TOPICS OF THE DAY.
WHO IS LIABLE FOR THE BILL?
WE cannot, as yet, vote with the Liberal party about the expenses of this Afghan war. The Government, un- doubtedly, speaks with two mouths, Lord Beaconsfield talking grandiose Imperialism, while Sir Stafford Northcote speaks only of measures taken in self-defence ; and it is unhappily only too probable that the Ministerial argument in the Commons may prove hereafter to have been one of those "diplomatic state- ments" which have replaced the frank information that British statesmen were accustomed either to give or to refuse. We do not like the assumption so calmly made by correspondents with General Stewart's column that it is going on to Herat, or the suspicious and, to us, unintelligible smallness of the war esti- mates forwarded from India. Sir R Temple, the Governor of Bombay, is one of the most far-sighted men in India, and his order abruptly stopping expenses for public works throughout his Presidency shows that he does not believe the war will involve only an insignificant outlay. But if government is to go on at all, we must either turn out the Ministry, or assume that it reveals its present wants and purposes to the House of Commons, and on that hypothesis the financial policy proposed by the Cabinet on Monday is, to the best of our judgment, wiser than the alternative one suggested by its opponents. It is absolutely essential to the welfare of India that she should be self-supporting, for from the day that she imposes a burden on the English people, their willingness to retain so costly a dependency will begin to decrease. They are fretting even now, though Lord Beaconsfield does not see it, at the subordinate relation which the United Kingdom is assuming towards India ; and if they have to pay heavily for the privi- lege of being towed in a direction they dislike, they will very speedily be disposed to cast off the tug. India must pay for herself, her own defence, and her own frontier arrangements, if India is to be safe and cool under the British shadow ; and the only question is whether this Afghan war is, or is not, her exclusive concern. The representatives of the Government in the Commons say it is. They affirm, in every variety of phrase that they are seeking a more secure frontier for India, and they declare that the frontier being secured, their object will be achieved ; and if they are sincere, they are right in asking India to pay the bill. To do otherwise would be to proclaim that henceforward the British Treasury would bear the expense of Indian wars, and so release the most aggressive and martial community in the world from its only effective restraint. We detest the war in Afghanistan, as unnecessary, inexpedient, and oppressive, and strongly suspect the Ministry of waging it not for Indian ends, but to prop up their own declining reputation with the fire-eating section of their party. But all that is reason for turning out the Ministry, not for relieving India from her liabilities. The British Government, subject to the control of Parliament, must, so long as it holds India, decide what is wise for India, and in deciding must be taken to represent the Indian population. Short of conceding a Parliament to India, there is no other way of governing the country, and nine-tenths of all the arguments used in Monday's and Tuesday's debate are not arguments for sparing India and taxing England, but for turning out a Government which is devoting the resources of India to an unwise end. If we ought to conquer the Suleiman at all—which we deny—we ought to do it for India and at the expense of India, and that is what the Ministry say they are doing. We do not half believe them, or believe them at all ; but Parliament does, as it proved by its vote on Friday week,—and so long as it does, it is only consistent in granting Indian money to carry out a policy which, for the sake of India, it has approved. The thing to be fought was the policy, not the mode of paying for it.
