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JKTCttTOES TO ( tcmRESPOTttyHNVB . Anveral articles ate tmaw > iaab ) y postponed thhf t / eek . Wo notice caw be taken of anorijrmons oorresponddnce Whateveris intended for insertionmust be authenticated bv the natne and address of the writer ; not necessarily for publication , bnt as a puarantee of his good faith . THs impossible to acknowledge the mass of letters we receive . Their insertion is often delayed , owing to a press ofniatter ; and when omitted , it is frequently from reag 0 I 19 quiteiiidependent of the merits of thecommunroation . , i I
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THE MINISTRY AND THE INDIA BILL . Lord Ellenbobough ' s India Bill is already in ruins . It haa been the mark of hostile criticism from every side , and the Premier himself is avowedly preparing for a surrender . Few instances are on record of a legislative proposal so immediately and unambiguously rejected by public opinion . But , as Lord Derby declares , the great object in view stands beyond the scope of party conflict . We have no desire to assist Lord Pa : l-Mersto : n" in rushing through the gap created by Lord EiiiiEKBcmotrGH ' s failure . The work in which all public men of public spirit are disposed to combine is the establishment of an improved administrative power in and for India , with commensurate responsibility , clearly defined functions , and a supreme general direction , personal or corporate , at home . If by referring to a select committee the two schemes now before Parliament the views of leading statesmen can be simplified without raising a Cabinet question , the Liberal party has no interest whatever in the instant deposition of Lord Djseby . The ELiiENBOitouon Bill is clearly impossible ; and to save India from an experiment so wild , wanton , and precipitate , is not faction but public policy . By the Court of Directors , Lord Palmeiiston ' s project is reported as less empirical and fallacious ; both plans are naturally repugnant to the East India Company ; but , since the necessity for legislation Las been admitted , it would be the merest waste of reasoning to treat the Government of India as one that can long remain upon its existing bnsis . There must be change . That is a settled point . The remaining question is one of form and principle , and hero the analysis of the two bills by the Court of Directors is practically valuable . Into the details of the argument we need not enter , as we last week recapitulated tlio principal objections stated in tho report to oo discussed at tho India House uoxt Tuesday . ' We now wish to deal with a part of tho subject altogether neglected in Lord Ei . IjEN " - bouough ' s Bill and in the ltoport of tho Directors . It is that which concerns tho reorganization of the Indian army , and , at tho risk of ropotition , wo will first i-esuino the diacuMsion nk tho point at Avluch wo loft it last week . Tho Ciia . no lora . on or an is Excheq stated , ia his speech on proposing tho now-I-ndia-liilVtliut-it-was-not 4 n , coixtenip la ^ tion nt presont to make any chango in tho constitution of tho British-Indian , army beyond " that which necoaanrily rosults from tho gonornl scope of the bill . " In other womb , Lord EiYiviflNBOKOuaii asks for full powora to constitute ) ' himself an Asiatics Horso Guardw Minister as well as a Socrotary of State ; niul
J when his pretensions take this lofty range , we naturally ask , what are his known opinions ? They are , as we have said , in favour of the military occupation of India by a British force , and it is even imagined that the President of the Board of Control acquiesces in the ignoble scheme of so arming the Sepoys that they might at any moment be overpowered at long range by their European comrades . Now , we will not prejudge Lord Eiii , ENBOB , otrGH , but we may presume to insist upon an . explicit declaration of Indian military policy from the statesman who is a candidate for despotic authority over the vast realm of British India . It might be too late , when the bill had passed , to prevent him from dealing in scientific remodellings and from treating his Mohammedan regiments in the spirit of the Somna'th proclamation .- Is India to be coerced by brute force or developed by moral force ? If the former , then what man acquainted with the character of the various native populations will need to have the process described or the catastrophe predicted ? To disarm India is to degrade it , and to degrade it is to lose it . "We have a right to question Lord . ELLEXBOEOUGn ' s policy when we remember that he has recently proposed a system by which eighty thousand Englishmen . would attempt ^ to coerce , by mere muscular and mechanical superiority , a hundred and thirty millions of Asiatics , as strong and , in a tropical climate , more enduring than the British soldier—a project for setting a bull-dog to watch an elephant . But who is to disarm the people of India , and reduce Bengal , Bombay , Madras , the North-West Provinces , and the Punjab to a perpetual state of siege ? "Who is to search the houses , destroy the manufacture , and prohibit the importation of arms throughout India ? Who is to ransack the mystery of its jungles , or even live among its vast underwoods during the unhealthy season ? Would the revenue bear the cost of a gigantic native police , simultaneously with an army of eighty thousand British troops , in camps and depots ? We have no doubt that it will be essential to keep the Indian arsenals in full efficiency , to maintain powerful European garrisons in the fortified places , to brigade the European army at commanding points , to open strategic lines of road and railway , and otherwise to assume . more comp letely the character of a dominant power . But to force a curb into the mouths of a hundred and thirty millions , hot-blooded and vindictive , is less to establish supremacy than