The Sun.
London, England, 1858-04-08 00:00:00

the habitual mismanagement of countries inhabited by
Englishmen like ourselves, who 'nad every facility for
representing and urging their grievances, it is not likely
to be any effectual protection to diseulmans and
Hindoos,
" All governments require constitutional checks but
the constitutional checks applicable to a case of this pe-
culiar kind must be found within the governing body
itself.
" Though England, as a whole, while desiring nothing
but to govern India well, is necessarily ignorant of India
and feels, under ordinary circumstances, no paiticular
interest in its concerns, there are in England a certain
number of persons who possess knowledge of India, and
feel an interest in its affairs. It seems, therefore, very
desirable, for the sake of India, that England should
govern it through and by means of these persons. This
would be the case if the organ of government prin-
cipally consisted of persons who have passed a
considerable portion of their lives in India, or
who feel that habitual interest in its affairs which
i i naturally acquired by having aided in admini-
ering them ; and if this body, or a majority of it,
were pericdically elected by a constituency composed of
persons in England who Lave served the Government
for a certain length of time in India, or whose interests
are connected with that country by some permanent tie.
It would be an additional advantage if this constituency
had the power of requiring information, and compelling
a public discussion of Indian questions. These are con-
ditions which, to a considerable extent, the existing
constitution of the East India Company fulfils.
" The other great constitutional security for the good
government of India lies in the forms of business. This
is a point to which sufficient importance is not generally
attached. The forms of business are the real constitution
of India.
" From the necessity of the case, recognised in both
the proposed measures, the administration must be
shared in some proportion, between a minister and a
council. The council may consist of persons possessing
knowledge of India. The minister, except in very rare
cases, can possess little or none. He is placed in office
by the action of political party, which is governed by
considerations totally unconnected with India, and, in
the common course of politics, he is removed from office
by the time he has been able to learn his duty. Even in
the unusual case, of which present circumstances are an
example, when the Minister has made himself ac-
quainted with India through the discharge of high
functions in India itself, his knowledge is but the know.
ledge of one man ; and one man's knowledge of a sub-
ject like India, until corrected and completed by that
of other men, is, it may safely be affirmed, wholly in-
sufficient, and if implicitly trusted, even dangerous.
The good Government, therefore, of India, by a Minis-
ter and a council, depends upon the amount of influence
possessed by the council ; and their influence depends
upon the forms of business.
" However experienced may be the council, and how-
ever inexperienced the Minister, he will have the decid-
ing voice. The power will rest with one who may know
less of the subject than any member of the council, and
is sure to know less than the council collectively, if they
are selected with ordinary judgment. The council will
have no substantive power, but only moral influence. It
is therefore all important that the influence should be
upheld. Unless the forms of business are such as to in-
sure that the council shall exercise its judgment on all
quistions ; that all matters requiring decision shall be
considered by them, and their views recorded in the
initiatory stage, before the Minister has committed him-
self to an opinion they will possess no more weigh or
influence than the Fame number of clerks in his office
(whom also he can consult if he pleases), and the power
of the Minister will be practically uncontrolled.
" In both the bills these considerations are entirely
disregarded. The first bill does not establish any forms
of business, but leaves them to be determined by the
Minister and his council ; in other words, by the Minis-
ter and his council ; in other words, by the Minister.
Even, therefore, if
,the Minister first appointed should
be willing to establish forms which would be any re-
straint upon himself, a subsequent Minister would have
it in his power to alter the forms in any manner he
pleased.
" The second bill, unlike the first, does establish forms
of business; but such alone as would effectually prevent
the council from being a reality, and render it a useless
pageant.
" To make the council a merely consultative body,
without initiative, before whom subjects are only brought
after the Minister has made up his mind, is already a
fatal inroad upon its usefulness. Bat by the second bill
the council are not even a consultative body. The
Minister is under no obligation to consult them. They
are not empowered to hold any regular meeting.. They
are to meet only when the Minister convenes them, or
on a special requisition by six members. He may send
orders to India without their knowledge when the case
is urgent, of which urgency he is the sole judge. When
it is not urgent, his orders must be placed in the council-
room for their perusal for seven days, during which they
are not required, but permitted, to give their opinior,
not Collectively, but individually. Their only power,
therefore, is that of recording dissent from a resolution
not only taken, but embodied in a despatch. And, as it
this was not enough, provision is made that an office
always invidious, shall be incapable of being fulfilled in
any but the most invidious manner. The members of
council must come forward individually in declared op-
position to the Minister, by volunteering a protest
against his announced intentions, or signing a requisi-
tion for a meeting of council to oppose them. Such a
council is fitted to serve as a shield for the Minister's ,
responsibility when it may suit him to seek, and them
to accord, their adhesion, rather than as a restraint on
his power to administer India according to his indivi-
dual pleasure.
The directors are bound to admit, that the first of
the bills contains several provisions indicative of a wish
to assure to the council a certain, though small, amount
of influence. The administration is to be carried os
in the name of the President in Council, and not, as by
the second bill, in that of the Secretary of State
alone. The council, as well as the president, has a
voice in the appointment of the home establishment ;
while in the second bill all promotions and all appoint-
ments to the principal offices under the council, rest with
the Secretary of State, exclusively, a provision which
divests the council of all control or authority over their
own establishment. Again, by section XII. of the first
bill, no grant involving increase of expenditure, and no
appointment to office or admission to service, can be
made without the concurrence of half the council. This,
as far as it goes, is a real power, but its valets is much
diminished by the consideration that those by whom it
is to be exercised, are the nominees of the Minister de-
pendent on him for their continuance in office after a
few years.

