The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-21 00:00:00

Spirit of the Public Journals.

(Pram Me Times of this day).
While a new debating body has just sprung into
existence in the metropolis we have recorded a
rather remarkable discussion in that ancient and
rather obsolete assembly, the Court of Proprietors
of the East India Company. It is seldom indeed
that we find anything worth comment iu the pro-
ceedings of the Court of Proprietors, where some
disappointed East Indian-generally regales the
public with harangues about the wrongs of the
iniquity
of of Sattara, or exposes the flagrant
of not having invented a new Royal House to take
the place of the extinct family of Berar. The
second subject discussed at the meeting of Pro-
prietors on Wednesday was, however, the absurdity
of continuing any longer the system of double
government, and assuredly the speaker did not
lack argument to support his conclusion. He de-
nounced the double government as possessing
neither efficiency nor responsibility, as permitting
gross abuses to grow up and continue, and as
ruinously and unnecessarily expensive. To ue it
appears that the three years that have passed since
the last India Bill have materially advanced this
question towards its final solution. During that
time the wants and demands of Indian government
have almost entirely changed. Slowly and reluc-
tantly, with infinite rubbing of the eyes and avert-
ing of the face from the unwelcome beam, the
Home Government and the Indian Government
have begun to perceive that the ideas and prin-
ciples which sufficed in former times for the ma-
nagement of our Eastern empire will suffice no
longer. Energy, rapidity, and decision—principles
of revenue and taxation on a level with those of
the most enlightened European Goveraments—a
reduction of salaries to something which may
more nearly than hitherto approach to the mar-
ket price of the talent that is demanded—an ex-
penditure economical in some things, ii order
that it may be generous and liberal in others—a
complete revision of the system of administering
justice which shall combine at once simplicity
and efficiency—a thorough review of the land ques-
tion and all its incidental extortions and enormi-
ties—these and many similar questions are forcing
themselves upon the attention of the Home Go-
vernment, and bewildering it by their magnitude,
complexity, and urgency. In the meanwhile our
object seems to have been to create as many ob-
stacles as possible iu the way of rapid and consis-
tent improvement. In India the last act has
placed an additional clog on the movements of
the Government, by enlarging the Legislative
Council, and giving it the dimensions and the func-
tions of a deliberative body. The effect of thus in-
trusting the making of laws to men occupied
already with an overwhelming amount of business
seems likely materially to check the course of use-
ful legislation, and to raise up an opposition rather
official than constitutional, and thus to delay and
obstruct in a much greater degree than formerly
the progress of useful legislation. The hand that
has held the reins of Government so firmly and for
so many years is about to relinquish them, and the
loss that India will sustain may be estimated by
the slow and irresolute measures which have suf-
fered the Santal rebellion to continue for so many
months the opprobrium and the menace of the Go -
vernmen t of Bengal. It should be the task of the
Home Government at such critical moments to
breathe its own life and vigouriuto the flagguag ener-
gies of its Indian deputy; but the Home Government
of India cannot inspire life and vigour into others,
for those are the very qualities which its constitu-
tion forbids it to possess. It is framed on the nar-
rowest principles of jealousy, and the weakeet and
most exploded notions of checks and balances. At
the end of the last century the East India Com-
pany had become too greedy, too scandalous, and
too unscrupulous to be any longer tolerated in the
form of a mercantile association exercising absolute
and irresponsible power over India. The form wee
preserved, but the substance was altered. With the
national propensity to adhere to what exists, and
rather to encounter any inconvenience or any ab-
surdity than effect any vital or radical change, it
was determined that because the East India Com-
pany had shown itself unfit to govern it should
continue to exercise all the functions of govern-
ment, only under the control and superintendence
of a Minister of the Crown. Any other nation
would have reasoned that if this body was so in-
competent for its duties that it required another
body to take care of it, it were better set aside, and
the superintending body put in its stead. Tue
notion of treating a Government of a mighty em-
pire as a lunatic requiring the care of a committee,
or a child placed during a perpetual infancy under
the custody of a guardian, was a thoroughly Eng-
lish idea worthy of the nation that had almost de-
clared the Prince of Orange a Regent for King
James, and still carries on the business of Parlia-
ment in the Norman French of the Plautagenets.
The effect was what might have been expected—a
stagnant and inert conservatism, which seems to
think to this day that it has accomplished all the
objects of a civilised and Christian Government, if
it does not fall very far behind the ablest of its
Manomedan or Hindoo predecessors. Its standard
of excellence has been deplorably low, and, as is
generally the case with people who set up to them-
selves a low standard, humble as its aspirations
have been, they have been far beyond its perform-
ances. A system of revenue management founded on
inequalities, oppressions, and absurdities which
Akbar would have regarded with disdain is not yet
eradicated from the Presidency of Madras, where
whole districts of the best land remain desolate be-
cause Government exacts a rent too heavy to be paid.
Export dutiesareimposed on Indian produce,and the
tools of the artificer must be taxed before they can
be used. The administration of justice is bur-
dened with every conceivable technicality, and the
practice of the criminal courts seems to rest upon
confessions extorted by torture. But, while moving
thus slowly in the march of improvement, the re-
lations to each other of -the constituent parts of
the Indian Government have gradually changed.
The Company has become less, and the Board of
Control more powerful, and now the same jealousy
which invented the Board of Control in order to
fetter the action of the Company, seems to retain
the Company in order to neutralise, as far as may
be, the powers of the Board of Control. To us
the whole thing appears to be founded on a confu-
sion of ideas, or rather on the application of that
which is true in one case to another to which it
has no analogy. Because the system of checks and
balances is found to be applicable to legislative
proceedings it is assumed that it must be equally
valuable to executive Government; whereas, in the
first, circumspection is more valuable than de-
spatch ; and in the second a single mind acting
promptly and decisively is the thing most to be
desired. The double Government is not onlyin-
efficient, but irresponsible. It wears a perpetual
mask, and nobody can tell whence its measures
proceed, and whether the Company in whose name
they are carried on is the unwilling victim or the
ready coadjutor of the Board that is privileged to
fight behind its shield.

