A meeting was held at Brighton on Tuesday to receive
an address from "the _native inhabitants of Bengal "--that is, from some of them, to the people of Brighton, thanking them for the attention paid by their representative to the wants of India. Two natives addressed the meeting, and one of them, Mr. A. M. Bose, an Undergraduate at Cambridge, is said to have produced a strong impression on the assemblage. His speech as read seems to us full of eloquent sentences in perfect Eng- lish, but a little viewy. His points were that England might, if she misgoverned India, find in her a larger and more dangerous Ireland ; that England could entrench herself against Russia in the hearts of the people more easily than behind fortresses ; and that India desired to share in the blessings of representative Government, to be, however, gradually and cautiously intro- duced. Apparently he would at first have representative bodies only deliberative, to act as a regular machinery for bringing the complaints of the people before the Government. He was strongly in favour of admitting natives to the Civil Service by examination in India itself —which would be to give Bengalese a monopoly of office—but above all, he desired more atten- tion to be paid to India in Parliament. He would have a few nights every Session devoted to her affairs. As we are unable to believe that the affairs of any country can be benefited by being talked over in a meeting composed of men utterly ignorant of that country, we should prefer a scheme for giving the Council of India open sittings. The truth is, however, that any reform in this direction must be made in India itself, where, it should not be forgotten, natives may call a deliberative Parliament if they please.
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