The Express.
London, England, 1858-05-07 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 7.

EVERYONE basheard of theanswer said to have been
given by Ton SnanmaN to the parental exhortation
to " take a wife." " Whose wife shall I take, sir ?"
replied, with more logical than moral propriety, the
witty son to the witty father. If he bad asked, " What
" wife shall take, sir ?" the morality would have been
as sound as the logic of the question. Practically,
doubtless, there are exceptions to all rules, and there
are fools and rogues in the world. But reasonable
and honest men, eager neither to take insane leaps
in the dark nor to bolster up their fallen fortunes,
do not commit themselves to abstract proposi-
tions of wife-taking, but having made up
their minds regarding what they are to take
in exchange for the independence of celibacy,
proceed from particulars to generals, and take a
wife because they take the wife. Only the fools
and rogues of whom we have spoken: reverse the
posses, and carry what rhetoricians call the hysteron-
prote►ow into the affairs of practical life.
But with all daemon to the House of Commons,
the majority of whom we by no means assert to be
composed of those two great classes, we cannot help
reminding them that in the great matter of Indian
legislation they are committing themselves to a
course which is politically as immoral as it is illo-
gical ; for they are pledging themselves to substitute
one form of government for another, without the
least notion of what the substitute is to be.
Already they have pledged themselves to tie
abstract proposition of taking • wife, in
the shape of Indian Government directly by
the Crown, without passing to inquire what
that Government is to be. They don't know
what it is to be. It may be something better, or it
may be something worse, than the state of things
which they have determined to abandon. It all
" depends upon circumstances." They hare resolved
upon an anti-climax. Instead of working upwards,
they are working downwards. Having decreed that
it is expedient that the transfer of the Government
of the East India Company to the Crown should
now take place, the House is called upon to vote
" that for this purpose it is expedient to
" provide that Her MULTI, by one of her prin-
.. cipal Secretaries of State, shall have and perform
" all the powers and duties, relating to the Govern-
. meat and Revenue of India, which are or may be
" now exercised or performed by the East India
" Company." This is the proposition, which is again
to be considered, this evening, by the House of Corn-
Mena India, represented by the proxy of Parlia-
ment, is called upon to take to wife • principal
Secretary of State. Surely, it is not unreuon-
able to ask what Secretary of State—that
is to say, a Secretary of State with what
qualifications and ander what conditions ; a Secre-
tary of Suite " pure and simple," or a Secretary of
State associated with a body of constitutional ad-
visers and colleagues. To the abstract proposition
of governing India by a Secretary of State moat
thinking men will probably demur. But, having
voted for the abolition of the East India Company,
they have nothing to do but to substitute some de-
scription of direct Government by the Crown. Their
obvious course, therefore, is to decide at once
under what conditions the powers now exercised
and the duties now performed by the East India
Company may safely be transferred to a member of
tee Imperial Government. They must look first
into the details. It was BURKE, we think, who
cautioned the House to look after the minors, and
not to be bullied by the " swaggering majors." The
Indian Resolutions, as they now stand, are so
framed as to gull the House, by planing these " swag-
" gering majors" in the front rank, and thus com-
mitting members, before they are aware of it, to the
minors, upon which everything depends.
Sensible of the importance of defining at the out-
set the precise character of the Imperial agency
which is to be substituted for the present system of
"Double Government," Mr. EDWARD ELLICE has
given notice of an amendment which, if carried, will
pledge the House, not to the future government of
India being placed in the hands of a Secretary of
State (the conditions to be afterwards determined),
but to the future government of India by a " Peen-
" dent in Council." An attempt may be made to stave
off the discussion of this important question
by asserting that the amendment properly belongs
to • later clause of the Resolutions. But as
the natural order of the Resolutions has been re-
versed, the objection is wholly untenable. The
Homo is not bound to fall into the trap which
Government has laid for it. But it is bound to con-
sider the conditions under which it will suffer the
future government of India to merge into govern-
ment by a Secretary of State. Upon these condi-
tions the good or bad government of India—the
stability or the instability of ourempire in theEast—
absolutely depends. Now, it is not proposed either
by the present, or by the late Government, or by
Lard Jonx Rusext.t, who,