The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-03 00:00:00

men of whatever party have long felt impressed
with the sense of the serious responsibility
assumed by this country in administrating the
affairs of so large and so ancient a people, with
creed, customs, and history so entirely distinct from
our own. But the great world of business men and
active practical politicians found too much to en-
gage their attention in the busy Western hemis-
phere, and in the stirring scenes of European life,
to trouble themselves much about Indian affairs,
which seemed to them to be tedious and unprofit-
able. How great was this mistake Mr. BARING
very clearly demonstrated, when he pointed out
that in fact the income and expenditure of India
falls very little short of the income and expenditure
of England herself. The respective figures
stand, it is true, at £70,000,000 in-
come and £67,000,000 expenditure for Eng-
land, and about £46,000,000 income and
£45,000,000 expenditure for India; but if we deduct
the amounts paid in both countries for interest on
the national debt, we shall find that England retains
£41,500,000 for the purposes of government, and
India £40,000,000. This is certainly a striking fact,
and not less so is the enormous increase of Indian
commerce during the last few years of better go-
vernment. The British trade with India exceeds
the whole of the trade with the Australian and
North American colonies, and is, says Mr. BARING,
actually more than half the trade between England
and the whole of the British possessions. These figures
prove how important a source of revenue we have
hitherto overlooked in neglecting our duties towards
our Indian possessions. The large sums which have
lately been spent in the public works of India prove
how much has been hitherto left undone in that re-
spect. In 1862, says Mr. BARING, the money
spent in India on railroads and on other public im-
provements was no less than eleven millions and a
half, and this is a fair average of the amount
annually spent for improvements since 1859. It is
a pity that the same energy has not been shown in
water-works as in other particulars, since not only
would the blessings of irrigation and the opening of
canals present the best security against famine, but
such works would be immediately remunerative, as
has been abundantly proved at the Godavery.
Mr. BARING, at the opening of his speech,. referred
to the speech which Mr. BRIGHT made in 1859, in
which that gentleman, although showing great
knowledge of his subject, took the most mournful
views of the future, and could see no better remedy
for the terrible deficit then existing than the aban-
donment of part of our territory. That prophecy
has been, happily, altogether mistaken, for a better
system of governing has brought about a change no
less rapid than satisfactory. Mr. BARING'S statis-
tics also gave emphatic contradiction to Mr. COB-
DEN'S assertion that this country has no interest
whatever in retaining her Indian possessions. Mr.
BARING, of course, gave the customary official
praise to his former chief, but he omitted to men-
tion that the real improvement began under. Lord
STANLEY, and that Sir CHARLES WOOD has done
his best to disgust Anglo-Indians with the public
service and with their adopted country.

The question of what is to be done with our cri-
minals remains one of the most perplexing of the
social problems of the day. It is undoubtedly the
duty of every Government to protect the
honest and orderly citizens of the State from
the assaults and depredations of the dangerous
classes. In our highly civilised state the list
of offences is so wide and various, the means of
frauds so easy and so tempting, that for a consider-
able length of time the only thought of our legis-
lators on the subject was to protect property by the
severity of the punishment. Accordingly, a
penal code, Draconian in its nature, was
for many years the disgrace of our sta-
tute-book, and men, w9men, boys, and girls
alike expiated with their lives the, crime of a trifling
theft. It was proved by practical experience, how-
ever, that so far from exercising a deterrent influ-
ence this.extreme severity only encouraged reckless-
ness, for the offences against property went on in-
creasing rather than diminishing. Wise and good
men, too, were, painfully sensible of the injustice
and hardship of such a code, so that by degrees a
change was brought about in which the honoured
name of ROMILLY stands prominent. At the- pre-
sent day, when murderers often escape with their
lives, when a Mt LLER cannot suffer the extreme
penalty of the law without active remonstrance
being made on his behalf, men find it difficult to
believe that less than a century ago men were hung
for stealing a few shillings. As a natural result of
such excessive sternness a reaction has completely
set in, and we arc now in danger of the opposite
extreme. The condition of the humbler classes
occupied very little attention in the busy times of
the European War, but the last thirty or forty
years have witnessed a most beneficial change. On
every side we see efforts being made, not only to
relieve the distressed, but to instruct the i gnorant
and to reclaim the fallen.
The negligence
of our ancestors has left us
only too much
to do in these particulars, but we may
reasonably hope that the efforts of the
present generation will produce their fruit among
those who come after us. It was very natural, un-
doubtedly, that thoughtful men, reflecting on the
duties which society owed to its weaker members,
should become sensible that even acknowledged
criminals had a claim upon their care, and that while
there was life there was hope in a moral sense no
less than a physical. From this conviction arose
the efforts to ameliorate the condition of the con-
vict, to give him the means of instruction, to grant
him the stimulus of hope as a moral lever, and to try
the effects of kind and humane treatment where seve-
rity has so conspicuously failed. Those who thought
thus likewise considered with justice that very many
of those who offended the law were not hardened
ruffians, but weak, impulsive, or ignorant persons,
whom better moral training might have saved. The
principles on which the so-called humanitarian
school was founded were undoubtedly wise and just
within due limits, but the mischief is that they have
been carried to an extravagant length, so as not
only to disregard the claims of the honest poor, but
to defeat their own objects. The convicts found
that a well-sustained system of hypocrisy secured
their rapid discharge from punishment, while those
who had charge of them were only too glad
to find any means to keep them outwardly
quiet and well-behaved. It was worth playing re-
pentance and morality for a few weeks for the sake
of gaining the power to return to their old haunts,
and accordingly the reformation of our criminals
has come to be considered a very hopeless task. The
panic about the garotters
attention more closet having directed public
y to the treatment of our cri-
minals, it soon became apparent that a system of
mistaken lenity was in
the desire to vogue, and that, what with
Preserve good order in the prisons,
and the anxiety not to overstep the bounds of
justice and humanity the struggling poor were
left to draw most invidious comparisons between
the pauper and the convict. The pauper was, and
still is, treated as a degraded being, one who has
forfeited all right of individual indep ndence, and
to whom the petty authorities might be as harsh
and tyrannical as they pleased with .ut let or hin-
drance, The felon waa warmly do hed, well fed