The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-08 00:00:00

•
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC jOURNALLB„,*4;'---,.-
,1,-,7,0-y-,;
•
Old Inillails, its the Times tells us, must think iis FIA4-22:ii 4;7 4`f •7 2
that the governing classes of India cannot like oar-rule,,
and must obey against the grain. It is ptain the deseili. . 1
ants of princes, of Mahomedan conquerork of predatory
chiefs of old renown, and of faMilies reckoning back three
thousand years or more, cannot but think the older the
better rule. There alway:3 were those who loved adventure.
even to pillage, magnificence even to the wildest profu-
sion, luxury to unbounded license, and opportunities only '
possible under virtual anarchy. This is the passion not
only of persons or of families, nor is it even limited to
classes. The semi-barbarous, and, it must be added, the
weak and foolish, everywhere love that which purchases
brief enjoyment for a few at the cost of lasting misery
for the many. Nor is this the whole truth. India can-
not afford under our rule the opportunities it once
offered the ambitious, or even the native of political
genius and brilliant powers. An iron rule and a dull
routine may be the most conducive to the vulgar and uni-
versal good, but they leave little scope for the ~-,chievem-
ents and the displays in which 50r,1,! s',:e the life of a
nation. There must be suppressed fire, and dormant rather
than extinct volcanoes of feeling, under such a system.
Then, if we are the most power:ul of all Indian conquerors
and masters, if the wisest, if the moss. beneficent and dis-
interested, we are also entirely :Alien, dissimilar, and
unsympathetic. Mahomedanism, might almost be a caste
in Indian estimation ; our religion cannot ever be this, if
we practised it ever so consistently. In what we allow
and what we disallow, we are alike odious to them. There
is nothing to recommend us in their eyes but the demon-
stration of results. We bring order, peace, and plenty,
and assure the natives that under our rule they are the
most fortunate of subjects, fellow-workers, bondsmen,
as the case may be. 'We give them more, indeed,
!or we give them a share in all we possess our-
We give them that unbounded liberty
of speech and that ready appeal to justice which are
presumed in the very inquiry before us, and which cer-
tainly have received lately some notable illustrations. It
will be said, indeed, that even these boons arc not to the
taste of the Hindoo ; that he loves the despot, that he
prefers sudden vengeance to deliberate justice, and that
he worships not only the murderer, but even the very de-
stroyers of the human mind. Such a prejudice, however,
on his part will not unnerve the hand of his present
rulers. We have offered to make any sacrifices to win his
love and respect, but we shall still be just with him, after
our own dull, slow, and costly fashion. What is the only
possible conclusion of. this controversy, so long as it is left
for us to sum up ? It is that under existing circumstances
we are the actual guardians of order, peace, justice, and
all that constitutes prosperity in India. We of the pre-
sent generation find ourselves there. We did not put our-
selves there. The mighty trust is in our hands. Mean- •
while, we have the satisfaction of knowing, what, indeed,
is only too true, that it is for the good of India, not our
own, or for any ascertainable advantage to ourselves that
we hold her.

"t a c

selves,

According to the Standard, it is monstrous to pretend
that we have no business in Afghanistan. Nature has
made our business there, and we have accepted the dis-
pensation. It is said that we ought to await any event
within our line of defence, which is supposed to be the
Indus. But, in the first place, the Indus is no line of de-
fence ; and, in the next, we are already on its other side.
Our advanced post is the valley of Peshawar. All the
military authorities concur in the opinion that our present
position is by no means a strong one, and that in the event
of a European army invading India from the north-west,
we should be compelled to abandon it, or risk what would
be a fatal defeat. The Afghan mountains, and not the
Indus, are, in fact, our true frontier, and though it may be
advisable to permit it to be occupied by the natives, it is
surely the extreme of folly to neglect or to despise their
friendship, and to permit them to form alliances elsewhere.
The policy of absolute inaction, which is the policy we de-
sire to see amended, is, in the words of an accomplished
and experienced officer, who has had peculiar opportuni-
ties of studying the question, " a selfish attempt to ignore
the responsibilities of our high and powerful position in the
East ; it is at the best but a poor and ignoble policy, and
in reality its success is impossible."
The Herald thinks it would be a great mistake to sup-
pose that because General Menabrea is still in power the
vote which was designed to eject him has not had some
mischievous results. It has sadly discredited the Italian
Parliament, it has encouraged throughout Europe doubts
as to the future of the Italian kingdom, and consequently
as to the permanence of Italian unity ; it has injured the
credit of Italy, already so vastly shaken, and driven the
price of Italian funds to so low a figure that no Financ
Minister could now hope to raise a large sum of money,
except at rates which even a South American Repuelic
that had compromised half a dozen times with its creditors
would not think of paying, whilst the value of the paper
currency has continued to sink steadily, and the diffiicul•
ties of that essential business of its withdrawal have been
greatly intensified. It will take a long time to remedy
the mischief that has been done by this ill-judged vote,
and every real friend of Italy will earnestly hope that the
Chamber will not aggravate the danger by quarrelling
with a situation that cannot for the present be I thered, and
a Ministry which, under the circumstances, is the only
possible one. The Italians must look the facts in the
face ; they cannot get Rome, let them cry for it as they
will, but they may wreck the Italy they have got upon the
rocks of insolvency and provisional jealousies and petti-
nesses, and they will do so too if they do not, deputies
and ministers, at once set themselves to work and make a
long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether, to get into
safer waters.

