The Press.
London, England, 1854-12-02 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

dition was announced several weeks before it
took place : ample time was thus given to Russia
to strengthen the incomplete fortifications of
Sebastopol, and to pour vast reinforcements
into the Crimea. Our readers cannot have
forgotten the ignorant importunity with which
the enterprise against Sebastopol was urged
on the Government, and the false state-
ments with which the public was beguiled.
No reinforcements were than deemed neces-
sary : the allied army was already larger than
the occasion required ; it had but to appear, and
the walls of Sebastopol were to fall before it.
After the extravagant report of the fall of that
stronghold had been proved untrue, did not
every morning produce an article in the
columns cf our daily contemporary announcing
the day and almost the hour beyond which the
garrison could not hold out? Nay, have we
forgotten the chivalrous use that was pointed
out for our fleet after the victory of Sebastopol
restored it to liberty, when the Bay of Naples
was suggested as the rendezvous of the allied
navies, for the punishment of the King of
Naples, against whom the claims of some
second Pacifico were to be asserted and main-
tained under the threat of a bombardment.
The errors of the Government must now,
we admit, be amended. Reinforcements must
be sent, our army must bo supported ; but
the Ministry must act on its own responsi-
bility—the lives and honour of our soldiers
must not be at the mercy of irresponsible
advisers. The public indignation is fully
aroused, and a meddlesome camarilla can no
more be tolerated in a printing-house than in
a palace.

1131.

But the waste of the public money on these
viceregal progresses throughout India is,
though a great abuse, the least of the evils in-
volved in them ; for as " purveyance," the
instrument of the most crying oppression iu
this country some centuries ago, is still pm
tised to the fullest extent in India, the people
of the districts through which the Satrap
passes are subjected to an extreme amount
of pecuniary loss and personal injury.
When it is understood that one of these

great public functionaries is always ac-
companied by a vast camp, including his
guard and retinue, and when it is con-
sidered that carriage for the baggage of all
these is procured by pressing all the carts and
labourers to be found in the surrounding
country ; when it is further understood that
supplies for all the camp and forage for all
their baggage animals have to be furnished by
the villages through which they pass, no
matter what the wishes of the villagers on the
subject may be, and that such supplies are
only paid for at the rates the purchasers them-
selves choose arbitrarily to fix ; when all this
is considered, it will hardly bo wondered at
that progresses thus conducted are looked on
by the people on whom they are inflicted as a
pure and unmitigated curse.
The pretences alleged in favour of such pro-
gresses arc, that it is desirable for the Gover-
nors to see personally into the condition of the
governed, and that it is necessary that in doing
so they should maintain the greatest state.
But to this the reply is easy, and such as no
one conversant with India will gainsay—
namely, that, while periodical visits made for
purposes of inquiry without state would really
be a benefit to the people, progresses of this
kind repel instead of inviting confidence on
their part, as during such a progress the great
man is generally inaccessible, while the news
of such a progress being about to take place is
the signal for every villager who can escape to
abscond with his cattle from the line of route
indicated. Then, again, the allegation of the
necessity of maintaining such state in order
to secure the respect of the people is met by
the fact that the greatest contemner of pomp,
the late Lord WILLIAM BENTINCK, was one of the
most respected of all the Governors-General ;
while no one in India was ever more respected
and admired than the late Sir CHARLES N API'S%
though when travelling a small tent was his only
shelter, and a very few camels carried all his
baggage. Nor do even the advocates of all this
waste of money on pomp act consistently in
cases where the expenditure has to be paid for
out of their own pockets. For though while
travelling there never was a nobleman more
wasteful of the public money than Lord DAL-
HOUSIE, because while travelling all his ex-
penses are paid for by the State ; yet when
stationary, as at Chenee or Calcutta, there
never was an Indian functionary so penurious,
for the simple reason that, when stationary,
his expenses are payable by himself out of his
private purse.

In the case under notice, however, it is not
the extravagance of the Marquis of DALUOURIK
that is in question, but that of a far inferior
personage, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal.
The office is one that was created by the act
passed last year, and we hope that at an early
period Parliament will decide whether it was
for the mere purpose of wasting th• public
money in this way that the appointment was
made. We cannot doubt what its decision
would be. While our public functionaries in
India are at liberty to squander away their own
money in fooleries to any extent that
pleases them, the public income of India
must be devoted to the more fitting purpose
of public improvements there, or to one un-
happily equally urgent under present circum-
stances—the augmentation of our revenue
to support the expenses of the war. It
is a war in which India is equally interested
with England, and so far from the natives of that
country grudging to see their revenue saddled
with a share of the expenses, we are very sure
that they would hail this with the greatest
satisfaction if, in consideration of the contribu-
tion, they could only be relieved from the inflic-
tion of these wasteful and oppressive guberna-
torial progresses, which the common sense of
Europeans and Asiatics alike condemns.

_

\h.,

4