The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-10 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, DEC. 10, 1857.

The Indemnity Bill has passed through all its
stages in the House of Commons without change
or alteration. No one, we believe, save some
intensely hard calculator, objected to the Govern-
ment interference, which was, indeed, delayed to
the last possible moment when the danger of ge-
neral confusion had not only become imminent,
but the safety of the Bank itself was involved in
the result. The general feeling was quite the
other way, viz., that the restrictions had been too
long maintained, and that 10 per cent. as a
minimum rate of discount was far too great to be
maintained with any degree of safety. In
1847, 8 per cent. was deemed ample, and
if the present relaxation kas not been so
speedily or completely successful in restor-
ing confidence, it may be partially as-
mibed to the exorbitant rate insisted on as its
Indispensable accompaniment, and also to the
State of exhaustion produced by the Ministerial
Procrastination.

It would certainly have been satisfactory if the
proposition of Mr. MALINS had been accepted, and
the Bank permitted to reduce its rate of interest
without bringing itself back to the provisions of
the Act of 1844. The Directors will not willingly
relinquish the advantage they Y have obtained.
Having taken the benefit of the Act (of indemnity)
they will not give it up until they have placed them-
selves in a position of perfect security ; but they
might without the slightest danger reduce the rate
to 8,7, or 6 per cent., while the reserve of notes
exceeded the additional issue. Ai it is, the nation
is unnecessarily saddled with an insupportable
burden, under which industry is paralysed and
production ceases. This is merely a tribute to
the "hard calculators." Sir G. C. LEWIS is
anxious to show that ho cao go even further than
Sir C. Woo]) in driving the nation on the road to
ruin, by transferring the profits of trade and
manufacture to the money-lancing fraternity.
:But, fortunately, in this instance the bill must
receive the sanction of the House of Peers before

it passes into a law ; and the hereditary legis-
lators have proved themselves in respect to
monetary affairs much sounder and better
statesmen than the popular representatives.
Besides, the great majority are not dealers in
money, so far as they are personally concerned.
National prosperity is more favourable than diffi-
culty and distress. There may be a Sir Giles
Overreach, or even two or three of the class,
amongst the assembly, but the general body will
not be guided thereby. They have their faults,
but, generally speaking, these are not faults of
grinding illiberality or sordid meanness. If dis-
posed to oppression, it is not in pecuniary mat-
ters, unless, indeed, the victim has offended in
some other respect, and then it is used as an
instrument, not for the sake of gain.

We trust then, that some amendment, framed
in the spirit of that brought forward by the mem-
ber for Wallingford, may be inserted in the bill
during its passage through the Upper House. By
this means enormous mischief may be averted
from the nation. Under the most favourable
circumstances we cannot anticipate any but a
gloomy winter, notwithstanding all the bless-
' ings of an abundant harvest. Why should these
inevitable difficulties be aggravated by artificial
means? why should the legislature subject itself di-
rectly to the odium of having produced the evils, and
thus occasion discontent, and possibly disaffection ?
We trust that the Lords will on this occasion
prove themselves wiser than the Commons.
By so doing they may revive an obsolete expres-
sion and induce the industrial classes generally to
" thank GOD that we have a House of Lords."
There are many respects in which we differ from
the majority of that House, but, respecting the
monetary question, we are induced to give them
credit for an honest desire to do that which is best
calculated to promote the welfare, prosperity, and
happiness of the People, and not the less so that
their own interests are on that all-important topic
identical with those of the community at large.
We shall regard the progress of the bill through
the Upper House with deep interest, trusting that
a shield may be interposed sufficient to cast aside
the envenomed shaft aimed against industry, by
that which ought to be the popular branch of the
Legislature.

