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Leader (1850-1860), 31st October 1857, Edition 2 of 2, Page 13

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      The New Aspect In India. The Operations ...

      one . Did an altercation arise between Lord Cawing and Sir , Colin CampbEli / concerning the military arrangements in Fort William ? Did Sir Patrick Gbant , by suspending General Hewitt , commit an act offensive to the civil supremacy at Calcutta ? Have the magistrates , Sandys , Palmeb , and Irving , been rebuked for the summary justice they executed upon captured assassins ? Were the civilians who displayed so much

      courage and promptitude at Patna and Monghur removed , to appease the milk-and-honey viceroyalty at Calcutta ? Has Mr . « T . P . Gbant , with his two confidential Mohammedan colleagues , informed General Neii / l that no further punishments should take p a lace without his sanction ? Is there , in iact , a split between the civil and military authorities ? If so , how is the rebellion to be stamped out ?

      There seems no reason to doubt that Mr . J . P . Gbant released a hundred and fifty of the Cawnpore malefactors , of course without consulting General Neill , who had seen the blood two inches deep upon the floor . Every European in India and in England , except the elique which finds its beatitude in its admiration of Lord Cannin g , is at a loss to understand this proceeding—premature , to say the least of it . Were the rebels in want of reinforcements , that Mr . Grant should

      send them a hundred and fifty of his hostages ? We submit that he might have waited for the relief of Lucknow . It is useless , we well know , to protest . An article from this journal , reprinted in the Englishman , would subject it to a week ' s suspension . Lord Canning governs without the aid of public opinion , and jn defiance of it . He will allow no one but himself to bring the administration

      into contempt . To a thorough distrust of his countrymen he unites a miraculous reliance upon the Sepoys , who have seen , in " Bengal alone , nearly a hundred thousand examples of sedition . We still hear of native regiments entrusted with arms , and marching pver to the enemy . There is no dominant principle at work at Calcutta . Caprice is supreme . If our commanders had not been made of

      stern stuff , we might have been expelled from pur . Oriental dominions . We have Lawbence , who seems too far away to be interfered with we had his relative , who was killed at Lucknow , and whose death gave J < ord Canning an . opportunity to hint that to certain military functionaries ( names suppre , 8 . Bed ) hanging-, shooting , and blowing from guns were congenial tastes ; we have Nicholson and Wilson , but they are rebuked by a' ' civil' circular ; we have Neill

      but Mr . Grant domineers over him ; Haveilock is in the field , whither none of Lord Canning's civilians may care to follow him ; consequently , he is at liberty for a while to follow the precedent established by Wilson , in his admirable General Order , and prohibit Jbis men to grant the rebels quarter on the field of battle . The effect may easily be traced . At Calcutta , under civil law , large classes of the natives are-insolent and threatening ; at Benares , not a Baboo or a Coolie passes an Englishman without a salute .

      We do not believe that India is in safe hands . If mere strategy and courago would restore it to prosperity and peace , the army might accomplish the work , although hampered by Calcutta proclamations , and the jealousy of the Governor-General in Council . But thia is not all that is necessary . It is far-sighted and fearless statesmanship that ia regmred . What was the foresight that allowed the mutiny to creep on in spite of a thousand oral and ocular warnings ? What was the fearlessness that hesitated at every stop , and was only rash when it dictated t-ho Leniency Circular ? The Into

      Adjutant-General of the army in Bengal distinctly accuses the local government , and prays for a Royal Commission to proceed to India and investigate the charges agaiust Lord Cannin g and his colleagues . Let the appellant be easy if his demand be not granted . A commission would not be ' royal' if it failed to exonerate ' my noble friend' and the men of the highest character' acting with . him .

      ^ O. 397, October 31,1857.] The Leader. ...

      ^ o . 397 , October 31 , 1857 . ] THE LEADER . 1045

      Labour And Cotton Supply. The Manchester...

      LABOUR AND COTTON SUPPLY . The Manchester Chamber of Commerce is engaged in bringing before the public a very important question- —that of the Cotton Supply . For many years our commercial classes have acknowledged the evil of depending Upon a single country for the raw material of our greatest branch of industry . Not even the Iudian mutiny could be compared , as a national disaster , with the sudden stoppage of

      the Lancashire mills by a failure of the crop . The misfortuue is not probable , but it is possible ; and it would be madness to continue , year after year , witnout guarding against so formidable a danger . . But we need not adopt a point of view so extreme . Without supposing the total or partial cessation of the American supply , it would assuredly be advantageous to increase our resources , to cheapen the staple of our

      manufactures , aud to enrich , some of our own possessions with a few annual millions of the purchase-money that now fills the pockets of the Transatlantic plauter . British India offers an immense scope , for the cultivation of cotton . Uailway and river carriagethe latter upou the plan of Mr . Bourne— -to bring the produce to port , would considerably quicken the movement ; but the simple truth is , that agricultural enterprise ia wanted for India . Five hundred new settlements

      of Europeans , besides creating thousands of private fortunes , would act as a powerful impulse in promoting the mutually beneficial intercourse of Bengal aud Lancashire . Why should not Manchester fabrics , made of Indian materials , replace the famous cottons of Balasore ? Again , a large surface of soil is applicable to cotton cultivation in Borneo . In his letter to the Manchester Chamber of

