The Press.
London, England, 1856-01-19 00:00:00

OUDE.

THE last mail brings us the intelligence that
the Indian Government is not going, after all,
to annex Oude. It fears, it is said, the respon-
sibility of the measure which has been cast on
it by the Directors, and visions rise before it
of failure in India and of condemnation at
home. Our most solemn treaties are thus
not to be broken, and an unheard-of act of
spoliation and violence perpetrated, merely
because Nature, who is not always prodigal
of personal gifts to sovereigns, has been some-
what sparing of her favours to the existing
King of OMR. As regards the feelings and
wishes of the people of that country, we have
over and over again shown that they would in
no way be consulted—on the contrary, that
they would be greatly outraged by our annexa-
tion of that State. If there is one thing more
clearly established in history than another, it
is that in whatever light they may look upon
the acts of their own Government, they in-
finitely prefer it to our rule. Bishop HEBER,

THE PRESS.

MILL, HAYMAN WILSON, besides other undeniable
authorities quoted by them, most completely
prove this fact; and Sir ERSKINE PERRY, in his
" Bird's-eye View of India," tells us also the
same tale. He had acuteness enough to per-
ceive that the constant disturbances that we
hear of in Oude arose not from the overwhelm-
ittg Anyamann,y of the Government, but from a
cause precisely the reverse. Ho saw that the
true source of them was the weakness of the
Government, and the spirit of independence in
the people, which this weakness had engen-
dered in men naturally of a warlike temper, of
a bold bearing, and of a most powerful frame.
The truth is, that in Oude the peasantry rise
and resist exactions not half so heavy and so
galling as those to which our own ryots patiently
submit. It would be utterly impossible for
any sovereign to rule Oude as we rule Madras.
The grinding oppression of the system would
be resisted sword in hand, and the collectors
who tolerated torture in their districts would
be fortunate if they were not impaled on their
own stakes, or roasted to death at their own
fires.

Of course nothing is more easy than for a
Government to get up cases against any State
or individual that it finds it to its interest to
visit with confiscation and ruin. The Demo-
cratic Government of France found no kind of
difficulty during the first Revolution in proving
any nobleman guilty of any crime whatever
who happened to have an estate that was
worth being seized. As regards the rest, the
rights of man were allowed to take care of
themselves without the virtuous DANTON'S and
ROBESPIERRE'S aid ; just as States in India
not worth confiscation are allowed to groan as
they may under the despotisms of their
sovereigns without the Indian Governments
lifting a finger to save them. The monster
GOOLAB SING, for instance, who unites all the
vices that SUETONIUS attributes to the Cfesars
in his own person, is allowed to flay alive the
ryois of Cashmere—whom for a sum of seven
hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling we
sold to him—without let or hindrance from us.
Nagpore—which all who know it admit to have
been much more prosperous and better governed
under its late Sovereign than any part of our
own territory—is seized upon, not at the wish
of the people, but in defiance alike of their
entreaties and their protests. Nor does the
Indian Government find it less necessary for
the rights of the people to imprison, insult,
and rob the widowed Queens of Nagpore ;
though how the rights of man are to be
furthered by this flagrant violation of the
rights of women it would puzzle any hut the
preachers in this new school of social ethics to
determine.
The fact is, that we of this Journal are as
ardent supporters of good government, and a
kindly treatment of the people generally, as
any of these wolves in sheep's clothing whom
we thus expose. These profess to see relief
for the lower classes only by despoiling the
higher. We think that the interests of every
class are as closely united as they can be. It'
a native State is misgoverned, we see no harm
in interference. On the contrary, interference
is our right by treaty, as well as a duty which
we ought not to hesitate to fulfil. But such
interference, to be just or even useful, should,
we hold, be conscientious, honest, and disin-
terested. Interference under the guise of fine
maxims, but in reality for our own profit, Lord
METCALFE characterised emphatically as a
filthy policy ; and in this stigma of it we entirely
agree. To annex a State which we are bound
by treaty to maintain, we hold to be most
iniquitous, as long as the treaties which bind
us to it are on its side maintained. If the
ruler is one whose government it is impossible
to defend, it is easy to form a Regency from
among the native nobility of the country, or
to confer the crown, as was the case at our
own revolution, on the next heir Again, if a
State lapses to us by absolute failure of succes-
sors, we hold ourselves bound, when taking
over the country, to respect most faithfully the
possessions of all—to leave to the widows of
the departed all their accumulated property
and treasures intact—and to discharge the
public debt, if there be such a thing, with
fidelity. But to seize upon the Crown, to confis
cate the estates of all the nobility, to plunder
the private property of widows, and to repu-

51

diate the public debt,—these arc acts which,
however smoothed over under the name of
annexation, are deeds of outrageous spoliation
which no honest Englishman, whether Con-
servative or Liberal, will ever knowingly sanc-
tion or defend.

The fact is, and it is very desirable that the
Conservatives of England should distinctly
know it, that as the French Revolution arose
from seeds that were sown in America, so
there is now training up a very large and
powerful party of semi-socialists on the plains
of Hindoostan. These people are the follow-
ers of the ultra-radical school of MILL. Ac-
cording to their views, kings are expensive
puppets. and the nobility and landed gentry
successful robbers of the public estate. Their
beau-ideal of a Government is a people all
virtuously labouring with contentment for
their daily wants, with a bureau of philoso-
phers to govern them at their head. The
summum bonum that they would wish to
establish for the people generally, appears to
be bread and watercresses, with an intellec-
tual feast derived from BENTHAM or MILL;
but they do not appear neglectful of luxuries
or pleasures in their own persons, the largest
salaries scarcely sufficing for them, while their
private lives are often not over-correct, accord-
ing to the code of morals prevailing in these
Western climes. Their theory seems to be a
self-denying ordinance for everyone else, with
a special dispensation for themselves. At
present their operations are confined merely
to India, because doctrines do not revolt us
when applied to native kings and nobles, which
would look rather more than revolutionary if
hinted at as regards the Crown and nobility of
these realms. But the leaders of the party
and its organs make no secret that kingly
pomps and a luxurious nobility are institutions
to be put down, whenever they have the power
to do so, in the West as well as in the East—
in England as well as in Hindoostan. That
such detestable principles will ever find favour
with the Legislature of Great Britain we be-
lieve to be impossible, but they are daily
spreading in India, and if the thing is not
stopped in the outset it may be too late. The
mode of checking it is very simple ; it is
merely to declare, once for all, that the same
principles of truth, moderation, and honesty,
which pervade our dealings with European
nations, shall guide our conduct towards the
native States of India; and as regards the
estates of private individuals there, to place
them under the same protection of the Supreme
Courts of Judicature which so effectually
maintain the rights and secure the loyalty of
the Parsees and other people at the Presi-
dencies at present.