to challenge insurrection . But , if a British army of eighty thousand men could be maintained , would it be ade- quato to its office P If disseminated through- out tho empire , it would infallibly be deci- mated by tlio climate ; its scattered power would bo next to useless in an emergency , and the principle of permanent detachment would ripk it ; s total demoralization . If con- centrated , who is to hold tho thousands of miles of intervening country ? Not native police certainly . Native polico are simply native soldiers without their best military qualities , and , so far from protecting tho people , would become their most intolerable tyrants . By introducing tho principlo of military occupation , wo introduce the prm- ciplo of hatred between races ; wo turn adrift tho military classes of India , and , in tho event of a European war , wo lind our re- goucecs ^ diuinadJLjxJ ^^ Asia at ono and tho sumo time . Lastly— the contingency is romote , but possible" —by teaching the soldier despotism in Asia , wo may teach him that despotism is practicable in England . AVo create an army of Zouaves and Zephyrs , and , however solidly fortified may be our constitutional liberties , there is
no necessity to introduce the AJgeHan system into this country . Let us of course accept the facts as they stand ; admit our Bengal native army to be dissolved , our Bombay army to be tainted , our Madras army to be still sound although subjected to pernicious centralizing regulations , bnfe let us act upon the princip le of restoration with aa little convulsion as possible , consistently with the assertion of our absolute rule . - "With this aim the Bengal native army may gradually be reorganized upon that principle which has preserved , through every trial , the loyalty ana efficiency of the Sindh horse , composed as it is of agriculturists from the heart of the revolted districts . A similar reform , so far as it is desirable , may be commenced upon the same foundation in the Presidency of Bombay , while in the remaining territories an identical principle may be kept in view , although acted upon slowly and with the utmost deliberation , as one opportunity after another arises . The native army being thus re-established , the European force may be massed at healthy stations in the immediate vicinity of swift and suitable facilities for transport . Thus systematized , the British muscular force is extant but not paraded . If required , five thousand men , held properly in hand , accustomed to work together , fully equipped , supplied , and provided with means of carriage , would be thrown with more effect upon any threatened point than any fragment from an army of eighty thousand men sprinkled over the empire , and whose presence in sole and palpable military occupation had impressed upon the subjected a consciousness of inferiority and degradation . We have no right to keep up a standing menace against the entire population of India . If "we cannot govern by other right than that of loaded muzzles and matches lighted , we have no claim to govern at all . The EiiLENBOROUGu India Bill leaves the great military question altogether unsettled , and in this respect , as in most others , it stands condemned upon its merits , if not to absolute rejection , at least to the threshing process of a Select Committee .
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j | j ( c f ^ . ] 1 { j s ; j I j OUR RELATIONS WITH NAPLES . The attempt to break off diplomatic relations with an independent state must necessarily be a failure . We have for several months had no representative at the court of Naples , and the sufferers from this have been , not the Neapolitan authorities , but oar own countrymen . The King of Naples , alter all , lias compelled us to aocredit an irregular represeutativc at his court , and the question now arises , how far is the present dispute to be carried . Coaafc Cavour , who has acted throughout with admirable consistency and vigour , and who took from the firat a more correct view of the Cugliari case than the law oiliccrs oi' the British Crown , has distinctly demanded " tho concurrence und , if need bo , the cooperation of the British Government to bring this important affair to a conclusion . " Lord Malmesbury replies that ho will consider tho mutter , but that Sir James Hudson hud misunderstood his instructions . It appears , however , that Sir James Hudson , had not misunderstood his instructions , but hud neglect oil his duty , and that Mi ' . Erskiiio , diplomatic secretary at Turin , hud , of his own volition , hit upon the very statement which Lord Clarendon should have forwarded to Count Cuvcmr in January lust , or earlier . There is no excuse lor Mr . Erskinc , and still Icsh for Sir Jainea Hudson ; hut what Mr . Erakino wrote without authority Lord Malmesbury is now bound to write as l'Wcign Minister oi lMig-Lnml . There is no longer miv reasonably doubt that tho Cagliuri was illegally captured , Unit two Jyitisli ^ Uic ^ mmW ^ irlim'CTH ' nlso-impiUHonnient ^ autl ^ laat— - a claim to inileiniiillciUkm lm » been established . The responsibility of tMiforcinu this claim lies wrtli I ho British anil ' riedmontuso Governmentsjointly j tho ono aa interested in the steamer Cagliuri , eaptimul us iv piralo upon the high sens , and condemned in violation of international law , tlio other as in- ' tcrcstcd in tho rights of two Englishmen who have
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SATURDAY , APBIL 10 , 1858 .
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? There is nothing so revolutionary , because there ia nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the verylaw of its creation in eternal progress . —De . Abkold
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Leader (1850-1860), April 10, 1858, page 347, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2238/page/11/
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