The Press.
London, England, 1858-05-22 00:00:00

SECOND EDITION.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

The Paris correspondent of the Morning Post,
writing " Friday, 6 p.m.," says :
There was a Council of Ministers this day at the Tui•
leries, the Emperor presiding. The subject discussed was
the business of the Conferences, and the line of policy
France would adopt. The plenipotentiaries have received
their invitations to meet tomorrow at two o'clock, at the
Hotel of Foreign Affairs. I believe it has been decided
that the members of the Conference shall be called to•
getber three times a week ; under such circumstances the
plenipotentiaries may be engaged for a ,month. The
Court leaves Fontainebleau on Sunday.

Major• General Sir Archdale Wilson, of Delhi,
arrived in town from India on Wednesday last. The
gallant general was warmly congratulated by his
friends at the Oriental Club on making his appearance
among them. It is the intention of the members of
the club to give a banquet to celebrate the return of
the gallant officer.

.IMEIMIINIMI

Mr. Petersdorff and Mr. Payne (of the Home
Circuit), Mr. Cross (of the Northern Circuit), and
Mr. Tozer (of the Norfolk Circuit), have been raised
to the rank of Sergeants-at-Law, and were yesterday
sworn in before the Lord Chancellor in his private
room at the House of Lords.

The Daily News thus describes the scene in the
House of Commons last night:—
After a few more questions and answers, the adjournment
of the house was moved, and then broke out a complete
mutiny in the ranks of Lord Palmerston's supporters. One
Liberal member after another rose, with every variety of
tone, from entreaty to menace, to urge the withdrawal of
Mr. Csrdwell's resolution. The publication of the recent
despatches, it was represented, had completely altered the
aspect of the question, the nature of the issue was entirely
changed ; it was no longer possible either to waive the
discussion of Lord Canning's confiscation policy, or to
arrive at a just and satisfactory conclusion upon it.
To vote for the motion as it now stood would be to
place the Liberal party in a false position with tht
country. Mr. Cardwell was inexorable ; refused to
withdraw his motion, and declared, with metallic
inflexibility, that the debate must go on. Then the storm
broke out afresh and the mutiny waxed fiercer and fiercer
The more independent supporters of Lord Palmerston
openly declared their intention to desert. "If the motion
is persisted in," exclaimed Mr. Thomas Buncombe, "
shall not vote against, but put on my hat, and wish
the right hon. gentleman good night." Then came the
more plaintive remonstrances of the gentlemen who
were fast bound by pledges to Sir William Hayter.
They telt they could not escape; if the motion was
persisted in, they mast march on nib flagella, as
victims towards the altar of party. But they could and
they did protest against the cruelty involved in thus
exacting the utmost rights of the " torturing scourge."
While these affecting remonstrances were being made and
these indiscreet revelations indulged in; while the party
character of the motion was thus admitted, and the
mysteries of the ex• Treasury whip revealed, the ser•
tied ranks of the Miniszerialists sate quietly watch-
ing the progress of the insurrection It •as
time for the superior powers to intervene; the knot had
acquired that degree of ermplexity which traditionally
demands the interposition of a God, and Lord Palmerston
once more descended on the scene. The ex-Ministerial
Jupiter give the signal, and his sedate satellite, no longer
inflexible, put himself and his motion in the hands of the

house.

.—T
SERIOUS ILLNESS OF CARDINAL WISEMANbe
friends of Cardinal Wiseman have for the last few
weeks entertained serious apprehensions as to the
condition of his health. Such is his state at present
that on Wednesday last it was deemed advisable by
his medical advisers that he should retire from
London, in order to avoid the anxiety and worry of
business. On Thursday the cardinal left his rest.
dente in York-place, Baker street, for his country
seat at Layton, Essex. He is said for some time to
have suffered from diabetes,—a form of disease looked
on as incurable.
ALEXANDER BORROMEO, alias Dr. Tucker, was in-
dicted before the assistant Judge at 'Westminster for
having obtained by false pretence, from John Baxter
Langley, the sums of one guinea and two guineas
with intent to cheat and defraud. Our readers may
remember the alleged meetings of Italian delegates
in London, reports of which appeared in all the lead-
ing morning papers, among others in the Morning
Star, but which afterwards turned out to be a hoax.
The prisoner in this case was the perpetrator of the
forgery, and the
prosecutor is the manager of
the Morning Star. The Assistant Judge sentenced
him to be kept to hard labour in the House of Cor-
rection for twelve months.
The prisoner, it appears,
Is the son of Irish parents, who, during his infancy,
went to Milan, and there became acquainted with the
Boromeo family, whose name be had unwarrantably
assumed, his own being that of Tucker.

