The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-02 00:00:00

Iright to fix a margin, and I therefore set this down as at
1 £1,000,000. Adding this to the 'suing wlttell'l have already
stated, the expenditure for the year 1859-60 will amount to
the sum of £46'131,500; With regard to the revenue, this
also is stated in the,paper to rvhich I have already referred,
which fixes it at £35;850,000, which includes the sum esti-
tirnated to be •raised'from the additional taxes which have
been imposed. I know that considerable objection hasbeen
taken to the increase of customs duties, and complaint has
especially been made in Calcutta on that head. lam not
one.of those wile approve of any increase in the customs
duties, but it was essential to the Government of India to
have money, and it was necessary to obtain it at once.
Under such circumstlinees+there was no course so expe-
dient to take as that of Mc-teasing the customs. Hence,
however much I may dissent from the mode, I cannot,
under the circumstances, but agree that the pressure of
events justified the course taken. The other item of in-
creased revenue was from the duty on opium. This duty
had been increased in Bombay from 400 to 500 rupees per
chest. These are the only increased duties for which I
have to account. The produce of the revenue in India for
the present year is, as I have said, £35,850,000, and de-
ducting that from the increased expenditure, it leaves a de-
ficiency of £10,250,000. lam afraid that beyond that there
may be a further sum. In consequence of what has taken
place in India we have not been able to push the railways
on so speedily as we'coidd wish, or so fast as we should,
but for the circumstances to which I have alluded, have
been justified by the amount of capital. ''The expenditure
for the railways there for the following year is estimated
at £8,000,000, :Ind the amount which has to be raised
for them will be £6,000,000. This will leave a balance
to be provided for of £2,000;000 ; and this; together
with; the deficit I , have already mentioned, with
a small margin for contingencies, will make a total deficit of
£12,500,000. Then conies the question, how am Ito provide
this sum,? Now, by the ateetints.to which I have referred,
the house will see that the 'lndian government expect still
£300,000 from the old Five per Cent. LoairsillOf that they
have since the accounts were made out, rrei?eitied £276,000.
Thelndian government also hate to receive of the Five-
and• a-Half per Cent. Loan, £5,600,000 ; but from the best
information which I can attain I am afraid they will not
receive anything like that sum. I hope however, that the
increased confidence ,which now prevails will be of advan-
tage in India to ourfinances, and that the sum of £2,000,000
which I have reckoned as receivable •on this head will not
turn Out as too high afigure. The nobledord also borrowed
the sum of £7,000,000 in the early part of the year. Of this
£5,000,000 had been issued producing a sum of £4,800,000.
Adding this to the £2,000,000 I hope to receive from the
-India loan the produce will be £6,80.9,000, and deducting
this from the deficit I have before stated, we have a sit& Of
£5,700,000. hills impossible foo me to say at what price I
shall be able to raise this amount by loan. The late admini
stration raised their loan at £B5. I trust that at the present
time the money market may be found liberally disposed to-
wards India. However that may be, I must take a censi-
derable margin, and I propose to take a margin from.
£5,700,000 to £7,000,000. I propose, therefore, to issue the
£2,000,000 left unissued by the noble lord, and to take a
power of issuing £s,ooo,ooo—this bill makes up the amount
to £7,000,000. I shall then, I hope, be able to meet the ex-
penditure of the ycarby this loan. At the end of the year
the Indian debt will amount to £95,836,000, the interest of
which will be the sum of £3,9130,000. I might here close
my statement, but 1 do not think it fair to the house to do
so. I think it right to state what the prospects of the ensu-
ing year will be. In the course of next year it will be ne-
cessary to provide for the increased expenditure caused by
the interest on the present loan. I think, therefore, it will
not be possible to put the expenditure at less than £46,000,000
Taking the revenue at the sum which the additional
taxation gives, I think it may be placed at £36,000,000,
which will leave a deficiency of £10,000,000 to be reduced
by the reduction of expenditure or by increase of taxation.
