The Sun.
London, England, 1851-12-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE MORNING r APEES OF THIS DIY.
TIMES.—The Chairman of the East India Company,
in addressing last Monday the select candidates for the
civil service of India, admonished them, in remarkable
worth, of the resnonsibilities to which their profession
was now subjected-by the improvements of postal inter-
course. "Remember," sail he, "that the days are
gone by when it required months, or even years, to re-
view in England the proceedings of our administration
in India. Even now the facilities of communication
bring you almost under the immediate control of public
opinion in your native country. There is now no longer
concealment in distance, and in a brief period we shall
have the mistakes of incompetence and the offences of
indolecce so speeded to us by electricity and stsam that
the errors of the Courts of Delhi shell-be aspatent and as promptly before us as these of West ' ster-hall."
This prophetic monition fell, wo trust, ttnnuld 0 weight
OD the ears cf the audience; but it didw et
eecur to the speaker that the Capacity t uperhans.
o ',
- d t' of
the whole Indian Government would bebaronoudgcne_tn,
operation of the same circumstances,
test of which he was warning its youngest officers.
r .
byt the
In these days no Administration cm shift the'
bility of failure from itself to its eubordiratees.sPc'Tnshie.
same telegraph which appriees the directors of the re's
conduct of a collector or a judge will inform the Bri-
tish-
public of the general ebieiey of the directors
evinced in the condition of India. If productive 4pro-
vinces remain without roads, fields without water, and
ports without cotter, the " c ,ntrol of public opinion"
will be exercised upon that body from which these sun-
plies are expected, nnd the cheirmen and court of the
company will infallibly he put to that trial which in the
case cf their owe offiedels they already diFnern. We live
in times when a tree is judges by its fruits. No person
conversant with the subject will deny that the acquisi-
tion and maintenance of cur empire in the east reflects
extraordinary credit on these who achieved such a mo•
nument of enterprise and lamer; but India is not what it
might be, and its resources have hitherto failed us exactly
at the point where they are most indispensable. We get
little or no cotton from a country which is confessedly as
well qualified to produce it as Georgia itself, and when
we investigate the causes of the defalcation we discover
that the whole territory is without roads for the car-
riage of agricultural produce, and the whole population
without energy sufficient to speculate in the improve-
ment of its field crops. If we push our inquiries
further, we are assured that a vicious system of taxa
tion so cripples the means of the farmer us to lc ave
him helpless in the hands of the collector, and that
native enterprise has altogether vanished under a Go-
vernment which closes every opening to native
ambition. Whether this reasoning be correct or not,
the original proposition at any rate remeins. India can-
not rear its own natural produce for exportation, and
the published accounts of its governors distinctly inform
us that a considerable revenue is so entirely absorbed in
an imperfect administration as to leave no appreciable
fraction for works of public use or popular advantage.
If the evil does not lie in the general impossibility of
the problem, it must be sought for either in the in-
judicious assessment of the revenue or in the faulty
system of the expenditure. We believe the latter
cause is in reality operative to a very ma-
terial extent "No man," as an accomplished
essayist once remarked, " will work for the same remu-
neration under the sun of Calcutta as he would accept
under the trees in Ring's Bench-walk." This is per-
fectly true, and perhaps 10,000/. a year is not more than
sufficient to tempt across the Bay of Bengal such men
as the Government of India may require. But when
this principle is carried out through every department
of an Imperial service two results are inevitably pro-
duced: first, the consumption of all working power
upon the machine itself; and next, the extinction of all
available talent in a people superseded in its political
duties by an imported administration. The restriction
of all State and judicial offices of importance to Euro-
pean competitors, end the demarcation thus established
between a handful of highly paid functionaries and an
immense native society, must of necessity be extremely
detrimental to the latter, while the charges entailed by
such an arrangement operate with equal prejudice on the
revenue. The strength of India, in fact, is self consumed,
and contributions which are represented as distressing to
taxpayers scarcely suffice to maintain in action a cum-
brous and overtasked Government. It is considered that
both the military and civil services of the Company
are at present under-officered; the Sepoy regiments aro
notoriously weak in this respect, and the administration
of justice is said to be suffering likewise from the want
of hands. Yet when complaints of this nature are made,
it is unanswerably replied that the finances of the Go-
vernment will bear no further charge, and that the taxa-
tion is equally incapable of extension. While this is
the case with the ruling nation the inhabitants of India
suffer in a still greater degree. There is no avenue cf
distinction open to a native gentleman, whatever may be
his capacity, integrity, or ambition. Ile is absolutely
excluded from any concern in the administration of his
country. Such regulations, of which there are many
examples, have invariably produced ono of two effects
—either radical discontent resulting in revolution, or
listless apathy resulting in the extinction of all national
spirit. The latter has been the case with the popula-
tion of India. We have kept them from all public
(Mee till they are described as no longer competent for
the duty. We have withheld trust from them till they
are reputed as really untrustworthy, and we have de-
graded them till they are pronounced incapable of ele-
vation. We are consequently compelled to export from 1
England every responsible officer required for the go-
vernment of a hundred millions of subjects, and we find
that. all the revenue which these subjects can contribute
is insufficient to leave any portion for their own benefit
after liquidating the expenses of an artificial administra-
tion. Zut what is this system, in plain words, but the
support of a mercantile company at the cost of a noble
empire? The reasots which originally dictated this
policy aro both manifest and sound; but they cannot be
alleged with equal force in defence of its continuance.
