WILLIAM MCGEE & CO., 18, NASSAU-STREET. LONDON PIPER, STEPHENSON, & CO., 23, PATERNOSTER-ROW. : EDINBURGH: JOHN MENZIES, 61 & 63, PRINCE'S-STREET. 1858. THE COLLEGE MAGAZINE. No. I. OCTOBER, 1857. VOL. I. INDIA: THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS AND THE LIBERTY OF THE SUBJECT. Two subjects have lately occupied the minds of British residents in India, to the exclusion of almost every other matter of purely political interest. The first of these was the scheme proposed some time ago for reforming the judicial system; the second is the present mutiny. Concerning the latter we have nothing to say, military affairs being out of our province: but there is one of its effects about which we are anxious to say a few words, —we mean the legislative restrictions on the freedom of the press. As for the judicial reform question, we propose to enter somewhat fully into it. And here we must pause for an instant to premise that the writer of these pages, though a resident in India, does not profess any enlarged experience of the native character. The opinions he puts forward here are those which have been formed by carefully weighing evidence derived from persons who have had such experience, and conscientiously endeavouring to draw from the premises these persons have furnished the inferences to which they seemed justly to lead. To begin, then, with the liberty of the press. One of the most universally admitted characteristics of the native mind is its tendency to ascribe everything to the power of Government, and to believe anything of the interference of Government. It is well known that there have been frequent panics among the native population, owing to the alarm being raised that the Government intended to commence a system of forcible conversions to Christianity. It is also pretty clearly ascertained that the present insurrection was aggravated, and probably precipitated, by such a panic. YOL. I.-NO. I. B |