The Sun. — 1844-01-06 (London, England)

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY 'EVENING, JANUARY 6, 1844.  ing a decrease in the year of 64,9451., and in the quarter, 38,1011. The Taxes, also, have decreased on the year 83,1061., and on the quarter, 17,306/. The Post-office, while exhibiting a decrease on the year of 13,0001., has increased in the quarter 2,0001. On Crown-lands there is a decrease both in the quarter and year; and in the Miscellaneous there is an increase of 1,055,3301., with a decrease on the quarter of 9,620/. The total ordinary revenue, including Imprest and other Moneys, is 50,071,9431. ; while, in 1843, it was 44,329,8651. We are gratified on seeing these results, because they prove that, under the greatest difficulties, this country shows her immense strength and activity, and is prepared to meet every danger. Sir ROBERT PEEL now has a surplus, and he can afford to abate some of the most obnoxious taxes.  The plans in active operation in Hindostan, Sinde, and the Punjaub, cannot fail to excite some interesting discussions in the ensuing session. Every additional information from these quarters, together with the circumstances in which the Indian Government is placed, however, only lead to the conviction that the great measures in progress will receive a deliberate and impartial consideration at the hands of nearly all parties, and that it will be generally admitted that the occupation of the countries bordering on the Indus is the result of necessity and not of choice. Most persons who have viewed the extent of our dominions in India are quite satisfied that they are sufficiently large, and that it would be desirable, under ordinary circumstances, to confine them to the limits settled within the last ten years ; but if it become a question whether it is safer to extend them, or to risk the loss of those already attained, no man can hesitate for a moment as to the alternative. We have powerful and restless neighbours in the west. The Punjaub would be a rich prize to a body of Affghans, Persians, and Russians ; the Governments of these countries or their agents have made no secret of their intentions ; and England would justly be regarded as guilty of cowardice and suicide if she allowed any Power whatever to take possession of districts_on our frontier absolutely necessary for self-defence. We want no more territory, but we want to preserve what we possess ; and unless we have the thorough command of the Indus, from its source to its mouth, and the great tributary branches ; unless we can raise a strong barrier against encroaching neighbours, and use these rivers not only for trade but for protection, the peace of some of the most valuable districts would not be worth two years' purchase. This is the view of the question taken by the two great parties in the State. For this purpose the Whig Government, at an enormous expense, sent an army into Caubul, and the Tories have the same object in annexing Sinde to Hindostan. The Whigs, in fact, have the merit of discovering the plan, and their opponents have the merit of carrying it into effect. What madness, then, in a Whig journal to attack Sir C. NAPIER and Lord ELLENBOROUGH for doing what Lord AUCKLAND fully intended, and wickedly magnify the sickness of the brave Sinde army for party purposes ! In the Chronicle of yesterday we find these words :—" Sickness has ingloriously decimated the gallant army under Sir C. NAPIER in Sinde. Of 8,504 men, composing the garrisons of Hyderabad and Kurrachee, 3,856 were sick. ' The malaria of Sinde,' says the Bombay Times, 'is much more formidable than the snows of Caubul.' Any position on the Indus, after its fall, must prove fatal to the occupiers ; and thus the boasted conquest of Lord ELLENBOROUGH proves nothing but a pestilential grave." Why will this paper not leave Sinde alone ? Why will it heap coals of fire upon the heads of its patrons, and compel impartial readers to contrast the sickness of Chusan, and the heart-rending disasters of Caubul, with the partial and temporary sufferings of our troops in Sinde ? "Sickness has ingloriously decimated the gallant army of Sir CHARLES NAPIER!" Who ever heard of a glorious decimation ? But what did the withdrawal of Sir Joust KEANE, with the best of his army, and the appointment of General ELPHINSTONE, do in Caubul ? The troops were not ingloriously decimated by sickness, but they were ingloriously defeated by an enemy that common foresight and common bravery might have set at defiance. They were not confined to their barracks and hospitals by the inclemency of the climate, or by diseases brought on from natural causes ; their General and their officers gave them up to the enemy without a struggle ; when in the snare, they were slaughtered like noxious animals, and out of fifteen thousand men, women, and children, only one reached Jellelabad to tell the tale. But what is more, they were located in a country where every man's hand was against them, leaving no excuse for a surprise ; while the decimated troops of Sir CHARLES NAPIER are hailed as friends, and their sickness, which the lying writers in the Bombay and Delhi papers seem to exult in, is as much lamented by the natives as by every true-hearted Englishman. We have given extracts from these papers, as in duty bound, but at the same time place little confidence in their statements. They are exaggerated to an enormous extent. No writer who says that the army of Sinde could be overpowered by a handful of Beloochees, is a friend of his country, or to be believed upon his oath. Of the same stamp is a paragraph in the Canton Press, which states that " the Plenipotentiary loses no opportunity of denouncing the gross iniquity of the invasion of Sinde; and on this question there is, perhaps, no man alive more competent to give an authorative decision than Sir