The Press.
London, England, 1858-11-06 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 6, 1858.

OLD FALLACIES NEWLY FURBISHED.
IT is singular that in a country in which, as is
admitted, platform speaking and newspaper
writing have more scope and freedom than in
any other community in the world, liberty—or,
may we not say licence—utterly fails to produce
any new thing. Surely the meetings, the recep-
tions, and the dinners of Birmingham have given
ample room, opportunity, and encouragement for
discoveries, and, as the advertisers of new mantles
and bonnets phrase it, for the novelties of the
season. Yet nothing has been presented to us
by the Apostles of Ultra-Radicalism but the old
fallacies which were current, we are afraid to
say how many years ago, with a face of just so
much freshness as can be bestowed by a lacquer-
ing brush in the hands of a bold, skilful, and un-
scrupulous artist.

The people of England, through the medium
of Birmingham, were last week told that war was
the invention and pursuit of the Aristocracy, who
contrived to make of war and its results a
gigantic system of out-door relief for their Order.
Of this character, they were assured, were all
those wars, from the time of WiLmAm of ORANGE
to that of Queen VICTORIA, which by some pro-
cess that we fail to comprehend enabled the terri-
torial families of England to live as drones in
the hive of industry, and to grow fat upon the
honey created by the strength and substance of
the People. _ _

Such, the people have been told, have been the
results of the foreign policy of Great Britain—a
policy induced by that lust of territorial
aggrandizement which is the exclusive and pecu-
liar result of aristocratic and monarchical institu-
tions. Colonies and Dependencies. the People
have been further assured, are a delusion and a
snare ; and England would be greater, richer,
and more powerful—have more commerce, more
ships, and more influence—if somebody else,
France, Austria, Russia, or America, were pos-
sessed of India, Canada, the West Indies, and
our possessions in the Mediterranean.

To this last crazy proposition we need hardly,
we presume, seriously address ourselves. No-
body, however ignorant, can believe that the
English Race would have held the position in
the world which they now enjoy had their do-
minion been restricted to the two compara-
tively insignificant islands which constitute
Great Britain and Ireland.

Let us pass, then, to the other allegations
which have been advanced. Mr. BRIGHT'S
theory is, that the lust of territory, which pro-
duces law-suits between individuals and war be-
tween nations, is the prodt.ct, not of the inherent
qualities of human nature, but of particular In-
stitutions. The passion is the child, says Mr.
BRIGHT, of monarchical and aristocratic systems.
Republican organization would neutralize the germ
and stifle it in embryo. Surely Mr. BRIGHT
must have got his historical instruction—know-
ledge he has not arrived at—from compendiums
and PINNoCK'S Catechisms. Ile condemns
WILLIAM 111. and FREDERICK the GREAT,
and he lauds the Republic of America. We can
understand that Mr. BRIGHT may not have
gathered in his surface-reading enough of know-
ledge to enable him to comprehend that the
wars which he holds up to reprobation assured
to England and to Europe that liberty of con-
science and that freedom from Papal despotism
which enables Mr. BRIGHT to profess his
peculiar opinions and wear his distinc-
tive coat in peace, and to promulgate on the
benches of the House of Commons as well as
upon the platforms of Birmingham those ideas
and theories which so few comparatively share
with him ; but we can scarcely realize ourselves
that Mr. Biumir can imagine that the People of
Birmingham and the People of England have
observed the History of the last fifty years
with so trifling attention, and know it with so
little accuracy, as not to be aware that
in no instances in the world has lust
of territory been exhibited with such force

