The Express.
London, England, 1850-02-12 00:00:00

LONDON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12.

MERE is nothing in which our political system is
so lamentably deficient as in the bringing of official
delinquents to justice. One peculiarity of oar aristo-
cratic government is, that ministers naturally nomi-
nate their relatives and connexions to imp:rtant posts.
These relatives and oonnexioun are in general ap-
pointed because they are gifted with rank and visited
by poverty. The education and habits of rank
have rendered them unfit to perform official
duties. They commit blunders, peculation, or atroci-
ties, as it may be. Bat, instead of ministers giving
them up to trial—as would be the case were there no
family or party ties—government is forced bye kind of
honour to stick up, through thick and thin, for their
nominees; and thus not only do faults and crimes
occur in the course of administration, bat the country
is disgraced by ministers adopting and defending
those very faults and crime., instead of government
and the country both shakieg off complicity with
these bad and foolish men.
Let us only consider how deeply the character of
England is at this moment muttering by the acts of
Lord TORRINGTON, Of Mr. MORE O'FERRALL, and Sir
HENRY WARD. The people of this country have
cast a fierce and powerful anathema against Marshal
HAYNAD. But this anathema, so just and so useful,
ia rendered almost null by a member of the House of
Commons getting up, and saying that Lord TORRIKO-
TON has been guilty of conduct quite as bad in Ceylon.
What government ought to do, if its own honour
or that of the country were its first consideration,
would be to dismiss such governors as Lord TORRING-
ton and MORE O'FERRALL. But no, unless a governor
should commit parricide, we do not think a ministsr
would give him up to justice. And hence members
of the house are either induced to slur over the
guilt of governors, in order not to offend or oust the
minister, or they conduct such accusations as a
party maneeuvre, and the accused is acquitted or
condemned, not according to his demerits, but to the
strength and connexion of his party.
This is one of the greatest blots and defects in our
colonial system. We select the most unfit gover-
nors, make the most unfit appointments, and we
secure to such authorities complete impunity for
what they do. No wonder that under such a system
the colonies complain; no wonder they clamour for
self-government ; no wonder they demand consti-
tutional rights and local independence, not only with
the natural and noble desire of all men to have and to
wield a legitimate share of power, but from the im-
perious necessity of protecting themselves against the
incapacity and arrogance of those proconsuls whom a
minister selects from his kin or his adherents.

It is impossible to tell how many cues of mal-
administration and abase, which the local press or
local witnesses durst not denounce, escape altogether
either notice or animadversion: It is only wht n

a governor's folly has produced some signal
outburst, some alarming insurrection, that we hear
of au h things at all. And we hear of it then be-
cause troops are required to put down the insurrec-
tion, and because the motions, and the transports, and
the military operations of these troops require large
and extraordinary supplies of money.
By these circumstances public and parliamentary
attention was drawn to the case of Ceylon. An insur-
rection produced there by novel, unjust, ignorant, and
irritating changes in taxation, was put down by the
most gross cruelties. Petitions signed by crowds of
respectable per-ons in Ceylon have come over,
alleging the most disgraceful and appalling facts,
bets calculated to rouse the indignation of any one,
mach less of Englishmen, whose country
stands charged, and remains responsible for
such crimes. A most natural cry of indignation is
raised in parliament, and is followed by a most le2i-
timate demand for inquiry. In the way of that in-
quiry every obstacle is thrown, and matters are so
managed that a police magistrate and the colonial se-
cretary were the only witnesses forthcoming. This
provokes more indignation; and we wi,l be bound to
soy that it such obstructions were thrown in the way
of justice in any of our coons, the judge presiding,
whoever be was, would soon make an example of the

prevaricators.
But for political delinquency there is no tribunal, and
for their accusers neither facility nor fair play. Nay,
it is a thing so understood, that such personages are
ex officio entitled to escape and be acquitted of their
crimes, with the mere shadow of a trial, that a
lawyer, and a member of parliament, who calls him-
'self a liberal, and who represents a popular consti-
tuency, can have the audacity to stand up and de-
nounce those who plead the cause of humanity, and
who seek to vindicate the right of the poor people of
Ceylon not to be shot and hanged, ad libitum, without
trial or even identification. We can understand a
minister or an under-secretary striving to shuffle off
such responsibility, and seeking to save the colonial
functionary by official dexterity and parliamentary
brazenness; but for an independent member of par-
Bement, and a man affecting to profess the principles
and maintain the position that Mr. ROEBUCK does, to
get up, and seek to excuse the atrocities of the summary
execution of prisoners not even identified, by arguing
that such is the law of Ceylon, or such the law of a
conquered country, we must say that this pandering
to bloodshed by the quibbles of the lawyer strikes us
IV more disgraceful than any proclamation that even
HAINAU issued. We have heard of an Attorney-Ge-
neral of the Guillotine, in the person of HEBERT,
but we must own we never thought to find the at-
torney-general of drum-head courts martial and
military executions in the honourable member for
Sheffield. Sheffitld sent Sir HENRY WARD to par-
liament, and, by consequence, to Cephalonia. Shef-
field has since sent Mr. ROEBUCK to parliament, to
make his speech of last night against the poor natives
of Ceylon. Sheffield is, to say the least of it, un-
fortunate.
It was Mr. ROEBUCK'S choice or chance last night
to come forward as the enemy of all that is liberal,
generous, or humane. He dared not make a speech
for heed-money; but he spoke all he claret for it, viz.,
an insinuation. We have not a military chief, or bel-
ligerent governor in the east, who may not quote Mr.
ROEBUCK'S recommendation to push their conquests
on behalf of what he calls civilization. Mr. Roxnucx
is, in fact, a new apostle of war. And while Mr.
CARLYLE preaches the beauties of despotism, Mr.
ROEBUCK ha taken for his theme the sanctity of
conquest.
Public men, such as Mr. Hula and Mr. COBDEN,
who set their facts and voices against such policy at
home, are denounced by Mr. ROEBUCK u merely
seeking a pitiful popularity. Whilst Englishmen
abroad, who object to the same military regime,
are alike the object of Mr. Roznucies animadversions.
The member for Sheffield denounces the entire class
of English lawyers as incapable of patiently tolerat-
ing tyranny in our despotically governed colonies of
the east. Even the very judges, it seems, rebel
against our colonial regime. Mr. Rozsucx says it is
because lawyers are not statesmen but, to their
honour be it said, they know how to distinguish law
from politics and justice from expediency. English
lawyers are not statesmen of that mongrel breed
' which joins the pliancy of the advocate to the solem-
nity of the politician, and who can plead for or against
liberty and popular rights according to the brief, or
the fee, or the caprice of the hour.

Mucn has been said lately of the state of the poor
in London. Dramatic tales have been told about the
hardships endured by certain classes living by un-
certain occupations, and these well-painted
have been held si protectionist thrum
as proof of general on in trade labour.
Now, from a variety o r sources of informatics, we are
enabled positively to affirm that fra the but ten years