~~

Iroutbings in V arliament.

HOUSE OF LORDS—MONDAY.
The Protection of Female Children Bill went
through committee.
Lord Dc MAULEY moved for copies of the corre-
spondence between the English and Austrian Govern-
ments respecting telegraphic correspondence between
Ragusa and Alexandria.
The Earl of MAI•MESBURY stated that the papers
were being printed.
Lord BERNERS presented a petition from the
butchers and others interested in the supply of meat
to the metropolitan markets, complaining of the
regulations that affect the slaughtering of cattle in
London.
The bills on the table were forwarded a stage;
their lordships then adjourned.

HOUSE OF COMMONS MONDAY.
The Consolidated Fund Bill was read a third time
and passed.
GOVERNMENT CENSURE OF LORD CANNING.
The adjounied debate on the Governor General of
India was resumed by
Mr. ROEBUCK, who began by urging the impor-
tance of the question, which concerned a large section
of the human race, and whether the house was
to be guided by the great principles of honour and
virtue, or, utterly regardless of the helpless people
of India, by a consideration for the sole aggrandize-
ment of England. What, he asked, were they
fighting for?—not the happiness of India, bat a
mere matter of party politics, as to who i.hould sit
on the different benches of the house. Addressing
himself to the question raised by the resolution
moved by Mr. Cardwell, he laid down three proposi-
tions—first, that Lord Ellenhorough was bound to
write an answer to the proclamation of the Governor-
General ; secondly, that he wrote the right despatch ;
and, thirdly, that the Government were not answer-
able for the production of the despatch. Reading
the proclamation in English, he declared the case to
be one to which the history of mankind afforded no
parallel. When the Government received this pro-
clamation, which was calculated, he said, to make
the people of Oude rebellious to the very end of
their lives, what were they to dot If they had
passed it over in silence, they would, in his opinion,
have deserved impeachment. The hon. member

continued :
Was not Lord Ellenborough bound to answer the pro-
clamation as his own judgment told him it should be
answered? and, if you compelled the publication of that
despatch, the evil of it rests here, and not with the Govern•
went. There is this wonderful peculiarity—l will not
say mischief—of a Government like ours,—that the people
should know what is going on. I believe that the argu-
ments used in tits debate go further than some hon.
gentlemen think, and that they condemn the hidden
diplomacy which is the curse of this country. I firmly
believe that, if we knew from day to day what the Govern-
ment are doing, we should be better off than we are.
Now, we are led blindfold into every error. War comes
on us, and we are told we must not inquire. Peace comes
on us, and we are told we are too late. When it is im-
portant that we should know, the public interests step in;
and when to know iv of no use at all, we are told all. Sir,
I want to know if this is not a fair description ? There
was to other course before the Government except that
which they pursued. They were called upon to give an
opinion. They did give an opinion, and they gaye it ac-
cording to the honest bias of their own minds. When
they were called upon to publish that opinion it was by
this side of the house, and they had no alternative. It
was published in spite of themselves, and the publication
is not to be laid at their door. Well, then, if we are to
regard our Indian dominion as a matter in which we have
an interest, we have a yet greater interest in truth and
ponce. if you wanted to pacify India it would be by the
course pointed out in the despatch of Lord Ellenborough.
It has been said that this despatch ought to be printed in
letters of gold. Sir, I believe so. That was an honest
despatch, and I do not know my own countrymen if they
do not come to the same conclusion. I entreat my
countrymen to remember that there are things above
Party. If they are to consider mere party moves I will
milt them what they will get if the Government are in a
minority to night? Why, a Government that we have
eeshiered lately, because they neglected the honour of
England. We are to allow hon. gentlemen on this side
of the house, after passing a few weeks in the cold regions
of Opposition, to go in state across to that I the Treasury)
bench. And for what ? Do the people cf England expect
SOY change in the policy of the late Government? If they
do they are wofully deceived. Sir, I believe that good
govenament, that happiness for the people, that the advance
of liberal measures, which we all desire, are more to be
obtained from that weak Government (pointing to the
Treasury bench) than from the strong insolence of this.
(Pointing to the front Opposition bench amid great
cheering.) I have seen, sir, both, I have tried them both,
and I am sure that we are further advanced in a course of
Improvement
and liberty than we should have been under
the guidance of the noble lord (Lord Palmerston). If we
W
_ek simple honesty—if we want justice for the people of
,taangland—if we seek the happiness of the people of Eng-
' 't sad good governwent for England, we shall give a
decided negative to the resolatioas of the right hon. gentle-
than the member for Oxford,

THE PRESS, MAY 22, 1858.

