The Press.
London, England, 1858-05-15 00:00:00

the Directors.

" We do not believe that such a transaction
could have been perpetrated without the aid of a
Circumlocution Office: We do not live in the
days of WARREN HABTENGS, and no statesman
would dare to repeat his conduct towards Omza-
cuND. Nor do we think that any public man
would, single-handed, have perilled his fair fame
upon conduct such as is now revealed in regard
to Oude."

Thus much of our position in Oude, and our
right to be there at all. Oude has made war
with us, and Oude is conquered, or apparently
so ; and we may deal with it as a conquered
country, as Lord ELLIMBOROUGH rightly says.
But before we proceed openly to brand all the
inhabitants as rebels and traitors, we ought
surely to recollect that our title is both quite
recent and not a little questionable. We know
that it is questioned, both by the late Sovereign
of the country and also by multitudes of his ad-
herents. Except, therefore, we could wipe away
the blots and blurs which stain our right, we
ought at least to be moderate and temperate in
asserting that right—the more especially since it
is honestly questioned by thousands of soldiers
with arms in their hands.

This is the second point of view in which our
position in Oude requires to be regarded. The
first was, Have we a clear title ? Secondly, have
we a power which will bear down all opposition ?
Sir HENRY LAWRENCE, writing in September,
1856, thus described the state of Oude

" The King of Oude employed 59,000 soldiers ;
his chiefs and officials at least as many more. Of
these vast numbers, one-fifth at the utmost have
found employment in the police and irregular
corps. Yet these levies, with half a dozen regular
corps, form the whole army_ of occupation. This
seems a grave mistake. Why not, at least, make
a change ? Why not move some of the Punjaub
regiments that have been keeping constant
watch and ward on the Indus for seven years to
Oude, and send some of the King's people to the
North-West? The King had some 8,000 aqil-
lery ; of these, about 500 may have obtained
employment—the rest, old and young, are on the
world. Surely. if there was danger in employing
Sikhs in 1849, it would be well to remove some
portion of the Oude IP-"-
such materials

province
smaller

within thick

Forts and

a foolish

ruin by the
a I:algie' I

diem are

of the Oude levies from Oude, where
terials for mischief still remain. In the
are 246 forts, besides innumerable
strongholds, many of the
hick jungles. In these fo • 7.
nd guns should all be ignt .r tr.
nent, or the forts should ..
.
, fellow has been urged
the possession of a paltry ~).L,Fir_ rf(t; " '77711/ y,
mud fort has repulsed B —S"Jr:TII 15:41V4,1'
80,000 or 90,000 disba,' ' " *2.).,(1e;
the brethren of the Brit**
\4.

458

The Record, commenting on these facts, said :
" This is only a specimen of the incredible
recklessness with which Oude was annexed,
and of the equally incredible carelessness
of the Local Government of Calcutta to
whose tuition Lord CANNING was intrusted 'Alen
Lord DALHOUSIE retired. These we not the
speculations of men writing at a distance from
the scene of government and ignorant of the
secret springs of action. They are facts resting
on no doubtful evidence, and backed by the over-
whelming authority of Sir HENRY LAWRENCE,
the Resident at Lucknow, the man who, having
done so much to place the Punjaitii in security,
was entreated to delay his return home in order
that he might reorganize Oude. But with such
a Local Council as that at Calcutta, and a Go-
vernor so vacillating as Lord CANNING, Sir
HENRY LAWRENCE was nearly powerless. He
could point out the mistakes committed. He
could suggest the remedies. But he could not
disarm Oude or conquer the red-tapeism of those
who had laughed to SCOTH Sir CHARLES NAPIER'S
prediction that we should have a mutiny of
40,000 or even 80,000 sepoys, that some calamity
would come as a thunderbolt,' and find them
unprepared."

Surely, then, if our title be not altogether
clear, and if our enemy be formidable, the
clearest dictates of policy would lead us to be
moderate and temperate in our demands. And
this leads us to the second great fact in the case.

11. LORD CANNING'S PROCLAMATION.
After the view we have just taken, what shall
we say of the prudence of that Governor-General
who, the moment the capital city is taken, issues
a proclamation of the following tenor ?
" The time has come at which the Right Hon.
the Governor-General of India deems it right to
make known the mode in which the British
Government will deal with the talookdars,
chiefs, and landholders of Oude and their fol-
lowers."

