The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—In one respect Mr. Bright bears a strong
resemblance to the greater part of his species. He
likes blowing the trumpet for others to go to battle.
Everybody likes to see everybody else doing hisduty,
and a little more than his duty; and few will be
found to objectif this slight excess of duty is attended
with some risk. Mr. Bright brings his indignant
remonstrances to bear in succession on Lord. Palme-
rston, Lord Derby, the Liberals, the Conservatives,
the House of Commons altogether, the Lords, her
Majesty, the newspapers, writers in general, and
everybody and every class with a conscience or a
sense of shame, because they don't proceed to active
and effective measures for the reform of Parliament
upon thoroughly representative principles. It is a
point upon which we may safely carry out the Apo-
stolic precept of confessing our sins one to another,
for we have all committed ourselves to Reform, and
then made a grievous backsliding. Mr. Bright wishes
us to commit ourselves again still more loudly, and
to put our hand to the work. He gives life to the
sentiment and form to the aspiration. He exhibits
the figures and spreads out the map. He puts the
classes in battle array, and teaches a proper con-
tempt for the minority. He relates the history of
the cause with unsparing fidelity. No theatrical per-
formance ever had a more candid critic. There is

her Majesty twice committed from her throne, and
now forced to hold her tongue. There is Lord
Palmerston, who one fatal evening might have given
the word, and did not. There are the Conservatives,
who had- only to stand by their own professions, and
the Lords must have swallowed the measure. There
is the Peerage, doubled• by the great war, taught
its bounds by the Reform Act, jealous of democracy,
but not courageous. There is the Press as we fear
the Press will always be in the eyes of Mr. Bright.
There are the robust Devonshire squires, who, in
the midst of good cheer and after many toasts
drunk not in water, fixed glazed eyes on the ghost
of murdered Reform. Peacemakers and tempo-
risers, with their compromises and compensations,
fill the corners of the picture. Friendship
throws a veil over one, -a. debt of admiration
and gratitude is discharged in the pardon of another.
The sky is darkened by terror. Accident precipi▪ -
tated the last Reform ; accident may once more fire
the train ; and to be at the mercy of acci▪ dent is
nothing less than slavery. In contrast wi▪ th thi▪ s
puny and vacillating group the millions fill the land,
and are drawn up in hot expectancy and eager pre. -
paration. Homer does not so fill the page, or Martin
the canvas. Here is all that if wanted to the writing
on the wall. No accessory circumstance of doom, or
vengeance, or terror, or remorse, or of the craven
fears that are infinitely worse than holy awe, be-
cause unholy, is omitted. There is only one thing
we cannot see or detect, or even hope to see, in this
terrible picture. We don't see John Bright himself
setting to work as he once set to work for the re-
peal of the Corn Laws. We don't see him pro-
pounding his Reform Bill as Lord Grey propounded
his forty years before he carried it. We don't see
him taking his stand on his bill, and making it the
bond of his party. We don't see him binding to
this plan every Liberal in the country desirous to
escape the denunciations he has launched upon us
all. But wily does Mr. Bright nail this flag to hi▪ s
mast, and declare for Reform or nothing ? He has
nothing to lose by it—nothing by either failure or
by that success which Reformers fear still more.
The returning wave of party which made Mr. Mil-
ner Gibson a Minister, and gave Mr. Cobden the
offer of a seat in the Cabinet, left Mr. Bright where
he was. His speeches had offended that working
majority which, more than the numerical, Cabinets
have to look to. Such a man seems reserved by
special circumstances for a great and active part.
Yet when Mr. Bright has given his cold assent to
Mr. King's and Mr. Baines's propositions, all that
he does further is to drop a hint that something else
will be wanting to give these measures due effect.
That is what we have 'said ourselves a hundred
times, and say again—for even if thee two propo-
sitions were embraced in one bill, it would be a ridi-
culously partial and incomplete measure, not worthy
to be called a Reform Bill. We are entitled to call
on Mr. Bright for a fuller and more definite
scheme, as also for a more practical method of deal-
ing with it. He throws discredit on the motives
not only of the Press, but of all who have had to
take a part in the question. He has to prove him-
self a better man, not by eloquent though vague
speeches, but by an agitation as serious as that by
which the Corn Laws were repealed. It is not our
place to cry out loudly for Reform when- we are
perfectly sure that we should cry out in vain, that
the country does not feel the want, and that we
should simply exhaust the patience of our readers.
