The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-12 00:00:00

FRIDAY EVISNING, JUNE 12, 4r, 7

unfortunately, it should be rejected, it wiil be and this is by the adoption of the principle a)
almost impossible to obtain respectable and strongly rec unmended by " Her Majesty',A Com-
missioners on Civil and Mililary Appointments

sllvent persons, to undertake the respor,-

and Education," viz., "by competitive examina-
tion." This may not prove the only criterikm,
inasmuch as an admirable soldier in the field may
be a very dunco at learning ; but sti 1 it is the best,
almost the only .one, that can be devised during
the piping times of peace. Ti ora may be certain
(xceptions allowed, but, as a general principle,
competitive examinations should be adopted, and
the reasons for any departure therefrom accu-
rately detailed and strictly scrutinised. Under
any circumstances great benefits w:11 be derived
from the discussion of the interesting subject,
which will, we hope, eventually lead t) a
vast improvement in the military system, and
that on which its efficiency mainly depends—
promotion, by merit, not by purchase, and ample
security that every commissioned, aye, and non-
commissioned officer, shall be fully qualified for
the discharge of the duties that may devolve on
him in consequence of the position in which he
has been placed through the favour of his
superiors.

sible and too frequently thankless office.
Indeed, it is only wonderful that parties have
hitherto been found willing to do so, considering
the mode in which they have been treated by the
Court of Chancery. Lord CAMPBELL, during the
discussion, emphatically assured his brother Peers
that " no such iniptities were perpetrated in the
Courts of Common law." We cannot wonder at
the earnestness of the Lord Chief Justice of Eng-
land, in repudiating alt connection with such
atroc;ties as those graphically described by Lord
ST. LEONARDS, and which clearly proved the im-
perative necessity of an adequate remedial mea-
sure. We have long thought, and explained the
vast benefits that would be derived from the
establishment of an ex?eutor and trustee
society, where persons of high status and
unexceptionable character, would, for a pro-
per remuneration, undertake the duties of the
office. They would be saved from the earnest
solicitations of the cestui que trusts, for whose
benefit the property was held, and who too fre-
quently look rather to present income than the
permanent security of the investment, and who
are disposed to regard a refusal to comply with
their requests as a grievous wrong, to be resented
in the most stringent manner practicable.
It is of course impossible, within the limits of
an article, to examine all the suggestions of Lord
ST. LEONARDS. They seem, generally speaking,
well calculated to accomplish the purpose for
Iwhich they have been framed, namely, that
of affording complete protection to honest
trustees. The best test that can be devised is
to ascertain whether the party derives, or can
derive, any personal benefit from his management
of the funds. If such be the case, he should be
held not only cividy but criminally responsible.
If not, although he may be punished in pocket
for any default (not wilful) by which loss may
accrue to the parties beneficially interested, he
should not be subjected to vexatious proceedings,
too often instituted for the purposes of extortion.
The law in this respect should apply to every
person acting in a fiduciary capacity. The rule
should be, severe punishment for every fraudulent
act, complete exemption for bona fide proceedings
intended to benefitthe parties beneficially interested,
and, generally speaking, adopted at their special
instance and request. We hope and believe that
the two acts now before Parliament, will, with
judicious amendment, achieve these desiderata,
and, if so, the session of 1857 will not be altoge-
ther barren of results. But no time can be lost.
It would sadly disappoint the country if either of
these salutary measures should be included in the
annual " massacre of the Innocents," or emascu-
lated, through ujidue haste, at the list moment.

Notwithstanding the apparently wonderful dif
ferences of opinion expressed last evening in the
House of Commons during the " Bengal Debate"
—everybody in reality was more or less agreed
as to the gist or gravamen of the motion intro-
duced yesterday by the Hon. Gentleman the
Member for Perth. That motion intimated, in
plain terms, a fact altogether, we take it, unde-
niable—the fact that the lower province of Ben-
gal does admit of changes being advantageously
introduced into its present system of adminis-
tration. That, in other words, the present sys-
tem of administration in that lower province of
Bengal does not secure the population the blessings
of good government. But that, on the contrary,
the bulk of that population suffers grievous oppres-
sion from the Police, and groans under the obvious
want of—Justice properly administered ! Scarcely
anyone can venture seriously to deny the accuracy
of these melancholy statements. The Noble Lord
the Member for the City of London, who t)ok a
prominent part in last evening's discussion, so far
from gainsaying the truth of the assertions thus
brought under the immediate consideration of
Parliament, virtually endorsed those assertions
by his own authoritative recognition of the
grievances existing in the province of
Bengal—grievanceq, according to Lord JOHN,
requiring immediate correction. The fact that
it is so, we repeat., is altogether unde-
niable. Many of those grievances are noto-
rious. Bengal has not the advantages of good
government. The Police do occasionally subject
the mass of the people to grievous oppression.
The " administration of justice" (so called)
among the unfortunate Bengaleso is an odious
caricature of the-phrase thus applied to it. The
Ryots in that lower province of Bengal are for
the most part continually ground under the heel
of the domineering Zemindars. Those Zemindars
have their own courts, their own prisons, and
it is believed, and we conceive not erroneously
believed, their own system of tortures likewise—
courts, prisons, tortures, applied by them with
devilish ingenuity for the extortion of fresh
taxes from the wretched Ryots under their domi-
nation. The latter being as utterly without a
chance of redress, as they are obviously without

