The Press.
London, England, 1856-08-09 00:00:00

THE WASTE LANDS OF PEGU.

WE have frequently pointed out that one of
the chief causes of the want of progress in
India, or rather of its retrograde condition, is
the monopoly by the Company of the land.
In seeking to retain universally the profits of
landlord throughout its vast dominions, it
prevents the investment by others of that
capital in improvements which it confesses its
own inability to supply. A year-to-year
tenancy, or even a short lease, it has no objec-
tion to grant; but the rates are usually so
exorbitant, the restrictions so stringent, and
the terms so short, as to offer little or no in-
ducement to any to avail themselves of the
offer, excepting those who fill the lowest of
the functions connected with the develop-
ment of the resources of the soil. The
capitalists of India stand studiously aloof,
content to lend their money at usurious inte-
rest to the cultivators, thus rather impeding
than aiding progress on every side. Tho
result is as might be expected. Vast portions
of the country remain wholly uncultivated,
and the remainder is productive only to the
extent of perhaps a tithe of what might be
drawn for it if a sufficiency of ca ital were
everywhere applied to it. Ireland, as it
stood, with its impoverished and unimproving
landlords, and its pauperrack-rented tenantry,

AUGUST 9, 1856.

before the operation of the Encumbered
Estates Act, but faintly portrayed the neglected
state of agriculture in India under the Co►n-

Pany's rule.
We are told, however, by the advocates of
Leadenhall•street that these evils are passing
away, and that a new and more enlightened
policy is now being adopted in its place. It
may be as well, therefore, to examine the
rules the Directors have lately enacted for
letting the waste lands of Pegu. This, it will
be remembered, is a province annexed to the
empire by Lord Dautous►E, and which con-
tains some twenty-six millions five hundred
and twenty thousand acres, or thereabout. Of
these, nine-tenths are waste, and the re-
mainder are cultivated merely in the slovenly
and unproductive manner that might be ex-
pected from a tenantry of pauper squatters
living from hand to mouth. Any expectation
of raising a remunerative land revenue through
the instrumentality of these persons is ad-
mitted by the Company to be hopeless, and it
is allowed that not only must capital be
invited, but an addition of about four tines
the present population made before there can
be a suff►ciency of mere hands to till these
vast unpeopled wastes. To foster im►nigra-
tion is, therefore, its avowed object, because
without such immigration there can be no
earthly prospect of any adequate return fin• its
outlay in the conquest and occupation of
Pegu. Under these circumstances it has
offered terms to strangers which it deems to
be of unexampled liberality, and we shall now
show in what these terms consist.
Any capitalist who chooses to embark
his fortune in this enterprise is at liberty
to do so on the conditions which follow :
He may obtain a lease for eight years
of waste land in lots of from one hundred to
ten thousand acres, if he chooses to exile
himself and risk the loss of health, and incur
the cost of importing all the labourers and
cattle and implements he may require. For
four years he will be allowed to sit rent free
—in the fifth year he will have to pay a third of
the ordinary full Indian rent for land under
tillage—in the sixth year he will have to pay
two-thirds of this rent—and for the remaining
two years of the term he will have to pay the
full re►►t that would be levied from an ordinary
cultivator in Madras. But, if in the first year
he shall not have brought a fourth of his
holding under plough, in the second year one
half of it, and iu the third year three-quarters
of it, the land is to be confiscated, and all
money invested in it lost. At the same time,
as the object is to encourage immigration, he
not to be allowed to avail himself of the
services of any of the people employed in
agriculture in Pegu at present. If by the
terms he offers he induces any such to engage
with him, his lands are to be forfeited for the
crime of enticing the Company's immediate
serfs away. But while all his labourers must thus
necessarily be imported, they are not to be
exempted from the capitation tax which is
levied on the other Pegu ryots at present ;
and further, to protect the Company from all
risk of evasion of this tax, the landlord is to
be held responsible for the payment of it in
respect of all the men he may employ. Hay
ing thus, in the space of eight years, brought
the whole of his holding into cultivation if he
can, the assessment is to be revised, and a new
lease of twenty years may be granted to him
on the terms which the agents of the Company
may choose to affix. The, Company is thus to
reap the whole benefit of the investment, and,
for fear that the capitalist should at any
future time be able to make anything of his
bargain, a revision of the assessment is to be
similarly made by the Company's agents at
the end of every future twenty years. As if
this was not check enough, subletting is only
to be permissible on the condition that the
lessee does not in any shape interfere with
the revenue by charging either a higher or a
lower rent than that levied on the surrounding
Company's lands.
The Directors are perpetually talking of the
ignorance of the natives, and they certainly
must have speculated largely on it when they
offered for the peopling and cultivating the
wastes of Pegu terms so monstrous, or rather
so utterly ridiculous, as these. If offered by a
West Indian landlord, in respect of his barren

