The Express.
London, England, 1857-07-28 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, JULY 28, 1857.

to lad beta ntolad at the govartuocat home tin •nt
lay?
LAIMUCHERE Asa ha 'had no information to that
amt.

Ir7DIA.
Sir J. PAKISiGTON wished to ask the noblo lord oppo•
tits whet her there wag ar.y truth in the rumour that tele-
graphic nora had been received from India.
Lord I`A EMERSION said the goverment bad received
no telegraphic information, and were quito ignorant of any
haring attired.

when Lord Melent' gave us his pereosal eeperiences en the
seam subject , even since the time when Colonel Jacob pub-
lished the pamphlet to which I have referred, the condition
oldie Bengal troops Las, I believe, nut improved, but de-
teriorated, end tho mievancee, or Shand grievances, of the
wry, instead of dimitialeing, have, perhothes, increased. I
think, then:terra that it is unnecessary for um to enter into
the teleilion, wheeker that army won over car under carmen ;
that it is unnecessary fur me to prove that the officers were,
in too many cams, mexperienced or incompecteut ; that they
ware ignorant of the language, mid too fuquently cots-
tempts ccv of the usages of the country. I ehiuk the home
will agree with me, that it is not necessary for cue
to enter into the question of the pay, the penebee,
and the furlough of the spot, of his foreign service or of his
general service; and one retain whichhas induced me not
to enter into details on this bench of the question is that
I on. persuaded—and it will tau my duty to-uight to endea-
vour to convince the houne—that the eonduct of the Bengal
troop in revolting against ties authorities was that of nisi
who wore not so muds the avengers of pro motional mien,-
SANS SS the exponents of general diecouteut. (Hear, hear.)
I shall show, or audeavour to show, the home that our govern-
ment in India of lan years Ma produced Menai iou—l shall
show or endeavour to show it that throe mutual Auspicious
and prejudices between rival religions and different cocoa
which before Were the t- mutes of Fes-rogation ;mkt powerful
chutes iu that country have of late yews, in
consequence of our paltry, grodetally disappeared,
and that fur there has been substituted an iden-
tity of sentient, and that sentiment, I net wary
to ray, one Motile to our rule. I shall have to chow
the house how these feelings have bel to eumnembetion be-
tween cisme that never miteinenicated before. I sluff have
to awl, how conantunicatien under such cirettromences led to
. '1 tee have Sts, show bra/ 16610011414.111111110Lw
tive class in India, the army, disciplined by our enemy and
exertion', was the list drawn into the vortex. I shall leave
to show that for a conedderable period of time the state of
India was ono of onemeing centimetres, only awaiting an
evasion and a pretext; and I shall have to Abort how the
icresion was supplied, and how the pretext Will invented.
But before I touch upon that point, let me remark that
although it is my intcution to refer to no document to-night
except ter authority, them is one peseage in a meet imperteet
Indian document to which I ought here to refer. The Meuse is
familiar with the minute which win laid on the table in the
year 1846, which ie in fact a history of the government of
India under the late °overflew- General. It mashies of 41
pages and 180 paragraphs; it touches en every theme one
would suppose that eight years of energetic government could
supply. Here we are told of the kingdoms which under
our government were added to the dominion of the British
crown. There was no subject too high or too insignificant
to he treated of. The minute epeaks not only of annexations
of territory but of the entatliehment of railroads end tele-
graphs. No subject is omitted except one, on
which wo ell desire infiermation. When the recent
intelligence arrived I wee minima to recur to this minute, in
ceder to entertain the opinion of the late Governor-General m
to the stare of the Mengel army and the ludian army, gene-
rally, when he mired from his long vice-royalty. Mere am
44 mgrs and ISO paragraphs in which I found to my sur-
prise, when I cern/emit theta, the Indian army never ap-
pears. There is no subject which can poesibly Interest us,
no incident of any impumanee that occurred, which ie not here
commeniorated and commented upon, but the state of the In-
dine army I could en Meet At last I found a peragnipti—
paragraph which the condition of the Euro-
pean soldier is treated of, and though that was
not the soldier with respect to whom I wanted inE er-
matims, the Aubject was under the cirennotiencet one of cum-
pastes interest. Unler the head of "The European
Soldier," I tunnel mention of improvements in barrecks, and
of the difference in elevation between the mountain and the
plain, such topics Ming Peteleal open with a enlicitude that
roan et tee tee, much praised. Under the wants bead of
" European Soldier,' there being mere than 20 pemscreepla
properly devoted to that important subject, I found an inci-
dental notice of the native soldier in India, and it is as fol-
lows " The position of the native moldier in India hes long
been ouch as to have hardly any circumstance of his condi-
tion in need of improvement. I thought it right in
touching upon the condition of the Bmgal army and after
adverting to the opinions of Metcalfe and Napier,
to cite the highest autherity on this subject ; and
themfore it is that I have eited that paragraph in the
minute of Lord Delhouaiu. Sir, I now proceed to lay be-
fore the hone the remons end farts which I have a few
minutes ago stinted to the house. Of late years a very great
cheep hits taken plans in the government of India. In
former dame and for a considerable time—indmd I may
say until the Settee yarn—the principle on which our govern-
ment in India was rastalliaherl was, ill may venture to de-
scribe it in • phrase, that of respect for nationalities. We
often talk now of our conquest of India, and teernetimes it ie
said that it is necessary to reconquer it. The conquest of a
country having a population of 110 millions of people, of
