Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-03-31 00:00:00

THE NORTHERN TIMES, THURSDAY', MARCH 31 1869

the real state of the case. It appears to us to be one
of those cases in which a timely investigation may
be of very great benefit. The very fact that the
expenditure is still increasing, and exceeding the
yearly revenue, were of itself sufficient to demand
inquiry. To put off an examination of the matter,
under such circumstances, will only be to
complicate the difficulty, and aggravate the
mischief. As a contemporary has well observed—
" after struggling on for a year or two, in
the vain hope of nursing resources which
are hopelessly deficient, the Indian Minister will do
at last what he ought to have done at first, and will
tell Parliament the plain truth, that it has but thi s
option before it—either to let India go, or to rein-
force her credit and restore her revenues by a frank
acknowledgment of the ultimate liability of the
Imperial Exchequer. Meanwhile, every year of
delay will add to the burden, and the new six per
cent. loans which may possibly be raised in the
interval will be so many additional millstones about
the neck of the Indian Administration. It is well to
be wise even at the eleventh hour ; but it is far bet-
ter to be wise in time."*

pnnity,"—that " there is no gratitude for past !
services, no Compassion for present want, no protec-
tion against future suffering : down goes the indi-
vidual to the grave ; and the best wish of the
country—or, indeed, of his friends—is that his descent
may be as rapid as his rise was rough, and his elevation
insecure." And, although Mr. COLLINS has not
yet, we are happy to know, fulfilled the former of
these fates, yet he has, in a measure, realised the next
"best wish"—having fallen from his high estate,
as the aforesaid, " man of steamships," and fallen,
it is to be feared, like Lucifer, " never to rise again."
The republican reflections on such contrasts as
those must naturally be bitter ones. Well may they,
with mortification, have to record—as we find it
done in the journal from which we have already quoted
—that, "while the British Government, surrounded
as it is by absurd conventionalities and hampered by,
antique prejudices, is quick to discern and ready to
reward the special services of its subjects in the arts,
or literature, or commerce, or anything that tends
towards the progress and developement of the
world, we, boasting of our youth, our strength, our
independence of old forms and ceremonies, our
admitted superiority in many of the useful arts,
and our valuable contributions to the scientific
world, either allow our representative men to lan-
guish in obscurity, or push them out of the paths
that they have made towards the fame and fortune
to which their labours entitle them." And
more, and worse than all, in so far as public princi-
ple, and national honour are concerned, that, "as
for our statesmen, they have quietly pocketed the
spoils, rewarded their friends, fomented sectional dis-
cords, in order to feather their own nests, and allow
art, literature, mechanics, and commerce to take care
of themselves !" Such, it appears on their own
showing, is the "model republic !" God grant the
day may never come, that England is to be induced
to make that model hers !