NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE Viceroy of India has cut the knot of the situation in Baroda. By a decree, published on 23rd April, but signed apparently a day or two before, Lord Northbrook deposes the Guicowar Mulhar Rao from the sovereignty, and deprives his .4 issue "—the child born to Luxmeebaie five months after his marriage—of all right to succeed. The Government of India will select a member of the Guicowar's family for the throne, -and the widow of the last Guicowar, Khunder Rao, will be allowed to adopt him. Until he is of age, Sir Madhava Rao, the able administrator of Travancore, will act as Premier of Baroda. The Viceroy states that the Commissioners who presided at the trial being divided, Her Majesty's Government have not based this decision upon their report, nor have they assumed the truth of the imputations against Mulhar Rs.o. Their decision is founded on his " notorious mis- conduct, his gross misgovernment, his incapacity to carry out neces- sary reforms," and on their judgment that his restoration would be detrimental to his people, and inconsistent with the fitting re- lations between the Indian Government and the State of Baroda. The last argument, asserting, as it does, a new cause of removal apart from misgovernment, may be unanswerable, for reasons not yet revealed ; but remembering that Lord Northbrook, on 25th July, 1874, formally accorded to the Guicowar a term of grace "to 31st December, 1875," it is impossible to be satisfied with a decision which seems to involve a breach of faith.
