The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-12 00:00:00

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STAMPED .. STEPP:NM
No. 28 —Vor, V LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12,1857. UNSTAMPED ..FIVEPENCE;
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largely increasing the pay and bounty and
emoluments of the army ; for the present tem-
porary enthusiasm will not survive the
moment, and the toils awl dangers of Indian
service will require further inducements to
attract men to it on any considerable scale.
There will be, besides all this, the vast expen•
diture to provide for which it will entail ; and
that must be done by the British Exche-
quer, for it is preposterous to suppose that the
already bankrupt revenues of India can sup-
port this enormous additional load. If any
one has been led to doubt this by the Minis.
terial organs, we would advise him to get up
a deputation and try and extract a pledge upon
the subject from the Pi emier.
Such being our position, and such the em-
barrassments that beset us on every side, the
question at once arises whether the constitu-
tional doctrine of the responsibility of the
Ministers shall or shall not be enforced on
those who have brought this state of things
about. Is this responsibility, in short, to be
henceforth a reality or a sham? Or is it to be
confined merely to petty acts of administra-
tion, leaving untouched those great political
measures on whose issue the fate of the nation
so much depends ? Is the very enormity of
their crime or of their error to be made the
plea for shielding them from the consequences
which the conditions of their offices impose ?
For, call it a crime or call it an error, their
responsibility to the nation remains the same.
England expects in those who voluntarily
assume her guidance, not merely an absence
of criminal intention, but that sagacity which
alone can maintain her in the position among
nations which she holds. But ignorance, a
valid plea in no case, is wholly inadmissible
in this. If ever there was an act deliberately
performed it was the act which finally led to
the outbreak—the confiscation of Oude. Nor
was it the mere affair of a department; it was
a matter which claimed and which received
the sanction of the Cabinet before it was car-
ried out. It was one of the highest acts of
Government. Indeed, what act of Govern-
ment could be higher than the deposition of a
great native ally, and the annexation of his
State ? Nor were the Ministers without suffi-
cient warning of the effects which it would
produce. But they braved the danger ; they
set their all upon the venture, and, if report
be true, for the basest of all purposes—the
conciliating political support for a weak Ad-
ministration.
If such a►► act, so determined on, is to entail
no evil consequences on the authors of it,
then of course the responsibility of Ministers
will be henceforth a myth. The grossest mis-
management, the most wasteful sacrifice of
life and treasure, must pass unpunished.
Every guilty, every incapable act of the Go-
vernment must be held to be condoned
by anticipation, no matter what the results
of it may be to England's honour or Eng-
land's safety. To the last man and the last
shilling the country will stand pledged,
no matter what the cause be, to those who

tte rtss.

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1857.

THE dreadful scenes that have been enacted

by the mutineers in India and by the
miscreant NANA SAHIB do not require the
colouring of journalists to heighten their
effect. The plain, unvarnished tales of these
atrocities as they reach us from the East
display their repulsiveness more effectually
than all the arts of the most practised pen.
Neither does it need the stimulus of the

organs of public opinion to incite our soldiers
to the vengeance which such crimes deserve.
The feelings which nature has implanted in
their bosoms are a sufficient guarantee that

they will not falter in the terrible retribution
which it will be their business [to inflict.

Being therefore quite assured on these points,
we are content to leave them to their final
issue. Our army in the East will do its duty
as it has ever done. But there are other con-
siderations of a more practical import to those
whose fate it is to watch the tide of events at
home. These are to consider fairly and fully
the position in which this revolt has placed
us, and to see that the emotions of hatred
towards the actors in it, and of pity for the
sufferers, be not turned into the means of
screening the Ministers in whose gross mis-
conduct it has had its rise.

There are the misery and dishonour it has oc- '
casioned—a misery which has carried mourning
into every heart, if not into every home, and a
dishonour that will be remembered through all
future time. There is a vast army to main-
tain in India which the Ministerial journals
fix at eighty thousand men. If the surmises
of Lord MELVILLE should prove correct, it will
have; greatly to exceed that number. There
will be the continual drain on us for the
recruits that will be required to fill up the
gaps caused by death and invaliding in so bad
a climate and among so large a body. The
Transport, Commissariat, and Ordnance De-
partments will have to be increased in proper•
tion, and put on a war footing, for without
these aids it will be useless to have the men.
Meantime, the more the nation is weakened
by the vast force it has to maintain in India,
the more Extensively it will have to provide
against the possible consequences of this
weakness by a proportionate increase in our
armaments at home. So great an addition to
our military establishments it will be impos-
sible to keep up for any length of time without
entirely changing the position of the labour
market, unused as it is to such a drain. Pro-
bably the first effect will be the necessity of

may have been able to attain power by any,
even though they be the most dishonest,
means. The check which the Constitution
has imposed will be entirely removed, the
barriers which it has provided against mis-
government will be wholly broken down. The
responsibility of office, which sits lightly
enough now, will then have wholly ceased.
The dread of retribution, which at present is
small enough, will then have entirely passed
away. Ministers careless enough as it is of
consequences, will become doubly careless
then. Opposition will be disregarded, and
equally unheeded will be the public voice.
Thus things will go on from bad to worse, till
ruin overtakes us, ruin alike to the people and
to the Crown.
Against such a system of careless indolence
in the nation we raise our voice. Against
this plan of perpetually absolving Ministers
from the consequences of their misdeeds we
must protest. In the Constitution there is a
vitality which has carried us through many a
crisis, but it will not continue to do so if we
allow its functions to become effete. In no
country can the authors of great disasters be
safely intrusted with those powers by a judi-
cious and impartial exercise of which can it
only hope to recover from the dire effects of
their previous acts. It is not from the in-
capacity or misconduct that has brought the
nation to the verge of ruin that we can look
with confidence for those enlightened measures
which can alone restore her name. The
obstinancy and perverseness which have
brought upon us these troubles are only likely
to add to them, and the larger the trust con-
fided in the Administration the greater will be
the mischief they will do. At the outset of
this revolt it might by wise and energetic
management have been speedily subdued ;
but the steps the Government adopted, now
truckling to mutiny, now exasperating the
well affected, have only added fuel to the
flame. The country's real danger neither is,
nor ever has been, from the mutineers at
' Delhi; but from the gross incompetence—to
' call it by no worse a name—which has swayed,
and still sways, the destinies of India at Cal-
, cutta and at home.

THE NEW REFORM BILL.
WE feel it to be our duty most earnestly to
impress upon the Conservative body through-
out the country at large that the question
about the New Reform Bill is by no means at
an end, and that it would be a political error
of grave magnitude to fall into the trap that
the measure is adjourned. Ministers are too
deeply committed by their pledges on this
subject to escape from it easily, even if they
desired to do so ; and there is a section of
them most eager to have the measure settled.
Only a small number of the Ministry are
officially connected with the actual manage-
ment of Indian affairs ; and recollecting the
immense amount of work that can be per-
formed by Parliament, it would be a most rasa
and precipitate conclusion to suppose that
Parliament was unable to deal simultaneously
with the India question and with .the New•
•
Reform Bill. -' •
Until the subject of a new Merin ItilVbln
decisively settled one way or asotheyroallitlitly i '
is either positively abandoliia or.' ';' .
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