The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-28 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, NOV. 28, 1857.

Soule of our contemporaries have been waging
war over the question of the co?ts of the mutiny.
Shall England or India pay them ? We trust
there is now no doubt whatever that the verdict
of battle will be in favour of England, but some
seem inclined to deny that the verdict might to
carry costs. The Examiner boldly pleads not j

only that the vanquished party cannot pay, but

that he ought not to pay. That England has
disentitled herself to saddle India with the Ex-

pence of putting down the insurrection, by rea-

son of her misgovernment of the governed.
Now, on this latter point we join issue, and
affirm that it is perfectly just that India should
pay for her own rebellions, and that our misgo-

vernment—and in many respects it has been bad

enough—is not of a kind which entitles the culprit
to escape penalty. "It was not India made the

rebellion, but we ourselves," says the Examiner,
"for we gave to it a form of government which

no other people ever gave to a conquered country,

. _
and it was that vicious form of government which

produced the catastrophe." If England gave her
own "glorious constitution "—so adored by Lord

JOHN RUSSELL and our able Whig contemporary

—to a conquered country, it would give that
country a form of government never given before
by any conqueror. That argument we may drop,
therefore, without further notice. The real

question is, whether we gave India a government
which ought to provoke to insurrection ?
Even our contemporary can hardly deny that,
when practicable, the costs of any war ought to
fall on the aggressor. Never was there a greater
instance, perhaps, of ignominious departure from
politicjustice, than when Turkey was left burdened
with the costs of the Russian aggression—when
she was left financially weaker than the power
which had, by a groundless invasion of her terri-
tories, robbed her treasury enormously. Long
will Europe smart, and Circassia, and all Asia, too,
for the moral cowardice of Lord PALAIERSTON,
and we fear the worse than cowardice of

LOUIS NAPOLEON in giving up the war with Russia
before they had taken security for peace by com-
pelling her to reimburse Turkey, and, indeed, all

the Allies. The Russian debt ought to have been
augmented by some 150,000,0001., and the CZAR
would then have been quiet enough for a long
time to come. So in India now, we hold that

nothing is more important than that India should
feel that rebellion is a thing which must not occur
again. Sepoys must feel it by hanging, banish-
ment, or slavery ; the mutineers must be swept
for ever from social existence at least, and their
friends and families must long remember that to
have another mutineer belonging to them is to
lose them for life.

But not only that. It may be hard, we freely
own, though not harder than the lot of all inno-
cently connected with convicted criminals, that
those who took no active part in the rebellion
should pay for it. Who should pay if they do
not ? We, in England, certainly took no part in it

whatever. The kinsfolk and countrymen of the
actual rebels are the parties most reasonably im-
plicated in the results of the rebels' conduct. It
must be remembered, too, that the vast majority
of the natives have been, at least passive spec-
tators of the mutiny. The Native Princes, who,
knowing the strongest side and their own interest,
have continued loyal, could in many instances not
even keep their own troops faithful to themselves ;
and while numberless gratifying instances of native
fidelity have occurred, yet it cannot be doubted
that natives generally sympathised too readily,

