Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1862-06-25 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

THE LATE LORD CANNING.  Charles John Canning was born at Gloucester Lodge, Brompton—a house now incorporated with the Kensington Museum—in 1812, the third son of the celebrated George Canning. The most important fact connected with his early life is his education at Christ Church, Oxford. We have often had to record the glory of this College as the chief nursing mother of statesmen in our time. In the previous generation Trinity College, Cambridge, had this honour; but the race of veterans whom she reared are now almost gone, Lord Lansdowne being one of the very few left, and Lord Palmerston being claimed by St. John's. Christ Church was the intellectual home of Peel and the followers of Peel. Among the followers of Peel, indeed, we cannot count Sir George Lewis, but there remain Lord Stanhope, Mr. Gladstone, Lords Dalhousie, Canning, and Elgin. The last four were at College together; the last three graduated very nearly at the same time. They all obtained honours ; but the two who were wholly Scotch were least high while the two who were only half Scotch stood the highest. Lords Elgin and Dalhousie were respectively first class and fourth class in classics; but Mr. Gladstone, on the other hand, was a double first, while Lord Canning all but reached this position, for he was of the first class in classics, and of the second in mathematics. Three of these have been successively lifted to one of the most splendid positions which a British subject can enjoy. Lord Dalhousie was Governor-General of India Irons the beginning of 1848; Lord Canning succeeded him early in 1856. Let us hope that Lord Elgin, upon whom the honour has fallen in the present year, will enjoy a happier fortune than that of either of his college friends.  Lord Canning, then Mr. Canning (for the peerage which his father had earned was given in the first instance to his mother) entered upon public life in 1836, when he appeared in the House of Commons as member for Warwickshire. In the following year his mother died, and hi went to the Upper House. When Sir R. Peel came into power, in 1841, he was appointed UnderSecretary for Foreign Affairs. Ile held this post till 1846, in spite of the inconvenience of having both the Secretary and the Under-Secretary of the same depart• went in the House of Lords. Of course, Lord Aberdeen could not be spared from the Foreign-office, and it may be imagined both that Lord Canning would feel anxious to distinguish himself in the same political line as his father, and that Sir Robert Peel, in tender memory of the put, would be particularly ready to further the political aspirations of George Canning's son. For a month or two, in the reconstructed Ministry of Sir Robert Peel, Lord Canning was Chief Commissioner of Woods and Forests; but in July, 1846, he resigned with his party, and, declining high office at the hands of Lord Derby, returned with the Coalition Ministry in 18.53. In the Government of Lord Aberdeen Lord Canning was Postmaster-General, and distinguished himself as far as possible in such a department by his administrative capacity. He worked very hard, made many changes in the internal organization of the department, and set on foot the practice of submitting annually to Parliament a report of the work, and especially the progress, achieved by the Post-office. He held the same appointment for a short time in Lord Palmerston's Cabinet, but it became necessary, as the year 18:55 wore on, to select a sucaessor to Lord Dalhousie, and none seemed so fit to send out as his college friend Lord Canning. The peculiar fitness of this selection lay in the fact that the Governor-Generalship was the destined prize of which George Canning had been balked: He had received the appointment, he was on the eve of starting for India, • when Lord Castlereagh committed suicide, and the Foreign-office was left without a head. Canning, a comparatively poor man, gave up the chances of acquiring a fortune in the splendid post of Viceroy, in order to win a name for himself at home, and perhaps to reach the Premiership. He did win a name, and he did become First Minister, but he died in the effort. These were events which Lord Palmerston, as a Canningite, could not forget, and Lord Canning, otherwise well qualified for the post, was appointed to succeed Lord 131 alhousie. lie began his reign in India on the last day of February, 1836, and the events of it are so recent, besides being, by their importance, so well known, that it can scarcely be necessary for us here and now to write their history. In the year after he assumed office the mutiny broke out, and he had to stem it as he could. Never has any Governor-General of India had to go through 80 fierce a trial. He had a fearful load of res• ponsibility ; for a moment the Indian Empire seemed almost lost; in Calcutta the European inhabitants were in the greatest consternation ; and Lord Canning was accused of weakness and softness in dealing with the crisis. The Indian Empire was saved as by a miracle. It was saved by the firmness and the resolution of a very small band of men, chief among whom ranks Lord Canning. For a time even the friends of the Governor-General were in doubt as to the wisdom of his policy ; but it is now confessed that in that terrible emergency he displayed marsordinary courage, great administrative and very great moral qualities. There are few finer things in modern history than the fact of his quietly remaining at his poet after receiving Lord Ellenborough's outrageous despatch on the Government of Oude. As he had before been accused of too much leniency to the natives, he was now accused, and that, too, by the Home Government, and in the most extravagant terms, of too much severity. After such a public rebuke, especially in the knowledge thst it was undaserved, he could easily have escaped from the labour of a most arduous task, the pacification of India. Ile might have resigned, and let sonic new man undertake the work. He held on, however. He knew that under the circumstances resignation would be moat embarrassing to the public service, and that no one could do the work of pacification so effectually as himself. He remained where he was, and he has had the satisfaction , of seeing India once more happy and content, once more able to make the revenue meet the expenditure, once more promise to rise from its decay and to flourish in a new life. Having faced such unexampled dangers, having grappled with such enormous difficulties, and having accomplished such wonderful triumphs, Lord Canning came home, two months ago, for a little repose. The repose which he sought he has found in death. Lord Canning, who was raised to an earldom in consequence of his services in India, has left no family. His titles, therefore, die with him, and the line of George Canning now survives only in Lady Clanricarde and her children.—Thnes.