The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-09 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 9, 1858.

" not hesitate to say that unless we modify and
" keep within bounds our feelings of national
" superiority—unless we remember carefully, and
" even jealously respect, the very prejudices of
" those whom we have to rule—above all things,
" if we attempt to introduce the force and in-
" flaenoe of Government into that which ought
" to be a matter of private conviction between a
" man and his own conscience—if we do this, or
" even if we are suspected upon plausible grounds
" of attempting to do it, we shall have our efforts
" at improvement thrown back in our face as
" insults, and shall end in doing more harm than
" good." Now, in all this we cordially agree. li
Assuredly it is both our duty and our policy to
" keep within bounds our feelings of national
" superiority;" nor ought we "to attempt to in-
" troduce the force and influence of Government
" into that which ought to be a matter of private
" conviction between a man and his own con-
" science." In other words, the British Govern-
ment, in dealing with its Indian subjects, ought
not to bring to bear its force and " influence "
to control their private "RELIGIOUS convictions,"
for it is evidently to religious convictions that
Lord STANLEY is alluding.
We must not, however, conceal from ourselves
that it is on our religious dealings with India
that " the fluctuations of Parliamentary politics "
will first be felt. And if nothing more on the
subject had fallen from Lord STANLEY'S lips, we
might have been well contented to accept the
general principle which he has here enunciated
as the one which ought chiefly to guide the
conduct of England respecting religion in India.
But the enunciation of this principle is
broad and vague, and we naturally turn
to any other means that are accessible in
order to get a clearer insight into Lord STANLEY'S
real meaning. We therefore turn to the answer
to the deputation from the religious societies, to
which we have before adverted, and there we
read :—" As regarded the expression of religious
"neutrality; the Government construction of
" which the deputation expressed themselves
"anxious to ascertain, he apprehended that what
" was meant was, that no step should be taken,
"directly or indirectly, to give to the opinions of
" Europe an apparent preference over those which
" were found existing in the country. No doubt
" it had been thought necessary to lay down that
"principle more emphatically, because, whatever
" might be said theoretically in reference to the
" rejection of Government aid by Christianity,
" they knew that, practically, ('hristians had
" availed themselves of Government assistance
" and interference. It was not enough fir the
"Government to establish an equality between
"persons of all religions, but care must be taken
"that the spirit of the law was administered by
" those in authority ; and he would say, on the
"part of those in authority, there should be no
"exercise of official power and influence which
" they might possess in favour of their own
" opinions and against those of the native
" population."
Now, with great respect for Lord STANLEY,
we are bound to confess that we do not see how
this theory is to be carried out, without a
decidedly retrograde step being taken by the
Government, and without undoing much that
has been already done in furtherance of Chris-
tianity in India. We write with the utmost
deference. We may be ignorant of what we
ought to know ; but we certainly have never yet
seen or heard of any law now existing in India
which enforces in its enactments the carrying out
of the principle, thus explained, of " religious
neutrality." If there be such a law, it would
seem (to take two instances as examples) that
the suppression of suttee was an unmistakeable
exercise, not merely of " official influence," but
of governmental " power against the religious
" opinions of the native population" : and that
the establishment of a Christian Church, with an
Episcopate, was an exercise of the supreme
authority of the Government "in favour of
" their own opinions." If then, such a law exist,
it has been indisputably set at nought by the
Government both in letter and in spirit. Are
the people of this country, then, prepared to
witness the re-establishment of suttee, or the
withdrawal of that Christian Church from India ?
So long as the one is suppressed, and the other
remains there, so long they are standing
violations of the great principle of " religious
neutrality," as explained by Lord STANLEY.

Further on in his answer, his Lordship pro.
pounds a principle, which if it be the one by
which, for the future, we are to govern India, it
is quite clear that we must abolish that Church.
Ile lays down that the " sphere of theological
" belief and the sphere of Government are
" absolutely and entirely separate." Now, we
must not disguise from ourselves the mighty
changes which the adoption, by the Legislature,
of this principle involves, not merely in India,
but in the United Kingdom. Our readers must
not disguise from themselves that it is a principle
which sweeps away at one blow all the principles
on which the Constitution of this country is
founded, and that, if we are to act upon it, we
must set to work to destroy nearly all that exists,
and begin to construct everything anew. Lord
STANLEY truly tells us that he could not say that
"it was the recognized doctrine of modern
" Europe ; " but when he adds that "it is a
" doctrine which prevailed in England at the
" present day," we are constrained to say that it
appears to us, that if, unfortunately, in some few
instances it has been allowed to prevail, and :f
there be no insignificant party in whose minds it
does prevail, yet it is undeniable that all our
institutions are based on the directly opposite
doctrine —a doctrine which, we believe, "prevails"
in the minds of the great majority of the people.
Neither can we admit that Lord STANLEY'S
doctrine has been, as he says, " carried nut in
" our colonial possessions," although it has been,
in a few instances, partially applied to some of
them ; but when we remember that it is only
within a few years that the Government has
appointed Colonial Bishops of the Church of
England, it surely cannot be correctly affirmed
that in those possessions " the doctrine has been
" carried out."

