صفحات من صحيفة تقرير السبت في بومباي [ظ‎‎٢] (٨/٢)

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The Bombay Saturday Review. [ Apr: 7, isee.
the State. Every body must desire to see every step well con
sidered many change. In the meantime, however, we protest
against this moral betrayal by a Bishop of the rightful posi
tion of the Christian minister/ The service of the Church
is too great a function for us to endure that it should be
thus quietly put into utter subordination to an Indian
executive. And we think it hard that any journal should
have to protect the spiritual independence and dignity of
the Church from this cool surrender of them by one of her
own Bishops.
It is truly extraordinary that the Bishop of Bombay should
have thought it necessary to criticize the position of a news
paper editor as such. It is laid down by the Bishop of Bombay
that" men who have newspaper types at their command need
to be always on their guard." So we should imagine from
weighty authority need Bishops, and indeed, all the sons
of Adam. But we ought to be thankful to his Lordship,
more thankful than the hardness of our hearts permits
us to be, for the weighty cautions which he utters to the
publicist and the journalist. " Articles to serve the purpose
of the hour are soon thrown off under the impulse of a
passing excitement" the Bishop tells us; and we know well
how right he is. It is the deplorable necessity of the
journalist that he cannot allow an interval of five years to
elapse between article and article, as a Bishop of Bombay
can between charge and charge, Sydney Smith, in a
striking passage about the advantage of human speech,
says that lions too might have a society and a polity if
they could meet and " growl out their experiences" to one
another. Well, the secular part of mankind takes too deep
an interest in its own part of life to be able to wait
so long as the ecclesiastical can, at least in India, for that
" growling out of experience" with which the Bishop of Bom
bay, free equally from all excitement as from interest in his
work, favours them only every five years or so. Sins of
omission in high place, let us hint to the Bishop of Bom
bay, are equal to sins of commission in humble place. It
is most impressive to learn from the Bishop's " own pastoral
experience" that on the conscience of a dying editor
the question " shall weigh heavily how he shall give
account for what has appeared in the columns of his news
paper at the bar of Him who has said : By thy words
thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be
condemned." But we are sadly afraid that the Bishop is as
deficient in a sense of secular humour as he is in high
Apostolic tendency. The notion of a peculiar Satanic
quality in 4 newspaper types' is, we assure his Lordship,
quite antiquated now. And it is too probable that the
profane vulgar will attribute his pastoral interest in the
deathbed repentance of wicked journalists to the too
correct appreciation, which has occasionally been shown in
editorial columns, of the amount of self-sacrifice with which
the Bishop has devoted himself to his own great function.
We cannot go further into a detailed criticism of the
touch-and-go allusions of his Lordships to the many great
subjects into which he goes only far enough to prove how
little he cares for them. But a Prelate of such fixed faith as
this charge evinces, will be grateful to us for removing the
only shade of doubt which is allowed to appear in the
midst of what is otherwise unmixed and confident dogmatism.
" May it not be reasonably feared" asks his Lordship, in
speaking of Missions, " that a far more injurious obstacle
to the spread of the Gospel in this land has arisen from
the contradiction exhibited by too many nominal Christians,
of all communions, between what they profess to be and
what they are." We can venture to say that there is not
the smallest doubt about the matter. And, if his Lordship
will condescend to verify this truth, in the way that he
has ascertained the peculiar spiritual dangers of Journalism,
by reference to his own " experience," pastoral and others, he
will easily conclude that no person, is so amply justified as him
self in insisting on this particular impediment to the spread
in India of the Gospel of sacrifice. The Bishop of Bombay
asks very impressively " how shall the lost sheep inthe outly
ing world be won to the fold, if the flock of that fold are not
kept within its fences." Let us ask him, pointedly, how
that is to be done if no howling of the wolves of sin and
heathendom is lond enough to keep its principal Shepherd
or Bishop from untimely slumber- When Bishops teach
journalists their duty, it would be ungrateful not to reciprocate
the kind office. It is, good of his Lordship to warn jour
nalists from excitement. Perhaps it is as fwell for the
journalist to warn a Bishop from fctineaniise. For the
talent wrapped in the napkin was the worst invested talent
of all;
m ™E PERSIAN GULF AND COLONEL PELLY.