If India, with its teemiog population, its variety of cli-
mate, its precious products and its proverbial resources,
cannot be made to do more than provide its rulers with
a balance-sheet, from which all charges of public utility
are practically excluded, it would be hard to make out a
case for our dominion. This wonderful empire, as the
Haileybury cadets were truly told, is now under the eye
of the English public, and the English public is not ac-
customed to acquiesce in results so sterile. We acquit
the Company of wilful misgovernment and of uny
systematic disregard to the interests of their subject*.
They have maintained a dominion of unexampled
splendour through the perils and trials of a century.
They have reared a body of officers inferior to no ser-
vice in the world in ability and conduct, and they have
exhibited, on many occasions, an unflinching rectitude
of policy not often discoverable under European Go-
vernments. But the present and visible result of their
administration cannot be considered satisfactory. It is
possible that other systems may yield no better fruit,
but the "control of public opinion" is not likely to stop
short of suggesting a trial. India must be something
more for the Indians, and more for Englishmen, too.
There is no reason why it should have ceased to rear
either cotton or men, and perhaps the changes which
tend to regenerate the latter may best bo trusted for
the reproduction of the former.
DAILY NEWS.—The first want of France—the
grand thing to be desired by those who look to a defini-
tive settlement and: pacification of that country—is, or
rather was, a-reconciliation between the upper and lower
classes of society. It was the total breach, the wide
schism, between those classes created by, or at least
terminating in, the communistic tendencies of the ono
class and the ultra-Conservative tendencies of the other,
that has ruined France, and laid its liberties and its
existence at the feet of an usurper. We have often said,
and wo again repeat, that no one will succeed in be-
coming permanent had of the French nation unless he
succeeds in effecting this great compromise, this vital
reconciliation. There was, perhaps, no person better
placed to effect this compromise than Louis Nepoleon,
previous to his late coup d'etat, or when ho first as- 1
sumed the office of President. He was sufficiently strong
in Conservative support, and in the necessary adhesion
of the wealthier classes, to have addressed the people
in some other language than that of bayonet and re-
pression. By allowing full scope and play to discussion
and association, and to the ventilation of ideas, he
might, whilst putting down conspiracy, have soon con-
vinced the Communists of she folly of their schemes,;or
at least exposed them to the ridicule of all. The de-
mands of the more rational of the popular party could
easily have been reduced to some standard compatible
with society and with government. And the National
Assembly, instead of being an arena for the conflicting
passions and mutual challenges of the two classes, might
have been made the scone and the means of their com-
mon understanding. After all, had Louis Napoleon the
true sense of his own interests and position, it is with
the people he would have identified himself. His birth,
his name, and the respect borne to both by the working
classes, and by no other, suggested such a policy. But
the dandy of the west end of London could not stoop to
be anything less than the heir of an Emperor; and so he
trusted his fortunes and his political guidanco to the re-
presentatives of the wealthier classes, all of whom placed
their hopes and reposed their fealty in a very different dy-
nasty from his. One mighthave thought that when Louis
Napoleon had made full discovery of this; when he bad
seen that the other monarchic parties would never more tolerate him, and would never let pass an opportunity I
for conspiring pgainst him, or against the Republic;
one would think such a conviction would have prompted'
the President to address himself sincerely to the people.
It was, perhaps, not too late on the second of December.
i teseol
If there over larked a really generous and liberal
ff
stood
displayed
d
ten-
dency in Louis Napoleon, it must have
then. It could not be then raid that he
the Assembly, or that ho was compelled
too° blonwatwo its
majority. He was master of his actions, and free to pro-
fess any doctrine. And yet he chooses this very mo-
ment to profesAn the face of the world the most retro-
grade principles of government of the two most retro-
grade schools. All that is bigoted in legitimacy, with
all that is violent and arbitrary in a purely
military government, unite to earn the cha-
racter and political creed cf Louis Napoleon.
