The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-05 00:00:00

THE PRE S S, SEPTEMBER 5,1857.

pire from destruction. For these imperial and 1
paramount objects the measures they are adopting
are feeble and inadequate.

Again, I have stigmatised the inconsistency of the
Times on this momentous question. In its columns
during the past month will be found abundant proof
that its talented but unscrupulous conductors appre-
ciate fully the real extent of the peril, and are aware
of the feelings which the atrocities it has recorded
are calculated to excite. But under what influence
is it that the leading journal abstains from denounc-
ing the comparative apathy it disapproves, from stimu-
lating public opinion to compel the Government to
exercise the vigour it recommends, that it even
palliates, and almost defends as great, the measures
it proves to be insufficient and small? On Monday
last, it declares that the intelligence it publishes
" details deeds of infamy which will set the blood of
every Englishman boiling in his veins." It advises
that " Delhi should for the future only be known in
history as Sodom and Gomorrah." It trusts that
"no Englishman would be found to grudge a year's
more income tax that the work of retribution may be
done." It wishes that a "greater embodiment of
militia" had taken place, because " we have still
our work to do in India;" we shall want "much
more assistance than that of ten regiments of
militia;" and we must be prepared for "an annual
home drain of 15,000 men." Yet it talks of recent
accounts as " satisfactory and encouraging." It an-
nounces the embodiment of the very ten regiments
of militia with only the passing remark, "we could
ourselves have wished it had been more." It allows,
without protest or remonstrance, Parliament to
break up without any financial provision for the
present emergency, except the beggarly sum of
200,0001. for this modicum of militia. It neither
rouses the people to a consciousness of the urgency
of the crisis, nor prepares them for the sacrifices it
well knows they must encounter to avert it ; nor
denounces the blindness which sends the Sovereign
to Scotland, and scatters the Legislature in every
direction, without any adequate provision made to
meet the terrible exigency which exists and sur-
rounds us. I say, sir, unhesitatingly, that Parliament
ought not to have been prorogued without placing at
least five millions-at the disposal of the Executive
Government on its responsibility to meet the Indian
exigency; nor without an address to her Majesty,
expressive in the strongest terms that language
could supply of the unshaken determination of the
British Parliament and the British people to main-
tain at any and at every cost the honour and dignity
of the Crown, and the integrity and rights of the
empire. On the effect of such a declaration in
Europe as well as in Asia I need not dwell. It
would have tended to restore a prestige which late
events have lamentably impaired. The nation
yawns listlessly on the edge of a precipice. It
should be awakened. The Mansion-house subscrip-
tion ought to be reckoned by hundreds of thousands.
The income tax ought if becessary to be doubled.
The militia ought to be quintupled. The China
expedition, if even necessary, as Lord Palmerston
stimulated the country to believe it was, for main-
taining the honour and interests of England, ought
to be persevered in, both to show that our threats
were not a mere mano3uvring, " brutum fulmen,"
bullying but impotent, and to keep up a stream of
military force in the Eastern seas, ready to be again
diverted to India, if necessity should still require it.
By such measures we should prove to the world that
we are really the mighty, the undaunted, the uncon-
querable people we pretend to be.
I have extended my remarks on these points to
such a length that I dare scarcely venture on further
intrusion ; yet I cannot let slip the opportunity for
corroboratingitheltriumphant refutation in THE PRESS
of Saturday last of Mr. Vernon Smith's inconceivably
silly declaration, uttered on the 11th of August, that
" any man would have been denounced as a mad-
man or a visionary who hal hinted that such an
outbreak as has occurred would occur in India."
You must of course consent, on the irrefragable evi-
dence of the numerous quotations you give from the
cautions and predictions contained in your columns
during the past three years, to be classed, in the
judgment of Mr. Smith, with the late Sir Charles
Napier, as a visionary or a madman. I have at this
moment before me a letter from a distinguished
officer of rank in the Indian army which necessarily
includes him in the same maniacal category ; for,
writing from Poonah on the 13th July, he says :
These are terrible times, my dear friend. Not that
they have come upon me unexpectedly ; I have seen the
state of the native army long since, and hare written and
spoken on it until I was tired. Here for some time past we
have been extending our territory, and occupying it with
the same small body of Europeans that were deemed
necessary before. The same prop was to sustain India
when her back had become long as when it was short, and
who can wonder that tt now breaks in the middle ?
I am, sir, your constant reader,
Crvis Romitisa:s.

Reigate, Sept. 2nd, 1857.