The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-04 00:00:00

(Front the Daily .I'4m)
We published yesterday a very remarkable com-
munication from a native gentleman residing in
Central India. The writes is a person of very con-
siderable ability and experience, intimately ac-
quainted with the working of the British adminis-
tration in India, and thoroughly versed in the sen-
timents with which that administration is regarded
by his countrymen. The Queen does not possess
atnong her subjects in Hindostan a more loyal, or
devoted adherent. In the worst days of 1857 his
firmness and sagacity were of 'essential service in
retaining an important province in its allegiance.
and he is at the present time employed in a re-
sponsible situation under the British Government.
The opinions of such a man as to ,the causes of the
great insurrection, and the general unpopularity
of the British Government must be well deserving
of respectful attention.' Even where his views
may not command unqualified assent, they are
calculated to supply material for anxious reflection.
The first cause assigned by this well-informed
writer for the dislike entertained for our dominion
is one which more especially affects • the highest
classes of our Indian.subjects ; it is the system we
have pursued in usurping native principalities, and
arbitrarily seizing the;personal property belonging
to the families. of former native rulers. This part
of the case is stated in 'language whose guarded
moderation produces an effect more powerful than
the most laboured invective :—" After the establish-
ment of the British supremacy:many large and
small estates belotigingtolhe nobles and landlords
of >Hindostan, which had been acknowledged as
hereditary property during'the rule of both Ifiridoo
and Mussulman dynasties, were attached by the
British authorities, and title deeds (sunnuds) re-
quired for each separate estate, large or small ; up
to that period no sovereign or governor had ever
attempted such proceedings. And these regulations
and these proceedings are in active operation still.
Even sovereign provinces, who had always lived,in
friendly alliance, and indeed in perfect submission
to the Honourable Company, and the hereditary
succession of whose principalities was firmly
guaranteed by treaties in which it was said that
the sovezeignty should descend to their heirs and
successors, have not been exempt from the confis-
cation of their rights. From the time that the
British Government began to be most firmly es-
tablished, the process of extinguishing native
sovereignties began to be put in force ; and even
their accumulated wealth, and their jewels and
other property, which ought to have been the in-
heritance of their widows and children, have in
many cases been disposed of by public auction, and
the proceeds placed in the Company's treasury."
There is too much reason to fear that many of these
allegations are substantially well founded. Human
nature being what it is, the dominant native
classes of India necessarily came to regard a supre-
macy thus exercised with disguised dislike and
rooted suspicion. In the forcible language of the
writer whose views it is our business to illustrate,
" all people commenced to have doubts of the jus-
tice and good intentions of Government ; and more
especially men of noble birth and ancient lineage,
being completely ruined and degraded, thought
that even death was preferable to such a life."
The usurpation of principalities, and the confis-
cation. of royal or princely property, though in-
directly producing a powerful influence on the sen-
timents of the whole community, had a. direct
bearing on the highest class only. The cause of
alienation next to be considered materially affected
the position of the important class that comes next
to the highest in the social scale. We have ruled
India by a bureaucracy, and there is no description
Of rule more fatally unpopular with the once influ-
ential classes of a subject land. Wherever such a
government is carried on by a conquering race, the
native gentry and landholders sink gradually into
a state of mortifying and discontened insignificance.
The natural tendency of every such system is to re-
pel the local magnates, and to raise up the obscure and
more manageable order of natives to be its agents and
its tools. This has been the case in India, and it has
been' attended with a twofold evil. It has rendered
the better class disaffected, and it has brought
into power and prominence an active and unprin-
cipled order of men, who have in many instances,
during the late outbreak, • exerted their infiuenca
with fatal success against the Government which
has reposed too blind a confidence in this work of
its own hands. The native gentleman on whose
letter we are commenting, represents an opinion
very current among the better orders of Indian
society When he indicates as one of the principal
causes of our unpopularity in India, the gradual
exclusion of men of respectable family from the
service of the state, and the employment of the
lower order of natives in their stead. He attributes
to these Pundits and Moulvies of low extraction,
who have gained official position by passing through
the Government schools, a vast deal of that incen-
diary feeding which was the proximate cause of
the recent outbreak. Whether this inference be
warranted or not by the facts of the case—as to
which we are not yet, in a position to form an ade-
quate judgment—it is abundantly clear that no
system of government can be more mistaken than
that which tends to discourage and alienate a still
respectable and once important order of men, whose
services it repudiates, and whose self-respect it
cruelly wounds.
The class of grievances to which the native writer
next directs attention, as having had much to do
with creating the disaffection which unhappily ex-
ists in India, are more or less connected with the
details of local administration. The corruption of
the natives employed as officers in the courts of
collectors, magistrates, and judges, is a prolific
source of general and well-grounded disaffection.
