The Press.
London, England, 1858-12-18 00:00:00

EXTREMES MEET.

LET Mr. Burma's Bill, as far he foreshadows it,
become law. Let numbers only be represented.
Let the Ballot be the mode of election. It will
be found forthwith that Cardinal WISEMAN is no
longer a noisy showman, but a substantial power
in the government of England. There are in
England about two millions, or at least a million
and a half, of Roman Catholics. There are in
Ireland at least five millions. There is in Scot-
land probably a quarter of a million. Thus,
while nine-tenths of the property, the intelli-
gence, and, we may add, the industrial energy
of our country, are Protestant, nearly one-
third of its population is Roman Catholic.
Let the element of numbers alone dominate
in sending representatives to Parliament, and
you arm with vastly increased power the
very section that, least enlightened and most
anti-national and bigoted, is also most likely
to misuse it. Let it also be remembered that
the Romish element binds into one mass the
whole of its subjects, and lays that mass pro-
strate at the feet of the Priest who lies at the feet
of the Bishop, who lies at the feet of the Cardi-
nal, who lies—in more senses than one—at the
feet of Pio NoNo,—or, rather, of the immoral
and unprincipled Ultramontane junta that in-
spires and works the Pope as its puppet. The
Romish Church in this country is essentially hos-
tile to all that is the glory of our Constitution.
Moving in this direction it acts as one man, ani-
mated by one passion. The Univers and the
Tablet are original and echo in their undis-
guised and unblushing political antipathies. Let
any one acquainted with the Romish creed
ponder the following extract from the Tablet
newspaper, the chief organ of Romanism in
England, and say if it be not as correct in its
expression of Roman Catholic politics, as it is
daring and offensive in the spirit by which it is
inspired. It seems almost prophetic of the
course which Join; 'Won r is now so vehemently
filling up :

" The Pope will speak out more loudly than
ever, and, what is more, he will be listened to.
Ile will turn over your old musty Acts of Par-
liament with finger and thumb, scrutinizing them
with most irreverend audacity, examining those
which concern him ; and when he has found
these, reject some, and tolerating others, with as
much freedom as you use when you handle
oranges in a shop, selecting the soft and sweet,
and rejecting the sour and rotten, he will then—
oh dreadful thought !—insist upon being obeyed.
The very slates at Westminster-hall must erect
themselves with horror, at the bare thought of
such a thing. What ! a Bill read three times in
each House of Parliament, engrossed on parch-
ment, garnished with wax, and over it, pro-
nounced by Royal lips, the mysterious words—
The Queen wills it,' her Lords will it, her Com-
mons will it; what can it want to give it the
perfect functions of law? Nothing of solemnity,
of force, which the Imperial Legislature of the
kingdom can give, is wanting; but, truly, it'
wants the sanction of religion. The Pope snuffs
disdainfully at it. An Italian priest will have
none of it. It trenches upon his nghts, or, rather,
his duties. It violates the integrity of those
interests which he is appointed to guard; and
therefore, Commons, Lords, Queen, wax, parch-
ment, and all, avail very little. You may call
it law if you please. You may print it in your
volume of statutes ; but, before long, you will
have to repeal and alter it, in order to procure
the sanction of a foreign potentate, without
which, in the end, it has not the value of a ten-
penny nail."

We ask every Englishman who is not blinded
stchoe declaredm es
prin-
ciplesac of
prejudice or intoxicated by a fierce democratic
passion, whether this is the power he desires
to
arm with additional influence and weight in the
power p policy of
fthhi se
thecountry
m priesthood,ish a eth re
this, ath iw
Quaker
prevail,
reality. It will be in vain that Protestants raise
an outcry against the Confessional, and crowds
collect in St. James's-hall to applaud eloquent
exposes of the practices of some silly curate,
while they aid and abet a policy which tends ine-
vitably to place the Vatican in the seat of central
influence, and to subject England to the rule of
those Argus-eyed Jesuits who now look with
envy and, hatred on the national glory which
they would, if they could, trample in the dirt.
That very instrument which JOHN BRIGHT
presses on the country as the defence and pro-
tection of independent voters, the Ballot, is 'pre-
cisely that medium of priestly power which the
Romish Hierarchy covets. It takes off all land-
lord, social, and public influences, and throws in
with unqualified force the inspiration of the Con-
fessional. Heretofore the action of the Confes-
sional has been diluted, and often conquered, by
the publicity of the hustings. The public, the
newspaper, friends, landlords, and other col-
lateral influences, have mightily weakened
the Confessional and sacerdotal power even
in Ireland. But if all these influences are
withdrawn and the priestly influence in the
Confessional left untouched, you have then the
fell inspiration of the confession-box dominant at
every election, carried out with masterly skill
and with most disastrous success. The very
divisions of Protestants—in denomination, in
politics, in party—this consolidated Papal power
will turn to its own purposes. We ask our
countrymen to view JOHN BRIGHT'S Bill purely
and simply as the second Papal aggression—the
more perilous because disguised under the names
of Popular Rights and Parliamentary Reform.
We counsel them to look at these suggestive
thoughts dispassionately and fairly. JOHN
BRIGHT may be gratifying his own passions, but
he is also doing the work and fulfilling the
aspirations of an alien despotism which our fore-
fathers felt intolerable, and which, by Goo's
blessing, we will not allow to dictate or dominate
in this free England of ours.

