The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-15 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1853.

India bids fair to become a ministerial difficulty
of no ordinary magnitude. The just complaints
of the native inhabitants of the Eastern empire,
corroborated and confirmed by European residents
of high respectability and unimpeachable charac-
ters, have excited feelings of deep sympathy and
compassion among the people of the United King-
dom. The clear and convincing statements con-
tained in the petitions from the three Presidencies,
exposing such deplorable instances of misgovern-
,ment, exemplified as well in acts of omission as
commission, have attracted the public attention
too forcibly to permit the renewal of the East
India Charter for a further period of ten or twenty
years without any material change or modification.
It is naturally asked, why should the destinies of
150, 000,000 of British subjects be handed over
to the tender mercies of 24 elderly gentlemen
not possessing any peculiar qualifications for th 3
arduous and important duty ? Or why should
the possessors of certain stock, to the amount cf
6, 000, 0001. sterling, with interest guaranteed by
the British Government at the very liberal rate of
10i- per cent. per annum, and then only redeem-
able on payment of 2001. for every 1001. stock,
be alone entitled to interfere in the government of
our Oriental dominions, by electing the Directors
who govern, or are supposed to govern, the wide-
spread territory, and who certainly exercise the
valuable patronage appertaining thereto ? It must
be quite clear that the proprietor of East India
Stock has no real interest in the prosperity of
India. No matter how ample may be its revenue
or large the surplus in its exchequer, he will receive
only his 101. 10s. on every 100/. ; and if Hindostan
completely passed from our hands—if the British
standard no longer floated over a single fortress
or an acre in its soil—the same 10/. 10s. should
be paid from the British revenue to the fortunate
stockholder. The English tax-payer has an ade-
quate motive to increase the Indian revenue, inas-
much as the surplus will go in aid of the other

demands on him, while he must make up the de-

ficiency, whatever it may be. But the East India
proprietor, as such, has none whatsoever. He is
secured, under any circumstances. His bond
must be liquidated to the last farthing. There
can be no refusal to pay, or even procrastination
as to payment.

The divided Administration is notoriously in-
jurious, leading to postponement of beneficial legis-
lation, while the matter under consideration is ban-
died backward and forward from Leadenhall-street
to Cannon-row, and from Cannon-row to Leadenhall-
street, from the Court of Directors to the Board
of Control, and back again to the honourable court.
It creates a division of responsibility that is very
injudicious and impolitic, permitting, as it does,
the real. Autocrat of the Anglo-Indian empire, the
de facto suceessor to the GRAND MOGUL, to escape
the censure to which he would otherwise be liable
by transferring the odium to the twenty-four pup-
pets east of Cornhill. We are, perhaps, wrong
in terming them " puppets," for, although power-
less for good, they are still potent for evil. We
have seen the effects of their work in occasioning
the recal of perhaps the most able Governor-
General of the present century, and in crippling,
the operations of one of England's most distin-
guished generals. A sincere and zealous determi-
nation to remove prevailing abuses, and to improve
the condition of the native population, was the
head and front of the offending of these two
eminent men. They would not truckle to the
prejudices of the Honourable Board, or pursue
the beaten course which was fraught with so much
danger to the welfare and happiness of myriads
of human beings—they dared to think for them-
selves, and were therefore selected as objects of
the petty vindictiveness of some of the Directors.
The conduct pursued towards the Earl of ELLEN-
BOROUGH and Sir CHARLES NAPIER, should
suffice to prevent the renewal of the Charter, even
if there were no other cause.

It may be said—and we believe it has been as-
serted—that the Directors are • efficient and ex-
perienced councillors, whose sage advice is cheaply
purchased by the transfer of the enormous pa-
tronage to their hands. They may certainly have
some amount of experience—many of their
number have, we believe, served in India—but
it is a mere accident whether the most efficient
candidate be selected ; the present system of elec-
tion affords no guarantee whatsoever as to the
fact. The enz,
a i ifications required are the
aP°bfrw:inulig°can' v certain amount of India Stock, and
ass of three or four years, and an
expenditure of sorneea3,n°v°atinor 4, 0001. in committee-
rooms and other
Boraeg a. nd electioneering
expenses, with perhms
some hints as
to the mode in which the
future patronage wi'l
be exercised. The possessor of the parliamentaly
franchise will be severely censured if heor r
accept a
hiselative
promise of a situation for solo f
as the condition on which he wi'l bestow
frage on the obsequious candidate ; but theresilf:
is
nothing to prevent the wealthy possessor of East
India Stock, with one, two, or three stars to his
name, from stipulating for a cadetship or -writer-
ship for some promising youth of his acquaint-
ance.

