The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-16 00:00:00

INDIA AND CHINA.

By the arrival of the Calcutta mail we (Tinges)
have received our private correspondence and files
of papers from Calcutta to the 9th of February

and from Hong Kong to the 29th of January.
The following is the letter of our Calcutta cor-
respondent :
" The position may almost be described in the
old telegraphic formula, 'lndia is profoundly quiet.'
There are riots in the Deccan, and riots reported
from Travancore ; there are Sepoys who still refuse
to submit in Behar, and ladies have been flying
from Hissar. But war, for the first time since May,

1857, has ceased. Not a movement has been re-
ported from Oude, and the people of that province
have at last comprehended their position, and re-
turned to their ordinary avocations. Here and
there a Killadar requires a menace and a few shots
just to satisfy his Rajpoot notion of honour; but
there is nothing approaching to resistance. 483
forts have been levelled, and in a few days the
number of arms surrendered will reach a million
stand.

Mr. Montgomery in a single night (20th January)
dismissed every member of the old police force,
which was as corrupt, as cowardly, and as inefficient
as the police everywhere else, and replaced them
by armed and drilled constabulary after the Irish
plan. Each division—a division contains usually
three counties—is occupied by a regiment of
mounted police, and three regiments of infantry.
The cities have a police of their own, aided by a
corps of trained detectives, and commanded by a
Kotwal or Mayor. The police are forbidden to re-
ceive confessions or take evidence, the only success-
ful precaution against torture, and the investigation
is left exclusively to the civil magistracy. The
landlords are compelled to give information of all
crime on their own estates, and the village police,
a band of ruffians who are the curse of Bengal and
the North-West, though not abolished, are
ignored. The magistrate, it is proclaimed, will
look to their master, the landholder, and not to
them. The new system is, of course, experimental,
but it contains many elements of success, and at all
events rids us of the vile traditionary police, who
had neither discipline, courage, organisaiiog, nor
honour.

" The new force is to be deprived of its muskets
as soon as the population is disarmed, and compelled
to rely on the sabre, the spike, and its superior dis-
cipline. The civil officers, I understand, are. not
pleased with the change. Men who have grown
up under any system, however bad, are seldom de-
lighted with its sudden and total abolition.
. " Tantia Topee has disappeared. He and his
men entered the desert of Bikanecr and have never
been heard of since. Apparently they have split
into small parties, but whether to disperse or to
reunite at some point still further to the north is
not yet known. Neither he nor Feroze Shah has
been captured.
" You will have received by the Bombay mail
the announcement of an issue of Exchequer-bills.
The plan has failed, and the experiment has done
some mischief. The rate offered, 51 per cent.
per annum, or three pice a-day, was so high,
that the Five per Cents. receded at once to 89a,
while the offer to pay them off at the expiration
of a year deterred permanent investers. The
class who in England buy these bills—men with
large balances which must be held ready at call—
will not buy them in India, for the simple reason
that they can make 8 per cent. by advances,
usually only for a few days, on Government
paper. The utter absurdity, also, of an open
loan at 5 per cent., and another at 51 per cent.,
daunted speculators, by making them believe a 6
per cent. loan imminent. The true reason of these
failings is the perverse secresy always maintained
by the Indian Government about its financial posi-
tion. No capitalist can obtain the smallest idea
how much Government is likely to want, or when
it will cease borrowing ; and confidence, particu-
larly among natives, is destroyed by financial coups
de theatre. Railway stock, always unpopular here,
has sunk with the Government notes, and we have
the absurdity of East Indian Railway stock quoted
in Calcutta at 89 and in London at 107.
"Your contemporaries, I see, are urging on gua-
rantees, on the ground that the consequent physical
improvement of the country will remove the deficit.
This is a mistake arising from a misconception of
our revenue system. If the State built the railways
and cut the canals it might be the case, but the
profits under the guarantee system go to English
shareholders. Even irrigation will not help the
deficit if private companies are to reap the profits.
The improvements will benefit the country, but not
the treasury. In Bengal, for example, whatever
happens we cannot increase the land-tax, that
would be a breach of faith. In the North-West
and Bombay we cannot increase it for 30 years,
and in Madras, though we have as yet no time
settlement, Government is conceding one as fast as
the land is surveyed. Guarantees will give us a
complete system of communication, a thing of in-
estimable value, but they cannot, from the nature
of our taxation, affect the deficit. If it is to be
met by public works, which is quite possible,
Government must do the work itself and take the
profit. It cannot allow the Madras Irrigation
Company to sell its water at full value and then
tax the ryots for the mere privilege of buying. If
the work is done by the State a financial equilibrium
is ultimately certain, and the only remaining ques-
tion is one of time. Can we live on loans for ten
years ? The permanent deficit, I repeat, will be
five millions a year, unless the native armies are
abolished; and an additipn of fifty millions to the
territorial debt, and probably of as much more in the
shape of guarantees, will make your boldest finan-
ciers pause. The Council may strug►gle for a time,
but the extinction of the native armies or a new
tax are the only immediate alternatives.
" Our communication with England is in a curi-
ous condition. The Peninsular and Oriental Com-
pany have not a single vacant berth before June,
and the overland route is in effect closed. Sir J.
Lawrence, for example, has been refused a passage,
and compelled' to go via Bombay, The amount of
annoyance, and often of positive suffering, thus
•• caused is very great, and the Company should
instantly put on extra steamers. They have one or
two to spare here, but the agent says he has no
authority to act without orders from England. The
rush homewards is unprecedented."

CHINA.

HONG KONG, JAN. 29.

The London mail of the 9th of December arrived
here, per steamer Pekin, on the 27th inst. The
Cadiz, with the outward mail, leaves at 9 a.m. to-

morrow.

Lord Elgin remains at Shanghai, and his future
movements are unknoivn.

At Canton affairs are more peaceful.

Since the expedition to Sliek•tsing the Braves
have given less trouble, and a naval expedition
sent to Fatshan was received in a friendly manner
by the authorities.
The following is a copy of a despatch (published
in the 'Government Gazette) from Lord Malmes-
bury to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty,
and by them forwarded' to his Excellency Sir
Michael Seymour :

" Foreign-office, Nov. 24, 1858.
" My Lords,—l have the honour to acquaint
your Lordships that I have been informed that
certain British merchants in China contemplate
the immediate despatch to Japan of vessels laden
partly with goods which, even if the treaty were
ratified, and the trade duly opened, could not
legally- be imported into Japan.
Her Majesty's Government would much regret
that the commencement of British intercourse with
Japan should be signalised by acts of smuggling and
any illegality or violence on the part of British
subjects, which, although they might for the mo-
ment be pecuniarily beneficial to the party con-
cerned in them, would tend to check the disposi-
tions of the Japanese Government to enter into
friendly intercourse with this country, to paralyse