The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-28 00:00:00

7J-1-11tninit atilt

LONDON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 1851

As had been for some time past anticipated by all
persons who have been in the habit of paying atten-
tion to the affairs of our Indian empire, the anarchi-
cal state of the dominions of the NIZAM, and his in •
ability, or rather unwillingness, to make any arrange-
ment for the payment of the debt due to the East
India Company, have compelled the GOVERNOR-
GENERAL to have recourse to coercion, in order to
secure the liquidation of the just claims of the British
Government. A letter, couched in very de-
cided language, and setting forth the causes
of complaint which the British Government
had against the NIZAM, was addressed to
that Prince by the Marquis of DALHOUSIE.
In that letter the Noble Marquis represents to his
Highness the large debt due from his Highness to
the British Government, a debt which his Highness
was annually increasing without adopting any ar-
rangements for its liquidation, and the necessity for
contracting which bad been originally occasioned by
his wasteful, extravagant, and unnecessary expendi-
ture in maintaining a large and useless body of troops,
whose turbulence was a source of danger and misery
to his subjects, and the maintenance of
which was at best superfluous, seeing that
his dominions were entirely free from the
danger of invasion, inasmuch as they are
surrounded "as by a rampart" by the dominions of
the British. The GOVERNOR-GENERAL then pro-
ceeds to recommend that these troops, who are his but
in name, and who plunder his people and insult his
servants, should be at once disbanded, and every as-
sistance is proffered to his Highness to carry this
recommendation into effect; the appointment as
Minister of some intelligent person capable of re-
storing order both in the State and the finances is
recommended, and with regard to the debt and
the contingent the GOVERNOR-GENERAL declares
that there remains but one resource to secure
their liquidation, and that is to take territory,
which the British Government has determined to do
unless the money be paid. Some of the Indian
newswriters express their regret at the strong language
in which this letter is couched; we confess we do
not share in their sentiments. The Nizasa has solely
by his own unbounded extravagance brought the
greatest misery upon his subjects—he has pillaged
them for years in order to fill his own private
coffers—he is immensely rich, whilst they are starv-
ing, and the result shows that he was all
along perfectly able to liquidate his debt to
the British from his own private resources.
It is not to such a man as this that any leniency
should be shown ; it is true we are by treaty bound
to protect him against foreign aggression and against
domestic insurrection, but we are equally bound in this,
as well as in every other similar instance, to protect
the subjects of these Princes from injustice, tyranny,
and oppression ; and while on the one hand we gua-
rantee to the Prince his throne as against insurgents,
we on the other guarantee to his subjects that we
will never permit him to give them just causes for
rising in insurrection. Immediately on the receipt 01
this letter the Niz ssa appointed as Dswan S URAJ- 00L..
MOOLK, who had been formerly a Minister, and
during whose Ministry the state of the Nizises
dominions had been most prosperous. On the ap-
pointment of this Minister his first act was to enter
into negotiations with the British Resident, for the
purpose of gaining time, as the GOVERNOR- GENERAL
had given orders that if the money were not
paid by the 15th July certain districts of
the Nizam's dominions were to be at once
entered on by the British troops. The
British Resident having faith in the honesty and the
abilities of the new Minister, granted him an exten-
sion of time, and he at once proceeded to make ar-
rangements for meeting the demands of the GOVERNOR..
GENE RAL j the disruption of these arrangements was,
we are informed by the Hyderabad correspondent of
the Bombay Telegraph, " momentarily threatened
through the pigheadedness of the Nizesit. He threw
obstructions innumerable in the path of his Minister;
his caprices and vacillations occasioned the withdrawal
of confidence and of credit in the money market, se-
riously injuring the measures the Minister had in
contemplation for the accomplishment of that
great one which was to liberate his master
from the pressure of that incubus which
would, ere long, have destroyed his vitality.
It was only on the 15th that the NIZAM doggedly re-
fused a sum of about twenty lacs to his Minister, to
conaplete the lattiesr's promise of the early payment of
forty lees. His
powers of persuasion, or modus
operandi of working on his fears, must have been
very extraordinary, for on the 16th he waited on the
Resident with a document, amply authenticated by,
his master, pledging himself to the immediate pay-
ment of twenty-two lacs, thus completing forty, and
with the hopeful prospect of liquidating the whole
debt before the end of October next. Then the
great difficulty to be obviated will be the regular
future payment of the contingent. For this purpose
the Minister has appropriated districts, the revenues
of which yield thirty-six lacs per annum, with which
his master has promised not to interfere, much
less to divert." The arrangements thus en-
tered into cannot be regarded as finally completed
until they shall have received the confirmation
of the GOVERNOR-GENERAL but whether they receive
that confirmation or not, one thing is abundantly evi-
dent, that the plea of inability so frequently put in by
the Nizeat, as an excuse for the non-payment of his
debt, is a mere groundless pretext, for we find that
when close pressed he finds the money.
Another correspondent of the same paper, who
writes from Hyderabad on the 19th of July, says—
" I hear that Captain DAVIDSON, the Assistant-Resi-
dent, says forty lacs of rupees have been already paid
by the NIZAM, and the balance will certainly be paid
by the end of October. The money is to come partly
from the contributions of the NlzAM's wealthy
A tneers and subjects, and partly from his own coffers.
General FRASER seems now to be quite happy. The
country for a time is saved, and its future salvation
depends on the degree of proper interference, here-
after tying up the NIZAM'S hands and insisting upon
extensive retrenchment."

The NIZAM has shown himself not only incompe-
tent, but dishonest, and therefore we trust that hence-
forth there will be no hesitation in exercising such a
control over him as shall prevent him from plunder_
ing and tyrannizing over his subjects. In one respect,
and in one respect only, could we have wished that
the conduct of the Marquis of DALHOUSIE had been
different. La all such cases as this of the Nista( the
true policy is to take possession of the whole of the
dominions of the defaulter, rather than a portion
of them only. The inhabitants of the ceded
provinces enjoy the blessing of government according