The Press.
London, England, 1855-10-20 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

consistent conduct, and with a steadier cha-
racter, he might have obtained enough of
political support to render him both practical
and powerful. +1- aa'

nig Npaioyn,oß-GENERAL.,
Ix -Eti
our last issue We' jointed out some of the
,ii
ore pAninerit feat es which should charac-
terise 'Ole foreign Plof the new Governor-
General ; and we sla ow proceed to enume-
rate some of the 4estic measures most
needed in India, and most calculated to insure
Pii4e'rity to the people under Min, as 'Well as his
own success. In doing so, we must neces•
sarily be brief, and content ourselves with
drawing attention generally to the line of
action that should be pursued. To begin
with the subordinate Governments of
Madras and Bombay, these will be found to
be shorn of all power, and compelled in a
great measure to remain stationary from the.
want of means to progress. To these the new
Governor-General will do well to restore
much of the control over their Presidencies
which the act of 1833 deprived them of ; and,
while exercising a general supervision as to
the amount of their expenditure on public
I works and establishments, leave the details of
that expenditure pretty much to the local
knowledge and experience of the local Governor
and Council. In the same way he will be
inclined to give to commissioners and col-
lectors a much greater power of control over
the establishments under them than they
possess at present. The great fault of the
Indian official system is, that the higher func-
tionaries of Government possess far too much
power over the liberties and fortunes of the
public at large, and far too little over their
own subordinates, by whom the enormous
power delegated to them is so constantly
abused. A cultivator, or merchant, or banker,
may be imprisoned and tortured and ruined
by an official in the most summary manner ;
but, if it is a question of punishing the sub-
ordinate who has thus abused his powers,
the collector is almost powerless from the
numerous and complicated provisions against
dismissal which the Government has of late
years made. In endeavouring to correct a too
arbitrary exercise of power by collectors over
their establishments, the Government has now
run quite int.) the opposite extreme, and sub-
ordinates kncwn to be tyrannical and incom -
petent, and more than suspected of corruption,
are allowed to continue their career unchecked
as long as they can escape being caught in the
actual perpetration of any flagrant crime. To
civilians really anxious to act well towards the
people (and there are not wanting many such
in India) their exists no greater stumbling-
block than this powerlessness of control over
those over whom their right of promotion,
removal, or dismissal, ought in fact to be
almost unlimited.
The next point to which the new Governor-
General should devote his attention is the
land revenue—if, indeed, it be not the first
of all. The principles which should guide him
in respect to this have been so often laid down
in the columns of this Journal that repetition
were needless. They may be summed up in
assessment by a lump sum on the whole
estate or holding, instead of by the acre, so
as to encourage, instead of, as now, impeding
the cultivation of waste lands; in the granting
leases of their estates or holdings to all who
may desire them ; in the insertion of a clause
in every such lease, entitling the holder of it
to become at any time the purchaser of the
freehold on payment of the sum stated in it,
and which should not exceed the number of
years' purchase money indicated by the selling
rate of the public funds in India for the day;
and by the granting facilities for such pur-
chase to the smaller class of cultivators by
allowing them to pay the purchase-money by
instalments—reserving, however, the delivery
of the freehold till the whole was paid. It is
by such means alone that we shall ever get a
firmer hold of India than the numerous
dynasties have had that have existed before
us, because it is by such means alone that we

SATURDAY,

shall bind up irrevocably with our own in-
terests the interests of all who are connected
with the land.

