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Leader (1850-1860), 8th May 1858, Edition 1 of 2, Page 445, Untitled Article

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      squadron lias not been such as to conciliate agreement in the matter of our late demands . It would need a volume to detail all the ins and outs of our present crooked system of forcible prevention . Exeter Hall , and Exeter Hall statesmen , think only of the Negro , and of the circumstances which immediately affect him , andwhilethisisthe case there is only the old , short-sighted philanthropy to be looked for in those directions . This philanthropy is weak to contend against the active . influence of the corrupt vested interests which have grown up under anti-slavery . The commander of every

      preventive ship naturally hopes that every vessel he sights upon the coast of Africa may turn out to be a " prize ; " the agent ., consular or otherwise , desires to perpetuate the present system , which makes Ms place what it is ; and the British merchant ¦ would rather wink at slaving than have America compete in the " legitimate" palm-trade . _ It would not be difficult to prove from facts how little able this philanthropy is to control the warlike and diplomatic machinery which acts in the name of Exeter Hall on the west coast of Africa , but so acts as to hinder the genuine trade , and absolutely to foster the slave-trade . Two facts bearing upon

      these points are patent : first , the excessive persecution of ship-masters engaged in legitimate traffic , whose vessels are detained under false charges of slave-dealing , or carried far out of their course for the purpose of submitting them to inquiry ; secondly , the practice of our officers to wink at the early stages of the traffic , in order that the trading-ships may start with slaves on board , such-prizes being enhanced by the head-money given for every slave rescued .

      But , remove all the British preventive ships , and what really would be the consequence ? As we have urged before in discussing ; this question , the throwing open of all trade might enable America to supply all her wants of Negro labourers ; and it would be the same with Trance and with Spain ; the demand once fairly supplied , it would ceaseand with it the slave-trade , if indeed the import of " free" Africans do not supersede the old trade . At present the demand—the absolute need—of Negroes in tropical America and elsewhere , keeps

      alive the brutal greediness of the African clneis to supply men for money , or for money ' s worth . To supply M . Regis ' - with his twelve hundred , " free emigrants , " we hear , the Christian influences of the last quarter of a century have all been cast to the winds by the avaricious men-hunters , who have flown back to their old savagery without a moment's hesitation . Here is something- like a proof , then , that the unsatisfied demand tor Black labourers , in which they can . trade , is the great preventive of civilization hi Africa . Remove all artificial

      restraints upon trade , place no war-ships to exclude Yankee merchants , and the African chiefs will not be long in discovering the profitableness of growing palm-oil ; they will then find it more profitable to employ Negroes than to sell them , and wages will supersede slavery , as they have already iu Europe . Our behaviour to America , however , on other occasions has not been such as to give hope that an easy adjustment of the present difficulty will be attained . America will not consent to perpetuate , or rather to renovate , the present unavailing system of slave-trade repression , and we have done nothing to entitle us to ask such a sacrifice at her hands .

      After all the heart-burnings winch have grown out of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty , the precious arrangement is to be entirely abrogated , the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the American Senate haying directed the President to curry their resolution into immediate effect . And , in dealing with this difficult subject , the Government of Lord Derby will be found less hostile and impracticable ; but here the improved policy will consist in w / doing- the past . It is now certain that the forcible prevention ol slave-trading is no longer practicable ; the system has completely broken down . The vast sums spout in its maintenance have been thrown away ; and it

      has been proved to be a serious hindrance to commerce . At the present moment we find it giving rise to complications detrimental to the , honour and dignity of this country , ami involving the hazard of a war which would be ' as mischievous to Lancashire as to the Southern States of America . And for mint ?—for th < : maintenance of short-sighted and impracticable philanthropy ? A . larger view of the slave question would sparo us the danger of such complications , and would aid the slave to the comparatively speedy redemption of his liberty . Of "us , too , we have no doubt : that a Government , ¦ Winc h would reverse the whole state of our relations with America and Africa would at once win the

      support of the business men in this country , and would strengthen itself by a , very easily won success .

