There is a potency of ignorance about Sir Charles Wood
which is sometimes almost admirable. On Monday he asked the House of Commons to resolve that Sir John Lawrence, though appointed Viceroy, ought not to lose his good-service pension of 2,0001. a year. The request was reasonable, but Sir C. Wood must support it by a precedent, so he said " Lord Hardinge, when he was ap- pointed Governor-General of India, was in receipt of a pension conferred upon him by the East India Company for his services in the first Sikh war, and a special Act of Parliament was passed, with the unanimous concurrence of the House, enabling Lord Hardinge to receive the full emoluments of Governor-General of India, to- gether with the pension." Nobody expects Sir Charles Wood to know anything about India, but he might have the decency to cram properly. Lord Hardinge began the first Sikh war himself when Governor-General, and prophetic pensions are, we believe, un- known. As a matter of fact, Sir W. Hardinge had, when he landed in India, no Indian pension whatsoever. We presume the truth is that the Act was passed when he was appointed Com- mander-in-Chief in England, but it is all one to Sir Charles—he will be a peer all the same.