THE SOUND DUES.

Mr. Marcy, the Forei,;,,l Minister of the United
States, has addressed the following despatch to th•
Danish Government :

Department of State, Washington, Nov. 3.
Sir,—l proceed to communicate the President's reply
to the proposition of the Danish Government to the
United States to join in a convention with other Powers
interested in the "Sound Dues," at Copenhagen, for the
purpose of deliberating on that subject.
The friendly relations between Denmark and the
United States have never been interrupted. The Presi-
dent cherishes an evident disposition to sustain and
strengthen them, and he would extremely regret that
just
right determination to assert what he believes to be a
right in an unexceptionable manner should be regarded
as an indication of disrespect for Denmark, or a want of
a proper appreciation of her friendship. The exactions
of foreign commerce at the entrance into the Baltic have
been a productive source of revenue to Denmark, and it
is very natural that she should struggle to retain it. If
these exactions were founded in right the United States
would be the last Power to interfere with her enjoy-
ment of them.

It is not 'unposed to discuss the question of rid=hi in
cornmunicAion ; that has already bee❑ dune, and
the United States have adopted the conclusion that they
are under no obligation arising from international law,
treaty, or stipulation to yield to this claim. Denmark,
on the contrary, has adopted a different sad an opposite
conclusion.

It is readily conceded that both nations are anxious to
arrive at a satisfactory solution of this vexed question.
The subject interests several other Powers—indeed, all
maritime nations—and Denmark has invited them to
be represented in a convention, to assemble this
month at Copenhagen, to consider a proposition
to be offered by her to capatalise this revenue and
to apportion among commercial Powers the sum to
be paid for this renunciation of the present mode of
collecting it. The United States have been respectfully
invited to send a representative to the proposed conven-
tion.

Without at all questioning the fair intention of Den-
mark in proposing this measure, the President feels con-
strained, by a sense of duty, to decline the acceptance
of this invitation. The convention is to assume as the
basis of its proceeding the very right on the part of
Denmark which the -United States deny. It is assem-
bled without any power to pass upon the right of Den-
mark to levy a contribution upon commerce, but only
authorised to adjust the sum to be paid by each nation
in lieu of the collections theretofore assessed upon their
respective vessels and cargoes. The United States,
however, contest their liability to pay any contribution
whatever. The main question at issue between this
Government and that of Denmark is not how much bur-
den shall be borne by our commerce to the Baltic, but
whether it shall be subjected to any burden at all.
The proposed tribunal, it will be perceived, by the
restriction upon its jurisdiction, is expressly precluded
hour deliberating and deciding upon the only serious
question at issue between the United States and Den-
mark.