THE PRESS.

tracts, they would go far to consign him to a I
commission de lunatico inquirendo ; but what
would be the mere wildness of folly in an
individual is deemed wisdom enough in the
men who govern India. We set aside all con-
sideration of the right of the Company to
establish formally the principle of serfdom
which these rules so openly set forth and
embody. Nor will we question how a free-
trader like Mr. VERNON SMITH could tolerate
such an interference with property, and above
all with the free trade in a man's own labour,
which every one not born a slave inherits.
These are questions into which we will not
enter, though they will not pass unregarded
by thinking persons. But, as a mere question
of advantage, we wonder where on earth he
hopes to find people fools enough to close with
a bargain of which " Heads I in and tails you
lose" is the simplest formula extant. The mil-
lions of acres of waste lands on the Irrawaddy
might in twenty years be made as fertile and
well peopled as the millions of acres on the
Mississippi if sold as the latter have been out
and out at the upset price of a dollar an acre.
By this means, too, our outlay in the conquest
might be recovered, and in the shape of duties
on imports and exports alone the revenue of
Pegu would be trebled. But under the pre
sent plan the land will simply remain what it
is—a desert; an encumbrance instead of a
' gain to the nation, which can stand by and
tolerate its interests being sacrificed by such
intense administrative folly.

MAYNOOTH AtiITAT lON.
IT is one of the ill-effects of the Anti-May.

nooth agitation that to speak against it is it
terpretated by a certain class of minds as
evincing a leaning to Rome, or at least a total
indifference to Protestantism. We verily be-
lieve that some sincere and excellent persons
think that clamour against Maynooth is insepa-
rable from, and identical with, Protestant zeal.
We regard the question in the political light
alone. With the doctrines taught at May-
nooth we have no concern. If the institution
were deprived of its State endowment, the
priesthood would certainly not lack some edu-
cational establishment. Those persons who
belive that the education given at Maynooth
is immoral and criminal should go much fur-
ther than demand the abolition of the endow-
ment. They should demand the total sup-
pression of all such institutions throughout
the British empire.
If the institution of Maynooth be permitted
to exist without let or hindrance from the
law, we cannot regard it as a matter of vital
importance that it should be deprived of the
support it now receives. By placing the
endowment as a charge on the Consolidated
Fund the Legislature did almost the same
thing as if it had presented the institution
with a grant of land or a considerable sum of
money.
Suppose the Legislature had made over to
Maynooth a sum of five hundred thousand
pounds in the funds. Would it be contended
that it was justifiable to introduce each year
an act to repeal the vote? Yet, where is the
virtual difference between the two cases ?
The statute was expressly introduced to put
an end to those yearly discussions on May-
nooth which had proved so injurious. It was
advocated as a settlement, and resisted as a
settlement of the question; and it would, in
our opinion, be a I ositive breach of legislative
faith to repeal that act now.
If it is to be repealed, what is to follow?
This is a question we do not see answem ed: Is
it proposed to repeal the endowment made
prior to the Union? If not, of what avail, us
regards the principle at issue, will it be to dis-
turb the statute of 1843?
We must admonish our Protestant friends
that theme are far more effectual ways of ad-
vancing the Protestant interest in Ireland
than by this agitation against Maynooth. We
must leave the Church of Rome to make the
best it can of its existing condition. We shall
be much better occupied in rousing the genius
of Protestantism, and in strengthening our Irish
Church Establishment, than in assailing the
educational institutions of Rome. Can our
Protestant friends believe that it is of more
importance to drag down Maynooth than to
. strengthen and extend the Protestant interests

747

of Ireland ? Let them be assured that our
zeal for the spread of the Reformed faith is
equal to their own—that our distrust of the
Romish Church is not less, and that it is only
from a sincere conviction that they are wasting
their strength by agitating against Maynooth,
and overlooking far higher objects of easy
attainment, that we remonstrate against the
course they are taking.

THE " MONITEUR" UPON SPANISH AFFAIRS.

THE Moniteur of Tuesday publishes, in the form of
a letter from Madrid, the following remarks upon
recent events in Spain .

