All who have read Mill's History of British India, must have seen, in almost every chapter of that instructive work, instances of the ill effects of having a country professedly governed by a power, at an immense distance from all the transactions which it attempted to regulate and superintend; but actually tyrannized over by men, bowing with affected submission to the orders of their masters at home, yet contriving, whenever it suited their purpose, to counteract the will of their superiors, by so ordering affairs, that events should apparently plead an excuse for their taking all power into their hands. Yet, if no such History had been written, and not a single instance of the evils of such a system could be found on record, it ought, still, to be sufficiently apparent to every thinking being, that distant superintendence and control is of infinitely less force and value than the exercise of a supervision on the spot.

This one fact-which all must acknowledge and most men must have experienced-the lively interest taken by mankind in whatever occurs within the range of their personal observation and touches their immediate interests, and their indifference to what is at once remote and entirely unconnected with their past recollections, their present enjoyments, or their future hopes,-is enough to establish it as an indisputable truth, that good government can never be effectually secured, without the governors being made responsible to Public Opinion, exercised by the community over which they rule; and that all pretended submission to the influence of Public Opinion elsewhere, is utterly nugatory, and consequently mischievous wherever it is credited, as its only effect must be to lull mankind into a security which is fatal to their best interests.

This doctrine, we are aware, would lead to the conclusion, that all Colonies and distant Dependencies must be worse governed than countries which are independent, and manage their own affairs without reference to other states. The fact is, we believe, too well supported by experience, to be denied. America has been infinitely better governed since her independence than before it; while Canada and our West India possessions remain nearly stationary. The South American States, though but in their infancy, are already better governed than when they were dependencies of Spain and Portugal; and we doubt not, but that a day will come, when the independence of India will make that country what it never can become while it remains a mere dependency of such a distant country as England. If there be any truth in the maxim, that civilized nations are rarely or ever stationary, but either retrograde or advance, such an event as this, however remote it may be, must happen; and all who desire the progressive improvement and happiness of the human race, must hope for its being accelerated rather than retarded.

No man can entertain a doubt, but that the affairs of Britain are better managed while the Ministers are responsible to Public Opinion in England, than they would be if the English Press were entirely silenced, and Public Opinion on their conduct could only be freely exercised in New South Wales. To bring the point within a narrower compass; most men are persuaded, that the strictures of the Press are more influential on the conduct of those who fill the offices of state in the metropolis, when made immediately after the measure to which they relate, and on the very spot where the affair in question originates, than they would ever be, if the Metropolitan Journals were all silenced, and no papers could comment on the proceedings in Parliament or the Courts of Law, except the Provincial ones published in the obscure parts of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. If it be true to this extent, how much more important is it that in a country so little known, so remote, and altogether possessing such slender holds on the attention or sympathy of the great mass in England, the conduct of men in office should be scrutinized on the spot, and not referred to the expression of Public Opinion here, where it never can be exercised with any effect?

The speed and certainty with which disgrace and punishment attend on the commission of misdeeds, is the surest check to their commission. The delay and uncertainty of both, operate almost as a bounty on the commission of crime: added to which, a Ruler may be guilty of almost any enormity, in India, without dread of the consequences, when he knows that there no one around or near him dare even express an opinion on his conduct: that there is, therefore, a hundred chances to one in favour of his guilt never being known beyond the country itself; that even if known, a year must elapse before it can be told with effect in England; that here it has little chance of being listened to beyond a day, when it may serve to fill up the gossip of an idle hour; that after all, supposing an impression to be made against him in England, there are a thousand chances to one against his heing visited with punishment from hence; and that, admitting even this to be ordered, it will be another year before the authority to do so will reach him, when, perhaps, both himself and the victim of his oppression may be numbered with the dead; or if both are living, means will be always at hand still to evade the mandate, pending a reference to the mother-country, which may be repeated to the end of time, until the wnole affair sinks into oblivion, to give place to some new object of interest and attention, which will have to pass through the same stages in search of a redress, that, however ardently hoped for, is never likely to be attained.

These are but a few of the evil consequences of countries being governed by laws made at a distance, and by rulers made responsible, not 'to the public opinion of the people over which they

reign, but to the voice of a community in which their motives and actions can never be fairly appreciated, where they are altogether unknown, and where neither their virtues nor their vices can excite praise or censure, because none among that community are favourably or unfavourably affected by the one or the other. We say, these are only a few of the evils; because a volume might easily be filled with an enumeration of others :-but the mind of the intelligent reader will readily suggest them. Our desire is to see these evils remedied; and we are satisfied that the mode of gradually effecting this, by making all men responsible to the public opinion of the community in which they live, is not only prac-. ticable, but unerringly safe and efficacious.

We are as sincere as we are warm in our admiration of the system of confining the legislation of all countries to the countries themselves, and making the people, as much as possible, the source of all power: we are, in fact, advocates, from conviction, of pure representative governments, emanating entirely from the people, and made responsible for the exercise of all trust to those from whom they receive it. To this state, we believe that not only India, but all the countries of the earth, will at last come : and our conviction of this rests on the same basis, as our belief in the progressive establishment of every other science on its highest and most perfect eminence.

