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    No. 409, Janitab* 23,1858] THE LEADER. 8...

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    CRIME-COMPELLIttG CONDITIONS. The discus...

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    Crown Government In India. Prince Albert...

    Technically , these appointments are already derived from Downing-street , Cannon-row , or the Horse Guards , but the power of recal has been the independent safeguard that is now to be taken away . The Cabinet aims at concentrating in itself the supreme authority of India , and at vesting the Horse G-uards with the irresponsible administration of a vast European military establishment in the East . Here , the lordly departments have a prospect of almost boundless patronage—not only the old patronage of the Company , but a new

    patronage , still to be created . And how will they exercise it ? The Daily News has warned us that , unless public opinion be strongly expressed , Lord G-eor & e Paget will go out to India as Inspector-General of Cavalry , a job which , we do not hesitate to say , insults and disgraces the service , and leads the way to the ultimate deterioration of our Indian army . That army has not been governed upon the same principles as the Queen ' s . It has been less favoured , but it has been better organized , and has produced ,

    within the passing century , a far larger proportion of able and energetic commanders . Surely , the Pagets might be satisfied with the honours already bestowed upon Lord George , the noble author of a Treatise on Equitation ; as a cavalry colonel at home he is said to have converted a fine regiment into a corps of ' irregulars ; ' he was promoted in the Crimea to the command of the Light Brigade , and wears the

    Inkerman clasp for being in the neighbourhood of a great battle . Then , he housed himself in England while the Light Brigade rotted on the Balaklava-road during the ' horrible and heartrending' winter of 1854 , and , as the Daily News yery justly adds , he had a right to do all this , and is not to be blamed if his friends have rewarded him above his merits , but what Indian officer is to have justice done to him if Lord George Pagex is to be

    Inspector-General of Indian cavalry r Hundreds of more deserving men are known to the Horse Guards , but they are not the sons of marquises . We may well be alarmed when it is announced that the Crown is to make itself responsible for the entire administration of British India , and that the six thousand commissions in the Company ' s army are to be handed over to the Horse Guards for distribution .

    " The Indian Empire , " says the Saturday Review , "is the creation and the heritage of the middle classes . " We are glad to find ourselves in agreement on a question bo vital with our independent contemporary , which avows itself to be ' not only an organ without a party , but an organ without a patron , ' a position incomprehensible , perhaps , to the familiars of Whig sophistry and servility . We have from the first made a stand against the attempt to load the East India Company with the entire responsibility of the Indian disasters ; we have written justly , we think , of that political and administrative corporation ; and while willing to remove the encumbrances and

    remedy the deficiencies of the double Government , we have uniformly declared against a change that would degrade our Indian Empire into a Whig department , with its clnef honours and profits absorbed by the aristocracy . To this view the moat liberal and intelligent of our conteinporariea adhere , and we are * p ersuadell * 1 Elmt ~ it will no If l 3 e ~ WitlTtfut " the support of an enlightened public opinion . Gentlemen from India with personal grievances , and platform spouters , may pass resolutions nt turbulent tavern meetings ; but the verdict We . not yet been pronounced , and there is still fcimo to repel this Whig aggres-Bion upon the middle-class government of British India . The equivocations of the Whig organs are

    not the most consistent or ingenious . We have heard them declare that the Government merely desires to establish in name that which now exists in fact , and that , so far as patronage is concerned , very little change is to be expected . They have India already . Another turn of the wheel brings up the assertion that they would not have it if ifc were obtainable . It is too remote for their younger sons ; the climate is too disagreeable . The argument of distance goes for nothing , being disposed of by the overland journey ; while

    that of climate is dissipated by a glance at the delightful hill stations , which are at least as alluring as many of our colonies , whither the cadets of patrician houses flock without hesitation . Salary is the emollient mitigation of the ' bore ; ' pension is the consolation of a distended liver . At least , we do not find a Paget reluctant to visit Bengal ; nor was a young lord indifferent to the advantages of the Military Secretaryship at Calcutta under Viscount Canning , until the fluttered virtue of a ball-room induced a

    premature resignation and a return , over the waters blue , to his native shore . We anticipate that the hard work , the study of the Indian vernacular , the rainyseason vigils at lonely stations , the long expatriations , and the exhausting labour of the Indian service , will continue to be the portion of the middle classes . All this we concede . But the high prizes of patronage hitherto reserved as rewards would , under the proposed system , be gifts , and they would reap who had not sowed .

