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    POLITICAL DISHONESTY.

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    marshals who have yet to see service , to the youngest ensigns who have an ' . esprit " du corps and no particular liking for the Company's troops , are , on such an important mattery very dangerous advisers . • . Marines' especially organized for service in men-of-war are indispensable ; portions of the regular army embarked' in our ships wouldbe out of place v and between them and the sailors there would be perpetual discord . The Marines and the blue jackets , though not always in harmony , act tolerably well together , and accommodate themselves to each other . In fact , it was habit and ¦ use—the accidental circumstance of some regiments having been

    more frequently than others embarked—which led to their being so specially employed , and led to the establishment of the Marines . But while they have obtained golden opinions from all classes , the military aristocracy has been accustomed to look on them with some contempt , and though it would shirk their duties , it deems itself competent to dominate over them . Something of the same kind takes place with regard to the artillery and engineers . The peculiar functions of these bodies requiring hard study , they attract few or none of the scions of the upper aristocracy into their ranks . But aristocratic officers of the Guards and the Line obtain the highest places and command their more

    efficient brethren . They are undoubtedly of opinion that these other corps ought to be subservient to them ; though they cannot be incorporated with them , the Indian army , they fancy , might be , and their importance proportionablyl increased . But since it is found necessary to organize and train men especially for the marines and the artillery , it is reasonable to conclude that a similar

    training and organization of men , to be specially adapted for service in India with an Indian army , is equally necessary . Such a provision is , in truth , only a species of that division of employment which pervades society . The formation of the Anglo-Indian army grew up naturally from the circumstances of the Ihdia Gompany ^ nd the coun t ry ; and now to ab olish it , merely in Reference to ^ 7 some notions of military authority , or the desires of military men * , is to run counter to all

    experience . _ - . . ;¦ To enter into the Company ' s army ; is to devote . a life to a particular occupation , Officers and men go to India only ; to return with a fortune or a pension . The service is their life business—they have no other ambition , and they have performed it well . The Royal army , even when acting with the Company's troops , has been disposed to look down on them , and they have not obtained equal rank arid consideration in the nation . Treated as inferior they have not obtained the best men , and have * in consequence , not been quite as admirable as they might have been . Nevertheless ,, they have furnished a succession of very able-oftwer-s , —^ hilft—Gin £ r : il FjLPHINStox , a ioval officer , as

    Lord Stanley observed , led . the army into the Gabul scrape , Nott , Pollock , and Sale , Company's officers ' , led it out , and retrieved the national reputation endangered by the royal soldier . So the tide of the mutiny was turned , and Delhi fell by the instrumentality of Sir J . Lawrence and Generals Nicholson , Wilson , and Neil , Company's servants . The great merits of Lord Clyde , Sir Hugh Ross , and above all of Havelock , cannot be doubted ; but the Indian army , though small in number compared to the Royal forces , boasts many distinguished heroes . Where there is one Clyde , or one Havelock in the Royal army , there are scores of Chathams ,

    WHiTELobics , Burrards , Neales , Cardigans , and Luc an s . From the majority , who enter the service rather as a pastime than u serious life business , the same devotion cannot be expected as from the Indian officers . Many of the army officers now in India are always wanting to come home . It is quite erroneous , then , to claim for the Royal army , taken as a whole , a more refined sense of duty , a more careful discipline , greater enterprise , greater energy , and greater devotion to its employer than has been displayed by the Anglo-Indian army . Though we all recognise some splendid exceptions to general ineptitude , we feel astonished that on the strength of these exceptions those who

    administer our military affairs should chum a great extension of power , when their grievous and proved deficiencies are the subject of just , loud , and universal complaint . . It seems ns it they -thought that they , can Qnly . bo . preaery . ed by . taking all power into their own hands , and so extinguishing at once comparison and competition . They must be despotic , and considered infallible , or they may cease to be . Sir Charles Wood ' s own Council and all competent authorities are against his plan ; and it would he better , as Lord Stanley proposes , to place the Anglo-Indian army on a higher footing under on improved administration , keeping it entirely distinct from the Horse Guards , than surrender it to be monopolised and modelled by our military aristocracy . vT

