The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-24 00:00:00

THE PRESS, OCTOBER 24,

pat forth, because they flatter the vanity and screen the
incompetence of our Indian civil administration. Indeed,
this drivelling cry, which, if it prevails now, will cost us
our empire hereafter, has been already raised.
Who that has been in the habit of perusing
the Times and other Ministerial and Direc-
torial organs will fail to sec how well Mr.
Norton had taken their measure in the para-
graph which he thus so early put forth? The
falsity of such reasoning he very fully demon-
strates. He asks when any revolution in India
was brought about by the people not of the
middle classes ; and he observes that it is not
that disaffection exists only in the army, but
that with the army the disaffection is organised,
while among the people at large it has no or-
ganisation. He quotes the opinion of a gentle-
man whom he describes as one than whom no
man more thoroughly knows the feelings of
the people; and who being applied to on the
part of Government to state what those feel-
ings were, informed the applicants as follows.
That the people generally were disaffected,
and that they had ton much cause for it ; in-
deed that there was disaffection enough in the
land for half a dozen rebellions, supposing
that the people could combine. He shows
how little generally the governing class in
India is acquainted with the real opinions and
condition of those subject to its sway; and
how much the absence of rebellion has been
misinterpreted hitherto into a sign of their
contentment. He enters into the question of
the army, and shows how the old bond of feeling
between the sepoy and his officer has broken
down ; and how the duties of the army have
been gradually changed. He points out many
serious military defects. He comments strongly
on the shameful way in which Lord Dalhousie
dealt with the late Sir Charles Napier, and
indeed with all who had the honesty to abstain
from flattering his lordship at the expense of
what they knew to be the truth. The zeal
with which his lordship's administration was
generally cried up at the time by Europeans
in India he sufficiently accounts for by the
large increase of patronage which annexation
after annexation produced, and by the greai•
tude of some for past favours and the antici-
pation by others of favours to come. Of course
any one would err egregiously who should be
guided by a criterion so deceptive as this. He
refers to the prophetic warnings of the late
Sir Charles Metcalfe as to the feelings with
which our rule in India is really viewed. He
alludes to the monstrous defects of our judi•
cial, and police, and revenue systems, and
shows that our civilians voluntarily blind
themselves to the disaffection that such mis-
government must necessarily create. He deals
unsparingly with Lord Dalhousie's wholesale
annexation system, and points out the bitter
hostility that has been engendered by such
flagrant and repeated acts of faith. lie shows
the utter unscrupulousness of such proceed-
ings, which are neither more nor less than
open robberies, disguise them as we may. He
quotes on this subject the opinion of all the
most celebrated of our Indian statesmen ; of
some of the Directors alhded to in Mr. Dis-
raeli's great Indian speech, and of some of the
leading Indian journals, more especially the
Madras Atheneum. Among the English writers
on the same subject he makes honourable
mention of Mr. Dickinson and his pamphlet
on the " Bureaucratic Government of India,"
and the writer of what he styles in various
places the " able " and " terrible " articles on
Lord Dalhousie's administration, published in
the last October and January numbers of the
New Quarterly Review. From the latter work
he makes large extracts, which exhibit not
only the injustice and immorality of the
annexation policy, but also its extreme folly,
considered in a mere political and financial
point of view. The last straw that broke the
camel's back was, in the opinion of Mr. Norton,
as in that of Mr. Disraeli and of every other
compet( nt judge of the matter, the annexation
of Oude Indeed, that is now so generally an
admitted fact that it may be considered as
settled beyond dispute.

Mr. Norton also gives quotations from local
journals showing the deep discontent engen-
dered by the Enam or Rent-free Inquiry Com-
missions, and by the unwise e.onfiseations of
landed property that have resulted from
its acts, go further iuutauoes seyoral C4BOll