" Therefore the Right Hon. the Governor-
General hereby declares that (six persons named)
are henceforward the sole hereditary proprietors
of the lands which they held when Oude came
under British rule, subject only to such moderate
assessment as may be imposed upon them."
" The Governor-General further proclaims to
the people of Oude, that, with the above-named
exceptions, the proprietary right in the soil of
the province is confiscated to the British Govern-
ment, which will dispose of that right in such
manner as it may seem fitting."
Thus, the English, having fought their way
into Lucknow, and having in Oude some 8,000 or
9,000 British bayonets, while the rest of the
kingdom, with its 246 forts, is in the hands of
the insurgents, thinks it wise and prudent to
declare and publish a general confiscation of the
whole land of the country, with the exception of
the estates of six persons ! If this be prudence
and policy, we should like to know whether such
things as rashness and temerity were ever seen in
the world !
The Irish did rise in rebellion in 1798, and
again about ten years ago. Had they succeeded,
in either year, in driving the English, for a time,
out of the country, a force of 25,000 would soon
have been organized in England, which force
would have landed and taken Dublin. And
what would have been thought of the prudence,
or the justice, of their immediately issuing a Pro-
clamation, declaring the forfeiture and confisca-
tion of all Ireland, excepting six estates? Would
not the English Minister who could have advised
such a measure have been '4lought deserving of
impeachment? And why! 'should the same act
be deemed defensible because committed on the
other side of the globe ?
But, we are sometimes told, that we are de-
ceived by a phrase ; for that "confiscation" in
Lord CANNDIG'B Proclamation does not mean
" confiscation," but something else. If this be
true, Lord CANNING should have taken means to
insure the publication of the document in Eng-
land, with a proper translation, or with explana-
tory notes.
But this is pitiable trash. If the Proclamation
means anything; if it be not a heap of unintelli-
gible phrases, it means this,—that six persons,
named in it, shall keep their estates ; and that all
the other proprietors or landholders shall lose
their estates.

THE PRESS, MAY I's, 185,

A journal avowedly friendly to Lord Cmasu
(the Guardian) says :

"We must say that in point of justice end
humanity we do not see how this proclamation
is to be defended, except on the plea that Lord
CANNING does not mean what his words expsess.
Oude is an extensive country, with a large popu-
lation, of whom but a small proportion can either
have had the •• • irtnnity of ' supporting auk
assisting British • • cers,' or have taken any item
in resisting them. A general sentence of confis-
cation, intended to be acted on, would 'in such a
case be a 'flagrant iniquity. Accordingly the
defence is that it is not intended to be acted upon.
We have seen it suggested that the confiscation
means only a seizure of the dominium eminens—
the paramount lordship of the soil—which would
give us the same powers as the defunct Govern-
ment had against the actual tenants. But this
is a mistake. Those powers we had already; the
Proclamation deals, not with the Oude Govern-
ment, which has been extinct for years, but ex-
clusively with the talookdars, chiefs, and land-
holders and their followers, and ends by holding
out the hope that those " rights " may as a matter
of grace be " restored " to some which it had
begun by taking away from all. What is confis-
cated, therefore, is the rights, whatever they
were, of the holders of land. The resistance of
the inhabitants is the crime, the confiscation of
the rights of the inhabitants is the punishment.
Nor does it matter by what tenure they hold ;
what they have they are deprived of—no confis-
cation could do more."

We return, then, to the broad fact:—Our
gallant troops have fought their way into Luck-
now, which they hold. Outside of Lucknow they
possess just so much of Oude as they stand upon.
The country is hostile; the mutineers are abroad.
And yet this is thought to be the time, and these
the circumstances, in which to inflict the heaviest
punishment, short of death, upon all the land-
owners of the whole realm ; and thus to make
tens of thousands of armed men our determined
foes !

And this brings us to the next question,
which is—

111. LORD

''S DESPATCH.

So soon as this extraordinary step, on the part
of the Government of India, came to the know-
ledge of her Majesty's Ministers, they were ne-
cessarily forced to adopt some course—to express
some opinion. That they could approve of what
had been done was clearly impossible. That they
should wait, weeks or months, to hear explana-
tions lirom Lord CANNING, would have been a
paltering course. The document was clear and
distinct enough. It required no explanation.
That " the proprietary right to the whole soil of
" the kingdom is confiscated to the British Go-
" veniment" is a sentence of the plainest and
simplest kind. No one could have any difficulty
in comprehending it, or in forming a judgment
upon it. The Government at once disapproved
it. But surely the course taken was not a rash
or violent one. They did not order the Governor-
General at once to recal and rescind his procla-
mation. They were content to state to him the
different views they took, and to desire him
" to mitigate in practice the stringent severity of
" the decree of confiscation." We give the chief
passages in this Despatch—a document upon
which we have no doubt that all who have been
concerned in it will look back, years hence, with
real satisfaction:—

