LORD CANNING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume X, Issue 610, 11 September 1858, Page 5

LORD CANNING.

(Prom the ' Times.')

No statesman is entitled to more generous consideration from the Government, the Parliament, and the people of England than Lord Canning. He met the catastrophe of the Sepoy revolt with unshrinking firmness. Feebly sup ported by his Council, bitterly thwarted and calumniated by the English community of Calcutta, he neither allowed himself ,-to be goaded into acts of severity by the frantic urgency of the European community, nor terrified by massacres and reverses into overtures of undignified concession. In moments of the bitterest exasperation he was not ashamed to speak of clemency; in hours of the deepest depression he never yielded to wavering counsels. To him we owe it that a military rebellion has not been converted into a war of race and opinion; to him we owe it that, if innocent blood has been shed, the hands of the Governmei. j at least are clean.

From Parliament and the people we do not doubt but Lord Canning will receive ample justice; but what has been his treatment by the Government ? On the almost formal occasion of a general vote of thanks several members of the present Administration took the opportunity of condemning him, —of condemning him, as one of them has sincefelicitously expressed, "under an hypothesis." We need not say the hypothesis crumbled into dust, and the hypothetical condemnation had to be unconditionally retracted. This should have taught the Government caution; but how little they liave profited by experience may be seen from the very remarkable debate--we might say the very impressive scene—which occurred in the House of Lords on Friday last. The facts may be very briefly stated. Lord Canning sent home for the information of the Government a proclamation to the people of Oude, which he intended to issue as soon as he was in possession of Lucknow. On this Proclamation the Government three weeks ago sent to Lord Canning a Despatch through the Secret "Committee. The Proclamation and despatch must be considered by themselves, and we believe it will not be difficult to shew that the Proclamation was in substance the only one that the Governor-General could properly issue, and that 'the empty and pompous generalities of the despatch are utterly inapplicable to the condition of a country like Oude. But with this subject we will not deal here. Government has as yet no official information of the issuing of this Proclamation, but learns it, like all the world, from our columns. They had, however, already imparted its contents to a member of Parliament, and on Thursday evening, in answer to a question from this very member, Government undertake to lay their despatch on the table, and,•" being further pressed, state through the Chancellor of the Exchequer the effect of the despatch to be disapprobation of the conduct of the Governor-General "in. every sense." The Proclamation, as issued in Lucknow, contained a paragraph mitigating its. severity, or, rather, explaining the manner in which the discretion assumed by the Government was to be exercised. The despatch which ■censures it is given entire to the Commons, but some passages which Lord Ellenborough thought it prudent to suppress are omitted in the copies given to the Lords. These are the facts of the case.

First, then, we observe that the production of this Secret Despatch was evidently the spontaneous |tet of the Government, for a question by a member so entirely in their confidence as Mr. Bright is too coarse an artifice to deceive any one. Next, that if this had not been so, it was perfectly easy for the Government, as shown by Lord Grey, to decline to produce the Secret Despatch, on the obvious ground that its production was calculated seriously to embarrass the Government of India. Then, if the Government produced the despatch, it would speak for itself, and all verbal anticipation of its contents was unnecessary. Whether it might have been possible for Lord Canning to retain his high office under a Government which had first condemned him "under an hypothesis," and which published a Secret Despatch reflecting on his policy some weeks before he will have the oppoA\&uty of reading it himself, we do not know; but we apprehend that the insult conveyed by the words of Mr. Disraeli can have, and was intended to have, only one result — the immediate resignation of the GovernorGeneral. Of the motives of this unheard of proceeding little need be said. Our Government are almost becalmed, and must catch every breath of temporary popularity to keep their sails from flapping against the mast. Possibly, also, they may not be quite indifferent to the lucrative piece of patronage which such proceedings may place within their grasp. But, whatever the motive, the act is wholly indefensible. Well may Lord Derby say that the production of the letter was somewhat hastily granted. The haste has indeed little good speed in it. Towards Lord Canning personally the proceeding is most unworthy and offensive. As a matter of official regularity, the production of such a despatch is most objectionable, but these considerations sink into comparative insignificance when we consider the necessary effect of such a proceeding on the Government and poople of India. If the cabinet disapproved the conduct of Lord Canning, it was in their power and duty to recall him ; but to re-

call him indirectly by a studied insult is to weaken the authority of Government in India at the most critical moment, and in the most vital point. The Governor-General is the virtual sovereign over a hundred and eighty millions of people. Is it wise at such a moment as this to show that this sovereign can be deposed by a few words spoken across a table ? Is it wise,— waiving for a moment the merits of the question itself, —to teach the people of Oude and of India that the British Government is on their side, —that it censures, whether justly or not, all the proceedings of Government since the annexation? Is it wise to tell the people of Oude, while they yet have arms in their hands, and while the hot season paralyzes our military efforts, and gives them time to reorganize their shattered forces, " that no Government can long be maintained by any force in a country where the whole people is rendered hostile by a sense of wrong; and, if it were possible, it is not a consummation to be desired ?" Such words, at such a moment, must paralyze victory herself, and raise up even the conquered to confidence and defiance. The Indian mutineers have found an ally, but that ally comes neither from Persia, from Russia, nor from Ava. The English have at length met with a powerful adversary, but that adversary is Lord Ellenborough. The conduct of the House of Commons has lately been so inscrutable that it is almost idle to speculate on their proceedings, but the time has been when they would not have suffered a gross injustice to be inflicted on a meritorious servant of the public, and a heavy injury to be done to the interests of the country, without making their voice heard and rebuking with merited severity men who thus for the smallest objects can sport with the mightiest interests. The present Ministry have not probably run the whole of that career which our national spirit of fair play would allow them after their long exclusion from office. There are many and obvious inconveniences in a change of Government at this season and in the present state of affairs; but the occurrences which we have just been commenting on are so serious and so damaging that it may well deserve consideration whether the disloyalty which publishes secret despatches in order to catch at a momentary popularity, and the incapacity for transacting the simplest business which withholds from the Lords, on the plea of the public interest, five paragraphs of the despatch, which is given in full to the Commons, do not require that such momentous interests as those of England and India should be placed in less incompetent hands.