The Press.
London, England, 1858-05-29 00:00:00

WHIG DEVICES.

ONE very transparent sophism of the Whigs, is
that which would set apart " Independent Li-
beralism" as a " dependency" of Brookes's
Club. They hold Messrs. BRIGHT, ROEBUCK,
and Co. as irregular tribes of their empire; and
they seem inclined to resent the slightest inter-
ference with these tribes, on the part of the Con-
servatives, as not only a hostile step, but a step
of unfair hostility. Now all this is mere party
faction and manceuvre.

In one of his speeches at Liverpool in 1816,
GEORGE CANNiso described the Whigs as " a
" party, whose birth and growth, whose essence
" and element are Coalition—a party which sprung

" from the coalition of Lord NORTH and Mr.
Fox, &c." Thus, what they denounce in others,
s a part of their political system. As CANNING
suggested, the Whig party lives in politics by
" coalition." One time it relies upon the Peelites,
or the Irish Brigade ; at another time upon the
Dissenters, and again upon the Radicals. The
secret by which the Whigs have always gained
their power was disclosed by BURKE, when he
was acting as political attorney for the Marquis of
ROCKINGHAM. "The Whigs," said BURK;
" were never the strongest party in the country;
" it is only by the able use of opportunities that
" they have gained their ascendancy." And this
phrase, like many others of BURKE'S, requires
translatimi into plain English. It simply means,
what is the fact, that the Whigs have a peculiar
aptitude in the art of using demagogic power,
and acquiring influence by illicit intrigues with
parties to which they are fundamentally opposed.
But on this occasion it is to the duplicity, and
not to the demagogic artifices of the Whigs, that
we desire to call attention. The Whigs never
lose an opportunity of catering either to the
caprices or the interests of the extreme Liberals.
They neglect no means by which they can
retain an underhand communication with the
performers on the popular platform. Yet if any
Conservative gentleman presumes to converse on
political affairs with an " Independent Liberal,"
whether Mr. BRIGHT, or Mr. ROEBUCK, or Mr.
GIBSON, there is a cry of affected horror.
The taunt of " compromise,' or " intrigue,"
is at once heard. A member of the Whig Oli-
garchy can pretend in public to be anti-Radical,
while retaining emissaries for the purpose of in-
flaming popular animosities; and he may do
this without damage to his consistency. But a
Conservative politician must not presume to com-
municate on current affairs with any Liberal poli-
tician in the House.

Talk, forsooth, of the question "How is the
" Queen's Government to be carried on ?"—it will
soon come to be, " How is the intercourse of the
" House of Commons to be maintained," if Mem-
bers of Parliament cannot freely communicate with
each other ? Take the case, for example, of Mr.
BRIGHT. The Hon. Gentleman has many years
standing in the House of Commons, and has
represented important constituencies; and when,
after a long absence on account of ill-health, Mr.
BRIGHT took his seat, the Times recorded that it
was done amidst " cheers from all sides."
And, is nobody to venture to converse with
a gentleman of this degree of consideration,
unless he be of the same colour and connection
in politics ? It cannot be denied that many
independent Conservatives gave much support to
Lord PALMERSTON during a portion of his Pre-
miership; and was any charge made against Lord
PALMERSTON because he may have held com-
munications with some of them ? Was the
Noble Lord followed into the lobby, and were his
steps dogged around the es of the House ?
It was not denied that the Noble Viscount, though
leading the Liberals, had a perfect right to con-
verse with any Conservative Member; and surely
there must be some strange timidity in the
Whigs, when they pretend to be shocked if a
Conservative is seen in friendly converse with a
Liberal politician. It is evident that the Whigs
are as much opposed to a really Independent
Party as they are to the Conservatives.
We remember well that, in 1835, when Sir
ROBERT PEEL was for a few months in office,
from which he was soon ejected by Lord JOHN
RUSSELL, a countryman in the gallery was
struck one afternoon by the stern and earnest
gladiatorial strife of these two leaders, who were
then in the midst of the contest for pre-eminence.
He said to a friend who sat near him, " How
" would they behave to each other, if they hay-
" pened to meet over a friend's dinner-table ?
" Behave!" said his friend, "why I happen to
" know that before they came into the Hou
" this afternoon they had a quarter of an hour's
" private conversation alone in the little room
" behind the Speaker's chair "

STATE OF THE LAND QUESTION IN'i
INDIA.

