The Press.
London, England, 1858-10-09 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9,185 S.

LORD CAININING'S DESPATCH.
WE have now before us that explanation of his
Proclamation of March last to the population of
Oude which Lord CANNING promised in the
letter suppressed by Mr. VERNON SMITII. It
bears the marks of great study and of long pre-
paration, and its characteristics are—a high
sense of public duty, a consciousness of being in
the wrong, considerable diffuseness, much
divergence from the issue, and very indifferent,

not to say clumsy, arrangement.
The first and main conclusion which we draw
from it is—that there ought not in good policy
to have been any Proclamation at all at that
period, and that Lord CANNLNG is himself now of

that opinion.
The Despatch is divided into fifty paragraphs
Of these the first seven relate to Lord CANNING 'S
personal feelings and personal position as affected
by the Despatch of Lord ELLENHOROUGH. Of
those which follow, the paragraphs up to number
fifteen are an attack upon that Despatch con-
sidered as a State Paper, and the remainder con-
sist partly of a justification of the Proclamation
and partly of a dissertation upon the merits of
the land-settlement in Oude, which appears
somewhat unnecessary and altogether irrelevant
to the issue.
Nothing can be more ungenerous upon the
part of political writers or of the public judging at
their ease, and after the crisis has passed away,
.than
to deal hardly with those who were in the midst
of the actual events, and upon whom the respon-
sibility of direction and government devolved at
the moment. It is as impolitic as it is unjust.
We bear in mind that Lord CANNixo was
Governor-General of India when the most
astounding mutiny broke out that history has
ever recorded; we bear in mind that he has
continued Governor-General throughout its ter-
rific outburst ; and we must not f3rget that
essentially that mutiny, and the rebellion which
it provoked, have been extinguished. We are
prepared therefore, we are anxious, to treat Lord
CANNING with every consideration, and to place
upon all his acts the most favourable interpreta-
tion. We entirely appreciate his devotion to his
country, and we entirely believe that a more
conscientious and highminded Public Servant
does not exist. Nothing can be more admirable
in expression and in feeling than that portion of
Despatch which relates to his personal posi-
tion ; nothing more dignified and more becoming
than the manner in which he accepts the
rebuke which he received from the Government
at home.
We wish we could end here. We wish that
Lord CANNING had not by the publication of
what he conceives to be a justification compelledus to criticize and in criticizing to condemn his
policy as exhibited in his mode of dealing with
the rebellion iu Oude.
We propose in examining this justification to
Invert the order in which Lord CANNING has
LATEST EDITION.

himself dealt with events, and to consider, first,
the merits which he claims for the Proclamation,
and, secondly, the defects which he imputes to
the Despatch of Lord ELLENBOROUGIL
What should a Proclamation be ?—a Proclama-
tion from the Conqueror to the Conquered, from
the Ruler victorious to the Rebel beaten, from
the Educated to the Illiterate and Ignorant.
Surely it should be distinct in its language
and unmistakeable in its tendency. It should be
so framed and so worded that every man who
has a home and can command a meal by his
labour can judge from it how his position and
his interests will be dealt with. Was Lord
CANNING'S such a one ? By no means. The
whole gist of Lord CANNING'S defence of his
Proclamation is that it said one thing and meant
another. The entire of the assertions with
regard to its favourable influence rest upon its
modification in application by the action of indi-
vidual public servants who either perverted or
neutralized it. It was the explanation conveyed
by Colonel STUART, it was the personal manage-
ment of Mr. MONTGOMERY, that effected the good,
and insured the progress in pacification, which
Lord CANNING claims as the result of his Procla-
mation. As a reality, the Proclamation would
have been monstrous ; as a mere assertion of
position, it was impolitic and futile.
We are not disposed to deny that in the pre-
mature publication of the Despatch Lord CAN-
NING has a fair ground for complaint; and although
Lord CANNING produces no evidence whatever
that it did so actually, we will not undertake
to deny that some mischief may not have been
produced in India by the telegraphic communi-
cation of Mr. DisitAELfs announcement in the
House of Commons that the Government dis-
approved in every sense of the policy indicated
in the Proclamation. But we must remind Lord
CANNING and the friends of Lord CANNING that
the premature publication of Lord ELLEN-
BOROUGH'S Despatch could not have taken place,
and Mr. DISRAELI'S reply could not have been
given, if Mr. VERNON SMITH, the Minister with
whom Lord CANNING conceived himself to be
dealing, had not most unworthily withheld from
Lord ELLENBOROUGH, the Minister with whom
he was really in relation, an important explana-
tory letter which Mr. VERNON SMITH could not
but have known was a communication to a
Government and not to an individual. But
for this wrong-doing on the rat of a very
careless or very dishonest public servant it
would not have been known, at all events
during the continuance of the rebellion, that the
Government in England regarded with disappro-
bation the policy which they conceived, and
which every man of common sense would con-
ceive, to be indicated by the Proclamation of the
Governor-General ; nor would it have been
telegraphed through the length and breadth of
India that the Cabinet of Lord DERBY enter-
tained doubts as to the justice of the annexation
of Oude. If any mischief has really ensued
from this publicity, it lies at the door of Mr.
VERNON SMITH, not at that of the Cabinet.
We doubt much, however, if it has had the
effects attributed to it by Lord CANNING,
and probably we may relieve the Minister
for India of Lord PALMERSTON'S Administra-
tion from any imputations other than those
which have already been affixed to him. In a
Government like ours, in which the Representa-
tive Element has a preponderating power, the
Executive will always have to deal with the
stumblingblocks thrown in their path by prema-

