22 NOVEMBER 1851, Page 1

It is confidently affirmed that the local rulers of British

India are seeking to erect a fourth Presidency in the North-west, and to transfer the seat of government from Calcutta to "Lahore of Great Mogul." The necessity of the first of these measures will not be doubted by any one who is acquainted with the condi- tion of our Indian dominions ; the expediency of the second is more questionable. It is, of course, desirable that the seat of government in any country should be centrically situated ; but to transfer it from one end of a territory to another is not to make it more oentrical. Again, when the advantage of having a ceiftrical seat of government is spoken of, it is less with reference to super- ficial square miles, than to population, industry, and wealth. The great centres of opinion, property, and influence, in India, are Cal- cutta, Madras, and Bombay; of which the first-named immeasur- ably outweighs both the others. The proposal to remove the seat, of local government in India from Calcutta to Lahore, is Stitilb-

thing like a proposal to remove the seat of government in this country from London to Aberdeen. Nay, worse ; ter Aberdeen is not situated on a hostile frontier, where gmvernment would lie beset with incessant temptations to acquire new territory. it Lahore, the supreme local government of India would be with- drawn from the influence of European opinion, which predomi- nates at Calcutta, and immersed in the miserable contests and intrigues of the petty states of Afghanistan and the Himalaya. Can it be that a resuscitation of the Russophobia has prompted this scheme ?