This corruption does not entirely proceed from the
rooted and ingrained dishonesty of Asiatic func-
tionaries. There have been times, even in India,
when this corruption was kept within bounds; there
never have been times, even in India, when it has
been so rank and glaring as under British rule.
There is a cause for this. The pay of the native offi-
cials is far too small, and their power is far too
great. Their salary is a pittance on which they
can barely live with decency ; their power extends
to a control over important decrees, for the pur-
chase of which hardly any bribe is too high. It is
with these officials, as a general rule, that suitors
make their arrangements in the first instance.
Cases involving many hies of rupees are virtually
settled as these functionaries choose. One result is
that many of these men, on the pay of porters, live
live with the profusion of princes. A still worse re-
sult is that a universal impression is produced in
India that justice is a saleable commodity at an CX.r
ceedingly extravagant tariff. The method of pro-
cedure adopted in these local courts is another source
of very general and just discontent. We have pre-
served in India that cast iron rigidity of the Common
Law which we have been compelled to abandon at
home. A common law judgment is given for the
whole sum claimed ; it knows nothing nf instal.
ments. When the county courts were established
in England this absurdity had to be given up, and
in those courts nine orders out of every ten direct
the payment of the debt claimed by instalments.
Let any one conversant with the subject imagine
what the result would be, if every judgment deli-
vered in every county court in England and Wales
was a peremptory order for instant payment of the
whole debt. Yet this state of things, which would
be utterlyimpossible here, is an actual fact in India.
It was never so before the days of British rule :
" Under the native rulers, both Hindoo and Mus-
sulman—if any person was not able to pay his
debts or the amount of a judgment obtained against
him in a court of justice, in one sum, an arrange-
ment was made for payment by instalments, to
which the plaintiff was obliged to submit." The
same system was applied to balances of revenue ;
instalments spread over many years were allowed,
and when the assessment appeared excessive, a
reduction was made in the Government demand.
There is another great cause of discontent connected
with the administration of the local courts. The
old system of settling disputes by Punchay et—the
arbitration of fellow-villagers meeting to arrange
differences on equitable terms—is as much as pos-
sible discouraged and checked. Here, again, note
the absurdity and folly of our proceedings. Just as
our most advanced reformers, headed by Lord
Brougham, are labouring to introduce•tourts of
Conciliation into this country, our Government in
India is doing its best to discountenance a most
admirable institution of the same kind, coeval with
the history of the people, intertwined with their
habits, and adequate to their wants. Thc list of
grievances connected with the Local Courts includes
two other points :—the compulsory tax on justice
imposed by the enforced employment of stamped
paper in all law proceedings; and the frequency
of appeals. The latter practice diminishes the re-
spect paid to the local judgment, trebles the cost of
procedure, and enables the heaviest purse to win.
The stamp regulation is so odious that it is a cur-
rent saying among the people, that " the courts of
justice are turned into shops for the sale of stamps."
We have not space to' follow the native writer
through his long but temperate list of the causes

Miles Opened. Receipts.
Railways. ~....._."....---Th ~..._-_-,..-...„,
1858. 1857. 1858. 1857.
£ X
Ballymena and.Portrush 35 35 - --
Bedale and Leyburn lO 10 116 89
Belfast and Ballymena 65 65 1,065 1,080
Belfast and County Down l7 17 350 235
Birkd., Lane., & Ches. Juno 32 32 2,660 2,714
Blyth and Tyne 2O 13 1,248 1,408
Bristol and Exeter llB 117 5,613 5,273
Caledonian
Ches.&Holyhead(withMold) 94 94+ 4,796 5,086
Cockermouth & Workington 8 8i 224 26.5
Cork and Bandon 2O 20 270 250
Cork, Blackrock, & Passage 6+ 61 183 194
Deeside l7 17 203 247
Dublin & Belfast Junction 56 56 1,161 1,112
Dublin and Drogheda 63 63 1,470 1,446
Dub. & Wicklow (in.Kingst ) 401 401 1,159 1,277
Dundalk and Enniskillen
Dundee and Arbroath 174 171 630 599
Dundee, Perth, & Aber. Jun 3l 31 1,014 925
East Anglian 671 671 896 929
E.Counties,Nrik.,&E.Union 489 489 23,361 21,207
East Kent l9l - 239 -
E.Lancashire(in.Blackburn) 111 105 5,490 4,889
Edinburgh and Glasgow
Edinburgh, Perth,& Dundee 78 78 2,993 3,070
Forth & Clyde Junction - - 309 265
Furness
Glasgow & South-Western. 1831 1831 6,714 6,695
Great Northern 283 283 24,319 22,495
Great North of Scotland
Gt.Southn. &Westn.(lrind ) 229 2031 6,458 6,164
Great Western 466 466 25,210 25,471
Hull and Holderness
Inverness & Aberdeen Juno. 52 15 624 -
Irish South-Eastern 251 251 311 275
Killarney Junction
Lancaster and Carlisle (in.
