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

An Indian debate in August ! Members, how-
ever, indemnified themselves for their numerous
muster on paper duties by taking leave of absence
from Sir C. WOOD'S budget—not more than thirty
of them at a time honouring him with their pre-
sence during the debate. Yet there is no small
reason to fear At vigorous and competent manage-
ment alone can save India from becoming to us
what Algeria is to France—that we may have to
pay heavily for the honour of governing India.
What a change of our notions from the
time when India was thought of only
as the land of diamonds and rubies, of
gems and of hoards of untold treasure. The sad
fact now is, that the chief interest we feel about
India, in a political point of view, is—how to re-
dress the deficiency in its revenue. After all Lord
STANLEY'S sanguine calculations, and Sir C. WOOD'S
endeavours to put the best face on things, and the
sending of that finance machine, Mr. JAMES WIL-
SON, to grind down the deficiency, and to grind
revenue out of classes who have hitherto been
exempt, or nearly so—Deficiency—Deficiency—is
still the Report, and seems likely to be so.
There is, indeed, a future which is to help us ; only
it seems like that almost unserviceable tense of the
grammarians, the Paulo post Future. It has
always, yet, been a little in adTance of us. We
were pushing on towards a balance just before the
mutiny ; that came down on us and deranged all
things. During the mutiny, we are informed, the
revenue increased, and we were released from the
enormous charge for a Sepoy army ; but, not only
did a doublei European army swallow up more
than the revenue, but we found ourselves saddled
with a new and costly army of natives, Sikhs
for the most part, who actually outnum-
bered the old Sepoy army. Again, Mr. WasoN
sets to work. He found that the extraordinary
expenses of the two years terminating last August
had caused a deficiency of £24,000,000 for both
years together; and that this year, after such
trivial economies as were conceded, he had to face
a deficiency of 17,470,000, including guaranteed
interest on railway capital—about one million and
a quarter. We have repeatedly heard how bravely
Mr. I,VILsoN set to work to create new taxes; India
was to learn the advantage of an Income Tax ;
of licenses for trades of all kinds ; of a to-
bacco tax, now commuted into a less un-
popular tax on the trade itself of tobacconist ;
but all, it seems, will not avail. This year the
proceeds of the new taxes, as might be expected,
will not be more than about £1,000,000; but in
the year ending April, 1862, they are expected to
yield £3,500,000. Still, even so, the deficiency is
such as would send down Consols apace did it oc-
cur in our own revenue. It will be considerably
more than £3,000,000 after all What is to be
done ? Must the revenue rise to the expenditure,
or the expenditure humble itself to the state of
the revenue ?

For the present year it is plain that some extra
provision must be made. Sir CHARLES will ask
power, therefore, to raise £3,000,000 by loan, should
he want to use the power. He hopes, however,
that he shall not need it. We may well wonder
where he has found
a mine which will fill up
such a financial void. It is from the Indian rail-
way payments that he hopes to obtain the funds
-which will obviate the necessity of using the power
to raise a loan. The Railway Commissioners are
expected to pay in £7,000,000, while not more
than. four or fee millions of it will be wanted io
India. But then, what is to be dote with the omi-
nous fut Why Sir CHAni,Es actually has"hopes
that the G 3verLiment of India will make an earnest
effort still further to reduce the deficit." The ex_
travagantly paid Civil Service cannot, he thinks,
be reduced in cost ! The army he thinks may.
One would ti kink so too. The military expenditure
for the current year is not less than £17,000,000, for
the police £2,ot )0,000, exclusive of buildings, for