NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE end of the troubled and fruitless session of 1859 is now distinctly visible, and the White-bait dinner at Greenwich is looming in the very near future. Although there is much im- portant business to be wound up and more " innocents " to slay, it is understood that the session will terminate in eight or ten days. The House of Commons has long been painfully conscious that, as it could do nothing but pass estimates and impose tax- ation, the sooner it adjourned to the country side the better.
The Indian Budget is the forerunner of the session's close, and the Indian Budget and its accompanying debate we had on Monday. The long array of figures, detailed to the House of Commons with so much perspicuity by Sir Charles Wood, is not a pleasing procession. Starting from the promised prosperity in 1857, Sir Charles Wood took a desperate plunge into the midst of the terrible deficits of the Indian Exchequer. One after the other he fished up the astounding results of the mutiny and placed them in order with an effect that must have made the House shudder. He had to tell the tale of a debt which has increased upwards of 22,000,0001. in two years, and which in three years will nearly have doubled itself by springing up to 100,000,000/., with a corresponding increase in the interest thereof. He had to tell of the yearly excess of expenditure over revenue—an excess of 8,520,000/. in 1857-8, of 14,701,0001. in 1858-9, and of 10,281,5001. in 1859-60. The estimated figures for the last-named year show the deplorable state of the tise, for while the revenue is 35,850,0001. the expenditure is 46,131,5001., leaving a deficit of 10,281,5001. In order to fill up the gap, and seeing the impossibility under existing circum- stances of raising the sum required in India, Sir Charles Wood intends to follow the example of Lord Stanley and issue 2,000,000/. railway debentures, the remains of Lord Stanley's loan of 7,000,000/., and to issue a new batch himself amounting to 5,000,000/. In nowise dispirited by the gloomy picture he has painted, Sir Charles put a bold face on the matter, and triumphantly pointing to the recent increase in the Indian revenue—an increase partly derived from additional taxation and partly from augmenting trade—he terminated his speech with a flourish full of hope.
As to the future, Sir Charles finds that it is impossible to make any considerable reduction in any branch of the expendi- ture, except the military expenditure. On this point there was a chorus of agreement ; Mr. Bright, of course, taking the strongest views on the subject. Not so on the question of an Imperial guarantee. Sir Charles Wood had nothing to say no this subject ; but Lord Stanley went into the question, and showed an unmistakable leaning towards the grant of an Im- perial guarantee, at least in the case of future loans. Mr. Bright, on the contrary, was vehement in his objections, not be- cause he thinks that the people of India should pay for such pro- fligate wars as that of Affghanistan, but because he is of opinion that if the Civil servants of India once get their hands into the deep pockets of John Bull there will be no end to their extra- Vagance. It is clear that the question of an Imperial guarantee is no more ripe for decision, than Mr. Bright's comprehensive but problematical scheme for the establishment of an entirely new system of government in India. On the whole, the debate was
Inetruotive, and the House was deeply impressed with the in- - dignant exhortation implied in Mr. Bright's peroration, when he declared that it might yet come to be said of India that she had been avenged of her wrongs inasmuch as she had broken the power of England by imposing on her burdens greater than she could bear both in men and in money. It will be for a wise Government to avert that catastrophe, not by restoring Oude to its King, the Punjaub to its former rulers, Scinde to the Ameers, and thereby providing the material for endless troubles, but by adopting sound principles in the regulation of the finances, and in the enlistment and organization of the Native army.
Perhaps the most important statement in the course of the evening was that the Government had determined to send out an experienced financier to fulfil in India functions similar to those which are fulfilled by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in England. Later information tells us the name of the St. George to be sent to slay the great Indian dragon : it is Mr. James Wilson.
It is a sad commentary on the lack of wisdom which seems to abound in Calcutta that two days after this display of eloquence in the House of Commons we should have news of a serious mutiny among the local European troops. It has been almost the first duty of the Red Sea Telegraph to inform us that " the disaffection among the Late Company's troops is on the increase," and then to support the assertion by the startling fact that " at Berhampore they are in open mutiny, have entrenched them- selves in the barracks, and elected officers," and that " the Madras Fusiliers have followed the example of the Bengal troops." Such is the natural fruit of that injustice and breach of faith which handed over those troops from the Company to the Crown without so much as informing them officially of the transfer. The men are in the wrong to mutiny, but they are in the right to feel aggrieved. It is a remarkable fact that now, when the mischief is done, the Government have offered the troops who enlisted to serve the Company permission to take their discharge. Had they treated the men in a loyal and straightforward way, there would have been no dissatisfaction and no mutiny ; and the Government of India would not have had to retain a large number of Queen's troops to burden the exhausted finances, and would not have run the risk of exciting disaffection among the Native levies who, on a question of con- tracts, will all sympathize with the mutineers.