When Mr. Bright has to. complain that Lord Pal-
merston dropped Reform with the concurrence, and
even t o the amusement of all the personages, parties,
andinterests immediately concerned, he shows
thereby how hopeless the cause had become. But
let him ask himself why he does not set about it
more thoroughly and manfully. Is it because he
feels that he would simply tie a crushing weight to
his
shoulders and strangle himself with the harness
if he took up the cause otherwise than by vague
declamation ? Is it because he fears he would be
but coldly supported by the unenfranchised, and still
more coldly by their employers ? Is it because the
masses do not themselves pine and sigh for Reform,
a s he describes them, even though they might take
it
on trust, and give it some feeble support ? But
while the story, as Mr. Bright relates it, can only
have one conclusion—that the people do not desire
Reform, and that whoever takes his stand on Re-
form will most probably be left in the lurch, every
successive speech of this kind proves it still more
and renders it still more dangerous to embark in
this frail craft. Mr. Bright lashes the pool, and the
net is hauled in empty again and again. There
must be some reason for an indifference which,
without reason, would be positively disgraceful.
We believe that the reason is to be found in the
results of recent legislation and government. The

great mass of the people pay no taxes at all except
on things they know they can do without ; they pay
very trifling rates—most of them none at all ; they
have no public duties, civil or military, imposed on

them ; they have perfect freedom of conscience ;
they have a good education almost free ;" they are
surrounded by things done for them at the cost and
trouble of their betters ; they have a safe resource
to fall back upon in age or disability ; they may go
to a colony if they like. The restriction of indirect
taxation to luxuries and dispensable articles, and the
immunity of the working classes from all other
burdens, produces a degree of contentedness, as far
as Government is concerned, which appears to us
almost fatal to purely political agitations. With
what prospect, then, could any important section of
the political world or any organ of opinion bind itself
to a cause proceeding on the assumption that the
people are discontented, misgoverned, oppressed, in-
jured, and disregarded in the policy of the country ?
The instant it tried to secure a basis it would find
itself on a quicksand. At the first clash of arms it
would find itself deserted and betrayed. In truth,
the domestic policy of a country proceeds not on
arithmetical or mechanical considerations, not on
figures, maps, tables, areas, and lines, but on those
moral forces which constrain the heart and move the
hands, making all as one man. There exists no such
moral force and tide of feeling in this matter. Show
it, and that is enough; but we will not take it for
granted merely because Mr. Bright, greatly desiring
it, says that it ought to be, and must and shall be.
He is deceived by his own eloquence. They flock to
hear him, and he thinks them in earnest. He has
our hearty consent to put them to any practical
proof of their earnestness; but neither he nor they
will, we believe, advance beyond the easy and plea-
sant relation of a highly-gifted speaker and a
charmed auditory.
DAILY NEWS.—We have been lately treated by a
contemporary to several dissertations on the state
of affairs in India. The professed object has been
the very laudable one of calling attention to the
embarrassments which threaten us from that quar-
ter. The writer specially disavows any intention
" of apportioning blame or responsibility," but in
endeavouring to trace the source of existing
evils he not unnaturally discloses his view of the
remedies that should be applied. The failure of
the present system of Indian Government to secure
local content, and a sense of safety at home, is
attributed to " a century's traditions" of the old East
India Company. All the shortcomings of the ex-
isting Administration are due, not to any inherent
vice of its own, but to the " leaven" of its predeces-
sor, which impedes its free working, and counteracts
its salutary enactments. Once free from these
" traditions" and this " leaven" the Government of
India will be all that could be desired. The com-
petitive civilian will dine amicably with the indigo
planter ; young subalterns will treat their native
servants as considerately as we do our pet criminals ;
the " Queen's" officer will cease to despise " the
Company's" officer, and the jealousy of the latter
will give place to the cordiality that usually springs
from a common profession; the " services" will
cease to black-ball the " outsiders" at the clubs ;
the " natives" will be admiring, but distant, spec-
tators of the happy Anglo-British family ' • Rajahs
will be able to appeal to treaties without getting
laughed at for their credulity ; and landowners to
whom their estates have been officially guaranteed
will have no fear of their tenants being made part-
owners in the property they were assured was
wholly and unreservedly theirs. The happy result
of establishing this Eastern Arcadia is expected to
be the reduction of the formidable British army
which is now considered to be necessary to secure
us in the possession of India, at the risk of inspir-
ing amongst Englishmen an intense dislike of the
country, and generating in the natives an unwhole-
some conviction that to us they are a distrusted and
conquered people, kept faithful only by the fear of
70,000 British soldiers. The abuse which it is now
the fashion to heap upon the memory of the Com-
pany's defunct Government will be in better taste
when a palpably better one has succeeded to it.