The Telegraph would have us bear in mind that in the
present condition of the sister island and the consequent
conspiracy, we suffer for the sins of our ancestors, who
acted unjustly and harshly towards their fellow-citizens
across the ocean and their fellow-citizens across the Irish
Sea. These things are a second national debt, which we
are now called upon to pay. We inherited a political
estate encumbered with uncertain and ugly-looking claims,
and we must make the best of it. We must take the
situation as we find it, and endeavour so to act that we
may diminish the incumbrance, or at least not add to it by
any new act of insult or of wrong. Meanwhile, the
statesman who shall secure for us the cordial alliance of
the American nation would confer upon us, upon the
United States, and upon humanity a greater boon than
the appeasement of twenty European disputes or the
arrangement of twenty European questions. The politics
of Paris, of Vienna, of Constantinople, and of Rome—
seats of empires and powers that have already begun to
decay—are the mere ephemera of diplomacy, compared
with the relations between us and our great cousins across
that Atlantic which science is shortening every day. And,
when we study the balance of power, how can we find
any greater way of preserving it than by adding to Eng-
land's strength the might which slumbers in the neglected
Celt? Properly used, the Irish element of our empire
might supply us with splendid implements for our Im-
perial needs. Are we to allow such faculties to rust or
to be forged by our foes into daggers pointed at our
hearts ?

The Daily News, dealing with the first report of the
Clerkenwell Explosion Fund Relief Committee, sai s it
contains many interesting facts ; but it does not find in it
that which Mr. Disraeli and the public have been asking
for—a statement, approximate of course, but-positive, of
the amount of money required to enable the committee to
complete its work. Up to the present time only £7,143
have been subscribed—a sum which neither duly expresses
the sympathy of the public with the sufferers, nor is
adequate to the relief of their necessities. It fears that
precious time is being wasted. The money already sub-
scribed will do little more than satisfy claims for
immediate assistance, including the purchase of tools,
working materials, and furniture for those who
have lost home and the means of earning a
livelihood. There remain to be dealt with snore
than 150 cases of personal injury, for all of which some
compensation ought to be given, while for many a life pro-
vision more or less complete will have to be made.
The
proportion of female sufferers is unusually large, and all
of them were dependent on their own exertions for a living •
four of these have lost eyes ; others have been maimed or
terribly shaken, and will never again be what they were.
The revolting barbarity of the outrage comes out in strong
colours in the report of Mrs. Bailey, who has given her
attention to the maternity cases, and who reports no fewer
t
o
divide
r impeoi
ot mothers eurlbsi
public
willda their infants.
raisedf aN\n.
to an
trustuonnste (
iu
equalte 111acett theotomi
lfee sub-
scription twenty-six instances in which injury has been done
s
a nt
liac\:meoc
exi-
gencies of the case before some new catastrophe • t
Clerkeliwell explosion.
Our friends the French,
,who are a ways discovering new
delights, and who are as much at home upon all questions
of amusement as a fish is at home in the water,l •
iavk, jus'
borrowed so me excellent fun from Russia. The most
fashionable
jollity in Paris just now, observes the Morning
Post, is enough to exhilarate one to think of it. The
Skating Club have got up a night fête during the frosty
weather in the Bois de Boulogne ; and all that is fair or
joyous in Paris have flocked to see it. They do 11,-t, run
the risk of being drowned in the solemn stolid 11 a that
we do when we try to amuse ourselves in cold weather
upon the water ; but they made themselves a shallow
lake expressly-to suit their purpose on the Madrid cricket
ground. This was illuminated gaily by ten thousand jets
of electrical light, many of them grouped in the form of
garlands and bouquets, while innumerable Chinese lan-
terns were suspended to the branches of trees. The
neighbourhood of the Swiss Chalet belonging to the club
was paved with soft cocoa-nut matting, and every precau-
tion taken to defy the cold without and within. 'Dien the
sport began ; the ladies made themselves shun* in
lierspretty
fur-lined sleighs, and were pushed about by cava upon
skates at such a pace as brought the roses intir cheeks
and the sparkles into their eyes. Why can't their some-
thing of this kind the next time it freezes in London, in-
stead of going shivering about at night like so many rheu-
matic ghosts ? It would dolls a vast deal of good, and be
something quite new and jy for the ladies. Let us.try
it ; it will be no end of a relief, after being boxed up in
offices, banks, and counting-houses all day, to have a little
healthful sport in the evening, instead of cramping our
knees and straining our eye-sight in those modern
" stocks," the stalls of ill-built theatres ; and sitting bolt
upright, choked by white handkerchiefs, and silent as
mutes for four hours at a time. We are already beginning
to understand the medicinal and curative power of well
chosen recreations in the ope acquire ; all that it remains
us to do is to put our tardily d knowledge now and.
then into practice.