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    augury of constitutional freedom and national independence . The behaviour of the King—4 he Protestaut chief of a State officially and numerically Catholic—has been , in all respects , worthy of his high reputation as the sovereign of a free and intelligent people . Honesty is , perhaps , a somewhat vulgar—we do not mean a common—virtue for a king , but it has its merits and compensations . The contest in Belgium is the old story of civil and religious liberty on the one side , and ecclesiastical

    usurpation on the other . We are sufficiently familiar with the phases of a / quarrel which , under various conditions , breaks out from time to time in every European country where modern thought is at odds with obsolete ¦ authority '; Tlie attitude of the clerical party in Belgium has been precisely that of the clerical party all the world over . AU . things to all men , the Church , which has nothing so much in common -with primitive Christianity as the name , is content to be servile and submissive for a season , until the good time coming' of domination is ripe . Suppliant and abject , it pleads for

    oppression m the name of liberty , and conspires for subjugation in the disguise of tolerance . In Belgium , for instance , after the revolution of 1830 , the clerical party was for a time liberal and national in its politics , and it was not until , in the unrestricted exercise of aU the opportunities of freedom , it had mastered a majority in the Chambers , that the eternal and universal lust of authority was unmasked . The reflux of the great revolutionarv tide of

    1848 , the disappointment and prostration of continental liberalism , the distraction and apprehension created b y events in France , may be supposed to have facilitated the triumph of the Belgian Ultramontanists ; and it is perhaps fortunate that , if we may be pardoned the expression , they have had ' rope enough , and that their vaulting ambition has been suffered to overreach itself and to fall on the other side .

    In despotic Austria , where the Church is too good an , ally to be dispensed with , a state system represented by battalions of bayonets culminated naturally in a Concordat imposing silence on free thought , where thought exists , and ignorance on the masses , whose happy lot it is to believe and tremble . But in Befgrum , although dynastically allied to Austria , certain inconvenient institutions too deepl y rooted and too closely interwoven with the dynasty itseK to be got rid of by decree , opposed , a barrier which , thanks to the prudence of the King and the people , has not been converted into a

    barricade . The difficult y has not been forcibly cut asunder , but peacefully untied . The bill for placing charitable establishments in the hands of the priests , and the reprimand of a Professor for the expression of opinions disagreeable to ecclesiastical ears , had variously alarmed and aroused the intelligent population of Belgium . The honesty and high character of two Ministers , M . Ditobcker and M . Vtlatn XIV ., were not sufficient to appease the gathering storm

    incessantly provoked by the rashness and infatuation of incapable intriguers such as M . Nothomb , and by the Coryphad of the clerical party , MM . Mai-ou and DwMOwriEB . The obnoxious Bill was forced into the Chamber ; obviously prejudged on both sides , it was fought over , rather than debated , for four weeks , when a division took place involving the principle of the measure . The Ministry obtained a majority , and that majority sealed their fate .

    It may be remembered that the House was cleared eepeatedly , on account of vociferous demon .-stratiora ia the galleries ; that at length the public was attracted to the neighbourhood of the Chambers , that' attMmpements * were formed at the close of the sittings , that on the evening of the division a greater crowd than usual assembled and cheered the liberal members as they left the House , while the Government w * io hooted and assailed with abuse . It was hot June weather in those days ( so much depends on weather in polities ! Y and a

    few University students began to parade the streets , accompanied " by respectable bourgeois and a few blouses . Some windows were broken in a goodnatured beery Flemish fashion , the Jesuits and Capuchins took f eight and bolted , whilst the Royal Family , who went to the Opera on one of the three nighta of the demonstration , were cheered with equal zeal by respectable citizens and mischievous gamins . The then Minister of War made a foolish and unnecesHary display of troops , and even called back to their regiments the soldiers who had- been disxnisBed , but whose liability to service had not expired , rudely and Buddeniy summoning men from

