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
7 itnes of that date :

India has been on the tiptoe of expectation for
mouths 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 loom, from which neither
zemindar 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.
The 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
3. Wholesale traders lO Rs. t, •

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 altogether,
and to raise the tax upon the third from 10 Rs. to
50 Rs., 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 pcT cent. upon incomes of from £2O to £5O per annum.
4 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 shouki
cause, we think, some shame to the English press,
for its utiwarrantable 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 mann=
facture of yarn in India. We are not sure, how-
ever, that the measure is an unwise one. The spin_
;ling 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 haye destroyed the indigenous
manufactures of India, and it would be an immense
gain to the country were a new manufacturing el.a
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.

ilre 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 a great convenience to the mercantile
classes, as little less than a millicn sterling of divi-
dends might be annually saved thereby, by setting

free the cash balances of the treasuries. But there is
this important consideration to be borne in mind,
that situated as India is—a country into which the
residuary flow of the precious metals constantly
pours—there is no reasonable hope that an issue
of paper money, unless it be carried to a very
large amount indeed, would lead to the exporta-
tion of a single ounce of bullion. Its addition,
therefore, to the currency will simply raise prices
by increasing the supply cf money, while the
country is already suffering severely from this
cause. The importations of bullion in the last 10
years have had more share than is generally sup-
posed in the rise of prices during that period ; and
while the west is forcing a stream of bullion upon
us, the establishment of a bank of issue in Calcutta
will be to place our currency between two force
pumps, with disaster to very numerous classes. It
may be urged in reply, that prices must rise in
India from the flow of bullion into it, any arrest of
which seems hopeless. The rise, then, being in-
evitable, will it not be wise voluntarily to lower
our currency by the introduction of paper, in the
hope that we may thereby stop the importation of
silver ? Issue notes to the flooding of the bullion
market, and whilst you arrest the stream that is now
pouring into the country, you will be introducing the
cheapest and most convenient medium of exchange
for the costliest and most cumbrous one. The
answer, however, is not satisfactory, and consider.
ing the inevitable effect upon prices of an issue of
paper in this country, we look upon the proposal
with considerable jealousy, if • not alarm. The
matter, however, is in very safe hands with Mr.
Wilson.

About an hour before the closing of the last
mail the following important notification, was put
forth by the local Government :--
NOTIFICATION.-FINANCIAL DEPARTMENT.

"The following telegram, dated Calcutta, 10th February,
from the financial secretary to the Government of India, is
published for general information

" ' Referring to the result of an account of subscriptions to
the Five-and-a-Half per Cent. Loan, published in a Calcutta
Gazetts Extraordinary of this date, and to the desire of the
Government not to exceed the stipulated limit of five crores
of rupees, the Honourable the President in Council has de-
cided to close the 51 per Cent. Loan immediately at all dis-
trict treasuries, and to limit the subscriptions at Madras
and Bombay, respectively, to a total of 80 (twice 40) lacks
of rupees in cash, leaving the balance to be subscribed at
Calcutta. These proportions have been decided upon ac-
cording to the rate at which the loan has been taken up at
the three Presidency towns up to this date, es far as has
been ascertained. You will please to publish the above in
your Official Gamette, and to report to this department, by
telegraph, as soon as the amount allotted to your Presidency
has been Subscribed.'

" Bombay Castle, 11th Feb., 1860."
We were unable to do more than enclose the extra
issued oy us upon receipt of this document to a
few of the leading home journals, but the modifica-
tion was doubtless forwarded to the Secretary of
State for official publication in England, The
notification appeared on Saturday about two o'clock,
and before four the whole amount allotted to Bom-
bay was taken up. The event was officially notified
to Calcutta on Monday, by the following telegram
from Mr. Secretary Ellis to Mr. Secretary
Lushington

" MONDAY, 13Tu.—Your telegram of the 10th received,
and notification issued on Saturday morning. The full
amount of 80 (twice 40) lacs allowed for Bombay was sub-
scribed the same afternoon, and the subscription is closed
at this Presidency."

The principle which ruled the allotment seems to
have been a just ono. The respective subscriptions
in the three presidencies up to the issue of the
notification, and the amounts consequently available
for each, were as follows :
Madras. Bombay. Bengal.
Rs. Rs. Rs.
Amount already sub-
scribed 63,64,000 62,64,100 2,95,56,000
Remaining valuable 16,36,000 17,35,900 44,44,000

80,00,000 80,00,000 3,40,00,000

The rush made by speculators in Bombay was
not more eager than that in Calcutta and Madras,
the loan being closed in all three presidencies the
day the notification appeared. The stock is quoted
in Bombay to-day at 2,1 to 21- per cent. pm.
On Sunday, the 12th instant, we received the
gratifying intelligence that the cable had been suc-
cessfully laid between Kurrachee and Aden, and
but for some interruption of the line between
Alexandria and the latter port, we should now be
receiving English news within five to seven days
of the dispatch. The nature and locality of the
interruption on the Red Sea have not yet trans-
pired, the Ottawa with the English mail of the 3d
instant, already due in Bombay, not having reached
Aden on the 22d instant, when the telegram which
informs us of the interruption was transmitted.

_ .
Our last issue announced the surrender of Cap-
tain Mecham's murderer by the Wuzerees of the
Kabyl Khail. He was taken to the spot where the
murder was committed, and there hanged.