The house will, I am sure, agree with me, that it is indis-
pensably necessary that the deficiency should be met by de-
creasing the expenditure in every possible way. Any re-
duction must, however, depend necessarily on the state of
India. It is hence impossible to say what the reduction
may be. The reduction this year would have been large
had it not been fur the disturbance amongst the local troops.
which rendered it necessary to keep some of the Enropean
troops in India who would otherwise have returned home.
Any estimate which I present to the house must therefore
be taken as subject to any unforeseen contingency which
time may bring forth. Now the first item which may be
considered capable of reduction is the amount expended for
the civil service in India. I should deceive the house if I
held cut to them that any great reductions can be made on
this head. Ido not think it just or fair toreduce the sala-
ries of persons already- in the service. (Hear.) Some re-
duction inay,perhaps be made on new appointments taking
place,.but I am afraid that any reduction on this score will
be counterbalanced by the necessity to increase the number
of Etiopean civil servants in India. The next item of ex-
penditure is for public works in India. This is an item of
expenditure which I should ,be most,sorry to reduce ; but I
think Ithat some alteration may be made without stopping
those !works which are of large public utility: But, after
all, the great item onwhich a saving may be made must be in
the military expenditure. (Cheers.) Now, the amount of
troopain India before the mutiny was, of Europeans, 45,332,
and of natives, 249, 153- -making altogether upwards of 294,000
troops. The amount of troops at this moment is, of
Europeans' 110,320, and of natives 207,765—an increase
of 65, 00 Europeans, and a decrease of 42,000 natives.
To these there is to be added a military police force of
89,829! men. Taking these, together with the men in
depots, at home, the total army of India is 431,600. Now, I
think that the day of danger having passed the expensive
system of recruiting lately necessary, may now be reduced,
and a; reduction to some extent has been made already.
Hon. gentleman will, I think, agree with me in this, that
it is perfectly indispensable to maintain a larger European
force in India than we have hitherto kept up. I have no
doubt that the reduced European force in India operated as
an encouragement to the native troops in the late unhappy
mutiny. It has been said by Sir J. Lawrence, than whom
I know no higher authority, that the mutiny which has
taken place was entirely a military mutiny, though in some
places it was afterwards taken advantage of by disaffected
persons. I think, however, it is a very satisfactory thing to
find that, with the exceptions of the province of Oude, and
some surrounding territory, the inhabitants of India took no
part in the mutiny. Even there, I think, the part which the
population took was to be explained by the fact that the
Sepoys engaged in it were mainly drawn from them. Sir J.
Wilson says that he believes the late mutiny arose solely
from the conviction on the parts of the natives that attacks
were to be made on their religious ceremonies and belief.
From hat we learn, I think, that we must not give to the
native of India any reason to- believe that 'we are about to. •
i attack hose religious feelings or prejudices which they. hold
so dears (Cheers.) We must consult not only the interests
but the( feelings of the people. If we have a contented popu- a.
latian we shall require a lessforoe. Whereyeranetive force
was prisent there was 'disturbance; where there was none
there vies tranquillity. If we can reduce the army, then
we canireduce taxation, and in reducing taxation we shall
be taking the best security for the future content of the
kingdoin. But to what extent reduction may be carried it
is not very easily to calculate, and the different estimates we
have received only show how various are the opinions on
this important subject. Much light is thrown upon it, how-
ever, in a paper which has been transmitted to us by Mr.
Bartle Frere, the Commissioner of Scinde. (The right
hon. baronet here read the paper at some length. The
purport of it was, that the question of the
amount of force to be retained in India was,
after all, a question of finance, as It would be impossible
to retain the country with any force, however large,
which was obliged to be maintained with borrowed money.