1077

and indulged with such unscrupulonettees as
in the case of the Republics of France and
of America. Mr. BRIGHT does not hold, as the
phrase goes, by Pagan History, so he tells us, other-
wise we would venture to remind him that, with
one or two exceptions at the utmost, the great
Conquerors who inundated the world with their
legions like a torrent were all equally the chil-
dren of Political Systems, in which the impulses
of the People had a direct, momentary, and sen-
sible influence upon policy.
The singular thing, however, in Mr. BRIGHT
is, less his ignorance of history, than his re-
markable aptitude for contradicting himself. He
tells his audience in one breath that wars are the
work of an aristocracy in search of plunder, and
in the next he assures them that the chief apos-
tles of peace have been Sir ROBERT WALPOLF,
CHARLES JAMES Fox, Earl GREY, and Earl ABER-
DEEN. Why, what, let us ask, is the origin of those
men whom he holds up r,s having withstood the
lust of territory and buried the hatchet of war?
Did the cotton trade produce and aggrandize
them, or did Manchester or Birmingham give
them place in the Legislature and in the Execu-
tive of England ? And are they men whom Mr.
BRIGHT can fairly refer to as instancing the
virtue of his theory that the least educated and
the least experienced make the best and safest
managers of national difficulties.
But is it necessary to follow Mr. BRIGHT
through all his fallacious assertions and com-
parisons ? Is it necessary to point out that,
while in one part of his speech he represents the
people as being sweated to starvation point to
maintain monarchical institutions, in another he
avows that "agriculture never was in a more pro-
" sperous condition ; that commerce was never
" so widely extended ; and that the labourers are
" better off at this moment than they have been
" at any period since the great French War."
We may surely now leave the fallacies and mis-
representations of Mr. BnronT to the process of
annihilation which they. will, slowly possibly,
but certainly, undergo, in passing through the
grinding of the strong common sense of Eng-
land's people ; and we will content ourselves
with quoting, in conclusion, the opinion of
a man of far greater acquirements, and far
greater profundity of view. The Count DE
MONTALEMBERT, in his " Avenir Politique de
I'Angleterre," after speaking of the abandonment
with which the great and the noble of England
have lavished their blood in defence of her free-
dom, says—" But the Aristocracy of England
does not content itself with the glorious privi-
" lege of being first in the ranks of those who
" give their life under the flag of their country.
" It understands well that there are other battles
" to be fought and won among those old and new
" interests called into action by the changes of
" industrial phenomena and by the onward march
"of civilization. The Aristocracy of England
" shows itself imbued with an intelligent solici-
" tude with regard to all new questions, sincerely
" devoted to the moral and material interests of
" the working classes, deeply sensible of the
" wants of the poor, and actively occupied in
" providing for them. And when one sees
" the most considerable members of the Peerage,
" men like Lord GREY, Lord CARLISLE,
" Lord SHAFTESBURY, Lord STANLEY, Lord
GODERICH, and others too numerous to men-
" sion, devoting not only their purses but their
" personal efforts to the establishment and main-
" tenance of schools and institutes, and giving
" their time and their knowledge to the instruc-
" tion of their poorer fellow-subjects; and when
" we find them constantly the most prominent
" in Parliament, in discussions upon the social
" progress of the people ; and we see these people,
" even in the manufacturing districts and in the
" strongholds of Radicalism, exhibiting the
" strongest sense of the sympathy shown them,
"we cannot avoid feeling the highest confi-
" dente in the future of a Nation which redeems
" its vices by so many brilliant virtues and strug-
" files against its infirmities with such an intelli
" gent courage."
For our own part, we will content ourselves
with saying, in conclusion, we have no desire
to divest ourselves of a Constitution► which
through a trial of centuries has withstood suc-
cessfully the attacks of every Despotism that has
assailed it, whatever its character, whether
Religious, Monarchical, or Democratic

