The Express.
London, England, 1858-01-13 00:00:00

11" 41i, 4.1858.

•
patronage would diminish the efficiency of the
Services in Indiat the latter would have the addi-
tional disadvantage of eradicating the last vestige. of
political purity and independence from the House
of Commons and its electors. It is apparent, then,
that even though the nmed had succeeded in de-
monstrating that India must under any form of
English government remain mainly the field of the
middle classes, it would still have failed to establish
the safety of transferring the whole patronage of
India to the Ministers of the day.
But the Times has not succeeded in proving that
with exclusively Government patronage the middle
classes would continue to have the same equal chance
of promotion in India that theyhave hitherto had. The
argument of the Times is, that service in India is too
disagreeable for aristocratic tastes, and that this cir-
cumstance, not the constitution of the body which has
hitherto had the distribution of Indian appoint-
ments, has been the cause of its being relinquished to
the middle classes. In this assumption two important
facts are overlooked. The first is, that the adoption
of the overland route and the introduction of steam
navigation have brought India much nearer to Eng-
land and materially diminished the drawbacks on
Indian appointments. These facilities of acmes to
and egress from India are likely to increase. All
the head-quarters appointments in India are thus
becoming adapted to the most aristocratic and ex-
clusive tastes. The second fact to which we
have alluded in that oar young aristocrats are be-
coming much less nice in the matter of appointments
than they used to be. When we find one in whose
veins " all the blood of all the HOWARDS" circles
snapping at a Stamp-Distributorship, and another
scarcely less far-descended glad to put up with a third
part of the County-Treasurerships enjoyed by
the late Mr. Corrocx, there can be no doubt of
this fact. The truth is that the aristocracy is
not, any more than less exalted classes, exempt
from the operation of that natural law on the dis-
ornery of which the fame of the late Mr. MaLruee
rats. The increasing aristocratical population is
fast pressing on the means of mbsistence, and the
titled feeders upon good appointments are compelled
to be content with coarser fare, and to put up with
viands which they used daintily to leave to their
inferiors. Assuredly the appetite of our aristocracy
for place is at present so sharp set that even Indian
appointments are not safe from their voracity.
Bat, even if we grant, for the sake of argument,
that the general field of the Indian Services would
still be left, under a PALMERSTON constitution, to the
unprivileged classes, it does not follow that the cha-
racter of the individuals selected would not be changed
for the worse. Aristocratical patronage of the lower
orders has not, even in our own island, been remark-
able for discrimination. It transpired in the coarse of
the trial of the ILANNINOS that their week and vicious
victim, Correa, had obtained his appointment in the
Custom-house through the mediation of some good-
natured lord, simply because he professed himself
a convert from Popery ; and that MANNING
himself had nearly obtained a similar ap-
pointment, because his wife had once been
lady's maid to a Duchess. From facts like these
—and many more like them might easily be brought
forward, as, for example, a recent appointment of a
supernumerary Queen's Messenger—it is obvious
that even where there is no undue bias the patronage
of that class from which Ministers of State are
principally selected is extremely liable to be the re-
verse of judicious. Bat, were the patronage of India
placed at the disposal of oar aristocratic Ministers,
the undue bias imparted by the desire to strengthen
their political position would be necessarily brought
into play. We do not mean to assert that the ap-
pointments of East India Directors have been always
made from pure and exalted motives, but we do
maintain that they have been made with absolute
freedom from the peculiar class of temptations to
which Ministers of State in a representative Go-
vernment are always exposed. The proof of
this lies in the fact that so few India Directors have
ever aspired to seats in the House of Commons, and
that of these few such a small p don have ob-
tained them. Under the old spite of Indian go-
vernment Indian patronage has been exercised by
a different class and under the influence of different
motives from what home patronage and colonial
patronage have been. And it is owing to this that in
India a field has been kept open for the energetic
nod aspiring of the unprivileged classes which has
In a great measure been shut against them at home
and in the colonies. Experience shows that we
have obtained by this means a better class of public
servants in India than in other parts of the Empire ;
and the necessary inference is that if the distribution
of Indian patronage is assimilated to that of the rest
of our public patronage, both the civil and military
Services in India will be deteriorated. In other words,
the consequence of transferring Indian patronage
to the Imperial Government will be increased poli-
tical profligacy in Parliament and the constituencies,
and diminished efficiency in our Indian administra-
tion. To tell us that this danger will be averted
by the system of Competitive Examinations is
sheer mockery. All that Competitive Examinations
can guard against is the admission of scandalous
ignorance and incompetency to an official career. A
wide field is still left for nepotism and corrupt
patronage.