The Express.
London, England, 1858-05-08 00:00:00

;1021'
THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY RVENING, MAY 8, 1ib8.4

THE DAILY NEWS: LONDON MORNING
W sassisord 41, robot atL
• LsadtasP=Joror lbs adverb oft boa warm awl al
direr Mora
Is IS. arms and oars of Ift oral sass—la ISO
ss mono. sod Is be vaned tosserdis sad unrealstrMSWss
sisrd re dr asd stras* selkiso—rio pre Y r
alhardi iORIII4III LIMN Id 111WABLY AIID lIIPASTIAL.
As early* 4•117 mart of dds=tas Isdlas Sr Is erred
so • as srryWas brr ar
7511 OILY DAILY NUILIte WOW.
CIS of
ALL 0711111111111
It Is Orr radar*. rd. arr. ',MPS Was., Uri 1117
yen dr or at lb assarbsrser Ude pert ► stertrel
ar ar
rty restrigra silisost kr Nor • oblembir purrs sot
Wa Is sir
lb Ss Gol%ffi rr at asp Isimeasabse se roar la its Orr= ; at
sliskoresirlstr. Lamar
ILA bb 11911/111•11114 tit
st pi • obselairatim bp fiesta*
sae rrreamss. pribbse d. ea tour Las
err r Ire alba Nods Is fairy It at lb, per ram pfd IA
arum ki !Wass arm

STIR expreoo.

TO 0011218PONDENT8.

eleirleselleste Mended lee "The Twee... Lessen Ibubetll Ihres.
ma be as the Oise. 10, beevene.eiries. by Tye Meek on the
ley livelihoods&

H AAAAAA
Tan N•Nsnis. TWILITH NIGHT. NA DraNaes;
—PLUTO AND ?ROSA API N IL Mr.Omplea L laderea.llo.
WrIAAL-3AOII RETURN PLOY OANTON.—AaI JOHN
JOHNS. Mr. Ocaploa.—Ocammese at 1.

PRI WallilWa.
Tau Nampo, lIIIRIO lIATH OBAIIII/L—ICING Llalt. Mr.
O. Isaa.—asi WIWI& 111 aLA&011 Of 1111181.1 J.—Op at at
halapaat &

Ti.. Krum, NITRO TOO LATE TO MEND. Kanrnenostot,
Nindlfloon, • PnrOgrA MIN K. Nbaran.-11NOTHEN
tOrl_ inktniesen.—ind ourono 3EIO. Kr. Broom Norton.
—Ooniannomat Ikeitnott

HIGH WATER AT LOEDON BRIDOE.
fin. D•T—llona, MI- Sift Aftersoon. 104 Pm.
Towozzow—Monitax.lo3. Aftersoosk, Ilk. Ma.

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 8.

