The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—One hundred years ago the French had
just lost India, and we had just won it. Count
Lally, the unsuccessful Frenchman, was shamefully
executed in Paris; Lord Clive, the successful Eng-
lishman, was made Governor of Bengal. So we
entered on the year 1766, and then India disappeared
for a time from the public eye. A new scene opened
in a new world. We began our famous war with
the American colonists, and we took little heed of
other matters till it was ended. That end only
came sixteen years later, and then the curtain drew
up on India once more. Viewed by the light of
succeeding experience the scene may be regarded
as characteristic of our national usages. In the
interval which had elapsed the office of Governor-
General had been instituted for the administration
of India, and though philanthropy in those days
was not organised in societies, the first Governor-
General was indicted for ill treatment of the natives,
and kept upon his trial for ten years together.
How shall we contrast those days with these ? The
intervening century has brought us complete and
almost uninterrupted success—that is, such success
as we should formerly have prayed for. India has
become absolutely British. We have not only kept
all foreign rivals at a distance, but we have gra-
dually absorbed the native Courts. There is no
longer any independent Power in India. Every
Indian province is either our own, or under our
protection, or amenable to our control. We are
lords paramount, and the authority of Queen Vic-
toria in India is far more absolute, as well as more
extensive, than the authority of the Great Moguls.
If this end could have been foreseen in 1766, it
would have been regarded. as the perfection of
success ; but now, in 1866, we look around us
more searchingly, and reason otherwise. We ask
what we are expected to do for India, and what
India does for us. We weigh our political obliga-
tions and measure our material returns. Even on
these terms, however, of inquiry, the result is not
unsatisfactory. We have settled—at any rate, for
the present—all the Most troublesome questions
connected with India ; we have encountered and
survived the most terrible of our risks, and we have
certainly performed with some success our duty
towards our Indian subjects. The Government of
India, after being appropriated bit by bit, has at
last been assumed entirely by the Crown. The na-
tive armies, which always in late times constituted.
our greatest danger, did mutiny at last, and were
utterly beaten. India has entered upon a new era
of history. The country is intersected by railroads, ,
which are wonderfully popular and useful. A new
industry, capable of infinite development, is clothing
the sides of the Himalayas with productive planta-
tions. Precious metals have been poured into the
country at a rate unprecedented even in India ;
wages have risen, labour is scarce, and population
is no longer superabundant. This is saying some-
thing for British Government, and we may say, on
the other hand, that the cost is not much to the
British people. Perhaps it will be thought there
should be no question of cost at all, - but only of
profit ; and that, no doubt, is in some sense true.
But nobody, now-a-days, looks to a colony for
tribute. India pays its expenses, and that is enough.'
For the rest, our service to India is repaid by the
professional field which that service creates, and
which opens an honourable and lucrative career to
thousands of Englishmen. Yet there is a question
still remaining, and it is connected in some degree
with this very point. India makes no demand upon
us, except for value received, but in one particular
the exchange is becoming burdensome. India finds
money, but asks for men. Were it not for India
an army of 140,000 men would answer all our
purposes; as it is, we have to raise half as many
again for Indian service alone. The old Empire
of the Moguls is garrisoned by 70,000 British
soldiers, and that garrison represents, practically
speaking, the cost of India to England. It
is not that the troops themselves are. any
charge to us. They are all borne upon the
Indian establishment, mad paid out of the In-
dian revenues, but still the men are to be found
and the establishments maintained by reliefs and
reinforcements from this country. If we now add
that this obligation is growing somewhat heavy, it
is but so much evidence of our national prosperity,
and of the improved prospects of all classes of
society. We need not say that an army of 200,000
men, measured by our population, is a mere no-
thing. France, with scarcely a greater population,
maintains twice the number ; America, the other
day, with a smaller population, maintained five such
armies. The mere drain of men can be nothing to
a country which sends out nearly a thousand emi-
grants a day. Nor do we think, upon the whole,
