The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-18 00:00:00

WHAT MIGIiT BE•

The following remarkable article appears in the
Morning Star, a contemporary which is the organ
of the Right Hon. gentleman the President of the
Board of Trade, who understands more about India
than any other Cabinet Minister, not even except-

ins his Grace the Duke of Argyll :
A statement has appeared in the Manchester Exa-
miner, to the effect that the Earl of Mayo has been
recalled from India, that the Marquis of Salisbury has
agreed to accept the Viceroyalty as Sir John Law-
rence's successor, and that Sir John Lawrence's re-
turn home is to be delayed for another year. We
do not confirm this statement; but the arrangement
which it describes offers a not improbable solution
for the grave difficulty which was thrown by the
late Premier upon his successor. To those who re-
gard the greatest posts in the State as mere items
of preferment, the presence of the Earl of Mayo is
Calcutta as Governor General does not suggest
'doubts or anxiety. One man is as good as another
to enjoy a good thing ; and Lord Mayo is a man
whom no one would object to see as happy as the
most inappropriate exaltation could make him.
But the Governor-Generalship is not a mere posi-
tion of honour and state. 'The Viceroy of India
is, with certain limitations, chiefly felt in quiet
times, and even then very ineffectually opera-
tive, a quasi sovereign ruler over some one hun-
dred and eighty millions of people. His vast
and barely manageable domain might at any mo-
ment be thrown into a ferment such as only the
most competent statesmanship could allay. Lord
Mayo in this country never exhibited even average
ability, and he received the grandest prize at the
disposal of the Crown, either as a consolation for
failure, or as a reward for having taken upon him-
self the responsibility of a hastily declared and pre-
cipitately renounced Irish policy. But in India'
left to govern a vast dependency on his own re-
sponsibility, he can no longer be inc)mpetent with
impunity. Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues
cannot but have felt this. Whether they have
ordered Lord Mayo home or not they must be
well aware that they, and not he, would be
really responsible to the people of this country if
mischief were to arise from his rule in Calcutta.
At the same time, to recall a man of Lord
Mayo's inoffensive character from a post to which,
according to the loosely practised principle of party
management, he had as good a title as auy other
member of his party, would be an act seemingly Be
invidious that the Cabinet must have arrived very
reluctantly—if they have arrived —at the resolu-
tion to take the step. Mr. Gladstone, of course,
has long foreseen his present responsibilities
in all their bearings, and the Duke of
Argyll cannot have been ignorant that the
public voice has for some time designated bite
for the high office which he fills. In the Cabinet
there is another Minister whose actual exee-
rience is sure to have deeply impressed him with
the responsibilities of Indian administratioe.
An eminent statesman who has made the inte-
rests of the natives of India the subject of some
of the most burning eloquence in our language, i 4
also one of the most prominent of Mr. Gladstone °
colleagues; and there are,others —such men as gr
Lew° and Lord Clarendon—who, themselves se-
lected on the ground of :special fitness, will, pro-
bably, prove incapable of tolerating, however much
they may compassionate, incompetency Pitch'
forked into an office demanding the profoundest
and most apt ability. Never was a Cabinet
brought together from which a job such as the
Viceroyalty of Lord Mayo would have been less
likely to receive indulgence. As a mere job it
might have been spurned ; but a job against
which the whole country exclaimed, not merely
in indignation but in alarm—a job which b 0
set the press of India at work deriding the
Home Government ---a job which insulw
all past, and would if ratified go far te
deteriorate the calibre of all future Governor-Geee•
rals—a job which would lead to five years of inglc"
rious sway, unless some disaster brought its issue
to a sudden and fatal termination—must Wear
to an Administration like the present a perfectly
intolerable blemish in the great machine of State‘i
for the working of which they are responsible.
it is true that Sir John Lawrence has undertake°
to be answerable for the Government of. India Of
another year all anxiety as to the immediate future
will be over. Lord Mayo would have to bear a°
almost unexampled humiliation, because he has bees
the hero of a State scandal in these times no
less unexampled ; and with his disapPeit„
ance from the scene all peril that hunt:
foresight could avert would pass away.
again, it were true that eventually Lord SW;
bury would succead to the Viceroyalty, a prosPeeu
of good for India would be opened up, which ece
the continuance of Sir John Lawrence in that lev
portant office could not present. Sir John I,3l'f-
rence is an able and sure-footed Indian statesral
but his ideas are necessarily cast in an old me,
Lord Salisbury's Indian policy was not only
but full of fresh intelligence ; not merely free frfat
prejudice, and superior to departmental control, /I,
courageous and enterprising in a direction hithea,,rw,
untried ; not only wise, new, and bold, but dr
tinctly adverse to all the annexationist immora
li
in which even Sir John Lawrence, however CO
entiously and innocently, has been by circurestaue;
and official experience involved. Lord Salisheribe
appointment would mean, in the opinion of a
Cabinet, all the good that might be expected to leo'
from such great and absolutely novel qualiti;s,
as these. There was something in Lord 51iti,
bury's sudden recognition of the Mysore cla,o
similar in beneficent audacity to Mr. Gladsto.e 611
courageous declaration of war against the Ise,
Establishment ; and Lord Salisbury 'e
be
signs for the material development of India 03/o+o
considered a brilliant adaptation of Mr. Gladstoetv
ideas of economical statesmanship to the eireuod
stances of the noble empire over which it is elwlepo
to be Lord Salisbury's destiny to bear away. lace ;
considerations, of course, deserve the first P ting
but it is also worthy of notice that, by desiga the
Lord Salisbury for this great sphere of duty' tla
Prime Minister would most effectually rebokrliory
reckless allegations so freely made by tan 00
organs, that he begrudged Lord Mayo f bio
which he wished to bestow on some follower tij
W o
own fortunes. hether well or ill-founded ,
coo
-
report which has appeared in our Manchester
ad
temporary is one which, for great reasoneie to
for smaller reasons alike, would be aceePtab
the country, and full of hope for its great
Indian empire.
Plea) •
The following also appears in the Daily roil"
one of the, recognised organs of the Liberal 13'001
—" There is much speculation as to the cloy of
which will be pursued relative to the Vicerols 00
India. That Lord Mayo should be suffered e