1078 THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 6, 1858.

THE FUTURE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA.
TO THE EDITOR OP " THE PRESS."
Calcutta, Sept. 22.
Sir,—The British nation have in their wisdom
thought fit to transfer the government of India from
the East India Company to the Crown. It is most
sincerely to be hoped that they have deliberately
considered the arduous task they have undertaken,
and have sufficiently weighed the sacred responsi-
bility which it has devolved upon them.
They are perhaps not well aware that there is
scarcely auy such body as a public in India, and to
expect any help in the good government of their
country from the ignorant and oppressed natives is
of course out of the question, at least for the present.
The Indian press, too, know as much of the real
wants of India as the Man in the Moon. With one
or two exceptions they represent the interests of the
handful of Europeans. I do not know that they
have ever done any good by their advocacy ; but the
vitnperadves and scurrilities in which they have
lately been indulging to their heart's content have
shown them up in their true colours, and will, I
trust, prevent them from doing more mischief in
future. The East India Company was, therefore,
the only, but the most effectual, check on the
ambition of a party, though comparatively insignifi-
cant in number, but who is nevertheless growing too
strong even for the Government. Without the East
India Company India would have long before now
been reduced by the " adventurers " to the cmdition
of the slave states. This check being removed by
the decree of Parliament, it is imperative on its
members to see that the natives of India may not
have any reasonable cause to regret the transfer--
specially, as I have said above, they are quite inca-
pablom their present condition of helping themselves.
Like blind men, they should be looked after by a
paternal Government.
The first duty that England owes to India is to
educate its people. Nu expense should be spared
for this all-important object ; but none should be
thrown away, as it is now done. The man who
directs the public instruction should—even for the
sake of decency—be a learned man himself, and not
necessarily a civil servant.
The next subject to which Parliament should pay
its most serious attention is the Indian Law Courts,
judicial, criminal, and fiscal. They may or may not
be good enough for the natives; but they are
certainly not very creditable to the great and
enlightened nation which governs India. They are
not simply useless, but " particularly mischievous,"
as the late Mr. Le Bas, Jude of Delhi, happily
described them. It would require space to point out
all their defects and mischievous tendencies, more
than can be allotted to a newspaper correspondent;
suffice it to say, what all unanimously agree to,
that these courts should be thoroughly reformed,
and with as little delay as may be practicable.
And to begin with the beginning—the first
act of her Majesty's Ministers towards the above
reformation should oe to amalgamate her Majesty's
and the late East India Company's Supreme Courts.
What little confidence the Government of India has
in its own established courts, may be gathered from
this single fact, that Government has lately sent out
instructions that all cases in which the interests of
Government are involved should be determined by
Eutopean julges. Why, in the name of common
sense, I ask, then. the courts presided by native
judges are any longer kept ; or does the Government
seriously believe that private suitors are more power-
ful than Government, and are, therefore, better able
to cope with corrupt native judges, or the still more
Corrupt system ? Does this, or does this not, show,
in the Government of the country, a most palpable
and culpable disregard for the interests of the
public ; and does this, or does this not, prove that in
India justice is a mockery and delusion?
The best way for conciliating the people of India
is not by telling them simply that they are now the
subjects of her Majesty the Queen. So long as they
will remain in their present abject condition, it will
be a matter of perfect indifference to them to know
whose subjects they are.
Let us, therefore, hope that the transfer of govern.
ment will immediately be followed by a radical
change in the administration of justice in India, as a
preliminary to other and more extensive reforms.
It was a fatal mistake in the charter of 1853 to
place Bengal under a Lieutenant. Governor. The
injury that this has done outweighs by far all the
good that other provisions of the charter contem-
plated to do. The more India is divided into sepa-
rate provinces, and each province is placed under a
separate Government, the worse for the country. It
is wrong to suppose that this division of labour
affords no small relief to the Governor• General.
Unless the Governor-General is pleased to shut his
eyes and ears against all appeals against the decisions
of the Provincial Governments, his labour is in-
creased exactly in the same proportion as the
number of his subordinate governors is increased.
But more on this subject in my next.—Yours
obediently, AN INDIAN.

preigit vLarrrsgolOcace.

