Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-03-31 00:00:00

INDIAN WAR AND FINANCE,

THESE are subjects which, of necessity, must ever
go together. War cannot be carried on without
supplies ; and supplies involve a question of finance,
very serious, often very ruinous, before all is done.
" The sinews of war" are, in fact, its financial
resources ; and just in proportion to the activity and
energy with which the campaign is carried on, will
those resources, generally speaking, become ex-
hausted. We mainly owe our national debt to our
wars; and what a question of finance is there not
there ! One of the scourges of war is increased
taxation : an after-scourge, often, it is true ; but one
which is generally felt fur a long time, after its first
infliction.

Now, with respect to our Indian war, every suc-
cessive account we receive from its seat encourages
the hope that, gradually subsiding as it continues to
do, it will soon be at an end. We have just had
assurance made doubly sure, of the conquest, the
subjugation of Oude. As many as three hundred
and seventy-eight pieces of cannon have been taken
there—seven hundred and fifty-six of their forts have
been completely levelled—and the army has been
dispossessed of nearly a million of their arms of all
kinds. The character and extent of these captures
go to show how well provided the kingdom must
have been for warfare,—how formidable a warlike
neighbour we had on our Indian frontier. Still there
is more work for our gallant troops to do. The
Begum and the Nena, according to the latest
advices, were still in the Nepaul territory ; but they
do not, it seems, present a very formidable front.
Brigadier HORSFORD had just taken fourteen guns
from the rebels on the Nepaul frontier ; he was but
slightly opposed, and suffered no loss. Tne rebels
in Central India, under TANTIA TorEE, were re-
ported to be making for Pertabgurgh. They had
burnt Gassoonda, south-west of Jeerun. A telegram
from Indore had brought information that four
generals, several other officers, and 600 men of the
rebel force, have given themselves up to the Rajah
of Bikaneer. The troops of the Punnah Rajah in
Bundelcund attacked and defeated a body of rebels
at Al6ve. Such are, in substance, the accounts by
the last Indian mail. And although they show that
the rebellion is not yet entirely at an end, they yet
give renewed assurance of its drawing rapidly to a
close.

And now comes the question of finance
unhappily, is in a much worse condition than the

For the very vigour with which our troops
have encountered the rebels, has had the effect of
making all the greater inroad on the resources that
have had to be raised to defray the cost of the
operations. Some idea may be formed of the state
of our Indian finance from the fact, that the
expenditure which the struggle has occasioned will
not, it is now believed, fall far short of forty
millions sterling ! To meet this enormous outlay,
recourse has been had, unavoidably, to borrowing.
Increased local taxation has had to be imposed also.
But borrowing—and borrowing, in the emergency,
at a high rate of interest —has been the principal
expedient for raising the ways and means ; and now
it is ascertained that there will be a deficit to
provide for, even over and above the new loan, to
the amount of probably ten or , eleven millions more.
Nor is this, it seems,'the extent of the difficulty. It
is understood that the Indian Exchequer is in a
position of very considerable embarrassment, and it

is reported that at this present moment in some
parts of India the Government have been unable to
pay the salaries of their officials in full,—that, in

fact, they

have for some time paid merely

subsistence money. This is a state of things, then,
that is certainly not calculated to invigorate the
_cutive ; and should its influence unfortunately
reach the army. it might have a very disastrous
effect.

The real condition of Indian finance, therefore,
is somewhat alarming, both as respects the present
and the future. The debt has been increased by the
rebellion to upwards of eighty millions—nearly half
of it contracted within the last two years. About
twenty millions of this has been raised by loan, in
India and in this country. But financial difficulties
often propagate themselves, and thereby become
more and more formidable, without being acted upon
at all from without. And these difficulties, thus
augmented, in India, do not appear to have been
generally affected at all by the progress of our arms,
and the general approaches towards pacification ;
for, strange to say, coincident therewith, there has
been an increasing deterioration in Indian securities,
and an advance of the rate of interest, to the extent
of 14 per cent. Of course it is the finances of India
to which this state of things belongs. But now that

India has been made virtually an integral portion of
the British empire, it is impossible not to feel
anxiety at home for the liabilities of the Indian
Government, or to be quite free from the apprehen-
sion that they may have eventually to be thrown
upon the British nation. This apprehension —the
very probability of its being realised—ought to
suggest, we cannot but think, a timely examination of
the whole financial case. Lord DERBY has promised
to submit to Parliament documents bearing upon the
whole question, which will enable it to form a better
understanding than probably there is at present of