The Sun.
London, England, 1859-02-09 00:00:00

GREAT SOUTHERN OF INDIA.

It appears that the estimated cost of the first
section of the railway from Negapatam to Trichi-
nopoly being now fixed, with the sanction of the
Secretary of State for India in Council, at £500,000,
that amount only will be called up. Any scrip
certificates remaining unregistered on the 26th
inst. are to be cancelled, and the money paid
thereon forfeited to the company.

MR. GLADSTONE.

An attempt is made, for reasons which are not
faoprp
ha ri
se net,
ontcoi
os er
ya nd
eomu
et cary against
no
lvsince
aGsl abd.e setno ne
in
the lonian Islands. He has neither courted the
praises of the people in his capacity of Commissioner
of Inquiry, nor threatened to flog their leaders for
talking ethnological platitudes or rhetorical non-
sense. So far he has departed from the ways of the
rulers that have gone before him, who made the
islanders to sin ' • and therein lies the gravamen of the
charge against him, that he has neither played the
doctrinaire nor the drum-major. That the lonians
are discontented, and have long been so, everybody
knows. That past administrations have failed to win
their confidence, or appease their vague desire of
something which they do not now possess, is plain.
That neither the system of satrapy as practised
under Sir Thomas Maitland, nor that of unbalanced
democracy devised by Lord Grey, nor that of sus-
pension by the hangman's cord, under Sir Henry
Ward, were fitted to establish permanent peace,
loyalty, and order in the Adriatic Islands, is no
longer matter of dispute. That which is now dis-
puted is the right of the present Government to try
and find out what, if anything, would set things
right: and their determination, manifested in the
conduct of their distinguished delegate, Mr. Glad-
stone, not to be warped or blinded by the foolish
effervescence of a handful of garrulous, petulant,
and half-educated people. Not only is such deter-
mination wise and just, but the contrary would be
censurable in the highest degree.
Here is a cluster of small and remote dependencies
whose condition is confessedly one eminently dis-
reputable to the character of our Imperial rule.
After forty years of undisputed suzerainty, under
the muzzle of our ships' guns, and in the face of a
garrison too strong to be resisted for a moment, the
population una voce declare their anxiety to be
annexed to another State, and, through the lips of
their representatives, and by every other method,
beg to be rid of our protection. All this may be
very reprehensible, impracticable, and wrong ; but
as everybody knows that it can come to nothing, so
long as we choose to smile at it disdainfully, or
threaten to crush it under our heel, no one in this
country troubles his head about it, for its own sake.
It is because it is supposed to furnish the raw
material of a party grievance that the matter is
put into the political mill, there to be picked,
carded, dyed with a suitable tinge, and spun of a
suitable size, in the hope that in due time it may
be woven into a suitable fabric for factious
use. All the errors and blunders of past
Governments are forgotten. All the neglects,
broken promises, tantalisations, and inconsisten-
cies of experimentalising and capricious Secre-
taries of State are kept out of sight. One
point, and one only, is steadily kept in view,
namely, how to depreciate and disparage the emi-
nent statesman who in mid winter consented to
undertake the thankless task of making a visit of
personal inquiry to these extra-parochial scraps of
her Majesty's domain, and who being on the spot
has been induced for a few days to hold ad interim
the reins of executive authority, between the de-
parture of Sir John Young and the arrival of Sir
Henry Storks. His acceptance of this obviously
provisional trust has been tortured into an act of
perfidy to his outgoing friend, and.felo de se of his
own political character, how •or why we are not
told, and cannot for the life of us comprehend. It
may be, indeed, against all precedent and tradition
that a politician, who has filled high office in the
State, and who may aspire to a similar position
again, should ever act disinterestedly or without
the leave and co-operation of some great faction or
cabal. But the public at large will be slow to con-
demn the motives of any man on this ground; and
as for his acts done in the performance of an ardu-
ous and unambitious duty, it will be time enough
to enter into judgment on them when their gifted
author has been heard in defence.
Meanwhile the writ has been moved for the
University of Oxford ; and a few days will show
whether the accomplished and enlightened consti-
tuency that have so often testified their admiration
and respect for Mr. Gladstone are prepared, in his
absence on a generous and gratuitous mission, to
discard him as a silly sentimentalist, a fanatical
fool, or a betrayer of the honour of the empire.
By all means let these questions be put nakedly to
the learned and intelligent electors of Oxford; and
if they ask for proofs of their member's intellectual
aberration or moral obliquity, let them be told that
his name has figured in a seditious transparency
during a night of illuminations in the town of
Corfu ; and that, in his anxiety to disarm the ill-
temper and suspicion of a superstitious people, he
is said to have saluted in the manner of the country
an aged bishop of their church. If these tremen-
dous facts are not deemed conclusive, let the histo-
rians, jurisconsults, and divines of Oxford be told
how Mr. Gladstone supplanted his friend Sir John
Young, though he does not and never was suspected
of intending to take his place; but let them not ask
how, then, he can be a supplanter, for that is a
question to which nobody can give a reply. Let
them be further reminded how, in his addresses on
public occasions since he has been in these Islands,
he has failed to repudiate the imputation of sym-
pathy for the land that looked to him with hope,
and failed to repel the ascription to him of desire
for the elevation of the Greek race ; but let them
not ask how this makes out a case of personal inca-
pacity on his part, because that nobody can tell.
And, finally, let it be urged on their consideration
that when the legal Vestry, or Assembly, or what-
ever else it is called, had the folly the other day to
vote a declaration in favour of annexation to
Greece, and to talk of appointing a committee to
consider the subject further, Mr. Gladstone, in-
stead of getting into an undignified passion, and
threatening Signors Dandalo, Lombardo, and their
associates with the fangs and claws of the British
lion, promptly but calmly told them they were
illegally, lielngvafhlualty;raaennd desired them, if they had any
petitiontulitaniwgou. to address to the Queen, to be more
aocacf
in keeping wy
fiotrhiiit
thrown away. Not word
bullying, in the old orthodox
lighted matches at the touch holes, or tying up
delinquents to the halberts. Think
of a contuma-
cious dependency, nearly as pabout
u t style,
fi
xe dhieb wasay hectoringo nh andeet confiness. e;
opulous as the parish
of Lambeth, daring to pull the British Empire by
one of the tips of its wide-flowing beard, and no
administrative roar of indignation heard thereat,
nor anything more than the resentful rap on the
knuckles of the magisterial wand. Why did not
Mr. Gladstone order the garrison to be forthwith