Kendal and Windermere) 100 100 5,993 5,783
Lane. & Yrks.(in.Blackburn) 299 209 21,900 18,411
Limerick and Foynes 129 108
Llanelly 4 35 424 375
London & North-Western . 647 54,055 53,224
London and Blackwall 5 1,140 1,129
London & South-Western . 289 270 11,760 11,549
Lond. Brighton, &S. Coast 199 IS3 11,027 11,819
L'derry and Enniskillen
Loud., Tilbury, & Southend. 421 40 869 848
Man.,Sheffield, & Lincolnsh. 173 1731 6.702 9,p.3
Manch. S.Jun.& Altrincham 9 0 786 182
Maryport and Carlisle
Midland
Midland Gt.Westn. of Irind. 177 177 3,425 3,243
Monkland 52 52 1,502 1,310
Monmoutlish. Rail. & Canal 44 44 2,023 2,134
2,902 3,430
Newcastle and Carlisle 7B 78
Newport,Alwrg.,& Hereford 50 43 1,366 -1,101
North British (in.•Dalkeith) 149 149 5,067 4,859
North Devon 35 35 349 299
North-Eastern 7251 720 32,697 33,483
North London 9 9 2,160 2,075
North Staffordshire 233 233 6,908 6,589
North-Western 4f4 464 822 885
N. Yorkshire and Cleveland 101 - 75 -
Oxford, Wore., & Wolver.
Peebles lB 18 178 167
St. llelen's Canal & Railway 30 30 1,632 1,564
Scottish Central
Scottish North-Eastern ll5 115 3,635 3,497
Shrewsbury & Birmingham 294 291 1,660 1,511
Shrewsbury and Chester
Shrewsbury & Hereford
Shropshire Union 29 29,- 763 851
South Devon
South-Eastern 3Ol 301 - 15,563 14,680
South Wales l7l 1711 6,075 6,912
S. Yorkshire and River Dun 108 108' 2,917 2,798
Stockton and Darlington
Taff Vale 53 38 4,089 3,096
Ulster 36 36 1,594 1,319
Ulverstone and Lancaster . 19 19 360 253
Vale of Neath 251 251 1,432 1,536
Warrington and Stockport. 12 12 - -
Waterford and Kilkenny 3l 31 265 218
Waterford and Limerick 77 77 988 919
West Cornwall 271 271 520 611
W.Hartlepool 11 arbr.& Rail. 39 39 3,328 3,266
Whitehaven Junction l2 12 ftis 436
Whitehaven & Furness Jun. 35 •35 t,05 411
W'haven,Cleatorat Egrmnt. 7 7 300 284
FOREIGN AND COLONIAL.
Antwerp and Rotterdam... 52 52 - -
Austrian B2B 673 31,104 34,8 e..„,
Belgian Eastern Junction 264 261 320 '''"
~, 1,01.3
Buffalo and Lake Huron
Detroit and Milwaukie lB5l 140 1,840
2,890
Dutch Rhenish lost 1081 3,302 9„1
Grand Trunk of Canada 879 849 10,445 _,..„,.,
Great Indian Peninsula l3O 884 2,528 I,b-s?
Great Luxembourg 122 38 1,884 1,018
5 9,668
Great Western of Canada 294 283 88:0738- 6,972
Lombardo-Venetian2,sll
Lyons and Geneva 3,725 406
Madrid, Saragossa &Alicat 2219,12: 210479
176 7,344 3'
250 245
Maria Antonia' 2l 21
574 574 46,099 41,738
Northern of France 666 733
44
Norwegian Trunk 44
781 69,652 63,621
Paris, Lyons, & Mediterrn 8421 771 48,750 43,077
92
Paris and Orleans 979 791 40,898 33,753
Paris and Strasburg 69 479 524
69
Royal Danish 6B 1,364 1,289
Sam
68
Southb
re
ern of andeuse France.
577 16,717 11,196
West Flanders
31,068792
29,623006
W. and N.W. ofFranCe 716

SUNDAY SPECIAL EVENING SERVICES AT
ST.
PAuL's.—The
services will commence every Sunday at
seven p.m. The west doors will be opened for the public.
As soon as the cathedral is filled the doors will be closed,
which will be clearly announced. The preachers appointed
by the Bishop of London for the present month are—The
Very Bev. the Dean of St. Paul's, on the sth; the Lord
Bishop of Ripon, on the 12th ; the Rev. Dr. Hook, Vicar
of Leeds, on the 19th ; and the Rev. W. Cadman, Rector
of St. George's, Southwark, on the 26th.

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