There is no subject of greater importance to
the welfare and security of the nation than the
efficient management of its military establish-
ments. It is not desirable that Engl%nd should
maintain a very large body of troops in idleness
like some continental countries. All that is re-
quired is, that the nucleus of an efficient army
should be kept up with well-trained soldiers and
skilful officers, prepared for any emergency that
may arise, and ready to impart instruction to the
raw recruit, who, in the hour of danger, may be
associated with them.

The existing system of promotion by purchase
is, however, altogether opposed to this principle.
Heretofore, officers would not take the trouble of
studying even the mere rudiments of the profes-
lion into which they enterad, simply because they
derived no benefits therefrom, wealth being more
regarded than merit in obtaining the promotion
to which all aspire. Henceforward all this erro-
neous system must be completely altered, and
the first step in the right direction will be the
adoption of a sound and judicious system of mili-
tary education, and conferring the prizes of the
service on the deserving, rather than on those pos-
sessed of money, or hating influential friends or
relatives.

We are rejoiced to find that the veteran Mem•
ber for Westminster has taken up the important
subject in a proper spirit. He has given notice o
motion for the 30th inst., on which day he wil
propose the following resolutions

'' 1. That as the numerical strength of the British
army available for Eurepean war is far less than that of
power, and as our government have fi:r
any other great
many years neglected the education of the commissioned
ranks of the service, while other governments have
been devo'irg to this object large annual suns and very
great attention, it is the opinion of this house, that a
higher standard of professional instruction than of late
deemed requisite ought to be established for our officers
generally, but especially fur those of the staff.
"2. That this cannot he effectively acc,inplished in
this country, where powerful influences ob,truct the best
intentions of those invested with patronage, without
having recourse to the principle of competitive exami-
nation, in conformity with the recommendation of her
Majesty's Commissioners on Civil and Military appoint-
ments and Efucation, recorded in their reports recently
prevented to Parliament.
"3. That the candidates nominated by the com-
mander-in-chief for commissions in the line, be therefore
subject to the c.indition of competitive examination pre-
viously to their being appointed to commissions, and
that officers of a sufficient term of regimental service, de-
sirous of qualdying themselves for the staff, in the senior
department of instruction or staff school, should receive
their admissions and final certificates on the same prin-

ciple.
" 4. That commissioners, consisting of an equal num-
ber of military officers and civilians, should be nominated
by the Secretary of State for the purpose of superintend-
ing these examinations, and that the educational esta-
blishments for the line and staff be under the dire .3titna
of the Secretary of State, who is responsible to Parliament
'or the administration of the army, and who is already
charged with the control of the existing schooli and exa-
minations for the artillery, engineers, and the non-com-
missioned officers and privates of the army."
All must concur in the truth and justice of the
first proposition "that a higher standard of pro-
fessional instruction than of late deemed requisite,
ought to be established for our officers generally,
but especially for those of the staff." An English
force should never again) by any possibility, be
liable to the reproach, that it is "an army of
lions, led by donkeys." We have had too much
of " playing at Soldiers." Those who profess to
be animated by military ardour should devote
their time to the attainment of the qualifications
befitting a good officer. It is not as "lady
killers" that they are required.. Something more
is wanting than to strut about in fine clothes,
to vote the .service " a bore," and talk of their
intention of "selling out" at any trivial annoy-
ance to which they may be subjected. A. man
must study hard for other professions : why
should the military one be the sole exception to
the general rule ? There has already been un-
questionably a great improvement. We no longer
meet young men like the model Ensign of the
olden time boasting of their ignorance, and de-
claring that---

