The Press.
London, England, 1857-12-19 00:00:00

mistress of the Black Sea, which left the Prin-
cipalities unsettled, which abandoned Circassia
to her fate, and which robbed us in return of
those ancient maritime rights which could
never have been surrendered at a less politic
moment than when Europe was watching our
attitude and rejoicing at our apparent humi-
liation. _

But whatever his failures in war or diplo-
macy, Lord PALMERSTON seems to have felt
that his failure in domestic legislation was
likely to be far worse. The war bad carried
him through his first session. How was he to
meet his second, or escape the applica-
tion of a test that would at once detect
the insincerity of his professions? Lord
.Torre RUSSELL and his Reform Bill were
scotched but not killed, and the persevering
Radicals were bent upon reviving the
subject. At this embarrassing conjuncture
the Premier's long experience of foreign affairs
served him in good stead. No statesman of
the present day can surpass him in the crea-
tion of difficulties with foreign powers—which
none can settle but himself. He resolved there-
fore to appeal once more to the half-pacified
indignation of the British Lion.l Preparations
were speedily made for being insulted by
Persia, and duly outraged by the Celestial
Empire. The device—seu ratio dederit, sett fors
ohjecerit i//i—succeeded to perfection, and
his Lordship felt that he was safe.
But "fortune helps the bold," says the proverb,
and a still greater piece of good luck was in store
for him. When all the mischiefhad been done
without any satisfaction being gained by any
one except himself, Lord PALMERSTON'S activity
was suddenly diverted into a new channel.
A richer mine of political capital had been
opened ; and in the hideous atrocities of Delhi
his Lordship found a welcome substitute for
the provoking moderation of China.
The Premier's star was evidently in the
ascendant. Who could have hoped for s
Commissioner YELL and a NANA SAHIB in a
single session ? The Premier's piety was
touched. He became religious, and made more
Evangelical bishops.
It is plain that Government shrinks from
all domestic legislation. It is not their strong
point. And they cannot but feel that another
such victory as the Divorce Bill would be
their ruin. They now evade the financial c: iris,
and tremble at the idea of a new Reform Bill,
like insolvent merchants in daily dread of ex-
posure. The Premier's own name is uncon-
nected with a single great measure ; and though
while he was a mere subordinate the fact
was of less importance, he must feel it acutely
in his present position. With the aspirations
of a Dictator, he finds it difficult not to be a
Doge ; and is forced to retard the business of
the public to avoid the confession of his own
incapacity.
The Indian insurrection may possibly
save him for another session, and conceal
alike his ignorance of 'Finance and his hatred
of Reform. Yet we would beg the English
people to reflect whether this is the Minister
in whose hands they will be content to con-
fide the management of that vast subject.
The Parli--,enta; battle of the coming year

troops 9 By leaving regiment upon regiment
unemployed at the Cape? And by boasting
through their organs that they are now about
to " bring the war to a triumphant conclu-
sion "? The country has seen something of
such triumphant conclusions. We doubt if
they will submit to another.

REAL CAUSES OF THE REVOLT.
THE responsibility that will be imposed upon
the Legislature, when it. reassembles, in rela-
tion to India will be of no trifling nature. It
it not too much to say that on the mode in
which it may discharge its duties will depend
the character of the nation it represents
throughout the civilised world. Much has
been done in India that is wholly inconsistent
with the position which this country has long
assumed. Buc, so far, these things have been
merely the acts of the Mi nisters and their
subordinates, and it would be unfair till the
country has had the opportunity of formally
expressing its opinion on them to assume that
its convictions are in accord with those of its
Government in this respect. To judge rightly
of the matter, we must consider for a moment
what have been our professions as a nation,
and what have been of late the Ministerial
acts. On no subject have the taunts of our
journals been louder towards foreign nations
than on the restrictions imposed upon the
foreign press. Yet now there is a press law at
work against our own countrymen in India, of
which it is not too much to say that the most
rigid of continental despots would be utterly
ashamed. Over and over again have the
public dwelt on the cruelty of the military
executions in Austria, yet all the military
executions there put together fall far short in
amount of the number of our own military
executions in India during the last few
months. Loud-tongued have been our public
men on the shameful mode in which the trials
of political prisoners are hurried over in some
continental States; yet now we have it on the
authority of an Indian correspondent of the
Times that our only form of trial for persons
supposed to have been sepoys is to shout out
the word attention, and that we then and
there hang every single individual who appears
to show by his manner the slightest recogni-
tion of the sound. The horrors of the first
Revolution have been declared to be things
impossible to have happened among men in
whose veins ran the Anglo-Saxon blood ; yet it
is susceptible of proof from official documents
that more men have been sent to the gallows
in one short month in India than were guillo-
tined by all the Dantons, Marais, Robespierres,
and their followers throughout the whole revo-
lutionary period in the capital of France.
It is not very agreeable in any case for a
nation that has held its head so proudly to
find itself thus reduced at once to the level of
those who have been hitherto the oti of
denunciation by it in every
very pleasant to have its statue
pedestal among the Bacons -