The Press.
London, England, 1856-01-12 00:00:00

26

the Principalities should be erected into a
neutral State, interposing between the empires
of Russia and Turkey ; but the policy is ques-
tionable which would continue mighty war
for the sole sake of giving to this 'Jew State a
slight increase of terqtol and a iltinpiful
tier. If other points c,.#4 satitfaAtorily f(d-
justed, this one ral4-01 by this ingenuity itt
Austrian diplomatiOs will scarcely be con
sidered by the nation of Vance gAci Engla344
a satisfactory ground for the continuance Of
hostilities.

THE NEW THEORY REGARDING INDIA.
THE rise and fall of nations aro much more
dependent on the principles of policy pursued
by them than is by many supposed. So with
conquests : battalions make them, but they
can only be long retained as dependencies by
following out a spirit of government firm
without showing itself apprehensive of danger
—and at the same time frank, honest, tempe-
rate, conciliatory, and wise. Such is the
policy which more than our arms secured for
us the empire of Hindoostan. In our dealings
with the natives it was early seen that the
people and princes of India were a very diffe-
rent set from the Canadian savages or the
Incas of Peru. At the time when we first
made their acquaintance they were as far ad-
vanced in civilisation as ourselves, and in
many of the arts stood long before us. The
three centuries which have elapsed since then
have, to be sure, illimitably increased our supe-
riority over them, but they have, nevertheless,
been by no means stationary, and probably the
worst governed native State in India is much
better governed than is any province of the
Turkish empire at present. When, therefore,
we began to conquer India, we dealt with the
princes and people of it generally as men who
were to be conciliated rather than coerced to
our rule. In the outset, if we dethroned a
sovereign who was inimical to us, it was gene-
rally to set up a more friendly member of the
family in his stead ; and when afterwards we
began to appropriate kingdoms and princi-
palities to ourselves, we did so with as little
alteration of internal arrangements as we
could help. The jaghires or feudal estates of
all existing holders were guaranteed, and
even new ones were granted out of the
Crown domains to those who had in the
struggle taken our side. All free gifts of
lands to mosques, temples, holy men, and
men of science, or others, were equally con-
firmed. It was the same with the civil list ;
the pensions, customary gratuities, and other
disbursements of that kind—all were con-
tinued by us as fully and completely as if the
dynasty had not been changed. These formed,
to be sure, a considerable charge on the
treasury, or rather a considerable deduction
from the revenue received ; but, on the other
hand, the system disarmed opposition, con-
fined the quarrel personally to the sovereign,
and made all who would have otherwise been
most interested in supporting him fast
friends and zealous maintainers of our rule.
With their estates, pensions, dec., fully guaran-
t3ed to them, their feelings and prejudices re-
spected, and their laws maintained, there was
nothing left them to fight for worth a tithe of
the risk that in rising against us they must.
have incurred. Thus State after State was ab-
sorbed—one battle with the army of the sove-
reign, as if for honour's sake, deciding the
question, when all the chiefs and nobles of the
empire, as a matter of course, submitted and
came in. It is not too much to say that our
earlier conquests were followed by scarcely
greater internal changes than followed the ex-
pulsion of the Stuarts and the accession of
WILLIAM 111. to the crown of these realms.
Every possible right of property, and every
possible vested interest, were religiously re-
spected, and the only difference the natives
saw was the transfer of the power of the
Crown to men of a foreign race. India was,
in fact, left to the Indians. All we did was to
divert to our own Exchequer that portion of
the income of the counts) which we could take
without robbing any one, as being the fruit