The Sun.
London, England, 1858-04-15 00:00:00

THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA 131 LL.

(Frain the Daily News.)
When Lord John Russell resolved to attemp
the rescue of the India question from the field of
party conflict, he must doubtless, have made up
his mind to incur the resentment of the noisy and
numerous suttlers of the Palmerston camp. who
looked forward to a pitched bAtle, on the second
reading of the Government bill, as the one and
only requisite preliminary to their resumption of
the profits and perquisites of office. He cannot,
therefore, feel any surprise at the vehemence or
volubility of the invectives directed against him by
those whose personal advantage—kit were absurd
to dignify it with the epithet of ambition)—he has
Momentarily marred. Their explosive rage would
indeed be ludicrous if it were not lamentably mis-
taken for more than it is worth by the undiscern-
ing, who looking on from a distance are sometimes
misled into confounding eager and angry talk for
sincere or solid argument, because the echo of
what is said comes from Westminster. In the
Press, moreover, there are always to be found
ready organs of reverberation, by which the sordid
complaints and cavils of selfish men are reiterated,
until at length the unthinking grow perplexed and
puzzled as to the real merits of the matter. One
of our contemporaries does not scruple, indeed, to
insinuate that Lord John has disentitled himself
henceforth and for ever to the confidence of the
Liberal party, as if the Liberal party actually con-
sisted of the hungry and precipitate hangers-on of
the late Premier. A more scandalous libel on the
principles anti purposes of a great party never was
peuned. Conscious of its Inherent strength in
numbers, wealth, intelligence, anti patriotism, the
Liberal party has long since become tolerant of the
brief and feeble efforts of decadent Toryism to re-
gain permanent power. They know that, as Tories,
neither the preswst nor any other men whom acci-
dent may temporarily thrust into office can ever
govern this country ; and that, were they
seriously to make the attempt, they would
be driven from Downing-street in a week.
If Liberalism be worth a thought, and if
its predominance in the Parliament, the Press, and
the People of this country be a fact indisputable,
it is the most impudent and barefaced swindle to
raise a cry of country or constitution in danger be-
cause a succession of faults and blunders on the part
of the last (-to-called) Liberal Administration has
forced for a few NN eeks into office a set of noblemen
\and gentlemen who fraakly own that they have no
party strength which can enable them permanently
to retain it. _

If the largo majority whose power and position
is so indecently paraded as the the all-sufficient
justitica•ion for the present outcry against the
noble member for London were really of opinion
that, regardless of all the exigencies of the public
service, every questi en, however grave, should be
converted into a faction fight until Lord Clarendon
and Clanricarde were restored to power, what is
to prevent their doing so ? or what is the pretext
for the shameful howl now raised against the best
and truest statesman that has in our time belonged
to the party ? If the intrinsic justice and wisdom
of the course recommended by Lord John Russell
regarding the future government of India does not
commend
ecipoi itself
of
the Liberal thelofto jLudgenael nt of a large and in-
fluential party,
it is bootless
and ineffectual, and the grievance of the infuriated
hacks falls to the ground. If their leading organ
be correct, Lord John is a mere pretentious ob-
truder of counsel upon a party devoted in its alle-
giauce to other chiefs. Well, but if he does not
possess their confidence to any great extent, as our
contemporary avers, what great harm can he do
By what conjuration is it that the old and tried
leader of the party can, by the utterance of a few
aisation in its ranks—ranks
Cambridge House Cabal
clear and calm sentences in his place as a private
at the House of Commons, suddenly pro-
twhichhclei
juotuterrnadlissoorf the duce su
g
still pretend to be enthusiastically loyal to its flag,
and to its flag alone ? It cannot be pretended that
Lord John has ever striven to form around himself
in Parliament a personal faction, nor can it be al-
leged with a semblance of truth that he has relied
for the maintenance of his independent position
upon the organised support of relatives or personal
friends. In the most remarkable transactions that
have cccurred in Parliament during the last two
years he has assorted his authority and influence
without such aid ; and more than one remarkable
instance might be cited where the votes of members
of his own family have been recorded in favour of
a prosperous rival. To what, then, is it owing
that in a Parliament notoriously and unscrupu-
lously packed by that rival, Lord John has been
able successively to veto one act of rashness and
folly after another, and that at the present mo-
ment the adherents and organs of Lord Palmerston
are full of weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of
teeth, because they are not allowed to make party
piey of the greatest question which the present
house of Commons has been called upon to
discuss ?
Another contemporary professes to write pri-
' vately and confidentially on the subject of the re-
cent suggestion made to the Government and
promptly acceded to by them. Lord John Rus-
sell, we are told, has acted in thin business unoan-
didly ; and what is the proof ? Neither more nor
leaa than this—that feeling from the first a strong
repugnance to Lord Elleuborough's Bill, he de-
Glared ter servedly that he could not support it
on the second reading. Far from being a secret,
it is perfectly well known that such was his lord-
ship's opinion from the outset ; and such being his
opinion still, he has succeeded to all appearance in
vindicating it ; for all the world is now agreed that
Lord Ellenborough's Bill is a burst bubble of
which we shall hear no more. But then, sobs our
contemporary, he did not put an end to it in the
proper party way ; and he misled the simple-
minded Claneicardea and Claieudous, Woods and
Palmerstons, by telling one of them in writing how
much he disliked Lerd' Ellenbereugh'B crazy pro-
ject and how willing he was to initiate a proposal
for its rejection. And has he not kept his word ?
Does any one seriously believe that, in Committee
of the whole House, the
main features of the abor-
tive project of the Minister will not be, as the Par-
liamentary phrase
goes, "resolved in the nega-
tive v' Can any one doubt that wiser and sounder
principles, as the bases of a better India Bill, will
not be "resolved in the affirmative."
But then we are told that Lord John committed
another crime by letting Ministers understand all
along that lie meant to oppose their bill. What un-
fsirness or disengennousness there was in this it
passes our cempreheusion to discover. Had the
noble member for the City shut himself up at Pem-
broke House for the holidays, communicating with
no one on either side of the Howie what he meant
to do, there might indeed be some faint colour for
the insinuation of want of candour. But his slan-
derers have contrived amongst them to inakeit clear
that not wily independent members above and be-
low the gangway, but both the present and the late
Cabinet, were thoroughly aware of his opinie ns,
generally, on the subject ; and the sole point on
which malignity can perch is this, that it does not
seem to have been understood exactly, when lie
rose to speak on Monday last, whether he would
move a string
of resolutions, in the first instance,
of his own, or invite the Minister to do so, and then
propose such amendments as he might deem requi-
site. Practically the difference between the two
courses, in its effect on legislation for India, is