The Express.
London, England, 1860-05-05 00:00:00

INDIA.

We have received papers from Bombay to
April 11. The 'nest important incident of the
fortnight is the publication of certain strictures of
the Madras government upon Mr. Wilson's pro-
posed financial measures. The Bombay Times says :

In a minute remarkable for the quiet strength which per-
vades it, Sir Charles Trevelyan records his emphatic dissent
from the manures now before government, and protests
in common with Mr. Maltby that the three tremendous
taxes of which the budget animists are at once needless, and
impossible of exaction, but at the wet of another rebellion.
There is no man of our times so much entitled to be
heard with deference upon the subject of Indian
finance as Sir Charles Trevelyan, and there is no
conceding the fact that the minute has already brought the
budget into wide discredit, and threatens to unite all classes
in opposition thereto. It is beginning very generally to be
felt that in our haste to escape the incompetent uffininiatra-
, tion of the Legislative Council we have too readily accepted
the confident assurance of Mr. Wilson ea sufficient gua-
rantee of the wisdom that was henceforth to guide our
finances. There is of course no greater liking for taxation
in India than elsewhere; but with Sir Charles Trevelyan 's
warning in our hands, that a revision of the estimates and
reduction of the native army is all that is required to make
our income equal our expenditure, while we avoid the
odium and disaffection that will arise from the im-
position of them new taxes, we may be pinioned
for giving this timely protest our cordial support.
Sir Charles Trevelyan points out very Jamey that no plea
of emberramment can be urged in defence of the present
measures, while the cash balances in the country amount to
nearly 20,000,000 f. sterling, and afford ample room to cover
any deficit of the coming year, though it should finally be
found to equal the 6,500,0001. apprehended by Mr.
Wilson. But in point of fact the whole issue mimes here.
The Madras Governor affirms confidently that, under an
effective revision, the present income of India will be found
equal to its expenditure. Owing to a radically faulty
in which, from the very lint, the expenditure of
reteix7=try has virtually been without control or check,
our military expenditure has at last grown up to the
enormous amount of twenty millions sterling, accqnling
to Mr. Wilson's rough figures. The annual expenditure
of so vast a sum, without previous estimate or post revi-
sion of any effective kind, is a truly monstrous state of
ftri; and the present period of embarrassment suggests
scity the propriety of Sir Charles Trevelyan 's oft-reite-
rated demand, for let it be remembered that this protest is
but a repetition of what the Madras Governor has over and
over again placed upon record, inn far as it treats of the
necessity of imitating the English system of annual esti-
mates. Instead of finding Mr. Wilson alive to the import-
ance of the demand, we find him positively countenancing
the loose and unsatisfactory system that °ruts, and assuring
us that he himself has a "dislike for prospective b=gets.•
Would he have ventured to say that in parliament? What
was the labour of Humes lifetime but the perfecting of
prospective budgets" and eliminating therefrom every
shelling of =revised sad needless expenditure!