We see around us every department of knowledge advancing with rapid strides towards perfection. Chemistry, scarcely known a century since, is now becoming familiar to the humblest of mankind. Political Economy, but lately confined to the manuscripts of the studious and the unread volumes of philosophers who appeared on the earth before the world was ready to receive them, is now taught in public lectures, and understood by "the multitude," though it is still" a sealed book" to many of our nobles and pillars of the state, who have remained stationary, while all the rest of mankind have been advancing in their career. Why, then, should we despair of seeing the science of Government and Legislation brought to the same perfection, and equally well understood by all? Though ranking first in importance to the happiness of man, as giving birth to most of those institutions on which his enjoyments and privations are made chiefly to depend, it has been the last to be taught and understood: and there are consequently more delusions to be dispelled in this branch of human knowlege, than in any other that can be named. The reason is obvious: the "educated classes," as the rich are generally called, are themselves as ignorant as the "uneducated" on this important subject; and while a hundred institutions are scattered through the kingdom, for teaching every other thing desirable to be known, the all-important science of Government and Legislation, by the right or wrong administration of which the happiness or

misery of the many is chiefly determined, is left untaught and unattained. In every other pursuit, except this, men have been allowed to make experiments, and lay up a large stock of information from their own discoveries. In discussions on public affairs they have been perpetually restrained; and this has been well remarked, by an acute observer, as a reason why such extreme ignorance does and still must prevail, till more enlarged limits are granted to the exercise of men's faculties in this respect.

"Politics, as a science," says this writer, "having very seldom been permitted to men freely to study, and to publish the result of their researches in, proportionate advances have not been made in it with the advances made in most other sciences. Where truth has not been permitted freely to be published, in any given science, it would be folly to expect a people should have made great advances in it. This deficiency of knowledge is not to be attributed to any natural defect in individuals, or to any superior difficulty in the subject: the established system of education (in England) affords no instruction on the matters in question. Neither the children of the lower, nor of the higher orders, are instructed in these matters while at school, nor young men at the Universities. In the more advanced periods of life, the majority of persons are content to think they have nothing further to learn; and even for those, whose superior understandings urge them to the continued pursuit of knowledge, there are but few sources of information generally known and of established repute, for the matters in question.'

That the Universities, which are professedly intended for the education of our Legislators and their children, should, even up to the present day, be entirely deficient in the means of teaching the only science which it is important for statesmen to know-we mean the science of Government,-is an absurdity not casy to be paralleled. But that it should not be taught in every school in the kingdom, ought equally to excite astonishment. There is only one dignity, and one occupation, to which every man in England may aspire, and to which every man, however humble his origin, however slender his talents, however limited his means, may hope to arrive :—it is that of taking some part in conducting the business of government, from acting as the administrator of the existing laws, in the capacity of a juryman, or an officer of court, to sitting in the parliament of his country, and becoming a repealer of old and a framer of new laws, for others to carry into execu

A Treatise on the Offence of Libel, with a Disquisition on the right, benefits, and proper boundaries of Political Discussion. By John George, of the Middle Temple, Special Pleader. Evo. London, published by Taylor and Hessey, 1812. We have given the title at length, to direct the attention of our Indian readers to the excellent treatise, from which we may probably draw largely on some future occasion.

tion. Every man cannot aspire to be a naval or military commander, or to take the lead in the learned and liberal professions, as a physician, a bishop, or a judge: but every man may become a Legislator, be his profession in life what it may-sailor, soldier, doctor, lawyer, merchant, and even mechanic :-yet, the science of Legislation, which all should know, is not taught to any class, whether high or low, in our Universities or our schools!* Is it then to be wondered at, that a subject, on which no labour is bestowed, should be so imperfectly understood?

The reproach with respect to the absence of all sources of information on these subjects, of known and established repute, has, however, though but of late years, begun to be wiped away. The invaluable labours of the profound and philosophic Bentham, the masterly treatises in the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, understood to be from the powerful pen of Mr. Mill, the historian of British India, contain more of sound knowledge on the science of Government, than is to be met with in the books of all the philosophers that ever preceded them. The works of the former are a rich mine of intellectual treasure, which the industry of posterity will turn to better account than the present generation. Mr. Bentham is, indeed, one of those rare beings who appear but seldom on the stage of life, and have to encounter an array of prejudices against them, because they live in an age not yet far enough advanced in the knowledge of the particular sciences taught by them, to appreciate their worth. "Ordinary minds," says the writer from whom we have quoted before," may comprehend matters less obvious; and capacities one degree larger may take in matters which may be deemed intricate; and so on, till we arrive at the highest standard of minds which are commonly found in the earth: for now and then it happens that God gives the world a man of a sagacity superior to all his contemporaries; of a sagacity which can penetrate far beyond all others into the deeper recesses of knowledge." Newton, Bacon, and Locke, are acknowledged by all to have been of this order. Shakespeare and Milton are so considered by others; and we doubt not that when the lapse of time shall have softened down the hostility to which all living writers who oppose existing errors, must be subject, the names of Bentham, Mill, and Ricardo will be enrolled among the number of the illustrious dead.

To the minds of such men as these, maxims that will be regarded as truisms in another century, but which are quite incomprehensible to the mass of the present generation, appear in all the force

We must make one exception. In the excellent school of Mr. Hill, at Hazelwood, near Birmingham, not only is the theory of Legislation and Government taught; but the students have the best possible opportunity of becoming thoroughly acquainted with all the merits and defects of the existing system, by seeing it in practice among themselves.