The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-08 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 8, 1853.

accepted, and would have been really useful, en-
abling some of the most obnoxious imposts to be
abolished or reduced. But in place of so doing,
let us see what is actually contemplated by the
Chief of the Financial Department.
The amount that must be dealt with, that is to
be paid off in hard cash, if the holders refuse
to accept of any of the tenders made, is little
more than ten millions sterling (10, 000, 638/. )
As, however, there can be but little doubt that
some of the branches of the alternative will
be freely taken—most probably the second—
but little cash will be required, and the saving
will be only 25,000/. per annum. A matter not
of very considerable importance in comparison to
the protracted period with which the country is
to be saddled with the change.

But there is another and far more numerous
class to whom an offer is made, which they may
accept at .any time previous to the 10th of October
next, or reject at their pleasure. Any person in-
terested in, or entitled to, any part of the capital
stock of the Consolidated 3 per Cent. Annuities,
or of the Reduced 3 per Cent. Annuities, is al-
lowed a similar option. There is in this no reci-
procity. There is a total want of consideration.
Never was there a clearer nudwm pactum. If the
newly-created 2i per Cent. Stock—that which
will be taken for the greater portion, if not the
whole, of the amount—be favourably received,
and placed at high quotations, it will, of course,
be accepted, if otherwise rejected. It is not fair
or just to the public to give so long a period for
consideration, or to make so very one-sided a bar-
gain.

But this is not the only, or even the chief, ob-
jection to the scheme. If the 21 per Cent.
Stock be accepted to the full extent, there will be
an addition to the nominal debt of 50,400,0001.,
which will have to be satisfied at par in 1894.
An annual saving of 1,260,0001. will be effected,
at a cost to our children in 1.-40 years of
50,400,0001. sterling. Is this an arrangement
that can receive the sanction of the British
Parliament ? Are we, in a time of profound
peace—with money in abundance, and every cir-
cumstance that should induce us to reduce rather
than increase the National Liabilities to—cast so
grievous a burden upon posterity ? Whp,t wtiuld
be said of a proposition to borrow 50,000,000/.
when there was no want of the money—when
there was a considerable surplus in the Exchequer?
It would, of course, be rejected with scorn and
contumely, and yet it would be in no degree
more objectionable than the second of Mr. GLAD-
STONE'S alternatives. This monstrou sproposition
will, we hope, be unanimously expunged from
the resolution.

As to that portion of the proposition which
relates to the creation of Exchequer Bonds, or
Bills—we shall only say that when it has been
found that money can be readily obtained at ld.
per diem, or 1/. 10s. sd. per annum on each
100/., it appears rather too much to offer 21. 15s.
for 11 years, and 21. 10s. for 30 years, with the
power to the holder of demanding payment
at par at the end of that time. One
of the resolutions declares that the holders
Of 504,000,000/. of stock may exchange into
these Bonds; another that the amount to be
issued shall not exceed 30,000,000/. We leave
Mr. GLADSTONE to explain by what feat of leger-
demain, that operation can be carried into execu-
tion, or how 500,000,0001. can be paid at par
with 30,000,000/. ! ! We shall at present say no-
thing of having such a debt, as even 30,000,000/.,
the payment whereof may be insisted on at, per-
haps, a most inconvenient time. Mr. GLADSTONE,
however, will scarcely suffer from that incon-
venience--it will fall on our posterity, and little
consideration appears to have been given to their
interests in any part of the plan. We cannot,
however, believe the guardians of the public
purse will sanction a project in every respect so
ill-advised and improvident.

Although the definitive settlement of the East
Indian Difficulty has been adroitly postponed on
the plea that the inquiries already commenced
should be carefully and deliberately completed by
the Commissioners entrusted with that onerous
investigation—it must not be supposed that the
matter must meanwhile be overlooked by the com-
munity, or that it is in any way beyond the
province of comment from the hands of the
journalist. Instead of allaying the general
curiosity upon the subject, this additional pro-
crastination ought only to arouse public attention
to its more cautious and elaborate consideration.
Much as the question has been talked of hitherto,
much as it has (particularly of late) been written
about by pamphleteers, and spoken about by orators,
both within and without the walls of the Imperial
Parliament—the difficulty implied by what is
called erroneously the Renewal of the East India
Charter, is even now only understood by the few,
while the many, in its regard, still continue to
labour under very grievous misapprehension.
Therefore, we repeat, it becomes advisable to exa-
mine yet more scrupulously than ever into the
merits of the entire question, upon the very
ground of its still later postponement. It
is supposed by several, that there is good
of some sort in the old machinery of the
Court of Directors. It is presumed again by
others that a panacea for all the evils complained
of may be discovered, if properly sought after,
Among the wheels and pulleys of that rather more
intricate and delicate state-machine known as the
Board of Control. The latter credulous observers
never once perceiving that the said Board was from
the outset little better than a blundering device
contrived by the "heaven-born" Minister, to blind,
or rather to turn aside, the indignation of those
who were infuriated overmuch, at a some-
what inconvenient period, against that grinding
misrule, the evil voice of which had just
then resounded so loudly from one extremity
to 'the other of the eastern hemisphere. The ad-
mirers of the delightful old despotism of the Coin-
pa.ny, those, in other words, who are sticklers for
the perfectability of the mercantile Cabinet in
Leadenhall-street, appear, on the other hand, to
have forgotten altogether the lesson learnt so very
bitterly years and years ago, through the lament-
able consequences of its rigorously despotic Govern-
ment. A trifling knowledge of modern history in
Hindostan, a moderate acquaintance with the teach-
ings of ORME and MILL, a familiarity even with the
compact criticisms of MACAULAY in relation to the
biographers of CLIVE and HASTINGS, will be suf-
ficient, we rather fancy, to disabuse any dispas-
sionate mind of the notion that benefit can accrue
either to England or to her Oriental possessions
from the mere patching together again of these
worn-out, and ricketty, and anomalous, and im-
practicable materials of administration.
Recently we took occasion to commend the ability
displayed by an intelligent contributor to the New
Quarterly in an article upon the subject of the Re-
newal of the Charter, published in the pages of that
promising periodical. It is with satisfaction that
we find ourselves enabled to direct the attention
of our readers yet more earnestly to another paper
in every way more elaborately and more closely
reasoned than its predecessor, from the hand, we
conjecture, of the same reviewer. The argument
advanced by him in this contribution has reference,
as its title intimates, to " The Anarchy of Thral-
dom," as exemplified in the conduct of British
Rulers in Hindostan. It will be found in the current
number of the New Quarterly, and an examination of
the writer's argument will show clearly enough that
his strength does not in any way consist in the
force of empty assertion, but in a mass of autho-
ritative evidence collected from a variety of official
and other sources of unimpeachable veracity. The
deductions drawn from the comparison of this ac-
cumulated evidence are, as might be conjectured,
of a most deplorable and melancholy descrip-
tion. It is explained by the reviewer that
no less than eighty years have elapsed since
the Court of Directors in Leadenhall-street
first undertook to administer the affairs of
Hindostan, and Heaven knows how flagrantly,
during the first twenty years of that pe-
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land was, in all directions, subject to the influ-
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