Another measure not less necessary for the
salvation of the hat4hieners aid cultivatora is
the extbnsihn to theititerinr of the bankruptcy
I,ll‘
laws air ti ftninist*e "i)y fie Crown Courts in
the clt4es Ibf Bombri ,' Mat Fas, and Calcutta.
At pritient Vieariy the. holtSlbf the villages and
distritts off 'the hiteriOr alte'overrun by a race
Of smilill tioney-leitteltii Off the most exacting
and nthcrupulous kind. They act in league
generally With the minor native officials, with
whom they are in many cases connected by ties
of relationship as well as by bonds of mutual
interest and profit; and, having got the culti-
vators of a whole district into their meshes,
the latter become, with their families, virtually
the slaves of the money-lender, from whom,
aided as he is by the officers of Government,
there is no escape. Laws allowing of un-
limited interest, and conferring at the same
time unlimited power over the person, the
property, and all the future earnings of the
debtor, are as cruel in operation as in princi-
ple they are false. The farmer in India can
never enter into' those costly operations in-
volving some outlay, by which alone the
resources of the country can be developed,
until he shall obtain the same protection in
the event of his honest efforts being unsuccess-
ful as is accorded to the ordinary trader at the
Presidencies, or to the cultivator of a farm in
England. Imprisonment for life, and the
sacrifice of all the future earnings of oneself
and one's family are too heavy a penalty to pay
for a miscalculation of chances In a business
so dependent for success on influences over
which the follower of it can have no control.
If credit be the soul of enterprise, whether
agricultural or commercial, it is of the highest
importance to remove those shackles from it
which prevent all but the reckless or the
fraudulent from availing themselves of it. A
state of the law which repels the honest,
the industrious, and the thoughtful, the
only persons in whose hands credit can be
useful, must, it is clear, be wrong. The exten-
sion of the bankruptcy laws to the Mofussil,
while it checked the gambling loans now made
on most usurious terms to the cultivators on
the chance of what the terrors of the law may
extract from them, would extend the willing-
ness of the careful and industrious to embark
in sound undertakings beyond their' own
means to enter into, and which the present
state of the law prevents their taking the risks
of on themselves. If Lord CANNING shall but
carry out these two measures alone out of
those we have pointed out to him, he will have
fairly earned from the merchants and manu-
facturers of this country, as well as from•the
people of India, a statue of gold. Such mea-
sures would quadruple native produce, and
quadruple the consumption of manufactures
sent out from home. It would, moreover,
greatly increase the revenue, and add to the
value of land in our Eastern empire. It is an
empire in which the whole genius of the
people is agricultural, in which capital is
abundant, and in which the productive powers
of Nature are exhaustless. In such a country
nothing could possibly prevent the growth of
the highest possible agricultural prosperity
but absurd regulations, which make it impos-
sible in most parts of India for a capitalist to
invest any portion of his millions amassed by
commerce, or acquired by descent, in the pur-
chase or in the cultivation of land.

In our next we shall cursorily advert to the
judicial system, the police, and other points to
which to discuss at large we must devote se-
parate articles ; and there we shall close this
passing sketch of the policy that should be pur-
sued by the new Governor-General if he would
secure prosperity for our empire there, and
for himself success.

" S. G. 0." ON THE RUSSIAN SOLDIERY.
EVERY one knows that "S. G. 0." was long a
favored contributor to the Times. His con-
nection with it lately partook of a public
character, as he was one of the Commissioners
appointed to distribute the Times Fund in the
East. The attack made on him by that paper
of Wednesday was therefore well calculated

OCTOBER 20,1855.

to excite the wonder which it appears to think
conducive to its popularity. If there has
been no quarrel between "S. G. 0." and the
journal, and if that gentleman has been cri-
ticised as any ether person would have been
under similar circumstances, nothing more
can be said of it than that it is not usual in
the press to select collaborateurs for ridicule ;
but if there has been some quarrel on private
grounds between the gentleman and the
journal, or any question of expense, then what
is to he thought of the taste of this scur-
rilous tirade ? _ _ _

The occasion for it is unseemly. Mr. Os-
BORNE made a speech at Wilton full of manly,
generous feeling. We have read no composi-
tion of his the tone of which we could so unre-
servedly admire. He spoke of the Russian
soldiers as one son of ADAM should speak of
another. He even termed them his "fellow-
men,"—thought it probable that they believed,
as we did, that they were fighting for the
right; and that hence they met death with so
much fortitude. These are the sentiments
which appear to have roused the wrath of
his critic, who comments on them in this
style :

The Wizard of the Crimea has not done with his won-
derful conversions. Here is another of his curious tricks.
He takes you an unkempt savage, whose back is scored
with his master's blows—whose religion is adoration of the
Czar Nicholas—whose sore object is to butcher the coun-
trymen of " S. G. O."—a human bloodhound, who is the
blind instrument of the moat brutal despotism of modern
times, which, if successful, would throw Europe five cen-
turies back ; and, Hey ! presto, the Wizard waves his wand.
The Tartar cheek-bones are depressed ; the dishevelled
locks are nicely " small-tooth combed ;" the breast of our
savage acquaintance pants with none but loyal, patriotic,
and religious emotions.
Again :

We will not suffer that our countrymen shall be likened
to the savage militia of a sanguinary despot who would
have enslaved the world.

Quite apart from the attack on " S. G. 0.,"
what is to be thought of the spirit which
could dictate such passages as these? Can
we not war with an enemy without reviling
him in a style which would degrade Billings-
gate ? What end can be answered by such
abuse, except to deepen the animosity of the
two nations and banish every spark of
humanity from their breasts ? It is such lan-
guage as this that really degrades the press ;
it has rarely been used in any respectable
journal, and if persisted in must infallibly
lower the character of our journalism.
The Russian peasant does not deserve these
hard terms. He is by nature kind-hearted,
industrious, and tractable. He has no love of
strife, but he is dutiful and obeys ; and
though he wants the active heroism conspicu-
ous in other races, it is impossible to deny to
him that heroism of fortitude of which the en-
durance of the garrison of Sebastopol during
the latter days of the siege presents one of
the most conspicuous instances on record.