Tux controversy respecting the Proclamation
issued by Lord CANNING, immediately after the fall
of Lucknow, appears to be in imminent danger of
degenerating into a mere personal and party
squabble. At least, the consideration most promi-
nently urged by the noble Lords who took part in
the discussion of last night was whether Lord
CANNING had been treated with due courtesy and
fairness by the Home Government. It is no doubt a
matter of importance that fair play should be
observed towards every Englishman, be he
Peer or Commoner, who is serving hie country at a
distance. But until the correspondence between
the Home Government and Lord CANNING rela-
tive to the Proclamation in question shall
have been printed and distributed, it is
impossible to pronounce an opinion as to
the nature of the treatment he has experienced.
That is a question that will keep. But the question
whether the Proclamation be consistent with justice
and sound policy is a question that will not keep.
If it is in whole, or in part, unjust, it must be im-
politic; and it is therefore essential to the honour
and interest of England that its tenor be fully
known and fearlessly discussed.
To the general tenor of the Proclamation it does
not, in the present state of our information, appear
that any strong objection can be urged. With or
without reason, the people of Dade have risen
in arms against the Anglo-Indian Government.
That Government had been established without any
open protest or resistance on the part of the people of
Oude. No new grievances have been assigned as
the motives of the insurrection. The people of
Oude, in their quarrel with us, have appealed to
the ordeal of trial by battle, and the decision has been
against them. The Anglo-Indian Government is
therefore entitled to exact that their submission shall
be immediate and unconditional. The Proclamation,
u an encouragement to such submission, holds out
that all who make it without loss of time may rely
upon the justice and mercy of the British Govern-
ment to have their claims to be re-installed in their
former rights liberally viewed. Rewards and
honours are decreed to six chiefs who have re-
mained faithful, by name, and promised to all
others who can prove that they, too, have
acted loyally. Especial leniency is promised to
all who may have been in rebellion, but who
have protected English lives. On the other hand,
it is declared that " participation in the murder of
" Englishmen and Englishwomen will exclude those
" who are guilty of it from all mercy." If the Pro-
clamation had contained no more provisoes than we
have now enumerated, it does not appear that any
valid objection could have been raised to it. But, in
addition to these, it contains one provision against
which it was the obvious duty of the Home Govern-
ment to pronounce an immediate and imperative veto.
" The Governor-General further proclaims to the
" people of Oude that, with the above-mentioned
exceptions [the six chiefs selected for honorary
" mention and reward], the proprietary right
in the soil of the province is confiscated
" to the British Government, which will dispose of
" that right in such manner as it may seem fitting."
Here is a clause amply sufficient to perpetuate the war
in Oude, if—as there is but too much reason to fear—
it is yet far from being terminated, and to rekindle
it with fresh fury even if it have been put an end to.
There has been mach controversy as to the theory
of the tenure of landed property in India. Some have
asserted that the absolute right of property in land is
in the Government, and that all subjects have merely
a right to perpetually renewable leases as long as
they pay their rents. Others maintain that the
absolute right of property is in the Zemindars or
Talookdars; others, that it is in the Ryots ; and others
again, that it is in the aggregate community of each
village or estate. Luckily, there is no need to dis-
cuss this perplexing and imperfectly ascertained
theory. This is certain, that whatever the nature or
limits of the right which the occupants of lands
conceive they have in them, that right is universally
allowed to be permanent and hereditary, unless for-
feited by breach of certain specific obligations. And
more than this, it is certain that all races, tribes, and
castes throughout India cling with passionate per-
tinacity to the maintenance of that right. Among
the ?definable, throughout Rajasthan, among the
inhabitants of Central India, the paternal acres, the
native homesteads, are retained with as warm a love,
with as tenacious a grasp, as in Ireland itself. To
proclaim to the five millions of inhabitants of
Oude that, with the exception of the lands of six
Talookdars, the lands of the whole province are to
be confiscated, or resumed by the Government, is to
provoke an agrarian insurrection—and our experi-
ence in Ireland ought to have taught us what a fear-
ful thing that is. This universal confiscation is as
glaringly anklet as it is impolitic. There can be
no doubt that many even of the Talookdars
have been induced by fear to join in the rebellion,
' or to observe a questionable neutrality. There can
be no doubt that the great mass of the cultivators
of the soil have passively submitted to the domina-
tion of the Sepoye, as they would have submitted to
our domination if the power of the British Govern-
ment to protect or curiae had not been momentarily
suspended. Hitherto these men have had no motive
to take an active part against us. They have been
merely unreliable friends, not decided enemies. But
to confiscate their lands for no worse a crime
than apathy or cowardice, is to give them,
a motive for hating us inveterately. A wise
and just policy would have been to base 'an

101Mneety for all who had notbeen concerned in the
nesaminations of Englishmen or Englishwomen at
the first outbreak of the revolt. The number of
Europeans in Oade, and the localities where they
were resident, at the beginning of the disturbances,
are known ; the number of them who were actually
murdered by the mutineers can be ascertained; all
natives who were not participants in these original
murders—who from their local habitations
could not have been implicated in them—
ought to have full a/nuance of their lives
and properties on the simple condition of sub-
mitting to the British Government. The indis-
criminate confiscation of all the lands of Oude

ought to be repudiated and countermanded by the
Imperial Government of Great Britain.
For the reasons anigned above, we decline to
enter at present into the personal controversy as re-
gards Lord CANNING. But we cannot refrain from
pointing to the undue prominence which has been
given to that question in the House of Lords, and
the disregard of the far more essential question of the
unwarrantable confiscation of all the lands of Oude,
as a practical demonstration of tbe perilous come-

quenees that must ensue from making the personality
of the Indian Government dependent on the results
of the faction-lights of the English Parliament.

