Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-02-21 00:00:00

PEACE IN INDIA

THE great blessing of peace having now, it is
hoped and believed, been restored to our Indian
dominions, it becomes the Government not only to
consider how this most happy consummation of its
arduous endeavours to re-establish the supremacy
of British rule is to be maintained, but how, more
especially, those great mistakes are in future to be
avoided which both led to the recent rebellion and
rendered its suppression so difficult. Peace has
not been restored, as we all know, without a fearful
struggle, or without an enormous sacrifice, both
of human life and precuniary resources. In little
more than two years, somewhere about twenty
millions sterling have been expended directly
upon that object. How much it has cost in one
shape or another, indirectly, is at present beyond
all accurate calculation. But there has, for
instance, inter alia, been a loss of revenue from

non-collection, amounting, with the destruction of
property, to nearly six millions. The loss from the
interruption of trade and agriculture must, of course,
be estimated. The financial condition of India has
therefore been made very critical. Its debt is now
This incumbrance has risen, it

a serious affair.

appears, from £16,600,000 in 1800, to £55,900,000
in '56-'57, an increase which however absolutely
large, has not kept pace with the increase of re-
venue from £9,200,00D at the former period, to
£31,300,002 at the latter: The present amount of
the debt, including all liabilities, is £74,000,000.
As a matter of course, it has been very largely
increased by the long series of wars in which we
have unhappily been engaged. It is, in reason, to
be expected that, at least, this debt will not now
be further increased, if it cannot be much dimi-
nished. There will surely, as a natural consequence
of peace, be a considerable decrease, gradually, it
may be, but surely, of the amount of outlay,--the
more particularly as the present deficit, which,
on the past year alone, is not far short of ten
millions, has principally arisen from the extraor-

dinary military charges incident to the,war. It is
to be hoped that not only will the present military

stablishment not be permanent, but that its

'eduction may be such as to tell very materially

in favour of an improvement in the financial
interests of the empire. The European army now
amounts to 91,530, and the native troops to 13,952
the former having been doubled, and the latter
considerably augmented, in consequence of the
rebellion. / But as this great augmentation took
place for a specific and very urgent purpose, which
has now been served, there seems to be no good
reason why the army might not soon be reduced
to almost its former dimensions. The whole
deficit that has to be made up were of itself
sufficient to call for the most rigid economy. It is
calculated, we find, that the income for the current
year will be £33,015,000, and the expenditure
about £45,629,000, shewing a deficiency of
£12,600,000, making a total deficit to be provided
for of .Z 21,700,000 since the rebellion. And this is
quite irrespective of the amount that will have
to be paid as compensation for loss of property,-
-which, however, will to some extent be met by
the confiscations that must take place.

There is every reason to hope that India may
now become so prosperous, if only tranquillity can
be fully restored and perpetuated, as to furnish,
in no long time, ample revenue for all its needs,
great as they may now appear to be. The
introduction of railways, the extended irrigation
of land, the greater security of landed tenure, and
the consequent increase of agricultural and com-
mercial enterprise, can scarcely fail to have a
powerful effect, in bringing things round to a,
prosperous state. But in the endeavour to
promote the material progress of the country, let

us trust that higher considerations will not, as

unfortunately has hitherto been,too often the case,
be altogether, or, indeed, in any degree, disregarded.
This great fact has been demonstrated, it is
evident, by the rebellion which has threatened to
drive us away from that country, after so long a
possession of it,—the fact, namely,, that had we
only presented ourselves to the natives in a more
Christian character tl*n unhappily we had ever
vouchsafed' to do; they never would have thought
us the demons they appear to have done. But we
professed a religion, the precepts and the obliga-
tions ot which were seldom, or never practically
illustrated before their eyes. In some respects,
the morality of their own gross superstitions was
shewn to be positively greater than that which our
own diviner system was producing. Christianity,
therefore, was frequently represented to them,
in its practical influences, as something very like
a sham and an unreality. Their own idolatries
have at least the merit of sincerity and earnestness ;
and " they not Unnaturally, therefore, 'judged
the Christianity of England by the same
rule which they exemplified in their own religious
profession. Not that we would, for a moment,
think of such a thing as proselytizing. The
superstitions of India are only to be overcome by
the influences of conviction ; and such conviction
must be allowed to grow in their minds-4t cannot
be forced ; while nothing can so surely proinote
its culture, as their seeing and knowing the force
of Christian truth by the charities of Christian
life. Ours is a religion which certainly, and often
silently, says to such idolators, in the persons of its
professors, " I shew unto you a more excellent
way." But then this more excellent way must be
shewn, not in words only, but in deeds also,

deeds as individuals, and our deeds as a Christian

nation

THE PREPARATIONS . FOR WAR.