But the frontier war may expand into a grand struggle, a struggle with Russia, instead of Afghanistan ? Very true and very probable, but then the Ministry meet that suggestion with a reply which, if we could only believe them as we used to believe British Governments, would be completely satisfac- tory. If the war does so expand, they say they will propose to the country to meet the expenditure for a policy which will then be Imperial, and only in part specially local to India. Sir Stafford Northcote gave that pledge formally and dis- tinctly, and there is no answer to that, except that the Ministry is reckless, and not entitled to be trusted even when making pledges ; and that is just the answer which Parliament refuses, as yet, to give. The answer; good-faith being granted, is a perfectly reasonable one,—much more reasonable even than the Ministry altogether see. The whole of this dispute with Russia is an Indian one. But for India, we should have no more quarrel with Russia than with Scandinavia or the planet Mars, and should care no more about the Eastern Question than we care about the Italian question, or the question of Austrian extension, or any other question which affects us only in common with the remainder of the world. A logician might fairly argue that India ought to bear half at least of all the expense of sending a Fleet to the Sea of Marmora, and the only answer to him would be, that India not being consulted on the terms of her union with England, it is right, as well as expedient, to be generous to those whom we, for- our interests as well as their own, deprive of their right of veto. The British Government, in promising to meet every expenditure- not rigidly local, or declared by the precedents of former wars to- be local, acts with sufficient generosity ; or at all events, with the degree of generosity which experience has sanctioned, and Parliament by the votes of a century past has consistently ap- proved. We may distrust alike its motives and its promises, but that is no reason for rejecting a policy which, if an honester Government were in power, ought still to be pursued. If the Government breaks its promise, and instead of repairing its frontier wall enters into a struggle with Russia for dominion over the Steppe or prestige in Central Asia, the- hour for resisting drafts on the Indian Treasury as thefts will have arrived, but the hour is not now. At present, the British Government is using Indian taxes, by its own account, believed by Parliament, in order to make India safer, a perfectly legitimate and reasonable object of expense. There is plenty of reason for turning out the Government, none for resisting this bit of its policy.
But Mr. 0. Morgan will tell us India cannot pay, and Mr_ Fawcett will argue that though she can pay, she cannot pay without grinding oppression on the poor. We wish it were true, for then we could heartily vote for a decision which would bring home Lord Beaconsfield's policy to the British taxpayer, but we cannot honestly and thoroughly assent to. either statement. That India hereafter may be unable to meet the cost of necessary wars is possible or probable, for her taxable wealth does not increase as rapidly as her costly Departments ; and when that time arrives, either her adminis- tration or her taxation must be radically reorganised,—but that time is not yet. We will not insult our readers with Lord Cranbrook's sanguine statements about his surplus, already contradicted by telegraph, or profess a confidence we do not feel in Lord Lytton's estimates of the expense of a war which has only just begun, but will put the facts in a broad and un- deniable way. Suppose the war, as a war for frontier, costs ten millions. That is an addition of £450,000 a year to the charge for Indian Debt. That is less than the natural incre- ment of the revenue, less than the saving caused since 1870 by the growth of Indian Railway traffic, less than the saving that could be effected at a stroke in the Public Works Department, less than would be saved by fusing the two Southern Armies, less than in all human probability will be obtained by the annexation of the two largest railways. It may be utter waste, we believe it to be wicked waste, but to. say that it is a sum which India cannot pay, or a sum beyond the value to India of an impregnable Northern frontier, is to. misrepresent the facts. Empires with fifty millions of revenue, and governed by men with financial instincts, are not ruined by expenditures of that kind, though they may be ruined by the spirit which such expenditures show to be prevailing at head-quarters. Nor, though we respect it infinitely more, can we accept Mr. Fawcett's argument about the poverty of the people making a demand on India inopportune. If the money to be saved by England accepting the cost of the war were to go back to the Indian taxpayers, his argument would be sound, though even then a return of twopence a year per household would not greatly alleviate distress ; but as a matter of fact, nothing would go back. Certain public works would go on a little more rapidly, or in a manner a little more perfect, and that would be all. It is the curse and the blessing of Indian finance that demands on the revenue are felt much more by the Treasury than the people, that unexpected outlays worry the rulers, who want the money for other purposes, much more than they worry the people, who pay on from generation to generation hardly cognisant of any alteration in the demands on them, except through the land- tax, which is neither increased nor lessened for any rash enter- prise or any wise improvement. If England paid-for the war, the only result would be that the tax on piece-goods Would be
taken off; and that reduction would benefit Lancashire much more than India, where indeed it would be denounced as an attack on native manufacturers, ordered in order to conciliate English votes. The poverty of the people of India is a good reason for net increasing taxation, but it is not a reason for not diverting the produce of the taxes from purposes of improvement to purposes of necessary defence. Of course Mr. Fawcett holds, as we do, that the frontier war is needless, but the Government which affirms its necessity is justified in making India defray the cost.
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