The Express.
London, England, 1861-02-02 00:00:00

lIIITAVNIA.

Tins swum, THR INUNCI AND THE DOKE Dews.
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Mr A. Uoaalas. lan M. Cisomfaid. —And 1 MLA:4MM YR.)II
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MON WANED AT LONDON MEWL
Too Dia —Derias ill 7fa .... Mifirsera, db. Ulm
Tuoessow—Nimiag. AOsnoto. Tl 51m.

LOYD(►V, PUTURDAY, FEB. 2.

Tn r. HanchesterChambordCommercecommence
their M mute on India with a very striking represen-
tation. They tell her MAJLI47OI government and
the Legislature that so many manufacturers' pro.
fits, so many merchants' returns, so many artisans'
wages depend on the contentment and tranquillity
of the people of India, that we cannot afford loose
administration, ruinous taxes, and wasteful
expenditure there. 41411er aspects of our con-
nexion with India may be more familiar to philan-
thropists and legislators, but this is the one
which, without excluding others, most impresses
the mind of Manchester. And a most important
view it is. The argument was not always so strong.
When the India trade was thrown open, our annual
exports to that country were under a million ;
whereas we have recently seen them approach
nineteen millions, exceeding in value a fourth
of the produce of that manufacturing industry of
Lancashire which Mr. BRIGHT justly considers
the most stupendous the world has ever seen.
The men of Manchester are thus the natural
enemies of the ins.,.,ri,uecc which neglects, the
wastefulness which exhausts, and the mal-adminia-
tration which oppresses the springs of Indian pros-
perity.
Manchester complains against the Indian Govern-
ment that it manages its income so ill as not only
to get deeper and deeper in debt, but to lose
the command of money. Thus driven to retrench-
ment, it manages its outlay so ill that it cuts off the
very expenditure which almost alone can be called
reproductive. Amidst the general indifference
shown to Indian topics in England—although

nothing is clearer than that we must all suffer
from the unchecked growth of the Indian debt—it
is satisfactory to find a body of men having an
interest in the question sufficiently special to stir
them up to urge this very serious view of the
fact& on the Government and Legislature. A de-
ficiency of six millions and a quarter occurring
three years after the mutiny, and the inability of
the Government to raise any further sums of
money in India, is assigned as justifying a reso-
lution to discontinue the execution of great public
works on which the prosperity of millions of our
fellow-subjects depends. Few people have any
adequate conception of the value of public works,
considered merely as a stimulant of revenue, in •
country so populous and agricultural as India. In
the famine year of 1837.8 the Western Juruna
Canal saved crops to the value of a million and a
half, of which one-tenth part was paid to the
Government as rent. Other works of this class
have in eleven years paid their cost in direct
canal revenue, besides adding immensely to the
fertile territory. The Godavery and Kilda&
Canal system has been truly recognised by Sir
CHAILLIA TIIIIVELYAN as " a source of wealth and
" strength and credit to the nation." Agricul-
tural improvement and means of transport are all
that is wanted to convert enormous districts into
sources of large revenue. Is it with expenditure
on objects of this kind that Indian retrenchment
is to begin 1 We trust not. It is the military
expenditure of the country that must be cut down.
It is impossible that, now when the era of war and
spoliation is over, we are held by any necessity
to the maintenance of 80,000 European and
300,000 native soldiers in India. We shall
see what the Military and Finance Commissions
appointed last year have to say to these
matters, and if the result is not a large
reduction of army expenditure it will be the
duty of people at home to inquire the reason
why. The taxation of India is not excessive, even
now that it has been increased. A little more
than 4s. a head makes out the revenue of the
country. If we only avoid deficit now, and by
keeping the public finances in order encourage the
application of capital to the soil, we may reason-
ably look forward to a time when a revenue equal
to the demands of • rapidly progressive civilisa-
tion may be raised in India with far less difficulty
than that which we find at present insufficient
to do much more than enable us to keep our hold
on the country.

The question in what way the money required
for the public works of India should be raised,
is one which should be well discusa,d before any
resolution is taken. The raising of "a loan, to
" be specially and exclusively applied to the re-
" antiphon and completion of reproductive works
" in hubs, under the control of a Board of Werke,
" to be appointed for each of the three ?real-
" dencies respectively," is an expedient which the
Manchester Conference recommend, for adoption,
" unless means are otherwise available." We
hope that whatever is done, the sale of land will
sot be resorted to. That land, prudently saved
and economically administered, may be made the
bulwark of our power in India, by enabling us to
give the natives the best of governments at the
smallest espouse the world has ever seen. This is
• poiat we have often urged, but it is still DOCell•
sari to repeat the argnment Government should
never part again with such bind as it retains or
can recover. So long as the laud is retained as
the property of the State, provision is made for
the needs of the State. The setthmient of the
country by European capitalists dues not imply
time absolute sale of land to them, any more then
does the cultivation of the moil by satin,.
Terme advantageous enough to invite eapitid and

labour can be offend without a complete surrender
of the sod. Let those terms be as liberal as can
be advised, but let the laud retest sooner or later
to the State for their readjustment. They are
sure to be made liberal from policy. The Covenr-
moot knows well that the way to increase the
revenue payments of a district is to bear lightly
upon it. If we ace a part of India where, together
with its commerce, its revenue payments have in-
creased, and ask how it has been treated by the
Government, we are sure to find that it is a place
where the assessment has been lowered, or that
some beneficial work, some road, canal, or restored
irrigation, has stimulated industry and invited en-
terprise. In the North-West Provinces, where
the British Goveniment demands 25 per cent. less
land tax than the native rulers did, tillage ex-
tends from year to year, and the prosperity of the
people is proved by the cultivation and revenue
going on during the mutiny.
We have said nothing about the new Indian im-
port duties, by which Manchester is peculiarly
aggrieved, only however because it is important
enough to demand a separate notice.