would be evident to the people and the rulers; and were the whole system of treaties remodelled upon this plan, and that remodelling strictly observed, the political character of the government would rise in the esteem of the natives of India to that rank which it ought to hold, and which it is the sincere wish of every Englishman that it should hold.

A few more words, and we have done. All those who are conversant with the native character, know how easily the remembrance of the greatest benefits is forgotten in the infliction of petty injuries, annoyances, slights, and vexations; and indeed this is pretty much the case everywhere. Gratitude, which would have been lasting had no contrary policy followed the benefaction, has been frittered away by annoyance and interference, till positive dislike has taken its place. At the close of the Mahratta war, the British power had saved India from anarchy and misery; it was the grand benefactor of every state of India, as well of its own allies as of those it had conquered. But we find so many melancholy proofs of a contrary line of conduct since then, that we despair of its ever having the power to repair the evil-of its ever being able to eradicate the suspicion which must rest in the mind of every potentate in India, whatever may have been the conduct of the Company's government towards him. Instead of doubtful friends, bullied into submission, the Company might have had vigorous ones, whose resources had been fostered by its protection, and who, from the faithful alliance and friendship of its government, would have become attached to it in very truth, and not in outward show only. It is idle-it is worse, it is hardened bigotry to say, that the native princes are not to be trusted-that however well they are treated, their nature is to be unfaithful. Have they ever been tried by a contrary line of conduct and policy? We fearlessly assert that the natives of India have been basely traduced from the earliest periods of the Company's connexion with them, to cloak the evil designs of its government; that they are as susceptible of kind and grateful feelings, and possess as warm affections and as attached dispositions, as any people in the world; but that allegiance can spring out of bad faith and irritating policy towards them, is too much to be expected from humanity.

Nor in its own provinces has the Company's government been more fortunate. By an oppressive taxation everywhere except in the permanently settled districts of Bengal, in many places in a proportion of 7 to 5 to that of the territories of native princes-by the harsh collection of this tax-by a system of law quite beyond the reach of the poorer classes, which is expensive, and full of delays and vexatious forms wholly unsuited to the people-by, until lately, a constant depression of native talent and intellectual acquirement, allowing it no channel by which it might work itself out-by a constant drain upon the resources of India, which, however inevitable, has caused the value of money to be everywhere enhanced, while the land-tax is everywhere increased-by monopolies in opium and in salt-lately by a resumption of rent-free lands in Bengal—and, to speak generally, by the absence of any one great measure upon which the eye of posterity will rest, as marking the enlightened sway of the most enlightened nation in the world;-by all these means the Company's government has made itself unpopular with its subjects, while the distance which before existed between its servants and the people has widened so far that it is doubtful whether it can ever be reduced. Major Sutherland says,

"It is a common observation, that our laws and revenue regulations of the times of Hastings and Cornwallis, were more applicable to the condition of native property and native society than those of a later period; the servants of those days had a superior acquaintance with the native character (we will add, a superior respect for it); they consulted more natives of intelligence and learning; they were altogether more thrown amongst and mixed up with natives, and therefore had advantages in legislating for them beyond servants of later date. The science of jurisprudence has since those days made great progress throughout Europe, principally by simplifying the laws, and suiting them to the understandings and the wants of the people. In India, those most qualified for this great work lead such an official existence, they are so far above, and so removed from the people, so little acquainted with them, except when trying or taxing them--[the italics are our own]-that the formation of a code of laws, suited to their wants and conditions, by the officers who could be brought to work upon it, would seem a hopeless task."-Page 22.

To such officers as these, upon the evidence of our author, who we presume is a fair judge of the capabilities of the British executive in India, are the destinies of those populous countries confided. It is still unhappily true, to use the ter

rible language of Mr. Burke, that "young men govern there without society, and without sympathy with the native. An endless, hopeless prospect of new flights of birds of prey and passage is for ever passing before the eyes of the people. The cries of India are given to seas and winds, to be blown about in every breaking up of the monsoon, over a remote and unhearing ocean." But in the realm and parliament of England there is not a voice raised to inquire how the highest functions of government are discharged to so many millions of men-how British faith is kept-how British power is secured-and, above all, how the welfare of native India is provided for!

