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

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY LoYENING, MAY 18, .. 1858.

tHR DAILY NMI: LONDON MORNING
IP 4=:r=l%, a... 4 "
sss
re et bissma mg d
d ousstangdwils
Is lie Must ist who at Ns mug assukii as d lb
se sposis. sad Is lbs sield mile rad
lessitesi Is Os SW. saws, rad wassim i=t post is
'MUM NSW/ IA 1131SLIILI AND lIIP
sisAZT=w
As hilsty sub sport . litres the hams sorb
le II by ow Symbol SSA art
TH I ONLY DAM—
IMMI . II lIIPOIT.
inIITIZI MEI ALL • TN ADWIDIENNSITIL
h rlaSy by non has Szty
rap sir saryarrismssuldo. 11=s1 M 16./
riztiskysidea, silisvel be tail I a *aim paZirs.Z
%=a...timbal jis",
mobselistrizesara Is he ISO= ; ay al
rb . ispoissed la w
• sisal Molelshiraw II swift
mot al palm he geklast e. is Swab Or
suss et sim loss rody is wesl/11 rat Ills per webs. PH Is
Naas le Postess star

" seises is his own--from the bullock with which he
" ploughs his land to the thatch with whisk he
" coven his hut, all, he will be informed, have been
" taken. But perhaps the GOVEZNOI.I3ENERAL is
" in labour with a mighty scheme. It is not enough
"to have a tabula rasa in the North-West Pro-
" vines—it is not enough to have to build up there
" a new system of land sasessment—to erect a new
" scheme of financial and judicial procedure ; there-
" fore we disorganise Oude, that small province, con-
" taming not more than five millions of inhabitants;
"then we render all property insecure, and add a
" alight increment to our labours."
We have explained repeatedly that Mr. CARD-
weLL's Resolution is substantially an approval of
the Confiscation Clause of Lord CAnntire's Proclama-
tion. The light in which that Clause is regarded in
India, and the effect it is producing on the native
mind, is placed beyond a doubt by the intelligence
received by lut mail. The Confiscation Clause is
teaching the natives to regard the British Govern-
ment as at once weak, unjust, and rapacious. It is
exciting and encouraging the natives to war against
es "to the knife." It is sowing the seeds of anarchy
broadcast over India. The news that by adopting Mr.
VARDWILL'S Resolution the House of Commons
hes sanctioned the Confiscation Clause will augment
the anarchy in India, and confirm the hostile popu-
lations in their desperate resistance. It will inau-
gurate the direct rule of the Crown in India by an
act of creel and wanton rapacity. Are the majority
of the House of Commons prepared to accept so
terrible a responsibility merely to gratify the per-
sonal feelings of Lord Curium; and his friends,
and the hunger for office of the CLANRICARDES.
Lowest, and Vaation Slime P Circumstances have
made the English Crowe the paramount Power in
Hindostan ; is this opportunity of benefiting mil-
lions of our fellow-beings to be wantonly thrown
away to gratify the personal predilections
or the sordid yearnings after the emolu-
ments of place of a few individuals? If the
majority of the House of Commons are inaccessible
to such considerations, let them regard the conse-
quences of their adopting Mr. CARDWELL'S Resolu-
tion from a lower and more selfish point of view.
The sanction of the Confiscation Claus in Lord
CANNING'S Proclamation means a renewal of the war
in India with redoubled inveteracy, at the commence-
ment of the season most deadly to Europeans. The
sanction of the Confiscation Clause means an imme-
diate demand for a quarter of a million of European
troops for India, and a constant drain upon our
population to replace losses by sickness and battle in
their ranks for an indefinite period. Every soldier
feet to India costs at least 1001., and the price
will rise as the demand for them increases and
continues. The sanction of the Confiscation Clause
aeons the re-imposition of the Income Tax, and of
the war rates of Customs Duties. Are the Liberal'
Members of the House of Commons prepared to go
to the hustings as the advocates of enormously in-
creased taxation, and of the denudation of this
country of soldiers in the present unsettled state of
continental polities? Are they prepared to enable
their political rivals to go to the hosting. as the ad-
vocates of a just and safe policy for India—of •
policy which will keep down taxation and pre-
serve to their families many lives that would
otherwise be sacrificed in the pestilential
jungles of India? Already we hear names of mark
in the Hones of Commons freely mentioned, who,
though they cannot bring themselves to go against
their political friends, have made up their minds to
resist being dragged through the dirt as supporters
of Mr. CARDWELL'S Resolution. These men are
wise in their generation, and the Liberal Party in
general will do well to ask themselves whether the
toting of augmented taxes is a prudent preparation
on their part for an appeal to their constituents.
They may have a right to sport away their personal
influence wantonly, but their seats in Parliament
are not theirs to dispose of. They hold them in
trust for the great Liberal Party ; and to adopt a
policy which ensures their forfeiture is to break faith
with the Party.