This is n,t, however, the only difficulty which pre-
v« nts the President from consenting to be represented in
the convention. In claiming an exemption of our ships
and heir cargoes from taxation by Denmark at the
Straits of the Baltic the President is vindicating a great
national principle of extensive and various application.
If yielded in one instance it will be difficult to maintain
it in others. If exactions upon oar trade at the entrance
into the Baltic were acquiesced in by the United States,
similar exactions might, on the same principle, be de-
manded at the Straits of Gibraltar and Niessina, and the
Dardauelles, and on all great navigable rivers whose
upper branches and tributaries are occupied by different
independent Powers.
Tile President cannot admit the competency of such a
tribunal as that proposed by Denmark—as lie won] I do
if this Government were represented therein—to deaf
with a principle of such vast importance to the whole
commercial v. ur!d.

-There is another ground of objection to joining in the
proposed convention quite as controlling as either of the
foregoing. The Government of the United States will
never consent to the pretension that the New World is
to be appropriated to adjust the political balance of the
OW. It is clearly stated in the proposition which Den-
mark has iubtnit ted to the United States that the cot-
ventiou is to act upon the question relative to the Sound
dues in connexion with the system of the European ba-
lance of power. It is more than intimated that the for-
iner is to be subordinated to the latter. Of the utility
or wisdom cf the political theory of the balance of power
inits application to the European family of nations it is
tiGt proposed to express au opinion ; but enough of its
operations has been seen to impless upon this Govern.
mint a fixed determination to avoid being brought within
vortex. It has long been the cherished policy atlas
Government to avoid such a complicity ; and the Presi-
dent will nut yield in any case to the slightest relaxation
of it.

The following quotation from the Danish document,
submitting the proposition to this Government, will
show the intended connexion and commixture of the two
Ell Lj eets :
" Besides this condition there is still another which
the :Danish Government considers essential—namely,
that one affair in question (the Sound dues) be not con-
sidered as one of commerce or money, but as a political
one. This would be in accordance with the history of
the Sound dues and with the part which they performed
in the politics of the North of Europe. Otherwise the
negotiation would be deprived of that scope and charac-
ter which are requisite to prevent its being fettered by
questions of a secondary nature, which may be pertinent
to an arrangement merely commercial and fiscal, but not
to one destined to serve as a complement to treaties of
peace and compromises, by, which the system of political
balance has been adjusted.'
In passing upon the political question presented by
this extract this Government cannot be induced to
take any part ; nor will it submit to have its interna-
tional rights restricted or modified in subservience to the
poll ical theory with which it is intermixed in the Danish
proposition.

In the paper submitted by Denmark to the conside-
ration of this Government there is an allusion to " the
sacrifice " she has made for facilitating the navigation of
foreign vessels through the Baltic straits. Any expen-
diture she has made for the safety and facility of this
navigation may constitute a❑ equitable claim upon
foreign Powers for remuneration to the extent they have
participated i❑ this advantage. The collections hitherto
made have much more than compensated for these out-
lays. Wl:ile the United States would not consent to
pur,:hase a right which they consider indubitable—the
free use of the Baltic Sound—they would not hesitate to
share liberally in compensating Denmark for any fair
ciaitn fur expenses she may incur in improving and ren-
dering, safe the navigation of the Sound.
There is undoubtedly a necessity to keep up at a con•
siderable expense lighthouses, buoys, &c., for the secu-
rity of this navigation. For such expenses in future,
disconnected from any claim for surrendering a pre-
t,,nded right to control the navigation of the Sound and
Belts, the United States aro willing to enter into au
arrangement with Denmark, and to pay a fair equivalent
for any advantages to their coronvrce which may be de-
rived from these outlays.

You are therefore in trusted to invite Danmark on
this subject, and to assure her that it will receive due
consideration from your Government ; but she must not
expect that it will be favourably entertained if it should
include, either expressly or itnpliedly any compensation
for the aurreuder of the pretended right to control the
free UEa by our ships of the Sound and the Bests of the
Baltic.---1 am, Sir, &c , W, L. 3.I.ARCY.