ARTICLE VII.

Sixth Annual Report from the Board of Public Works in Ireland. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 11th June, 1838.

Second Report of the Commissioners of Railways for Ireland. 1838.

THE Second Report of the Commissioners appointed to consider and recommend a general system of Railways for Ireland has been for some time before the public. In whatever light we regard it,-whether as a mass of statistical information affording data for a series of legislative measures, or of well-considered calculations showing the probable products, expenses, and chances of railway communication in Ireland,—it is the most valuable document that any of the numerous commissions on Irish subjects has produced. How so much information could be procured in so short a time would surprise us, if we were not aware that the labours of previous commissions, and of existing boards, have been useful adjuncts to its production; but we have still much that is new, and the whole is admirably pertinent to the one great

subject which, so far as Ireland is concerned, outweighs all others, that of providing employment for the people. The true question of political economy-on the solution of which depends the happiness of millions, and perhaps the tranquillity of the empire-is, how is the unemployed population of Ireland to be put on work in a manner that will be useful to the state? How is the large mass of dormant wealth in Ireland, whether consisting in labour, or in the materials for labour, to be developed? A simple observer would remark, that it did not require much reflection to solve this problem; for when labour is so abundant as to be what in commercial phrase is termed "a drug," and when the materials for labour equally abound, there is nothing to be done but to put the people to work on the materials that are at their hands, in order to produce every thing that is requisite to elevate themselves in the social scale, and to increase the wealth of the state. Simple, however, as this may appear theoretically, it is a difficult thing to achieve in practice. England, with all the materials of wealth concealed in her bosom, possessed an unemployed, and consequently a burthensome population, until one man, the Duke of Bridgewater, whose name should be ever held in grateful remembrance, gave an impulse to the national energies by commencing a system of canalization, which the inert government of the day never dreamt of, and which has since been steadily and rapidly developing the national wealth to a degree that the most ardent speculator could never in the flights of a sanguine imagination have contemplated. To a system of internal communication, which distributes the products of labour with speed, regularity, and economy, England owes its prosperity: that a like system. would produce like effects in Ireland, experience abundantly attests. But that country unhappily has no Duke of Bridgewater; and it is the duty of government, because it is for the advantage of the empire, to give the necessary impulse.

When society would derive a benefit from a public work, which private interest might not consider a sufficiently tempting speculation, or might not possess the means to accomplish, we hold it to be the part of the government, which represents the general interest, to be the undertaker. We

apprehend that this has been the case of Ireland for many a day, and we have already shown in a former article* that the community have profited most amply by the little in the way of public works which the government has effected in that country.

The formation of roads is amongst the rudiments of civilization. Let us for a moment suppose that the different countries in Europe had declined to construct them until it might appear to suit the interest of private individuals to undertake them in contemplation of the traffic by which they were to be remunerated-how few would yet have been constructed, and how would the march of civilization have been stayed! Roads were not more necessary in the infancy of society than canals and railroads are at present; the one affording the most economical, and therefore the most desirable means of transit for heavy merchandise; the other the most rapid, and therefore the most desirable mode of conveyance for passengers and certain light goods. The imperfection of the means of internal communication is one of the chief causes of the miseries of Ireland. This was strongly exemplified at seasons of famine,-periodical in that country, as they have been in all others emerging from barbarism. Only a few years ago, when potatoes were at a famine price in the west of Ireland, they were cheap and abundant within a short distance, between which district and that where famine existed there was no means of communication. We have already remarked how favourably Ireland is situated, and how abundantly nature has supplied her with the means of water-communication, from her insular position, her extensive lakes, or, as they appear, inland seas, and the rivers by which the surface of the country is intersected. Let the state advance the funds in the first instance for perfecting these natural advantages, and it will be amply compensated by a developement of internal resources, and a prosperity which will be felt and shared in by every portion of the empire.

The Report of the Railway Commissioners, in the various returns and documents relative to the existing navigations which they have collected, affords conclusive evidence of the

* No. XIII., July, 1838.