NOW that faction in one quarter and down-
right insurrection in another have apparently
subsided, it may, perhaps, be useful to say a few
words respecting the Oude Proclamation, the
tendency and possible effect of which have been
so much misunderstood.
To begin at the beginning, then, it should be
recollected that as the India Company com-
menced their governmental operations as dewans,
deputies, or agents of higher authorities then
ruling the country, the theory of the State being
universal landlord, and the produce of the soil
the immediate and principal source of revenue,
was in a measure forced upon their adoption.
As, however, the fiscal proceedings of all the
native Governments were arbitrary and capri-
cious in the extreme, the necessity for fixing a
limit to the amount of assessment to which the
cultivators were liable, very soon pressed itself
upon the attention of the Governor-General ;
and Lord ConNwAws endeavoured to do justice
at once to the State and to the landholders by
decreeing that "Permanent Settlement" which
has been the subject of so much discussion during
the last century. This beneficent arrangement
was calculated at first to give universal satisfac-
tion—but, unfortunately, the necessities of the
Company, occasioned chiefly by, their trading
operations, required a larger flow of money into
their treasury than the settlement in question
was found to produce ; and the petty chiefs and
local authorities, availing themselves of their
position as collectors of the land tax, unscrupu-
lously met the pressure which was in consequence
made upon them, by arbitrarily exacting in-
creased rent from all their subordinate cultiva-
tors. To explain this, it should be stated that
the farmers of the land revenue, under the name
of zumeendars, talookdars, &c., were serviceable
alike to the Government and to the cultivators—
to the former in collecting and remitting the
revenue, and to the latter in making occasional
advances for the expenses of cultivation. When,
therefore, increased contributions were required,
and those contributions were found to fall upon
the class of cultivators, it is not surprising that
the permanent settlement soon came to be con-
sidered by the partizans of Government as
having been much too lightly assessed. The
zumeendars were consequently pressed for still
larger returns, and the cultivators, taking advan-
tage of the law courts, then recently established,
appealed to them for protection. The consequence
was such an investigation into the validity of
title-deeds on the one hand, and into the possible
produce of land on the other, as occasioned a
scene of ruin and confusion, which the lapse of
more than half a century has scarcely sufficed to
terminate.

Now, bearing in mind the incidents above
alluded to, it was certainly unfortunate that the
very first step taken by Government on the an-
nexation of Oude was a revisal of the existing
land settlement. From the natural desire of the
revenue officers to do what they conceived to be
their duty, it may readily be believed that this,
and perhaps this only, was the point on which
the novelty of our reign was likely to wound
the sensibilities of our new subjects. Yet there
was another : vast numbers of our sepoy pen-
sioners being located with their families in that
province, they are said to have bitterly com-
plained that, whereas their affairs were imme-
diately attended to when the country was under
native rule, they were subjected to all sorts of
vexatious delays when they produced their
warrants to the newly-appointed Company's
servants. When, however, Sir HENRY LAW-
RENcE was appointed Chief Commissioner, it was
hoped that a more conciliatory system would
have been adopted; but events crowded too
duickly upon him, and he recommended the
isarming of the population—a measure which,
although it had completely answered in a still
more turbulent province, was opposed by a
highly respectable authority in the Council.
The rest we know. And now comes the crisis at
which the Proclamation adverted to was framed.
The circumstances above imperfectly alluded to
were generally known ; Sir JAMES OUTRAM'S