The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-26 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTE3IDER 26, 1957.

THE petition of the British inhabitants at
Calcutta, which we give in full in another
column, will not fail to receive the attention
of the nation to whose representatives it is
addressed. It is in all respects a most
remarkable document, and will do more than
a thousand arguments to scatter to the winds
the web of sophistry which the Directors and
their organs are daily weaving here. It is not
the petition of any section of society, but the
united appeal of all our fellow-countrymen
who are not the servants of the Company, and
neither afraid, therefore, to expose its inca-
pacity, nor interested.in screening its misdeeds.
It is the cry of the afflicted of our own colour
and of our own blood. It is their protest against
a despotism the most crushing, the most selfish,
and the most insensate that has ever been
intrusted with the destinies of any portion of

the human race.
The petitioners tell us that they view with
daily increasing anxiety and alarm the condi-
tion and prospects of British India. That
the whole of the North• Wost Provinces have
been lost to us, and that danger the most
imminent threatens all that is left to us in
Bengal. That over thousands of square miles
European women court death as a blessing
for their children and themselves. That on
every highway lie our countrywomen's mu-
tilated remains. That the power of the East
India Company is absolute, their Legislative
Council being composed entirely of official
persons ; that they possess besides the
whole patronage of the State ; but
that, with all these vast powers, and with
all the overwhelming machinery at their
disposal, they allowed themselves to be
taken unawares by a conspiracy embracing
a hundred thousand of their own Sepoys, and
extending over an area many times larger
than the British Isles. That, on the breaking
out of this, the Government was found with no
efficient Commissariat, no organised means of
procuring intelligence, and, with few excep•
tions, no men of sufficient capacity for the
emergency. That our largest and most im-
portant arsenals had been left wholly unpro-
tected by European troops, and had conse-
quently fallen an easy prey to the mutineers.
That even when a number of regiments were
in open revolt, when many treasuries had been
plundered, and various stations had fallen into
the hands of the rebels, the Government still
spoke of the affair as a passing and groundless
panic. That in the teeth of events the most
startling, and in defiance of warnings the

most emphatic•, they persisted in ignoring the
danger for which they had made no prepara-
tion. That the only measure which their
sagacity could originate was one uncalled for
by the occasion, repugnant to British feeling,
and subversive of the principles of the British
Constitution—namely, the passing a law de-
stroying the liberty of the press, and placing
every journal of India absolutely at their feet.
That the whole trade of the country has
suffered more or less, and that of many
branches of it the ruin is complete. Finally,
that they anticipate the horrors of an Indian
famine to add to the wretchedness of their

state.
In the face of these evils the petitioners
appeal to the British nation, from whom alone
they tell us they can hope for a remedy ; the
powers to whom the Government of India has
been delegated having proved themselves
wholly unequal to the task. The East India
Company, they assure us, has neither men, nor
money, nor credit; what credit it had having
by its own late financial operations been de-
stroyed. Its army, the petitioners tell us, has
dissolved itself, its treasuries have been plun•
dered, it propositions for a loan, even at six
per cent., will not find subscribers, and the
result of the present troubles will be a vast
addition both to the annual deficit and to the
public debt. Under good government the
petitioners say that the boundless resources of
the country will prove ample to meet the
necessary demands on the State ; but the past
system, they assure us, has been antagonistic
to the encouragement of British settlement
and enterprise in India, and has failed entirely
to preserve the power of the Queen, to win
the affections of the natives, or to secure the
confidence of the British in India. They
pray, therefore, for the removal of the Go-
vernment of the country from the East India
Company, substituting in its place the direct
Government of her Majesty the Queen ; with
an open Legislative Council suitable to the
requirements of the country, and compatible
with the British supremacy ; Queen's Courts
presided over by trained lawyers in lieu of
the present incompetent Company's Courts.
and English to ba made the language of those
courts as it is of her Majesty's Supreme Courts
of .Judicature at the Presidencies.
It may serve the purpose of the Company
and its abettors to try and throw ridicule on
this petition ; but our readers will not fail to
observe that both the charges made in it
against the Government, and the remedies
suggested, are in entire accordance with what
has been constantly put forth by ourselves.
And it might have saved those who sneer at
these views an exposure of their own igno
ranee, had they, before uttering their oracles,
referred to what METCALFE, one of the greatest
of Indian statesmen, has said. They would
have then found that he, too, looked upon the
extension of the independent European
element in India as the only means by which
the permanence of our empire there could be
secured—the only manner in which, as he
described it, we could hope to take root in the
soil. He held it, therefore, worthy of all our
fostering care ; and he advocated the transfer
of the government to the Crown, the introduc•

