The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-14 00:00:00

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Viscount Lorton's Estate Bill was considered, and ordered
for third reading.

ROYAL COMMISSION.

Colonel CLIFFORD, the Yeoman Ushor of the Black
Rod, summoned the members to the Upper House to hear
the Royal Assent given by commission to several bills, for
which see Lords' report.

PAPER (EXPORT AND IMPORT).
Mr. CHILDERS moved for returns of all paper and
stationery (exclusive of hangings), the manufacture of the
United Kingdom, exported to India, Australia, British
North America, and the Cape of Good Hope re-
spectively in the year 1858, or the last year
la which the accounts have been made up ; or
f:,,,,P_aper sad stationery (exclusive of hangings), being
vtgll or colonial manufacture, transhipped at ports in or
tod from the United Kingdom to the above British
possessions, du
ring the same period_; of all paper and sta-
tionery (cut, •
aije of hangings) imparted into Victoria, New
South Wales
lively, during Zelda' and the Cape of Good Hope respec-
year for which accounts had been
received, distir4,-niZtn
,t, ho country whence exported ;
and, similar return of all
tionery" only, if it hooks and stationery," or " sta-
British India. tall be ascertained, imported into
The returns were 'ordered.
,
EA.)I INDIANLOAN.
a
The house went inAo committee on this n
i;sur
Sir C. WOOD said!. that about a year agot was o.
to lay before the house the best estimate and hisoutlineduty
sinlicee
could give of the Indian revenue and expenlitur:
then two events had happened of a very different character,.
wh'ch he was bound to refer to. One was that a gentleman
well known to them all, Mr. Wilson, had proceeded to India,
to aid, with his fine mcial knowledge and experience, the
Government of Indi a in framing measures of taxation, and
in endeavouring to bring the' accounts and the financial
condition of India u &to a sounder poeition. The other was