(TWO letters which have appeared this week in the columns
X oi a contemporary would induce us to return to the
subject of the Persian Gulf, even if the great interest that
attaches to the subject were not of itself enough to arrest our
attention. We cannot but express our regret that matters
or such importance as those which are under the considera
tion of the Governments of India have not received dis
cussion of a more serious kind at the hands of writers
of more weight than the two absurd persons to whom
we allude, who at least do themselves the justice of
signing by appropriately absurd signatures. It is perhaps
wrong to take notice of any letters of such intrinsic levity as
those which have appeared under the signatures of 1 Eeputa-
tion > and " A Respectable Land-lubber ? If people wish to
receive serious attention when they presume to write upon
serious subjects, they should refrain from imitating in their
style and pseudonyms the broad grins of clown and pantaloon.
But it is perhaps not well to disregard vilification, however
ridiculous and baseless, of valuable public men in a country
where editorial indulgence combines with public taste for
calumny to afford the conspicuousness of large types for
any communication, however worthless; provided only it
assails a reputation, and strives to damage a character.
The ' Eespectable Land-lubber' would have done service
to the public if he had confined himself to his reasonable
and sound objection to the destruction of the local
Indian Navy. It is undoubted that all well informed
persons in India regret and deplore this measure as one
of the most foolish parts of the destructive policy which
has accompanied the direct assumption of Indian Govern
ment by the British Crown. If there is one thing which
would be pronounced theoretically desirable, it is the posses
sion by the local authorities of this country of a navy,
entirely under its own controul, whose officers should be
thoroughly familiar with the languages and tribes of the
Persian Gulf, and of the other shores with which the people
and Government of Western India needs must come into
commercial and other relations. Such an instrument actually
was in the hands of the Government. And in pursuit of the
chimaera of amalgamation of the services, or rather, as part of
the dangerous policy of absorbing all the powers of Govern*
ment in England, it was broken up with culpable levity.
This was, however, only a legitimate corollary of that
denunciation of special aptitude, special training, special
experience as necessities for Indian Government, which led
to the suppression of Haileybury, and to the summary, ill
considered, purely destructive reversal of all the maxims,
and suppression or distortion of all the institutions, which
had won this country for England. It remains yet to
be seen what will be the consequences of so strange
a policy. And we cannot help expressing our cordial
agreement with the 4 Respectable Land-lubber'—how can
any rational man sign so absurdly—when he denounces the
suppression of the local navy as foolish in the extreme, and
as adding seriously to the difficulties of dealing with the
Persian Gulf.
But we are bound to express our astonishment at the
audacious ignorance of the personal attack which this person
makes upon Colonel Pelly. We have nothing to do with
the case of Captain Jones, except to remark that it is
only in India,^ the country par excellence of petty official
jealousies, and ignoble personal squabbles, that any body
would care to discuss anything connected with the
circumstances under which Colonel Pelly was placed in
charge of the affairs of the Gulf and Captain Jones parted
from them. But the attack on Colonel Pelly deserves more
comment and attention, because it shows that the reputation,
and the remarkable performances of this officer in the Eastern
world, have failed to secure for him here the consideration
which is due to him, though in England they have raised him
;o a high point of esteem. This is rather singular. It
might be expected that famous exploits performed by an of
ficer of the Indian service would be a subject of local pride
that would cause his name to be guarded with some jealousy
from those sort of people who go about the world picking up
mud to throw at their fellow creatures. We are obliged to
conclude that there is much less of knowledge of Colonel
Pelly's career and character in London than in Bombay,
For certainly in London no Editor would dream of con
signing to any other part of the establishment than the
waste paper basket a letter with a buffoon signature which
should announce that the Colonel was an excellent chop
logic, " but wholly wanting in that personal influence and
weight which go so far in dealing with Asiatics."