The Press.
London, England, 1857-06-06 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

nothing more common there than to see a
whole district driven to the very verge of
desperation by some enormous addition to
the previous assessment. The ruin and deso-
lation which follows would be abhorrent to
the eye unaccustomed to such sights ; but
there the matter is viewed by the ruling class
with the greatest indifference, the only re-
mark being that so-and-so the collector, is a
smart fellow, and is " putting on the screw."
Suddenly at times the whole of the landowners
of the country are threatened with the total
loss of their estates. A Commission of Inquiry
is appointed to investigate the titles of men
who have held their lands rent free ever since
we conquered the country, and who claim to
hold them by prescriptive right or under
grants of various kinds to their ancestors by
former kings. The terror which this produces
may be best imagined by those who know the
alarm that such an inquiry into the title of
every landowner in England would occasion
here. Industry is paralysed, all improvement
is put a stop to, and the families of nobles,
seeing that they may be reduced to beggary,
curtail their expenditure to the lowest
point. The position of the seigneurs of
France at the time of the first revolution is
perhaps most illustrative of the position of
the nobles of India under such a system—
setting aside, of course, the final disposal of
them by the guillotine, which after all would
be a mercy when their lands and fortunes are
gone. Among Anglo-Indians, however, the
thing is treated as a matter of course : they
observe merely that the Government is in
want of money, and in consequence is "putting
on the screw." In the same way one hears
every now and then rumours flying in all
directions of the misgovernment exhibited by
some native State, and of the qualms of con-
science felt by the British authorities at allow-
ing the people any longer to be subjected to
such rule. Among the uninitiated this has a
fine moral effect ; but those who understand
the thing know that it simply means that the
Government wants a gift or loan from the
prince in question, or a slice of his territory—
in short, that it is " putting on the screw." In
this way the screw was put on Oude from time
to time throughout the latter part of the last
and during the whole of the present century,
and the enormous gifts and loans of money to
us by its princes and cessions of territory,
which the Blue-books exhibit, mark the result.
During the Government of Lord HASTINGS it
took a couple of millions sterling to open our
eyes to the real merits of the then reigning
prince, and to throw a gilding round his por-
trait the reflection of which changed him at
once from a prince of darkness to an angel of
light.
Now, whatever may have been the case in
the state of public opinion in those days,
there cannot, we imagine, be a doubt that the
time for proceedings of this kind in any part
of our territories is, or ought to be, past. It
is with great indignation, therefore, that we
read in the Calcutta papers that the process is
now being had recourse to with two of the
wealthiest of the native princes whom our
rapacity has left. We hope that the journal in
question has been mistaken, and that some
assurance will be given on authority that there
is no foundation for the statement in fact.
This statement is, that the Rajah of PurreEALA,
who had some differences lately with the Go-
vernment, has been able to arrange them, but
that his subscription to the new five-per-cent.
loan, which is at a discount, is to be seven
hundred thousand pounds, or seventy lacs ;
and that the young Rajah of GwALioa, who is
now on a visit to Calcutta, is being subjected
also to pressure by the authorities, with a view
of compelling him to come forward with his
treasures in aid of the exhausted funds of the
State. We do hope, we repeat, that the story
is false ; still it bears such an air of truth
about it that nothing but the knowledge that
no such subscriptions have been either asked
fur or accepted from those Princes will suffice
to clear the Company of the charge they must
be open to by such an act. For, if its views
are really such as it professes regarding the
habitual extortion and misrule of native princes,
what can be more shameful than to make
itself a sharer in the plunder thus acquired ?
If, on the other hand, its real convictions are

547

not of this stamp, it must be equally iniqui
tous in it to take advantage of its supposed
impressions to extort money from native
princes, which they must well know will never
be repaid, and which nothing but their fears
could draw forth. In any case, the relation in
which the Company stands to these persons
makes it impossible that such aid should be
received from them without disgrace. For, to
take the mildest view of the matter, it is un-
becoming in any one to receive money even as
a loan from men whose conduct one may here-
after have to judge ; and it is peculiarly unbe-
coming in the Company to take it from
native princes whose means of improving
their own territories must thus be crippled,
and the foundations laid for future charges of
miso.overnment, on which as soon as their
treasures are exhausted their States will be
swept away. If the Indian Government is in
want of money, it has only to put forth such
terms as will induce the habitual dealers in
the article to supply what is required.
The fact, if true, of its being compelled to
resort to pressure on native princes shows
that such terms have not been offered ; and the
notion of taking► advantage of their prostrate
position is as dishonest as in an economical
view, it is impolitic and unwise. That the
Company is exerting this pressure the Cal-
cutta papers distinctly state ; and we do hope,
for the honour of the country, that the state-
ment will on authority be denied.