In order to appreciate exactly the events which have
taken place in Madrid, the manner in which the last change
of Ministry occurred must not be lost sight of, while the
happy influence exercised by this change can alone be
understood by a recollection of the state of anarchy which

the Peninsula has escaped. Matters, as far as the Crown
is concerned, have followed a perfectly constitution►l

course. The resolution which confided the chief power to
the hands of Marshal O'Donnell was derived from the legal

exercise of the prerogative of the Throne. The Ministry
having offered its resignation, in consequence of internal
dissensions, her Majesty had at first hoped to succeed in
introducing the two Marshals into a new c.nnbination.
Espartero having proposed conditions which could not be
accepted by O'Donnell, this latter, before accepting the
mission of forming a new Administration, considered it

proper to remind the Queen of the great political influence
exercised by the Duke de la Vittoria. The Count himse f
represented to his colleague the grave nature of the events
which might accompany that statesman's withdrawal, and
employed sincere efforts in endeavouring to persuade him
to keep the presidency of the Council. The Queen took
her decision only after having in vain endeavouredto main:
fain Espartero's presence in her council ; and it is unde-
niable that Marshal O'Donnell, on his side, so far from

having wished t supplant a rival, neglected no measure
which could insure his co-operation. Espartero positively
refused, and then only did the Queen proceed, in virtue of
her comtitutional functions, to form a new Ministry to

replace that which had abandoned her amid the most com-
plicated and serious difficulties.
The accounts of certain foreign journals, accord-
ing to which this change was accompanied by forms
savotirin; of a couo d'etat, are founded therefore on
a completely erroneous appreciatkn of the facts of
the crisis. Doubtless Marshal O'Donnell was com-
pelled to recur to force in order to maintain the royal au-
thority, but his conduct in this circumstance in no way
affected the laws of the country. He only suppressed an
insurrection which no measure or word of the new Ministry
could explain. Before having accomplished any act, the
Minister was encountered by a vote of distrust on the part
of a minority of the Cortes, and by musket•shots which
proceeded from the National Guard united with the rioters
of the faubourgs. He was attacked instead of having been
the aggressor; and if that struggle, which he had not
sought, permitted him to substitute a conservative policy
for a revolutionary one, he obtained that position by an
entirely legitimate defence. Those who in reality aban-
doned the constitutional path were they who failed to
respect the decision of the Queen, and attempted to sub-
vert by revolt a Ministry which was established in a regular
manner, and of the programme of which they were still
ignorant.
It is thus, we firmly believe, that history will
judge the respective conduct of the two parties which
found themselves in hostile presence in the streets of
Madrid and Barcelona.
It is besides fortunate for the Peninsula that the
ultra fraction of the Progresista party should spontaneously
have led to its own destruction, and affordel an opportu-
nity of bringing to a close a system of disorganisation and
anarchy.
It is impossible in fact not to admit the danger
of a situation which the certain tolerance of the
democratical party had created in the provinces,
even more perhaps than at Madrid itself. For
two years, owing to the impotence of the Adminis-
tration, subversive doctrines had been disseminated
without hindrance among the working classes. Last
year the evil effects of such doctrines had been
seen at Barcelona, and in a number of other localities
of inferior importance. Independently of acts which did
not cease to give proofs of a hotbed of Socialism in Cata-
lonia, at the same period acts of violence of the same na-
ture took place on a vast scale at Valladolid, Palencia, and
Rioseco. Threataligainst property, cries of death against
the rich in the most industrious provinces of the kingdom,
are proofs not only of the progress of Socialism during the
last six months, but of an organisation becoming stronger
and stronger of the juntas which directed that combined
movement. It is certain that if the military force has put
down these risings, the bad spirit of the civil administra-
tion was more calculated to encourage than to prevent
them. And even had the civil administration been dis-
posed to cause property and public order to be respected,
it found itself paralysed by the false ideas which prevailed
in the Cortes and by the uncertain directions which were
sent from Madrid.
It was thus that at Valladolid the persons most
ardent after pillage were liberated convicts, who
were allowed to be there by the fault of the polief.:
Thus also the insurgents of Madrid forced the pri-
sons to obtain additional assistance. Recourse to such
singular auxiliaries to defend a constitution which had
not been violated, and b repel a coup d'etat which had
not been attempted, proves sufficiently what suggestions
the insurrection obeyed, what was its real object, and
with what danger it would have menaced not only the
royal authority, but the whole range of social order, had
it triumphed.

748

Sortign e:orrtspoubtitte.

