RESPECT OF PERSONS.
IT is edifying to note the difference of tone with which the in- vasion of the Punjaub by Sir HENRY HARDINGE is spoken of from that applied prospectively to the same contingency when Lord ELLENBOROUGH was expected to be the operator. Not that even in the case of the late Governor-General the invasion was regarded as other than inevitable, or that in the case of the present it is spoken of as exactly desirable ; but the stern enunciations of what strict morality would require, and the wailings on the necessity of adopting a more accommodating policy, are remarkably softened. Lord Euxasnonotrou would in all probability have been called upon to await an invasion from the Punjaub ; but now that Sir HENRY HARDINGE is in the saddle, "there is no reason why he should wait for a positive invasion from that quarter before commencing pro- ceedings, provided he can satisfactorily make out that an invasion is threatened." The Tories were terrified at the aggressive policy of Lord AUCKLAND, and the Whigs at that of Lord ELLEN- BOROUGH; but both appear to have made up their minds to tolerate an aggressive policy in Sir HENRY HARDINGE. Seinde is to be retained, and the Punjaub occupied ; and no voice is raised against this extension of territory. Yet the occupation of the Sikh territory will make us masters of the valley of Cashmere and of Peshawur, both of which have been wrested by the Sikhs from the Afghans, and which are still coveted by their former owners. On the frontiers of Scinde, too, squabbles with the independent Beloochees, for a time retainers of the Afghan monarchy, are likely enough to bring us again into collision with our old friends of Cabul and Can- debar; so the beginning which seems to be anticipated in the Pun- jaub, will in all likelihood lead to a felicitous combination of the AUCKLAND and ELLENBOROUGH schemes of aggrandizement. An illustration of the old adage that one man may steal a horse where another dare not look over the hedge. The only difference between Sir Harm' HARDINGE and his predecessors is, that some- how men have a notion he will steal with more discretion and occa- sion less scandal. Already the toleration of his clever " convey- ancing " is extended to them. The prospective pardon of his ag- gressions in posse is, in words at least, extended to the aggression in esse of Lord ELLENBOROUGH and in conatu of Lord AUCKLAND. An aggressive policy, it is now recollected, is a necessity of the position of an Indian Governor. And, with all this complacent resignation to our destiny to do evil, we are shocked at the feeble attempt of the French to emulate our career ! We, who have snapped up the whole empire of the Great Mogul, and pieced it out on the East, South, and West, with pilferings from Thibet and Ar- racan, from the Mahrattas and the Afghans, are horrified when France nibbles at the lands of the Dey of Algiers or the Shereef of Morocco! This is indeed picking the mote out of our brother's eye while we leave the beam sticking in our own. There seems to be a perspective in robbery as in landscape-painting : a trifling booty near at hand shows bigger than huge heaps of plunder at a dis- tance. Our political morality smacks of the convenient code of Evan Dhu—" He that steals a cow from a poor widow, or a stirk from a cottar, is a thief: he that lifts a drove from a Sassenach laird is a gentleman-drover."
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