The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-01 00:00:00

THE WEEK.

Ma. DISRAELI in his speech on Monday night not only attested the
vigour of his mind and proved to the nation his great capacity for
public affairs, but in the indefatigable research, and in the profound
knowledge of the subject the speech displayed, the Right Hon.
Member for Bucks showed that he comprehended with intuition the
exact nature of the crisis in India, while in the broad and compre-
hensive measures he proposed he exhibited the capacity to en-
eounter, and the vigour to break through, its most complicated evils.
Never was the strong and clear understanding, the thinking power of Mr.
DISRAELI, more remarkably shown than in the easy, copious flow of
those profound and sagacious observations, enunciated in terse and
striking language, upon the position and necessities of India. The
speech of Monday night will be preserved as the most masterly and
tatesmanlike exposition upon the Government of India ever deli-
vered in this country, and years hence it will be consulted
by the reflective and studious statesman for its accurate know-
ledge of detail, and its profound and farsighted views of the true
piinciples of that policy which should be adopted, in order to insure
the safety and secure the submission of our Indian empire. The name
of Mr. DISRAELI is for the future identified with the great question of
Indian policy, and the country will learn from the speech
of Monday night that in the House of Commons there is one great
and genuine statesman who has mastered the difficulties of this intri-
cate question, whose sound and sagacious views are acknowledged
upon all sides, and who with unrivalled political foresight has laid down
for us principles of policy which can alone bring this crisis to a satis-
factory and definite conclusion. The petty and insipid charlatanism
which puts forth the plea that the period was inopportune and the
speech unpatriotic will be accepted by the county at its worth When
the heart of the British nation throbs with anxiety for the fate of
India, it is the fitting time to recall our attention to the measures
adopted and the policy proposed by her Majesty's Govern-
ment for the safety of that Indian Empire. It is time, we
maintain, to consider the state of India with respect to her
misgovernment and her resentful discontent, to the nature
and application of the former, to the rise and progress of the latter,
and to the necessity and means for diminishing both. Experience
should not be lost upon us. Our political delirium in favour
of any Government, however popular and however incapable, should
no longer be continued. In place of that sentiment of impassioned
allegiance which the master-minds of India had succeeded in creating,
it is time when we find substituted a feeling of deep and perilous dis-
content that the abuses and corruption which have brought about this
hazardous change should be examined and extinguished. It
was for the real interests of this country, for the integrity of
our (empire, and for the safety of India, that Mr. DISRAELI,
regardless of the gratification of party feeling, brought forward
his motion on Monday night. His speech will remain upon record as
a masterpiece of political foresight, and the country will accept it as
the view of the only statesman in the House of Commons who has
arrived at a just and lofty sense of this great and terrible crisis.

The intelligence from India is undeniably bad. The mutiny has
spread most extensively, and the anxiety of the Government is only
equalled by the gravity of the crisis. It is now no longer considered
a mere military mutiny. It is felt to be a national revolt, and one
which will tax all the energies of England to effectively suppress. It
is in vain for the Ministerial journals to hold out the prospect that the
next mail will bring better news, that Delhi by that time will be cap-
tured, and the rebels dispersed or slain. The next mail and the
mails for months succeeding, we venture to say, will bring us little
intelligence that may be accepted as satisfactory or consoling. Delhi
no doubt will be captured in course of time, but with the fall of
Delhi will commence the real struggle. The rebels, no longer con-
centrated in a single stronghold, will traverse the country, confirm to
their cause the wavering peasantry, and sow the seeds of a desperate
guerilla warfare. The very fall of Delhi will teach them at once their
strength and weakness. They will no longer confine themselves
to the defence of a single spot, but, spreading out like a
fan over the neighbouring provinces, will carry revolt and massacre
from one end of Hindostan to the other. But Delhi, which Mr.
VERNON SMITH told us somo weeks since was to be razed to the
ground, still stands, defended by 30,000 rebels, bidding de-
fiance to our troops, and, from what we can gather from the
:Ministerial papers, with every probability for a lengthened
period. One organ states that possibly want of force, want
of stores, and even want "of ammunition," may have compelled
General BARNARD to the defensive ; another seeks to prove that the
sorties of the rebels were symptoms of weakness and fear. It may
more reasonably be regarded as a proof of conscious superiority and
of strength. The gravest fault committed by the Russians in their
defence of Sebastopol is allowed to have been their neglect of this
very mode of attack during the terrible winter of '54 and '55. No one
pan deny that had such harassing sorties been continued throughout
Slat wiater ao were resorted to later is that siege, they Ironic' have had