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Ho. 391, September 19,1857. J HE lEAPEB,...
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THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT OF INDIA. The incub...
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THE ROMANCE OF C-KEDIT. HOW ST. MIR&S, -...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Viscount Canning. The Indian Intelligenc...
the -Chief-Commissioner . should be a permanent officer of the highest rank of departmental Ministers , with an increase of salary corresponding to his increase of rank and ^ responsibility . It will be observed that these changes would very materiall y elevate two . departments which have hitherto been
thoroughly subordinate to the Treasury , especially one . The Treasury has of late years ¦ become so completely a political department , that it cannot conveniently be expected to fulfil purely ministerial or accounting duties ; and the proposed Board of Audit , in its new form , has become a decided want of the day . '
Two other changes recommended by the Committee constitute the most important items in . their really striking plan . They propose that the Board of Audit , as reconstructed , should no longer communicate with Parliament through the Treasury , but should do so direct . They also propose that a select committee should be annually appointed by the Speaker ; and that before that committee the accounts for the past year should be laid .
We have now sketched the general plan proposed by the Select Committee ; we leave it for a week under the consideration of our readers ; perhaps they may anticipate us in discovering . the magnitude of the proposed Reform Bill . " We shall hereafter endeavour to show how great would be the political advantages both in an economical and a political sense .
Ho. 391, September 19,1857. J He Leapeb,...
Ho . 391 , September 19 , 1857 . J HE lEAPEB , . , 993
The Local Government Of India. The Incub...
THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT OF INDIA . The incubus of India is the Board of Control . It lias at length reduced the Court of Directors to a state of utter inefficiency and humiliation . It is a signal mistake to suppose that the Directors can initiate the slightest legislative , financial , political , or military innovation upon their own responsibility . Leadenhall-street is the back-slum of Cannon-xow . The President of the Board of Control exercises an absolute veto upon the measures of the Court , but the Court has no
power over the measures of the Board . Suppose Mr . Vernok Smith to have determined , with the consent of his colleagues , upon any plan of reform , wild or weak , inefficient or impossible , he forces it upon the East India Company , and the Company cannot avoid sanctioning it , knowing it to be impossible , inefficient , weak , or wild . It is not long , we believe , since it could justly be said of the Court of Directors that nowhere in the
world could be found twenty-four men more uniformly armed with the resources of knowledge and statesmanship than the gentlemen round the East India Table . But the main objection to the perpetuation of the Company is ,-that we have paralyzed it , and substituted something worse in its place . Its resuscitation is now impracticable . The Change of 1854 put a finishing stroke to its degradation , and ratified the ascendancy of the Board of Control . At the head of that Board
is a subaltern of tho "Whigs , a man whom no Premier would have ventured to mako Home Secretary , but who lias been permitted in India to run riot in innovation . And what lias been tho result of Mr . Vmunon Smith ' s local reforms p Has he improved tho condition of the native civilian , tho hopeless subordinate , the instrument of taxation and punishmentwho
, is liable to bo dismissed and denounced hh a criminal , without trial , inquiry , or lodresH ? A bitter feeling on tltta subject has been engendered , and tho subject haw been irequontl y pi-eased upon tho Board of Control ; but innovation had taken another way , and Mr . Vkhnon SMr'i ' n wjih occupied with ins exulted theories . Tho hand in the lomon glove waved uway all remonstrance . Was it
in March last that Mr . Smith first heard from the Governor of -Bengal that 'the village police are in a permanent state of starvation —that they are generally thieves and robbers , or leagued with robbers and thieves , that when any one is spoiled in a village , the first person suspected is the watchman ., and that the simultaneous arrest of all the policemen in the province might do more to prevent plunder and pilfering than any other measure ? These facts were known years ago ; but it was no part of the official scheme to deal with practical grievances , which , however , have opened an ^ b ysa between us and millions of the natives of India—we say millions , because it is false to represent the entire region as similarly maladininistered . The Akbarry and Ferrie systems—the one promoting drunkenness , the other discouraging social intercourse—have been left untouched by the Hight Honourable Veenon . He has approved of fresh changes in the evershifting tenure of land , to vex the ryot and
destroy his confidence ; he has stimulated the feverish impotence of the missionaries , and he Obas passed over , unreprehended , an official proclamation in which the natives of India have been , insulted as ' the heathen . ' Now , this must never occur again . iLet Bangalore preachers take pariahs into their pay , but do not give them the sanction of our example for publishing in . India the contempt of the English , for the Indian creeds . These are points Of local administration which it might be worth the while even of a President of
the Board of Control to study . They may appear insignificant , like the affair of the cartridges ; but when a Roman soldier killed a cat at Alexandria , and the multitude tore him to pieces , the Roman Government dared not punish the murderers , for it knew that a spring had been toxiched which might explode the country under the feet of its conquerors . It is necessary to reiterate the truth , that , for what is done or not done iu India , the Board of Control is supremely responsible , and that local maladministration in one set
of provinces is the more inexcusable whilst other provinces are admirably governed . We see an Englishman presiding over a district larger than some European states , and regulating its affairs with remarkable precision and success . In another , the chief oflicial , ignorant of his duties , neglects the real requirements of his post , but harasses the people by incessant meddling . In a third , he
gives himself no trouhle whatever , and becomes what it was predicted to Timouii that the warrior of Satnarcnnd would become under the melting Bengal sun . He draws his salary ; he has a stately house ; he is waited upon by a train of servants in white robes and whiteand-crimson turbans ; and all the time his munshia and chaprjisis arc cheating and goading the people .