ture open discussions of policy. It is one of the
evils of our mixed Constitution, and it will con-
stitute one of our main difficulties in administer-
ing under the new organization the affairs of a
country which, like India, has been accustomed
to and requires despotic government. At the
same time, we are disposed to think that the In-
dian population by this time must so far compre-
hend the character ofour Institutions as to be aware
that theoretical doubts stated in discussion by no
means imply vacillation in action. They must
perceive that perseverance in a war by the Na-
tion is not incompatible with expressed dis-
approval of the policy which a particular
Cabinet initiated. Even had the contest
in Oude lad the character purely of
a legitimate war on the of the people of
Oude, instead of a rebellion with extenuating
circumstances, the Government of Lord DERBY,
finding the Nation engaged in it, must have gone
through with it as they did in the case of China.
We believe that our Eastern subjects understand
this, and even if Lord ELLENBOROUGH'S
Despatch had been a Proclamation instead of a
confidential communication to the Governor-
General, it would not have been necessary for
him to declare any resolution as suggested
in the ninth paragraph of Lord CANNING'S
Paper of the doubt which has been raised as to
the abstract justice of the British annexation of
Oude.
Surely, too, it is most illogical of Lord CAN-
NING to make it matter of objection to Lord
ELLENBOROUGII'S Despatch that he does not make
a positive declaration on this point. The justifica-
tion of Lord CA.NNLNG'S application of his Pro-
clamation through Colonel STUART and Mr.
MOSTGO'EERY, upon which he really rests his
case, depends entirely upon its being a matter of
doubt whether the People of Oude could be dealt
with as actual and ordinary rebels, or whether
the circumstances of their relations to the
British Crown did not invest their po-
sition with an exceptional character, and in
some degree entitle them to be treated with the
consideration due according to the law of nations
only to legitimate belligerents. It is by the
existence and acknowledgment of the doubt which
he deprecates that Lord CANNING can alone be
justified for his conduct. If the Population of
Oude had undoubtedly the position and rights of
legitimate belligerents, his Proclamation was
monstrous ; if they were unquestionably rebels,
pure and simple, his modifications of it in appli-
cation were inexcusable.
With the history of the revolt and of the land
settlement and land tenure in Oude, which Lord
CANNING has written with the evident purpose
of overlaying the matters really in issue, as be-
tween himself and Lord ELLENBOROUGR, we may
take occasion to deal at some other time. It is
the natural and irresistible propensity of every
man to write a history when he feels that he has
a bad case. Our object has been to disentangle
the latter from • former - it - it
really exists,