Lion everywhere of professional judges, and
the substitution of English as the language of
the Courts, as important aids towards that
great end. If he did not touch upon the
question of seats in the Legislative Council, it
was because such an institution did not exist
in his time. Had it done so we may be sure
that his opinions would have been as sagacious
on this point as they were on almost every
other that he touched. Indeed, it seems
absurd to suppose that the Legislative Council
would not gain greatly by the addition to its
body, through the nomination of the Crown, of
some of the leading members of the indepen-
dent British community in India. They
would give a weight and influence to its pro-
ceedings which these do not possess at pre-
sent; and the best guarantee for their fitness
would be the eminent position which, owing
to their talents and their wealth, they at pre-
sent hold. They would surely be more fitting
councillors than such persons as we have seen
named—men who had been passed over in the
selection of couneillors for their own Presi-
dency, or who had been degraded from the
Sudder Adavvlut Bench.
The demands of this petition, therefore,
being so reasonable, and those from whom it
emanates being persons of such weight, it will
be impossible for the nation to treat it, as the
Directors desire to see it treated, with con-
tempt. The petitioners are men who have a
far larger stake in India than all the Directors
put together ; they are the representatives of
those great mercantile interests to whose ope-
rations we owe nearly all the benefit that we
derive from our empire in the East. They are
competent witnesses, and they are witnesses
from the spot. There cannot be a question as
to their honesty and good faith. Is it, then,
possible for us to reject their appeal ? Can
we persist in maintaining this obnoxious
system of government in face of the feelings
thus on all sides expressed ? Have we not a
task before us difficult enough of accomplish.
ment already, without embarrassing ourselves
with the support of a body which is univer-
sally odious, and the detestation borne towards
which is the greatest obstacle to our success?
The natives of India are utterly alienated;
can we afford to alienate all the British inha-
bitants as well? If we would restore our
prestige in India, let us be wise in time. Let
us rid ourselves of the body whose nepotism
and incapacity have brought these disasters
upon us, and whose ignorant dealing with
them is daily extending the disaffection they
have caused We are anxious for the good
opinion of Europe ; let us not forfeit it by
striving to perpetuate the misgovernment
which, cut of the mouths of our own fellow-
countrymen in India, has been condemned.
We desire to enlist the enthusiasm of Eng-
land in our favour; let us not insult it by
adopting the cause of a set of imbeciles,
whom every generous spirit must despise.
Let us throw away the dishonoured emblems
of the Company, and substitute for them
the name and authority
She has never wronged
she is not obnoxious to
in India either ; on the
in the greatest reverence
Round her name would •
ins of England and of In,
ws present a noble si‘,
Europe, and an honourei.
and people throughout th,
ever been the strongest

of our beloved. Queen.
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930

breast; but be understands not loyalty to a
Company that fattens upon the spoils of his
country ; his only idea of loyalty is loyalty to
a chieftain, or loyalty to a Crown. Remove,
then, the hated barrier whieh stands between
our Sovereign and a hundred and fifty millions
of her subjects. If we wish to attain, let us
first deserve success. Then, indeed, may wo
hope to triumph ; but vigour and valour alike
are paralysed • while we remain tied to the
carcase of a monopoly, that stinks in the nos-
trils of all, whether Europeans or natives,
throughout the length and breadth of Hin-
dos tan.

REFORM, AND THE RIGHTS OF

CONSERVATIVES.
THE remark of Lord BOUNGBROKE, that " his-
" tory is philosophy teaching by example,"
could in nowise be better illustrated than in
a contemplation of the momentous results to
Conservatism which arose in consequence of
certain ever memorable political transactions
that took place between the years 1820 and
1832. As journalists, and addressing ourselves
to the exigencies of the ensuing twelvemonth,
we have little to do with the retrospective
view of the Reform Bill of 1832. Our object
is solely to bring certain practical considera-
tions prominently before the Conservative
public mind so as that the remissness or in-
decision of past years should not occur again.
The Conservative party has already suffered
grievous injustice at the hands of the professed
" Reformers ;" its property, its agricultural
wealth, its professional respectability, and its
high social vogue are not adequately repre-
sented in point of Parliamentary numbers.
Socially, it is the strongest party in England ;
but the Whigs, in the years 1831 and 1832,
with great audacity had " recourse to the
" able use of opportunities," which, according
to EDMUND BURKE, has been their chief re-
source in politics. Let us mark well what
was done subsequent to 1826, because we are
still suffering from what occurred at that
period. Our readers will see shortly that we
glance backwards to practical experience in
order to be secured against prospective
dangers.
There are men of the world, keen and
Oliva d, and philosophers of the closet, acute
and profound, who deride the idea that the
great events in politics or in religious revolu-
tion are powerfully influenced by mere indivi-
duals. They believe entirely in "general
causen,' and they say that too much causative
force has been attributed to the Caesars,
Luthers, Cromwells, Napoleons, and Mira-
beaus of history. Others, again, say that in-
dividuals are almost everything, and they cite
some of the personages just named as evi-
dence. The question might be debated for
ever, and we shall not enter upon it, believing
as we do that there are sometimes ordained
dispensations of providential circumstances
which completely crush, and overwhelm, and
rule events, while at other times extraordinary
characters, at the right time in the right place,
must themselves be classified under general
causes. " This wonder-working word of cir-
cuntstancts," to quote Mme. do STAEL (one of
the few speculative writers admired by the
Duke of WELLINGTON), is just as applicable to
a single agency of the highest class as to any
aggregate of secondary powers.
Those, however, who contend that indivi-
dual influences have enormous power over
events might fairly point to what occurred in
England between 1826 and 1830 as ill.Mifying
their views. No one could have thought that
the death of Lord LlVEttruot. could have been
fraught with serious eventuality, but it saddled
the Tory party with " the Canning schism."
Lord LivimPoot. had ruled from 1812 to 1826 ;
Lo was an excellent man, MI able Minister,
an honest Tory, and he had much personal
influence over Mr. CANNING, who owed much
to him. Lord Livenroor. was the Ministerial
bead of the Tory Cabinet for fourteen years,
and when he died no public man was living
who hail control over NI r. CANNING. That con-
summate orator and brilliant politician
thought that he could be Prime Minister
without arrangements with the great chiefs of