The Press.
London, England, 1854-06-10 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

per cent.) "at present levied may be raised
" when the progress of civilisation shall have
" brought the mountaineers within the influ
" ence of moral compulsion." According to
this view, a tat of two hundred per cent. on
the 'first necessary of life is a light duty ; and
the first fruits of " the progress of civilisation"
are to be an increase of the infliction to the
extent of sixteen hundred per cent., as now
levied on the weaker, more helpless, and more
thoroughly subdued portion of the people.
And, in order to prevent these latter from
sharing by any possibility in the advantages
of the more moderate assessment won by the
others for themselves at the sword's point, the
report goes on to detail a series of measures
the most vexatious that perhaps ever were
pursued in any country. The Buhadoor
Khayl mine, it tells us (that at which the
lighter assessment is levied), is guarded by a
military force ; the line of preventive estab-
lishment which runs along the Indus prevents
the lightly-taxed salt from underselling the
produce of the Cis-Indus mines ; as an addi-
tional measure of precaution, the penal provi-
sions of Regulation XIV. of 1843 have been
introduced with certain modifications to suit
the Punjaub ; and the repression both of the
illicit manufacture of salt and of smuggling is
believed, the report goes on to say, to have
been effective. Among the modes of repres-
sion are the making all carriages and packages
liable to search on reasonable suspicion (which
in India means whenever the collecting peon
is not paid a sufficiently high bribe for his
forbearance); the ordering that salt in excess
of two pounds weight shall be subject to de.
tention within a circle of ten miles round
each mine if not covered by a pass ; the pro-
hibiting any but those licensed from exca-
vating the article; the putting down by law
the manufacture of salt which used to be car-
ried on in the districts of Mooltan and Jung
in a rough way to a considerable extent; and,
finally, the prohibiting the transport of salt
from the right bank of the Indus to the left
bank.
Let any one picture to himself such a state
of things introduced into a country in which
the salt-mines had previously only paid a
small royalty, and in which, beyond that im
post, the excavation and manufacture and sale
and transport of salt had been perfectly free,
and he will have some idea of the exaspera-
tion which such a mode of dealing with an
article which it is impossible for man to do
without must have engendered, and be pre-
pared to anticipate the result. That result
was, that the European head of the preventive
establishment and his European assistant
were set upon by the people and murdered ;
while the mountaineers only escaped the in-
fliction of the tax to its full extent by an in.
surrection, which nothing but the withdrawal
of the obnoxious regulations, as far as their
district was concerned, enabled the Govern-
ment to put an end to. Yet, with all this
unmistakable evidence of the feeling of the
people before it, the Government of India
gravely tells us "the price of salt, though
" higher than formerly, is yet not too high,
" and the poorest classes can afford to buy it."
And the home Government, in its despatch to
Calcutta on the subject of these measures,
dated three months after the resolution of the
Commons, expresses the " high satisfaction "
and "just pride " with which it views them,
and characterises the measures themselves as
" wise," " successful." " enlightened," and
" beneficent " ! When such are the Indian
Government's latest measures in relation to
salt, and such their opinions last recorded,
have we not reason to speak of Sir CHARLES
Woon's talk about inquiries by intelligent
officers as a mere evasion of the question put
to him by Sir JOHN PAKINOTON, " Whether the
" duties on salt in India had yet been, or• were
" likely soon to be, reduced ?"

THE NEW BISHOP.
A WEEK ago people asked, Who is to be the
new Bishop? The inquiry now is, What is
the new Bishop ? He has never been heard of
out of his own parish of Warrington, and
there he is only known as the brother of aWhig
Lord,—as having Tractarian leanings, and as

SATURDAY,

being " a pleasant man, and a joker of jokes."
In an age which we are accustomed to con-
sider as essentially corrupt, the see of Sodor
and Man was filled by the eminent divine
ISAAC BARROW, who had no other claim to pre-
ferment than his merit. Mr. Powys has
never distinguished himself,—or even that we
know of attempted to distinguish himself,—
either in literature or the pulpit. His sole
title to a mitre consists in his Whig con-
nection.

As the last Bishop was a Tractarian, it was
to be expected on Coalition principles that
the present one would be a Whig. We be-
lieve that Lord ABERDEEN'S part in the matter
is carelessness for the interests of a Church
with which he has no sympathy. But the
worst enemy of the establishment could not
devise a more effectual plan of bringing it into
contempt, or of rendenng it powerless against
the activity of Romish aggression, than by
packing the Bench of Bishops with men who
are either notoriously adverse to the principles
of the Reformation, or care very little about
them.

The new Bishop, as a clerical joker, must be
familiar with the story of the old lady who
committed one of her deceased friends to
Beelzebub's bosom, instead of to Abraham's.
When informed of her error, she replied that
she " couldn't see it much mattered." The
same kind of indifference will probably be
displayed by the magnates of the Romish
Church when, instead of a nomination by Mr.
GLADBTuNE,—that

Magna spes alters llomEe,—
of a brother disciple of LAUD, notoriously
attached to " flexion and genuflexion, posture
and imposture," they receive the intelligence
of the promotion of the Rector of Warrington.