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    IT will be a great relief to journalists when some public men are discovered iu high places whose integrity is unimpeachable ; but while hoping and longing for a purer political atmosphere , we must , perhaps , rejoice at any indications of disturbance which bode the coming of a corrective storm . The origin oi the revolutionary attempt of the House of Lords to overthrow the Constitution , and make itself a taxing power , may be clearly traced to the dishonesty of the Cabinet and the House of Commons-Lord PaLmebston , who can no more live without tricks than a fish without water , was obviously the ringleader of the cabal

    against the liberal men of his own party ; and when he found that the legality of the Lords' behaviour could not fail to be brought into prominent discussion , he packed a Committee of Tories and malignant Whigs , together with a slippery Peelite , and a Very small minority of men likely to maintain the dominion of law and liberty against the aristocratic branch of the Legislature and its minions in the Lower House . Having secured a jury of accomplices , the next step was to limit their inquiry , so that it could not lead to a full exhibition of the legal

    grounds upon which the privileges of the House of Commons and the rights of the people rest . The inquiry ought to have started from the period at which it terminates , and to have gone back at least as far as the reign of Edward I . Had this been done the House of Commons and the people would have been in possession of a most important series of precedents , clearly leading down to the famous declaration of 1678 , " that all aids and supplies , and aids to his Majesty in Parliament , are the idle gift of the Commons "

    This was precisely what the reactionary cabal did not want ; and from the first meeting of the Committee the issue was easily discerned ; After a considerable expenditure of time , a mass of cases were collected , for which the ( Dhainnan of the Committee , Mr . WaxpoIiE , appears chiefly responsible ; and which lays all parties concerned in its concoction open to very grave and serious charges , as it is not a full , fair , and complete statement of the facts whiehu it pretends to describe . Founded upon an imperfect —we fear wilfully imperfect collection of precedents , Mr . Walpole framed an u oily gammon . " sort of report , the effect of which would be to slur over the matter , and leave the virtual victory on the side of the conspirators in the Lords . In oppqsitipritp this , Mr . Bright , who had been well primed by an able

    constitutional lawyer , prepared a clear and explicit statement of the law and facts of the case , in which he was supported by Mr . Gladstone and Lord John Russell . Lord Palmerston , of course , supported Mr . Walpole , and then agreed to a compromise which binds him to nothing , although it is evident he wishes to go wrong . If lie finds his tricks exposed , and liable to punishment by loss of office , he can , with —his , admirable facility of vermicular wriggling , easil y turn the other way . Sir James Graham , as of old , repudiates tile " politics of manly honesty for that Jeremy Diddler expediency of which Sir Robert Peel was the chief apostle ; but '; . although , he opposed the constitutional side when his vote might have turned the scale , he too can twist and wriggle if adequate pressure be applied .

    In a day or two the Government intentions will be known , and the debates will commence ; but all parties concerned may make up their minds that no compromise will answer , and that all attempts to make matters smooth and pleasant will only lead to further exposure and strife . We observe the Constitutional Defence Committee have advertised their intention of originating an investigation into the whole matter , if * the people are betrayed by the partisan jury to whom Lord

    Pal-Mjerston has confided the question ; their words are that they intend to appoint a " sub-Committee for the purpose ol searching all the requisite documents , and making known to the people those laws of public liberty which the accomplices in the usurpation committed by the House of Lords are anxious to conceal , " This is the right course ; and if , upon inquiry , it turns out that the precedents laid before the Houso of Commons Committee were garbled or incomplete , such an incident cannot be treated with mildness or moderation . The matter must be

    thoroughly searched out , the guilty parties traced , and in some way suitably punished . A large proportion of the Committee arc Privy Councillors , and if it should unfortunately prove true that they have , by negligence , or culpuT 51 e action , allowed or caused n serious misrepresentation to take plnco , the people ought to combine to lay their conduct before the Queen , and pray that she will dismiss them from the office which they hold . There-are two sorts of falsehood , one the suppre ' ssio veri , and the other the mggestio faUi . In point of morality one is us bad as the other , unless , indeed , the former be considered the more base , because the more hypocritical , orirnc . The conduct of all parties concerned in this dispute should be tried by the

    Untitled Article

    6 $ 4 The Leader andI SaturdayAnalyst , [ June 30 , 1860 .

    Political Dishonesty.

    POLITICAL DISHONESTY .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 30, 1860, page 604, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2354/page/4/