Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-10-07 00:00:00

[COMMUNICATED]

WHEN we retire into our own closets to offer
up our, prayers, it is rather on our private sins
that we meditate than on those of others; and
when we are called upon to consecrate a day
to National humiliation we should rather think
of our own individual and personal political
shortcomings than on those of others,

We are among those who believe, literally,
that not a hair falls from our heads without
the knowledge of our Father which is in Heaven,
and who would fain see the finger of God in
everything. We believe the " balance of
power" and the " march of civilisation " to be
of His inspiration and of His ordering. Not the
peddling idea of the Balance of Power which
connives at the partition of' Poland, the
despotism of Austria, or tyranny at Naples, to
carp at the French Rhine frontier, or the
American occupation of Cuba, but the real laws
of the Balance of Power, by which the Empire
of Rome was overthrown, Napoleon sent to
St. Helena, and America a free and independent
nation. Not the march of civilisation of a Croat
invasion of Constantinople. but that which has
converted Australia into a cultivated midland
county, and changed India from the battle-field
of hostile Princes and rivalries of a hundred
Pagan worships, into the happy contented Empire
she:was supposed to be six months ago. While
we firmly believe then that our occupation of
India a hundred years• ago, and the steady and
gradual spread of our power over the whole
country was by God intended as part of a scheme
by which the whole E tst was to be civilised
and Christianised ; we also accept the chastise-
ment we have met with there, as direct from
His hand as a punishment for our shortcomings,
and as a warning to us to discharge our
responsibilities more faithfully.
That we have g,overn.2.d the Indian Empire
better than any other European power could
have done—that the Natives themselves are
happier than under their former rulers—that
we have stimulated the cultivation of that
garden of Eden, and thereby benefitted all the
world—we are sure, for had it not been so our
rule would not have lasted a century ; but in
the heat of conquest we have annexed province
after province, which we had not the right,
and hardly the excuse to take ; we have
entrusted the care of these provinces to too
small a body of Europeans ; we have cast aside
the advice of the great Generals and Statesmen
who have offered it from time to time ; we
have not been jealous enough of our good name,
and have allowed Native Tax-Collectors too
great an authority, which in many instances
they have terribly abused, as may be gathered
from the " Blue Book " on Torture, published
last session; in short, we have been too
grasping in our policy, too ecpnomic in our
Government, too self-confident in our power.
and above all, too careless of the welfare of our
subjects ; and the present outbreak is the lesson
which will teach us to " look to these things."

And in these remarks we would not impute all
the blame to Governors and Rulers, and excent
ourselves, the middle classes, from all share of
the responsibility ; for the middle classes by
their votes and by their influence on public
opinion govern the cotiatry and order the
policy of its Statesmen.

The Reform Bill was virtually carried by the
middle and even by the non-Elector class;
the abolition of the Corn Laws was the work
of a city, not larger nor more important than
ours ; the " ministry of all the talents," backe.l
by a large Parliamentary majority, and intinding
the most statesmanlike and scholarly meu of
the day, fell before the public oyision of lie