LATER ENGLISH NEWS.

Colonist, Issue 24, 12 January 1858, Page 3

LATER ENGLISH NEWS.

r . . ■' (tfrom tte Melbourne Age.) The; Swift-ure has brought us seventeen days later -English news, but the files tire yery imperfect.- • . ; .The ; seventh of October was appointed to he "a day of humiliation on tlie national visitation involved in the Indian Mutiny." The Bishop of London was at Balmacarra, Loch Alsh, Ros^-shire, and wrote a circular L-tter to his j clergy, in which he regrets " the circumstances which have rendered it impossible for him to be present in London, but trusts to be present in" spirit. We do not pretend to be in the secrets of the Cabinet (says the Observer), but what need be secrets no longer are the announcements that the .'Standard for recruits for .regiments of the line is reduced to the lowest limit which it reached.during the Russian war—that .a further addition of 5000 men is held in readiness to embark for India; that is to say, four battalions of infantry and two of cavalry—and, further, that 10,000 more ofthe militia are to be embodied in addition to the 15,000 already designated for garrison duty to supply the drain upon the troops of the line sent to the East. The feeling against the East India Company seems to be running very high, and it has been extended to the Governor-General, Lord Canning, who is to be replaced by Lord Elgin, whose administration, of Canada aud diplomatic Bkill have both met public approval. Among a population comprising such motley and rival, ingredients as--that of - Hindostan, diplomatic ' ability is a gift of the greatest value in a Go- I vernor-peneral. The correspondent of a Paris journal, writing from Calcutta on August 22nd, expressed his - opinion that there would be a two years struggle before the insurrection would be disposed of; but the fall,of Delhi and the other checks the insurgents have received, will prove his calculation incorrect. The question of questions for the Indian Government how is the composition of the future army they have to rely upon. It will be, of course, impossible to maintain in India from two to three hundred thousand European troops, with the enormous demand for renewal which the climate would .necessitate for such a num--J ber. But the population of that country is made up of so many races^ that by judicious balancing j a native army might probably be kepi; together without danger of extended mutiny. At the present moment, the warlike soldiery recruited from the north-west provinces—Sikhs, Ghborkas, and Affghans,—have, as a rule, remained faithful to the company, from dislike to, or'want; of sympathy with, the Hindoo. A correspondent, in. our columns the other day suggested the employment of Malays. The Malays.aire an active, warlike, and indeed ferocious racß, as martial as the other Moslem races" of .India, and'more so than the Hindoos. The rifle regiment of Ceylon is mainly, if not altogether, composed of them. They could be obtained in great numbers in Malacca and in every island in the Indian seas; but they are just as fanatic Musselmen as our present Mahdmedan soldiery, who are principally of Afghan and Arab extinction, commingled with the Hindoo blood and an infusion of the Persian and the Tartar. We do not see, if there were Malay regiments iv the Bengal army, why they might not.as readily as any other, fall into a scheme for the extermination of "the unbeliever." Their religious zeal is at least as strong as that of any people in the East. They are the moS"' energetic proselytisers in the cause of Islam.' Active fanatics as well as active traders and pirates, while we write their busy proas are skimming every channel of the Indian seas, conveying with bales of blue Surat cloth, the tenets of the Koran, as far south as New Guinea, and even, it is said, to the northern shores of this Australian continent. They will be a valuable ingredient certainly in'the future Indian Army, but it would no more do i to compose it exclusively of them, than of any other native people. -It will need to be made up of many races, judiciously separated and counterbalanced. One fact however is abundantly clear—that the sole reliance on physical force is a staff which may break at any time, and that unless some approach to justice and fair play for the '' natives be substituted for the system maintained by the Company, England had as well withdraw from Hindostan at once. Let us trust that the day religiously appointed for national humiliation, will bear some practically religious result, in determining a better plan of Indian management when the present rebellion is put down. - The only items. of European intelligence of any interest, are the doings in Spain and in the Danubian principalities. From the former countiy,* there is word of the resignation of Narvaez, the head of Moderadoor conservative, party, .who succeeded O'Donnel in the ministry after his sanguinary coup d'etat of last year, and who, as weir as his predecessor, has been playing the game of Queen Isabella, ofthe open absolutists, and of Louis Napoleon. Bravo Murillo, a bird of the same feather, is the individual most generally spoken of as his successor. Meanwhile the old dowager, Queen Christina, the patroness of Narvaez, and mother of political mischief, and who has been exiled for her i financial peculations, is again busy at the French Court> seeing what political capital she can create out of this little ministerial change. Wh#. Narvaez "resigned we are not informed. There-is-no very cheering prospect on the Spanish horizon for the friends of liberty at present. From the banks ofthe Danube, we learn that the wishes' of the inhabitants ofthe Principalities have been expressed, by the regent elections, in favour of the views ofthe men 0f'48," and against those of the Bayards, or nobles, who are generally in. the interest, and many notoriously in the pay of, the neighbouring despotisms —Austria, Russia, and .Turkey. The views of the successful party are for the ballot, a single representative chamber, and other similar matters. We have not the slightest hope that , these wishes of the inhabitants of the principalities will be allowed to fructify, or that "the Great Powers" will alter their policy so far as to allow the creation of a free and progressive Dacian kingdom.