The Press.
London, England, 1858-05-22 00:00:00

THE PRESS, MAY 22, 1858.

4. It is the first only of these offences, the perpetrators
of which, and their accomplices, it will be your duty to
visit with the severest penally which you can inflict ; and
it is, hsppily, in such cases of exceptional atrocity that
you will have the least difficulty in proving both the com-
mission of the offence and the identity of the offender.
In the other cases you might often be left in doubt, not
only of the extent of the offence committed, but of its
actual commission by the accused persons; and, although
we are aware that the retribution which may be righteously
inflicted upon the guilty may be in some measure re-
stricted by too much nicety of specification, and that, in
dealing with so large a mass of crime, it is difficult to
avoid the commission of some acts of individual injustice,
we may still express our desire that the utmost exertion
may be made to confine, within the smallest possible com-
pass, these cases of uncertain proof and dubious identity,
even though your retributory measures should thus lull
short of what in strict justce might be inflicted.
5. As soon as you have suppressed the active hostility of
the enemy, your first care will ho the restoration of public
confidence. It will be your privilege when the disorga-
nized provinces shall no longer be convulsed by intestine
disorder, to set an example of toleration and forbearance
towards the subject people, and to endeavour by every
means consistent with the security of the British empire
in the East to Kiley the irritation and suspicion which, if
suffered to retain posession of the minds of the native
and European inhabitants of the country, will eventually
lead to nothing less calamitous than a war of races.

6. In dealing with the people of Code, you will doubt-
less be moved by special considerations of justice and of
policy. Throughout the recent contest we have ever re-
garded such of the inhabitants of that country as, not
being sepoya or pensioners of our own army, have been in
arms against us, as au exceptionable class They cannot
be considered as traitors or even rebels, for they bad not
pledged their fidelity to us, and they had scarcely become
our subjects. Many, by the introduction of a new system
of government, had necessarily been deprived of the main-
tenance they had latterly enjoyed; and others feared that
the speedy loss of their means of subsistence must follow
from the same course, It was naturd that such persons
should avail themselves of the opportunity presented by
the distracted state of the country to strike a blow for the
restoration of the native rule, under which the permitted
disorganization of the country had so long been to them
a source of unlawful profit. Neither the disbanded sol-
diers of the late native Government, nor the great talnok-
dars and their retainers, were under any obliglition of
fidelity to our Government for benefits conferred upon
them. You would be justified, therefore, in dealing with
them as you would with a foreign enemy, and in ceasing
to consider them objects of punishment after they have
once laid down their arms.

7. Of these arms they must for ever he deprived. You
will doubtless in prosecution of this object address your-
self, in the first instance, to the case of the great talook-
Jars, who so successfully defied the late Government, and
many of whom, with large bodies of armed men, appear to
have aided the efforts of the mutinous soldiery of the
Bengal army. The destruction of the fortified strongholds
of these powerful landholders, the forfeiture of their re-
maining guns, the disarming and disbanding of their
followers, will be among your first works But whilst you
are depriving this influential and once dangerous class of
people of their power of openly resisting your authority,
you will, we have no doubt, exert yourselves by every pos-
sible means to reconcile them to British rule, and encou-
rage them, by liberal arrangements made in accordance
with ancient usages, to become industrious agirculturists ;
and to employ in the cultivation of the soil the men who,
as armed retainers, have so long wasted the substance of
their masters, and desolated the land. We believe that
these landholders may be taught that their holdings will
be more profitable to them, under a strong Government,
capable of maintaining lhe peace of the country, and
severely punishing agrarian outrages, than under one
which perpetually invites, by its weakness, the ruinous
arbitration of the sword.

N. Having thus endeavoured, on the re-establishment cf
the authority of the British Government in (►ude, to re-
assure the great landholders, you will proceed to consider,
in the same spirit of toleration and forbearance, the condi-
tion of the great body of the people. You will bear in
mind that it is necessary, in a transition state from one
Government to another, to deal tenderly with existing
usages, and sometimes even with existing abuses. All
precipitate rehiring are dangerous. It is often wiser even
to tolerate evil for a time than to alarm and t. irritate the
minds of the people by the sudden introduction of changes
which time can alone teach them to appreciate, or even
perhaps to understand. You will be especially careful, in
the readjustment of the fiscal system of the province, to
avoid the imposition of unaccustomed taxes, whether of
general or of a local character, pressing heavily upon the
industrial resources, and affecting the daily comforts of
the people. We do not estimate the successful adminis-
tration of a newly-acquired province according to the finan-
cial results of the tiret few years. At such a time we
should endeavour to conciliate the people by wise eonces-
along, and to do nothing to encourage the belief that the
British Government is more covetous of revenue than the
native ruler whom it has supplanted.