The Press.
London, England, 1858-05-15 00:00:00

I

out to (Jude, and this agent picks up, and
sends home, every fact and document he can
meet with. In his last letter, published in the
Times on the Thursday of last week, this Pro-
clamation of Lord CANNING'S figured as a main
circumstance in the present state of Oude. The
Proclamation was now an accomplished fact, and
the publicity given to it was the publicity of the
newspaPers•
But the next step was inevitable. So startling a
document could not be published in all the news-
papers without questions being immediately put
to the Government in the House of Commons.
A slow and cautious Government of the Liver-
pool and Castlereagh days would have been
slow and cautious m its responses. But the
various members of the present Administration
have in most cases had little official training ;
and when a question is asked of them, it seems
the most natural thing in the world to give an
answer. When, on Thursday, the inquiry was
made, whether the Government had received a
copy of such a Proclamation, and what steps it
meant to take, the ancient and customary way of
parrying such a question would have been, to
have required that notice of the question should
be given. Then, in the intervening four and twenty
hours, the matter might have been considered
and an answer deliberately agreed upon. In the
present case, however, the Secretary of the
Board of Control replied without delay or hesita-
tion, that the Proclamation had been received,
and that a Despatch on the subject had been sent
out.

Now, there could be no doubt that with this
information before it, the House of Commons
would have pestered the Government with in-
quiries until it had obtained a sight of that
Despatch. But then the House must have borne
the responsibility. Lord ELLKNBOROUGH, in the
present case, strong in his sense of right, and really
desirous that all the facts of the case should be
fully and promptly made known, at once promised
to lay the Despatch on the table. Now this
promptitude involved him and the Government
in peril. It made them appear the assailants of
Lord CANNING. All the friends of that noble-
man instantly set up a howl about the cruelty
and injustice of condemning an absent man,
without waiting to hear his explanations. Thus
he who had been the cause of the whole mischief,
he who had involved everything in peril, was
made, all on a sudden, to appear as a martyr ;
and pity was invoked for him whose pitiless Pro-
clamation was the one main feature in the case !
The result has been, in a measure, the punish-
ment of the innocent, instead of the guilty. Lord
Eummououow, who simply performed a public
duty in writing and sending out the Despatch ;
and who considered it due to the public, that as
soon as the Proclamation saw the light, the
Despatch should immediately follow it,—Lord
ELLENBOROUGU finds it expedient to resign,
radio' than to involve the whole Government in
a vote, turning upon a mere indiscretion of an
individual. He withdraws, and by his with-
drawal the whole ground for the threatened Par-
liamentary censure is taken away.
For how stands the whole question ? Surely,
thus

We have marched into Lucknow, and have
planted a small military force in the kingdom of
Onde. But we have possession of no more ground
than we stand upon ; while our title to the sove-
reignty, except by conquest, is at least very ques-
tionable.
This being the case, every conceivable motive,
whether of justice or of policy, would point to a
line of conduct of the most temperate and conci-
liatory kind.
Instead of which, the Governor-General issues
a Proclamation of unprecedented severity; de-
creeing the confiscation of the land of the whole
kingdom, with the exception of six estates !
The Home Government had previously sent
out the plainest injunctions to adopt a course of
clemency and moderation. On receiving this
decree of confiscation, Lord ELLENBOROUGH sent
a despatch, enjoining just that moderate and
conciliatory line of conduct which the Times
itself before this party strife arose, so plainly
recommended.

Up to this point the Government was not only
in the right, but it was unassailable. But, in
reply to questions in the House of Commons, the