    their trades and families at a time when the want of labour was severely felt in the agricultural districts . But the good sense of the King preserved the country from the fatuity of his advisers with no undue deference to clamour , lie fairly recognized the force of opinion expressed by the communal councils of all the most important towns , and determined to appeal to the nation . Ihe Bill was provisionally shelved ; then the Chambers were prorogued sine Me . Thereupon the municipalities pronounced unequivocally against the Ministry , who resigned , M . Nothomb and one or two ] more incapables vainly protesting . The King , never swerving from constitutional

    moderation , sent for M . i > e Brottckere , and entrusted to him the formation of an intermediate Ministry of conciliation ; but in the face of a situation so extreme , and of a public spirit so decisively aroused , a Ministry of an ambiguous complexion was clearly impossible ; nothing remained but to constitute the materials of an administration frankly , resolutely , entirely liberal . M . Charles Rogier was therefore summoned , as preeminently the man of the situation , and to him was committed the responsibility of conducting the victory of the liberal cause to a legal , constitutional , and orderly solution . It was , of course , impossible for M . Rogier to carry on the government in the sense of the nation in the face of a hostile

    majority m the Parliament . He therefore advised the Sovereign to call tlie Chambers together' only to prorogue them ; and the prorogation was speedily followed by a dissolution of the Lower Chamber . All these measures , it will be observed , bear the stamp of honesty and discretion , and we are glad to find them so cordially approved by the Imperial journals over the "border . The Belgian people has responded to the invitation of . the King and 01 his new Ministry in an admirable spirit , and with a temper and prudence which have excited the indignation of the acrid Sjpeciaienra . nd tlie bilious Uinvers . To Englisnmen who breathe the

    an-of ordered freedom it seems absurd to be always talking of order and liberty , as if they could ever be disjoined . The truth is , perhaps , that in the minds of many who adopt the formula , order is a synonym for the tranquillity of arbitrary government , and liberty for the impatience offrondeurs . M . Rogier has no doubt deemed it well to employ these words in their continental sense , rather for external than for home use . If there be any very advanced Liberals who are disappointed with his programme because it represents the exigencies of the nineteenth , rather than the dreams of the twentieth

    century , we frankly confess we are unable to sympathize with their disaffection . To our own more ardent friends at home , who indignantly hold that a leader of public opinion should never be in sight of contemporary realities , -we have always replied that to-aay is for to-day ' s work ; and we would'earnestly advise out friends in Bel g ium to be satisfied with M . Rogter if he does all that can be done now for the freedom and prosperity of his country , and leaves to the Future the next blank page in the book of perfectibility .

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    POLITICS OF THE INDIAN REBELLION . Nothing is now heard of the idea thai ; the rebellion in British India is a national movement . Events have rendered such a belief impossible . Of the numerous nations and languages not one has risen against the English rule except the military population of Oude , and that is but partially disaffected . Although in many provinces , especially in the Decoan , there are thousands of villagers who have never seen a European face , the native masses have stood apart from the Sepoys , and have generally allowed their white masters to cope with the mutiny , unmenaced and unmolested . A few

    exceptional outrages committed by villagers reckon as nothing against the grand fact that o \ ir hundred and thirty millions of subjects liave not yielded to the excitement of the straggle , or grasped at ; the temptation of becoming once more a ruling race in Asia . Ignorant as they arc , they know this , —that where torture , tyranny , and corruption have been practised , the worst complaints hnvc come from those districts in which the fcrwest European officials have been stationed ; and that where land has increased in value , where crops have become more abundant , and where commerce lias prospered , it has been where annexation had made its mark . We are within bounds when we say that not ono per

    cent , of the Hindoo and Mohammedan population has sympathized with the revolt . The theory tiiat we have to contend with a national insurrection is therefore exploded ; but it is equally fallacious to regard the whole military population of India , as hostile to our authority , and exasperated by our conquests . Assuming a large total , we willalbw that , including every ruffian from the prisons and roadside Alsatias , two hundred thousand men have been in arms against us . But what is that figure in proportion to the total ? The number of men actually ranked in our own armies and those of the reignine