THANK GoD it is not England, on this occasion,
that is making preparations for War ! England
finds it necessary to increase and improve her
naval armaments, not for purposes of attack, but
only in self-defence, should need be. The alarm
of war which the French Emperor has raised, has
rendered this more than ever indispensable ; and
the consequence is, that the country will be put
to an enormous expense, but for which it is pro-
bable there would have been some remission of
taxation. We find, with reference to this necessity
of putting the British Navy into a more efficient
state, that while the last vote, for the financial year
1858-9, according• to the revised estimates, and
including the supplementary .vote of £30,000 for
dockyard labourers, amounted to £8,851,371, tie
estimates for the present year amount to £9,813,181,
—chewing a net increase of £961,810. Thus
nearly a million sterling is required in our naval
department alone, for the purpose of meeting the
apprehension the EMPEROR of the French is
creating on the subject of war.
England's great consolation is, however, that it
is not with the object of engaging in war opera-
tions that her Naval armaments are to be augmented,
'bat to defend her own interests against the
influences of such operations on the part of another,
—of him of whom we read in the French correspon-
dence of the journals of the day, that " although
many days have elapsed since the delivery of. the
Emperor's Speech, the same state of alarm and
uncertainty continues to prevail in Paris. Military
preparations continue on both sides of the Alps,
and an impression actually prevails that before two
months have elapsed hostilities will have broken
out." Such is the feeling of anxiety and alarm
now prevalent in Paris,—and not there only, but
eve: a large portion of the continent. And the
effect of it is to create great depression in the funds,
and to throw the trade of the country into a state
of. stagnation. The Emperor—he who has pro-
claimed so boastfully that his Empire is peace-.-
has raised a war cry which the enemies of peace
are taking up and re-echoing in all directions ;
improving upon his Majesty's declarations in
various warlike ways, even to the naischievous effect,
as we see it expressed in one of the Paris journals,
under Imperial sanction, of course, " that when an
exhausted nation, rife for liberty, holds out her
hand to France, it is the right and the duty of
France to assist her,—at first by diplomatic means,
and in default by arms,"—a sentiment most detri-
mental to the peace of Europe, but which France
is proceeding to illustrate by taking up arms, and
inciting Sardinia to do so likewise, against the
Emperor of Austria. The French ruler is showing
more and more determinedly his feeling to that
Gni.

Among the latest intelligence we have from
France, it is mentioned, for instance, that the
musketry practice, which does not usually begin
till May, is to commence forthwith in the
army of Lyons, and that the Commandant-

in-Chief in

Algeria, fro:n which colony so
large a portion of the French army has been
brought home; has receivel instructions for the
formation of a secondary division, in case of war.
w th Austria being decided upon,—that apprehen-
ded war which the French Emperor is doing so

much to provoke.
No wonder that Austria, too, should be girding
01 her armour. Troops in abundance are being
posted, and whole batteries of artillery are being
set down, at every weak point of the southern
frontiers. The military strength of Austria in
time of peace is represented by 40 ),009 men, but
in time of war by 750,000 men ; and it is said
that this larger amount of troops is now ready to
take the field. The Austrian navy is necessarily
less for,nidable. It is composed of 135 vessels,
arm 33. with 852 guns, and manned by 8,707 sea-
men. The navy is of very recent creation, find
is inferior in strength to the navies of the two
leading Italian powers, Sardinia and Naples. But
the war, which France is provoking with Austria,
will be carried on by the armies, not the navies of
the belligerents ; and Austria would appear to be
fully prepared for it in that department.
Austria, however, is doing nothing that can j us-
tify France in the hostile attitude that she has
assumed. She is acting, in what she is doing to
the affected offence of France, according to treaties
by which, she is bound. But then when one sees
it stated, under Imperial approval, that " these
treaties, drawl up to serve priyilte interes ts?

THE -NORTH-ERN Milk& MONDAir; PERRUARY-N, -1859

cannot be held as a sufficient ground for disturbing,
the general treaties conceived by a general interest,"
it is evident that treaties are to be regarded but as

so much waste paper, wh
has to be gratified... Austria, it is true, does what
is distasteful- to France in having troops
in Italy; put, she has „them there at
the request of the Italian Governments.
And surely, as the case has been well put—" the
.right of the Austrians to occupy Ancona is quite
as good asthat of the French to occupy Ro'nie and
Civita Vecchia." Let LOUIS NAPOLEON himself
set the exiaaple, and th3a he May with all the
better grace, ask his Imperial' brother of Austria
to go and d 3 likewise. Sardinia only enters into
the case as part and parcel of the means employed
by France against Austria. Her preparations
for war are, according to- her circumstances,
greatest and Lmost threatening of all. But it
is to be war. :which France will direct---
in which Sardinia will be a cat's paw. The
French Empetor has his own ends to gain by it.
And hence the hopelssness of any reasonable
overtures to disconrage that object.

e a covetous ambition