The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-07 00:00:00

roads and communications, just laws for the en-
forcement of contracts, ready tribunals for the dis-
pensing of justice—we wish he had added, fail ies
or disposing of the land in fee simple—are all to be
)7 ,joets of i nm-dio feattent'on ; and, he emphatically
remarked, it bhUii not be said of us that slavery
triumphed and India missed its opportunity be-
ause its Government was too blind to discover, or
too weak to carry out the policy which, at a great
crisis, Providence had pointed out to us." The
several Presidencies are also taking up their share
of the work in earnest. Very able men have been
selected by Bengal, Bombay, and the North-west
to attend immediately to the subject of communi-
cation with the cotton districts of these great divi-
sions ; and we may even hope that this very year
much will be done to improve them, and every year
much more, till the roads, canals, and railways
shall make conveyance to the coast safe and easy.
The carrying out of the grand economical reform
of reduction of the army in India will much facili-
tate, we should think, the grand desideratum of
road making. One hundred thousand men are this
year disbanded, in addition to more than as many
previously. Having been disciplined to re-
gular habits, and to obedience to European orders,
and wages being so much better, we may reason-
ably expect that they will be a valuable addition to
the numbers of Indian navvies, and will not only

lighten the charge on the Exchequer by earning
their own support, but soon prove most effective
contributors to its resources by the trade which
they will create in more ways than one.
Too much praise, indeed, cannot be given to those
who have this year effected so large a reduction
on former reductions of our vast native Indian
army. Mr. LAING awards special praise to the
three members of the Military Finance Commission
for what has been achieved in this respect. Its
results are a reduction this year of the military
expenditure by £3,600,000. The men have been
reduced from 353,783 armed natives to about
140,000 since 1859, and this has not been done in
the aristocratic way always practised in this coun-
try, when army reductions were made, of retaining
skeleton regiments and pay for officers, but whole
regiments have been disbanded ; 248 regiments of
native infantry are now cut down to 145-103 regi-
ments having been disbanded ; 33 cavalry regiments
have been disbanded, leaving 45 ; native artillery
regiments exist no longer. The lesson we received

at Delhi will never be forgotten. But the limit of
reduction has not yet been reached, nor that of the
saving, since the disbandment involves of course
gratuities satisfactory to the soldiers disbanded.
Yet all this has been done without the least sacri-
fice of efficiency''. Indeed, we believe that, in the
military point of view, India is safer than ever.
Mr. LAING'S surplus cannot be charged with
being an imaginary one. He has calculated it on
the market price of opium ; had he taken the actual
price it would have added about a million and a
half to the quarter of a million he has actually
reserved. Indeed, throughout his calculations he
has carefully kept on the safe side. For the first
time, therefore, we see an Indian Budget with a
surplus on fairly estimated expenditure, as real as
any surplus calculated by our most cautious Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer. Even the famine has
not, as was feared, turned the scale on the wrong
side. Unless wholly unlooked for contingencies
therefore occur, India seems fairly to have obtained
that fundamental condition of easy and prosperous
Government—a national balance-sheet with a
sufficient surplus.

The three Bills introduced last night by Sir
CHAS. WOOD are all in the right direction. We
shall have, of course, ample time to consider their
provisions, but as to their general scope there can
be no doubt. One liberalises the Legislative
Council by including in it a considerable number
of persons whose qualification is to be that they
are not Government officials. Natives of high posi-
tion will be eligible, and independent Europeans.
It is intended, in good faith, to secure the advice
in legislation of all classes whom the laws will
most affect. Representation in India is at pre-
sent an impossibility ; the natives do not under-
stand or appreciate it ; and it would be dangerous
to have a representation of Europeans only. Sir C.
WOOD and Lord CANNING seem honestly bent
on ensuring such discussion and examination of
all measures as shall give some certainty that they
have not been passed in ignorance. The extension
of the powers of the Provincial Legislatures on the
same principle is also very wise. Each of them
will have charge of the local business of a respecta-
ble kingdom, and can manage it far better than it
can be done from Calcutta.

The Union of the two Superior Courts—of the one
which consists of able English lawyers, and that
in which there may be native judges also--must
be right. The amalgamation will bring toge-
ther three classes of judges—those who have
had high legal training ; civil servants
well acquainted with native usages, but who have
not necessarily had legal training, and native
judges. Such a composition seems to be every
way desirtible for a court of final appeal in such
a country. The opening of the civil service will
also give satisfaction. Occasion is taken of the
necessity of legalising appointments which have
been already made to high offices from those
who do not belong to the covenanted service, to
settle rules for the permanent power of making
such appointments. Of course, there is the danger
of jobbing and nepotism ;- but it became impossible
to maintain any longer the wholesale job of the old
costly covenanted service. We hope the limitations
on the power of appointment will not be dictated
by " Old Indians."

