The Express.
London, England, 1858-05-18 00:00:00

CAT
Tau Imam, 110100Lipt D
ga Ilamoids 8M Ma Wilma —PLUTO MID DX .
Leimi. 1/8188.—Aad J4IOIIIIX X TOS.
-.oammom

PAINOININIL
lb Inono, TIM OTOOII 111101ANOM: 'er, The Onsa *NA
ma—IPAND? AND WAILOUNSITIL 0. Miss.—AM SAMOS&
IN =ANON ON NI U .—Opus at beif-paN

MILT.
Ts amiss. TEI Wl7l. Nova Oremle mad Nins
Adelrea—A ♦LL THAT OLITTLIS is NOT NO Nam
01111111* IniMeink—OEM Wilms IL

HIGH NAVIN AT LONDON BRIDGIL
Tim Dar—llaslgg. Oh. M. Allsmess. (la
Somme v-11ailly. Mu Aftesse.

LONDON, TUESDAY, MAY IL

" FOR the third time of making," we implore the
majority of the House of Commons to ponder
well the vote they are about to give on Mr.
CARDWELL'S Resolution. That Resolution is a
Jesuitical deception. It professes, in the outset, to
decline expressing an opinion on Lord CANNING'S
Proclamation ; at the close, by censuring Ministers
bemuse they have condemned Lord Cuaterao's
Proclamation, it declares that Proclamation to be
just and praiseworthy. The Resolution is a trap.
It is so worded that the House of Commons may be
led to declare its approval of the Proclamation at
the very time that it believer it is declining to pro-
nounce a final judgment on it. This shuffle is at
once a confession that the Proclamation cannot be
defended, and an attempt to steal surreptitiously the
Legislature's sanction of it.
But the House of Commons can no longer refuse
to take the merits or demerits of Lord CANNING'S
Proclamation into its consideration on the plea
that it is imperfectly informed on the subject. It
can no longer allege that there is any doubt as to
the meaning of the Confiscation Clause, or that there
is any doubt as to the effect the promulgation of
that Clause will have upon the natives of India. If
a majority of the House of Commons pass a Resolu-
tion which can only be interpreted to approve of the
Confiscation Clause, they will do so with their eyes
open—with a full knowledge of the import of that
Clause and the perilous consequences of promulgat-
ing it.
It has been affirmed by the Cardwellites that it is
quite a mistake to suppose that the Proclamation
threatens todeprive all the inhabitants of Oude of their
landed property ; that such a supposition could only
originate in the home-public's ignorance of the na-
ture of tenures of land in India. This shuffle will
no longer serve. We have now the interpretation
put upon the Confiscation Clause, not by the ill-in-
formed home-public, but by the well-informed Indian
public. In India there are not two opinions as to
the meaning of the Confiscation Clause. Those who
condemn it, and those who if they do not approve
at least abstain from expressing disapprobation
of it, interpret the Clause in exactly the
ISM manner. Our special correspondent at Cal-
cutta—who has had some experience in these
matters, and who abstains from expensing any
opinion as to the policy of the Proclamation—says :
" With the exception of the estates of a few friendly
" Talookdan, every inch of ground and every de-
" eerietion 0 f property Si. Chide is SONfiseded to the
m Mate &y this Proclamation." The writers in the
Need of /radio—who are allowed on all hands to
be better acquainted with Indian affairs than anyother
public writers in that country—ay:—" It is affirmed
" that a clause by which the whole landed property
"of Onde is confiscated, ham been inserted." All
the private letters we have seen concur in
aisseribing the Confiscation Clause as an arbitrary
resumption of the whole laud of Onde by the
British Government.

In resolving to confiscate the lands of Onde, Lord
Comma has set at defiance the opinions of those
men who have hitherto been considered the highest
authorities am all questions relating to India. fiir
JANIS 0171 RAM recommended a general amnesty—
and Lead CANNING resolved on confiscation ! Sir
Jour, Lawintsce recommended an amnesty—and
Lord CANNING resolved on confiscation! The Court
of Directors advise Lord CANNING, in dealing with
the great chiefs, to exert himself to " encourage
" them, by liberal arrangements made in accord-
" ance with ancient usages, to become industrious
" airriewlisrista"—and Lord CANNING has deprived
them of their lands! The consequences of
this unaccountable change in Lord CANNING's
mood and policy are placed in a broad and
striking light by the Prism! of Indio:—
" The rebels are thus offered life, but deprived of
" their property, and that, too, at a time when oar
" army has been split into detachments, and for any-
" thing that we could effect, the submission of the
" rebels might be made as well one year hence as
" just now. By the dispersion of our army we have
" already made war in Onde impossible, and by the
" publication of such a document we should render
" peace insecure. It is difficult to see what such a
" Proclamation can be called. It is clearly not an
" amnesty, for it confiscates the property of those to
" whom it is addressed ; it is not a threat, for it
" offers life and honour to those who submit. The
" Proclamation has but one advantage—it gets rid
" of all existing tenures, and puts a stop to re-
" sumption, for the whole province is resumed.
"It throws Mr. Oullerle'll settlement to
" the winds, but does not hold out a promise that
" any future settlement will be less severe. It makes
" every man in Oude a declared enemy, and doss
" not exhibit any means of coercion. Al an amnesty,
" the boon conferred is ridiculous ; for what power
" have we to put to death five millions of human
" beings ? But the Indian treasury has been for
" some time exhausted ; the proclamation cannot
" refill it. Lucknow cannot be put up to auction,
" nor the castles of the Talookdars sold to the highest
" bidders. Oude cannot be parcelled out into small
" farms and let to aliens, for interlopers would as
" soon take possession of the forfeited estates as an
" Irish gauger of a Tipperary estate in a year of
" famine, or a Church Missionary of a living
" under the Neapolitan governroeut. The reports
" that the proclamation will give ries to will
"be endless. The British goveraenent will be held
" up both as weak and rapacious; as weak, in offer-
" Mg the life it has not the power to take ; as raps-
" does, in seizing estates to which it has no right.
" It will be industriously instilled into the ear of
" the Oude pawn that henceforth nothing be pos-