The Russians have never been
worsted—Sebastopol has never been taken—
Cronstadt and tNicolaieff never will be—the
bombardment of Sweaborg was a mere delu-
sion—and so forth to the end of the chapter.
In fact, " the gallant colonel" would have us
imagine that the existing alliance between
France and England is as nothing compared
to the forthcoming one between Russia and
America—an alliance that will inaugurate the
reign of liberty by a steady resolution to spread
the dominion of serfdom and slavery.
This is one side of the picture—let us turn
to the other. An American ex-consul states it
as his opinion that the Russian empire is a
gigantic humbug, and destined, doubtless,
to be " thoroughly chawed up " by the
Western Powers. She has not got an engineer
who can mount a battery, or a general who
can command an army. Nearly half her force
is cavalry, and her infantry is wholly ineffi-
cient. She has got neither "money, powder,
" saltpetre, nor cannon." The allies had
nothing to do but to walk into Sebastopol, if
they had only known it, months before it was
taken. Cherson and its beautiful villas are
doomed to speedy destruction; and so on, ad
infinitum.
Now, really when we read over these two
accounts, and recollect that both emanate
from well-informed citizens of a neutral State,
we aro plunged in despair. How are we
ever to know the truth? Why should one
man say the Russians are more than men, the
other that they are less? How are we to tell
which of the two is indulging that "natural
" taste for perjury" which is supposed to be
inherent in certain of our species ? Seriously,
however, Brother Jonathan must not abuse
his privilege. He has long been permitted to
shoot with a long bow, but he must not arm it
with a poisoned arrow. If he is friendly to
this country he will remember that any state-
ment, however slightly embellished, is calcu-
lated to work irreparable mischief; that
nothing can be so important to a nation en-
gaged in war as that the conditions of the
struggle should be made perfectly manifest;
that every thing which tends to obscure these
is in the present instance a boon to Russia,
who has means of getting at an enemy's
secrets and concealing her own, from which we
have spontaneously debarred ourselves ; and
that it is a question whether the most
friendly office towards England just now be
not to hold their tongues on the subject.