THE PROGRESS OF INDIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XX, Issue 1164, 1 December 1863, Page 3

THE PROGRESS OF INDIA.

[ It is just six years since England was startled by the terrible intelligence of the great Indian Mutiny. No one at once reaj lized the full magnitude of the calamity, and before the most imminent danger was fully understood it had been averted by the siege and capture of Delhi. The relief and storming of Lucknow and the successful operations of Sir Hugh liose and Lord Clyde crushed the military revolt. But that revolt was in its turn succeeded by a financial crisis almost as terrible. The credit of the Indian Government was shaken, its military expenditure was enormously increased, and it almost seemed at one time as if the bark which had so bravely ridden out the storm was destined to go down at its moorings. Four years have elapsed since that time, and now we have the extraordinary statement which Sir Charles Wood made to the House of Commons last night. We are in the habit of considering elasticity as a peculiar quality of English finance, and of exulting, not without reason, at the manner in which our revenue survives the blows aimed at it by successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, and overtakes our increasing expenditure with strides still more gigantic than its own. But the progress of India is even moremarvellous than the progress of England. In the year ending the 30th April, 1862, it was estimated that we should have to encounter a Deficit of £600,000, a state of affairs in itself by no means unsatisfactory in comparison with former Deficits, and considering the tremendous crisis through which we had passed. But the fruitfulness of the revenue has most agreeably disconcerted these calculations; and we find that the estimated Deficit has been diminished by a sum of £544,000, that is from £600,000 to £56,000. For the year ending on the 30th of April last the result announced is still more gratifying, and the surplus amounts to £1,280,000* We have passed the days of deficits and inaugurated the era of surpluses with a sum of most satisfactory magnitude. With her income and expenditure so fairly balanced, and with a debt the annual charge of which is under £4,000,000 sterling, India may fairly claim to occupy a financial position inferior to no empire, kingdom, or republic in the world. There are numerous circumstances which render this statement of Indian finance particularly gratifying. In the first place, it is a rapid reaction from a period of great danger and embarrassment. In tho next place, this financial position has been obtained without giving ground for the imputation of shabbiness or breach of faith by any one. Public faith has been preserved inviolate, and the public service has been, as heretofore, liberally and handsomely remunerated. The army is on a thorough efficient footing, and has actually gained by a reduction which has struck off its rolls so many thousands of unfaithful and unwarlike auxiliaries. In the course of the las': year the Indian Government has found means to pay off nearly £3,000,000 of debt. It has, at the same time, had to pay heavily in the shape of guaranteed interest to railway companies, the lines and traffic of which are not as yet sufficiently developed to earn the sums guaranteed. It is probable that in a few years this heavy burden will entirely disappear; nor has this surplus been obtained by restricting the legitimate demands of India for great public works.. The language held by her Government is, that money to any amount shall be forthcoming for public works whenever labor and trustworthy superintendence can be provided and the work itself is of great public utility. So vastly has the demand for labor increased, and so rapid ] is the advance in the well being of the people, that the check which we have just indicated —the want of labor—is found far more efficient than is desired. When it is considered that these works are reproductive, many ot them to a very extraordinary extent, we have open to us another prospect of increase of Indian prosperity. We must add to this that the railways are rapidly approaching completion, that they are piercing more and more deeply into the interior of a mighty continent,- and opening up every month regions hitherto inaccessible to, European commerce and enterprise. The great increase o

i- the cultivation of tea and coffee, and the it very large extent of waste land which is purd chased by European settlers for the pure poses of this industry, are new and gratifying t guarantees for the progress of the Empire i. in the arts of industry and the lessons of e civilization. With such abundant resources the Indian 0 Government judges itself competent to ate tack and overcome the greatest difficulty which still remains unsolved. All this hap--1 piness, prosperity, and progress is due to } that European army the valour and discip--3 line of which maintain peace and tranquillity { amid so many lawless tribes and hostile 1 races. The army alone does not participate . in that general well being of which it is the t cause and the guarantee. The rate of its 5 mortality, even when all the deductions are . made which the ingenuity of Sir Charles Wood can suggest, is painful and discouraging. > All the good that we are doing, all the splendid success that we are achieving, can , barely compensate us for the heavy price of human life by which this splendid Empire has been won and is maintained. India has ; been an ungrateful land to her conquerors ' and protectors. Her climate accords but ill . with many constitutions ; but her climate is, . after all, only one, of a number of causes which conduce to this terrible rate of mor- . tality. Bad. ventilation, bad. drainage, illchosen situations and systematic neglect of the most., obvious laws of health have far more to do with the seeds of disease and destruction : than the, scorching sun of the spring or the drenching rain of the monsoon. The Indian Government is about to undertake the wise and humane task of rebuilding in better situations and on better sanitary principles the barracks for its soldiers, and of establishing Sanitaria in points which, after a careful survey, shall be found best suited for the purpose. It is believed that in this way the mortality of soldiers in India may be very greatly diminished, and this last relic of a former system be almost entirely swept away. We will only indicate another shade on this bright and happy picture, and that is the state of the Presidency of Madras. While Bengal yields a surplus of £9,000,000, the North- Western Provinces of £4,000,000, the Punjab of £1,400,000, and Bombay of upwards of £2,000,000, after paying the civil expenditure, the Presidency of Madras can only contribute towards , the general expenditure of the Empire and its military expense the paltry sum of £19,000. There is great injustice.in taxing all the other pro- 1 vinces towards the support of this the most ancient possession of the British Crown, possessing an admirable geographic situation, '> noble rivers, a varied surface, and a numerous ] and interesting people. It is not fair that > the rest of India should be forced to carry this old Man of the Sea on its back. This '< chronic state of inertness and debility must 1 be shaken off; and we know no subject i better worth investigation than the causes f which continue to keep Madras back in the 1 race of prosperity in which every other ] country in India is engaged. With this exception, the picture of our 1 Eastern Empire ought to fill us with almost 1 unmixed satisfaction. We have performed a 1 work mightier than Roman, Assyrian, or ' Macedonian conqueror ever attempted. To - conquer and to govern vast multitudes of 1 I the human race has been their lot as it has { been ours. But to govern them entirely for 1 their own benefit—to abstain from acts of 1 tyranny and rapaciousness—to apply the vast < revenues we collect for the good of the people * who pay them, reserving only a moderate ] compensation for the able and devoted men ] by whom this great work has been achieved * —is an honour reserved for England and for 1 England alone. Vast as are the effects { which we have produced south of the Hima- a laya mountains, they will, probably, before a long, be surpassed by the influence which a the spectacle of such a Government and * such a state of society as that now produced < by India are calculated to exert over the c Oriental mind. 8 For the first time Asia has seen under the c government of a remote and alien race a real a progress, material, moral, and social, resem- 1: bling in kind, if not equally in degree, the progress of the great European nations. To them India must appear a land of miraculous prosperity and happiness ; and even the unchangeable East, with such a spectacle continually before its eye, must be at last driven s to admit that there is something in all this I which puts to shame the past history and t present prospects of Oriental Monarchies, n Betore this spectacle we are encouraged to u hope that the stolid and dissatisfied pride, t. the inertness, and fatalism of the Oriental o nature may be subdued, and that one great p practical example may at last effect the social v and political regeneration of a people whose a stolid patience has worn out innumerable e rulers, and defied the power of time to change ti or to subdue it.—Times. 11