THE second night of the debate on the Resolution
which condemns a Despatch for condemning a Pro-
clamation, the merits or demerits of which it excludes
from consideration, has not thrown much additional
ligb. on the merits of the question or the probable
it ue of the controversy. No speech has been de-
livered comparable in power, brilliancy, or effect, to
the masterly address of Sir HUGH CAIRNS,
and a considerable portion of the evening
was consumed by senatorial prelusion, which
occupied the time, without commanding the
attention, of the House. The somewhat pon-
derous levity of Mr. BEHESPORD HOPE, Mr.
A.

wearisomeness, and Lord
ELcito's sententious flippancy had no power to re.
people the benches which had been deserted for the
pleasanter occupation of dining. Mr. WHITESIDE
restored some animation to the close of the debate,
but the Dii meioses have not yet appeared on the
scene.

In the earlier portion of the evening the excite-
ment had been considerable. Mr. Holmium's
rhetorical and random home truths, and Mr.
HARDY'. earnest and vigorous defence of his party
and his cause, were received with an amount of
cheering and counter-cheering, which represented
rather the electric state of feeling with which the
listeners were charged than the oratorical powers
which the speakers put forth. Those who maintain
the vulgar fallacy that the English are not an ex-
citable people, would do well to correct their notions
by a visit to Epsom Downs on the Derby-day, or to
St. Stephen's Chapel on the occasion of a neck-and-
neck race for power between the " Ins" and
the " Outs."
And if this were the " be-all and the end-all"—if
the working of our free institatiooe were best shown
by the tenacity and address with which our great
faction-tights are carried on by the masters of
tongue-fence in the House of Cemmone—it can-
not be denied that Mr. CAIDWELL'EI motion
has afforded, in the language of the prize
ring, " a great treat to the lovers of legitimate
" sport." Unfortunately it is not all—there
is a British public beyond the walls of Parliament
which is growing somewhat tired with this sort of
thing—there is a European public watching all that
goes on with a malignant expression of wonder and
pity—there is an Indian public keenly alive to the
importance, and thoroughly well informed as to
every movement in this great party struggle. Let
those gentlemen who have been so thoughtlessly
Glamouring for governing India through Parlia-
ment consider a little the lessons to be
derived from what is at this moment taking
place in the House of Commons. Here is
a great question of Indian policy made the ostensible
subject of Parliamentary discussion. Can any man
with the slightest discernment fail to pensive that
this great question is being discussed, nominally
with reference to the interests of India, really with
reference to the interests of party at home? Nothing
more is wanted to prove this than the very terms in
which the motion is cosceived. The House is asked
to condemn the Despatch without forming an
opinion ow way or other on the Proclamation. What
a transparent absurdity ! How is it possible that the
House can honestly lend itself to a vote of olsomo

under such a condition as this? We are told 1
that the language of the Despatch is unnecessarily '
irritating, and that its publication was an impru-
dence. Let both these points be conceded, and what
logically follows ? A vote of censure—the expul-
sion of the Ministry ? The clubs and coteries may
say," Yes ;" but the common sense of the English
people will say " No." The common sense of the
English people will look at this question broadly and
boldly. Admitting that Lord ELLINDOROUOR'S
Despatch was offensive in manner, they will require
to be satisfied that it was also wrong n
substance and in fact before they can pronounce
it to constitute a sufficient ground for the expulsion
of a government. And before this necessary ques-
tion can be answered, it must be first decided
whether Lord CLIO N o'B Proclamation did or did not
deserve censure. So strongly has this been felt that
even Mr. CARDWELL himself found it to be wholly
impossible to confine his speech within the narrow
limits of his motion. He was compelled to pass a
judgment on the very Proclamation which he had
endeavoured to exclude the House from pronouncing
an opinion upon, and in this respect his example has
been followed by almost every speaker in the course
of the debate.