absolute, have had the advantage, seldom possessed in
I absolute governments, of being always preceded by a
free and conscientious discussion, while, as the head of
the government has tho power, on recording his rea-
sons, to act contrary to the advice of his council,
no public inconvenience can ever arise from any
conflict of opinion. These important officers who, by
their participation in the government, form so salu-
tary a restraint on the precipitancy of an inexperienced,
or the wilfulness of a despotically-tempered, governor
general or governor, are henceforth to be appointed by
the great, functionary whom they are intended to check.
And this restraint is removed, when the necessity for an
independent council will be greater than ever, since the
power of appointing the governor general. and of recall-
ing him, is taken away from the company, and from the
body which is to he their substitute. It may be added,
that the authorities at home have had the opportunity of
being acquainted with the conduct and services of can-
didates for council from the commencement of their
career. The Governor General or Governor would often
have to nominate a councillor soon after their arrival in
India, when necessarily ignorant of the character and
merits of candidates, and would be entirely dependent
on the recommendation of irresponsible advisers.
"Another most objectionable prevision demands
notice, which is to be found only in the second bill. A
commission, appointed in England, is to proceed to
India, for the purpose of inquiring and reporting on the
principles and details of Indian finance, including the
whole revenue system, and, what is inseparably involved
in it, the proprietary rights and social position of all the
great classes of the community. The Court of Direc-
tors cannot believe that such a project will be persisted
in. It would be a stop towards the disorganisation
of the fabric of government in India. A commission
from England, independent of the local government
of the country, deriving its authority directly from the
higher power to which the local government is subordi-
nate, and instructed to carry back to the higher power
information on Indian affairs which the local government
is not deemed sufficiently trustworthy to afford, would
give a most serious shock to the influence of the local
authorities, and would tend to impress all natives with
the belief that the opinions and decisions of the local
government are of small moment, and that the thing of
real importance is the success with which they can con-
trive that their claims and objects shall be advocated in
England. Up to the present time it has been the prac-
tice of the borne government to uphold in every way the
authority of the governments on the spot ; even when
reversing their acts, to do so through the governmet to
themselves, and to employ no agency except in subordi-
nation to them.