It is hardly to be supposed that all these con-
siderations bave not, in a degree, presented
themselves to the mind of so able and so reflect-
ing a statesman as Lord STANLEY ; but never-
theless we would earnestly, and most respectfully,
implore him to weigh them over again. He has
declared (most wisely, as it appears to us) that
it is his intention to protect India from "the
" dangers arising from the fluctuations of Par-
" liamentary politics." We tell him that by
• proclaiming that the principle which he will
take as his guide is "that the sphere of theolo-
" gical belief and the sphere of Government are
" absolutely and entirely separate," he will do
the exact reverse of that which he intends to do;
for he will not only not " protect India from the
" fluctuations of Parliamentary politics," but he
will at once and irretrievably engulf the affairs
of India in the fatal vortex of a Parliamentary
and national religious strife. lie will thus de-
prive this nation of the power of taking disin-
terested views as to the best mode of dealing with
India. He will infuse the heat of religious zeal
into every discussion : each proposal will be
scanned, not with reference to its bearing on that
to which it is professedly applicable, but with re-
ference to its bearing upon questions deeply in-
volving the tate of these islands, and measures
for the future government of India will be de-
bated and decided on, not on their own merits,
but on considerations as to the effect which they
will have upon the future destinies of England.

A POLITICAL CONTRAST.
IN former times there were but two political

--•- • -- -
isms—known as Toryism and Whiggign ; but
isms have always had a tendency to propagate
themselves, and so, in later days, birth has been
given to another ism, called Radicalism, or, as
it styles itself, Liberalism. These three isms have
all some things in common, and yet all some points
in which they differ. The difference between
the first and the third is wide, but not so very'
wide the difference between the first and the
second, or the second and the third, taken by
themselves. We are no friends to isms of any
kind, but when we have to speak of things, we
must speak of them by the terms by
which they
are commonly known. The points of contra3t
between these three political systems mark out
their distinctive differences, so that the easiest
way to understand them in their distinctive cha-
racters is to contrast them.
Conservatism, as its name imports,
is preserra
lion with progress. It is a law of nature that
nothing can be preserved that does not at the

same time progress; and it is the circumstance
that Conservatism, when truly carried out, is
conformable to the law of nature that gives it
its special recommendation. When a thing
ceases to grow it begins to decline ; rottenness
takes hold of it, and it decays. It is impossible to
conserve anything that has a vital nature in it
without its throwing off continually what decays,
and clothing itself not in a new, but a renewed
form. Some trees throw off their bark every
year, the new bark imperceptibly taking the place
of the old ; with others, the bark only expands
and grows with the tree's growth but, in both
cases, so long as the tree is on the advance, or
there is vigorous life in it, this process proceeds.
So it is with genuine Conservatism as it respects
the Constitution. It is ever seeking to renew
what has decayed—to add strength to the parts
that are weak—to expand the protective powers
of the State with the growth of the State—and
to reinvigorate it by infusing into it in larger
degree the energies of life. Having received the
Constitution as an heirloom from their fathers—
as a tree of their planting—Conservatism seeks
to preserve it after the pattern of nature by fol-
lowing a truly constitutional policy, making what
is new as much as possible in the style of the old,
and adding to it fresh powers and expansion.
Thus it is that, by observing the method of nature
in the conduct of the State, in what we improve
we are never wholly new ; in what we retain we
are never wholly obsolete. And by adhering in
this manner, and on these principles, to our fore-
fathers, the Conservatives are guided not by the
dark lantern of a blind superstition, but by the
enlightened spirit of philosophic analogy. Our
political system is thus kept in a just correspon-
dence and symmetry with the order of the world,
and with the mode of existence decreed to a
permanent body composed of transitory parts,
wherein by the disposition of the highest wisdom,
moulding together the great mysterious incorpo-
ration of the human race, the whole is never at
one time old, or middle-aged, or young, but in a
condition of unchangeable constancy moves on
through the varied course of perpetual death,
renovation, and progression.
It is, however, this feature of constancy in the
midst of perpetual progress which leads short-
sighted people to regard Conservatism as a thing
that is stationary. They cannot take in the
whole compass of such a system of legislation as
stretches back to the beginning and forward to
an unseen end. They view the thing simply as
it appears at the moment, and hence confound
Conservatism with stagnation. If they would
but chronicle facts, and judge by facts, they would
see that the Conservatives have made more real
advances in the progress of improvement than
any other party ; only, having fixed principles,
they act by a law—the law which NIEBUHR, from
his living insight into all history, discerned with
such clearness, and thus set forth Ae in or-
' genic being, the most perfect life is that which
" animates the greatest variety of members, so in
" States that is the most perfect in which a
" number of institutions, originally distinct, being
" organized each after its kind into centres of
" national life, form a complex whole."
We have no means of knowing what will be
the details of the new Reform Bill which the
Conservatives will introduce; but we will ven-
ture to predict that it will be conformed to this
great law of civil as well as of organic life. They
will proceed according to the pattern of the Con-
stitution. What they introduce of new will not
be wholly new ; what they retain of the old
system of representation will not be wholly old ;
but improvement will enter into every part of it,
with a progress commensurate with the advance
of the nation in wealth, commerce, and intelli-
gence; and thus they will prove that Conserva-
tism is, what we have named it, preservation with
progress.
Whiism will be found to stand out, when
Partiallynil examined, as preservation without
progress. Whiggism is a creed, and this creed
consists in a few fixed points handed down from
the time of the Revolution. Beyond these points
Whigs never get. Their system has in it no prin-
ciple of adaptation ; their polity admits of no
expansion. Whatever changes or hues their
cad
may assume, it has always one essential
n character,
o and one only end. The Conservatives
creed,the', because their principle is a law ;
Whigs have a creed, butno vital law. It is a
circle of which the radius never varies. Their policy
"lists in the attainment of certain ends ; and