The thing, in fact, comes shortly to this: Lord
CANNING publishes • Proclamation, the necessary
effect of which, it is apprehended by Lord Ea.t.cat-
BOROUGH, will be to drive • half-conquered nation
into the extremity of determined and desperate
rebellion. In this judgment Lord ELLENBOROUGH
is supported by great authorities: some of the ablest
men in India have deprecated the policy which the
Proclamation declares; the whole Anglo-Indian
population, as the last despatches prove, are unani-
mous in attaching to it that sense which, without
the most violently forced construction, is the only
one it will bear. Lord --RT LENBOROUGH, a man not
ignorant of India or the feelings of its population,
believes, as the real fact seems to be, that the policy
thus proclaimed is not only flagrantly unjust but
eminently dangerous. He condemns it in the
strongest terms. We don't for • moment defend
those terms. A great Minister writing to a great
Proconsul on a grave question of policy, should not
deal in antithesis or point, should avoid sarcasm,
and cashew inuendo, forget the " Speaker" of
ENFIELD and the " Letters " of JuNine. It was a
gross breach of good taste to write as Lord
ELLENBOSOUGH wrote. It was a still grosser
imprudence to publish what he had so written.
But surely, on the part of those who repudiate secret
diplomacy and would make the government of India
immediately responsible to Parliament—the publi-
cation of this Despatch, however imprudent, can
hardly be made the ground for a vote of censure.
The aiming of the Proclamation became known
through the prese—the nature of the Despatch be.
came known through questions asked in Parliament.
It may have been, it was, imprudent to answer these
questions, but does any one really suppose that the
answer could have been long deferred P Taken
altogether, the case against Lord ELLENBOROUGH
(and against the Government as identified with him)
amounts to this. Your composition was too rhetori-
cal ; you took a wrong model ; instead of being elo-
quent, argumentative, and forcible, you should have
been dry, and tepid, and tame ; you should have
forgotten BURKE and taken a course of Vtanon
SMrru; you have not done so, and therefore we shall
visit you by a vote of censure. You were asked to pro-
duce this Despatch; you rashly promised to do so; you
still more rashly kept your promise ; and, therefore,
the House of Commons, which is about to affirm the
necessity of governing India through Parliament,
shall declare that you no longer possess the con-
fidence of the country. Well ; it may be so. We
shall see. Our own impression rather ia that the
country will not be apt to withdraw its con-
fidence from men, who have undoubtedly erred in•
point of form, until it is proved that they were
wrong also in matter of substance.

If the Proclamation was substantially wrong, the
Despatch, as far at least as it dealt with the
future, was substantially right, and the House of
Commons, which declares itself unable to pans
judgment on the first of these propositions, will not
carry along with it the judgment or the feeling of
the country, in affecting to form a judgment on tho
other. Under the circumstances Mr. DILLWYN'S

Amendment offers the most available resource to
those who, without wishing to pass judgment on
Lord CANNING'S Proclamation, are at least equally
reluctant to turn out a Ministry for discourteously
condemning what may, after all, turn out to be con-
demnable, and for publishing a Despatch which,
though Impolite and incautious, may be substan-
tially just.

IT IS PERT UNFORTUNATE that neither the Times
nor the Morning Post have received the letters of
their Indian correspondents by the last mail. It
must be particularly annoying to our contemporaries
that they are unable to announce to their readers
what construction is put in India upon the CORIUM-
tion Clause, and what effect has been produced on
the native mind by its promulgation. It is also
strange that so many copies of the Friend of India
should have miscarried on the present occasion.

LORD CANNING SEEMS DOOMED tO correspond with
ex-Presidents of the Board of Control. For the three
last mails he has been addressing Mr. Vernon Smith
as President, though they all reached this country
after Lord Ellenborough had assumed the office;
and the present mail, which brings letters from him
idressed to Lard Ellenborongh, arrives after the
resignation of that nobleman. By the bye, if one
mail brings no less than three letters to Lord Ellen-
borough from the Governor-General, how comes it
that three mails should only have brought one letter
to Mr. Vernon Smith? Or have there been more
intercepted letters than one?

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

MONTENEORO.

Axn 11121/11 TIILIOILLPZI

PARIS, TUMIDLY MORNING.

The Noniteur states that the deplorable conflicts
at Grahovo have led to new expostulations with the
Porte on the part of Prange and of other Powers
eager to act in the same sense, and that the Sultan,
deferring to these counsels, transmitted on the 14th
order. for the suspension of hostilities. There is,
therefore, room to hope that the affair will be
amicably settled.
♦ despatch from Ragusa, dated the 17th (yester-
I day), states, that since the events of the lith no
fresh engagement has taken place. The Montene-
grins remain at Grehovo, and the remnant of the
Turkish army are at Trebigne.

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(PICK 0111 OWN

PARIS, MONDAT EVIINAO.