THE
very

the latter from the former, and to present it as it
really exists, for the judgment of the
LORD STANLEY tO `4lit:•llh4 d
THE speech of Lord STANLE •
very remarkable and impo .AjiLly
,
comprehensive words which • • r; • ..) '
llr iZI
audience at Fishmongers' H I 6 r .
will be found the great • - 'III,IQ 414,;„
"sttintends to take as gui.ll • A
vast British dependency on the ."1"-S ltb-r" the

970

globe, which, when considered with reference to
its population and its extent, is, as a dependency,
without a parallel in the history of the world.
Well, indeed, might he exclaim that, " when he
" thought of the amount of responsibility which
"devolved upon him and his Council, he was
"almost appalled at the weight of tbe task they
" had undertaken."

These, however, are words of good omen ; for
we may rest assured, that when those who have
the direction of such great and weighty affairs do
not deeply feel the weight of the responsibility
which devolves upon them, there is little chance
of those affairs being wisely and safely conducted.
A display of levity, when seriousness ought to
prevail, may raise a laugh amongst the un-
thinking, but it saddens the hearts of wiser and
better men, when they witness a statesman joking
about matters which affect the well-being of an
em p ire.
With a graphic brevity worthy of a first-rate
statesman, Lord STANLEY in a single sentence
describes the difficulties of the new position created
by the abolition of the East India Company. "A
" double danger," he says, " has to be guarded
" against : we have to protect India from the
"fluctuations of Parliamentary politics, and we
"have to protect England from the more indirect
" and remote, but perhaps not less real, danger
" which may arise from the connection of her
" executive with an executive which is essentially
" despotic." No doubt but that this last-mentioned
danger is a real one ; and also that Lord STANLEY
correctly describes it as the "more remote" one
of the two. So remote, indeed, does it appear at
present to be, that there does not seem much like-
lihood that the present generation of statesmen
will have to grapple with it. Before it can become
a reality, great changes must have taken place in
the character of the British people and in the
nature of British institutions. Still, who can
venture to affirm that those changes will not take
place? And should our mixed Constitution cease
to he mixed, should it be converted into a broad
and level democracy, and should England then
still preserve her Indian empire, an Executive
(which is as essential to a democracy as to a
monarchy) would doubtless derive very great
facilities in carrying out its natural tendency,
to make itself absolute, by its close " connection
" with an executive which is essentially despotic."
Against this danger, therefore, it is well that
Lord STANLEY and his Council should be as much
as they can be on their guard ; but we fear that
what they now can either do, or leave undone, will
have but very little influence in those distant days
when danger to England may arise from the too
close "connection of her executive" with an
executive wielding despotiz sway over ten times
ten millions of the human race.

The other danger which Lord STANLEY men-
tions is emphatically the danger, which may be
truly said to be close at hand, even at the doors.
During the very next session, assuredly he will
have "to protect India from" the baneful
effects too likely to arise from the " fluctuations
of Parliamentary politics ;" and if success attend
him in affording that protection. it will be one of
the noblest triumphs ever attained by a British
statesman.

His answer, on the Bth of last August, to the
deputation from the Missionary Societies, and
his speech on which we are now commenting,
afford some clue to the way in which he means
to fight the battle. From his observations in his
speech, it is evident that he has made up his mind
to be mainly guided by one sound fundamental
principle—the only safeguard, we are sure,
N%ainst the fluctuation of Parliamentary politics.
That principle is to govern India for the benefit
of India. and not for the fancied benefit of Eng-
land. No policy can be wiser and more true.
both for England and for India; for British
interests (well understood) can only be promoted
by advancing Indian prosperity. For this end, if
we have obtained our power as conquerors, we
ought not to use it as conquerors. "We must."
as Lord STANLF.Y says, " look at the natives of
4, India as men with whom, and not against whom
e we have to work—men with feelings of their
‘' own—men, though politically subject, with a
sense of their own rights, and with a respect
independence—men o for their own who are apt
4' to be all the more tenacious of their intellec-
• tuftl independence and national customs be-
' cause of the political subjection in which they
are held." And afterwards he added :—" I do