Both Houses of Parliament cordially and
unanimously concurred in the recommendation
contained in the Royal Message, that a pension
of 1,0001. per annum should be granted to Major-
General Sir HENRY HAVELOCK, Bart., for and
during the remainder of his natural life. The
community at large will exhibit similar unanimity.
We venture to assert that there will not be a
single dissentient throughout the length and
breadth of the land. But there may be differences
on other points. Objections may very naturally
be entertained respecting the disproportion be-
tween the amount of the pecuniary grant and
the inestimable services rendered ; and, also,
because it is granted but for the life
of the hero who has so nobly earned
it, and will not be continued to his
successor. That glorious life is still greatly en-
dangered. The last telegram stated that " Gen.
HAVELOCK was still surrounded by numbers of
the enemy, who were said to have 300 guns."
Surely, under such circumstances, it would have
been right to have added his successor, if not his
two immediate successors in the title. Such is
almost invariably the case when a Peerage is con-
ferred, and no one can deny that a Peerage has
already been well merited, and with it a pension
double the amount, and for three possessors of the
title.

But General HAVELOCK is one who has worked
his way upwards, despite the purchase system.
lie had no accumulated fortune, and therefore is
to receive less than one already wealthy.
He remained, despite his invaluable services,
no less than twenty-three years a subaltern,
and had attained the ripe age of 43 years before
he obtainad a company. Had it been otherwise
% different scale of remuneration would have been
adopted, both in respect to titular rank and the
means of supporting it in a suitable manner, and
also for his successors.

There 'can be but one excuse for Ministers,
and that will be cheerfully accepted by the
country, namely that believing that he will ere
long acquire, if possible, higher credit ; they
wish to retain the means of bestowing further
honours and further pensions. And that both
are intended within a brief space of time,
or that which, God forbid, he should
perish in the discharge of his arduous and glorious
duties, his successor should then receive an ade-
quate recognition of the universal estimate of
merits such as have seldom been equalled by any
commander. This will be the fitting apology.
We wish to see the name of HENRY, Viscount
HAVELOCK of Luck-now, and Baron of Cawnpore,
inscribed in the illustrious catalogue of those who
have earned the Peerage by their own merits, or
those of their ancestors.

His son and heir apparent, Capt. HAVELOCK,
is in every way worthy of his glorious father. He
has shared in all the late toils and perils that
have gained for Sir HENRY HAVELOCK so high
a position in the Temple of Fame. He has
not only acquired high distinction as an officer,
but obtained the Victoria Cross, a sufficient proof
that should he be spared to succeed to the title,
he will prove a worthy successor to the illustrious
acquirer. ITaler these circumstances, there need
be no adherence to strict routine, which, in such
a case, is " more honoured in the breach than in
the observance." At all events, the expression of
general sympathy, combined with general desire
to increase the gift, both in amount and duration,
will be duly appreciated by the truly noble reci-
pient and his family. The manner will be no
less acceptable than the matter of the gift.

Letters to some of our journals have urged the
desirableness of colonisation for India. The subject
is of very great importance, since future modifica-
tions of the Government, of the Administration at
least, shoal,' depend for their form very much on
what we aim to accomplish in India. Colonies,
even in the old Roman Sense of the word, have
been spoken of ; and perhaps many are led by
the word to think of Canada, Australia, or New
Zealand, as specimens of what is wanted. All
such of our dependencies are, however, wholly out
of the question ; the climate in each of them is
such as Englishmen can live and work in ; a cir-
cumstance which alone create 3 an insuperable
diversity bet ween them and India as fields for
European industry. Jamaica, in this respee,
more strongly resembles India, and how small is
the proportion of Englishmen, and even of Scotch-
men, who make up their minds to seek a home
there.

