The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-01 00:00:00

COST OF THE INDIAN WAR.

(From the Friend of India.)
The year of mutiny 1857-58, cost the empire in
round numbers nine and a half millions sterling.
That at least is the official statement, but so extra-
ordinary are some of the items of the account that
we are tempted to disbelieve even a blue-book. It
will be perceived that the decrease in the land
revenue is just £2,000,000 being £200,000 more
than the actual loss on the land revenue of the
North-West, which amounted to £1,800,000. This
and the loss on the salt in the same presidency
formed the only serious revenue losses of the
year, and 50 per cent. even of these are made up
from the increased profit on opium. A fact
more indicative of the strength of our revenue
system we have rarely seen. In a convulsion such
as has seldom been recorded in history, with the
North-West Provinces " actually lost," the revenue
declined by a sum less than 7 per cent. upon the
gross income of the State, less by hundreds of
thousands than the revenue loss produced in Eng-
land by the recent monetary panic ! The fact is
a pleasant one for the holders of Indian funds.
The revenue which passed almost unscathed
through 1857 will scarcely be affected by
anything short of our expulsion. It is fortu-
nate that it is so, for the expenditure shows four
great items of increase. The civil expenditure
has increased by a million and a half, principally
from carrying to,that account the £1,174,649, the
cash actually taken by the mutineers from the
treasuries. The military expenditure, notwith-
standing the disappearance of the old army and
the old pension list, has been enlarged by four
millions and a quarter, the cost of military build-
ings by half a million, and the home expenditure
by two millions and a half. The total of excess
over last yearofter stopping public works, is seven
millions. Nor can this represent the whole truth.
No outlay had in this year been made for property
destroyed, for compensation, or for the new
police corps, three most serious items. The
expenditure for police, indeed, had scareely
increased a pound. Nor apparently had the
transport bill been paid. The whole charge
is put down at' £776,000, or about £l9 a
head—an impossibility. Even if part of the cost
of transport were paid out of the next item, " Pay-
ments on account of her Majesty's troops serving in
India, £1,175,000," the total will not be in excess
of the truth. Taking the whole account, how-
ever, as it stands as a fair representation of
the fact, it justifies the foreboding of our corre-
spondent " C." We lost last year nine millions
and a half. This year we have as much to lose,
minus the cash stolen, but plus the pay of about
70,000 new levies and police, plus some 600.
new staff appointments, plus the rehabilitation
of nearly exhausted arsenals. There is ten more
millions added to the former. Add at least five
millions for property to be renewed, for compensa-
tion, and for accounts left unadjusted, and the
mutiny, even if it ends this cold weather, has added
25 millions to the debt. That is, at 5 per cent.
£1,250,000 added to the permanent burden. Add
the cost of 45 extra battalions of Europeans, or say,
with our new masses of English cavalry, not less
than £3,500,000 a•year. Add the £900,000 of the
old deficit in 1857, and we have increased interest
of debt, £1,250,000; increased military cost,
3,500,000 ; old deficit, £900,000 ; total, £5,650,000.
In other words, a permanent deficit of five millions
and a-half, to be met by the surplus of Oude, when
it comes, and the vrofits of the half-dozen jaghires
and pensions forfeited before Lord Stanley restored
IMnr

PRESENTATION OF COLOURS TO THE 14TH REGI-
MENT. BY Tl 4 COUNTESS OP EGLINTON.—The Dublin
Freeman of yesterday gives an account of the presentation
of the colours to the 2d Battalion of the 14th Regiment of
Foot by the Countess of .Eglinton. The
_presentation took
place in the square of the barracks at Richmond, in the
presence of the Lord-Lieutenant and a brilliant staff, to-
gether with a large number of the elite of the city. Sir
James Alexander, the colonel of the regiment, in returning
thanks to the Countess of Eglinton, alluded to the excellent
reputation which the regiment had achieved in the foreign
campaigns, and expressed a. hope that his young fellows
would emulate the deeds of the old second battalion, and
preserve pure and.unsullied the beautiful-colours which had
been presented that day. A grand dejeuner ended the pro-
eedlltEs.