India has prospered financially during the past year in spite
of plague and famine, which have cost in direct expen- diture some five millions sterling, and nearly two millions of extra expenditure on military defences. The Land Revenue decreased, of course, in 1900-1901, but every other source of income increased, opium in particular by 2600,000, and there was a relief to the military expenditure arising from the despatch to China of troops, who from the day they quit Bengal are paid by the British Treasury. There was, there- fore, a surplus of 21,640,000, and another is expected for the coming year of 2691,000. Sir Edward Law, the new Minister of Finance, makes much, and with justice, of these facts, as showing the recuperative power of Indian finance. The whole Empire has prospered, though sections of it have been visited with most severe disasters, the immense area of British India, which is so often an embarrassment, acting financially as a guarantee, a circumstance which may be noted also in all Russian accounts. Disasters positively heavy involve only a percentage of loss upon such immense totals. We note that the Government has now a total gold reserve of £7,757,000, and that its coinage of silver in the year has been a hundred and fifty millions of rupees. It is too soon to be quite certain, but it appears that the new standard has been successful. Certainly the fear that gold would dis- appear as fast as coined was unfounded.
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