The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-21 00:00:00

INDIA.

'We have received our overland letters and papers
to the 24th ult. The following is from the Bombay
zinea of that date :

India has been on the tiptoe of expectation for
months for Mr. Wilson's budget, and we have at
last received by electric telegraph from Calcutta a
summary account of the measures proposed by that
gentleman in the Legislative Council on the 17th
inst. The budget is, as was to be expected, a com-
promise. The Licence Bill is not wholly aban-
doned, but sinks to a measure of the smallest
possible importance, while a bona fide income
tax is announced in its room, from which neither
zernindar nor landholder, soldier nor civilian,
is to be exempted. The duties on imports,
spasmodically raised to nearly treble their
former rates some 12 months ago, are as suddenly
lowered from 20 to 10 per cent. Several staple
articles of export are placed upon the free list,
while a duty of two rupees per Indian maund
(821 b.) is henceforward to be levied upon saltpetre.
Where India possesses a virtual monopoly of the
supply of any article, we doubt if any sound eco-
nomic reason can be adduced against the levy of an
export duty thereon, the chief, if not the whole
weight of which will undoubtedly fall upon the
consuming country. Where again, the ryot has
to compete with the cultivator of other lands, it
is undoubtedly wise to abandon all imposts upon
export, which pro tanto place him at a
disadvantage. This principle seems to have
guided Mr. Wilson in the new tariff; a single
exception, however, being made in the case of oil-
seeds, and, as we are persuaded, a very unwise one.
'F he license tax is retained rather from delicacy we
suspect to its original framers, than from any con-
viction of its propriety. The rates are now as
follow :

1. Petty artisans
2. Retail dealers . 4 Rs. "
3. Wholesale traders lO Rs. "

The objections against the levy of a capitation
tax upon the artisan class in a country where the
only machinery for its collection is so corrupt, are
manifest. It would, we are persuaded, be wiser to
strike the first class out of the schedule altcgether,
and to raise the tax upon the third from 10 Its, to
50 ltg ,or 100 Rs. Some uncertainty prevails in
Bombay as to the proposed rates of the income tax,
from a diversity in the messages that have been re-
ceived. We believe, however, it will be found that
our own telegram represents the true nature of the
proposed levy—

2 per cent, upon incomes of from £2O to £5O per annum.
per cent. upon incomes above £5O.
We are wholly in the dark as to the machinery
by, and the mode in, which this tax is to be levied.
We learn by telegraph that Mr. Wilson has not
opened :his plans in either respect to the Council,
and it is impossible therefore to say how the mea-
sure will be received by the country. To the prin-
ciple of the tax, now that the exemptions so invi-
diously insisted upon before are abandoned, there
will be no opposition anywhere, and the fact should
cause, we think, some shame to the English press,
for its unwarrantable attacks upon the Indian com-
munity for resistance to a bill now confessed to
have been conceived in injustice.
The home public will have some difficulty, we
imagine, in conceiving of Mr. 'Wilson in the cha-
racter of a Protectionist, and yet this new tariff, in
one very important item, is protective in a very
high degree. The duty upon cotton yarn, thread,
and twist is raised from five to ten per cent., and it
is hard to divine what can have suggested this sin
against principle, but a desire to foster the manu-
facture of yarn in India. We are not sure, how-
ever, that the measure is an unwise one. The spin-
ning mills of 'Western India are already competing
with those of Lancashire, and in the infancy of
their existence it may not be unwise to give them
this slight encouragement. It should not be for-
gotten that our mills have destroyed the indigenous
manufactures of India, and it would be an immense
gain to the country were a new manufacturing eia
inaugurated therein, under the guidance of Euro-
pean skill and capital. We have too long wrung the
country dry to look with much jealousy upon this
experiment of our new Finance Minister.
We learn, lastly, that Mr. Wilson has some plan
or other for introducing a state paper currency.
Now there can be no doubt that such a currency

would be u great convenience to the mercantile

classes, as little less than a million sterling of divi-
dends might be annually saved thereby, by setting