The Sun.
London, England, 1851-11-21 00:00:00

TIRE SUN,

INDIA.

(From the Times.)
We learn from our Indian correspondence that it
has been resolved to recommend the creation of a
fourth Presidency for the better administration of our
eastern dominions. The new Government is to be
styled the Government of Lahore, and, if we may
judge by the specifications of a project which must
still be rudimentary, it will greatly exceed the ancient
territorial departments in magnitude and splendour.
Its base, if we may so speak, is to be constituted by
the spacious province of the Punjaub, to which, on
the east, it will annex the broad districts of Agra and
Bengal, up to the banks of the Sone, embracing the
populous and important cities of Allahabad and Be-
nares. To the south-west it will include our anoma-
lous appanage of Sinde, and will thus extend
itself from the Hindoo Koosh to the mouths of
the Indus, and from the mountains of Bsloo-
chistan to the plains of the Ganges. Nor will its
dignity be disproportioned to its dimensions, for the
prescriptions of a century are at length to be de-
molished, and the supremacy of India is to be for-
nislly transferred from the residence of Clive and
Hastings to the capital of the Sikhs. At the latter of
these cities, or at Umballah, will be stationed a subor-
dinate administration, and a Lieutenant-Governor
will superintend from the deserted palaces of Calcutta
the immediate interests of Lower Bengal. The su-
preme Government and Council of India, under the
Governor-General in person, is to be permanently
established at Simlah, from which agreeable retreat
the affairs of our Eastern Empire will be henceforth
directed.
Though the proposed change involves no more than
a redistribution of territory already acquired, it is
probable that few readers acquainted with the subject
will bear without a certain emotion of so sweeping a
project. Even those not immediately conversant with
Indian affairs will be startled at a suggestion for
transferring the central seat of British Government to
a capital city some 1,200 miles from the mouth of the
Hooghly, and which within three short years was the
metropolis of our most distant and most determined
foes. If it was deemed hazardous to annex the Pun-
jaub, what is likely to be thought of selecting it as the
residence of supreme power ? What will be said by
those writers who warned us against crossing the
Sutlej of our final domestication in the heart of those
very territories which were described as so barbarous,
remote, and inaccessible ? We are carrying ourselves
bodily to encounter our proverbial perils. We are
placing ourselves in immediate contiguity with the
treacherous and turbulent chieftains of Affghanistan,
and, if the argument has any weight, we are ac-
tually marching a thousand miles in the direction of
Russian advances. Herat will now actually be nearer
to us than Calcutta • and Herat within these last few
months has really been besieged again.
To the omens which might thus be not unnaturally
suggested, a few substantial arguments can be stated
in reply. In the first place, although in effecting this
movement we should be retiring from Calcutta, we
should not be retiring from England. The mighty
revolutions of traffic generated by the employment of
steam have already worked their irresistible will
abroad as well as at home, and have left the City of
Palaces stranded and forlorn. Bombay is now the
point of contact between England and India, and as
the system of overland communication becomes gra-
dually perfected under Mr. Stephenson's auspices, the
terminus of the commercial track will advance still
nearer to the plains of the Punjaub. It is Calcutta,
not Lahore, which will be the remote station of India;
and, if the Supreme Government were still to be pre-
served at that spot, we should be retaining our central
seat of administration at one of the most distant cor-
ners of our dominion.
In the next place, it must be observed, that if the
productiveness of India is ever to be much increased,
the object must be accomplished by reclaiming from
desolation or sterility those spacious plains which
should derive an agricultural value from the fertiliz-
ing streams of the Ganges and the noble rivers of the
Punjaub. Already the work of irrigation in the north
west is regarded as one of the most important duties
of Government ; and it needs no argument to prove
that the enterprise will be far more effectively prose-
cuted under the immediate eyes of the chief rulers of
India. Such a precedence would we fain assign to
these pacific enterprises that, if truth would permit,
we should gladly abstain from mentioning the benefits
of the proposed migration in the event of war. If the
storm, however, should ever burst upon us anew, it is
scarcely doubtful that it must proceed from the quar-
ters against which we should thus be fortified by the
presence and appurtenances of a central power. One
of the contemplated advantages of the East Indian
Railway was, that it would carry our battalions from
13arrackpore to Meerut before the enemy could con-
centrate his strength on the Sutlej ; but, if these are
the contingencies against which our battalions are
most obviously required, why should not Meerut be
made a Barrackpore at once ? It would doubtless
have been a prodigious gain to have reduced a march
of 1,000 miles to a ride of forty-eight hours, but why
should not the movement be dispensed with altogether ?
Why should our troops be quartered at all at such a
distance from the probable scene of action ? In point
of tact, the Bengal army already pivots on Umballah
or Lahore ; the artillery, it will be remembered, did
actually receive the route the other day from its
time-honoured quarters at Duna-dum, and substantial
reasons ought surely to be forthcoming for main-
taining the troops in one place and their directors in
another.
Su self-evident is the principle of the projected
change, and so manifestly bad the huge and unwieldy
Presidency of Bengal outgrown the administrative
machinery of Calcutta, that at the last renewal of the
Company's charter it was proposed by Government
and sanctioned by Parliament to detach the north-
western provinces for a separate Presidency with the
capital and title of Agra. The scheme, however,
although still discernible in the arrangements and
accounts of the Company, was never effectually car-
ried out, but it is now designed to divide the military
force as well as the civil administration of Bengal,
and maintain a Lahore army as distinctly as a La-
hore Government. The latter force, indeed, must
soon become the more important of the two, and the
last victories of the Bengal army may not improbably
contribute to the comparative oblivion of the military
designations under which they were won.
Above all, however, in the eyes of practical Eng-
lishmen the best argument for the change must lie
in the circumstance that it simply contemplates an
assimilation of profession to fact. The Government
of India is already to all intents and purposes engaged
and stationed in these very parts, and there
can be no good reason for maintaining such
an artificial distinction between theory and prac-
tice as would place the residence of the Governor-
General at Calcutta, while his duties lay at La-
hore. How far the seductions of climate may have
operated in maturing this change of opinion we will
not attempt to conjecture, but if, as a matter of fact,
the Governor- General of India does find himself at
Simlah through ten months of the year, it is surely
better that his Council should be brought thither at
once than that a thousand miles should intervene be-
tween the head and its members. If the Punjaub and
the north-western districts furnish the chief scenes of
action for the civil and military servants of the Com-
pany, they had better furnish a seat of government
too. It is certainly probable that objections may
hereafter be discovered to this remarkable migration,
and, beyond all doubt, they will receive their fullest
effect in the hands of the good people of Calcutta. It
is no small calamity for a city to be reduced from a
metropolis to an out.station, but, if the interests of
India require it, the change must be made ; and if
Calcutta, in its turn, should become a Golconda, it
must acquiesce in the unalterable destiny of cities, and
repose on the glories of the past.

