The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-19 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MOND X. 17 EVENING MAY 'l9, 1862.

dreamed of imposing; probably necessity was his 1
real plea, as well as his avowed one ; the duty on
yarn is also reduced to 3 per sent. A ten per
cent, import duty on paper is also removed, and the
duties on beer, tobacco, and cheap wines are all
reduced. What English taxpayers will note as
much as anything is the abolition of the income-
tax on small incomes, and the re-enacting a four per
sent. tax on the larger incomes for a period of three
1 years, with the moral certainty that it will cease
in one year. _ _

But how is all this effected? Not entirely, nor
chiefly by the buoyancy of the revenue, but by
judicious economy of army expenditure, an economy
which has not impaired efficiency. In 1859-61
the army cost £20,909,307; in 1862-3 it will cost
£12,000,000! The native army of 350,000 sepoys
has been cut down to 125,000; the European force
from 90,000 to 70,000. The native army was
dangerous, requiring the large British army to
watch it. The British army in India is very costly.
Both are cut down, and the establishments con-
nected with them proportionably reduced. To
this chiefly, as must be the case in all States, the
reduction of expenditure is to be referred. And
these splendid results, we are assured, are attained
without impairing the efficiency of the army, and
after adding to the comforts of the private soldier.
It is hardly possible that such splendid results
from economical retrenchment in :India should fail
to make their impression here. All kinds of differ-
ences it will, of course, be easy enough to point out,
but the general lesson can hardly be lost. In 1859
India had " bloated armaments "—not adding to
her real strength, and disastrous to her Exche-
quer. She reduces the cost of the armaments
by more than £8,000,000, and finds herself
equally strong, in the military sense, while the
state of her exchequer is giving the rnoneyea
inhabitants a direct pecuniary interest in our rule,
and the humbler classes, an evident, yet obvious, in-
terest, through the votes for the public works
which are every way beneficial to them. No
such budget has ever before reached us from
India, not even in the days prior to the mutiny.

Attention is again called, in a very startling
way, by telegram, to the progress of events at
Warsaw. It is the old story, once more, of
course, but in new words, and with novel illus-
trations. Even the Archbishop, who has latterly
been striving to effect all the good that possibly
might yet be effected by conciliation—even the
Archbishop has now intimated to the head of the
military authorities there, in that ill-fated city,
that the Russian policy may be carried, soon
enough now, beyond the reach of further
endurance. In a letter addressed to General
KOZIZANOWSKI the prelate states plainly, in so
many words, that the continued persecution of
the people by the police, in the Churches, must
inevitably lead to deplorable consequences. Who
can doubt it ? Particularly remembering the past
history of Poland ! Experience has told the Mus-
covite Power as distinctly as possible, and this,
moreover, egain and yet again, that the Poles are a
long-enduring race up to a certain point. Approach
that limit too closely and even the iron rule of the
Czar is set at defiance as at the dropping of a spark
into a mine of gunpowder. Even, the adage says,
a worm will turn when trodden upon. The recal-
citration of a race proverbially heroic becomes
therefore perfectly comprehensible under circum-
stances of peculiar and especial irritation. Those
circumstances are surely just now multiplying
rapidly enough around the Varsovians. More
arrests, "numerous arrests," the telegram from
Thorn states, took plane on Saturday at
Warsaw. Upon the plea, too, of certain
prohibited songs having been sung, contrary to
orders, in the church of the Carmelites. And the
majority of these arrests, it is especially noticeable
—not this time among the students, but among the
women ! No wonder that we near immediately
afterwards of fresh conflicts with the police having
soon followed. Or of the Cossacks being encamped
in the squares and other public places suitable for
bivouacing. We shall look for the next tidings
with some anxiety. It reads now—as it has so
often read before—like the beginning of the end.
If only it could be the end of all these Polish
sufferings !