The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-24 00:00:00

A committee, including the most wealthy and re-
spectable British merchants and residents of Cal-
cutta, was then nominated.

Mr. PETERSON then proposed a resolution with
reference to the subscriptions to the League, and
tersely pointed out the necessity for a change in the
Indian Administration. The Government, in his
opinion, was made up of men whose principal motive
of action was personal aggrandisement. One of
the moat glaring defects in the Government of the
country was the mode in which the Legislative
Council was constituted :

Not only is the native excluded ( and in my opinion
properly), but because he is excluded the independent
British adventurer is excluded also, on the excuse that you
cannot have anything approaching to a popular constitu-
tion without admitting the native ; and as that is not
desirable, it is better to exclude every European not in the
services—a splendid mode of reasoning, and one that shows
what is to be expected from a body constituted on such
principles. We have the miserable spectacle of a Legis•
lative Council, supposed to make laws for 150,000,000 of
subjects, without the slightest knowledge of the principles
of commerce—in fact, without any knowledge at ail save
that of protecting the especial class from whom they are
selected, and for whose especial advantage alone they seem
to work. Had we a Representative Council constituted on
a proper basis, should we have had the miserable spectacle
of the whole machine stopped in times like these, simply
because one of its members happened to be ill ? Is a
Legislative Assembly to which the interests of this great
empire are committed to be constituted on such a basis
that the accidental absence of a single member should stop
the remainder from working? Can any one be astonished
at the working of thekiavernment machine if what is sup•
posed to be its prime mover is so easily put out of order ?
I ask, why should the independent British population in
India, small though it be, be deprived of the power of
having a voice in the government of the country—a power
awarded to every British settlement? Look at what has
been done in every British colony when allowed to manage
its own affairs on the spot ! Look at Australia, Canada,
New Zealand, and other colonies. Why should we not
have, if not the same representative system as they have,
still some system that will allow the State the benefit of
the services of those who can best serve it? One is met
by the assertion " India is not a colony." My answer is.
" Nor is Ceylon." In Ceylon the British population does
not exceed the British population here. In that island,
with its Legislative Council of independent Europeans, we
find public works going on, British capital introdneed, and
while the Government of India is so poor as to be com-
pelled to open one loan after another, the Government of
Ceylon is so rich as to be able to lend money to the Oriental
Bank at three and a half per cent. There is a proof of
what a council having in its composition some of the inde-
pendent British inhabitants can do for the good of the
country. If we as a race are conquerors, is there
any reason why we should not be legislators as well?
Had you the independent element in the Legislative
Council, would you have the town of Calcutta highly
taxed as it is, without a single quay or other convenience
for loading or unloading its vast export and import corn-
metre ? Why, California, six weeks after its settlement,
had in San Francisco more conveniences than Calcutta,
after undisturbed possession for a century. Would you
have had this astounding anomaly that land, which is the
best security in every other part of the world, is worthless
here ? And why? Because the laws and their administra-
tion are such that no man's title from day to day is safe.
Under an open Legislative Council, would you have the
still more astounding anomaly of the paper currency of
what the Government itself calls the State Bank being
refused by the Government's own revenue officers in the
payment of revenue? Gentlemen, I know of at least a
dozen instances in which owners of land in the Mofussil
have tendered a Government rent due on their estates in
notes of the Bank of Bengal, which the collector has re-
fused to receive in payment of Government revenue, and, I
believe, estates have been forfeited, owing to the rejection.
Has not every reasonable man a right to expect that
something should be done to give something like an
expansive currency adapted to the expanded trade of the
country? Would you, under an open Legislative Council,
have had the gross deception practised by the Government
debtor on the Government creditor that was practised in
the conversion of the Five-per-Cent. Loan into a four-per-
cent. loan, on the allegation of an overflowing treasury
made up of false figures of unliquidated balances supposed
to be in the different treasuries of the country, and the
Government, in less than a twelvemonth afterwards, to come
round begging, hat in hand, saying—" I have got nothing;
please help me with a loan for public works," when no
public works were contemplated—an act which reduced
the value of the Government creditors' security by twenty
per cent. at one blow?
Mr. Peterson then alluded briefly to the inefficiency
of the Company's courts, to the indisposition of the
Company to encourage the settlement of Europeans in
the country, the improvement of agriculture and
commerce, to their determined opposition to rail-
ways, and, in point of fact, their discouragement of
all progress. In conclusion he said :

We are charged with hampering the Government by any
expression of public opinion at the present time. My
answer to that is that it is an idle assertion, made to pre-
vent ventilation of unpleasant facts. All public expression
of opinion is gagged and prevented by a piece of the most
illjudged and hasty legislation that ever issued from arbi•
trary power. But they cannot prevent our discussing
freely our grievances, and putting them in a train for
redress by the only tribunal that has the power—namely,
the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain. Upon that
tribunal must devolve the decision as to whether Indio is