'
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ever on the look-out for
which have just arrived from Ann
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stock in the shale of a pair of
theelceapllsciaannats,,
l)ocks ; theyt whose control over the
St. Katherine's
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are attended by a native Al" They will doubtless be for Mr. Batty, and
short time.
ex-
hibited at the Amphitheatre i
animals
The agitation at pre-
REFORM. s
results;
taoPPlbieceahtwantsl
tsenthe
Customs,goionng
ifso r
already numerous
p r 0 rdeaf,c,
producing
the Long Room,
next that important branch of the U
the summer months
DuringB
will be open at 9 A.m., in place of 10
official business will commence.
A at., thus giving
it is intended to commence business at
A.m., at which hour
of ost valuable busi-
uisntomthse, management
nnang
eMmoenudt
Monday
merchants an advance of two hours lll
busi-
ness time.
CilTontq.—The following notice has
Custom house,
by the Commissioners of the Customs :hants,
shipowners,
London, Nov. 18, 18,51.—Notice.—
Merc
have occasien to
been issued
masters of vesselß, and others who may
materially Board of Customs,to a
expeditere
thereby a r
d informed,s
tueir applications, it; instead of lodging
awdodurle tendt n e
their,
first instance,
with the Petition Clerk for registry in the upona tit
the they would, when convenient, deliver the same to
decision
which the
prin-
cipal officer of the department, or at the station
subject of their application may relate, who have
in-
structed to report thereon and forward the papers with. .
practical dispatch to the Board through the Petition-
office office at the Custom-house. By order of the Commissioners.
—William Maclean, Secretary."
S. MARIA CCRTIS.—This young woman, who, it
will be recollected, was deprived of her eyesight in April
last by the accidental discharge of a pistol, was last week
elected into the School for the Indigent Blind by a large
majority of votes, her Majesty the Queen sending her proxy
for 100. The sufferer, whose affliction is now in some
degree alleviated by the kindness of her benevolent friends,
has testified her gratitude by her sincere thanks to them.
GREAT NORTH or SCOTLAND. —Measures are
being adopted to ensure the immediate commencement of
this line, which is to be from Aberdeen to Inverness. The
distance will be upwards of 100 miles, but in the first instance
the line is to be made to Keith, a distance of 51 mile.%