The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-09 00:00:00

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body whose dividends are guaranteed, and who hare
no more connection with India th'n the holders of
Consols or of railway shares. In fact, the so.
ca.led comp my has been only a cumbrous machine
of double government, having a nominal identity
with the corporation which sent out Clive and Coots
to conquer. Any friend of the company who does
not wish it to realize the line--

" Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage,"
might well be glad that its existence has been
brought to a close at, a period when it has beComi
powerless for good, and can only exist aR the ill.
strument of intriguers and the obstacle of efficient
administrw ion.
And yet it has cost a good deal to abolish the East
India Company. To lay that ghost of a great cor-
poration has exercised the skill of the leaders of two
pArties during six mouths of Parliamentary debates.
LA no man despise a vested interest, however
small, or its possessor, however humble, obscure,
or foolish. Men will tight for their own, and fierbe
is the conflict when the public storms the citadel
of self-interest.' Trio Colin of Directors and their
partisans have waged an obstinate and:not entirely
unsuccasSful war against twd successive Ministries
and the great mass .of the nation. That the Com-
p Joy, or rather the system which went _by.that
name, was felt to have, forfeited the Confidence of
the country by the catastrophe of 1857 can-hardly
be denied. If the Company were the Lords of
India they had lost it, and the British tn;orle,' by
unheard-of efforts, and the d,FI)I,y ut o.ergy
witu-
out paralle', are just reconquering the dominion
which had fallen from the grasp of the corporation.
India had become, as it were, the property of the
salvors, and it was within the right of the nation to
assign to it an efficient Government for the
time to come. The abolition of the company
was resolved on, and so genert.lly accepted that
the transference of its power to the Crown
has hardly been seriously resisted in the
House of Commons. . Yet private interest and the
power of an interested clique have been sufficient
to ovet throw one Ministry and to modify the con-
duct of another, it has required the assiduous atten-
tion of Parliament and the press to carry through
a bill which rio one openly ventured to oppose.
Happily, public opinion is now too powerful to be
withstood by any body of men, however wealthy
and strong in social position and united by complex
ramifications with a large Parliamentary brigade.
It has been reserved for the Ministry of Lord Derby
to carry out the long-expected change in the Go-
vernment of India, and the President of the. Board
of Control deserves no little credit for his exertions
and the success which has attended them.. He has
fought the bill with skill and firmness through com-
mittee. Amid the complaints of a dearth of genius
it is gratifying to find a man little over thirty years
of ace who has shown hintseif title) for tha highest
postl in a Parliamentary Government.—Tintes.

THE REJECTION OP THE CHURCH-RATE
BILL.

Although the bill did not leave the Cominous till
the 9ch of June, by the 2d of .July above 1,800
petitions were presented, and on Friday, prior to
the debate, as many as 921 were laid on their lord-
ships' table. Only 400 have been presented ou th•
other side.

The division list, taken in connection with the
list of pain, shows an apparent determiantiou on
the part of the Whigs to repair the error into which
many of the members of the party fell in the lower
house. Not only did the late ministerial leader
in the Lords, Earl Granville, strenuously .back
the Duke of Som-rset, by voice and vote, but the
Dukes of Bedford and Argyll, and Lords Be'per,
Cheshatn, Ebury, Foley, Wodehouse, Bessberough,
Fortcseue, Mautulay, Fitzwilliatn, and Truro, are
found among the snpporters of the bill, and the
Marquisof Lansdowue and Lord Clarendon, though
in the house that night, were absent rom the
division .
The bishops, inolnding the lately promoted Evan-
gelicals, almost to a man supported the continuance
of the tax. Sixteen were present, and eight sent
proxies. Those who neither voted nor sent proxies
were the Archbishops of York and Dublin, and
the Bishops of St. David's, Ely, and Chester.

