The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-28 00:00:00

INDIA AND CHINA MAILS,

We have received letterg and journals from Cal-
cutta to the 22d March, and from Hong Kong to
the 15th. The following is from the fortnightly
summary of the Friend of India :
The accession of the Earl of Elgin dates from
Wednesday the 12th of March. With a reputation
greater than any living English statesman has been
enabled to achieve without adopting parliamentary
life, he comes to the vice-royalty of India with sin-
gular advantage and prestige. Famous throughout
Asia for two successful expeditions to China and for
having opened Japan to the commerce of the world,
he brings the authority of a great name to the
government of a great empire. And as ex-Governor
of Canada and Jamaica he has had the opportunity
of accumulating experience of colonial government.
Last Wednesday he presided for the first time in
the Imperial Legislative Council, and on taking his
seat used the following words:—" I cannot take my
seat in this place in sucession to the great and good
men who have preceded me without expressing my
gratitude for the wise policy they have pursued, and
my sense of the advantage which I shall derive from
the counsel and assistance of those by whom I am sur-
rounded. Nor can I avoid giving expression to the
hope that our efforts here may be made conducive to
the moral and material interests of this great empire,
and to the happiness, prosperity, and contentment
of all 'classes of her Majesty's subjcots." Besides
the Hon.- W"-
u Je,gin from England as his private secretary,
the following appointments on the staff have been
made:—Lieut.-Colonel Seymour J. Blane, of her
Majesty's 52d, to be military secretary; and Major
A. Scott, of her Majesty's sth, Captain Baring, of
the late Ist European Cavalry, and Lieut. the Hon.
A. Stewart, R.H.A., to be aides-de-camp to the
Viceroy.

One of the most prominent topics in Calcutta,
and one which excites great dissatisfaction in every
quarter, is the manner in which Sir Charles Wood,
according to the last advices received from home,
suppressed the truth with reference to certain mili-
tary details which India naturally regards as a great
grievance. Mr. Laing stated, not long ago, to the
Madras Chamber of Commerce, that the cost of the
actual above the established strength of the Euro-
pean force for the past year, would have sufficed to
reduce the import duties on manufactures to the
old rate. The established strength has been fixed
at 71,000 men, which requires a depot of 5,000 re-
cruits in England. But the actual force has ranged
from 83,000 to 74,000 men, and an extravagant
outlay has been necessitated to support in depot
from 20,000 to 14,000 recruits until some reduction
was made in the course of last year. The cause of
the reduction was an arrangement made with the
Horse Guards, by virtue of which the War-office be-
came, as it were, contractors to keep up the Indian
army to a stand of 71,000 men for £l3 10s. a-head.
Then it became the interest of the authorities at
home not to keep the recruits in depot, •but to ship
them off for India, and thereby get £l3los. a head
for them. Accordingly they soon discoverd the
14,000 men in depot to be totally unnecessary, and
so the number was reduced by the last English
military estimates below 7,000, and recruiting
was stopped. The result of this to the Indian
Government has been that the estimate for regi-
mental and depot expenditure for 1861.62 has con-
tinued at £1,460,000, which is £500,000 more than
the established force would have cost under the
arrangement to pay £l3 10s. a head. The 5,000
or 6,000 supernumerary men have been billetted on
India, in order to lighten the home estimate and to
cover the failure of Mr. Gladstone's financial
schemes, which were based upon the plan of re-
ducing taxes in the face of an obvious deficit, and
had been thrown into confusion by the unexpected
cost of the war in China.

The Calcutta Chamber of Commerce, At a meeting
held two days ago, resolved " that a memorial from
the Chamber of Commerce be presented to his Ex-
cellency the Governor-General in Council, praying
for the early reduction of the import duties to the
rates ruling in 1859."