All Paris is ringing with the story of the duel,
or rather the massacre, of Vesinay. Last even-
ing on the Boulevards the subject was so loudly and
so generally discussed in the cafes, that from the
Passage Jouffroy to the Chaussee d'Antin, the ear
of the passer by was struck with the words "Figaro,"
aseusination," " infamy," " military insolence,"
&c. The .Figaro Programme (a supplemental sheet
of Ilgaro), published at four o'clock this afternoon,
gives the following account of the affair:

As Egan) will not appear till Wednesday next, we
avail ourselves of the Figaro Programme to give a
precise account of the facts relative to the unhappy duel of
our dear friend and eollaboratesor, Id. Henri de Pate. These
facts are now in the domain of justice, to which, salt wile
presently be seen, we have been ordered to appeal, A
bads& of a journalist, which wee moat wrong-
fully interpreted as an tumult to a pertionlar,
clan of society, drew down upon our friend several challenges,
the first of which came from M. Courtiel, an officer of the
9th Charente. A meeting was inevitable. M. de Ville-
moment, the editor of Figaro, who was at the time absent
from Peris, sent by telegraph from Blois the following letter,
which he intended to be published in the CourrUr de Paris
in the hope th►t the explanation of the intentions of Figaro
might reduce the affair to a 'tingle encounter:
"My dear children,—lt seems to me that in my abases
Figaro has run off the rails. You tell me that a Nouvelle d
la Amain of our friend M. de Pena has excited the honourable
sueceptibilities of very many allows, who have found matter
of offence in a mere slip of the pen. Yen sok the opinion of
your old comrade—here it is M. de Pies was tight to accept
the find challenge, but only because that course wee neces-
sary to show that he did not shrink from a meeting.
Foe my own part, I declare frankly and loyally,
and I am sure that both de Pine end you will agree with me,
that it would bo ridiculous end almost an sot of bad faith to
allow it to be supposed by our silence that we approve the
unlucky article in question. For my own part I entirely
disapprove of it both in form sad substance, and more ape-
eially on amount of the interpretation which has been given
to it, and allow roe at this moment to all to mind that I have
the honour to be a son of a colonel of the empire.

"H. as Vi

.. Roduoteur en Chef du Figaro."

M. de Villemesseat arrived in Paris a few hours alter his
despatch, and learning the manner In which the duel had
gone off, he withdrew the letter,which was already composed
and about to be printed in the Currier de Paris.
M. de Pil, fought with M. Courtiel and wounded
him in the band. The latter then assured him in
the most courteous meaner of the esteem be had for his
person and character. At thhi moment a acme
which we ►bstain from describing neoeseitated a
second dual with Y. Hyenne, one of N. Courtiers seconds,
and our unfortunate friend fell, run through the body in two
plates. The circumstances were so serious that 11. de Ville-
messant thought it et to refer to the head of the state. At
three o'clock he went to 11. Moccout, and asked for as
immediate audience of the Emperor. At half-past three be
received the following letter:

' Patios of the Tuileries, half•pst 3.

I hasten to inform Y. de Villemessant, that the Emperor
not being able to receive him, begs him to go to the Minister
of Justice and to corder with his excellency as to the beet
means to avoid the serious consequenoes which sums likely to
result from the very unfortunate affair of which we were
just now speaking.—l am, itc., " MOOQUILIT..
On Monday morning, at eight o'clock, M, de Villeenewant
accordingly waited oaths Minister of Justice, and was Imme-
diately admitted to an audience.

A second deal, arising out of the first, wu fought
this morning between M. Pommereux, a member of
the Jockey Club, and the Marquis de Galliffet, the
officer whose marriage two or three years ago with
Mdlle. Constance, the actress, will be remembered.
It is said that M. Pommereux wu killed, but ano-
ther rumour is that he is only seriously wounded.
There is still a doubt about the meeting of the
Paris Congress. Some journals say it will posi-
tively open on Thursday ; but the result of the debate
in the House of Commons may probably affect the
arrangements.

The Bourse was dull all day, and decidedly heavy
at the close. The Rente fell lloc. for account, closing
at 69fr. 65fr. For cash there was a rise of Sc., the
last price being 69fr. 70e. Mobilier was much de-
pressed, and fell 37fr. 500. The Orleans railway
fell 15fr.; Eastern, 12fr. 50c.; Lyons, Bfr. 75c.;
Western and Southern, sfr. each ; and Northern,
2fr. 50c.

PIEDMONT.

The Piedmontese Chamber of Deputies, in 16
sitting of the 14th, commenced the discussion on the
bill for a loan of 40 millions of francs for extract,
dinary public works, consisting of 15 millions for
buildings connected with the army and navy, and 25
for the docks to be built at Genoa. During the dis-
cussion, which was finally adjourned to the next
sitting, it was stated that the public debt of Pied-
mont amounted at present to 830 millions, but that
on the other hand the railways belonging to the
State represented a capital of 1,200 millions.