The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-02 00:00:00

likely will it be to degenerate in a guerilla
system of warfare, the most difficult for us of
all. For what can organised armies do against
these nests of wasps ? Successes may bring to
us glory, but it is not glory that we want, but
peace. If we cannot conquer that, wo but
slay natives in vain, and it is quite clear that
it is not conquered yet. Indeed, if the Cal-
cutta correspondent of the Times is to be be-
lieved, we must be almost as far from the
final settlement of the rebellion as we ever
were. For what we were first told was a mere
sepoy mutiny, and then a Mahomeda.n con•
spiracy, is now described by that writer as an
insurrection, not merely of the sepoys, but of
all the classes from;which the senoys are drawn.
The armed classes, the feudal retainers, the
private guards, the clubmen, and the police,
he tells us, aro against us to a man Collec-
tively, he says, these number three millions of
people, and he adds that they are constantly
recruiting the insurgent ranks. It is need-
less to say that if he is correct, and if this is
the mass we have to cope with, it. must be a
very considerable time before the conflagra-
tion can be stamped out.
Is it necessary for us again to point out why
all these armed classes and feudal retainers
are against us? Would it not be superfluous
for us to repeat that it is because our Govern-
ment has deprived them, through the confis-
cation of their former masters' principalities
and jaghires, of the means of earning their
bread ? It may bo all very well to say that we
want no such unproductive classes in India;
but will that alter the fact of their being
there? Can we expect the accumulated
results of a system pursued for centuries to
be swept away in a day ? We might as well
lament that India is not unpeopled for us to
do with it as we will, as arraign the existence
of any particular races of subjects there. It is
the same in every country. Rulers cannot in
Europe, either, alter the classes and races
they have to govern ; they must be content to
take them as they are, and make the best of
them that they can. We cannot create cir-
cumstances—we must deal with them as they
come ; this is the true philosophy, whether
of politics or of common life. It is the only plan
by which either in public or private affairs we
can attain success. He is said to be a bad
workman who complains of his tools, and he is
surely a foolish ruler who is ever attributing
his misfortunes to the nature of the people
with whom he has to do. Itis the business of
the statesman to study that nature and adopt
his measures to it, and not run counter to it
as we in India have done. He who acts so
will seldom fail to govern men suecessfully,
whatever their nature may be ; while nothing
but failure need be looked for from him who
is eternally questioning the wisdom of PRO.
VIDENCE and dwelling on the perversity of
man. If the Government would only seek
the solution of the Indian difficulty in the
better spirit we have described, they would not
be very long in discovering it ; but no good
can attend their attempt to cure the mischief
their own wilfulness and ignorance has occa-
sioned by recourse merely to the rope, the
bullet, and the sword.

LORD CLINRICARDE AND " PAM.-
CANNINGISM."
IF there be sweetness in political revenge,
Lord CLANRICARDE ought to be a happy man.
" The accomplished Marquis " (as the Time..
calls him) was left out of the Aberdeen-
Russell Coalition, and he n.)at beelines a
member of the Ministry from which Lord
Jolts Ressm.r. and Earl GREY are excluded.
The contrast between Lord IiARROWCY IC-
tiring and Lord CLANRICARDE going into the
Cabinet is provocative of mirth. We should
like that the scene could have been performed
in public, and that those religious politicians of
the Record school, who told the nation that
Lord PALMER•aON was "the man of Cron,'
could have been permitted to behold the
chuckle of s aisfaction on Lord CLANIIICARDE's
countenance as he let himself into the Cabinet