BRUSSELS, August 0.
TIM meeting of the Emperor of Austria and the
Kings of Prussia and Saxony at Toplitz was some-
thing more than a reunion de famine. Each day
the affairs of Germany are gating more involved.
Setting aside the personal friendship subsisting be-
tween the monarchs of Prussia and Saxony, it must
be kept in mind that the latter is a bigoted Roman,
viewing with favour the Austro-Papal Concordat,
whereas the King of Prussia is discontented at the
treatment received by the Protestants at the hands
of the Austrian prelates. This must have been
a subject far from agreeable to discuss. By the late
conduct of Austria and Prussia towards Denmark,
those countries have committed themselves to act
adversely, unless the Holstein and Lanenbourg
duchies are treated with greater—that is, German—
justice. It is maintained by Austria and Prussia
that the Danish Government has no authority to
promulgate a reformed and general constitution
without a direct appeal to the States of Holstein and
to the equestrian order and " Landschaff" of Lauen-
bourg for their opinion and consent. By the nego-
tiations with Denmark in 1851, Austria and Prussia
are placed in a dilemma with the Confederation by
being compelled proprio motu to assist the Garman
duchies, a proceeding that might bring them into
collision with Russia. Hanover, also, is an un-
settled State, the Government and tho Chambers
being at continued variance; and the presence of
M. de Benkendorff at Stutgardt raises the question
of Russian influence in Central Germany. Then,
again, the state of Spain, where a suspension or sup-
pression of constitutional government has taken
place, cannot fail to have attracted attention, more
particularly since a Catholic tone has been given to
the movement by the Austro-Papal journals. The
proximate alliance of Prussia to a constitutional and
Protestant kingdom, de facto et de jure, will have
made its king pause before joining in the Roman
hallelujah. There might have been, also, remi-
niscences of the private meeting at Olmuts between
the late Emperor Nicholas and the Emperor Francis
Joseph, when certain opinions and expressions
regarding Prussia and its sovereign escaped from
the young Emperor that doubtlessly must have been
unpleasant. It was, therefore, an awkward moment
for the Emperor to petition the King of Prussia to
join Austria and the Porte in dissenting from the
proposition to unite the Danubian principalities. An
allusion may have been possibly made to the corona-
tion of the Emperor at Vienna as "Emperor of
Austria," a title that conveys a meaning sinister to
the influence of the house of Hapsburg in Germany.
In Italy the last struggle of Mazzini has been
fatal to his hopes. The insurrection of Carrara com-
menced by a proclamation of young Italy, published
in the Italia e Popolo

Italians, brothers,—Both the people and governments
of Europe pity our fallen state. The spirit of battle per
jades our beautiful country from one end to the other, and
the nations await in expectation for the unfurling of the
Italian flag. Fifty years of martyrdom assure the victory.
It is the cry of national life—of Italian life—that you
now hear from the Appenines. It is the cry of anathema
against the tyrannies of Austria and foreign domination.
Let the brave hearts of Italy respond to this call, one and
all, and with one bold effort Italy will be free.
(Signed) THE ITALIANS or LUNIOIA.NA.

Carrara, Ju1y,113.56;
About a hundred young men, amongst them
lads of fourteen and fifteen, under the command of
a Spezian, named Ratti, passed the frontiers, and
met near Ortouro, in the duchy of Modena. They
seized upon a depot of arms, broke open the custom
house, robbed the strong box of its contents, and
destroyed the telegraphic wires of Sarzana and Massa.
They then marched onward, and ware confronted by
a regiment of Modenese gendarmerie at Ortouro.
The engagement did not last ten minutes. The in-
surgents were beaten at all points ; some were killed,
others fled, and about thirty were taken prisoners.
On the intelligence of an insurrection, MM. Ratuzzi
and La Marmora went to the King of Sardinia at
the Castel di Pollenza for orders. Troops were de-
spatched immediately to Genoa, a regiment of " bet.
■aglieii" marched to Sarzana, and steamboats were
appointed fur the conveyance of military detach-
ments to Spezia, and to blockade the coast. The
prisoners loudly exclaim against the treachery of
'Mazzini, for having certified to them that Massa,
Carrara, Leghorn, and Lucca were in open revolt,
and that the movement had been concerted generally
throughout Italy. Mazzini had the audacity to go
privately to Turin, and from thence to Genoa, in
search of republican reinforcements; and everywhere
his concealment was connived at and aided by Jesuit
priests. Whatever may be the defects of this repub-
lican leader, his personal courage is of the highest