The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-07 00:00:00

and that surplus after paying the expense of the Burmese
war. But were they going backwards ? What was the
result of the present war? What was the sketch estimate
of 1852-3 ? The hon. member for Manchester was perfectly
correct in the amount he gave of the revenue. The sketch
estimate gave a total for the current year of 292,282,525
rupees, that was 29,228,2821. The charge amounted to
26,317,5261., showing a surplus of 2,910,726. (Cheers.)
But remember that India paid, and always had paid, a
heavy tribute to this country. But after allowing for that
tribute, the estimated surplus for the current year was
nearly half a million, including the estimate for the Bur-
mese war. He said a little while ago that if they prepared
figures in different cycles, unless there was something con-
secutive, that way of puttinethem would confound any-
body, and, above all, an assembly to whom they were ad-
dressed. The hon. member asked what was the case in
1835, again after five years, and again five years after that;
but he did not conclude, he admitted, with the extrava-
gant statement made by another hon. member when he
spoke of the bankruptcy of India. His idea of bankruptcy
must have been a whimsical one. When the hon. member
for Manchester spoke of the increase of the debt, what was
the use of it ? No use at all. If they had shown simul-
taneously with an increase of debt an increase of revenue
there would have been something intelligible about it.
The revenue had increased in proportion, notwithstanding
all the wars, and the proportion of debt to revenue was
greater than at any period the hon. member had dwelt
upon, as he thought, so triumphantly. The revenue is
now 29,000,0001. In 1834, the total debt, including the
bond debt, was 38,086,000/. Now, in round figures, it was
50,000,0001. There they had an increase in twenty years
of 15,344,000/. The increase in revenue was in an infinitely
greater proportion. In 1839, after some years of peace,
the debt was only 31,900,0001., and the increase from 1839
to the present time was 18,82,000/. He mentioned that
to show what India, could do in time of peace and what
India suffered in time of war. But who was responsible
for the war in 1839—was it the Court of Directors ? (Mr.
Bright—No.) No, said the hon. member for Manchester ;
he cleared the Court of Directors. (Hear, hear, from Mr.
Bright.) He believed they disapproved it ; but if that
were so, if the Minister of the Crown were responsible for
that war and for all the wars, was it not a strange mode
of remedying the evil to take away the power from the
Court altogether, and to give it to that power which caused
the wars ? (Cheers.) The Affghan war was not an In-
dian war ; it arose for European purposes, and it ought
to have been defrayed out of European resources.
(Hear, hear, from Mr. Bright.) Well, then, restore
the 15 millions that it cost—(laughter)—restore that
15 millions, and then call on them as loudly as they
pleased to diminish taxes and to increase public works.
But oppressed with debt, not oppressed, because they
Could not say a man was oppressed by debt who had
the means of paying, and what was a debt which did not
absorb two years' income. The Duke of Wellington was
gone, his voice was no longer heard in the walls of Parlia-
ment, no longer would he guide the councils of his sove-
reign and his country, but his wisdom would long survive,
and he would read to them what the Duke of Wellington
said when a question similar to that raised by the hon.
member for Manchester was discussed. The duke said,
" I will not presume to say how many millions of people
you govern. You have an annual revenue of twenty mil-
lions, and notwithstanding all the wars you have been en-
gaged in, its debt at this moment amounts onlyto forty mil-
lions, being no more than two years' revenue. Ido not
say that such a debt is desirable ; but at the same time I
do say that it is a delusion on the people of this country
to tell them it is a slur on the proceedings of a Govern-
ment which has carried on the affairs of the Government
with so much success." He had told them the cost of the
Burmese war. A great deal has been said about what
would be the expense of that war. At first it was said
the cost would be 150,000/. a month. The cost was
30,000/. When the further troops were sent, the estimated
cost was 50,0001. a month. He believed the extra cost
would not much exceed 100,0001. He held in his hand the
estimate for the Burmese war for 1552-3. The estimate
was a little above 600,0001., the whole expense of the Bur-
mese war. The hon. member made ono complaint about
the debt. He said they borrowed money to pay their di-
vidends in England. Suppose they did ; surely ho did not
complain if they had not money to pay their dividends,
that they should borrow it. They liked to be honest. But
the hon. gentleman was quite wrong, as the dividends
were the first charge on the Indian revenues; and if the
dividends were the first charge upon 20,000,000, how could
they say they borrowed money to pay the dividends?