We can conceive such a policy, if representative or
parliamentary government was to be continued, and
if it were necessary to win over some hundred members
enm e bnerds
of a hostile majority. But Parliaments are
att an
is, of
and the word majority a delusion. que s
Napoleonio
1 what use legitimist adhesion will be to Louis
throughout the count#y. We may answer at once that
I
.
I it will do as much harm as good, and produce as much
weakness as strength. For every partisan who may be
won from the high noblesse and the ultra-montane clergy
to
Louis Napoleon, en hundred liberal men will
be dis-
gusted. Besides, all the charlatantrie of the President
will never win over the more respectable and moderate
of either the Legitimists or of the Churchmen. That
Phillpotts of France,—the Bishop of Chartres,—may
write circular pastorals in Napoleon's favour; and Count
Monlalembert may intercede for him, by alleging that
peoplo may support him without beeou)jug upproyera of

all his acts. But this will not affect such men ss the
Duo de Neallies or the Archbishop of Paris. It is but
the vet), ultra section of the Lsgitimists that will go
with him and tho more ultra•montane of the elsrs7 And
one effect of this will be to create or to widen the schism.
which exists both in the Legitimist party and in the
French Church—a schism that, far from diminishing the
enemies or opponents of Louis Napoleon, will very se-
riously and widely increase them. Should, however, even
the apparent result be that the Legitimists, as a body,
lend a silent and passive support to Louis Napoleon,
whilst the Constitutionalists abstain altogether and hold
aloof alike from the hustings and from politicsl discus-
sion, then it will become evident to the people that their
cause, as well as that of liberty of all and of every kind,
has been abandoned by the upper classes, and that the
only hope of recovering those blessings, without which
life has neither dignity nor security, rests with
the working classes. Of all the convictions that
could expand through Franca, we own that this
is the most serious. For the abdienticia of the
wealthy, the high born, and the highly educated,
leaving the post of danger and of duty to those beneath
them—gives a new force to those doctrines which repre-
sent the people as alone possessed of courage and of
virtue, and which depict wealth and rank es the great
corrupter and degrader of the citizen. This doctrine,
with the state of things and of opinion on which it is
founded, prevails not iner_dy in France, but extends over
G,srmany and Italy, through a great portion of Europe.
And it is such conkssions and cdmissions as these which
give new force and vitality to parties and to causes that
are led by such men as Mczsmi. It is such an universal
bowing of the head and prostration of the spirit which
compels such spirits as Eessuth—men who never rest,
and who cannot despair—it is this which drives them to
zl7i,!stsi,,Frendu,toancdry for help no longer to the cowed upper
-r, effzininated educated ones, but to the broad,
uncompromising popular masses.

COURT CIRCULAR.
OSBORNE, WEDNESDAY.
The Queen and Prince with the Royal Children,
----:
walked and rode yesterday as usual.
The Marchioness of Ely arrived from London to
succeed the Marchioness of Douro as Lady in Wait-
ing to her nijesty. Lady Douro rcmsins at ()borne
on a visit.
The party at dinner included the Marchioness of
Douro and the Hon. Colonel Phipps.

Mr. '\V. 11. Simies had an interview with El.tl
Grey yesterday at the Colonial-office.
had also an interview with the Noble'. Mr.
Kennedy
Sir George Grey left, town yesterdaytafroli Osborne,
Isle of Wight, on a visit to her Ms'e
The Oxford University Commissions Yi;
yesterday, at the official residen,e -e 'the
Present, the
e First Lord
of the Treasury, in Downing-street.
Bishop of Norwich, the Dean of Carlisle, the Master
.'
of Pembroke, the Rev. 11. G. Liddell, J. T.
Esq., the Rev. Professor Powell, the Rev.. Garyfier.,
Johnson, and the Rev. A. P. Stanley (Secretaiy). S.
The Cambridge University Commission had a
meeting yesterday, at the official residence of the
First Lord of the Treasury, in Downing. street. pre_
sent, the Bishop of Chester, the Dean of Ely. Sir
John Herschel, the Rev. Professor Sedgwick, and the
Rev. W. 11. Bateson (Secretary).
The Marquis of Lansdowne left the seat of Earl
Fortescue, in Dvcnsbife, yesterday, for the Grange,
Alresford, Hants, on a visit to Lord Ashburton.
Dispatches were received yesterday
.at the Colonial.
office, from the Gavernor of the Mauritius.