Hrfiv difficult is the task of improvement now to
be undertaken by the united agency of the Board
of Directors and of the Councils of the Imperial
Government—those may best appreciate, who will
scrutinise for a while this strange race of the 11311-
galese, as seen in the stereoscopic glimpse of them
afforded by the vigilant genius of Mr. MACAITLA.Y.
Thus has our great Historian written in that
Essay of his upon " Warren Hastings," which we
are still disposed to regard as his masterpiece
"The physical organisation of the Bengalee is feeble
even to effeminacy. He lives in a constant vapour bath.
His pursuits are sedentary, his limbs delicate, his move-
ments languid. During many years he kas been tram
pled upon by men of bolder and more hardy breeds.
Guara,4e, independence, veracity, are qualities to which
his constitution and his situation are equally unfavour-
able. His mind bears a singular analogy to his body.
It is weak even to helplessness for purposes of manly
resistance ; bit its suepleness and its tact move the
children of sterner climates to admiration not unmingled
with contempt. All those arts which aro the natural
defence of the weak are more familiar to this subtle race
than to the lonian of the time of Juvenal, or to the Jew
f the dark ages. What the bor.t. are to the taiffalo,
what the paws are to the tiger, what; the sting is to the
bee, what beauty, according to the cid Greek song, is to
woman, deceit is to the Bengalee. Large promises,
smooth muses, elaborate tissues of ciroutastantial false.

"Your Noveds, and Orners, and Blutarchs are stuff ;
By G— I don't value them this pinch of snuff,"

They must now have some education—must not
" break PRISCIAN'S head," or evince a profound dis-
regard of the rules of orthography; nay, more, they
must have some knowledge of a language beside
their mother tongue, and be capable of work'ng
an ordinary sum in arithmetic. But these me
by no means enough ; and there is nothing t
ensure any amount of study after the first step
has been achieved—the commission, as cornet
or ensign, duly signed.

The remaining resolutions apply to the mode
in which this improved education is to be tested,

protection.
Nevertheless, while everybody, or nearly every-
body who took part in last evening's debate in
the House of Commons, admitted, with scarcely
a show of even momentary hesitation, the general
veracity of the account given by the hon. member
for Perth, at the commencement of the discussion
—the " previous question " was moved (and
therefore, of course, the particular motion of Mr.
KINNAIRD virtually rejected) by 119 opposed to
18, or, in other words, by a clear majority of 101
in a House of 137. Why this discrepancy ? Not
because the House, for an instant, denied the
fact, that Bengal, as at present governed, is mis
governed. Not that the majority refused to open
their eyes to the truth that the Ryota are atroci-
ously domineered over by the Z Imindars. No-
thing of the kin 3. Even the Right Non. Gen-
tleman, the President of the Thud of Control ad-
mitted thereasonableness of the statements advancA
by the member for Perth—when announcing on the
Dart of his colleagues that measures are in contempla-
tion to improve the administration of justice (in
Bengal), and to render the police system (in
Bengal) more effective. The deduction from
which candid acknowledgment is, of course, suffi-
ciently obvious at a glance. For why cnitem-
plate measures to improve, supposing there were
no cause for those measures, and no room for that
improvement ? Subsequently one of the mag-
nates of Leadenhall•street, took occasion, late
in the discussion, to assure the House
that no effort on the part of the East
India Company should be wanting to give to India
the best administration of justice and the best
system of police that could be wished by the truest
friends of the population. Observe the words we
have italicised—" to give"—a distinct admission
that these boons are not already in the possession
of the Bengalese. The fact—again and again we
repeat it, we cannot tire of repeating it—is unde-
niable. It is historical. It is admitted on all hands.
It was admittel yesterday successively by Mr.
VERNON &sum, speaking for the Government—
by Lord J. RUSSELL, speaking for the great mass
of Liberals in the Lower Branch of the Lsgisla-
ture—by Mr. MANGLES, speaking on behalf of
the East India Directory ! We reiterate the
assertion—it is incontrovertible. Yet the motion,
or rather the resolutions of the Honourable Mem-
ber for Perth " fell through" yesterd ty, in spit 3
of all this unanimity ! And, why I Simply be-
cause Mr. KINNAIRD'S resolutions were founded
upon the petition of certain humane Missionaries !
Rejected, however, though those resolutions were
thus inconsistently last evening, they have been
so far effectual : that—they have ventilated the
whole question in the Legislature, while they have
extorted promises of amendment at once from the
East India Directory, and from Her MAJESTY'S
Government.