The Press.
London, England, 1857-12-26 00:00:00

THE PRESS, DECEMBER 26, 1857.

1242

would probably be sufficient for the full and
final relief of Lucknow, it would be quite in-
adequate for the subjugation of Oude. This
we explained would be a work of time, unless
effected by negotiation with the zomindars of
Oude. The news that has just arrived accords
with that statement entirely, for it tells us
that. even with the immense addition to his
forces that Sir Comm has nor► received, the
reducing Oude to entire subjection is " a task
"which will occupy them for some months to
" come." And during the whole period the
public anxiety will still continue, for war, even
VI India, is not always without reverses; and,
supposing everything to go on prosperously,
there will still be the long list of casualties to
deplore that must in the nature of things occur
before the affair is finished.

For these, and for the enormous sums of
money wasted in the contest, and its after con-
•equences, we say again and again the Minis-
ters are responsible ; and it will be in vain for
them to try and devolve the burden on other
shoulders than their own. Still more idle will
it be to try and make the public forget in its
victories the cause that led to the present
state of things. The triumph over a foreign
foe who has forced us into a war by his wanton
aggressions may add strength to a Govern.
ment, because, in that case, the sympathies of
the public are with it from first to last.
People think not of the cost of the con-
test, because they know the quarrel to
have originated in no fault of their own.
But very different is the case in a war like this.
Here it is not a foreign enemy that we are
fighting with, but subjects whom the evil mea-
sures of the Government have induced to
throw off the yoke. For equal is the blame
that is to be attached to it, whether the revolt
really arose out of the affair of greased cart-
ridges, or from the annexation of Nude.
Indeed, in the former case the conduct of the
Government is, if possible, still more inex-
cusable; and still more disgraceful are the mea-
sures it has adopted professedly in conse-
quence of what it calls a purely sepoy mutiny,
in the shape of disarming the independent
Europeans in India end subverting the free-
dom of the press. This would have been bad
enough in any case ; but to do it out of defe-
rence to a mutinous army was dishonourable
and dastardly in the highest degree. Thus,
in any event, even by its own showing, the
Government is entirely responsible for the
situation ; and no amount of glory gained by
our army in India will, we trust, induce the
nation to forget for an instant the blood that
has been shed, the treasure that has been
wasted, or the enormous cost that will have still
to he incurred. What England looks for
in India is a possession at once honourable
and profitable ; but it never can be either an
honour or a profit to us if it is to be, as Minis-
ters have made it, a sink at once for our
money and our blood.
This, then, is the question that the public
must fairly address itself to—not whether
HAVELOCK or Sir COLIN CAMPBELL IS victo-
rious, but at what cost we are gaining such
victories-1010 it is that has brought about
the necessity for this waste of life and money,
and where finally the whole thing is to end
Will anything that our heroes in I: Alia can do
for us give us back WlLLonettsv, and
NEILL, and WHEELER, and NICHOLSON, and
BARNARD. and LAWRENCE, and the thousands
of others worn to death or slain ? Will it
bring us again the treasure that has been
plundered ? Will it restore to us those
dearest of treasures, the poor murdered
innocents of Delhi and Cawnpore ? No deeds
of arms can obliterate the past, and no
gazettes or Ministerial glozings will ever. we
hope, induce the country to forget under
whose rule, and owing to whose misconduct,
such disgrace and losses were brought about.
The honours and rewards of our soldiers are
one thing—with their acts the glory of the
country is imperishably hound up but it
would indeed be degrading to its intellect if it

were unable to distinguish the acts of the
authors of its dishonour from those of the
courageous men who at the sacrifice or peril of
their lives have strived to wipe the dishonour
out. -The heroism of the soldier suffers no
diminution on account of the origin of the
war in which at the bidding of his Sovereign

he fights. Far different is the case of the
Minister through whose evil counsels wars,
and particularly civil wars, are incurred ; and
it must be clear by this time to the humblest
capacity that, hoverer brutal our enemies
may have been by nature, their brutality
would never have been turned against us, but
for the continuous disregard of the rights
held most sacred in every country, culmi-
nating in the transactions that followed
upon the annexation of Oude.

REPRESENTATION OF PROPERTY.
LIKE all new proposals, the suggestion for
giving representatives to the professional
classes must encounter much ho stile prejudice
and many political objections. In England it
is always necessary that a change should be,
not merely legal, or safe, or useful, but that it
should be suited to our customs and national
habits. " Will it work well ? " is the test
applied by many minds when a new scheme is
started. We have a free constitution, insuring
perfect liberty of thought, but we have also in-
stitutions the products of time; and even when
innovation is forced on us by necessity, we are
still accustomed to pay a reasonable deference
to long prescription, and manners handed
down from our forefathers.

