The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-02 00:00:00

gested is either consistent with itself or compatible
with the maintenance of English dominion in
India. The publications of the Reform Society
afford little clue to the opinions or intentions of
the leaders in the movement. Mr. Dickinson, the
secretary, in his able and vigorous pamphlet, at-
tacks all portions of the existing system indiscri-
minately ; while a tract, composed partly of a long
extract from Mill's history, and partly of an argu-
ment to the sane• effect by Mr. Sullivan, is de-
voted to a denunciation of the absolute power
claimed, and occasionally exercised, by the Board
of Control.

Lord Ellenborough knows his own meaning
thoroughly, and makes the intelligible proposal
that the Court of Directors should be abolished,
and that all power should be concentrated in the
hands of the Ministers of the Crown. On the
other hand, it is possible that some persons might
be disposed to undo the legislation of 1784 and
1788, and to restore to the Company the manage-
ment of affairs for which its representatives are
likely to possess special qualifications. Such a
project, however, is not worth discussing, for the
simple reason that, under present circumstances,
no political party would support it. But,
apart from these two systems, or some union of
the principles which they embody, there is no
other alternative remaining. Either the Crown,
or some independent authority, or a combination
of both, must form the Home Administration of
India. It is not necessary, however, that, where
two elements of power exist, they should be so ar-
ranged as to counteract each other. Singleness of
purpose and action is not incompatible with a large
and composite basis of authority ; and even if Can-
non-row and Leadenhall-street were both main-
tained, their relations might be amended and sim-
plified. It is certain that- the-direct power of the
Crown cannot, by indefinite extension, be made
effective for the regeneration of our Eastern empire.
It is strange that those who are most clamorous for
the responsibility of the Indian Administration to
Parliament should fail to perceive that it already
exists in theory, and that it has been inoperative
solely in consequence of the indifference of both
houses to Indian affairs. Until the recent agitation
commenced, Lord Ellenborough always failed to
obtain a hearing for his powerful denunciations of
the company and of the Court of Directors ; nor was
any general feeling of indignation excited when a
minister, of little weight or reputation, avowed, in
a tone of levity rather than of candour, his own
responsibility—and, by implication, the responsi-
bility of Parliament—for the most deplorable crime
and folly perpetrated by England during the pre-
sent generation.
If it is proper and constitutional that the Crown
should control all Indian policy, it is far more im-
portant that a share of the administrative authority
should be in the bands of persons possessing special
qualifications, and exclusively devoted to the
interests of the empire which they are to govern.
Almost all the shortcomings imputed to the English
Government originate, so far as they are real, in
insufficient information. The most familiar, and
at the same time the most serious, of all Indian
grievances arises from the errors committed in the
settlement of the land revenue. The Zemindary
system established in Bengal, and in three districts
of Madras, appears in general to have worked
badly ; and it was undoubtedly founded on a mis-
apprehension of the true character of the local
chiefs. The ryotwar arrangement, on the other
hand, which prevails through the greater part of
Madras and Bombay, is based on an error in judg-
ment of a precisely opposite character. Lord
Cornwallis treated the Zemindar as if he had been
an English landlord—Sir Thomas Munro con-
sidered that the ryot held immediately of the
Government. In neither case was there any other
desire on the part of the rulers of India than
to do justice to private interests without endan-
gering the public revenue. If both systems
have failed —as the Madras petitioners, with
much show of reason, allege—it is certainly not
rational to infer that future settlements ought to
be made by an ill-informed Parliament in England,
acting •in accordance with a wholly uninstructed
public opinion. Politicians who wish to legislate
at home for the details of our Eastern Administra-
tion will do well to observe the difficulties which
appear on the face of every proposal for change. It
is urged in the Madras petition that the English
collectors exercise an insufficient control over their
native subordinates—the tebsildars and therista-
dars. Yet the same document contains the most

earliest demands for a reduction in the number of

those English officials who alone, it would seem,
according to the former allegation, afford a check
on the fraud and oppression incidental to the col-
lection of the revenue.