THE CHURCH OF ROME IN BELGIUM.
FOR a long time past the excessive pretensions
of the parti pritre in Belgium have caused
uneasiness to the best friends of that
kingdom. Large concessions from year to
year had been given by the Government to
the Ultnimontanists. The tone of the Belgian
prelates had not been reproved, and the
Jesuits at Louvain and elsewhere were allowed
to pursue their projects unmolested by the
hand of power. As might have been antici-
pated, the old story was acted over again. The
more that was given to the Church of Rome,
the more she took and claimed; and at last
the middle classes of Belgium, supporting a
large party in the Chambers, have been com-
pelled in self-defence to make some show of
resistance to the grasping ambition of the
Ultramontanists.

In judging of the excitement still existing
in many parts of Belgium, we must recollect
the peculiar spirit of the country. The Roman
Catholic Church in Belgium has, down to our
times, preserved a medieval character. There
was always in that country a remarkable social
equality of conditions, and the philosophy of
the eighteenth century, as well as the revolu-
tionary shock of Jacobinism after 1792, left
scarcely any permanent traces
.on Belgian
society. Vast monastic establishments and
extensive nunneries have always flourished in
its soil. Ghent reminds a traveller of Prague,
from the amazing number of its conventual
institutions. The religious processions in the
streets of several of the towns recall what one
has seen at Seville. The gorgeous richness of
the Jesuits' Church in Antwerp can scarcely
be paralleled north of the Alps; while the Cal-
raire, with its carved effigies of the awful
events of the Passion of our Saviour, suggest
powerfully the coarse and powerful grasp of
Romanism over the credulity and the preju-
dices of the Belgians.
Of late years in some of the large cities, as
at Liege and elsewhere, there have been symp-
toms of a rouge party, not very dissimilar from
the working classes in other large continental
cities where manufactures prevail. These
working men are not priest-ridden, but unhap-
pily we fear that they cannot be claimed as
Christians. A coarse sort of materialism pre-
vails amongst them, and they are disposed to
hail such prophets as EUGENE SUE, and other
leaders of that type. The Protestants of Bel-
gium are few in numbers, but are intelligent
and active ; and the Ultramontanists in late
years appear to be extremely afraid lest au
anti-Romish feeling might seize upon their
flocks. Hence they have gone on from step

J L

to step, fortifying their power in every direc-
tion, not being content with the enormous
influence already in their possession.
The lesson taught by these events has its
moral fur Catholic as well as Protestant
Powers. Wherever the Church of Rome is
allowed to get the control, her ambition swells
indefinitely. A timely check must always be
put on her grasping tendencies ; and hence on
the Continent statesmen have been compelled
to have recourse to concordats. But with the
secret acts of her Jesuits, and with her affi-
liated societies disguised under fantastic forms
of monkish brotherhoods, in spite of con-
cordats Rome continues at her old work of
sapping and mining in countries where, osten•
sibly, she has to submit to the authority of the
State. In Belgium she has long sought—and
with considerable success —to monopolise
popular education. She has now endeavoured
to legalise the priestly machinery, for the pur-
pose of wringing from superstitious fears those
legacies which ought to be reserved for rela-
tions and friends. The bourgeoisie have taken
the alarm ; but the blouses appear to be indif-
ferent, which is not to be wondered at, since
the latter have no property to be assailed, and
derive profit from the alms and indiscriminate
relief of various conventual institutions.

At present, therefore, the true point of view
from which these Belgian movements should
be considered, is the internal development
of Ro►nanism. It is not, in its present condi-
tions, a question between Romanists and Pro-
testants (although it has much significance for
the latter), but between priests and laymen,
between spiritual terrorists and menaced pri-
vate families. The famous " Blackrock Con-
vent " case, which was before the House of
Lords five years since, illustrates the question
now at stake between the Belgian priesthood
and the Roman Catholic families. In that
ease, two Roman Catholic ladies, both nuns,
were desirous of not profiting by their heirship
to the will of an intestate father, and they de-
sired that their brothers and sisters should
have the twenty thousand pounds which the
Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese insisted
should go to the convent. This is the kind
of priestly interference from which the Bel-
gians now seek to be delivered.
These manifestations in Belgium, coupled
with other priestly movements in various parts
of Europe, are of great importance; and there
are signs in the times which portend that
questions of the deepest spiritual interest will
again engage the public mind of Europe
before long.