      Untitled Article

      AN IRISH UNIVERSITY . Tbinity College , " near Dublin , " as the old charters run , is a curious instance of the ease with which old abuses can be maintained if dressed up with care and concealed with decency . The local situation of the College is a kind of parallel to its moral position . The city lias crept around its environs , once suburban—the bum of the heart of the metropolis is around it , but you step from the rushing traffic and busy street into a secure square and pleasant park . As secure and as pleasant are the accounts and aggrandizement of the senior fellows , while in minor affairs there is a prodigious bustle , as if reform were the order of the day . The senior fellows are seven—wise men -who

      audit their own accounts and know their own salaries . The poor public , including the junior fellows , can only guess at the salaries by remarking the amount of the benefices or professorships for which the fellows occasionally resign . In 1790 , a senior fellow resigned for a professorship of 7001 . a year . In 1814 5 a professorship of 1200 £ . a year was offered to , and refused by all the senior fellows in succession . In 1850 , one of , the senior fellows , in taking a professorship worth 1200 / . a year and a living worth 500 / ., was considered to have " made a sacrifice . " It will be said , perhaps , that this increase of emolument to eminent men of learning is not objectionable , and it would not be in itself . But this incieasc of the incomes of the seven luckv senior fellows has

      been managed by themselves in their snug and secret meetings over their self-audited accounts at the expense of the working men of the college ,- at the sacrifice of the best means of making the colluge useful , and in violation of the old laws and statutes of the college . We cau and must quote many facts in support of this indictment : 1 st . While the senior fellows have been steadily adding to their incomes , the salary of the scholars remains at 20 / . ( Irish ) , the amount fixed in 1758 , when 20 / . was a fair yearly income for a young student . 2 ndly . The salaries of the professors have been , lowered . Of lhe three latest professors of botany , the two first received respectively 90 O /\ and GOO / , a year ; the

      third , " a most eminent man in his science , received but 200 / . a . year , and a Scotch university now enjoys the benefit of his high talents and reputation . " 3 rdly . The six non-tutor fellows received this year 705 / . between them , being an average of 127 A each . -Ithly . Six new non-tutor fellows appointed in 1310 were allotted merely " the old statutablc salary of -1 ( V . Irish , commons , chambers , some odd guineas for examinations , and perhaps a 20 / . lectureship . " The whole case of huge appropriation by the senior fellows , and miserable starvation of the juniors , is put in the following passage from the Dublin University 2 lagazine of this month : —

      " The collective sum paid to the fellows , senior and junior , in the years 1850-51 , amounted to 30 , 400 / . This noble endowment would give lo each of the twenty-eight fellows an average income of SOS / . Yet in or about ; that very year a junior fellow was ejected from his chambers for non-payment of the deposit money required by the authorities . Moderate as the sum was—it , was only 12 / . — his non-tutor's income did not enable him to pay it ; and tiic Maicenases who foster science , and throw the cegis of their protection over learning iu the University of Dublin , turned him out of his pair of rooms with about as much compunction as that with which a college porter might chase away a strange doi » from the gate . "

      No wonder . Dublin University should get I ho title of the " Silent Sister" —no -wonder there should he an apoplexy of functions when we thus find lhe head . stutlcul and t lie extremities starved . Tim senior fellows arc rich and lazy ; the junior fellows poor in purse , and eke , out a livelihood by keeping ¦ schools anil writing for newspapers . It , must ha borne in niiiul that ; the junior fellowships ol Dublin University are very different from ( Ik ; same offices iu our English institutions . In J ' -lniy-

      Untitled Article

      - THE OPERATIONS IN INDIA .

