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May 17, 1856.] ' THE LEADER. 471
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FRANCE—ITALY—AU STRIA. The Sardinian ple...
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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.
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The Marquis Of Dalhousie. On Tho 19th Of...
trader had likewise been ill-treated . Should the Governor-General have waited until an American squadron commanded the Irrawaddy , and an American settlement arose on the eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal ? Jjord Dalhousie was not the man to incur such a contingency . Notwithstanding the feeble counsels and dilatory movements of the precedent-loving General , the war was brought to a successful issue , and the province of Pegu annexed to the British Empire . This has been stigmatized as an act of usurpation . An opposite course was pursued on the conclusion of the first Burmese war , and
stigmatized as a disgraceful abandonment of the unfortunate inhabitants who had espoused our cause . Pegu , it must be remembered , was not an integral portion of the Burmese Empire . It was a conquest of comparative ^ recent date , and the people were still unreconciled to - their conquerors . They had gladly welcomed the force under Sir Arciiibaid Campbell , and afterwards suffered for the assistance they had afforded the invaders . The lesson was not lost upon them : for a time they held aloof from General Godwiit , until assured that they would not again be left to the tender mercies of a barbarous
court . They then rendered every aid to the British troops , and hailed the chance of annexation with loud and joyous acclamations . It has been urged that Pegu is an unprofitable addition of mere territory . This allegation is already disproved . Notwithstanding the heavy expenditure incidental to the occupation and settlement of a new country , there is actually an excess of revenue . Labour is also becoming more plentiful , and the important natural resources of the district will thus soon be turned to good account .
The next increase of territory was by the cession of Berar , in payment of the immense arrears of debt due by the Nizam . This is one of the most fertile districts of India , in a high state of cultivation , and inhabited by a simple and industrious race . Only two months afterwards the province of Nagpore devolved to the British Government , through the extinction of the reigning family . Until
very recently the native princes were wont to adopt the child of a favourite retainer , or concubine , as the heir to the musnud , when the hereditary stock had ceased to put forth branches . The practice Avas fraught with much inconvenience , and oftentimes led to fraud , violence , and bloodshed . It was therefore decreed—no doubt arbiti-arily—that , in default of the ruling family , the British Government should be deemed heir-at-law to
all native states under its protection . " We now come to tho last great act of Lord DALnotrsjJG ' s yiceroyalty , and one that has been more commented upon than any of the preceding . According to some rcasoners , he is as worthy of impeachment as Warubn Hastings was in 1787 ; while others maintain that when his Lordship rosutnes his seat among the Peers of England , tho House ought to receive him as they did AVajuuon Hastings thirty years afterwards , upstanding and uncovered . Both parties overstate the case . Lord Daliiousiic had little or no
discretion . Jt ia true , he might ; have governed Outle nominally through tho king , and virtually through a Resident . But this could not long have endured . ( Such a course would have led to perpetual wrangling and dissension . The king would have been , though a moi-o puppet , both ablo and willing to impede the action of tho Resident , and the people - would have been scarcely better governed than under tho , odious system that prevailed- aforetime . Half-measures arc seldom palatable to men of Lord DAiaiousnc ' H Btamp . Ilo , therefore , determined upon enforcing tho treaty of j . SO . 1 . Remonstrance
had been tried , and failed . So the fiat went forth , and civilization began to dawn upon the wretched people of Oude . The king was deposed , the soldiery entered the ranks of the British army , magistrates and revenue officers spread a net-work of justice and finance over the country , and men of all classes knew that from that hour they were safe in person and property .
