The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-23 00:00:00

SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE,

The Priscilla, ii,i;Monmouth, and the Athene, from
Liverpool, and the Nebraska, from Glasgow, were at
11 difax.
The Onward, from GlaQgo-v, was at Providence.
Tee Vigo, hence for New York, was off Quensto.an
at 6 p.m. on the 22d.

ARRIVAL OF THE STEAM SHIP ARIEL.
(BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.)

SOUTHAMPTON', FRIDAY MORNING.

By the s'eam ship Ariel, Captain Ludlow, we
have New York advices to the 10th, but the news
is uninteresting. She brings 200 passengers ;no
specie for England, but 563,9001. for France.
Commander Page is to command the naval force
to be despatched to Paraguay.
General Harney was ordered to return to St.
Louis, unless the Mormons offered opposition to
the advance of the army into Salt Lake Valley, and
if any hostility was offered the whole force would
operate against them, as originally designed.
The steamship Africa, from Liverpool, arrived
out on the Bth ; and the Elinburgh, from Glas-
gow, on the 9tb.
Business in exchange was moderate on the 9th,
and rates on month rather irregular. Bank and
Bank signatures, 109 a to .1 ; stocks gained strength
considerably. Sales were made on the Bth at rather
lower prices, but on the following day the market
rallied, and prices of all kinds had a thing tone.
Demand quite free for New York Central at 81 to
841, closing 84 bid ;• Rock Island ailvariced at
close to 751 ; Michigan Central to 59.11. Sfates
Stocks moderate, about $200,000 in New York
Fives, at 103, Ohios of 1886 at 1061 ; and Vir-
ginians at about 921 were taken privately.
Cotton market closed firm. Sales on month em-
braced about 3,000 bales, on the basis of about
12iic. per lb. for middling. Uplands flour steady
for fresh ground samples ; comma grades heavy,
without change in prices ; prime wheat firm, and
inferior quaiitios heavy ; aad irregular provi-
sions in fair demand: Coffee, rice, arid sugars in
good request ; more activity in naval stores and
oil?, and less in freights.

THE HUDSON'S BAY TERRI TORY.

IGNORANCE OF MEN IN OFFICE.

The debate in the House of Commons on Mr.
Roebuck's motion as to the Hudson's Bay Com-
pany brought out very contradictory statements of
the country between Lake Superior and the Rocky
Mountains, which may be called the basin of Lake
Winnipeg and its tributaries, all the speakers eulo-
gising its fertility, rivers, mines, woods, prairies,
and capabilities for supporting man, when, lo and
behold, up starts Mr. RoberrLowe, who described
the region in question as being frozen ground and
inaccessible, Mr. Fortescue supporting his state
ment.
One would think that a person once holding high
office, and look,: d upon as a business adviser by the
late Government, should have some knowledge.
Whether Mr. Lowe and the others were the right
persons in the right places appears now very ques-
tionable.
Had either of those gentlemen acquainted them-
"selves with the facts from books, they would find
the country in its natural state of prairie and forest
superior to Prussia and Northern Germany, with
as good a clima.e and equal to lowa and Minna-
sotto, with a natural navigation second only to the
Mississippi.
Instead of applying to Sir John Richardson as
the " Bradshaw ' of that region, if the right hon.
gentleman had only gone to the obligino, secretary
of the Grand Trunk Railway in Broad-street, Sir
Cusack Roney would be happy to book him as first
and second, or emigrant passenger from London to
Collingwood in 14 days, whence the Canadian mail
steamer would bring him to Fort William in three
days more, and thence .by a.road now making by the
Canadian Government, which will be travelled over
in eight days, or to Detroit, whence there are al-
most daily steamers for all ports on Lake Superior ;
and in the winter to St. Paul in sixteen days,
whence they can sleigh to the Red River in eight
or ten more. In the dap of Sir John R:chardson
there were no s' eamboats on the lakes or railroads
in Canada or the United States, but rail and steam
now bring the Hudson's Bay territory, de facto,
nearer to us than Montreal was forty years ago.
It is odd to find the member for Kidderminster,
returned on free-►rade prineiplm advocr t'r g ;Lo-
poly ; this is a matter between him and his consti-
tuents ; but to find the Times doing so is passing
strange, its leader on the 10th on this subject hav-
ing drawn out counter ones in the daily and even-
ing as well as most of the weekly press.
The triumphant na ,jority against Mr. Hutt's
motion suppored by that piper, as well as the
almost unanimous verdict of the house on Mr.
Roebuck's resolution, show that on the great ques-
tions of slavery and monopoly advocated by it, the
Times is not the exponent, but the opponen', of
British opinion.

The company do use the Hudson's Bay route to
the Red River as described by Sir John Richard-
son, instead of the right road by Lake Superior.
Our readers will not forget how the Rifles, with
their wives and children, were sent last year from
Toronto, at the suggestion of Sir George Simpson,
a roun-1 of 3,000 miles through this icy sea, at
the risk of their liven, taking 12J days to the
Red River, when at the same time chief-trader
Rowan went by the right route to it in 14, Mr.
Clarke Ross returning from Red River to
Fort William in 8. t'Sir George did this to
show the British public that there was no access to
the country but by Hudson's Bay, the route so
highly recommended by Mr. Lowe.
The Colonial Secreta'y deserves great credit for
his enlightened views on the colonisation of British
America, as well as the honourab'e members who
so ably proposed, supported, and spoke to the reso-
lutions, and the press, British and Canadian, wiii.Al
with one or two ex,!eptions, to ably advocated the
rights of civiliiation and humanity against one of
the most illegal and despotic monopolie3 that ever
existed, whose death-knell has been at last tolled.
Hereafter her Majesty's subjects will be placed
on an equality in British North Americ ), all
priyilegeo being withdrawn.--Morning Chionic/c,

LEGAL INDIAN 01!PRESSIONS.