      The operations of the Coimnander-m-Clnef and his generals have left the Indian insurgents in possession of only two fortified positions , Calpee and Bareilly . The former , situated on the right bank of the Jumna , is a fort planted upon an eminence , with precipitous ravines on all sides . The site is naturally strong , but so ill-contrived and dilapidated are the works , that the place , in all probability , would not hold out against a serious demonstration . Thirty years ago a rebellious zemindar , tempted by its feeble defences , attempted to storm it with five hundred men , and Its fortifications are even less considerable now than

      formerly . In 1803 , when the British laid siege to it , the resistance of Calpee lasted only a few hours . Notwithstanding , therefore , that the rebels are congregated at this point in-vast numbers , it is not to be expected that any serious opposition will be made to the Cawnpore column . At the ruinous town of Bareilly , the enemy , we infer , have thrown up entrenchments , there being no standing fortifications of any importance . Upon this point Sir Hugh Rose would probably advance with the troops victorious at Jhansi . The operations of this officer entitle him to conspicuous praise . At first with one brigade , but subsequently

      with two , he lias subdued the rebels everywhere along a line sweeping up beyond the Bombay frontier to the limits of Bundelcund , and accomplishing , besides the relief of Saugor , the reduction of Chaudhairee and Jhansi . In the passes and along the hundred and thirty miles of broken road from Saugor to Jhansi , he had a good deal of difficult marching , interrupted by desultory engagements , as well by the knowledge that a powerful army was in his front manoeuvring to cut him off from the objects of his expedition . His nine days' siege of Jhansi with a small force , and his defeat of twenty-five thousand of the enemy , without relaxing his investment of the town and citadel , must be regarded as military masterstrokes .

      In another direction , trending to the North , General Roberts moved , simultaneously with the Jhansi march of Sir Hugh Rose , upon Kotah , where the enemy , though not iu possession of the fortified palace , held a strong position in the town . The victory of . the British column was complete , and thus an . importaiit station on the Rajpoot borders was relieved from the organized presence of the rebellion . In this province and in Bundelcund the mutineers suffered

      severely , it being calculated that their opposition to Sir Hugh Rose and General Roberts cost them at least five thousand men . At Jhansi , it was not surprising that the troops shared the spirit of their commander , who ordered every herald from the Ranee to be hanged , since their minds had been worked upon by reports of the most revolting brutalities perpetrated by the besieged Princess , the mother of the late Pretender , who escaped with her retinue to Jaloun . Thither a detachment had been marched , and there is not much at the place to arrest its progress .

      In spite of these successes , brilliant and fortunate as they are , Sir Colin Campbell has serious work before him . His relief and capture of Luck nowfor which and other splendid services , including the defeat of the Gwalior army at Cawnpore ,. he has been most properly rewarded with a peerage—were operations not so complete in their results as the public iu England had been led to anticipate . Though the army invading Oudc had been admirably distributed ,

      penetrating the country from the most commanding point in those territories , at Puttyghur , it was impossible to close up all the outlets so as to reduce the enormous multitudes of the enemy to unconditional surrender , or drive them into the Sew . dik solitudes across the Tcrrai , if , indeed , they could ever traverse that region of eternal pestilence , fatal to native and to European life . As lL was , the guard left on the A / imghur boundary proved insufficient , and Colonel Mihnan was driven into the fortress . The

      roads diverging from Lucknow , with the exception of that to Cawnpore , are execrable , and the whole nature of the country favoured the flight of the light rebel divisions even in comparison with the march of British cavalry . 1 n addition to this , Sir Hugh Rose , who might have guarded the Jumna valley , across which the enemy drifted , was held back by the army in his front , and his brigades wore detained at Cliandliairce and . Ihiinsi instead of intercepting the fugitives from Luckuow . However , one great work hus been accomplished .

      cumstance in their favour is the setting in ol the hot season . This may protract the campaign through the year ; or , at all events , leave wandering remnants of the insurrection to be dealt wiih iu detail . It is even probable that further reinforcements may be required by the Commander-in-Cliief , whose losses in killed , wounded , and invalided have been severe .

      Regular government has been , restored at least in the capital of Oude . There is no Royal City in the power of the rebels . They have been isolated io . district towns , as at Bareilly ; or in feudatory fortresses , as at Calpee , and the last reinaininq ; eir-

      Untitled Article

      TSTo . 424 , May 8 , 1358 . 1 THE L E ADER . 4 A 5

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 8, 1858, page 445, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2241/page/13/