" From this review of the chief provisions of the bills,
which embody the attempts of two great divisions of
i English statesmen to frame an organ of government for
1 India, it will probably appear to the proprietors, that
neither of them is grounded on any sufficient considers.
tion of past experience, or of the principles applicable to
the subject ; that the passing of either would be a
calamity to India ; and that the attempt to 1-gislate
while the minds of leading men are in so unprepared a
state is altogether premature.
"The opinion of your directors is, that by all consti-
tutional means the passing of either bill should be op-
posed ; but that if one or the other should be determined
ou for the purpose of transferring the administration, in
name, from the East India Company to the Crown,
every exertion should-be used in its passage through com-
mittee to divest it of the mischievous features by which
both bills are now deformed, and to maintain, as at pre-
sent, a really independent council, having the initiative
of all business, discharging all the duties, and possessing
all the essential powers of the Court of Directors. And
it is the court's conviction that measures might be so
framed as to obviate whatever may be well founded in
the complaints made against the present system, retain-
the initiative cf the council, and that independence of
action on their part which should be regarded as para-
mount and indispensable."
On the motion of the Chairman that the report should
be received,
Mr. MACKENZIE moved as an amendment that Par-
liament having determined that it was necessary to le-
gislate for India, Sir James Melville and Mr. J. ..uart
Mill should be requested to draw up a scheme for the
future Government of India, to be submitted to the
Court of Proprietors and eventually to Parliament.
Sir F. CURRIE thought it was too much to ask the
directors to draw out a bill for their own extinction.
The hon. proprietors could hardly expect the directors
to consent to become their own executioners. (Loud
laughter.)
Mr. ARBUTHNOT entered into a consideration of the
different clauses in the bill. He was more inclined to
the present Government than the last; but, on the
whole, he preferred Lord Palmerston's bill to Lord
Derby's bill.
The CHAIRMAN, on behalf of the Court of Directors,
said that if Parliament decided on changing the present
form of government, it would be the duty of the direc-
tors to render every assistance in making the measure as
perfect as possible.
Mr. SERGEANT GAZELLES urged that the Court of Pro-
prietors ought then to diseuss the provisions of the bill.
He was prepared to do so, and in the course of his
speech, he said he gave the preference to Lord Palmer-
ston's bill. He objected to the council, and would rather
the responsibility was thrown on the Secretary of State.
The members of the proposed council would be merely
" gentlemen clerks." Tuey would be paid 1,0001. a-year
each far doing the work of clerks, but no voice in the
government of India. If the two bills were sent to a
select committee of the House of Commons be thought
a good bill might be produced from them. The change
of government was only a question of time, and the
Home Government had lauded the present system to
make the directors' fall easier. (Hear, hear.) He called
on the directors to heartily join the Home Govern-
ment in providing a good system cf government for
India. He objected among other things to the qua-
lifications for the representative council, remarking
that any one who had sent goods to India even
if they were so bad as to poison the people—(laughter)—
was qualified for a seat at the Board. He then analysed
the bills, clause by clause, stating his objections to them.
He described Lord I)..rby's Bill as the most absurd im-
practicable scheme that was ever concocted. Referring
to the election of the nine members of the Council, the
learned gentleman said it was objectionable, and he
o .ula not believe it was the intention of Lord Derby
that an Indian Director for the City of London should
be elected by the longehere men, who were ready to
vote any way at so much per head. The Court was a
piece of antiquity like an old hackney coach—(laughter)
—and toey must make up their mind to be abolished. He
should like the present Government to remain in power
to keep out the Whigs a little longer—(laughter)—but
he was afraid if they persisted in the bill, they would
have to pick up their traps and be off. (Laughter.)
The meeting was ultimately adjourned to Tuesday
next, for further dieensFing the report and the bills be-
fore Parliament ; the Chairman having previously stated
that a copy of the report had been forwarded to the
Earl of Ellenboroegh. Toe court of Directors were
alone responsible for the report, which did not implicate
the Court of Proprietors. It was a report from the
Court of Directors to the Court of Proprietors.
The Court then adjourned.

"In some other points the provisions of the second
bill seem to have the advantage. Its councl is more
numerous, to which, however, little importance can be
attached, if the council has no substantial power. It
also recognises that the whole of the council ought not
to be nominated by the Minister, and that some part of
it ,hould be elected by a constituency specially qualified
by a knowledge of India. But even in these, the best
points of the bill, it ie, in the opinion of the directors,
very far from unexceptionable. The nomination of even
half the council by the Minister takes away all seem ity
for an independent majority. It may, indeed, be
doubted whether there is any sufficient reason for the
Minister's nominating any portion, except the supposed
reluctance of some eligible persons to encounter a can-
vase. The proportion of one third, whom the Minister
now nominates to the Court of Directors, seems the
largest which, eon-ietently with full security for in-
dependence, can be to appointed.
"The provision, that each of the members nominated
by the Crown shall be selected as the representative of
some particular branch of the service in India, is still
more objectionable. Not only would it preclude the no-
mination of the most distinguished man, if the seat in
council appropriated t 3 the department in which he had
served were not at the time vacant, but it would intro •
duce a principle which cannot be too strongly deprecated,
that ef class legislation. The council should comprise
the greatest attainable variety of knowledge and expe-
rience, but its members should not consider themselves
as severally the representatives of a certain number of
class interests. . . .

WILFUL MURDER IN DORSETSEIRE.

tDORCHESTER, TUESDAY NIGHT.

At the Town Hall, this evening, an inquest was
held before Mr. Glee Symonds, the distr'e; coroner,
on the body of a Bewly-born mile child which was
found dead in bed with its mother, Anne Vincent,
aged 18, on the morning of the 27th ult. The
parents of the young woman are respectable, the
father, James Vincent, being bailiff to Mr. Pope,
of Sutton Poyntz.
Mr. W. Mansfield attended on behalf of :the
young woman.