that any unpopularity of the service can affect the
practical question. It is hardly to be imagined that
an ordinary recruit thinks anything about the
general distribution of her Majesty's forces. It is
quite true, as a matter of fact, that Indian service
has become rather a certainty than a chance ; but
even if the fact were understood, it is not likely to
be regarded. The truth of the case is, that the
competition in the labour market makes service of
all kinds more valuable, and servants of all kinds
more scarce. Recruits, like other hands, are hard
to get, and it is harder to recruit for 200,000 men
than for 140,000. That is about the history of the
matter. We have so far opened, our eyes to the
fact that we are doing our best to assimilate Indian
service to service elsewhere, and to deprive it, at
any rate, of any specially hard conditions. We now
regard the mortality hitherto prevailing on Indian
stations as excessive and preventible, and we have
taken measures to prevent it. There is some
talk of reducing the strength of the Indian esta-
blishments, and of economising our military
power in the East by better organisation ; and
in one respect these improvements will certainly
help us. Much of our difficulty arises from mea-
sures which were adopted to give us ease. It was
thought that enlistments would be more numerous
if they were allowed to be for a limited term, and
the presumption, no doubt, was correct. But this
early termination of the military career, though it
may multiply recruits, multiplies vacancies also, and
therefore undoes at one end what it does at the other.
This drawback would be greatly lessened if we could
secure re-enlistments in greater numbers, and that is
precisely the result which improvements in the sol-
dier's condition would be likely to promote. As an
illustration of -the argument we will just observe
that last summer, when the 9th Regiment was suf-
fering so terribly and needlessly from sickness at
Hongkong, a communication was received from the
authorities at home, requesting to know how many
men would volunteer for re-engagement at the ex-
piration of their term of service. The answer, not
unnaturally, took the form of a blank return ;
whereas, if the troops had been satisfied with their
lot and their position, a good half of them perhaps
might have been retained in the army. We have
been gradually coming to the conclusion that Eng-
land cannot find soldiers for herself and all her
colonies together. True, we did this when we were
less able to do so than now, but this is not a mere
question of ability or resources • it is a question of
comparative prospects and popillex disposition. If
mon are less willing to enter the army than formerly,
that is because they have a greater choice of callings,
and are better qualified to make selections. We
have met the difficulty by improving the soldier's
condition, and bettering his bargain in every way.
Indeed, the very goodness of the bargain, tells,
one sense, against us, for ten years' service in the
army converts a rude ploughboy into so accom-
plished a character that employers are ready to
compete for so promising a servant. But that con-
sideration, if it takes men from us, ought also to
bring them to us, and we hope it does. Fair dealing
is our true resource. There- must needs be a diffi-
culty; in fact, the army feels it only in commonvrith
other professions, but it originates in circumstances
which can be no object of regret, and it must be
met by an adaptation of conditions to occasions.
POST.—We have been so long accustomed to a
quiet political atmosphere that it is almost exciting
to think that within a month we are to witness the
assembling of a new Parliament, under a new Minis-
ter, and with a reconstructed Cabinet. The keen
insight into the English mind which Lord Palmerston
so largely possessed, and the tact with which he
shaped his policy in accordance with the prevailing
desires of the country, had secured him so large a
share of public confidence as to make it impossible
for any party to get up a factious movement with
the least chance of success, or to disturb that even
flow of quiet policy which in his judgment was best
adapted to the circumstances of the time. But with
his departure the quietude of politics departs, at least
for the present; and the new House of Commons
will find enough to do within the next six months
in determining the balance of parties and settling to
whose hands, after all, the task of governing the
country can with the greatest advantage be con-
fided. That a large number will be anxious to give
Lord Russell a fair trial is certain. It is his due, and
the house will cheerfully accord it to him. But it
needs but a single glance at the many questions
ahead to show that the efficiency of his Cabinet will
be tried to the uttermost in almost everydepartment.