    Out of ten thousand civil and military appointments the best would be bestowed to suit the private or political interests of the Minister , and the residue of small salaries and heavy duties would remain with the classes that have built up the Indian Empire . It answers no purpose to urge that the East India Company has not prevented Peers from becoming Governors-General , or Governors of Madras and Bombay , and that the Whigs long ago grasped the patronage of the Indian bench and staff ; such an argument proves too

    much . So far as they have had the power , they have excluded the middle-class element ; but is this a ground for increasing their privileges ? On the contrary , we may argue from the past to the future , and , admitting that the Crown is practically paramount in India , we may deduce thence the strongest reasons against a scheme that would render it not only the paramount but the sole authority . If the Aftghan war was a disaster , it was one for which the Crown was responsible . " I ordered that war , " said Lord Broughton ,

    who sat in the Cabinet . Andhowdid Parliament control him , either in his policy or in his appointment of governors and generals ? Who will dare to move the House of Commons on the question of Lord CiiANRioardk ' s promotion ? Who sought to keep Mr . Veknon Smith : out of the Board ot Control ? These are matters of Crown and Ministerial prerogative , in which no direct interference is tolerated . The Whigs might instal Sadleirism in the Treasury of India , und no one would be responsible . So might

    the East India Company , it may be said . But such has not been their practice . Never was n great country governed by abler men or upon purer principles than the East Indian Empire' ™ under" -the—rule;—complicated—and defective as it is , of Leadenhall-etreet . This it is proposed to abolish , in order that a Whig peer may be made Secretary of State for India , with the good , easy Dulce o ^ Oamurijogje in command of an enormous Indian army , and millions sterling of civil and military emoluments in the gift of the Crown , to be shared among the heaven-born and the obsequious .

    No. 409, Janitab* 23,1858] The Leader. 8...

    No . 409 , Janitab * 23 , 1858 ] THE LEADER . 83

    Crime-Compellittg Conditions. The Discus...

    CRIME-COMPELLIttG CONDITIONS . The discussion at the meeting of the Surrey Society for the Employment and Reformation of Discharged Prisoners at Kingston last week , is deeply interesting . It is at least evidence how the best intellects and stoutest hearts of the country are struggling with one of our most difficult problems . The Society itself has been before the age hitherto , but now we cannot help thinking that it is behinc the age . It was started in 1824-, for the pur pose of assisting penitent prisoners , especially the young , on their discharge from prison It has done a great deal of work during th < interval , but it fails to be effectual for wani of funds . During the last three years it sol < out all its stock in order to meet the demandi

    upon it , and , nevertheless , last year it re jected thirty-nine applications ' for want oi funds . ' The Society , therefore , is languishing because society at large does not appreciate its object . We can scarcely wonder at that when we see some uncertainty of opinion still prevailing amongst the leading men at this meeting . Lord John Russei / l was chairman , and Lord St . Leonards was one of the most conspicuous speakers . Lord Johit expressed an opinion that , ' the State cannot undertake the management of criminals to a further extent than it now does ; ' a supposition which is refuted by proceedings which the State is ' now actually carrying on : Lord St . Leonards

    believed the true recourse to lie in transportation ; an astounding mistake for so clearheaded a man ; but evidently he has the faculty of limiting his view to the single country in which he lives , or he would _ know that convict transportation results in an enormous manufacture of vice . We get rid of one criminal , or one crime , in this country , to make ten in the colony . He gave , however , some remarkable example of the manner in which society , through its individual members , is endeavouring to get at some equitable puniahment which shall not subject the criminal to the contaminating influences of the gaol as it is at present conducted : —

    " There was a gardener at Hampton Court named Johnson , who , when he detected any person stealing flowers—making a nosegay as it was called—was in the habit of giving to the party the choice either to be taken before a magistrate or to wheel the garden roller for an hour . It was no doubt amusing to 8 ee the culprit wheeling the roller amid the laughter of hia companions and the visitors—and , no doubt the punishment was effectual , but it was illegal . "— " A magistrate had ordered two boys to be whipped , but on being told they not allo

    were sixteen , whereas the law did w boys over fourteen to undergo that punishment , he sentenced them to be imprisoned . Suddenly , however , ho called them back , and gave them their choice , either to receive the whipping or go to prison . Ultimately they preferred the former , wore whipped by the gaoler , and discharged . Now a more illegal act was never committed by a criminal judge than that of which this magistrate was then guilty . " But he mentioned even a more preposterous case : — " Ho heard lately of a lady who was charged with shoplifting , nnd some of the stolen goods being found upon hor person , the shopkeeper told her to state whether aho would bo given in custody to u policeman , or go up-stairs and submit to a whipping auoh as a child would receive . They miglit Uugli at this , but In his opinion it wan frightful . They had hoard of cases where a woman ' s dross had caught up articles , making them appear guilty of shoplifting whou they wore innocent . Suppose , in mioh a case , the woman , frightened by the tln-oat of being sent to gaol ns ft criminal , submitted to tho whipping—ho could not imagine anything more awful ; certainly there could not bo anything more illegal ^ - — - —» -. — -it- „ r-, — ,. —<—7 r = r JNoue of these persons moan badly ; on the contrary , like Lord Jonrf Kushmll ,. Lord St . Lkonakds , and the members ot tue Surrey Society , they aro anxious to repress evil-doing without creating more m the process . In despair of seeing transportation renewed , Lord St . Leonakds pointed to tho true rooouroe . To seize the criminal , to punish him , and then to turn him looae in

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 23, 1858, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_23011858/page/11/