    Rajahs , amounted , before the outbreak , to not less than seven hundred thousand . Had these adopted the rebel ca-use , the English in India would , if not exterminated , have been driven to the ships , or within the walls of two or three fortified places on the coast . We doubt even whether the empire would have been reconquered . Of the two hundred independent or protected princes , not more than four or five—and those the most insignificant—have joined the enemy ; we do not include the Kiug of Delhi , since he was simply the despot of a palace , without a battalion at his command , or the / Nana Sahib ,

    who is merely a noble , aitd was only recognizedin his private capacity . A few great Zemindars have rebelled , but these are not to be confounded with chieftains possessing sovereign rights of any description . Instead of declaring themselves unfriendly , the ; most powerful of the native Rajahs have allied themselves with us ,- —the Princes of Nepau . 1 and Cashmere , with Holtcab ., Sindiah , the Nizam , and the other conspicuous feudatories , "whose hostility might have taxed the genius of another CtrvE , and consumed a series of British armies . This mighty danger we have escaped . Nor have

    all the Sepoys mutinied . The Bombay and Madras armies , of a hundred thousand men , have ^ scarcely been tainted ; the great central Table Land and the Mountain Foot have had their peace unbroken ; in Scinde the disturbance was faint and momentary ; Guzerat and Orissa have escaped , even Rajpootana has not been generally convulsed ; the Punjab was restored to tranquillity by its own garrisons and by native levies ; west of Delhi the rebellion never made any progress ; in all India it now

    possesses not a single strong place . In Oade aloneis it so concentrated as to offer any formidable resistance to a large and organized force . All the important cities , excepting Lucknow , are in our hands—Agra , Delhi , Allahabad , Benares , Calcutta , Madras , Bombay . There is not an enemy within one of the immense fortresses that stud the peninsula—in truth , the political power of Great Britain has never for an hour been shaken in the slightest degree by the rebellion , fierce and terrible as it ha 3 been . l < Vom Seinde to Arracan the immense aud

    varied population gazed at the few clusters of Englishmen fighting hand to hand with myriads of armed , disciplined , and well-equipped rebels ; but wlica . two-thirds of the army had dissolved , not a fragment was torn from the empire . Not in the'Ghaut valleys , the wilds of Malwa , the swamps of Eastern Bengal , where a Saxon voice lias never been heard , did a popular opinion exist for a moment that the Raj of the English was at an end . When the Bhcel archers came out of their fastnesses , the peaceful population looked to the Europeans for succour ; when the petted Santals betrayed tlicir disloyalty tlie agricultural tribes refused to join them , and

    were plundered . The people of the Dcccan looked at the works of irrigation on the Cauvcry , which have made a Lombardy of their Arabia , and they wisely preferred the administration , of the English to the chance of a Sepoy monarch , glutting himself with blood and luxury , and devastating India until tlie phantom melted away in anarchy and ruin . Thu * the rebellion was , from the first , a failure , in a . political sense . Its promoters liavc been foiled in all their designs , and the doublo result has been to gratify a blind hatred , and a thirst for debauch and plunder , and to create in the English mind a determination to work the administration of India , in

    future * by means of a more powerful machinery . Keform , lias already touched the army . Sir Colin Cami'belij has broken several unworthy officers , lias removed sundry superannuated generals from , the active list , and has otherwise given proof of liia intention to effect a change in our Indian military system . The Horse Guards , we hope , will not interfere . Another political consequence of the rebellion will be a new principle ot British rule in India ; but to establish that principle ( irmly ana safely public opinion must inform itself , and not bo led away by lecturers , who toll them that our Asiatic dominions aro relapsing into -wilderiiosseSa ruin , and solitude .

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    1214 THE LEADER . [ No . 404 , December 19 , I& 57 .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 19, 1857, page 1214, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2222/page/14/