The first point to be gained was to get our expenditure within
our income, after which, what with our vast naval, mecha-
nical, and other resources, the preservation of tranquillity in
India would be a problem of easy solution.) This I contend
is the principle upon which we must proceed, to take care to
keep a contented population, and not to maintain an army
of such an amount as can only be provided for by a con-
tinued series of loans. (Hear, hear.) The necessity of re-
duction in expenditure has already been enforced upon the
Indian authorities in various despatches written by the noble
lord opposite. In one he cautions them against entering into
any expenditure which is not absolutely necessary, adding
that they must not only consider their necessity, but their
expediency, at that particular time. It is obvious, says the
noble lord, that some reduction must be made in the mili-
tary expenditure which amounts to some twenty millions
annually. The suggestions of the noble lord wore at once
attended to, and it was intended early in the year to send ten
regiments home. 'Recent events have, however, rendered
it imperative that a portion of that force should be retained
in the country, but still I believe about eight have been sent
and are new on their way home. The military expenditure
of India before the mutiny.was twelve millions annually,
and itis' now twenty-one millions, making nine millions in-
crease. It is therefore upon these nine millions that a re-
duction maybe expected and although it cannot be reduced
to the figure at which it stood before the mutiny, it is
obvious that even leaving a considerable margin there is
still a good deal of room for reduction. Three or four mil-
lions at least I think may be looked for, but as the opera-
tion cannot be carried out until the Queen's troops have been
sent home, it is impossible to fix a time at which the reduc-
tion may be expected. Even the transport of these troops
would cause expense to be set against reduction, but, then,
on the other hand, much will be saved by our ceasing tomove
them up and down within the country. All I can promise
is that the utmost care shall be taken to carry out the re-
ductions with the greatest possible expedition. (Hear.)
With regard to the revenue, the Indian Government has
made a proposal to raise the salt duty in Madras and Bom-
bay, it being already sufficiently high in Bengal. We have
not heard to what extent it is proposed to be raised, but the
probable gain to the revenue is estimated at £300,000, The
Government has also undertaken to consider other duties,
and instructions have been sent out from home to charge
additional dutiesbg uatir
ilio
tono stamps,be estimatederived
h asfraorm licensesytehtteobs
these
e hawkers,been
ourc receiveda nI dhasa ovt noe
ntshuoecdcpoe:nosbbiotanbitsle,will be several hundred thousand pounds. But
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larWhichwithin
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pos-
sible
,when we have done all we possibly can there will still be a
considerable deficiency
bni
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odml i
toahi
done
el
ei
reotnnytothse
b, a
rne
bring
ande
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by
borrowedan d n until i 1 t h that imoney.a
The Tanjore debt will !next year be finally
extinguished,
and the profits of the railways will, Ihope, tend t di • '' h o minis
debt in that direction,but
how soon. that may take place it
is not for me to say. Qn the whole, lam afraid we cannot
expect to close the account of the mutiny without allowing
the debt of India to have been increased to one hundred. millions. (Hear, hear.) No doubt a considerable saving
might be effected if this country would consent to assist the
finances of India. (Hear, hear.) lam not going to make
any proposal to that effect, but circumstances may arise, when.
this may be a very serious subject for this house to consider.
The noble lord hinted at the probability of such a request
early in the year, and when I look, and the house looks, at the
circumstances I have stated to-night, it is not possible that
we should shut our eyes to the fact that if we do not mean to
lose our Indian empire we should be prepared ultimately to
assist the finances of that country. In the meantime means
must be adopted to put Indian finance under a better system.
In this country my right hon. friend at once finds the means
'and superintends the expenditure, whilst in India revenue
and expenditure are kept wholly separate. The party who
expends, if the revenue proves deficient, draWs upon Eng-
land, and the authorities who collect the revenue have
There could not possibly'be a more
no power to inteefere. The
fruitful source of irregularity, and therefore I think it would
be advantageous if some person well versed in the financial
system of this country, and our modes of raising money,and
Of spending it, were sent out to India. It is therefore the
intention of the Government to select some person and send
him to India to take charge of its revenue and finance, and
I trust the result will be to produce a better system of ad-
ministration than that which isat present pursued. If this
be done, and if we can meet the pressure of the next two
or three years, I have little fear of the revenue, because it
is a remarkable fact that the revenues of India have risen
in spite of recent events. In 1856, a year of peace, the re-
venue of India produced £31,700,000, and' in the subse-
quent year, when the mutiny broke out, it p!roduced exactly
na y
tboo ree xpyl: i
the same sum. In 1858-59 it was £33,800,000, being two
millions more than in the last year of peace ; and for the ' '
present year the estimated revenue is £35,850,000. There
is an increase in four years of no loss thaa four millions.
This, I think, ought to give one great confidence respestin