It might, therefore, be premature to offer
any opinion about the feasibility of the pro-
posed scheme of professional representation.
It is only now that it is being canvassed
through the country, encountering flippant
ridicule from some, and shallow approval from
others. The signature of so many names
shows, beyond doubt, that there is an eager
desire amongst many influential classes that
intelligence and education should not be
swamped in a multitude of ten-pounders.
How the scheme would work in a party sense
is very doubtful. Dissenting ministers of all
denominations would ex officio be entitled to
vote as well as clergymen of the Establish-
ment ; and there can be no doubt but that a
considerable number of medical men belong to
the " Liberal " denomination. The most re-
markable thing about the scheme is that it
has received the approval of so many practical
politicians of opposite connections. It must,
also, be accepted as a confirmation of the fact
that many Conservative minds are far from being
contented with the existing state of things in
relation to the proportions of representation
in the House of Commons.

" With regard to Parliamentary Reform,"
said Mr DISRAELI last summer in his able
speech at Newport, " I have no prejudices in
" favour of the existing system ; and when that
" great change took place in 1832, I believe
" that its conception was not altogether free
" from the spirit of faction." It is necessary
for us now to call attention to that important
observation, because there is some danger lest
the public mind should be misled by specula-
tive schemes, or lest, on the other hand, it
should settle down into an indolent acquies-
cence in the present system as the best that
could be devised. It is certain that " Reform"
of some kind will be proposed, and it is right
to see and perfectly understand how the pro-
perty of the country is not adequately repre-
sented.

The fact of the property not receiving due
consideration is evident from a glance at a
single portion of the returns of property tax
and population obtained by the Right Hon.
Member for Bucks. Let us take Yorkshire for
example. The annual value of property rated
to the income tax in the year ending sth April,
1857, stood thus :

North Riding
East Riding
West Riding

£5,653,412
And the population for the three Ridings,
according to the census of 1851, stood at
1,095,031. In the North Riding of Yorkshire
are Malton, Northallerton, Richmond. Scar-
borough, Thirsk, Whitby, and York City, with
eleven members between them, to an annual
value of rated property 316,1161. and a popula-
tion of 87,207 while the same Riding, under the
head of counties, has but two members to its

1,287,588/. of rated property, and its 178,224
of populaticn. For the sake of brevity, and
to make the facts still more plain, we shall
mass the total annual value of the rated pro-
perty in the boroughs of Yorkshire, and the
total of their population.

There are eighteen boroughs in all the
three Ridings, and their united annual pro-
perty tax amounts to 2,584,272/., while their
population stands at 742,963. Thus they
have considerably less than half of the
property of the shire of York, while their
united population stands to that of the three
Ridings as seven and a half to eleven. Thirty-
one members represent the less property and
population of the united boroughs of York,
while only six members are assigned to the
Ridings taken as counties. There is no neces-
sity for us here going into an inquiry as to
the exact number of Conservative or Liberal
M.P.'s in the representation of York, because
we only cite the case as showing the dispro-
portion in which landed property is repre-
sented ; and on the average of the six last
general elections it has been calculated that
Liberal M.P.'s are returned for cities and
boroughs in the proportion of two to one
against Conservatives. The balance was to
have been redressed, according to the Reform
Bill, by the Conservatives from the counties,
but the " factious feelings " alluded to by Mr.
DISRAELI prevailed, and justice has never been
done to the landed property of the realm.
There is another mode of seeing the way in
which property has not received its due
share in the representation. Lord Nlicaticav
produced considerable effect in one of his
speeches on the Reform Bill in 1831 by draw-
ing a contrast between some of the old
boroughs and the great outlying districts of
Marylebone and the Regent's-park. " I would
" take the foreigner through that interminable
" succession of streets and squares, and lead
" him to observe the brilliancy of the shops
" and the crowd of well-appointed equipages.
" I would lead him round that magnificent
" circle of palaces which surrounds the
" Regent's-park, Sic." But this line of reason-
ing.can be retorted by carrying it a little far-
ther. The classes in those districts that sup-
port the gorgeous shops, and fill the squares,
and contribute to the " brilliancy " spoken of
by Lord MACAULAY, are certainly not repre-
sented by the choice of the ten-pounders. Is
the property of the metropolitan boroughs
adequately represented ? Do the sentiments
of the great merchants and the leading inha-
bitants who live in the " modern Babylon "
find adequate representation in the peculiar
school of politicians called "metropolitan
members " ? No one of common sense could
answer these questions affirmatively.
The localising of the representation, also,
consequent on the Reform Bill, has done much
to depreciate the representation of property.
Independently of the county representation,
we must recollect that iu former times great
masses of property were represented by the
new capitalists who acquired borough pro-
perty. The third-rate manufacturing towns
now send up a class of members who are not
capitalists iu any true sense, nor are they to be
ranked amongst "landed gentry." We should
be sorry to see this particular class excluded
from the House of Commons, for they repre-
sent the bustling and pushing activity of the
middle orders ; but it must be admitted that
they have encroached too much on the in-
terests of real and substantial property.
Without, therefore, pronouncing a hasty
opinion on the scheme for the representation
of the educated interests recently propounded.
let us not lose sight of the fact that even if that
scheme were ratified by the Legislature, there
would remain for settlement the great con-
stitutional question as to the injury effected
by modern changes in the Parliamentary
representation of the landed property of the
empire; and we need scarcely remind our
readers how closely the interest of the Church
is connected with that most serious issue'
Conservatives will take different views of the
educational interest recently propounded. but
they are all of one accord in the conzlusion
that property, as opposed to mere numbers,
requires inure consideration in any scheme
of Reform that may be propose 4

