INDIAN REDUCTIONS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sra,—The obliging way in which you notice my services in your paper of March 23, induces me to offer you some explanation with reference to points in which you appear to have been led into error by the authority you refer to.
The operation of rendering "the insolvent [Indian] Empire solvent" was effected by three distinct means. 1st, reduction of military expenditure ; 2nd, fresh taxation ; 3rd, increased yield of old taxes from elasticity of revenue. The second of these remedies was the only one initiated by Sir Charles Wood, and the only one which the late lamented Mr. James Wilson had time to introduce during his one year's tenure of office. The increase of revenue derived from this source (of fresh taxation) was not -above four millions sterling, or only one-half the increase from each of the other sources above mentioned, which yielded respectively in round numbers eight millions sterling apiece.
You will see from the accompanying clear and correct descrip- tion, published in 1863, of the successive steps by which the equilibrium of Indian finances was restored, that the possibility of deriving an enormous increase of income, eight millions sterling within a few years, from the mere elasticity of Indian revenues, was at first wholly disbelieved by the India Government, both at
the public weal, I see no object in merely " saying ditto to Mr. home and abroad; and it was not till after an administrative Burke." Of course, when views that we deem important are not struggle which convulsed India, that Sir Charles Wood learnt to adequately represented, when, especially, the interests of our own admit the elasticity of the Indian revenues. sex or of any defenceless sufferers who need legislative relief are The reduction of military expenditure was begun by Lord at stake, it is right and natural that we should speak ; and there- Canning, under a strong pressure from Lord Stanley, and during fore I should be glad to see some wider opening than now exists the administration of that statesman ; and the appointment of the for the political influence of women. It has been suggested that Military Finance Commission took place before the return of Sir under Mr. Hare's scheme of Personal Representation women Charles Wood to office, and six months before Mr. Wilson's arrival might combine to seat a few members, and thus ensure special in India, so that Sir Charles Wood had nothing to do with initiat- attention to any measure which seemed important to them ; and ing that Commission, or choosing me to be a member of it, as you if a large proportion of Englishwomen were prepared to work out have been led to suppose.
such a plan, it might possibly lead to visible and useful results. I am sorry to say there is no better foundation for your belief But, as I endeavoured to show in replying to "A Countrywoman," that Sir Charles Wood gave his "support and impetus" to my the indiscriminate vote now demanded would not tend to give labours. During the whole period of my three years' service, first any visible effect to the wishes of women, but would merely add as a member of the above-named Commission, and afterwards as several votes to each existing party. head of the Military Finance Department, I have no recollection
1.. E. B." asks why I call that theory "childishly absurd" of receiving any encouragement or cheering support from Sir which maintains that women cannot be expected to care about Charles Wood ; but I remember being informed by Lord Canning, politics unless they have political power? Because I cannot see Sir Bartle Frere, and Mr Laing, that they had severally received that personal power is a true measure of our natural interest in private letters from Sir Charles Wood, to warn me against per. any subject whatever. No mortal can influence the movements severing in my remonstrances against the waste of Indian funds of the stars, or the past life of our race ; it is only given to a few in England, although I only made those representations by the men to take a personal share in the great discoveries of science, express orders of Lord Canning, conveyed to me in the presence or the great creations of art. Yet we are all interested in astro- of Sir Bartle Frere.
nomy, and history, and geographical exploration, and beautiful On my return home on sick leave, to recruit my health, at the music, and hundreds of other things which we have no part in first of the two interviews I had with Sir Charles 1Vood, I was making or modifying. So with the great moral movements and rebuked by him for attempting to set up as a financial reformer national conflicts of our day, which make the glory and charm of in regard to the expenditure in England ; and it was perhaps to polities; our strong interest in these matters may often impel us repress this presumption on my part, that Sir Charles Wood to take some infinitesimal part in them, but our action springs thought fit to refrain from communicating to me the minutes of from our sympathy, not our sympathy from our power of action, the various members of the Supreme Government of Tuella, record- Of course, where several subjects have an equal interest or claim ing and approving my services, until six weeks after I had reported upon us, the power of action which we may possess in any one of my arrival in England, in fact, until the delay in producing them them may decide us to pursue that subject in preference to the was referred to by Mr. Crawford in the House of Commons.
others ; and in the case of moral claims upon us, it is often right As you are so kind as to remark that Sir Charles Wood "never to pursue very uninteresting subjects for the sake of helping properly rewarded" me, perhaps you will allow me to remark that others. But in purely voluntary studies, where there is no ques- I was punished, instead of being rewarded.
tion of forcing our faculties, it must, I think, be a "childishly Before one-third of the time granted me to restore my health absurd" mind which would make the little inch-rule of its per- had expired, Sir Charles Wood signed a despatch ordering the
sonal power of interference the measure of its sympathies. Government of India to abolish the Military Finance Department,
"L. E. B.'s" French illustration does not present a parallel of which I was the head, although it had for more than two years case. The mischief of Louis Napoleon's despotism is that it puts been formally established by the Government of India as a separate an artificial and unnatural restraint upon the already developed department, essential for the efficient protection of the finances. faculties of his subjects, who are well known to be the most It had proved so useful, that in a resolution printed in the Calcutta brilliant politicians in Europe ; whereas the political capacities of Gazelle the Governor-General in Council declared that the Mill- Englishwomen are so far from being already developed, that this tary Finance Department "had saved India from bankruptcy."
S. 1). C. Governor-General and Council of India, and by Sir Charles Trevelyan, have been entirely disregarded, and not even conuuu- nicated to me, by Sir Charles Wood, having only reached me by means of papers called for by Colonel Sykes, and laid before the House of Commons.
Having had. full experience in the person of a relative of my own of the treatment usually experienced by financial reformers, however disinterested and public-spirited, I might have been pre- pared for this treatment, when at Sir Charles Trevelyan's request I undertook the ungracious task of reducing military expenditure in India. I have, however, only been placed on the same foot- ing in that respect as the late Earl Canning and Mr. Laing. The successful government of the former was decried by Sir Charles Wood ; and Mr. Laing was declared an impostor and a falsifier of accounts, when announcing the reiteration of the financial equilibrium. Apologizing for the length of this letter, I remain, Sir, your most obedient servant,
G. BALFOUR, Major-General, late Chief of the Military Finance Department of India.
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