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Leader (1850-1860), 11th September 1858, Edition 1 of 2, Page 936

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    • ALGERIA

      ALGERIA

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      discriminate and universal immolation of directors , and nothing is now talked of but reviving claims for losses incurred against directors of banks that have failed . Bat disappointed mvesters discreetly hold their tongue about returning dividends . These enterprising gentlemen Were very anxious to get 10 or 15 per cent , without risk" or labour , and when losses presented themselves , mainly due to their own culpable neglect , they showed themselves very ready to cast the

      blame on directors , -who , in some instances , put their shoulders to the wheel in the patriotic and praiseworthy hope—not , however , to be realisedof recovering a concern which was crumbling ; away . Let us not be misunderstood : we repeat , we do not desire to protect or screen the fraudulent director ; but we say , before we proceed to pass judgment and inflict penalties for fraud , let us have a clear definition of the duties and responsibilities of directors , and of what constitutes fraud .

      With reference to the verdict iu the case of Dixon and Scott , it appears to us that the law has been strained—^ -t hat public excitement lias unduly biased the minds of the jury . It is quite clemthat Dixon was the best of the whole board of directors—that he is a perfectly honest man— -that he deceived himself on entering the bank—that he speedily found himself in a false position—that he endeavoured , by wresting the management from incompetent hands , to put the concern into a position of safety — and that not until after the sacrifice of his time and immense labour did he discover the position of t bank was irreclaimable ^ So far , we can hardly see the fairness

      or equity of making him the scapegoat - But there are so many questions of importance bound up with this verdict that we must defer our further comments . We may , however , announce that we have collected all the facts within : our reach , _ and some of them are so novel , and give a complexion to the case so widely different from that which , it has assumed through the mutilated reports iu the public journals , that we hope next week to be able to lay before the public a . full report of this most important trial . Meanwhile , we trust the good sense of the country at large will arrest that indiscriminate slaughter meditated on the directorial body . There are good and bad directors , we do not doubt ; but the bad will be found the exception , not the

      rule . We are sorry to find a journal like the Times , which certainly does exercise a certain amount of influence on public opinion for the time , lending its voice to swell the clamour now being raised against directors at large . Wo well remember the period when the sympathies of the Times were all the other way . At the height of the railway mania , when the crisis came and the . question was , whether directors

      of bubble companies or cheated allottees should be the victims , the Times enlisted itself on the side of the directors . Every one conversant with the his ^ tory of that period will recollect the jubilant congratulations of the Times when the case of Woolmer v . Toby was decided against allottees . We could draw from the advertising columns of the Times proofs sufficient to account for the ecstasy of the leading journal ; but wo will refrain . "VVc confess we arp in doubt as to tine motive the Times

      has for its present course . The sensible and thinking part of the public , we know , are opposed to the diatribes of the Tinies ;" but as"we are : accustomed to thp political and commercial gyrations of that'organ , . wo shall not "be surprised if we find , after the temporary purpose of present directorial denunciation is served , that its columns arc orowded with praises of directors .

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      FUTURE MILITARY POLICY IK INDIA . A commission has issued in this country to inquire into the future military reorganisation of India , and the manner in which the commission has bceu composed has subjected it to some criticism with the organs of the late Government , though it is to be admitted that the criticism is not severe . Originally it was intended that the commission should consist of the Secretary for War , the Commandcr-iucliicf , and the Indian Minister , whatever his tiiJe should be , with three officers of the Queen ' s service , three of the . Company ' s , and three eminent civilians . In the commission issued under Lord Derb y ' s ¦ administration are appointed the heads of

      the three departments which we have mentioned , with four officers of the Queen ' s service , four of the Company ' s service , but no civilians . It may . bo conceded that the list of names is not very remark-, able , although Lord Stanley has more than ordinary information , and Lord Melville has confessedly had opportunities of becoming acquainted with the working of both armies in"Bombay and Bengal for eight or ten years of command . Others of ' the military members arc experienced men , and the secretary , Colonel Blucher Wood , is allowed to be thoroughly efficient . It is to be regretted , perhaps , that men like Lord Grey or Lord Panmure , or slrJl more , Mr . Sidney Herbert , were not included in the commission ; but we shall have the report , and after nil the Government will be responsible .