(Extract from a Letter by an Indian Missionary.)

Apropos to this subject is a case of fearful oppres-
Sion which has recently come under my own cogni-
stnce. A certain zemindar, holding very extensive
estates in the district south of Calcutta, has deter-
mined for some time past to raiseethe rent of lands
held by people of three villages, who number about
150 families. To do this he has no legal right
whatever—nay, the law expressly, in the case of
these ryots, forbids his so doing, their lands hav-
ing come down to them from their ancestors. But
the zemindar cares nothing for that part of the law,
and sets to work systematically and steadily to
effect his purposes. He, therefore, goes back ten
years, and from that date charges the whole of
these tenants rent on his own scale. He then
carries to account the sums which he has received
from each during that period, and then debit them
with. the hal,nee and the k..o,atiiug upon it
iLe_ndoug to his own scale. This, in most cases,
will be a large sum. The people, of course, refuse
to pay this alleged balance. Now his action begins.
He goes with these balances to the Collector's
Court, and obtains writs, first against the persons
of his tenants, and then additional ones against
their property. All this he can do from the
practice of the Collector's Courts without the
knowledge of the person sued. Thus armed,
ho comes and demands. a new agreement, by
which the amount of rent he wishes is to be
secured in perpetuo. The people again refuse,
when he produces his writs for the sale of their pro-
perty, and notifies au early day for it to take effect.
The only help that now remains to the poor victim
of this injustice is for him to come up to the col-
lector and pray an injunction of the sale—but the
zemindar is before him, He has placed his police
upon all the roads leading to Alipore, with direc-
tions to seize any of the villagers whom they may
meet with travelling in that direction, and, should
he catch the complainant, he gives him such a
chastisement as wilt make him he itate ere he sets
out again ; but if the poor man be fortunate enough
to evade the police and reach the Collector's Court,
then the writ which the zemindar has obtained
against his person is served upon him, and he is at
once taken off to prison, where he must lie till he
compounds will' the zemindar, or pay the amount
for which he is sued into court. More than this,
in order the more effectually to strike terror among
his ryots, he gets up a false charge against a num-
ber of them—say from sixteen to twenty—of hav-
ing plundered his treasury in the village, and as,
through fear of arrest fordobt, none of the villagers
will venture up to give evidence in favour of the ac-
cused, the case goes by default against all who
are caught ; and at this moment there are,
in the Alipore jail, six of these poor
villagers on sentences of imprisonment and flue,
varying from three to twelve months, and from 50
to 200 rupees. In the meanwhile the property of
the prisoners is being sold ad libitum, by the
zemindar. Such then is the state of things between
ryo!s and zemindars in wretched Bengal. I vouch
for the substantial truth of the above. This case
may be that of any other people at any time ; and
as the high price of rice, &c., at the present time,
induces the landlord to wish for higher rents, the
same process of oppression is going on doubtless in
many other places throughout this province. Now
all this may occur, and does in most cases, without
the knowledge of? the English officials, who are
entirely in the hands of the native officers of the
' courts, and if, as in the above case, some one like
myself should pity the poor people and bring their
circumstances to the kno fledge of the collector,
&0., yet his efforts will be in vain. The English
officials, however willing, have little or no power to
help, and the zemindars laugh at us altogether,
while the oppressed ryot wonders at the neglect of
Government to his woes, and is ready to welcome
any change that may occur in the hope of deliver-
ance. The Mussulmau Ferazees of the eastern parts
of Bengal, to whom I previously alluded, are chiefly
ryots, and one object of their combination is deli-
verance from the tyranny of their landholders. In
these excitable times; therefore, there is but too
much reason to fear a rebellion in Bengal. With
such a state of things in the Lower Provinces, and
the fearful rebellion that has been raging in the
North-West for the last twelve months, the fruit
of the East India's Company's misrule, one cannot
hear with patience the lauding of all parties of poli-
ticians at home for the good it has done in this
country. Her Majesty the Queen, who is to succeed
it, and her officers, will find the rectification of the
evils it leaves behind, and the reconstruction of
order throughout the land, a legacy not worth
the thanking for. The work that is to be done
in putting this vast empire upon a substantial
b Isis, will require all the wisdom and resources
of Britain's bast sons. As the state of the country
becomes known, and the causes of the rebellion
understood, it will be seen that the Directors of
the Honourable Company have little deserved the
commiseration shown them.

Nor are things more bright in r3speet to legisla-
tion and administration. Either the rebellion has
shed no light upon our rulers, or they are deterred
by the change and uncertain condition of the Go-
vernment at home, for there are nosigns of improve-
ment in the way of reform—no new laws tending
that way, nor administrative acts. I have it on
indisputable authority that our rulers in Calcutta
hold exactly to the same principles as guided them
before the outbreak. Take ono little instance in
proof : the governor of tho Andaman Islands has
recently posted a notification, forbidding dogs to
be brought on shore lest the caste of the mutineers,
banished there for life, should be injured. The
governor is under tho direction of the Bengal
officials.