It would be perfectly idle to speculate on the pro-
bable course of events, dependent as they are upon
a multitude of influences which cannot now be
even guessed at with accuracy. • But the house
is new, many of its members have no sort of
political training, most will want to distinguish
themselves, and all to stand well with their con-
stituents, by means of their Parliamentary conduct.
The tendency of new brooms to sweep clean is
proverbial, and nothing could afford more scope
to that meritorious propensity
a lK than the ever-
coveted, little accessible fof the House of Com-
mons. In that historical the new gladiators are
burning to Show themselves, and it is a condition of

their existence that they should aim at a sensation.
The Conservatives profess to be up and doing.
They look for a chance of power in the inevitable
scrimmage. New House, new Minister, new mem-
bers of the Cabinet, new measures, new conflicts of
party—surely out of all this there is hope for those
much-enduring benefactors of their country who
have so long kept warm by their presence the seats
of the Opposition. Have they no little game ? Is
there no chance for them in the coming revival of
Parliamentary dry bones ? Their oracles are silent,
but it drops out now and then that they are more
than cheerful, but are biding their time. We shall
see ; though, while we are waiting in the position of
lookers-on, we cannot help observing that, if the
Conservatives knew how to use it, they have a fine
opportunity. But it is in their nature never to know
their occasion even when it is close under their eyes,
so that they are hardly likely to shape their
course in accordance with popular liberality, and
try to take up the dropped mantle of Palmerston.
It has not as yet been taken up by any. The pure
Whiggism of the Premier is not the English libe-
rality of his predecessor. The Cabinet under Lord
Russell, even if unchanged as to its personnel, would
not be the same as under Palmerston. Under Lord
Russell each man's own self is more demonstrative,
because more independent. Lord Palmerston left
the fullest scope to all the members of his Cabinet,
but he exercised an involuntary and almost uncon-
scious influence over them, and moulded their sepa-
rate proceedings into a policy that was consistent
because homogeneous, and powerful because united.
Lord Russell is not in possession of the secret
of this gentle sway. His strength must be drawn
from other sources and exercised in other ways.
If his Cabinet is to stand, he must take his cue
from the House of Commons. He cannot give it
to the House as Palmerston did in his later days.
The great respect which all felt for that chief prac-
tically put in abeyance the spirit of combativeness
which is one of the characteristics of our Lower
Chamber. The late Parliament was advanced, and
wished naturally for an easy life and a quiet death,
and as long as no vital question was at issue it
spared to rouse itself to unnecessary activity. But
the new Parliament is young, and the circumstances
under which it is to meet will be fresh and peculiar.
Necessarily, therefore, it will be more active, and
probably in its policy more decided. It is well that
it should be so. It is in active and stirring times
that great men are reared • and if the House of
Commons be a great school Of statesmanship as well
as a legislative chamber, it is not desirable that
members should be idle-handed, or its juniors be,
trained in a spirit of quiet acquiescence in the leader-
ship of one or two master minds. A reform bill is
of course the great rock ahead. Most are agreed
that the country itself does not really want one, but
certain politicians do, and therefore it becomes a
necessity of the Minister's position to declare him-
self about it one way or the other. It is a peculi-
arity of the case that nobody knows what to do.
Anybody can draw up a Reform Bill of excellent
character if only abstract requirements be con-
sidered, but it is quite another thing to win the con-
sent of parties. So completely do the Radicals feel
this that they almost ostentatiously proclaim their
readiness to be thankful for small mercies, and to
accept any sort of bill so long as it is a step in ad-
vance, however small. So far, then, the task is
easier to the Government than it was five years ago,
at least as far as Mr. Bright's party is concerned.
But no sooner are things looking smoothly on that
side than new dangers spring up on the other, and
the very Opposition which once taunted the Liberals
with doing too much will be found crying out that
now they are not doing enough. On the whole,
there is a pretty business to be done, but whether
Lord Russell is the man to do it is a question which
must be left to himself and time to answer. But
the interest warms as the time creeps on, and it
seems certain that political lethargy will not be the
besetting sin of the first session of the new Par-
liament.