The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-26 00:00:00

THE INDIAN LOAN.

Our Indian Empire evidently stands high in the
market of British securities. Its Five per Cent.
Loan commands nearly as good a price as a share
in one of our first-class railways now paying that
dividend, and it is to be inferred that the British
public do not think worse of the dangers of India
than they do of the chances of depreciation in the
Great Northern or the London and North-Western
Railways. This argues either a very speculative
mode of reasoning applied to matters much out of
our grasp, or a singular distrust of Railway Direc-
tors and Railway Committees at Westminster. In
one respect the difference is the greatest possible.
There is no prospect of a great railway suddenly
disappearing, or drifting into space, with all its
branches, and stations, and its huge metropolitan
terminus ; but nobody can be blind to the chance
of our Empire in India being lost in a day,
particularly when it is remembered that the
system and many of the men at Calcutta are the
very same who, by their overweening secu-
rity, indolence, and arrogance, have dragged India
into two mutinies, and are safe to throw us into a
third at the first opportunity. They who shut their
eyes to everything which might give them nmo-
ment's trouble will always be coming into collision
with brick walls and lamp-posts ; and that is the
fashionable policy of India. It is fostered by the
belief that England, with its men and its money,
will always come to the rescue, and, of course, win
the day. But the history of all empires establishes
the truth-that this game is sure to be tt ied once too
often ; and, unless India is governed with more wis-
dom and consideration than it has been, the old
truth will receive one more illustration. But confi-
dence is contagious, and we can hardly be less con-
fident in the heart of our great metropolis than a
Viceregal Court surrounded by black and Nthite
mutineers, hearing of outbreaks every day, and con-
templating the most gigantic Treasury deficits.
How is it that the British public evidently rates
the insolvent concern on the banks of the Hooghly
as high as it does the origiinal shareholders' interest
in the chief means of communication between Lon-
don and Birmingham or Manchester? Two years
ago the Empire trembled in the balance, and a day
might have brought the news that every pound in-
vested in India or lent to its Government was gone
for ever. Why is all forgotten so soon ? It is to be
considered that a final catastrophe is not the only
danger. It is quite certain there must be more Indian
loans. Whenever the people at Calcutta see present
ease in one course and permanent cost in the other,
they are quite sure to choose the latter. The rate of
expenditure, already enormous, is threatened with
new wastes. Fleshed with British loans, the Indian
appetite grows and ravens for more. But every new
loan must draw down to its own level the existing
securities, and the amount which a lender has to
consider is not that specious driblet which a finan
tier may represent to be all that is nece sary, but
the total evidently required before the finances of a
country can be restored to a healthy condition.
What, then, is the chief source of this confidence
in Indian securities ? It is that they are assumed
to be British rather than Indian. England is to
pay it all at last. Everybody takes it far granted
that England has undertaken India, and that means
debts and all. He concludes that he will get the
benefit of Indian insecurity and British certainty,
and so defeat the famous warning of the Duke of
-Wellington to his soldiers after the war, that " good
interest is only another name for bad security."
There is probably not one purchaser of this loan