1
Since THELLUSSON'S Will Case was at length
brought to a conclusion, there has remained "on
hand" no case more urgently requiring settlement
in its turn than that in
the late Baron DE Wb.ich the son and heir of
Government n
BODEis the claimant of compen-
sation from the British G
majority of the English mthee nut.o a
nAi
mmoounsgfeel-
ing has long been, without doubt, of a kind so abso-
lutely identical, in the Baron's instance, with the
sanction of uttermost exhaustion and weariness,
that we might perhaps express the general senti-
ment by observing that with the bulk of the people
of this country, the Baron's name would be more
accurately spelt with an Rin lieu of aD. For in-
disputably, in the words of the refrain of one of the
very wretchedest of those melancholy ditties,
desig-
nated, of course, in mere irony, Comic Songs—

" The greatest Bore of all the Bores I know,"
is—not a doubt of it—to the vast multitude—the
Baron DE BODE. Still, however unwelcome the
subject may be, undoubtedly is, in itself, justice at
the same time is Justice : and it yet remains with
the Imperial Legislature to decide definitively, for
once (more) and for all, whether the unfortunate
Baron de Bore—that is DE BODE has yet had it.

Until that final decision has been arrived at—
the Baron will be perpetually coming " bock agen"
the inexorable Scotchman. He will be per-
petually revi,y.,,t-„, fhP nlimpses of the Moon, down
at Westminster, like the incorrible
sox, whose memory is preserved to us (a fly in am-
ber) embalmed in " inextinguishable laughter."
The ghost of this poor dead and gone Baron DE
BODE Win—until it shall have been mon2ehow.effec.

tually laid—be threatening us as inopportunely as
ever did the ghost of BANQUO in the instance of
MACBETH—the ghost of the Baron DE BODE will,
we say, be threatening quite as inopportunely to
push cur Chancellors of the Exchequer from their
stools at the must awkward moments imaginable.
There was the last instance of this dreadful appari-
tion at Tuesday night's sitting, when Mr. DEN-
MAN strove, so far as he possibly could, to carry
desolation to the soul of Mr. GLADSTONE upon the
very morrow of the triumph achieved after despe-
rately hard and prolonged fighting, by his finan-
cial measures for the current twelvemonth. In this
instance, more deplorably protracted than even the
married life of JOHN GILPIN and his spouse,
through more than

" Thrice ten tedious years have we"

been pottering, off and on, over this miserable case
of the Baron DE BODE'S claim for pecuniary com-
pensation without any one session obtaining any
sufficiently lengthened abstinence from the renewal
of the demand capable of being called even by
courtesy a holiday. Here, in truth, in this habit
that we have got into of reviving the Baron DE
BODE'S case year after year for Parliamentary con-
sideration, is recognisable precisely one of those rules
HAMLET speaks of as "more honoured in the breach
than the observance !" But no—during three and
thirty years we have actually had no chance of
so honouring it! The discussion of the

Baron's claim every session, in the Lords
or in the Commons, or in both, has come
to be regularly a part of the constitutional annual
proceedings of the Imperial Legislature. Like—
let us say—the passing of the Mutiny Act. A
session would hardly be complete without a dis-
cussion, long or short, as the whim of the moment
might dictate, of the claims of the lamented Baron.
Occasionally, it is true,—and really no marvel—
the House has, when this portentous grievance
was again forthcoming according to announcement
—occasionally, we say, the House has (it is upon
record) gone the extreme length of a " count out,"
members preferring a cigar in the smoking-room or
a quiet chop at BELLAMY'S to that dreadful Bore
BODE—wrapped up, as his case always is, in such
an enormous amount of what Mr. WOODIN'S
Yachting Man expressively pronounces
" Bawther."

