The "Indian Service as affecting the home The Indian spends his money in his own country; the Englishman remits it home, and when he comes away brings with him his pension, which, charges. doubtless, he has richly earned, but which forms. one of the most important items of the "homecharges," which Col. Chesney himself, in another place, is pleased to designate as "tribute" payable by India.* The resumption of the government of India by and the financial outlook of India. During the days of the East India Company the administration of India was periodically subjected to a thorough scrutiny, and various financial and other economical improvements followed in its wake. The Company was looked upon as a caput lupinum against whom every member of Parliament was at liberty to raise his theCrown, cudgel. The bare threat of a powerful minister was sufficient to bring the Company to its senses. Indeed, as we have already seen, it was the Governor-General, backed by the Cabinet, as represented by the President of the Board of Control, who played the chief part in territorial aggrandisement, which the merchant-rulers, in their anxiety for the dividend, always discouraged. The Secretary for India, as substituted for the President of the Board of Control, wields an enormous and irresponsible power; nothing now hangs over him like the sword of Damocles. He can override the India Council if he pleases; and he often does so. The public debt, which we saw to be before the Mutiny at £60,000,000, now stands at nearly £150,000,000, and if we * See Fawcett's "Pol. Econ.": "The Depreciation in the Value of Silver," p. 498. Again: "India is in the unfortunate position, that an increasing portion of her revenue, now amounting to one-third, is spent in England.' -IBID, p. 504. + See remarks on the Administration of Lord Wellesley. Another very deplorable fact in connection with this, is that less than one-eighth of this is held by the natives of India. include the capital on guaranteed railways, it swells to £250,000,000. The prospects of Indian finances are becoming gloomier every day.* In the words of Henry Fawcett : "The whole subject of the inadequacy of the control now exercised on the expenditure of the revenues of India is one that urgently demands the most careful investigation. Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than the present state of things. When the Secretary of State desires to avoid responsibility, he can shelter himself behind his Council; when he desires to act untramelled by their control, unhampered by their advice, he can ignore them as completely as if they did not exist." Alas! at a time when grateful India was watching his career with deep anxiety, Fawcett was snatched away by the cruel hands of death. The past history of India (under British rule) is a history of revenue wasted and domestic improvement obstructed by war.-SIR JOHN KAYE, famines. THE periodicity of famine is now fully admitted. Indian A blue-book lately issued by the India Office gives the number of its victims from the begin "Under these circumstances it is," says Mr Gladstone, "that we cannot find a day for the discussion of the Indian Budget earlier than August 13, when the House of Commons has already sat for seven months." ning of this century at sixteen millions-i.e., every five years one million of human souls perish from starvation. We have already shewn the necessity for providing against this contingency. An "Insurance Fund" was created; but the fate of it is not very pleasant to contemplate. IRRIGATION WORKS are the most tangible preventive against dearth. General Strachey, who is said to be the best history of authority on public works, has given to the world irrigation a book on this subject; but the bombastic and Short works in India optimistic language which he uses does not seem to be based on actualities. Sir R. Temple says, that on the whole the irrigation works return a dividend of 5-6 per cent. His statement is to be received with caution, because in the Deccan the water-rate and the land-tax are not levied separately. We venture to place before the reader what we have gathered from various independent sources. Up to the middle of this century gross and culpable negligence was shewn as regards irrigation and public works. We have always raised an enormous revenue, which has been spent in costly wars, having for their object territorial aggrandisement; of course, a portion being set apart to meet the dividends on stock. So utterly were we absorbed in the pursuit of selfish ends, that we allowed all the noble and princely works constructed by the former rulers to fall into decay. "It is in the territories of the independent native chiefs and princes that great and useful works are found and maintained. In our territories the canals, bridges, and reservoirs, wells, groves, &c., the works of our predecessors, from revenues expressly appropriated for such undertakings, are going fast to decay."-DR SPRY, "Modern India," 1837. "The Mussulman rulers are bold engineers in this respect; not only did they cover India with fine roads, shaded with trees, in places which are now tiger-walks, but they remembered the Arabic proverb, that 'water is the earth's wealth.' The irrigation was so benevolently attended to, that the fees for wells and artificial reservoirs were always deducted from the produce of every village before the government claim was paid.”ARNOLD'S Dalhousie," vol. ii., p. 279. Marshman tells us that Ranjit Singh, whom it suits our convenience to represent as a semibarbarous ruler, always advanced money to the purseless peasants to sink irrigation wells, and the latter punctually repaid the debt, which they considered as a pledge of honour. Sir Geo. Campbell, writing in 1853 ("Modern India"), says: "The sum devoted to public works, formerly almost nominal, is now much increased." "Si considerable que soint, depuis l'administration de Lord Hardinge, les sommes employeés à ces travaux indispensables, elles sont loin d'être en rapport avec le revenue de l'Inde." *-LANOYE: "L'Inde Contemporaine," p. 181, ed. 1858. At length, at the eleventh hour, the dreadful ravages of famine awakened our conscience, and nearly £20,000,000 have been spent in irrigation But the history of our irrigation works works. * Mr Bright said in 1858:-"With regard to public works, if I were speaking for the natives of India, I would state this fact, that in a single English county there are more roads-more travelable roads-than are to be found in the whole of India; and I would say also, that the single city of Manchester, in the supply of its inhabitants in the single article of water, has spent a larger sum of money than the East India Company has spent in the 14 years-from 1834 to 1848-in public works of every kind throughout the whole of its vast dominions. I would say that the real activity of the Indian Government has been an activity of conquest and annexation."-"Speeches." Edited by Thorold Rogers, vol. i., p. 42. Short account Public from sources. may be summed up in three words-bungling, mismanagement, and incompetence. Whereas the Hindu and Mahommedan rulers did not expect (or accept) a farthing as return on the capital, we could not be induced to proceed unless we were sure of reaping an abundant profit. "People say that these profits will average 20, 30, 50, or even 100 per cent. This I don't believe."Lord Lawrence to Lord Cranborne. Lord Lawrence was moderate in his expectations, but he says again: "Is it then not a kind of political suicide, cutting from under our feet one great resource which is available—namely, from the construction of irrigation works?" Proceeding on avaricious principles, we recklessly spent millions, and the result has been of Indian summed up with admirable candour by Lord Works Salisbury: "The difficulties which surround the various question of irrigation are very great. We can scarcely yet be said to have ONE genuine instance of financial success. The irrigating projects that have been carried out, if they had for their basis the former works of native rulers, have in many instances been a financial success. But, of course, the favourable appearance of the account has been obtained by not charging the former expenditure of the native ruler. In those cases where we have begun the projects of irrigation for ourselves, we have not, I believe, in any instance, the desired result of a clean balance sheet."* We know that on £9,000,000 spent on the Orissa works, a dividend of not even one-half per cent is returned, though the money was borrowed in the London market at about four per cent. *"In other words, the poverty-stricken peasants of the Deccan have actually to pay a water-tax! |