"We cannot but express to you our apprehen-
sion that this decree, pronouncing the dismherison
of a whole people, will throw difficulties almost
insurmountable in the way of the re-establishment
of peace. "

" The landholders of India are as much attached
to the soil occupied by their ancestors, and are as
sensitive with respect to the rights in the soil
they deem themselves to possess, as the occupiers
of land in any country of which we have a
knowledge.

" Whatever may be your ultimate and undis-
closed intentions, your Proclamation will appear
to deprive the great body of the people of all
hope upon the subject most dear to them as indi-
viduals, while the substitution of our rule for that
of their native Sovereign has naturally excited
against us whatever they may have of national
feeling."

7" Other conquerors, when they have succeeded
a overcoming resistance, have excepted
persons as still deserving of punishment,
.have, Alb a generous_ pshcy, extended their
cy enen to the great body of the people.
" You have actel upon a different principle.
Yon have reserved I, few as deserving of special
favour, and you have *ruck with what they-
feel as the severest of punishment the mass
the 41habilluits *the try,
' "We eann•ot brit Think that the precedents
from whie4 yok have departed will appear
have been conceived in. a spirit_ of wisdom superior
to that which appears in the precedent you
made.

"We desire that you will mitigate in practice
the stringent severity of the decree of confiscation
you have issued against the landholders of Oude.
" We desire to see British authority in India r€
upon the willing obedience of a contented people
there cannot be contentment where there -
general confiscation.
" Government cannot long be maintained
any force in a country where the whole people
rendered hostile by a sense of wrong; and, '
were possible so to maintain it, it would not
consummation to be desired. "

Against this Despatch of Lord ELLENBO-
ROUGH'S, the Pahnerstonian journals,
Globe, &c., are now levelling their most furious
assaults. Yet, strange to say, the very '
before it appeared the Times itself wrote it
very same strain. So soon as it had seen
CANNLNG'I3 Proclamation, the Times felt exactly
as Lord ELLENBOROUGH had felt, and it
thus :

" The people of Oude, as a body, cannot
thought to have offended us very deeply.
conduct of their chiefs amounts, no doubt,

Governor-General states, to a 'great crime,
might warrant a just retribution,' but their
cannot be likened to the guilt of the
mutineers. We must have shown distinctly
enough now even for popular apprehension r'•
we are superior in strength, and that we do
resort to conciliation to escape the risks of N
All that we have to forego is the opportunity
retribution actually at our command. There
remains nothing now to conquer but public
giving—nothing to be won except the goodwill
and confidence of the people. Victory in
case will be no less honourable than in the
but it must be earned by policy and forbearance,
not by inexorable rigour.
"In Oude the rebellious spirit seems to
been confined to those landholders who
what we should call 'a stake in the country•,
who have thought that the annexation
province was but a prelude to the dispossession
of themselves. Why, then, should any of
countrymen act as if they thought every inhabi•
tant of India a rebel and an assassin ?
practices, if not checked, will lead to so open
feud between the Englishman and the Asiatic
will vastly increase the labour of governing
empire after it has been reconquered.
" Oude is a conquered country, and nothing
more; because its inhabitants took advanto-
of the sepoy mutiny to assert again their .
lost independence, there is no reason that
should look upon them as monsters without
claim to pity, or pursue them with the
geance which may justly follow the treacherous
sepoy. This being, as we think, a fair view
the case, it would well become the Government
to recommend in its next despatches a greater
discrimination in the infliction of punishment
the seat of war. From all accounts it
appear that the authorities, military and
especially the civil—do not err on the side
lenity."
Thus, singularly enough, the whole tribe
Palmerstonians are now opening in full
against Lord ELLENBOROUGH, for having writ
with reference to Lord CANNING'S Proclamation,
almost precisely what the Times itself wrote, "
seeing that extraordinary production.
So stood the case ten days ago. But
remains one more point—

IV. THE PUBLICATION OF LORD ELLEN•
BOROUGH'S DESPATCH IN ENGLAND•
Ten days ago the whole case was
known to the British public. how I
it, then, into the public view at all? Mi
thus :—The Times newspaper sends an