The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

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FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAT. 1
GLOBE.—Lord Ellenborough's career in India
has been brought to a sudden close. His Lordship
is recalled. This decisive step ought to'have been
taken long since by the Government at home, which
would thus have escaped the humiliation and embar-
rassment of being check-mated and defeated by the
Honourable Court of Directors of the East India
Company. Leadenhall-street has shown itself wiser
in council and more prompt in act than the occu-
pants of Downing-street. The former have had
respect to the safety of their territory, and to the
interests of the immense body of Proprietors, whose
revenues are perilled with exhaustion, and their pos-
session of the country jeopardised by the policy
which Lord Ellenborough has pursued. The lat-
ter have looked only to their own narrow interests.
Lord Ellenborough was sent to India on their nomi-
nation and recommendation. They became respon-
sible for his acts, and their reputation, as a Govern-
ment, was involved in his proceedings. To have
recalled him would have been to pronounce con-
demnation on themselves, which would have been res-
ponded to by Parliament and the country. They
therefore justified his general proceedings; and where
they could not fully approve, they excused and ex-
tenuated. The Directors of the East India Com-
pany, unable to prevail on her Majesty's. Ministers
to interfere, and to control, or recal, the functionary
whose proceedings were exciting serious apprehension
and alarm, have taken the matter into their own
hands ; and, according to the short but comprehen-
sive statement of Sir Robert Peel, have cut him
adrift :
" I beg to state, that on Wednesday last her Majesty's
Government received a communication from the Court
of Directors, that they had exercised the power which
the law gives them, to recal at their will and pleasure
the Governor-General of India."
The same statement was made in the House of
Lords by Lord Ripon, the head of the Board of Con-
trol; and with this additional fact, given in answer to
a question by Lord Colchester,, that " her Majesty's
Government does not concur in the act of the Court of
Directors, by which Lord Ellenborough is removed."
Her Majesty's Government is, then, placed in collision
with the East India Company.. The pertinacious
tenacity with which file Government has adhered to
its protege, has brought about a state of thinzs un •
precedented in the history of Indian affairs, and mani-
festly calculated to weaken the influence of the
British Government of India. How great must
have been the apprehensions, how deep the anxieties,
of the Court of Directors, which induced a decision
at once unprecedented and dangerous. A choice
of difficulties was presented; and, in the exer-
cise of their discretion, the executive council of
the Hon. Company selected that which involves the
least peril to the interests of the country, the affairs of
which the Legislature has intrusted to their manage-
ment. Success in his daring enterprises seemed to
have intoxicated the Governor-General. His triumphs
were more portentous than defeats. His thirst for
conquest and his love of aggrandisement knew no
bounds. His expensive expeditions were draining
the coffers of the Company ; while the iafraction of
treaties, and the seizure of territory, under any co-
lourable pretext, threatened a general rising of the
native Princes, the result of a preconcerted plan, as
the only means of preserving themselves from the fate
which had overtaken and overwhelmed their neigh-
bours. Lord Brougham, on hearing the announcement
of Lord Ellenborough's recal from Lord Ripon, first
questioned the right of the Court of Directors to do
what they had done ; and next alleged haste and
oversight, in successive Parliaments, as the origin
of a right in the Court of Directors to remove
a Governor-General without the concurrence of the
Government. We have referred to the Act by which
the power is conferred, which we find was passed
on the '2Bth of August, 1833, " for effecting an ar-
rangement with the East India Company for the
better government of his Majesty's Indian territories,
till the 30th April, 1854." It enacts, " that the go-
vernment of the Company shall continue until the
30th April, 1854 ; and that all the privileges and
powers granted or continued to the Company by the
Act 53d George 111., cap. 155, or any other Act,
shall continue and be in force, subject to the super-
intendence, direction, and control provided by any
former Acts or by that Act." This Act, after various
other provisions, contains the following enactments :
" See. 74.—And be it enacted, That it shall be lawful
for his Majesty, by any writing under his sign manual,
countersigned by the President of the said Board of
Commissioners (the Board of Control), to remove or dis-
miss any person holding any office, employment, or com-
mission, civil or military, under the said Company in
India, and to vacate any appointment or commission of
any person to any such office or employment, provided
that a copy of every such writing, attested by the said
President, shall within eight days after the same shall
be signed by his Majesty, be transmitted or delivered to
the Chairman or Deputy Chairman of the said Company."
"Sec. 75. Provided always, and be it enacted, that
nothing in this Act contained shall take away the power
of the said Court of Directors to remove or dismiss any
of the officers or servants of the said Company, but that
the said Court shall and may at all times have full liberty
to remove or dismiss any of such officers or servants at
their will and pleasure. Provided, that any servant of
the said Company appointed by his Majesty through
the default of any appointment by the said Court of
Directors, shall not be dismissed or removed without his
Majesty's approbation, as hereinbefore is mentioned."
The present Governor-General was appointed by
the Company, and therefore the provision at the end
of the last section does not apply ; and, assuming that
the former Acts gave the Company the power to
remove that high officer, it is evidently continued in
them by this Act. It will be seen that the powers of
the Crown are defined by one section of the Act, and
those of the Company by another, which immediately
follows it. This appears to justfy the statement of
the Marquis of Lansdowne—that, "so far from its
being an oversight, it was the subject of long and
serious deliberation under different Governments,
and at different times ; and that it was the deli-
berate conviction of Parliament, that the East India
Company should have the power to recal the Gover-
nor-General whenever they were of opinion that his
continuance in office was inconsistent with the welfare
of the dominions committed to his charge." The re.
suit of this manifest rupture between the Court of
Directors and her Majesty's Ministers will be looked
for with great anxiety. Will the Ministry throw its
shield around the Governor-General, and take the
responsibility of his acts upon themselves ; or will
they submit to the fiat issued for his recal, and sur-
render his Lordship to the fate which his conduct, as
Governor-General, so well deserves? Whatever may
be the decision of the Government, a blow has been
struck at its existence, under which it must reel, if it
does not fall.
STANDARD.—It was stated last night in the
House of Lords by the Earl of Ripon, and in the
HouSe of Commons by Sir Robert Peel, that the
Court of Directors of the East India Company have
issued an order for the recal of Lord Ellenborough
from the Government of India. The Earl of Ripon
did not hesitate to accompany the announcement by
an explanation that to this most extraordinary pro-
ceeding her Majesty's Government is not a party,
and, therefore, it is but reasonable to infer the
1 step is disapproved of by the Cabinet. The
Company has, even in its last charter, pre-
served the right to recal a Governor-General at its
pleasure, though the policy of conceding the right
was strongly disputed at the time when the charter
was renewed ; and though its continuance with the
Court was for some time obstinately resisted by the
Whig Government of the day. There is so much ob-
scurity in the history of the Government of British
India, down almost to the close of the last century, that