The young woman, who was known to be in the
• family way, went to bed on the night of the 26th,
apparently well, about nine o'clock, and no noise
was heard during the night. At five iu the morn-
ing the father got up, and while dressing fancied
he heard a moan. Went to call his daughter, and
said she had been sick. He calle 1 his w;fe to get
the gill some tea, and went on to the farm (Fier-
! ringslone, near here). The mother got her daugh-
ter some tea, and the girl reached it herself whilst
the mother prepared breakfast. On again going to
the girl, and essaying to wrap the clothes more
closely arcund her Mra. Vincent found a newly-
born baby, dead in the bed.
Messrs. H. Arden and E. Emson, the surgeons,
s'ated their dec ded opinion, unanimous indeed as
to the reiult of the post mortem examination Ex-
ternally there were marks of finger Dais on the
baby's cheek and forehead, a scratch, two bruises,
and a curious bruise, as from a cord, re...ching
round from the ear to the front of the throat. The
tip of the tongue showed wounds, and the root of
the tongue was t Ali from the bone of the tongue.
The back of the throat was much injured ; the
windpipe was stopped. Blood gushed from the
child's mouth and nose on being moved. Both arms
were broken. The lungs and heart floated, and the
arm fractures were received during life. Death in
their opinion ensued from the injuries on the
tongue and consequent suffocation. The child had
been born alive certainly, and when first seen by
thekrgeon, alyiut 10 o'clock on the morning of t' e
27th, appea•ed to have been dead some h Airs. The
foreign substance causing the throat wound might
have been a hand.

1 - "..6.l;elause which continues to the proprietors the
power of electing some portion of the council is, so far,
deserving of support, and the principle of enlarging the
constituency by the addition of persons of a certain
length of Indian service and residence, is, in itself, un-
exceptionable; but unless guarded by provision,, such
as have never yet been introduced into any elect iral sys-
tem, so large and scattered a constituency as that pro-
posed would greatly add to the inconvenience of canvass,
especially as it is not certain that the new electoral body
would adopt, from the old, the salutary custom of re-
electing, as a general practo e whoever has been oncecho-
seo, and has not, by misconduct or incapacity, deserved
to forfeit their confidence. The duties of a member of
council would be earely incompatible with a conti•
nually-recurring canvass of the constituency.
"Respecting the propoxilion f r giving the choice of
five members of council to the parliamentary constituen-
cies of dye great towns, the Court of Direciors can oely
express a feeling of amazement. It iir not the mere fact
of election by a multitude that constitutes the benefits
of the popular element in government. To produc.t
these benefits, the affairs of which the people are
enabled to control the management must be their own
affairs. Election by multitudinous bodice, the majority
of them of a very low average of education, is not au ad-
vantAge of popular government, but, on the contrary,
one of its acknowledged drawbacks. To assign to such ,
a constituency the control, not i f their own affairs, but
~f the affairs of other people on the other side of the
elobe, is to incur the disadvantages of popular institu- 1
Lions without any of the benefits. The Court of Directors
willingly admit the desirableness. if not necess ty, of
some provision for including an Eaglisb element in the
council of India. ; but a more objectionable mode than
the one proposed of atteining the object, could scarcely,
eieeed.
in tl.eir opipion, be si „c—
-awlbi iicl hi s relate i
nt optrhoev
jo.,
iroguasn
roe f-
governmen
h are open to the srengest
lating to India itself, which `° Besides
itaheEtt;rgolav inei
d 2itsh
objection.
...______.
PenvEnTrazuver].—Rapid rev very.. Holloway's
-
at the subordinate preeiclencees,
e a probati.m of tLe Pi is and Ointreene—&Lei t twelve months since Mr.
the Cou-4ef Directcas, with t'i
`Toe appointments to the cbovulinicc:lliaraet
nCoawleurnt:ttadeanbll,
and Bombay. il• tratlng weakness • six inenthi aft,rwards an erup-
Crown, are tran‘ferred by both billsP to the Governor Holme, Woodilde, Hereford), was se :z dby a serious
General, and to the Governors of Madras .
treatment of
He immediately placed Lim. -
pthlaecetrieal rues eminent men in
The Court (.1 Directors are convinced that this change
,tileolfnettiodockr
would greatly impair the chances of good government
is lually got worse, and was prevented following any
in India. One of the causes which have most centre- Liverpo,l and Manchester, but, to use his own words,
buted to the many excellences of Indian administration gra
loyment daring the whole time." . He removed to
eni
is, that the Governor General and governors tare a!
t!,, RePr:forth ; a ,riend there ieduced him to try the effect
ways been aesoclated with councillors selected by
Holloway medicines. He purchased them, followed
authorities at home from among the most ex e. i .aced of
droggiq, to make 11;s case known.
and able reemeere of the Indian service, and who, net the instruct_ie,n)
jsii and was cured in a few weeks. He
()wine* their appointments to the head of the govern- ei.hes Mr. if
Est Ll'.a nt, 244,
talent, have generally brought to the consideration of —Sold by all mednigcine vendors throughout the world ;
Indian affairs an independent judgment. In conse- and at Professor Holloway's a i meStrand,
quenoe of this, the measures of A government, necessarily. London.

Thee
hie
j uCory ron having summed up,
consulted for about three-qu'aters of an
hour when they unanimously arrived at the verdict
of Wilful Murder against Anne Vincent, the
mother of the deceased.
• A w arrant was issued for the apprehmsion of the
young woman.