Mr. BRIGHT.—I said you borrowed as much as would
pay the dividend.
Sir J. W. HOGG.—They did not borrow money to pay
the dividend. The hon. member said it for effect ; but his
desire was to take away the effect and to state the thing
simply and in an unglossed manner. It had been said why
were the dividends a first charge, and why should they be
paid out of the territorial revenue ? He said it was fair,
because when the compromise was made it was estimated,
but the amount of commercial assets spent in government
expenses far exceeded any amount that would be caused
by the payments of dividends. On this point he would
read to them a considerable authority. When something
similar was said in the House of Lords, Lord Ellenborough
said the East India Company gave to India, to its territo-
rial revenue, in diminution of its charges, a great part of
the result of its commercial assets. He thought India had
no reason to complain of that. The hon. and learned gen-
tleman had said his right hon. friend had glossed over the
question of land tenures. He (Sir J. Hogg) did not think
so. It was true his right hon. friend had not gone inao
all the details of those tenures, and God forbid he
should. (Hear, hear, and a laugh.) But the
honourable and learned gentleman had made the most
extraordinary complaint, not of the Court of Directors or
of the local government of India, but of that which was the
whole system of Asia. The hon. gentleman said, " Why,
you derive your whole revenue from land." To be sure
they did ; and it was the custom not of India only, but
throughout the earth—(hear, hear)—and the hon. gentle-
man must recollect that one of the political economists he
had himself quoted said that this system of drawing the
revenue from land was the best system of revenue in the
whole world, for under that people in effect paid no taxes.
the revenue being collected in the shape of rent. He had
heard and read much of late about tenures in India, but ho
had heard no single argument, nor received a single suggestion
which he did not find more powerfully put forward in the
minutes and reports of the government and public servants
at the very time that this tenure was formed. It had been
the fashion, he knew, to say that Lord Cornwallis settled
this question of tenure rashly, and that he sacrificed the
rights of the ryots. That was not true. Whatever might
be the opinion as to Lord Cornwallis's acts, they were not
taken without due consideration ; and certainly the rights
of the ryots had not been sacrificed, for no ryot could be
removed from his holding while he paid a fixed government
rent. Butt then it was said there was an annual revision,
and the consequence was that the ryot did not know in any
one year what he would have to pay in the next. It was
true there was an annual revision ; but tho object of that
was that the ryot should not be called upon to pay for
land which, from any cause, was not cultivated, and that
allowance might be made in cases of drought and other
circumstances which occasioned him loss. It had been
asked by the hon. and learned gentleman why not extend
the north-western system to Madras and Bombay ? Let
the hon. and learned gentleman ask Sir G. Clerk, Mr.
Halliday,. and others, who had spent the greater portion of
their lives in India. Had the hon. gentleman the expe-
rience of those authorities who were asked the question
before the committee he would not have asked the ques-
tion, but it was knowledge alone that made a man con-
scious of his ignorance. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. PHILLIMORE begged the hon. gentleman's pardon.
(Order, order.) He wished to explain. (Order, order.)
He had not asked that question.
Sir J. HOGG—It the hon. gentleman did not say so, he
had misunderstood• him, but he had taken down his words,
and certainly understood him to ask the question why the
north-west system was not extended to Madras and
Bombay.
Mr. PHILLIMGRE—What I did say was that it was a
proof that the old system was wrong, inasmuch as they
adopted a different ono in the new provinces, but I never
dreamt of saying anything so absurd as that the north-
western system should be extended to Bombay and
Madras. .