      Commerce , recently published in the daily journals , Mr . Spenseu St . Joittf , the British Consul-General , has entered into some very remarkable details , inviting the attention of traders , manufacturers , and adventurous capitalists , to the singular advantages enjoyed by the vast island among the independent princes and chieftains of which he acts as the representative of the English Government . Happily , the political and social relations thus established arc of the most

      amicable character ; the capacities of the soil have been variously and systematically tested , and it appears certain , from the evidence accumulated , that a great cotton crop could speedily be raised in the maritime districts of Borneo . There is no doubt , moreover , that the West Indian group , if cultivated with energy , might yield a large supply , which would go far to redeem the shattered West Indian interest . In

      the Virgin Islands , the present governor has carried out some very satisfactory experiments , and expects to send homo , in the next winter or spring , about ten bales , tho growth of six acres . Next year he intends to plant the best Sea Island seed , iu sufficient quantities to introduce it as a permanent production of the

      islands , which , it is believed , with a proper complement of labour , might annually ship twonty thousand bales of cotton of a firstrate description . Yet , lust year , tho amount of only about ten bales , or tweuty-nino hundred weight , was exported . Tho reason ia , that tho liuid lies fallow . Naturally prolific , it only waits the touch of agricultural art to

      spring into abundance . Where are the workmen to be found ? It is useless to think of Englishmen . They may be masters , but not servants , in the tropics . With Australia and North America open to him , no emigrant will think of competing with the "West Indian negroes . The . idea of

      such a thing is preposterous . Another project has been conceived—that of transporting a large number of the captured Sepoys to the Atlantic cotton-fields , and there allowing them to atone for their offences by hard and profitable labour . It would be better than hanging them . They would be far more useful than Coolies . It

      would matter little whether or not they belonged to the agricultural class . It would be as easy to make Brahmins dig as fco compel them to lick the blood on a stone pavement , as the British soldiers did at Cawnpore . Nor would the transfer from the rice and poppy plains of the East Indies to the sugar and cotton plantations of the West Indies be injurious to the Sepoy constitution . We have reason for thinking , in fact , that this suggestion has been received with favour by those

      who might assist in carrying it out , provided that the Government interposed no obstacle : Something must be done with thousands of the captured mutineers .- They cannot be pardoned , and they cannot all be hanged . Mr . John P . Gbant , it is true , would discover an easy plan of dissipating the difficulty by letting the cut-throats loose ; but his is not exactly the principle that will save the British dominions from prolonged anarchy .

      It might' -be worth while , at all events , to test the value of the proposal by selecting one of the smaller groups as the scene of an experiment conducted upon a . regular plan ; for the West Indies want nothing but labour to render them more prosperous than ever , and we have at our disposal thousands of vigorous arms belonging to men born in a hot climate , who have no right to complain of transportation .

      Loud Canning. Wi-Ir Is Not Lord Canning ...

      LOUD CANNING . Wi-ir is not Lord Canning recalled ? That seems to be the question which naturally rises when the public witness such acts as his minute of council on the treatment of natives , and the appointment of Mx . J . P . Grant to paralize General Neill and the other . military commanders . The release of the hundred and fifty prisoners is the last exemplification of Calcutta fatuity . But why was Lord Canning sent out at all ? How is it that he retains the implicit confidence of his patrons at home ? Nothing could be imagined more mischievous than hia show of indulgence to the rebels at the very moment that the generals arc straining their utmost energies ; yet the Governor-General not only proceeds uninterrupted in this compromising career , but appears to enjoy the unbounded admiration of the chiefs of * the Cabinet . The public naturally has some difficulty in understanding how such a man can bo so trusted , or how a man who can be trusted can commit

      himself to such extraordinary courses . But the mystery is solved if we look to the circumstances under winch Lord Cannin g waa appointed ; and to hia personal character . Lord Canning ia a man of conscience and of average intelligence , and he really possesses that sort of ostentatious energy which

      ingratiates him with the Ministers at home . He is superficially active . No sooner did he attain to the government in India than , knowing of the existence of much abuse , he inquired into everything for himself , sought to make himself master of every department , and of every branch m every department ; and ho has carried out that principle of go *

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 31, 1857, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_31101857/page/13/