The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-22 00:00:00

THE PRESS, AUGUST 22, 1857.

infraction of the Coronation Oath involved in I
it. We have stated what is the law of the
land. Now, what does every Sovereign of this
realm promise oat his or her accession to the '
throne ?, "To preserve unto the bishops and
" clergy of this realm, and to the churches
" committed to their charge. all such rights
" and privileges as by law do or shall apper-
" Win unto them, or any of them." Can,any
words possibly be mote emphatic or precise!"
Have, then, her Majesty's Ministers acted in
total ignorance of the obligations to which
their Royal Mistress has p:edged herself, or
have they coolly resolved, as liaLLam says of
CHARLES 1., "to snap like tow the ancient
" statutes of the realm"?
And, after all, what is the amount of relief
for which it has been thought worth while to
infringe the sanctity of law, and to violate the
honour of the Crown? It is scarcely appreci-
able. For, in the first place, we very much
doubt whether the clause will not be wholly
inoperative, and whether half a dozen clergy-
men will be found in the kingdom so lost to
all sense of decency and good feeling as to
intrude into a church which does not belong
to them. But, supposing a portion of the
clergy to be thus degraded, it certainly seems
to us that the trouble incurred by parties who
have been refused marriage in a particular
church will all consist in their search for
another clergyman. Except in the case of the
very poorest classes iu the community, who
are not very like to come into the question at
all, the trouble of going a mile or two to an-
other church will be as nothing compared to
the previous trouble of finding a willing
parson. This will be the real rub ; and the
proviso about the edifice is merely a back-
handed insult to the clergy at large to prevent
their coming out of the question without some
token of the illwill of their liberal legislators.
We can scarcely believe that this clause will
be permitted to stand. It violates, at one
comprehensive blow, logic, law, sense, equity,
and truth. It will sow innumerable heart-
burnings, jealousies, and quarrels among the
clergy themselves, and be an admirable stimu-
lant of that party spirit which was just now
beginning to subside. But, worse than all, it
places her Majesty in a position which all
loyal subjects, and all lovers of her popular
and prosperous reign, must deeply regret to
see. This crowning act of the session ex-
ceeds even the expectations we ourselves had
formed of it. We did not think quite so much
oppression and perjury could have been
crammed into the space. But even Lord
PALMERSTON improves, and next session may
possibly do him still more credit.

THE ETHICS OF INDIAN EMPIRE.
THE late Sir ROBERT PEEL once stated that
" the rights of empire" were an unsolved pro-
blem in political morality. He might just as
well have said that the rights of crowns,
or aristocracies, or republics, were " un•
solved." Sir ROBERT PEEL was never clear
upon principles, except in the currency
question, on which, as Dr. ARNOLD of Rugby
said, " PEEL certainly had one idea." The
Indian question, in its present phase, has
again plunged us into the " rights " or wrongs
of our mode of ruling India, and there are not
twelve persons assembled in any social party
in this nation in which every variety of senti-
ment is not expressed on every variety of
person. Quot homines—tot sent4raice.
For our parts, looking at the question from
a purely English and Imperial point of view,
we are disposed to think that little can be
done in this vast crisis by trying the question
by primary tests of right or wrong. Enormous
errors, and gross blunders in practice, ap-
proaching to official criminality, have been
committed; but these errors have been posi-
tively committed in the face of the routine
which had been established. Call that system,
that moan regendi, by any name you choose,
or estimate it as you will, we had an Anglo-
Indian, just as we had for many centu-
ries an Anglo-Irish, mode of Government.
The authorities in the East have failed to