On Tuesday evening the House of Commons,
it will have been remarked, was "at it again"—
going into the whole "confusion worse confounded"
of the rights and wrongs of the Baron DE BODE
and his father, the latter being, of course, the
present claimant's grandfather. Mr. DENMAN
leading off for the plaintiff, i.e., the Baron's son,
the heir to all his misfortunes. The Attorney-
General leading off for the defendant, i.e., Her
MAJESTY'S Government. Mr. MALINS for once
being junior in furtherance of the case on
the side of the applicant, as was also the hon. and
learned baronet Sir GEORGE BOWYER. Asso-
ciated with the Attorney-General on the side of
the Defence were two other great guns, namely,
the Prime Minister and the Chancellor" of the Ex-
chequer. It is almost superfluous to observe, after
this, how very strongly the argument disputing the
validity of the claim was put—put as it was sum-
marily and with an almost overwhelming effect by
Sir RICHARD BETHELL, by Lord PALMERSTON,
and finally by Mr. GLADSTONE. It was explained,
it was proved (as plainly as anything could well
be proved) by the Attorney-General, that the
assumption made throughout this claim, the
assumption of the fact upon which the claim itself
was based, upon which it could alone be based,
namely, that the late Baron DE BODE was a British
subject, was to say the least of it exceedingly
dubious in every point of view. True, the Attor-
ney-General admitted, that the late Baron was
born in England, but, he insisted, it was equally
true that very early indeed after his birth he, the
late Baron DE BODE, was carried over into France
by his father (unmistakably a French citizen), and
there in France educated, and there brought up as
a Frenchman. Subsequently the father (grand-
father as we haN e said of the present applicant) trans-
ferred his property in Alsace to his then youthful son,
the late Baron, since deceased. The property thus
transferred, as to a British subject, was so trans-
ferred, remarks the Attorney-General, in order
simply and obviously that it might be protected
from the lawful authority of the de facto French
Government. " That Government," observed Sir
RICHARD, " saw, however, through the device, that
the father did not intend really to divest himself of
the property, and they did what they had a right
to do, they confiscated this property for what
the French law made an offence committed by
a French subject." Our Attorney. General remark-
ing pithily and succinctly immediately after-
wards, that " According to the constitution and
the Act of Parliament, to entitle a party to indem-
nity, the property confiscated must be British pro-
perty, the party deprived of it must be a subject of
the British Crown, and it must have been im-
properly or unduly confiscated by the French
Government." Wherefore, argues Sir RICHARD
syllogistically, these primary, these all-essential
conditions being a-wanting, the claim falls to the
ground by an inevitable consequence.
Of course there is a great deal to be said upon
the other side, as in fact a good deal has already
been said upon it—and written about it. So
thought the House of Commons on Tuesday, in
spite of all that had been insisted upon to the
contrary by the Attorney-General, the Premier,
and the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and, so
thinking, the House decided upon a division by
134 to 112 that after all the Baron DE BODE'S
case should be once more, and for positively the
last time, referred to a Select Committee for a
final investigation. In the name of justice—for
the satisfaction of the Baron DE BODE'S manes—
for the sake of the present claimant (for " hope
deferred," we all know upon Divine authority
and from many a bitter experience, " maketh the
heart sick")—in the interests of the country and
of Parliament—let us hope that this Select Com-
mittee will really contrive, at length, to make
an end of the matter, and so rid us at last of
those long talked of ills of Baron DE BODE,
which whenever talked of session after session
have certainly boded ill indeed for both Houses of
Parliament.

andA_pDrEoraLPisrlinlgTthHEATßE.—To-night is the 200th of
the ~ Colleen Eawhnav"eaat
better.
SHERIFFS' I—a good long runt
named Plummer—,ZeltdTh.iTs
The
eis •
bHERIFFs' I.'
amount, on account of the
Theb employerrn morning
conduct.o rnlnogf for t ah3es workman
oadirankmtmiaffgaienns
for wrongful dismissal. dadefendant objected to pay the
using abusive language.
said, the plaintiff had no right Ptoegalodi'ng judge (Mr. Joyce)
man-
ner to his master. Verdict for the delfnenadtahreatening
BANKRUPTCY COURT.—This morningt Atilt.. Com-
missioner Evans suspended the certificate, second
a bankrupt named Read, described as a contractor,ucla7, of
Val-
worth Common, for 12 months, on the ground of unsatis •
factory accounts. Mr. Commissioner Goulburn awarded
Skinner, a coach builder, at Denmark-hill, an immediate
certificate of the second class.
MARLBOROUGH-STREET POLICE COURT.—This
morning a man named Dickinson was placed at the bar
charged with loitering about with intent to commit felony.
He was discharged with a caution.

The:, French journals announce that Mr. Prost,
charged with ti byveinl
Davis, has arrived at Havre.
mission to Europe by Mr. Jefferson

The Gazette de France reports that the Emperor
has sent Madame George Sand a present of 20,000 f, as a
consolation for her defeat by X, niers,