PARIS, Thursday.
IF your contemporaries do not want to create mis-
chief, they had better let the Portuguese affair drop.
The French Government is much vexed at the
exasperation which, it appears, is manifested in
Lisbon about it, and at the unfriendly attitude which
the London press has assumed respecting it; and
any more harping on the subject may change
vexation into anger and resentment. The manner
in which the French Government has acted in the
affair from beginning to end has afforded the highest
satisfaction to the French people of all classes and
all parties, and they are consequently very indignant
at what they call the presumption of Portugal in
making an ungracious reparation for what they
consider a clear and indisputable wrong committed
by her; still more indignant are they at the idea that
the English press, unmindful of the alliance and of
the many good turns which they consider France has
done England, should, on a question in which their
national dignity is concerned, have displayed hostility,
not to the aggressor, but to them. It is possible
that the French Government and people take a
wrong view of the whols affair, and that our news•
papers and Portugal take a right one ; but it would
be as easy to drive back the Seine to its source as to
convince them of that. If, then, our journals
continue to assail them, we may certainly apprehend
an explosion of wrath. Already is England spoken
of with exceeding bitterness in private circles—
bitterness greater, though less noisy, than that which
was manifested about the Orsini affair; and if the
Government were only to say a word, almost every
newspaper in the land would eagerly give utterance
to it.

other hand, the Government could not so i
late the rules of ordinary justice as to allow a great
personage to publish things infinitely more seditious
than those for which many a poor journalist has en.
dured and is enduring fine, imprisonment, exile,
beggary.
The Emperor and Empress left on Monday to pay
their long-talked-of visit to Compiegne. I have told
you that no foreign royal personage is to visit theta
during their stay there; but some eminent states.
men, native and foreign, have been invited. In the
foreign batch are Lord Cowley, our Ambassador;
Count de Kisseleff, the Russian Minister; and, it is
said, Lord Palmerston ; the name of Lord Malmes-
bury has also been mentioned, but I believe erro.
neously. In the native batch are most of the Cabi-
net Ministers, Count de Persigny, and the Duke de
Malakoff. Two simple literary men are also to figure
amongst the guests, M. Jules Sandeau and M.
Octave Feuillet.
Lord Normanby's " Year of Revolution," the trans.
lation of which into French was announced to you
some weeks ago, receives this morning a severe cas.
ligation in the Journal die &bats ; it is called a
mass of " platitudes," " wearisome," " nauseous," " of
grotesque gravity," and the public are assured that
it is a sad thing for England to have been repre.
sented at Paris during the most dramatic and most
serious period of the history of the century by such
an amateur statesman as his noble lordship. The
enemies of the Whig marquis have reason to rejoice
that he has " written a book " on the Revolution, for
it has caused throughout Paris the meanest possible
opinion to be formed, both of his literary talent and
his moral character.

Mr. John Bright has all at once " fallen from his
high estate" in the estimation of continentals. These
people thought that he had to him the stuff of which
statesmen are made; but his recent speeches prove
that he is worthy to rank with the pitiable personages
who were hoisted into favour by the Revolution of
18.13, and no higher. Had be tried expressly to talk
himself down, he could not have succeeded more
completely than he has done. Hencefortn, no one
in continental latitudes will take him au serieuz.
He will be regarded as a mere empty declaimer, as
unpracical and visionary as the Luis Blanca and
the Cabets. I happen to know several republicans,
French and German—the latter exiles,—and they,
as you will suppose, entertain convictions which seem
exceedingly extravagant to a correspondent of Tie
Passs ; and yet these meu are astounded that the
honourahle Quaker shonll have been so devoid of
political tact as to expound opinions which have no
more chance of being accepted by the nation than
Birnhain-wood has of going to Dunsinane, and which
if accepted would, as has justly been remarked here,
" make England no longer England."
Much mistaken is Mr. Sidney Herbert in sup.
posing that if the system of anonymous writing in
journals were put down, he would get at the real
names of the writers of the really imporsnr. articles.
What takes place in the Paris press is a proof that
the thing is not possible : in this country siding
is
by law obligatory under pain of imprisonmat and
fine and suppression of the newspaper; and yet not
a day passes in which articles do not appear bearing
the signatures of men who notoriously do not and
could not w:ite them. Io fact, the signing system is
a perfect farce, and the Government is so well aware
of this that it makes no serious attempt to compel
correct signing ; it even allows its own semi•official
organs to violate the law with impunity. I know
something of the internal economy of more than one
Paris newspaper, and could give proof positive of
what I here assert. In Paris the signing of articles
has made the public familiar with the names of some
half dozen industrious gentlemen who with
.paste,
scissors, and pen, compile newspapers ; hut it left
them almost as ignorant as ever they were about the
men whose articles give life and vigour and political
importance to the journal. And the same would be
the case in England if signing were adopted there.
Monday being All Saints' and Tuesday All Souls'te,
days, the Parisians observed the first as a comple
the second as a partial holiday ; and, in accordance
with ancient custom, thousands of them who have
recently lost friends or relatives visited the cemetert:s
to pray or weep over the tombs in which thelcv
ones repose. To some English this usage of visiting
the graves of the dead on a
given day is theatrical
and displeasing ; but most of our countrymen, and
in my poor opinion very properly, regard it as a
solemn, pious, and affecting demonstration.
a.l
A stranger in Paris noticed that the thousands and
tensstreets, and and of
question, :were, most of them elegantly, a
to
ragsturta ya,s attirede--sthat,
anywhere.
n fact, not
The single
n
the thousands
n n filled
the the
two c
great hurc.ha,,h
orn
cysti
ne.
this ,
proof that of late years the general well-being ot
tear me, tends to establish the
despotic Government suits the French better than a
yn lo re tn persona 'rkthe
proof
I
people has singularly increased ; and proof
free one. painful fact that a

