It is announced that Lord Dafferin will, "for private reasons,"
resign his Viceroyalty on or before the expiration of his fourth year of office, or possibly even in March, and will be succeeded by Lord Lansdowne, now Governor-General of Canada. It is reported that Lord Dufferin's health has broken, but it is much more probable that he is wanted for high office. Though trained to different work, and finding his immense executive power even burdensome, Lord Dafferin has been a successful Viceroy. He has placed the Indian frontier in a much better state of defence, has strengthened the Native Army, has managed the Native Princes wisely, has added a territory nearly as large as France to British dominion without fighting a battle to acquire it, and has thereby baffled the most aggressive intrigue in which for fifty years France has been engaged against us. These operations will cost money, but Burmah will pay, though the frontier railways will not ; and Lord Dafferin, though not a financier by profession, has avoided deficits, meeting them by a tax on petroleum and an increase in the salt-duty. The former is a positively new source of revenue, always greatly wanted in India ; and the latter, though not so easily borne as people say, was voted for by all the native members of Council.
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