The Press.
London, England, 1856-05-17 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

hazards and passionate violence indigenous
to mere democracies. Tho whole course of
the 11711;-:-: i i recent tines has been to rule in
the manner we bare described; and there can
be no safety froea their designs, except by the
Consenratives firmly resolving to remain a
united party, pod to defend the principle of
government lapiestitmlions against the liberal
project of government by organised stipen-
ciiaries, mid applanolad by deluded crow*.
We believe that the system followed by
the " Liberals" is awl only dangerous, but,
as a lasting means of rare, it is sure to be im-
practicable. A commercial community cannot
be constantly cast into panics about changes,
and with each an extended empire we Lane*
not be embarking neon what Lord Rofilf
RUSSELL, in one of his cool hours, called " a
" sea of political speculation."

THE DOUBLE GOVERNMENT FOR
INDIA.

IF any proof had been wanting of the evils of
the system of a double Government for India,
it would have been furnished by the proceed.
ings in the Court of Proprietors on Wednes-
day last. In them we see a striking exempli•
fication of its effects. For, though Parliament
has decided that the Company noV only
administer India in trust for the Crown, and
has been careful to limit to a rate fixed by
law the remuneration to be paid to the Go-
vernor-General, the India-house authorities
have decided that they have power to evade
the spirit, if not the letter, of the act. This
they have done by voting a pension to Lord
DALHOUSIE which virtually increases the
emoluments of the office he held by half the
whole sum which the Legislature has assigned
to it. Having, under authority of Parliament,
received two hundred and forty thousand
sicca rupees per annum, which amounts to
exactly thirty thousand pounds a year sterling,
he is now to get what is equivalent to a gra-
tuity of no less a sum than ninety-five thou-
sand pounds besides. This, it must be re-
membered, is in addition to the keeping up a
palace for him at Calcutta, with all the appur-
tenances of plate, furniture, liveries, and ser-
vants; and in addition also to allowances for
public entertainments, and for travelling ex-
penses, which have averaged something like
fifty thousand pounds per annum more. Lord
DArßoustz has thus received from the country,
.in the shape of salary and disbursements on
his personal comforts, a sum of about eighty
- thousand pounds yearly, or six hundred and
forty thousand pounds for the eight years
during which he has held the office which he
has just resigned. His few years of service,
this pension included, will thus have cost the
country the monstrous amount of three quar-
ters of a million sterling.
We confess that for our part we see no
warrant for so wasteful an expenditure in the
present circumstances in which both this
country and India are placed. We are no ad-
mirers of Lord DALHOUSIE'S policy, indeed we
havelfrequently found occasion, as independent
journalists, to call it greatly into question ; but,
admitting his services for the moment to be as
eminent as his warmest admirers describe
them, it appears to us totally unnecessary to
add to his already vast receipts this enormous
sum. There may be precedents for the vote,
but they are taken from the days of a lavish
and wasteful expenditure in every department
in the State—times when little scrutiny was
exercised by the public or the Legislature as
to the nature or extent of Ministerial grants.
Nor were there other considerations in those
days which rendered it natural to hold out
greater inducements to a statesman to accept
the Governor-Generalship of India than there
exist at present. In the then state of things
he resigned for it the certainty of high office
in his native country ; in the present day he
gives up merely the chances of power which
the more even balance of parties has rendered
precarious at the best. Then he was cut off
from all communication, except at long distant
intervals, with his friends and connections at
home ; now he is practically as near to Eng-
land as Naples was in the earlier part of the