—Sir J. HOGG contended there was a system of revision
in connexion with this tenure. By the law of India every
Hindoo family was a joint family, and the tenure was joint,
and when the man died each member had a right to his
undivided share, so - that the tendency of the tenure
was always to subdivision, but this was a system
which, while it was well adapted to a rude state of
society, was not suited to a more advanced stage of civili
sation. The hon. member for Manchester referred to
cotton. Upon that subject he would touch very briefly,
for there had been a committee over which the hon. mem-
ber presided, of which he (Sir J. Hogg) was a member, and
in the report of which he was happy to say he, together
with the hon. member for Manchester, fully concurred.
That report described the exertions which the India Com-
pany had made to advance the cultivation of cotton in
India, sometimes with more and at others with less suc-
cess ; but, after all, the question of the cultivationof cotton
in India was one of market and of price. (Hear, hear.)
The Indians cultivated cotton for their own use and for ex-
portation to China, but they did not ship it to this country,
because it was well known that the market here depended
upon the goodness or badness of the crop of the United
States. If the United States crop was bad there was a
market here for Indian cotton but if the United States
crop was good there was not. If it really desired to en-
courage the growth of cotton in India, why did they not
make the market certain, as was done in the case of indigo,
the grower of which knew beforehand, that if he laid out
a certain quantity of land in the growth of indigo, he was
sure to be paid for his labour, and the charge of 2 cultiva-
tion. Sir T. Munroe, at the bar of that house, had said
that the cultivation of grain in India was more profitable
than that of cotton. Then the questions of income and
revenue were inseparably connected with the question of
the cultivation of cotton, but if in place of debating and
discussing the subject in that house, Manchester intelli-
gence and Manchester capital once found its way to the cotton
growing districts in the neighbourhood of Bombay and
other parts of India, and insured a fair price to the culti-
vator, cotton would be cultivated in precisely the same
way that indigo was. At the same time it must not be
lost sight of, that until they had a railway to Bombay, the
cost of bringing down the cotton to the place of shipment
would operate to a considerable extent against its success-
ful cultivation. The hon. member for Manchester also said
that as they had heard nothing of the condition of the ryots
in Bengal, they were doubtless worse off than they were in
Bombay, and he founded his statement on the reports of
Indian newspapers. He would refer the hon. gentleman
to an authority of the same description, the Calcutta Re-
view, which, in a recent article, saidithat what struck the
neyeses of on passing
thethrough
total Bengalabsence
wof asthaneyettunbgeraliknot fwruanittfulor-
famine, and the comfort and contentment of the villagers.
(Hear.) Then the hon. gentleman dwelt on the salt tax.
That was an onerous tax no doubt, but it was the only tax
the people paid. But here too the hon. gentleman quoted
the authority of an Indian newspaper, showing that the
people were in effect deprived by this tax of an impor-
tant necessary of life, and that notwithstanding the
system introduced the consumption of salt had diminished.
Quoting from the Friend of India, the hon. gentleman
stated that—" In the year 1849-50, the consumption was
205,517 tons; in 1850-51, 186,410 tons; and iu 1851.52,
146,069 tons. Thus, in the short period of three years,
there had been a decrease in the consumption amounting to
59,444 tons, which would involve a loss to the revenue of
416,1361. Salt was one of those articles that people would
use as much of as they could afford, and the diminution in
the consumption appeared to him to be a decided proof of
the declining condition of the population, and that must
affect adversely the revenue of the Indian government."
That statement startled him (Sir J. Hogg) when he heard
it, for if it were true, the deduction of the honourable
gentleman was irresistible. Salt was undoubtedly a neces-
sary of life to those who lived almost exclusively on vege-
table diet. The hon. gentleman said the duty had in-
creased, the revenue had diminished, and the consumption
had fallen off. But how was it possible for the consump-
tion to have fallen off while the revenue had increased with
a reduced duty? (Hear, hear.) But the hon. gentleman
might have informed himself better on the subject had he
taken the trouble ; for the same mail, and he presumed in