TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE INDIAN LOAN AND ITS ACCOMPANYING MEASURES.
As we have all along recorded the views we honestly entertained upon the Indian Army question, we are now ready with equal frankness to admit that the conclusion of that dispute imposes on us the necessity of making the best of it. It will be no satisfaction to us to prove that we were right, and the Government wrong. We shall be very well pleased to find that the reorganization of the Army tends to the security of India rather than otherwise, and although we may over and over again have asserted that the Queen's Army will be more expensive than a local force, we shall be highly delighted to find that measures have been taken to insure economy as well as efficiency. But this can only be done by prompt and effective measures of general policy as well as military organization. Sir Charles Wood is about to make his financial statement, and
already the city people are running about with those peculiarly long faces which betoken the odour of a Loan ; their fever being produced not by a dislike to a loan, but by the necessity of fixed melancholy to drive a good bargain with the loan-dispensing Minister.
What is the income ? What is the deficit ? How is it to be met?
We dare say we shall all know on Monday. But in the mean- while it may not be useless to discuss what hopes we have of im- provement from reduced expenditure in future years. We have seen so .many statements with regard to what may be expected from increased taxation, from increased wealth by irrigation, that we do not intend to inflict upon the reader our own ideas upon matters which have been so often discussed. Increased taxation, with increased wealth to be spent in red coats and bombs, fortifications and fumes, is not necessarily improvement. We hope to see fewer red coats, and fewer fusees. We hope to see irrigation and increase of produce flow and reflow over the land, instead of into the Exchequer. How is this to be brought about ?
In the first place, in seizing upon the monopoly of protecting the Indian empire, the Queen's army must remember that they have taken responsibilities as well as rights. They have asserted, and caused others to assert, that they are more efficient than local troops,—more handy, more workable. Only let us be forced to admit it. If that be the case, we should like to know whether the estimate which the Indian Government has made of requiring 80,000 men to defend India, is made for efficient men or inefficient men ? If they counted such men as they had, and those were inefficient, will not these Queen's forces be able to do the work with much fewer numbers? It may be anticipated that if the Indian Government wanted ten regiments of cavalry, of which one-tenth, at least, would be in process of formation in India, and the re-
maining nine-tenths in bad discipline, b seven regiments of Queen's troops would be amply sufficient. But if this be true as regards cavalry, it is still more obviously true as regards artillery. If India requires 15,000 artillery, of which at least 3000 are in course of training, we think it is clear that 12,000 Royal artillery would suffice. We believe that if the expense of depots in England is to be charged on the Indian revenues, you may entirely abolish the training depots for artillery and cavalry in India, if such exist. In old days, the Indian direction had rather an interest in increasing regiments and thereby increasing their patronage, or at all events it was said that they had. Now there will be no such interest felt. The Governor-General and his advisers, the Secretary of State and his, will have no interest whatever in doing otherwise than keeping down the expenditure. It is quite clear that these reductions cannot be made at once. Having, then, made reductions which can be made on account of increased effi- ciency, we may look forward to still further reductions on account of increased facility of communication. Preparations can be made for them as the railways advance towards completion. Reduc- tions in the number of regiments, when men can be sent at a moment's notice from Delhi to Calcutta, or from Bombay to Baroda, should be very large. But these are not the only reduc- tions. Carriage and commissariat will then be very different. These two items, as the work is at present conducted, are enormously large. They are very efficient, and the staff admirable; but their cost is fabulous.
Such are the reductions which, supposing the Calcutta Govern- ment calculation of 80,000 Englishmen be correct, are likely to be made. But the amount of 80,000 Englishmen is so very large that it is impossible to contemplate the yearly shipment of one- tenth of that number—say 8000 stout young men—without serious uneasiness. And we are naturally led to inquire whether no policy could be adopted which would diminish to some extent this enormous drain on our population and on the revenues of India ?
It is clear that an army is raised for some purpose: either to restrain interior treason or to repel external invasion. We must seek, then, for a foe or a traitor.
Of foes in India we may consider that there are three which are possible—lst, Jung Bahadoor ; 2d, an alliance of chiefs on the north-west frontier, aided by Russia; 3d, an European or American foe attempting to, wound us in India with the aid of the inhabitants. Now, it is quite clear that it cannot take 80,000 Englishmen, with an unlimited command of money, to resist the attacks of Jung Bahadoor. It is, we think, equally clear that
the advance of Russia to the South-east is not sufficiently rapid to make it worth while for us to maintain, for at least two cen- turies, a great European force to cope with her. The physical difficulties between Russia and the Pass of Khyber are far greater than those between London and Calcutta. And, when we come to count what it cost Russia to maintain forces in the Crimea we cannot believe that she is capable of a real campaign on the banks of the Indus. Well, then, we come to France and America com- bined. A force of 20,000 Frenchmen, with the choice of a landing- place and unlimited resources in the country, or with an unlimited will to take advantage of all the resources the country affords, would be an important foe to encounter. In such a ease, we should have to contend with them in diplomacy as well as in arms.
The failure of such an attempt would depend more upon the confidence placed in our rule by the princes and people of India than upon having 50 or 80,000 men ready to defend the country. The increased taxation which has been rendered necessary by the mutiny has been studiously calculated to dovetail in with the prejudices and wishes of the people. The Government at Calcutta have been able, by the industry of Mr. Wilson and the Indian experience of Sir Bartle Frere, to place the English institution on an Indian footing. And all accounts from Bengal at least now agree in a sanguine view of the ultimate success pf the plan. But there are other prejudices which we hope to see respected before Lord Canning brings to a close his chequered career of government. The people are to be taxed ; and for that taxation they have a right to ask for security in the possession of their rights and pro- perties. Now, the rights and properties of Natives are not exactly what they would be here ; and the laws which affect these rights and properties, absurd as they may seem to English politicians, must remain as secure as the rights and properties of Englishmen. That settled, the Natives will admit that they have not been taxed in vain. Now one of the most sure ways to secure this will be to give full sanction to the lex loci on the subject of adoptions, and at once to put it out of the power of the most enthusiastic Civil or Political officer to conceive it to be his duty to watch eagerly over the expiring members of an expiring family. The Native princes will then look upon our officials as just judges and referees and not as grasping heirs. But more than this, we may then confide in them other functions. We may hope that the course already begun by Lord Canning, of using the Native land- holders as magistrates, may be continued by conferring military rank on them. They will compare their present condition of se- curity with that which an attempt to subvert our rule would bring about. They will be eye-witnesses of our stupendous public works, of the increased fertility arising from irrigation, and the increased wealth arising from rapid communication. They will think twice before they accept the bribe of the stranger, or mix in the intrigues of the more ambitious of their fellow countrymen. We believe that such a course will enable us to defy whatever Asiatic jealousy may concoct or European complications may bring about. We are sure that without Native aid 80,000 Eng- lish troops are not enough; but we believe that, as 40,000 Eng- lishmen with the alliance of the country and its population were sufficient to defeat the French legions in the Peninsula, so with a confiding people and great feudatories, in good humour, we may stand our ground against the world in arms in our Indian posses- sions. With such a policy more economy will be possible than could be made by all the checks which the Audit Office and Trea- sury combined could produce. And much as we value the beauty of the Queen's proclamation as a mere composition, we shall rejoice in it far more when we see the great principles which are involved in it practically carried out to some great and righteous end.
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