The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-15 00:00:00

Trade is at a standstill, the Government
Securities are almost unsaleable at any price,
and money is not to be had; while, by way of
adding to the general gloom, the Legislative
Council has passed a press-gagging act of a
nature so stringent as to be unparalleled by
anything we have witnessed in the most
despotic of European States. The keeping
materials for printing or lithographing by any,
whether Europeans or natives, without a
licence, is made punishable on a summary con-
viction before a single magistrate—with fine to
the extent of five thousand rupees, or impri-
sonment to the extent of two years, or both.
In other words, taking the circumstances of
Indian printers and the nature of the climate
into account, with ruin and death. Against a
magistrate's decision so given there is to be no
appeal. Premises may be entered in search
of printing materials at any time. The
Government may affix such conditions as it
pleases to the granting of a licence, and the
violation of these in any particular is to entail
the (penalty aforesaid. Licences may also be
revoked at any moment without cause
assigned. Nay, more, an index expurgatorius
is established, and the importation or circula-
tion of any book or paper prohibited in it, no
matter where printed, is made punishable,
without the intervention of either judge or
jury, with the awful penalties we have
described.

Such is the monstrous course that the Go-
vernment is pursuing in India towards men of
our own colour and of our own blood—men
whose acts have given no shadow of a ground
for it, and of whom it was in the utmost degree
desirable to secure the cordial support. And
this at a time when the Ministers are over
and over again declaring that the affair is
simply a Sepoy mutiny, which obviously
renders doubly criminal so gross a violation
of those sacred rights, on the faith of being
permitted to enjoy which uninterruptedly so
many British subjects have settled at the
Presidency capitals of Calcutta, Madras,
and Bombay. The effect, of course, has been
to arouse within them a feeling of the greatest
anger, and to spread among them utter dis-
may. For no accounts of what occurs up the
country will be deemed henceforth reliable.
Nor will there be any means of remonstrance
left to them against any intended violation of
their few remaining rights. Their liberties
may be wholly taken away, or their property
may be confiscated by any act for the imposi-
tion of new taxes, or the suspending State
payments, which an irresponsible Legislative
Council may deem it convenient to pass. We
have no hesitation in saying that the position
of the independent European settlers in
India is made by this act far more insecure in
every way than that of the subjects of the
King of NAPLES or of the Pope. They aro
now placed at their old enemy's (the Com-
pany's) mercy, and we may be sure that the
latter will give them no quarter in paying off
ruthlessly the scores that in the freedom of
discussion regarding the misgovernment of
India they have run up. Any Englishman
must be an utter madman who leaves his
person or his property a moment longer
within the grasp of the Company's Govern-
ment after this.

Having thus stifled the press in India, and
thrown off the check there which public
opinion, even under such a despotism as that
of the Company, affords. it is not very sur-
prising that an attempt should be made to run