rrosll.nr.is

that the Government of India, aided no doubt by N Er. Wil-
son's experience, had proposed, and no doubt by ti sat time
carried into law, the most important financial measures that
had been carried for some time. The statements of Mr.
Wilson, which were very much what the Chancellor of-the
Exchequer would make in this country, were so clear and
full, that he might dispense with all but a very short sum-
mary of those statements. On the other hand, the proposals;
of the Supreme Government had excited great opposition
and great criticism, and had led to a very controversial cor-s
respondence with the Government of Madras. The diver-.
sity of opinion and of statement was so great, that it was
not so very easy to unravel them, and he feared still more
difficult to render them intelligible to the house. The cor-
respondence on the table consisted almost entirely of that
which had taken place between the Supreme Government
and the Government of Madras in reference to these mea-
sures. The papers on the table referred also to the recall of
Sir C. Trevelyan. On that subject he hoped it was utterly
unnecessary to say a single syllable. Never in the whole
course of his political life had he so painful a duty to per-
form as to recall Sir Charles. He regretted exceedingly
that the necessity for doing so should have deprived India
of the benefit of services which would have been invaluable
in the presidency. His own request was that the whole
of the papers should be laid on the table of the house, to
enable the public to judge of his conduct. He could not
avoid also referring to the loss which both India and this
country had experienced in the death of Lord Elphinstone.
Before.,going into the income and expenditure of the year
he should refer to the deficit of the last two years. He had
been sometimes accused of taking too gloomy a view of the
finances of India. He could only say that his object always
was to present a true account of them to the house. On the
last occasion that ho addressed the house he stated the an-
ticipated deficit in April 1859-60. He was wrong in his es-
timate both of revenue and expenditure. Both were larger
than he anticipated, but the one so, far kept pace with the
other that the deficit was as near as might be as he had
stated it. He had stated the deficit of 1859-60 at £14,707,000,
whereas it was only £14,187,000. For last year he
stated the deficit at £9,281,000, whereas it was £9,981,000.
The estimated deficit for the two years was
£23,988,000, the actual deficit was £24,168,300, the
difference between the estimated and real deficit being
only £lBO,OOO. Snell extreme accuracy could of course only
be accidental, but he claimed credit for not having exagge-
rated the evils of the case. (Hear, hear.) He now came
to the revenue and expenditure of the last and present year.
The expenditure in 1859-60 was £45,890,000, the income
£37,796,000, leaving a deficit of £8,094,000. Adding to that
the guaranteed interest on the railroads, £807,000, there
was a deficit of £8,981,000, or in round numbers £9,000,000.
The expenditure for 1860-61 was £43,958,000; the income
£37,762,(100, leaving a deficit upon the Indian expenditure
of £6,196,000. .Adding to that the guaranteed interest on
the railways, £1,276,000, there being an increase of
£400,000, there rensained a deficit of £7,472,000.
There had been some controversies whether this deficiency
could not be made good by a reduction of the military ex-
penditure. But when the house perceived that the de-
ficiency was £7,472,000, and that the military expenditure
as estimated was £15,276,000, it would see that it was im-
possible to reduce that expenditure to so low an amount as
£8,000,000, which was £3,000,000 below the expenditure of
1856-57, when the mutiny broke out. Was any one so
sanguine as to suppose that the military expenditure could
be reduced £3,000,000 below the amount at which it stood
the year before the mutiny broke out? The estimate on
the table of the house proposed a reduction of £2,600,000,
and if to that they added a further reduction of £7,400,000,
there must be a reduction of £10,000,000 on the military
expenditure of the present year. It was impossible to sup-
pose that any such reduction could be effected. The Go-
vernment of Bombay proposed a reduction of £655,000, and
that of Madras, £591,000, making a total reduction of
£2,600,000, so that the remainder of the reduction, if it
could be effected, must be made in Bengal. The greatest
pressure had been put upon these governments to make re •
ductions. They were becoming aware of the necessity of
making them. The Government of Madras had reduced
its expenditure to the extent of £330,000, but the Govern-
ment of Bombay had actually increased its expenditure,
which was £197,000 higher than daring the mutiny. The
remainder of the reduction was effected in Bengal, which
was more susceptible of it. In the two last years the mili-
tary reductions altogether amounted to £6,000,000, of which
£3,400,000 was effected in 1859-60, and £2,600,000 in 1860-
1861. He confessed he was not sanguine enough to suppose
that the reductions could be carried on in a greater ratio than
that. Lord Canning and Mr. Doran both expressed their
opinion that the reductions could not safely be carried on
at a more rapid rate. Such was the state of affairs for the
present year. But they must of course look beyond the
present year, and see what the prospect of reduction was
for some time forward. They took 1856-57, the year be-
fore the mutiny, as a pattern year. Now, the increase
on account of pure military expenditure since that year
was £3,785,000. But there was besides this a sum of
£333,000, the cost of a certain number of provisional bat-
talions which were not under the Commander-in-Chief.
There was an increase of £141,000 in the cost of the troops
going out to India. The charge at home for the greater
number of Queen's troops in India was £1,195,000—
making the increased charge for the military expenditure