LORD STANLEY.

IF the Proclamation, announcing to the native
populations of India the assumption by the Crown
of England of the direct government of that
portion of the British empire, could not fail to
make a salutary impression upon them by the
calm dignity of its tone, and by the promkc
which it holds out to them of a just rule and of
generous treatment; the speech addressed by the
Noble Lord the Secretary of State for India, on
the occasion of the examination at Addiscombe,
to the future servants of the Crown on that im-
portant field of action, is not less calculated to
produce a wholesome effect upon the European
part of her Majesty's subjects in India. Although
directed, in point of form, to the youthful au-
dience before him, Lord STANLEY'S address was,
in fact—and we trust it will be read in that sense
by those whom it concerns in the Eastern hemi-
sphere—an official intimation, not to the public
servants alone, but to all who, as European resi-
dents in India, are to the native mind representa-
tives of the dominant race, of the spirit in which
the mother country expects that they shall acquit
themselves of the duty imposed upon them by the
very nature of their position. And although, in
the words of encouragement and advice spoken
to a room full of cadets, the Noble Lord did not
feel himself called upon to discuss the causes which
have led to the deplorable events of the last
two years, yet it is obvious from the tenor of his
remarks that some of those causes were present
to his mind and prompted the most pregnant
passages of his speech.
That a strong feeling of alienation, approach-
ing in some instances to intense hatred, had
grown up between native and European Indians,
is a fact to which it is impossible to shut our
eyes. It is attested quite as much by the tone
of the Anglo-Indian press as by the extensive
support which the revolted sepoys received from

the bulk of the population. There were excep-
tions, no doubt, both among our native subjects
and among the native princes connected with us
by relations of friendship and by treaties--excep-
tions highly honourable to those who remained
faithful to their allegiance or their alliance ; but
these very exceptions, by the high value set upon
them, go far to prove that disaffection, or at the
least absence of affection, was the rule. Nor, if
we consider the social attitude hitherto assumed
towards the native population by the great body
of Europeans in India, can we feel surprised at
this. THEODORE Hoox's amusing portraitures
of bilious old uncles, possessed of fabulous wealth,
surrounded by troops of outlandish attendants
and menageries of beasts, birds, and creeping
things—with minds concentrated upon the flavour
of curry and mulli,ratawney, and with frames
which required the breezes of the punkah to keep
life's breath from coming to a dead stop—were
caricatures, it is true, but there was a foundation
of truth in them ; and the selfishness and arro-
gance, the despotic indolence and sensuality,
which were real in them, were characteristics not
calculated to win a place for the Anglo-Saxon
race in the Indian heart.

It would be the height of injustice to lay at
the door of the East India Company the excre-
scences which grew upon the European charac-
ter under the influence of Indian circumstances
and habits. It is bare justice to that body which
raised for us an empire unparalleled in the his-
tory of conquest and colonization, ancient as well
as modern, to remember that at all times those
directly engaged in its service constituted the
more respectable portion of Anglo-Indian society,
and that unremitting, and not altogether unsuc-
cessful, efforts were made by the governing body
at home to instil a higher tone of feeling into the
Indian service. But there was, inherent in the
very nature of a commercial corporation invested
with the attributes of sovereignty, a vicious ele-
ment tending to corruption. The whole of the
dominion acquired by degrees over the vast In-
dian peninsula was, in fact, a gigantic mercan-
tile speculation ; the relation in which the go-
verning power stood to those employed by it, or
settling and trading under its protection, was in
the nature of a money bargain. Men went out
to India in the Company's service, or under its
patronage, with the idea of amassing wealth on
a larger scale and in a shorter time than was
attainable by any other employment or enter-
prize. To return home as rich Nabobs, and
spend the residue of their lives in the enjoyment
of all that money could purchase, was their chief,
if not their sole, ambition. As servants or pro-
teges of a private company, they had no public
feeling to inspirit them, no national interests to
sustain. John Company's sceptre was a source
of wealth, not a " fountain of honour."

All this flowed so naturally from the very con-
stitution of the body by which India has hitherto
been governed, and whose business strictly it was
to govern India for the benefit of the proprietors
of East India stock, rather than for the welfare of
the populations of India, that there is more
reason to feel grateful for the amount of good
which the Company's rule has done in India, than
to find fault with abuses and vices inseparable
from a rule resting on such a foundation. And,
whatever may turn out to be, in other respects,
the advantages or disadvantages of the measure
which has made the possessions of the East India
Company an integral part of the British empire,
there can be no doubt that in this one particular
It will prove a great gain. The nature of the
change effected by this transfer in the relations
between the native Indians and the Anglo-
Indians is pointed out in a few words, and with
masterly simplicity, in the speech of the Minister
of the Crown :who is responsible for the future
government of India. Different races cannot be
brought into contact with each other, as Asiatics
and:Europeans are in India, and remain in a state of
Indifference, of neutrality of feeling, towards one
another. Feelings will and must be engendered
between them ; and those feelings must be either
of a friendly or of a hostile character. If the
dominant race evinces feelings of ignorant and
insolent contempt towards the conquered races,
these will retaliate by prejudice and deadly
hatred, which, in the absence of power and of
opportunities for open display, will take the form
of insidious treachery. Such has been the case
in India. The natives felt, and had abundant
cause to feel, that they were regarded and treated