though warily, with the insurgent troops.
As to the provocation arising from our form o
government, however, we cannot concede it for a
moment. There is a sense, no doubt, in which it
is true ; but it is a sense which enormously ags
gravates the guilt of the mutineers. So far as
they were concerned, the only error of our Go-
vernment was trusting them too much—they have
abused that trust by rapine, murder, and worse
than murder. They were favoured, petted, grati-
fied in everything ; they have rewarded their pay-
masters and their over-indulgent rulers, whence
they drew their pay, by " looting" their trea-
suries and plunging their swords into the bosom
of those who could deny them nothing ! The
catastrophe has, therefore, been produced by
causes which surely double the guilt of its imme-
diate authors. We acknowledge the folly of the
Company and its unpardonable policy in regard to
Europeans, but as surely as AssaLoat and his
abettors deserved to bear the penalty of their
deeds, so do the East India Company's Absaloms
and their abettors. The misgovernment of the
Company in the case of the Sepoys most strongly
resembles DATID'S mismanagement of his vain
and prodigal son—a mismanagement which gives
a pretty clear conception of what was justice to
ABSALOM, and what is justice to &pop.
As to the sufferings of other natives under our
rule, they have little cause also to complain of
the way in which we have exercised our power ;
that we might have done infinitely better for the
country by rescuing it from the monopoly of a
commercial company at an earlier period, is tru-.
Still we have not taxed the natives more heavily
than our predecessors, while we have given them
such freedom from the miseries of internal war,
as they never enjoyed before. All, moreover, that
we have heard of in respect of tortures to extort
revenue, or to obtain evidence in courts of justice,
have been the malpractices of natives, not of
Englishmen—they are abhorrent from the nature
of the worst of our countrymen, and were put
down by us as soon as known. So far, indeed, as
natives are concerned, all they have had to endure
has been due to the venality and cruelty of na-
tives themselves when employed in our service.
There is not, indeed, any phase of our govern-
mental proceedings in India which does not, so
far as the bulk of the population is concerned,
leave them responsible for the cost of the mutiny.
We acknowledge, indeed, that the practicability
of getting the money is quite another question.
There may be, and will be much difficulty in that.
A property tax, or an increase of taxes, may seem
equally hopeless in the case of a nation taxed to
the uttermost, and with its few rich men of com-
merce, men also of the profoundest commercial
cunning. We need not now enter into the details
of what may be done. Some of them we have
already indicated, and more may yet be indicated,
but we must not lose sight of one all-import Lnt
source of revenue " water," exclaimed Sir
CIARLES NAPIEn, "is gold in India"—and
NAPfER proved it by his water-works in Scinde,
all thwarted as he was at last. " The mines of
India," said Col. COTTON, " are water mines, and
worth more than all the mines of Australia." And
Col. COTTON proved his words on a magnificent
scale in the Madras presidency. He proved in
practice what his admirable book proves in argu-
ment, that the revenue cf India might be doubled,
and yet the pressure of taxation be comparatively
less than it now is. He proved, too, that the
works might refund their cost annually while in
progress, and that in six years' time the great changer
might be completed. In any discussion of a loan,
or of a guarantee from this country, a guarantee
would
v just
thatcanals and irrigation should have the prece-
isutgip,niflanteiocnes.sarlyv,eevshenonolfarhaialva: s
be a e r
no
fear of any
guarantee falling back on England
eventually, if some provision was made at the same
time for working the " water-mines of India."

The decision in the case of BROOK V. BROOK
will be looked for with intense anxiety by many
families of unimpeachable morality and a deep
sense of religion._lt is, we believe, the first time

that the validity of a marriage legal in the place
where it was contracted has been questioned,
with the single exception of that of the Duke of
SUSSEX. Sir FITZROY KELLY clearly explained
the distinction between that case, which arose

under a totally different law—the Royal Marriage
Aet—imposing personal restrictions on certain
members of the Royal Family, and those occur-
ring under the Act of 1835. The former might
reasonably be regarded as binding on the parties
in all parts of the world, although grave doubts

were entertained of its operation, save so far as
the succession to the Crown was concerned, and

many sound lawyers conceived the arguments
of Sir THOMAS WILDE, afterwards Lord TRURO,
to have been conclusive on the point ; but Lord

LYNDHURST' s Act was clearly local in character. It
did not even extend to the whole of the United
Kingdom. Scotland was specially excluded from
its operation, "Provided always, and be it enacted
that nothing in this act shall be construed to
extend to that part of the United Kingdom called
Scotland," is one of the express provisions of the
statute, and, a fortiori, it cannot he considered
applicable to any other country not under the
jurisdiction of the British Parliament.

The attempt that has been made to brand with
illegitimacy innocent children, perfectly legitimate
in every Protestant state in Europe, is to say the
best of it very ungracious. The stale pretext that it
was for the spiritual welfare—pro salute animce—
of the party, cannot be advanced in this instance.
Death had already dissolved the union, The
fastidious prejudices even of HARRY of Exeter could
no longer be offended by persons not acting in ac-
cordance with his extreme views. Why, then,
this extreme rigour, this excessive zeal on the part
of the law authorities of the Crown ? Simply to
levy exorbitaat legacy duties, to get ten in place
of one per cent., and for this purpose they are
willing to impose civil and religious disabilities of
the most objectionable character, on high-minded
sod honourable persons, and to deprive the eldest
son and lawful heir of the deceased testator of a
share of the fortune earned and intended for him.