The very conditions essential to success in such
a contest would prevent many of the most e!igible
persons, those who could suggest useful reforms,
who would really be beneficial councillors, from
coming forward. Nothing, indeed, could be more
fatal to success than the exhibition of any sym-
pathy with the natives, or any desire to improve
their condition.

Let there be no mistake about the matter. It
is the patronage alone that is cared for. For that
patronage the would-be Director submits to the
trouble, the expense, the degradation of his pro-
torfaot l canvass. For that he devotes three years
his time to haunting fashionable watering-
places, Where rich invalids, or wealthy
dowagers or

spinsters, before whose names the, magic stars are
affixed in the list of proprietors—for that he enters
into frivolities that he must, if reelly qualified for
the duty, despise in his soul ; and fawns and
flatters, and (when necessary) promises all that
may be required at his hands.
And how is the patronage thus acquired exer-
cised ? Are the most worthy selected, or those
who possess, in the distinguished services of near
relations, strong claims on the country ? Far
from it. There are, of course, exceptions to every
general rule, and there have been instances of
disinterested and liberal conduct that reflected the
highest credit on the parties concerned. But, as a
general rule, the exercise of the patronage is just
what might be anticipated, from the manner in
which the privilege is obtained; that is to say for
the benefit of friends and relatives, fitness for the
situation, or in redemption of promises made
while canvassing, or possibly for even a worse rea-
son—and this is the system which it is intended
to continue for ten or twenty years more without
awaiting the result of the pending inquiry, or
hearing the evidence on the part of those chiefly
concerned. This cannot be, and shall not be.
The nation will not tolerate such a proceeding,
nor sanction a renewal of the Charter save from
year to year, until the necessary information has
been obtained to warrant permanent and benefi-
cial legislation.

A Peer's word is his oath. He swears by his
honour ; every other man must swear by his
GOD. What is the interpretation of this ? Is it
that a Peer worships his honour as a God, or that
other men worship their GOD no more than a Peer
does his honour ? Is an appeal to his honour the
form of oath most binding on the conscience of a
Peer, and an appeal to GOD ever the Bible the
form most binding on all other persons ? It were
singular if a patent of hereditary nobility imparted
to the line of heirs male this kind of Quakerish
view of oath-taking. The least, however, we can
expect in any case of the House of Lords is, that
they should have considerable hostility to judicial
swearing; or that, like members of the Society of
Friends, Separatists, &c., they should be peculiarly
open to conviction on the subject of abolishing
oaths. They, by constant practice, well under-
stand how binding is a solemn declaration. The
Noble Lords, exalted as is their position in the
State, will not pretend that morally and religiously
they " are not as other men are." Even the
Lords Spiritual would resent the supposition that
the conge d'elire and its consequences had made
their word of more value than it was before ;
equally, we suppose, would all the Lay Lords
affirm that their word was as good as their oath
till the hour that they were called to the Upper
House. Why, then, should not the practice of
the Peers become the universal practice ? Privi-
lege we will not call it; that were an insult to the
veracity of all other men. As we have hinted
above, nothing but deifying their honour, or
cherishing the most loathsome self-righteousness,
could induce Noble Lords to assert any peculiar
fitness to be trusted en their word, as other men
are upon their oath. We should not, therefore,
regret to abolish oaths entirely, to put all men
upon their honour, and, in case of their violating
a solemn affirmation, to inflict the severest penal-
ties now appropriated to perjury. It must tend
to raise every person's estimate of the importance
of truth, and to increase his jealousy for the
regard paid to his word, if he found his word
treated as sacredly as an oath, and its violation
entailing all the social consequences of oath-
breaking.