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(nom ova own

PARIS. FIIDAT EVININO.

The Queen of Holland is expected in Paris this
evening, and has probably arrived at the Strasburg
railway station at the moment at which I write.
Count de Segur and the other directors of the
Eastern Railway Company attended Prince Napo-
leon to Strasburg, whither, as I mentioned yester-
day, his imperial highness went to receive her Ma-
jesty. She travels in the splendid state train which
was built by the company for the Emperor's use.
The Queen, everybody may possibly not remember,
is the second daughter of the King of Wurtemburg,
and was married to the King of Holland
in 1839. Her mother was Catherine Paul-
owns, daughter of Paul 1., Emperor of Russia.
She is the niece of Prince Jerome, and cousin of the
Emperor Napoleon 111. and the Princess Mathilde,
with both of whom she is on terms of intimate
friendship. Nothing has been said of the motives
for her Majesty's present visit to France, but as the
court of Holland is known to be exceedingly inti-
mate with that of Russia, it will be inevitable that
political reasons should be attributed to the journey,
more particularly as the Queen has the reputation of
being a very clever diplomatist. She will stay in
France about a month, and will accompany their
Majesties to Fontainebleau, where they are soon
Pin&
The bill for substituting the Credit Fonder Com-
pany for the state, in making loans for the purposes
of drainage, to the extent of 100 millions, was voted
yesterday by a majority of 211 against 26. The ob-
jections of the (relatively speaking) rather consider.
able majority were stated by two members:

Comic de inane said that be had never expected any
result from the law of 1856 on drainage, and events had hut
too well justified his anticipations. He did not calculate on
anything better for the interests of agriculture from the
new law. He did not think that the Credit Foncier Com-
pany would open its credit either to small farmers or eves
to average property. In his opinion that company
would lend its money almost exclusively to large
companies, whose operations would be lees directed
to drainage than to works for carrying off large sheets of
water, or for canalisation. The bill, therefore, would not
attain its object. What in his opinion was required by
agriculture was a greater stability in the legislation by which
it was governed.

M. Lys'. said that the substitution of the Credit Pon-
der Company for the state did not appear to him likely to
attain the object proposed. A private company naturally
directed its greatest attention to the interest of its share•
holders. That company would, therefore, have more ad-
vantage in lending to large proprietors than to small or even
average ones. The state, it WM true, would indurate the
bans to be made, and would must the Credit Pottier to
grant them, but the latter might still refuse by declaring the
security to be inrufacient. He could not comprehend why
tie government should expose itself to the discontent and to
the complaints which would be excited by such refusals.
He expressed his wish that the question should undergo
a fresh examination.

The squadron of evolution, now in the Mediter-
ranean, is to leave its anchorage on June 15, for
Cherbourg, in order to be present at the fsbes there
during their Majesties' visit in the middle of July.
The Bourse has been tolerably firm, but without
answering the expectations which were formed from
the rise of yesterday. The Rents, for account
closed at 69tr. 85c., without any change, for cash
there was a rise of 15c., the last price being
69fr. 70c. Mobilier continued to oscillate violently,
and after being quoted at 7801 r., closed at 750 fr.,
with a fall of 35fr. The Eastern railway fell 10fr. ;
Northern, lfr. 25c.; and the other lines from
2fr. 50c. to sfr.

There is news of a ministerial dislocation in Spain,
the causes of which are u yet unknown. The post-
ponement of the Queen's maritime excursion, from
the 13th to the end of the month, is probably attri-
butable to this crisis.

A letter from Lisbon, of the 29th April, speaks of
a marriage being on the topic between the Infanta
Donna Antonia and the Count of Flanders, who is
to be present at the fetes which will shortly be given
to celebrate the King's wedding.
The Foy* affirms that in a private despatch Sir
Colin Campbell has urgently demanded large and
immediate reinforcements, on account of the great
losses the army has sustained by sickness and the
enemy's fire. Notwithstanding the taking of Luck-
now (says the Pays), Oudis is in fall insurrection,
and the revolt, instead of being trodden out, ex-
tends daily.

SPAIN.

pr 111.111W1,1141 TILIOILLP11.)
MADRID, ?mbar.
M. Diaz, Minister of the Interior, his offered his
resignation.
The Queen has suspended the sitting of the Cortes.