£5,454,000. But with the military charge you must more
or less include the increased cost of the police. The increase
in the police since 1856-57 was £1,024,000. The increase
in the military charge therefore was £6,478,000. There
was also another charge which was properly a militar y one,
namely, a charge for military buildings and barracks for the
European troops. The Ersopean soldier in India was a
costly thing, and it was not reasonable or fair that he should
be sent out to India without providing for him sufficient ac-
commodation and the means of preserving his health.
These barracks were so constructed as to be capable of de-
fence and of affording protection to ladies and invalids in
case of any sudden outbreak. (Hear.) This expenditure
had increased from £374,000 to • £1,827,000 in 1859-60.
There had been a stoppage of public works for civil pur-
poses during this time. As he anticipated that there would
be a mere transfer of this expenditure from military to civil
purposes, he did not think that any reduction of expendi-
ture could be looked for under this head. Since 1856-7
there had been an increase in the cost of collection of
£476,000 ; in the civil and political establishments of
£508,000; in the judicial establishments of £163,000 ; in
the public works of £452,000 ; and in various miscellaneous
items of £124,000. Upon these heads of expenditure he did
not anticipate any reduction. On the contrary, there was a
general demand for an increase in the civil and judicial esta-
blishments. The total of the increase in the civil charge was
£1,725,000. There was another item of increase which was
not susceptible of reduction, namely, the interest onthe debt.
The debt in the former period was £59,442,000, and the an-
nual interest £2,525,000. But we added to the debt so
much that at the end of the last year it was £97,851,000,
the interest on which was £1,461,000, being an increased
annual charge of £1,906,000. Beyond that, there is the in-
creased guarantee of the railways. The interest of money
advanced to the railways was in 1856-7, £404,000; next
.year, after deducting the receipts, it was £520,000 ; the
next year, £606,000 ; the year after, £807,000 ; and in the
present year, after deducting the receipts, £1,276,000 ;
being an increase of £872,000 on railway interest. The sum
total of this increased expenditure since 1856-7 was—
military, £5,451,000 ; police, £1,024,000 ; making a total
of £6,478,000. Civil expenditure, including buildings,
£1,725,000 ; interest on the debt, £1,936,000 ; guaranteed
interest on railways, £872,000 ; and out of these items he
did not see any prospect of reduction. The total increase of
charge was £11,011,800. During the same time the revenue
had increased partly by an improved revenue from old
sources, partly from additional taxation, by a sum of
£4,400,000, and it was estimated that this might be taken as
a fair specimen of the recovery of the Indian revenue after
the recovery from the effects of the mutiny. For the year
1861-62, therefore, supposing that no new taxes were to be
imposed, and that the increase of revenue was estimated at
£4,400,000, there would be a deficit of £6,611,000. Then of
course came the question how was that deficit to be dealt
with ? Were they to borrow ? Surely after what he had
stated to the house no man would be so unwise as to advise
an increase to the annual charge arising from borrowing.
(Hear, hear.) He thought the system of open loans had been
the greatest temptation to expenditure in India in former
years, and that the Government never would much trouble
theirheads about expenditure as long as that source of supply
was open to them. He therefore believed that the noble lord
opposite (Stanley), when he insisted on closing the open loan
system, conferred one of the greatest boons on India, for
it forced economy upon the Government. (Hear, hear.)
He believed also that the refusal of that house to guarantee
the interest of the Indian debt had a tendency of the same
kind. (Hear, hear.) These two things combined had the
effect of throwing the government of India upon their own
resources; and the fact that they were solely responsible
for the finances of India would be the greatest inducement
to them to practice that economy for which, he must say,
they had not hitherto been distinguished. Although at
first sight it might seem somewhat hard to make India pay
a higher amount of interest than she would do if this coun-
try guaranteed the debt, he believed that advantage would
be more than counterbalanced by the economy which must
result from the knowledge that India must rely on her own
resources. If, then, they were not to borrow, and if there
were no prospect of reduced expenditure, there was no other
alternative but the imposition of taxation. His conviction
was, after the closest examination of the papers, and with
the greatest anxiety to see his way to a practical reduction
of expenditure, that it was perfectly impossible, within such
a period as they contemplated, to effect such a reduction of
expenditure as would bring that expenditure within the
present amount of taxation. Various opinions had been
expressed as to the various sources of taxation. The pro-
duce of all the!existing taxes, customs, salt, opium, and
stamps, was included within their consideration. Some
hon. gentlemen seemed to think that the price of opium
might be increased, but the opium produced a net
revenue this year less by £576,000 than last year.
Surely it would not be wise to rely upon opium as a source
of income. Well, they had then to come to a scheme of
taxation. It would appear that a mode of raising a further
income in India had been under discussion for the last year
and a half. A bill was introduced in the council for the
license tax in the summer of 1859, and though the govern-
=mat of Madras objected to any additional taxation, yet a
decided opinion was
I was come for given by the Treasury that the time
the imposition of now taxes. As soon as