Those who have formed their notions of Indian
affairs from the pamphlets and declamations which
have abounded for the last four months, will do
well to inquire whether experienced Anglo-Indians
are the complacent optimists who are popularly
supposed to be leagued together in defence of exist-
ing abuses. The evidence given before the Com-
mittees by some of the most eminent civilians
will show that the largest and most liberal views
of improvement are quite as compatible with accu-
rate knowledge as with querulous ignorance and
presumption. There are no warmer advocates of
the promotion of natives to a higher rank in the
service than some of those able administrators who
have spent their lives amongst them. The abuses
connected with the land revenue are most fully
illustrated by men who have not only witnessed
their operation, but have studied the various alter-
native experiments which have been tried in other
portions of our Eastern Empire. It is for the
Legislature to facilitate every improvement which
can be devised either in the judicial or in the
financial system of India ; but the direct in-
terference of Parliament in the settlement of
questions of practical administration would be
equivalent to a determination that no advantage
should be derived from any additional knowledge
which may hereafter be acquired. Sir George
Clerk thinks the ryotwar the worst of several bad
methods of collecting the Government revenue ;
but ho points out the difficulty of substituting a
different arrangement in districts where there are
neither Zemindars to become answerable for the
tax, nor any elective system by which villages
could choose their own representatives. Not de-
spairing of improvement, however, he recommends
that various new experiments should be tried in

various provinces. A special Act of Parliament to
regulate the land revenue would effectually pre-
vent the ultimate establishment of some satisfactory
system, which has not as yet been even discovered.
All arguments on points of detail come round
to the same result—that India requires a strong
and a well-informed Government, and not detailed
legislation from England. The first step towards
the correction of abuses is to secure the best ad-

ministrative organisation at home ; and this is
the task which the Ministry propose to un-
dertake. No impartial mind can believe that
native evidence as to the state of India could
throw any useful light on the question of the con-
struction of the new governing body at home. A
thousand additional complaints of the want of
tanks, roads, and bridges would only illustrate
the necessity of organising a system by which the
revenue should be economised and profitably ex-
pended. The crude suggestion which has been
made, that a fixed percentage of the public income
should be appropriated to works of improvement,
is a specimen of *the rapidity with which irrespon-
sible projectors arrive at positive conclusions.
The Government, on the other hand, who aro
blamed for precipitation, because they decline to
throw the Indian system into the crucible, proceed
with comparative caution. It is not probable that
the Ministers have made up their minds as to the
claims of Zemiudars, or as to the disputed merits
of Punchayets ; but, conducting their delibera-
tions more gradually than their opponents, they
have arrived at the preliminary conclusion that the
first want of India is a vigorous and intelligent
Government.

THE LIVEPOOL ELECTION COMMITTEE.—SUICIDE OF
ONE OF THE WITNESSES.—Yesterday Mr. Kibblewhite,
the summoning officer of Christ Church, Blackfriars,
sent information to Mr. Carter, the Surrey coroner, that
one of the witnesses summoned before the committee of
the house respecting the Liverpool election had destroyed
his life. It appears that two of the electors, one named
Thomas Parkinson and the other (his cousin) Joesph
Parkinson, took lodgings for the time they were engaged
to attend the committee, in Brunswick-street, Black-
friars-road. On Tuesday morning Thomas Parkinson
proceeded to the water-closet in the yard, where he
managed to pass a black silk handkerchief through a
hole in the door, and then suspended himself to the
same. He was quickly discovered, but instead of the
inmates of the house at once cutting him down, they
sent to the police-station for assistance. Police constable
23 Lat once attended and cut him down. .Mr. Bolton,
surgeon, of Cross-street, promptly arrived, opened the
jugular vein in the arm; but only a few drops of blood
flowed, and he pronounced life to be quite extinct.
There is no doubt that if the deceased had been cut
down when he was first discovered, his life would have
been saved. He is stated to be a widower, and about
40 years of age. It is expected that the inquest will be
held to-morrow (Friday).