The East India Company deserved its fate for prov-
ing false to its tradition, and allowing itself to be
led captive by the brilliant, but eminently unsound
policy of the _late Lord Dalhousie. But in what
respect can the present system claim superio-
rity over its predecessor ? The discontents
which are now the subject of general
comment are surely not a proof of good
government. The necessity of setting apart 80,000
men out of our small army to preserve our hold in
India cannot certainly be considered matter for
satisfaction ; and the confusion that exists as to
where the responsibility of Indian government really
lies is as great, if not greater, than when the double
Government" was believed to be the source and origin
of every ill under the Eastern sun, The planters,
including under that title all the old " interloping"
class, complain that they are made the victims of
partial legislation, and that the Home Government
refuses them encouragement or protection. The
officers of European troops 'complain that they are
kept by the local governments in unhealthy stations
for the mere purpose of watching native levies of
doubtful fidelity ; the officers of the old Company's
armies have been driven almost into insubordination
by that splendid imbroglio, " the amalgamation,"
and the local authorities are believed to regard with
extreme jealousy and distrust the encroachments on
their influence and discretionary powers of the Se-
cretary of State for India in Council. Of the feel-
ings of the native population it is impossible to speak
with any degree of confidence. The cotton-trade
diverted from America has found a partial home in
India, and has flooded the country with the precious
metals. Content is generally a consequence of
wealth and comfort, and the picture drawn a few
weeks ago by Mr. Baring of the revenue and trade
of India affords just cause of satisfaction to the
public, though by no means due, as he appeared to
intimate, to any interposition of the Government.
The dissensions however, which the natives see
raging amongst: the English residents, and the dis-
gust which they hear expressed by large portions of
these for their own Government, cannot but be a
source of danger. It may flatter Sir Charles Wood
just now to be regarded as the guardian of " native
rights," but the day will come, if in Bombay it has
not come already, when new taxes will have to be
levied, and when the example now set by Euro-
peans may be imitated on a larger and more
threatening scale by the people of the country.
The military occupation of India is, perhaps,
the point on which opinion at home most needs en-
lightenment. A great deal of ignorant abuse is
levelled at the Sepoy army. In the articles on which
we comment Bengal is plainly assumed to be India,
and the Bengal Sepoy army the Indian Sepoy army.
But the public should realise more clearly than they
do at present that of the three great divisions of the
late East India Company's native army, only one,
and that.the Bengal army, proved faithless. With
the exception of a few tegiments, which were per-
haps rather hastily disbanded, the Bombay army
remained sound ; and this is the more remarkable, as
the men of whom it was composed came generally
from the same districts and were to a great extent
of the same caste as the Bengal Sepoys. The 50,000
Sepoys of the Madras army remained staunch to a
man, and assisted actively, as did also several of the
Bombay regiments, in the suppression of the re-
bellion. The Nizam's irregulars, officered by Eng-
lishmen, gave a useful and loyal assistance to our
own troops ; so did the little armies of several other
native States. Why, then, this indiscriminate con-
demnation of " the Sepoy army ?" Never, perhaps,
have there been more faithful troops than the Sepoys
of Southern and Western India. It is far from
prudent to encourage in England this extreme
jealousy of native levies. The day will surely come
when we shall be obliged to confide in them. It is
not to be supposed that in the event of a European
war we should abstain from drawing a large portion
of our 70,000 British soldiers from India for service
nearer home. It is to an instinctive fear of this
eventuality, rather than to any selfish preference for
Sepoys over Europeans, that the partiality of the
local governments for native troops may be attri-
buted. The suspicion created by the events of 1857
is probably subsiding, and the confidence which pre-
ceded that time being gradually recovered. It was
perhaps natural that the whole native army should
be condemned, and should suffer for the faults of a
part of it, but it is not right or expedient that this
misconception should survive, so as to prevent
for the future any confidence from being placed in
troops which, in the midst of the sorest temp-
tation, remained faithful to their salt, and assisted
us to punish the treachery of their own countrymen
and to re-establish our dominion. The presence of
a large army of Europeans in India has a double
danger. The maintenance of this force constitutes
a drain of a very serious kind on our recruiting re-
sources, and besides, enables the executive to support
a large army independent, to a great degree, of the
usual parliamentary grants. As a military power
we were always comparatively weak, and that weak-
ness it is certainly not desirable in any degree to
increase. The difficulty of recruiting our army has
been greatly increased by the depopulation of Ire-
land, and by the general rise in wages throughout
the United Kingdom. On the other hand, the pre-
sence of this immense force on Indian soil is to the
natives of the country a plain evidence of our dis-
trust. It is perhaps impossible that they can ever
cordially accept a government thus forced upon
them by British bayonets. The wielders of those
bayonets, too, hate the country and its inhabitants;
and the diminishing number of them who volunteer
out of the regiments going home to remain in the
country is significant, and promises badly for any
future cordiality between the two races. Under
these circumstances it is not wise to disparage a
military resource which in competent hands has re-
peatedly stood us in good stead.