THE PRESIDENT Or THE UNITED
STATES ON BANKING.
THE partisans of the Bank Act of 1841 con-
stantly avail themselves of the confusion of
the public mind to take credit for their spe-
cial crotchet on the ground of common and
admitted principles on which they and their
only formidable assailants are entirely agreed.
At one time they identify all their opponents
with the inconvertible-paper party ; at another
they speak of them as the " advocates of un-
" restricted circulation," although there is not
one of their ablest opponents who does not recog-
nise at once the necessity of adhering to the
convertibility of the bank-note, and the obli-
gation of the State to take some special mea-
sure securing the note-holder of any banker's
notes against the result of the bank's failure.
In the Times of Tuesday we have a remark-
able example of this disposition of the Bank
Charter party to take credit for the views
which their opponents hold in common with
themselves, and to misrepresent the true bear-
ing of the whole question at issue. " The
" principles on which the Bank Act of 18-t4 is
" founded," says our contemporary with some-
what unscrupulous inaccuracy, " have lately
" received the acquiescence of all parties in
" this country We have now a tribute
" to our monetary system from the first magis-
" trate of the other great commercial country
"in the world." Any one reading this para-
graph would suppose, as we did on our
first perusal, that Mr. BUCHANAN had
committed himself to the principle that so
long as the State secures the note circulation
against the danger of temporary inconverti-
bility, the trade and credit of a country are
comparatively secure, or at least as secure as
sound banking could make them. It was,
therefore, with no little astonishment that on
turning to the President's Message we found
not only that he did not endorse this princi-
ple, which is of the very essence of Sir ROBERT
PEEL'S Act, but that he practically admitted
to the full extent the principle for which the
opponents of that Act have always contended
—that the bullion reserve must be kept against
the general and total liabilities of the Bank, not
against any one element—(least of all, as we
should say, against the least variable and
least elastic element)—and that no legislation
can be effective at all which does nut treat
those liabilities as a whole.
No doubt Mr. BUCHANAN says there has been
a great deal )1 bad banking in the States,
and a very insufficient bullion reserve kept
against the paper . money. But how the
Times regards this as any tribute to the Act of
1844 it is certainly difficult to see, since the
very charge brought by its antagonists against
that Act is that it does nothing, and worse than
nothing, while it confines its attention only to
the note circulation ; in short, while it attempts
to remedy evils of much deeper origin by an
artificial strain on the class of liabilities which
are least responsible for the general embarrass-
ment and least capable of sudden contraction.
Mr. BUCHANAN is intelligible and consistent,
which the supporters of the Bank Charter
Act certainly are not. He does not in any
way propose to apply the drag to that pat t
of the Bank machinery which is least in
danger of slipping, and has least power to
check the slippery movements of the other
parts. He would legislate for the banks as a
whole ; he would provide a reserve against
deposits and notes taken together, nut for
their issue department only: and this is a. hue
of thought we can well understand. "If they
"will require," says Mr. BUCHANAN, speaking
of the State Legislatures, " that the banks
" shall at all times keep on hand at least one
" dollar of gold and silver for every three dollars
"of their circulation and deposits, and if they
" will provide by a self-executing enactment
" which nothing can arrest that the moment
" they suspend they shall at once go into
" liquidation, I believe that such provisions,
" with a weekly publication by each bank of
" a statement of its condition, would go far
"to secure us against future suspensions of
" specie payments."