I need hardly tell you that the melancholy killing
of General de Salles by a maniac half brother,
Colonel de Chanaleilles, of which you will find
accounts in the newspapers, has caused a profound
sensation in society. The general must be known
personally to not a few of your readers from having
commanded the French corps d'artneo on the left
position in the siege of Sebastopol. He was, apart
from his services in the Crimea, a distinguished
soldier, and was, what only few French generals are,
of noble birth and an accomplished scholar. The
widow of the unhappy maniac also possesses a
certain interest in English eyes from being the
daughter of the famous Count de Las Cases, the
companion and historian of Napoleon in his exile,
and from having passed part of her youth in St.
Helena. Some persons are representing that the
slaying of the general, like the murder of the
Duchess de Praslin, is one of those fearful events
which precede a political commotion—the fleeting
cloud in the clear sky which indic des the approach
of the tempest; but surely the act of a raving lunatic
ought not to be so interpreted. Still it is not a little
strange that nowhere except in France do we hear of
such things as a dunliess being killed by her husband,
of an archbishop being stabbed by a priest, of a
general falling by a brother's hand.
Political circles were plunged into commotion last
Friday by the announcement in the official Moniteur
that no less a personage than the Count de Monta-
lembert, the distinguished orator, was to be prose-
cuted for having, in an article in the Correspondent,
" excited to hatred and contempt of the Govern.
ment," "attacked the rights of the Emperor,"
" excited citizens to make war on each other," and
committed sundry other offences. The article, which
was about the great Indian debate in the English
Parliament, speaks in terms of the highest admira-
tion of our country, and abounds in sharp and bitter
and vehement observations on the Imperial Govern-
ment and its partizans. In bringing so eminent an
individual as the Count de Montaletubert to the bar
of a criminal court for a political offence, the
Government does the boldest act it has ventured on
since in the coup d'etat it exiled M. Thiers and other
statesmen. This set proves that it now considers
its power perfectly irresistible; and many persons
think that it proves also an intention to make all the
great politicians and parliamentary men who have
hitherto stood haughtily aloof from the Imperial
Government give in their adhesion to it or—leave
France.

The prudence of prosecuting—that is to say, of
fining and imprisoning, for fine and imprisonment
invariably follow prosecutions for " offences of the
press "—such a man as the Count, is, however,
warmly disputed by many of the best friends of the
Imperial regime. " You cannot," they say, " mulct
him and send him to gaol without exciting a pertur-
bation in the country, and all perturbations should
be avoided, for there is no saying to what they may
lead!" There may be truth in that; but, on the