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

THE PRE S S, OcTonErt 10, 1857.

scrupulous when the matter touches their
interests or their existence, as such Returns
often do. How, then, are we to tell whether
the papers and the representations which they
habitually submit to Parliament are true or
false ? Who can say whether the accounts
they render to the public are reliable or cooked?
Nothing can be more striking than the dis-
crepancies observable between the reports
they make to us and the finally ascertained
results. They are perpetually telling us of
the gains realised by lowering the rate of in-
terest on the public loans, and of the enor
mous additional revenue derived from the
annexation of native States. But at the end
of the year an immense financial deficit comes
always to dash our hopes. Then, again, they
furnish tales to us of the success and popu
laxity of their government that are wholly
irreconcileable with everything we hear from
independent sources, though these embrace
every order of society,--Manchester commis-
sioners, Bengal missionaries, Calcutta mer-
chants, and retired judges from Bombay.
Similar variances are remarked between their
reports and the reports of passing travellers
regarding the alleged unpopularity and mis-
government of native States. Then, again, in
respect to the cases of petitioners from India
who come here for redress, nothing can be
more incompatible with the versions of these
matters that are given by the Directors than
the conclusions which every man of eminence
arrives at who takes the trouble to investigate
the affair. Is it not, then, possible that what
has been often whispered and suspected, and
what the present case, in one instance at least,
establishes, may afford the true solution of
this mystery? May it not be that the
government of India by the Directors is a
huge deception, a monstrous juggle from first
to last? On this theory the whole of these
discrepancies are accounted for, and what was
before so dark and unintelligible becomes as
clear as day. In this case there is nothing
extraordinary in the contrast between the
state of India as described by the Directors
and the state of India as it really is. On this
supposition one can understand how such an
enormous revenue is perpetually wasted with-
out producing any visible result. At this rate
one is able to perceive how it is that sepoys
described as pampered and petted tern so
ferociously on their benefactors, and how it
happens that native princes and people prove
such demons towards men who have ruled
them on unvarying principles of benevolence
and love. In other lands it takes a long
course of gross misgovernment to work the
people up into such a state of brutal ferocity
as to resemble nothing so much as what our
Indian subjects now resemble, "Hell lei. loose."
Bat if the theory we have ventured to put
forth be the correct one the whole thing is at
once explained, and there is nothing incon-
gruous in the vindictiveness of these mis-
creants towards the most beneficent and
paternal Government, judged by the Directo-
rial standard, that ever was.

At any rate, this pamphlet of Sir William
Napier has established one point, which is
that the Directors of the East India Company
do sometimes make Returns to Parliament
which are utterly contrary to fact. And this
being so, we think that the public will do well
to look more sharply after them in future, and
withhold credence from all their statements
which do not bear upon the face of them, or
in their compatibility with known principles,
some impress of the truth. We fear that the
effect of such caution will be to bring the
Indian Returns that are accepted as reliable
within a very narrow compass. But if all the
Punjaub Blue-books, and Scinde Reports,
and Dalhousie Minutes, are henceforth thrown
over as worthless, the public mini will gain
a healthier tone by the suppression of such
romances, while the public purse will profit to
fully as great an extent in the shape of a pro-
portionate reduction in the parliamentary
printer's bills. In this item alone it will sAve
a greater sum than it is ever likely to draw
front the richest dependency in the world, as
long as this continues to be degraded from its
proper uses into a mere patronage preserve
for the Directors and their friends.
One point alone remains to us to nothy, but
it is a point that we cannot think for passing