      There has been some rumour of another conumssiou , appointed in India , to consider the reorganisation of the Bengal army ; but it is to bo douhtcd whether that commission can have been properly described , for the Indian Government is not likely , particularly now , to run in the teeth of the Hoine Government . The great fact which is before us is , that the reorganisation of the military force in lmHn is under official consideration . It is not a pnrty subject ; and it must be admitted tlmt , upon the whole , the present Ministers have risen above party considerations with reference to their appointments , and therefore necessarily with reference to tho

      practical course which they will pursue . It it were possible to find any party leanings in the commission , ( , o whiph we rclcr , such a suspicion would W entirely corrected by the tsonripbsition of Lord Sinn- * ley ' s Indian Council , which contains the names ot men like Lawrcnco or Caijtlcy , whose party politics are scarcely known , with the names of Itawliuson and Willouffhby , known Liberals , while a post w »» offered to John Stuart Mill , who is not Whiff , hnt sornething more . Indeed , the selection of Ho Indian Council has evidently been guided by y desire to obtain tho moat varied experience , coupled with personal ability . The same tendency " } l r"f seen in tho minor anppintmcnts , as in that of 31 r . James Cosmo Mclv 11 to bo Assistant ,

      Umler-Secrc-^ faiWM » fc . SUitowa , viUuauLGcorgo Clerk am iL ^ , L ' . ' 7 Balllie as undcr-sccrotarios , — Sir Gcoi'g ^ eicrk p" " who has served under several administrations , iuiu Mr . Henry Hiullic , a Conservative by eoinwxions , , but mi intelligent and liberal member . JN « y , uw y , siuiio spirit may be seen in other departments ft . ? m j tho distinctions conferred on Sir Kioharcl Alt" <* j Bromley , now a Knight Commander of the I '" . " ' -I and Dr . James Onnislon M'Williain , ft Comnnnioi | or the JBuUi , men who have earned tlio -favour o | previous administrations , and are now r ccognisi ,, <

      Algeria

      sion by Louis Philippe of his desire to establish on the Lybian shore peaceful and commercial settlements , that a tardy recognition was given ; yet we have now the confession , oh the . highest official authority , tha't Christian industry and civilisation have up to the present hour taken no root , and that the work of colonisation is still id be begun . All projects or intentions of assuming a position of ascendancy in the Mediterranean were vehemently disavowed at various times by the successive cabinets of the Tuiicries ; yet the obvious tendency and aim of such an outpost hardly admits of question , and M . Thierstold the truth when he said from the

      moment when a huge stride is made uuder his Majesty ' s special auspices in the same direction . The forms and shows of exorbitant power arc infinitely varied ; and its names and pretences are equally so . But the essential evil of centralisation consists in this , that it is a nionopoly of power in the hands' of a few , and that , it divests the many who are competent and fit to exercise political discretion , authority , and control , of the power and the . duty of doing so . The absorption of all administrative authority into one metropolitan council , senate , or cabinet , is the highest stretch of aristocratic oppression ; but this is outdone by the absolutism which in Russia , Austria , and France ,: reduces the narrow circle within a circle narrower still , and

      concentrates the whole ultimate authority of the state in a single family or in one man . This was the insatiable ambition of Napoleon , and this is the insatiable desire of his nephew and successor . Instead of relaxing the administrative bondage of colonial dependencies he tightens them ; and instead of offering scats in the cabinet to men of independent genius or motive , he confers the portfolio of colonial affairs upon one of his own family .

      tribune that " the real use of Algeria to France was that it enabled her to hold in readiness there an army of reserve 70 , 000 strong , which she might lauuch at will against any point of Southern Europe . " And now we have the electric cable , enabling secret orders to be instantaneously transnutted from Paris to Constantino ; and the administration , civil and military , of ¦' . the province , placed under the direct control of a department whereof the Emperor ' s cousin is the head . statistical