Sir C. Woon complained that the attention of the
house had been diverted from the real question at
issue, which was simple enough. The supporters
of the resolution, he said, contended that the Go-
vernment, in prematurely condemning Lord Canning's
proclamation, and in condemning it in unjustifiable
terms, and, worse than all, in publishing their con-
demnation, to the detriment of the Governor-

General's authority, had promulgated opinions almost
incompatible with the maintenance of our power in
India. The house was not called upon to approve
the policy of Lord Canning with reference to Oude,
respecting which there was a deficiency of evidence;
it was irrespective of that policy that he called upon
the house to condemn the proceedings of the Govern-
ment. He proceeded to argue that an incorrect
construction had been put upon the proclamation ;
that misapprehensions prevailed as to the proprie-

tary right in Oude ; that the landholders oppressed
and maltreated the people, for whose good it was
desirable that the talookdar system should be extir•
pated—though he did not believe that this was the
meaning of the proclamation, which was, he observed,
of the usual character, and in accordance with the
policy pursued in the Punjaub. But if the procla-
mation was thought to be too severe, it ought to
have been reproved in more appropriate terms, not
with harshness and invective ; and, at all events, it
ought not to have been published. The responsi-
bility for the publication could not, he insisted, be
shifted upon a single Minister ; the act must, upon
constitutional grounds, and upon their own showing,
be shared by all the members of the Cabinet. He
dwelt, in conclusion, upon the mischievous effects
which the publication of the despatch would, in his
opinion, exert upon the authority of the Governor
General, upon the population of Onde, and upon the
people of India, contending that, instead of being a
message of peace, the despatch would be a firebrand
of war.

Mr. HARDY could not consider the motion an
honest one. The resolution, he said, was involved
and ambiguous in its terms, and shaped so as to
catch votes. With regard to the proclamation, he
contended that there could be no mistake in India,
any more than in England, as to its meaning, which
was repugnant to the rules and principles prescribed
in a despatch to India dated the 24th of March, and
which was laid upon the table of the house on the
29th of April. Those rules ani principles of justice
and humanity, he said, had been acted upon by the
Government, and enforced, be admitted, in strong
and forcible terms in the despatch in question,
which was intended not to insult but to warn Lord
Canning, who, he believed, would 'read it in a very
different spirit from that in which it was read in that
house. If it was an error to condemn an act of a

Governor General before his explanation had been
received, it was no more, be remarked, than had
bees done by a former Government of which some
members of the late Administration had formed a
part, which had condemned an act of Lord Auck
land in 1839 without giving him an opportunity to
explain it. He read extracts from Indian news-
papers to show the opinions entertained throughout
India as to the effects of the proclamation, and that
to carry it out would require a fresh army of 50,000
men.
Lord Buss:Ennis argued that the people of Oude
had identified their objects with those of the muti-
nous sepoys—that they were rebels—and if so, that
they had forfeited their lands. When we took pos-
session of Oude the property in the soil vested in
the Bing became vested in the Government of India ;
and he thought that, by curtailing the powers of the
talookdars, defining tenures, and adjusting titles in
Oude, Lord Canning would do much towards estab-
lishing tranquillity in that country. He condemned
the manner in which the Government had censured
the policy of Lord Canning, and expressed a belief
that there bad been from the first a strong desire in
the present Cabinet to get rid of him.
Lord LOVAINE observed that, admitting, as he did,
the merits and virtues of Lord Canning, the question
was whether the proclamation in itself was proper or
improper, right or wrong, So far from doing good, it
appeared by information from India, where it was
condemned by military authorities, that it had done
mischief already. The President of the India Board
was bound at the earliest period to express his
opinion upon the proclamation, and if the terms were
harsh it cast no slur upon the character or honour of
Lord Canning.
Mr. BYNG remarked that it was difficult to separate
the real question at issue from the extraneous topics
with which it had been mixed up. That question
was, simply, whether the despatch was judicious and
right, and whether it should have been laid beton,
Parliament. As to the proclamation, it was doubtful
be said, whether it had been published in India o
not; if it had been, he did not think it merited th
censure cast upon it. But by the publication of the
despatch, condemning the proclamation, and cen:
suring a public servant, the Government bad coml
mitted an act which was, io his opinion, dangeroas
oar rule ia WM. • ' • -' •