tuloflndia. sense, then, are Englishmen to become
thelnnevvr h,
soHitherto it is but too
tha
painfully evident
have infused next to
nothing of our eiviiiei7e
tl. n
tall. 1833 and energy into the
i_ 1y been attempted.
er
ev
eyn teo serapefor the
people. It has, indeed, ha
India was governed
together commercial products and reu
special benefit of a close trading company.; since
miserable then, to wrizig out taxes from the

ryots, for the benefit of the close Civil Service—
the protegees of the residuary Company in Leaden-
hall-street. To impregnato•ludia with a European

spirit, to raise the Asiatic from the mental, moral,
and physical debasement of an illiterate idolatry,
which utterly stultified the whole nature of the
man—this was no part of the business of
men who wanted nothing from India but
rupees. Not, indeed, that we would counsel
direct attacks on idolatry, but we hold with Sir
CHARLES NAPIER that it inevitably lowers and
cramps the mind of man, and that it must fall of
itself before a vigorous government on Christian
principles, such as he so admirably exemplified in
Scinde—if carried on long enough.
The Friend of India, in an instructive article
in its number for Oct. 22, surveys practically the
possible modes of English colonisation in India,
and by an exhaustive survey of the subject proves
the impossibility of the thing, in the ordinary
sense of the word. European labour is a thing
utterly useless, for though one European is said
to be worth three natives, it is not for what he can
actually do under a tropical sun, but for his trust-
worthiness. Your three natives are worthless
without a watcher. Colonel COTTON has indeed
long ago observed, that you can get a cubic yard
of earth dug and carted a given distance, for one-
sixth of what would be required in England to
do the same. Of course competition with such
cheap labour is out of the question.

The one thing wanted in India is that English-
men should be encouraged by every available attrac-
tion to settle in India as the Guides of La. ur,
" the Captains of Industry," as the Friend of
India expresses it. That we should bring our
knowledge, skill, tact for governing labourers,
and capital to employ them, to a country which
needs just these requisites. Whatever Sepoys
achieved in better days was under the leadership
of English officers, and whatever the Sepoys of
agriculture and commerce are yettoachieve on any
great scale, must be under the lead and inspiration
of English Captains of Industry. It is in this line
only that we have hitherto effected anything in the
East, and where nothing has interfered we have
never failed. Ceylon is, at this moment, a striking
example of what Eaglishmen can do as overseers
of labour when restrictions are entirely removed.
In that Colony—for the island is governed as a
colony, not by a Landlord Company—Englishmen
can acquire land, and cultivate it as they will ; the
result has been the rapid, and still rapidly extend-
ing, creation of coffee and other plantations, which
is quite changing the commercial character of the
island.

India needs but to imitate Ceylon to insure the
same results. First of all let Englishmen in India
have security for life property and rights, and all
the rest will follow. At present neither Englishmen
nor native can hold an acre of land in fee simple ;
he must now bo :enabled, if he create a splen-
did plantation or estate, to call it his own to sill,
or to leave to his heirs, or to do with it just as be
pleases. No energetic) Englishman will quadiuple
or increase, perhaps, fifty times, the worth of a
tract of land, or of even a few acres, for the bene-
fit of tax-gatherers, who exact of him 18s. in the
pound. Englishmen, too, will not be placed under
even the very ablest native magistrates ; they want
the moral qualities of our Great Unpaid here, and
much more do they want, the thoroughgoing sense
of justice, as well as the knowledge of our stipen-.
diary magistrates, and our superior judges. The
fact is undeniable that, partly our national cha-
racter, and partly the direct or indirect influence
of the Christian principles amidst which we are
educated, place an immeasurable distance between
English and Indian magistrates.

The conclusion is, that the Civil Service mono-
poly, and the whole system of bestowing on it a
purely factitious superiority over other Europeans,
must be entirely done away with. The Civil Ser-
vice has hitherto treated all other Europeans as
an inferior class. They themselves are the Lords
of India, and other Englishmen as well as the
natives, aro born but to obey their orders; or, by
gracious toleration, to be permitted to drudge
awhile for a fortune, and to return home. Lord
CANNING'S acts, so much cemplained of, so irrita-
ting to the Calcutta community, and even to the
Missionaries themselves, derive their annoyance
from the humiliations inflicted through them by
the Civil Service on all other Englishmen. We
feel but imperfectly, here, what is meant by one
party in Calcutta as a kick at " outsiders," and
resented by the others as such. All this must be
done away with. All Englishmen in India, as in
England, must be both free and equal in the eye
of the law ; and it must be the equality of a
superior race governing an inferior one,