      In the elaborate historical and report on the condition of Algeria , with the publication of which the Prince has " thought fit to commence his duties as Colonial Minister , singular care is taken to show how utterly the expectations originally held forth have been falsified , and how little there is of colonial spirit or life in the ' so-called ¦ colony . Every inch of ground which owns the imperial sway has been bought at a usurious price of blood . ¦ The ¦ resistance ¦ --of the warlike tribes has , indeed , been crushed for the present , and it will require soiiie years before the growth to . maturity of another generation can cause serious uneasiness to

      the veteran garrison permanently encamped amongst them . But even amid the tranquillity of exhaustion and the order established by repeated decimation , confiscation , and the laying desolate whole tracts of territory , the maintenance , in its uiidiminished force , o £ the aimy of Algeria is declared to be indispensable . ' A considerable naval force , with vessels of transport and connuissanat attached , specially devoted to this particular service , is likewise pronounced essential . Every expedient and device ( save one ) will , it is said , be tried to stimulate the development of local activity throughout the province , as well as to . induce the emigration

      thither of Europeans . Splendid promises ot protection and encouragement , somewhat in the vague and Bonnpai tean style , indeed , but still goodly and glittering to look upon , arc held forth to colonists . The produce of their industry is to be admissible , to the great markets of France ; the security of their property is assured ; the sanctity of their religion guaranteed ; and the new means of rapid communication with home held out as an additional inducement . The inhabitants of the province are no longer to be subjected to the proconsular will of a military Governor-General , but arc to be as directly subject to the Imperial Government itself as those

      of any of the eighty-six departments of France . Only one lure is left out of the cataloguo—that of local liberty . It never seems to have entered the imperial head that the one element which in all times , all regions , and all races , has characterised successful colonisation , is indispensable still . The greatest colonial and -maritime empire of antiquity jiad its metropolis on the very coasts which French imperialism now desires to plant and civilise ; and how did that marvellous power arise ? Everywhere along the sliorcs of Africa , of Spain , of Gaul , of Sicily , tho Phoenicians went forth as freo men , to found free settlements ; and it was aggregation and union of tho free communities thus founded , which ,

      ALGERIA . TnEBB is something strangely anomalous in the French possession of Algeria . The expedition which , eiglit-and-twonty years ago , succeeded in planting the banner of tho ( leur-dc-lis above the proiffriit ^ ta ^ Northern Africa , was undertaken with the most explicit assurances to the other powers of Europe that there was no intention whatever of conquest or annexation : yet the victors of 1830 have never ceased for a clay to occupy their , acquisitions of that year , to which they have since considerably added : and by a decree in the Moniteur of last month tho whole of tho province has boon incorporated with the French empire . For several years tho English Government refused to acknowledge this partial partition of the Turkish empire ; and . it was only upon the

      profesheaded and led by Carthage , kept for centuries the all-devouring ambition of Atonic at bay . In modern times there is nothing comparable to Phoenician colonisation in extent or glory , save that of England . And what is tho source ot life and health in the various socioties wo have founded f What , but tho timely concession to them all of the right to govern themselves . Perhaps it would not do , however , to -talk ^ nf .,, foea ] flclfrrulcs on one side of the Mcditerrnnoan whon all birriTs ~ fainl ^ fr ^ lnn : Va \ v -lmB < -becir obliterated on tho other . Algeria , Langucdoe , and Normandy , are to bo in future part and parcel of the Biimo administrative system ; and to sot the precedent of . freo discussion , or free institutions , in any oho of them might lead to inconvenient demands in all .

      It is curious to hear M . do Morny declaim upon the evils of over-contralifjation , and upon the patriotic intentions of the Emperor to reform the abuses which have sprung therefrom , at tho very

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      936 THE LEADEB . [ No . 442 , September 11 , 1858 .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 11, 1858, page 936, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2259/page/16/