Untitled

Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 16, 26 April 1851, Page 2

From the Spectator, Nov. 16. % The Manchester Chamber of Commerce, after sundry fruitless attempts to prevail upon Government to send a commission to India for the purppse of jinquiring into the state and pros-! pects of cotton cultivation there, have,made up their minds to send a Commissioner of their | own. The Chamber have been happy in their choice of a Commissioner. Mr. Mackay,.upon whom their choice has fallen, is favourably known to a pretty numerous public by his work on America. He has had considerable experience in the collection of statistical information.; he has lived long enough in a foreign land to know that essential differences sometimes lurk beneath external resemblances in the social ar—•\ rangements of two countries, and to be on his guard against the erroneous inferences to which ignorance of this fact leads. He is naturally acute, energetic, cautious. For the difficult task of investigating and reporting upon the condition of an important branch of industry, and the circumstances which are likely to promote or retard its progress among a community so different in all respects from our own as that of India, probably a better selection could not have been made than that of Mr. Mackay. This movement of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, though interesting and mportant in itself, appears much more so when regarded as one of the first notes of preparation for the great inquest which will be summoned to sit upon our Anglo-Indian government, previously to the renewal of the East India Company's charter. British India now includes the whole enormous region from the Suleiman range of the Belooches and Afghans on the west, to the mountains which divide Assam from Bur mail to the east—from the Himalaya mountains of Cape Comorin. Its population cannot fail short of a hundred millions of souls. The annual exports from England to India average nearly seven millions sterling. The responsibility of the British nation for the good government of such a dependancyjs awful. It involves directly the well-being of a hundred millions of fellow-creatures—indirectly, the prosperity of the large proportion of our fellowcountrymen whose worldly means are bound up with those of a country which imports annually to the value of almost seven millions of our produce and manufactures, sends us a corresponding value in return, and besides pays a large annual tribute to the stock-owners "of" the East India Company. Of the,actual conditions and social relations of this important dependancy, the people of England are very imperfectly cognizant. In the archives of the East India Company is ample store of information, but its very bulk renders it of little avail even for the Leadenhall Street Directors themselves. The notices respecting India, which occasionally come out through the .press.are fragmentary in their nature, the fruits of the observation of isolated individuals,,gleaned up amid the hurry of engrossing avocations, bearing upon limited localities. The stirring but ephemeral incidents of Indian wars .bear an undue proportion to facts of less obtrusive but more pervading and abiding interest. -?v One fact, however, is highly suggestive. The foundation of our Indian.empire and the establishment of the United States of North America as-an independent nation were contemporary events. The.loss of our North American colonies helped to concentrate the attention and exertions of England upon its Indian dominions. The progress made by British India since 1760, in civilization, material wealth, and intelligent enterprise, is barely perceptible; while the United States have expanded from a few obscure colonies into a mighty nation, second only to our own in the value and extent of their commercial relations, second to none in intelligent and successful enterprise. The; Anglo-Norman inhabitants of the " Old Thir- j teen" provinces have made the valley of the Mississipi, and the prairies beyond' it, whied little more than! a century ago were mere wastes, the thronged abodes of a vigorous and wealthy European population, and have extended their settlements to the shores of ,the Pacific. This they have done without the aid of the aboriginal tribes, who have proved irreclaimably addicted to their nomade hunter habits.

£alndia have had to deal with a country thickly peopled with races far advanced in civilization, though of a peculiar character ; yet in every respect the results of their efForts lag far behind those risible in America. To place the difference in a most striking point of view, it is only necessary to contrast the cotton produce and the mercantile marine of British India with those of the United States. There is actually a more fully-developed steam-navigation between Panama and California than between Bombay and China. These general results are palpable; their more occult causes, at least in so far as India is concerned, are obscure and hidden. It could be wished that many independant interests connected with British India might take the*same step that has been taken by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, with a view to elicit the truth respecting such special features of India's social condition as more immediately concern them. The modifications in the government of British India' which may be required, when the renewal of the Company's charter affords an opportunity to introduce them, ought t to be set about in a fearless yet dispassionate and reflecting spirit. It cannot be denied that the policy of the Company, in its' administration of India, has too often been characterised by narrowmindedness and undue timidity. But neither ought it to be denied that many of its acts have been indicative of a liberal, intelligent, and truly princely spirit—disinterested benevolence and superiority to mere conventionalities. If the progress of India since 1760 has fallen far short of that of America, the condition and temper of our possessions intrusted to the management of the East India Company contrast most favourably with those which have been abandoned to the rule of the Colonial Office.

Our Colonies are resolved not to leave Ministers in peace. They will not hold their tongues while Lord Grey legislates for them, out of his own head, all for their benefit. The Cape of Good Hope people have taken a very active course, and have arranged to transfer the contest to London. Instead of accepting Lord Grey's constitution with eyes shut and mouth

open, they have left the "residuary" Council

to ponder over that gift, while they have assembled in public meeting, have framed a constitution of their own, and have sent it to London by a deputation empowered to enforce their claims. The deputation consists of two men most eminent among the leading colonists— Sir Andries Stockenstrom and Mr. Fairbaim. Although he may have made some political mistakes, Sir Andries is a man endeared to the colonists by enlightened patriotism, enlarged views, and goodness of heart; no man has been more thoroughly indentified with the vicissitudes and fortunes of the Cape; ; his name is indelibly inscribed in the history of the colony. That Mr. Fairbairn is thoroughly indentined with the Cape and with the feelings of its people, is proclaimed in. the one fact, that if any man may be called the leader of the anti-convict movement, in which the colonists gained so signal a triumph over the Colonial Office, he was that leader. These two men are coming to urge the claims of the colonists upon the Government in the face of the English public and the English Parliament. The Cape colonists have gone more directly arid more effectively to work than the people of New South-Wales ; for although- it will be impossible to have a representative more thoroughly master of his subject than Mr. Bobert Lowe, or one more capable of enforcing his intent, the Cape deputation comes possessed of a distinct warrant to obtain a specific end. It will be difficult for Ministers to cajole any but those who are abjectly willing to be cajoled :jnto doubt or obscurity as to the wishes of colonists. 'In other respects the deputation will tend to useful results. It will be a further example of the mode in which the Colonies may bring their influence to bear upon the Imperial Government. We know that the feeling against domination from Downing Street, instead of declining, daily increases and extends. It is spreading into quarters which have not yet made themselves prominent; though it is hardly the less dangerous because it is veiled for the present by a contemptuous quiescence. Even in the prosperous, intelligent, and well Ldisposfcd

community of South Australia, it is felt that the bpontaneous lawmaking of Downing Street is not very applicable to the antipodean circumstances : men are begining to ask themselves, what good they gain by the connexion ? Do they gain even dignity by it, treated as they are, de haut en has? Can it even be said that individual colonists attain distinctions from the fountain of all honour ? Even these trifles are not employed to engage the affections of the distant "dependencies" towards the central Government; It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if " Republican: ideas " are begining; to sprout up in the genial soil of South Australia, or if Dr. Lang's crotchet of Australian " independence " has made the overland journey from Sydney to Adelaide.