The Press.
London, England, 1856-12-13 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

tions of the minority. True, the mincrity
has its own organs, who, having no existence
except as such, must support their cause
through good and evil report; but the pro-
tracted exclusion of their party from power,
the repeated defeats it undergoes, and the
apparent unassailability of the opposite party,
has a depressing effect upon them. The old
stagers seeing the impotence of all their at-
tempts to win back the nation to its an3ient
faith, begin to think there is something super-
natural in the business—they look upon politics
as a congeries of special providences. Eng-
land, according to them, is always being
punished for her sins—in particular for eman-
cipating the Catholics ar.d endowing May-
nooth ; and the most direful calamities are pro-
phesied, to the extreme astonishment of men
with sound digestions. It is time these politi-
cal expletives should be discontinued, and
that the Conservatives should learn the real
reason of their exclusion from power, and
direct their energies to provide a remedy.
But " our goodnatured friend," the very
candid Whig, will say,—Your case is hopeless
on your own showing. You aver that you are
in a minority, not only in the House of Com-
mons, but in the electoral body ; and yet it is
in this House of Commons, chosen by this
electoral body, that you must seek your remedy.
which you say is to convert you from a
minority into a majority. And you expect to
accomplish this while your press, through
which alone you can expect to persuade men
to vote against their interest, has become
hypochondriac and superstitious Why, the
thing is simply impossible ; and you had
better submit quietly to our supremacy, no
matter how attained, than uselessly agitate
the country. To which we reply,—Ml you say
is quite true ; but we have an appeal even from
the House of Commons. Whereupon our can-
did friend puzzles his constitutional head on
the uestion whether the House of Lords or
the Queen can legally interfere in such a case ;
and just when he is about to knock us down
with precedents and privileges of Parliament,
we bewilder him still more by telling him
calmly that our appeal lies neither to the
Queen nor to the Lords, but to the genius of
England. We appeal to FAIR FLAY.
We come before her, and say all we ask is
bare justice and no favour. We country people
have not half the say in the government of the
country which the town people have. We are
eleven millions in England and Scotland, and
we have only 189 members; whereas the town
people are only eight millions, and yet return
336 members to Parliament.

Whereupon the genius will turn to John
Bull, to whom, as is well known, she has been
long engaged, and declare, with a good
round oath, that she never will be his if he
does not give up his humbug; that he must
either cease proclaiming himself the justest
and most liberal of men, or else he must treat
his tenants alike, and put the county consti-
tuencies exactly on a par with those of the
towns. AND JOHN BULL WILL DO IT.—I am, &c.,
J. A. G.

ADMINISTRATION OF BRITISH INDIA.

TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS."

Sir,—Having read the first report of her Majesty's
Commissioners appointed to consider the reform of
the judicial establishments, judicial procedure, and
laws of India, I beg to offer a few remarks on the
minute of Mr. Macleod, one of the Commissioners,
in which he objeets to the employment of the natives
of India in the higher offices under the British
Government.

Mr. Macleod affirms that "the British empire in
India is the domination of a single European race
over a number of Asiatic races, but that it is, never-
theless, a blessing to India." I doubt much that the
domination of Bntain has been a blessing to India
hitherto., whatever it may be to India hereafter. It
is true that, under the British rule, the lives and
property of the natives of India are protected from
foreign aggression, but it is equally true that, under
the same rule, more natives die from starvation and
the want of the common necessaries of life than used
to fall before by the sword of foreign conquerors;
and the mass of the people have little or no property
left in their posse'.sion to be protected. It is also
true that, under the British rule, torture is often
resorted to for realising revenue from the poor culti-
vators of the soil ; and native manufactures of all
kinds are fast disappearing. Had the rule of Britain