Whenever it is proposed to reform the local administration of India , an outcry is raised against dangerous expenditure . But India in reality lias cost us nothing . It has enriched an immense class of families . It supplies a vast commerce . It gives employment to thousands of Englishmen , and these Englishmen too often , under tho guarantee of that covenanted system which debases the Indian service into ono of the narrowest of
monopolies , behavo with perfect impunity , and bulk tho efforts of sincere ) reformers . Civil and military officers prefer a quiet -Ufc at cool stations to fatiguing assiduity ; 4 &| Commissariat preys on the revenue ; nniTW corruption , is winked at in order that European irregularities may not bo exposed ; juntieo is costly , slow , and uncertain ; taxation is certain , heavy , and opprOHnive . In eighty yearn we have not been able to devise an organization for protecting the ryot against the
zemindar . Our successive * settlements' have been repeatedly unsettled , and the last is by many regarded as the most inefficient . We have neglected-the army and the people , and when a tremendous conflict arises in the heart of our Indian Empire , we search in all direc--tions for the cause ; and we find that , although the Board of Control has had repeated warnings ., and the power to act , it has done nothing but -vindicate its prerogative of arrogance , neglect , and incapacity .
The Romance Of C-Kedit. How St. Mir&S, -...
THE ROMANCE OF C-KEDIT . HOW ST . MIR & S , - « HrEF MRECTOR OF THE CAISSE GfiN ^ KAlJE DE S CHBMISfS » E PER , TENDERED HIS RESIGNATION ^ AND HOW OT WAS NOT ACCEPTED . In Paris they are preparing for a further downfal of the spurious ^ commerce that has been grafted on the newly-developed high commerce of France . Imst week we saw the Societe de Credit Mobilier recalling its truant directors , and forbidding them to retire ; and notwithstanding his * notarial act , ' M . Andb & has been denied , a retreat from his responsibilities , flow often it happens that men plunge into positions from which they cannot draw back ! The recruit hears splendid accounts of adventure in the Eastern seas ; he joins a free roving ship ; he does procure pistols , daggers , earrings , and other trinkets , but finds a good allowance of blows and no small risk to life , and he wishes to retreat . No such thing ; desertion is not allowed . The captain , indeed , may resign his post ; but the threat to do so , instead of creating anger in the crew , sometimes creates alarm . Amongst the preparations for coming events , nothing has been more significant , if it can be clearly interpreted 3 than the remarkable dramatic scene at the extraordinary meeting of ahareliolders of the Caisse Generale des Cliemins de Fer , on the 10 th of September , which we find fully reported in the Courricr de J ? aris of the 15 tli .
This company was originally established for five objects : first , the publication of the Journal des Chemins de JEbr j and you would think from its title that it was only a newspaper company , or at most a railway company ; but it is by no means limited to that object . Its second object is the purchase , sale , and
exchange of securities , public or private , French or foreign , the dealing in the shares of jointstock companies , and in the operations of credit ; also subscription to the same objects , agenc y in loans for public works , & c . In other words , all the operations of banking . The society started with a capital of 4-80 , 000 / ., in shares of 20 / . each .
Now it is to bo presumed that this company has not been getting on so splendidly as it used , and through its leader it lias been , subjected to divers disagreeable remarks . Amongst others , a M . Jaoqvot , who haa been driving ; a brisk trade in defamation under the alias of ' Eu g ene de Miilecouht , ' had shown u p M . Mirks in rather a heightened literary photograph of that eminent
financier . This was very daring , for M . Mi kef ? , although not so big a man as Atjguste Tnuunktssi-jnt , tha director'of the Credit MobiHer , who has lately been made bankrupt by tho absconding of his nephew with a default of 600 , 000 Z . —although not absolutely a Peiustre in the magnitude of his property and operations—belongs essentially to tho class ot ' Associated Capitalists . ' The libol , however , Heeius to lmve touched tho heart of Minfts .
At nil events , he iiHtonishcd tho HliareholdorH in the CnitsBO Genuralo des Chemins do Vov by announcing hin resignation ; nn < l tho extraordinary meeting wna summoned to nceopfc that abdication . 11 in speech in n perfect model of eloqweueo for the purpose . It is Hudson miule poetical ; David Waddinotott with mi infiiHion of sentiment : Huair
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 19, 1857, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_19091857/page/15/
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