The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-03 00:00:00

THE WEEK.

THE interest felt in the Indian crisis is shown in the fact tha t
even at agricultural meetings it fills a large space amidst the dis -
cussions on husbandry, the harvest, and farmers' prospects. On Wed-
nesday Mr. DISRAELI and Sir BOLWER LYTTON spoke at Newport
Pagnell and St. Alban s. Their speeches were eloquent and interest-
ing. Sir BULWER LYTTON most forcibly exposed the fatuity of our
officials in India, and one admirable sentence deserves emphatic
record :

I may (said the Honourable Baronet) be permitted to soy that revolutions or revolts
are never sudden. Those which appear to us to have been so had always given long
previous, though it might be neglected, warnings. Revolts and revolutions are like the
springing of mines. The ground must be hollowed, the barrels filled, the train laid, and
the match must be fired, before we can be startled by the explosion; and therefore the
man who tells us that a revolt which must have taken lnonths, if not years, to organise,
no prudence could have foreseen, or no energy averted, simply asks us to believe that
policy is an accident, and Government a farce.
These are strong and eloquent words, but not too strong for
the occasion. At Newport Pagnell Mr. DisnAELI dwelt power-
fully upon the immense evil of underrating the danger of
the Indian crisis, and referred to " the issue at stake being
" enormous, and the peril colossal." For the use of such
language a leading organ has specially assailed Mr. DISRAELI on
Friday, passing over the strong language of retrospective censure
which fell from the lips of Sir BULIVER LYTTON. But side by side with
this attack on Mr. DISREALI, what do we read in the first article of the
same number of the Times ? Referring to the feelings of the Anglo-
Indians, the Times says :
- -

Strangely enough this feeling of anticipated triumph betrays itself at the very
moment when the arrival of the English mail brings what seems there an immense nndcr•
rating of the mutiny The statements and estimates made in or out of Parlia-
ment, to the best of our recollection, simply reflected from time to time the latest news from
India (!) It was nobody's business here (!) to anticipate worse than what was known;
and reinforcements were despatched, if not quite as expeditiously as if the worst had been
known, as expeditiously as anything is ever done in this country (!!)

We search in vain through the speech of Mr. DISRAELI for language of
incrimination so severe as we have here extracted from the organ
which has censoriously attacked the Right Honourable Gentleman.
It appears that the " statements made in Parliament" reflected " the
" latest news from India." What a confession ! The Cabinet live
from hand to mouth ! and that at a time when the detailed know-
ledge and repeated official warnings of the late Sir CHARLES NAPIER
and his " secret" papers were before them ! "It was nobody's business
"to anticipate worse than was known." Never look forward, never
calculate emergencies, never anticipate eventualities, never provide
against probable dangers. If the chimney catches fire, do not reflect
that the house itself may be in flames ; if a beam gives way, do not
suppose that the structure is in danger; if a plank starts, do not for a
moment think that the ship may scuttle, and never look whether the
pumps are in order. Read " Swift's Advice to Servants," and let
Government be carried on by the rule of contraries. It is not the
"business" of Government to look ahead, to be cautious, vigilant, or
sagacious in seeing danger. To be " wide tiwalce " applies only to
private life. Besides, the Government is "nobody." Honours, patron-
age, titles, salaries are heaped upon the Ministers, but collectively
they are " nobody." The quiet irony of this style of invective may
be proper or not, hut those who use it ought not to blame others for
censuring the neglects of a Cabinet, wavering in its policy, and
dilatory in its deeds. The statement that " reinforcements were de-
" spatched as expeditiously as anything is ever done in this country,"
is calumnious towards the public service. We know the contrary to
have been the case. A fortnight since we proved in detail in our
columns that extreme remissness was exhibited by the authorities in
not being more prompt in aid; this week we have shown the amount
of practical sagacity they brought to bear upon the crisis. We shall
not now traverse that ground again, and we shall content ourselves
with saying, that nothing so severe or damaging to the Cabinet has
yet been written or spoken as what appears in the identical number of
the journal which seeks to censure Mr. DISRAELI for his observations
at Newport Pagnell.

As the intelligence by this mail from India is free from the repe-
tition of any of those frightful massacres we now associate with every
movement of the rebels, it is so far satisfactory ; but we must candidly
confess that we fail to perceive any other clement of consolation
in the details placed before us. Everywhere in India the cry is
for " reinforcements." At Agra, Lucknow, Cawnpore, and Delhi,
in the Mahratta country and in the Punjaub, at Calcutta, Bombay, and
Madras, reinforcements of British troops were looked for with longing
eyes in August last. It is now October ; it will be November before
the army from England, yet at sea, reaches that unhappy country.
Ere this, in India they have reaped the fruits of that apathy and
delay which, in the months of May and June, depreciated the dangers
of the crisis, and gave the rebels time and space to rear that colossal
column of atrocity at which the world will shudder to the end of time,
and amidst the ashes of our dead, to flood India with that deluge of
blood which still flows from their victims. England will never forget
the heroism of her children, but she can never forget the indifference
of the Government to their fate. They fought like lions ; they have