This is, indeed, the point to which Christianity
would bring us. Admitting that a literal inter-
pretation of its twice-repeated precept, " Swear
not at all," may be an overstrained one, we must
yet all perceive that the reason by which our LORD
condescends to enforce His command, is substan-
tially, that our word should be equal to our oath ;
that our yea should be yea, and our nay, nay.
It is as much the genius of Christianity to abolish
oaths as to abolish slavery. Few Englishmen
now doubt that its principles forbid the latter ;
but direct precepts apparently, as well as prin-
ciples, may be pleaded against taking an oath.
We must think, therefore, that the highest respect,
instead of bonds and imprisonment, is due to
those who, on conscientious grounds, object to
oaths. If but a sci aple, it is one so perfectly
natural. It is not a mere constructive interpre-
tation of Scripture. It is, indeed, the party w;lo
requires another to swear that has to construct a
case to make his demand even plausible in the
face of the plain prohibitions of the New Testa-
ment. At the present day, therefore, it is almost
universally felt, that punishing persons for de-
clining to swear, or refusing to accept their affirma-
tion, is a real case of religious persecution. No
Court of Justice likes to do either ; and the law is
become equally at variance with the feelings of
its administrators and the conscience of the wit-
ness. It is obvious, of course, to enlarge on the
inconsistency of permitting sects to pler.d. con-
science in bar of oath-tPking, and not permitting
individuals t 3 do so ; but we wish rather to argue
the question on its merits, and we contend, and
we think no one can deny it, that there is a broad
prima facie case from the Bible in favour of the
most conscientious scruples against taking an oath.
The more simply, the more unconditionally, the
more reverently a man accepts the language of the
New Testament—the more likely is he to think
oaths unlawful for Christian 'men.
If, therefore, we retain oaths in our courts of
justice and elsewhere, we are bound by all the
principles of religious toleration, and respect for
the rights of conscience, to indrlge the scruples of
those who deem them unlawful. We are hardly
less bound by the interests o 7 justice it2elf. If
we succeed by penalties in compelling a person to
take an oath in violation of religious scruples, of
what value is is evidence ? We ourselves have
already sapped his conscience. We have com-
pelled him, as he conceives, to disobey his GOD,
by compelling him to appeal to his GOD; and,.after
that, are we to use his testimc ly as evidence ? If
we do not succeed in getting him to swear, we
lose his evidence, our laws not permitting us,
except in the case of a few sects, to receive it on
the only terms on which he feels at liberty to give
it. But if, again, we give the recusant, on consci-
entious grounds, full scope, we gain every advantage.
For, in the first place, we are never compelled
to take his evidence for more -"tan it is worth; it
can do us no harm therefore. Next, we have the
witness before us, and have every opportunity of
judging from his aspect, manner, tone of voice,
and every little circumstance, what kind of a wit-
ness he is. Indeed, we senerally, in point of
fact, rely more on the bearing of a witness, under
cross-examination especially, than on his oath ;
but, lastly, the probability is that we obtain a
witness rigidly, we might almost say morbidly,
truthful. It is but the dictate of common sense
that a person timid about violating the letter of
his LORD'S commands will be equally so about
violating truth itself. The result of the most

ready indulgence of religious scruples on this sub-
ject, therefore, is, that we can lose nothing, thr.t

we probably gain a valuable witness, and that we

act consistently with English sentiments of Re-
ligious Liberty.
We are convinced, moreover, from numerous
remarks which we have heard, that a great many
perzons, of the best character, have been so struck
with the peculiarly direct form in which all swear-

ing is forbidden, as to be led to wish for exemption
from taking an oath, although their scruples
have hardly been such as to warrant them
in declining one, especially at the spur of
and moment. This is, we believe a large,
of course a conscientious, class of men. Their
language would be, "although we do not absolutely
to swear, and as things are, seldom or never
mention our floating acl doubts, yet on religious
groq we should prlfer not to swear." No one,
we think, will deny that, as " whatsoever is net
of faith is sin," even this measure of doubt must,
on grounds of Religious Freedom, be carefully re-
spected.

We are, of course, gratified with the turn
taken
by the debate on Mr. PELLArr's motion • and
Mr. GLADSTONE'S assurance that the Law comm.:
sion were "dealing with the subject in a manner
that promised to be comprehensive and effectual,,
we could not wish Mr. P.E.LIATT to press the mo.

tion to a division. And quite as gratifying was
the incident on Friday evening ; more so, indeed,
as a practical evidence of the feelings of Govern-
ment and the House on this subject. We allude
to Mr. SIDNEY HEREERT'S motion for the discharge
from custody without payment ()flees, of BowYER,
the person who declined on theological grounds to
take an oath before the Southampton Election
Committee. A motion which the Recorder of
London, Mr. S. WORTLEY, supported, with the
suggestion that it should be on aonal with Courts
of Justice to exempt at their e;scretion any from
taking an oath. This would be a great step in
advance. The motion was quite unopposed.