Divers opinions prevail respecting the pro
priety of these marriages. The Church of Eag
land is divided on the subject. Many of the
Bishops, and many most respectable clergymen
consider that there is no valid reason that can
be assigned against them. Such a union is
certainly not racaum in se. It is no longer
contended that the 18th of Leviticus, 18th verse,
is applicable. The very words relied on, "Nei-
ther shalt thou take a wife to her sister to vex her
* * beside the other in her lifetime." Here
the very reason is assigned. It is that it would
ors the first wife ; and there is no maxim better
recognised than that which declares, Cessante ratineo,
cessat lex. A dead wife cannot be vexed by any
subsequent nuptials of her husband. But there
is even a stronger ground—the operation is ex-
pressly limited to the lifetime of the first wife,
and there is, therefore, an implied permission to
form such an alliance after the termination of the
diability. And what is unanswerably to the purpose
is, that Parliament has for ever done away with the
idea of the criminality of these unions by legalising
them in 1835. In America these marriages are, as
Judge STORY informs us, common in almost
all the States -- "and so far from being
doubtful in their moral tendency, they are
deemed the very best sort of marriages
emphatically adding, " In my whole life I never
heard the slightest suggestion against them,
founded on domestic or moral considerations."
In addition to this they are recognised in every
Protestant countzy in Europe, with the exception
of one small State in Switzerland. But the
most important point of all is, that by the nume.
rous Dissenters in England—a majority of the
Protestant population—it is not considered that
these marriages are either interdicted by Holy
Writ, or that they are themselves in any degree
reprehensible. Now, why should this influential
body be restricted in the tenderest point, the
selection of a partner for life—one who can confer
happiness on the father and be a faithful guardian
of the infant children ? Why should a doubtful
Canon of the Church of England—not recognised
by a large proportion of the clergy, bind these
independent men who take the Scriptures as their
only guide ? Why should they be bound by the
fancies of the Bishop of EXETER or of the Oxford
pet ? They are sufficiently numerous and influen-
tial to insist on justice, to declare that they shall
not be slaves to fanatics.

The arguments of Sir F. MILLI/ are unanswer-
able. He has proved beyond the possibility of
doubt that a marriage in any Protestant
country in Europe, is binding to all intents and
purposes : that the children are legitimate, and
that there is no social or political disability arising
therefrom. Were it otherwise, we might
witness such an anomaly as a man having
two legal wives and two legitimate families
—the one recognised at Altona or Hamburg, the
other in England. The case of the QUEEN v.
CHADWICK is not at all in point, for that was a
criminal case, where, of course, the prisoner in
the dock, of whose moral guilt there could be no
question, was entitled to, and received the benefit
of the doubt. We are not displeased at the ven-
tilation of this question. Truth always benefits
by discussion, and we earnestly trust that the
result will be the enactment of a law removing ono
of the latest and most intolerable remnants of the
penal code from the national statute book.

Her Majesty has signified her gracious intention of
opening the Session of Parliament in person.
CABINET COUNCII..—A Cabinet Council was held yes-
terday, at the official residence of the First Lord of the
Treasury, in Downing-street. The Ministers present
were Viscount Palmerston, the Lord Chancellor, the
Marquis of Lansdowne, the Earl of Harrowby, Sir
George Grey, the Earl of Clarendon, Mr. Secretary
Labouchere, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir
Charles Wood, the Right Hon. R. Vernon Smith the
Duke of Argyll, and the Right Hon. M. T. Baines.
The Duke and Duchess of Sutherland and Lords
Albert and Ronald Leveson Gower have arrived at
Worksop Manor, Notts, on a visit to Lord and Lady
Foley, from the Earl of Carlisle's seat, Castle Howard,
Yorkshire. The noble duke and duchess are expected
at Stafford-house early in the ensuing week.
The Duhe and Doebese of Marlborough are visiting
the Marchioness (Frances Anne) of Londonderry at
Wynyard-park, Stockton-on-Tees. His grace comes to
town early next week.
The Earl and Countess Craven and the Ladies Craven
have returned to town from a tour of visits. The noble
earl and her ladyship will leave London in a few days
for Ashdown-park.
The Countess Dowager of Essex and Miss Johnstone
returned to Belerave-square a few days, since from a
tour of visits. The c nintess has since left for Paris.
Frances Countess Waldegrave and Mr. Harcourt,
M.P., have returned to town from Strawberry Hill,
Twickebham, where they have been entertaining com-
pany for some time past.
The Earl end Countess of Sandwich are passing the
season at Hinchiebrolte House, Hnutiogdonshire.
The Earl and Countess of Camperdown and Lady
El'zebeth Duncan arrived in town, yesterday, from
Scotland.
The E trl Howe left town, yesterday, to join his family.
circle at Gopsall, Leicestershire.
The Earl of Li-towel arrived in town on Wednesday
from I.l,lelton Mowbray.
Viscount and Viscountess Villiers arrived in town on
Wednesday from Upton Hall, Warwickshire, and leave
to-day to join the circle visiting the Earl of Cardigan, at
Dean Park.
Lord and Lady Aveland have been entertaining a
succession of company, during the past month, at Nor-
; wanton Park, Rutlandshire. The circle broke up last
' week, preparatory to the removal of the family to town
for the Parliamentary session.
Lady Dover is staying with Lord and Lady Begot,
at Blithfield Hall, Staffordshire. The Hon. :Leopold
i Ellis has arrived at Dover House, from visiting the
Merquis and Marchioness of Stafford, at Lilleshall Salop.