Ignorant persons are apt to say that this repeated extension of territory must eventually weaken the empire , and then they quote Eome under the emperors . Illustration , however , is not argument : the two cases are in no way analogous . The limits of the British Empire are not extended by the absorption of these various states . The result is one of consolidation . It would be as sensible to
complain of the annexation of the county of Durham , if that district had previously been independent of the British Crown . Others object that when the process of absorption shall be completed , the natives may unite under some great man , and throw off the foreign yoke . This objection can be raised only by those who are not aware that the population of India consists of many different races , agreeing in no one point , except in detesting each other more fiercely than they do the Feringhi . Differing in religion , in
language , in customs and institutions , they will never submit to any one of themselves . Besides , how is the deliverer to arise when no nucleus for rebellion any longer exists ? A third party battle about the infmorality of the whole proceeding , and assert that the present difficulties of Oude have been promoted by former Governors-General . To a certain extent , this is true . But then , to be consistent , we ought to restore Rohilcund , and all the large sums of money extorted under various pretexts in the olden time . Are they
prepared to do this ? If not , they are not justified in blaming Lord DAiiHOUSiE for accepting the situation as it stood in his time . He is clearly not answerable for the acta of his predecessors . In 1856 he found Oude to be in such a state that he could no longer avoid enforcing the due execution of the treaty of 1801 . He did enforce that treaty , and Oude is annexed . The government of nations is not a subject for copy-book morality . It is a hard , harsh ' thing ; and depends upon the concatenation of circumstances much more
than upon the Ebenezer demonstrations of Exeter-hall . Perhaps even Exeter-hall will receive as a honeyed sop the considei * ation that Oude will pay as an investment . We have dwelt at such length on the political events of Lord Dalhousie ' s viceroyalty , that we have left ourselves no space to do more than enumerate the groat civil achievements of his administration . To him alone
is due tho cheap postage of India . Until within tho last three years tho postal rates were ruinous , and virtually prohibited correspondence between distant friends and relatives . His lordship reduced them to one uniform charge of one anna—threo halfpence —for letters and newspapers . Taking into account the vastness of the empire , and the difficulties of communication in some parta , this is ix bolder measure than the adoption of
tho penny postage in England . The construction ' of tho electric telegraph throughout the empire , so that a merchant at Calcutta may convorse at the same time with hia agents at Madras , Agra , Bombay , and Poahawur , is mainly attributable to Lord Damiouhuo , without derogation to tho great merits of Dr . O'Siiaucihwuhsy . To tho same discriminating patronage must bo ascribed whatever ban been done in ruilwayH , and tit ill more tho establishment of iron furnaces to Biipernedo the neccHtiity of procuring raila from England . Under bib
reign also the Ganges Canal was opened , the Grand Trunk Road completed , the Roorkee College for Civil Engineers established in the north-west . More immediately his own work has been the abolition of the commissariat and military boards—the bane of the India service . The former brought a criminal action against the man who had fed the army in an arduous campaign . The latter objected to every improvement , prevented all enterprise ,
and converted the army into an unthinking machine . One other trait , and we fearlessly leave the late Governor-General of India to the verdict of his countrymen . Lord Daxhousie possesses an intuitive knowledge of character . He has seldom been mistaken in his choice . To distant and difficult posts he sent the ablest men in the two services . The inferior and plastic characters he kept near himself .
May 17, 1856.] ' The Leader. 471
May 17 , 1856 . ] ' THE LEADER . 471
France—Italy—Au Stria. The Sardinian Ple...
FRANCE—ITALY—AU STRIA . The Sardinian plenipotentiaries , in their memorial to the Congress of Paris , did not confine themselves , as the pxiblic has been told to believe , to a plan for the secular government of the Roman Legations , and for their relief from the presence of an Austrian army . They demanded the practical recognition of England , for the liberal party in the Pontifical States , no less than in the Legations . They suggested the establishment
of a British legation in Rome , as a means of communication between the liberal statesmen of England and the reformers in all the provinces of Italy . It is not a mere avowal of sympathy on the part of the British representatives that will satisfy the Sardinian Cabinet . A conflict is inevitable , and is universally foreseen , between the Powers that virtually occupy the Italian arena These Powers are Austria and Piedmont . France has
an exotic influence on the soil , and interposes a foreign barrier between the conquerors of Venice and Lombardy and the centre of the Catholic world . But the real struggle we witness , and which may soon take the form , of a revolutionary war , is between Vienna and Turin , between Liberalism and the Concordat , between the nation of Italy , the priests of Rome , and the soldiers of Southern Germany . This crisis , prepared by forty years of treachery and oppression on one side , and forty years of anger and suffering ot
on the other , is now the great problem Europe . It is no longer the Ottoman Empire that appeals to the West for protection . When Count Cavour went to Paris to aid in negotiating a peace with Russia , he understood the dangers that were rising in Italy , and aat in the Conferences with a double object in view . Besides participating in the reconciliation of the belligerent Powers , he was charged by his Government to explain , in the face of Europe , tho unfortunate condition of Italy , and to apply for an alliance of the liberal Powers iu behalf of Italian
rights . We do not say that this de-termina tion was communicated to Lord Clarendon before tho first session of the p lenipotentiaries . Certainly , however , Count Cavouh presented an elaborate document to tho Conference , and , probably , he anticipated tho nature of Lord Claken . uon ' s -reply . A few dayH afterwards , a second memorial was appended , with a note annexed , tho uoto being a plea for tho intervention of tho plenipotentiaries and tho memorial a closo historical summary of tho whole question Thus Hucccssion of atato protests againat tlio maladministration of the Roman
territories , and against tho domineering armies of Austria , Hceins to prove that the Government of Sardinia haa entered deliberately upon u course iu which it is reaolvod to peracYcre . Tho revolution ia upproachmg in
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 17, 1856, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17051856/page/15/
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