;rsripri

495

Mr. HOPE, after a diffuse exordium, condemned
the despatch as a rash composition, and its publi-
cation as a still greater act of rashness ; and thought
that if Lord Ellenborough bad not resigned, the
house could not have refused to pass the resolution.
But that resignation had, in his view, virtually pro-
duced a great change, and had neutralized the latter
and most important part of the resolution ; and, as
the object should be to strengthen the hands of
Lord Canning, not to subserve a party cabal, he
should vote against Mr. Cardwell's resolution, and
for the amendment of Mr. Dillwyn, for which, he
thought, the friends of Lord Cauning ought to vote.
Mr. ATHERTON supported the original resolution.
Assuming, he said, that the proclamation called for
disapprobivion, there were various ways of expressing
it, and he complained, without reference to the policy
of Lord Canning, of the terms in which the opinion
of the Government had been conveyed to Lord
Canning, which could not fail to make an undeserved
painful impression upon him—terms which he
characterized as arrogant and insulting. The laying
the despatch upon the table of the house was equiva-
lent to placarding upon the walls of Lucknow and in
the villages of Oude a document that vindicated the
rebellion of the people, who were, he said, as much
the subjects of the Queen of England as the people
of Bengal.
Lord ELcso likewise supported the original motion.
With the proclamation be considered the house was
not in a position to deal, as it was not in possession
of the requisite information. What the house had to
consider was the conduct of the Government of this
country, who had acted, in his opinion, unjustly and
cruelly towards Lord Canning, and most impolitically
as regarded our Indian empire.
Sir R. PEEL observed that Mr. Cardwell had
referred to the motives and objects of his motion.
Those motives and objects, in his (Sir R. Peel's)
opinion, were, not the interest of poor Lord Canning,
nor of the millions in India under our rule ; but an
opportunity was offered, and was not to be lost, for
attacking the Government, and India must be made
the battle.field. Such a motion, instead of tending to
the assistance of our countrymen in India, must
greatly increase their embarrassment, and the country
must, be thought, deprecate the course pursued.
After defending the policy of Lord Dalhousie in
annexing Oude, be denounced in strong terms that
disclosed in the " manifesto " of Lord Canning, and
asked the house whether it was prepared to sanction
arbitrary spoliation, or whether it would require that
severe acts should be tempered with moderation.
Assuming that this had been made a party question,
Sir Robert said :

We have heard a great deal about the premature publi-
cation of a despatch, and a great deal of blame has been
cast upon the Secretary of the Board of Control for the
observations that he has made upon it. But depend upon
it that is not the real question at issue. The resolution
says that " this house sees with regret and serious appre-
hension that her Majesty's Government have addressed to
the Governor-General," Sze. Now, I must say there
seems to be something concealed in this expression of
regret and serious apprehension. There is something
hypocritical about it. It is not a straightforward expres-
sion of opinion. I want to drive home the hypocrisy of
certain disinterested politicians. I want to show that it
is not that they feel regret and apprehension because the
Secretary to the Board of Control made his statement, or
because the despatch was prematurely published, but lest
India should not be made the shuttlecock of party. The
member for Halifax said that he would not much care if
her Majesty's Government were turned out tomorrow,
for the people would rejoice. Well, there lies the ques-
tion. This is a party move. The question we are now
discussing lies between Lord Derby and the noble lord the
member for Tiverton. I venture to say lam not speaking
merely my own opinion, bat that of thousands in this
sountry, when I say that the question really is whether
Lord Derby shall continue to advise the Crown and
exercise the duties of that position which be has honour-
ably and fairly acquired, or whether this House of Com-
mons is, with trembling humiliation to the Piccadilly
manifesto, to allow the noble lord the member for Tiverton
to scramble back to power. It would be a very serious
matter, for such a manifesto, after we have with justice
condemned the policy of the noble lord the member for
Tiverton, to let him now come back to office upon a party
question relating to India. It is said by some that if the
Government is beaten Lord Derby must go out, on account
of the want of strength of his party; but in these days tbo
strength of a Government depends not so much upon its
numerical force as upon its being in accordance with the
active sympathies of people out of doors, and the general
sympathies and feelings of the public will always be in
favour of any Government, be it presided over by Lord
Derby, the noble lord the member for Tiverton, or the
noble lord the member for London, who, after all, is the
legitimate leader of the Liberal party, if it is evident
that they are equal to the conduct of public affairs. Now,
this has been made a party question, let me ask you
-bbfore we come to a decision upon the subject to consider
the position of the champions in the struggle. .The noble
lerd the member for Tiverton has jolt been conwielud,
upon the clearest evidence, of toadying Is for•'--
Suence. lie has just been convicted, r
convicted, of preferring the, favour
friendship of those living eineler
reigns and yet you want to bring
'Mho. Wily, the noble Iced 'hl4

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