The great fight on Indian Finance fixed for Thursday came
off as a fraternal feast. Mr. Stanhope, in the course of his speech on the Indian Budget, admitted that the deficit of the past year would be £3,500,000, and that the deficits of four years amounted to nineteen millions, though he alleged that their causes were famines, losses by exchange, war, and other non-pre- ventable occurrences. He therefore accepted Mr. Fawcett's proposition that reductions were indispensable, and would in future reduce the Public Works expenditure by £2,000,000, and certain civil charges by £1,000,000 more. The Government could not reduce the Army, but they could make these reduc- tions, and they would, and would also substitute Native for Euro- pean agency, as far as possible, in the Civil Service, a promise which will bring home to the Civilians the:consequence of " Im- perial " policy. We do not believe the House understood wherein the civil reductions were to be made, and certainly we do not, after a careful study of two reports of the speech ; but still the intention to reduce hereafter was clear, and as Mr. Glad- stone put it, the " contentious element " was taken out of the dis- cussion, which consequently grew dreary. The point for Indian reformers now is the reduction of the Army, at which the Times,. we see, is steadily driving, though in a curiously ignorant way.. Our contemporary seems to fancy that in acquiring the Hills we have acquired a wall, behind which we can comfortably go to sleep, quite forgetting that in accepting the Protectorate of Afghanistan we have gone right beyond the wall into the open country, where every rock conceals a foe. The debate was to be continued " non-contentiously " on Friday, but too late for our columns.
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