The Chamber further resolved to present an ad-
dress of welcome to Lord Elgin, and adopted the
following resolution :—" That on the occasion of
the relinquishment by the Right Hon. Earl Can-
ning of the Governorship of India, this chamber
records its gratitude to his lordship for the closing
act of his administration, viz., the bringing in a
bill to provide for the sale of Waste Lands and for
the redemption of the Land Revenue,' as also for
the many other important measures advocated by
this chamber which have from time to time received
the sanction of his lordship's Government." Lord
Canning's last acts of patronage consisted of the
appointment of Mr. Temple to officiate as Chief
Commissioner of the Central Provinces, and of Mr.
Bowring as Chief Commissioner of Mysore ; the
former of which has met with general approval,
while the latter has excited some astonishment on
account of his youth and inexperience. It is, how-
ever, to be observed that Mr. Bowring has now the
opportunity to falsify, at least in one instance, the
remark that Lord Canning never made a man—an
opportunity of which we wish him success in his
endeavours to avail himself.
Sir J. P. Grant has at last taken action in the
matter of the rent struggle in Nuddea. It will be
remembered that on the Bth January last the Go-
vernment of India, in a letter to the Bengal Secre-
tary, which it communicated to the Landholders'
Association, expressed its dissatisfaction with the
local government for misunderstanding the Gover-
nor-General's instructions as to the duties of the
Special Rent Commissioners, and not sufficiently
supporting these gentlemen. Sir J. P. Grant at
once fastened on a certain vagueness of expression
which characterised the censure, and took advan-
tage of the too notorious fact of the dilatoriness Of
the Supreme Government, which continued to re-
ceive its subordinate's reports without remark, to
declare that he was wronged, and to ask for a re-
view of judgment. The tone of Sir J. P. Grant's
letter is characterised by an insolence happily rare
in official documents, and none the less to be re-
gretted that his reply was dated only a week before
Lord Canning's departure. The grievance of which
the Governor-General really complained was the
Lieutenant-Governor's unwillingness to support the
special commissioners, his continued opposition to
every reform advised by the government of India,
and his resolution to do nothing himself.
An extra, published by the Englishman on the
22d March, thus announces the death of the Hon.
Wm. Ritchie, late Advocate-General of India:—

The William Ritchie of Thackeray's touching
comparison with his cousin Sir Richmond Shakes-
peare is dead ; almost before he can have acknow-
ledged that kindly tribute of an old and worthy
friendship. We write the dreary words again and
again, and can yet scarcely realise their sad truth.
Just twenty years ago he came to India, where all
that time he has worked with untiring energy,
high aim, and full success, occupying from the
first a position at the bar calculated to inspire
his competitors with envy ; and for the
latter part of it a position with the Govern-
ment and a share in the imperial councils, making
him the mark for all men's criticism. And the
highest praise that a successful public man can claim
is his. No man is his enemy ; all men will sincerely
mourn him. All parties will acknowledge that at
this eventful period almost any man could have been
better spared. What higher testimony can we bear
than those who have most closely criticised his:pub-
lic acts unite with those who knew him best in his
kindly, honourable, private life, in declaring that
the testimony borne by Thackeray to his friend of
earlier days is paid by all who have later known
the ripened and busy public servant thus cut off in
the midst of his great work. Last Saturday we
heard that he was unwell, on Wednesday that he
WU absent from his place in the Supreme Council,

dangerously ill with his internal inflammation ;
then the sorrowful recognition of imminent danger,
the temporary rally cheating his friends into hoping
against hope, and then this morning that hope was
past ; at last the insensibility of absolute exhaus-
tion, and at 1 o'clock that the kindly heart had
ceased to beat; that the busy brain, teaming with
the results of an experience invaluable to the coun-
try at this juncture, was at rest; that the open
hand and generous nature which had helped so
many in their need were cold for the first time to
all appeals. Such consolation as can be afforded to
his bereaved family circle by the.warm sympathy of
a whole community is theirs, for death never struck
down one in British India who commanded more
entirely the esteem- and good feeling of all with
whom he came in contact, whether in public or in
private life, whether among Europeans or natives,
than did William Ritchie.