warlike habits in many instance., could st no time have been
an easy achievement, and its difficulty mutt certainly he in-
created after what has occurred; and therefore I think
It is important that wills regard to the conquest of India we
should have as accurate notions as pomeble. I deny,
ce rir,
that in the ntenary sense of the wont. we have conquered
India. (Ile ar, Lear.) There have been military agaire very
frequently, steuetiusee on a great scale, in shirts we have
borne part ; the annals of our warfare in India are glorious
meals; there have been signal victories and brilliant rain-
psigns that we can appeal to; we have often conquered
powerful sovereign, and baffled skilful and vim-etas con-
federacien; bat still our eonqueet of India in the main has
been a conqueet of India in the same sense that William of
Orange conquered England. Wo have been called is—this
happened very frequently in die earlier periods of our Indian
rule—by a pepulatem mitering under tyranny; we have en-
tered kingdorna and principolitiee to protect their religion and
their property. Yon will find, Mr, in tracing that wonderful
of humnn events, that when we have occupied a
ram: eneempation her been preceded by • solemn procla-
mation, sad concluded by a sacred treaty, in which we un-
dertook to ranted the rights and privileges, the laws and
cuetoens, the property and the religion of the nation whose
affairs we were prepared to administer. That is the principle
upon which our 'copse woe founded; and I am bound to
my it is• proud se well sa • politic peasege in the bakery of
Engliehmen that that principle has Leen until late yeses
religiously observed in India. All the gnat Indian states-
men—l am not now talking of politicians who have gone
out her tie temporary goveenseent of a prettidenry, but of
men like Malcolies'ancclfetenlfe, and Mountettout Elphinstone
—hove niaintained that that wm the proper principle to be
carried out. Our empire in India was indeed rounded on the
old principle, " Divide et inipera ;" but that principle was
put into emersion, not through any Machisivollien vices, but
timely by taking advantage of the natural—and, if I racy use
the expression, the spantaseraus—circumetancee of the erne in
which we were acting a part. There were in India so many
independent Motets oecupied by so many different rare, there
were so natty religions, and even so many Linemen, that if
yen religiously performed the engagements you had entered
into, it would be totally impossible to raise a cembination
thatwould overwhelm you. Why do Mahometnn dynasties
fall ? Theta° principal causesof their fall were that they per-
ms-alai the people whom they had conquered, on account of
their religion, sad that when their treasuries had become
empty, they oontlicatted the land of the pmprietors. Eng-
land came forward with a guarantee in reference to the bend,
mad a solemn engagement not to tamper with the religion,
and it was by • policy founded on throe principles that the
!Mien government was established. Indeed, all the great
leen= authorities have recognieed in the exietemee of nen."
states a memo not of embermaiment bet of security to Eng-
land. They have locked upon them, to use an expression of
one of our most eminent English statesmen, as the safety-
valve of our empire. But, Mr, of late years a new print*e
eppears to have.bem Adopted in the government of India.
If the old principle by which the Indian empire was
created and catebliabed, and which prevailed until
very recently, was respect for nationalities, the new
—the principle of the new—system seams to have
been the remote of this, end that principle easy be described
as one which would destroy nationehtiee. (bleat, hoer.)
Now, sir, everything In India has been changed—laws,
m inners custom*, and wages, political orgaramtine, the
tenure of property, the religion of the people, have all been
changed or attempted to be changed, or it ha. been
eappossd by the population to be the intention
of the government that they should change. Taking
the last ten years I would range under three beads
tho v.erious canoe which have in my opinion led to recent
meats. I shall endeavour to show the calms which have led
to a general discoetent poem all classes in diet country
with our rale, and I would state them them:—First,
our forcible destructke of native authority; secondly,
our dieurbances of the eattleraerit of property; and thirdly,
our tampering with the religion of the people. (Hear, hear.)
I believe that all the principal cams of public discontent
and pronto. diAturbance in India will be found, directly or
indirectly, to fame themselves under those three heed's, and
to these I will now address myself,—Under the Bret
head the right honourable gentlemm then referred to
what he termed the sew policy of the annexation
of states oa the ground of the failure of natural
heirs, although adoption was sanctioned by the Hindoo
and he wpecifisd verticals instances, including those of the
wall-blown IWalt of fisttarah and the Rajah of &Tar.
Throe violations of the Hindoo law, be observed, shook the
confidence not only of princes, but of large and powerful
partite. This led him to the second beset, and he argued
that as the law of sdreption applied to landed proprietor', oar
new 'system touched all jakhiradars and possessors of ream
land,. 'neutrino's. had also been prosecuted into the titles
to landed meths, and he believed that the amount obtained
by the Indian goronstnent by the resumption of estates
WON not Ism in Bengal alone than 600,0004 a-year,
while in Bentley be had been moored the manual
amount was 370,0001. The government had further reduced
guarenteed pensions by curtailment and cranyerilem into
All these proceedings had, he said, estranged
numerous dames from our authority. He now proceeded
to the last head—tampering with the religion of the people;
and here he hesitated- in !Strabane' any part of this arse
to missionary efforts. So far from the Minden looking with
suspicion on the missionary, he was convinced that he was
reedy to dlueee any Feist of religion. Bat what the Wade.