E 1 . SPAP
- v
COTTI7:I.7MENT.OP- INDIA (.7 ,c. 7.2
•
The India Bill waa ie'al a third time dpitaNeh:
in the 'louse !,1 Commons
last night.. 'No pos. T
tion is expected in the L.,:rds, and we may accord-
ingly consider that the. measure Will it. a few days, •
become . law.. .So , ends the great East India Com-
pany. ...
It is impossible to contemplate the extinc-
tion of so mighty and hiStorica/ aeorporation with-
out
4 feelingeimilar to ;that with ;which Gibbon :
heard the monks chanting in the Flavian Amphi-
theatre, and beheld the colvs feediniin the Roman -
Fcieuen. For good or evil, a power has passed away
from the earth. After au existence of more than •
two centuries and a-half the corporation which was
called into being by a charter ofElizabeth will be
extinguished by the Royal assent expressed by the .
Commissioners of Victoria. In any case we. should
be disposed to observe the maxim of speaking
nothing but good of the dead, and even if the Com, ,
pany bad been no more distinguished than that
which hunts for furs in the wilds of British Awe-
ric a or which in past years traded with the Levant
we should feel bound to respect a corporation Which
traces back its origin to the close of the sixteenth
ceurury. But the Eat India Company has a tight
to soni..ahing more than a decorous .and respectful
epitaph. For a hundred years it has been a con-
quering Power, and now that its time is drawing to
a close it leaves the mother country possesaed.of an
empire which surrounding nations may and do
envy. The East India Company is a type of the
agencies which have transformed the England of
the Tudors into the Eugland of the present time. It
Las been from our earliest memory one of the chief
beae:s ot tuis country, and the subject of jealousy -
and admiration among those nations of the Conti-
nent whose days of colonisation and cone-it-tett hate
had their trial and their failure. Great exploits and
great crimes have marked its history in- the
times when it was independent, -and really
was what it only pretended to be .in after days -
—a corporation trading, acquiring terri-
tory, and carrying on wars in foreign lands
with-but the slightest control from its own Govern-
ment. Some speakers have dwelt upon •
tious, which were at times flagrant, and its *me.
'tice to indiiiclintlOhich was often undeniable, but
we are content to allow the evil to be buried with
the generations which priduced it, and to remett • -
ber only the genius, valour,
_!.l.lpciseverance of the
men who converted a litLe ..act-try -on the Hooghly-
and two stations on the Ocrienrandel and Malabar
Coasts into the capital cities of the greatest Asiatic
Earpire which now exists. We think that with .
every succeeding year, and with every advance of
sound inquiry, the spirit which found a gratiflca--
tion ih tormenting Clive and Hastings, and in carp-
ing at Wellesley, will be more and more repro.
bated. There have been instances of its revival at
the present day, but whether it be that a Burke or
a Sheridan is wanting,, or that a better judgment`-
prevails in the community, certain it is that the.
shafts of censure have fallen powerless, upon those-
who have vigorously upheld the supremacy oftheir:
countrymen iddistant regions.
England may, then, justly honour the name and
memory of the great Company which is associated
with the most extraordinary conquest ever achieved
by arms or policy. We may all feel a pang at hear-
ing of the last meeting in Leadeuhall,-street, but:
our regret is rather historical and traditional than
practical. Every one must feel that the East India
Company bad lived its allotted term, and that if
it now descends full of years and henours into the.
grave, it is best for its own reputation and the rub-
lie good. In fact, the East India Company had fur
many years ceased.to exist as anindependentpower.-
What was called by the name of the Company was
an apparatus by whiCh a certain number" of men in
some degree conversant" with Indian 'affairi were
brought together and allowed a voice in the govern--
mem of the British possessions! iu Asia.. Since the
act of William Pitt theind ependence ofthe Company
13 as bc enbut ashado w. Legislation within the pres nit
cantury took away the exclusive trade telncua and
China, then prohibited trade altogether, and within
the last few years has given the Croon the nomi-
nation of a p'iitioa of the directors. The other di-
rectors have been elected by the stockholders, a