The India Council is selling its bills readily at last,
but at only a fraction above is. id. for a rupee. That involves a loss
of nearly six millions a year on the exchange, and renders fresh and heavy taxation on India quite imperative. It is most difficult to make reductions which shall be effectual at once, except in the Military Department, and these are con- sidered unwise until the Great War has come and gone. On Thursday Mr. Westland, the new Financial Member, acknowledged a deficit of Rx. 3,500,000, and proposed a 5 per cent, duty on all imports now free, except gold and cotton fabrics—the last a concession to Lancashire. It is evident the proposal is only a makeshift, and we fear the Government must, in the end, find a tax more draw- ing than this. Shortly after the Mutiny in 1857 the writer submitted to the Indian Government a project for a heavy increase in the spirit-duties, and the imposition of a. licence-duty on all shops for the sale of tobacco, the two to produce about four millions a year. To this he still adheres as the best way to get a large new revenue, though the second is dangerous, as the tobacco dealers will close their shops for a month, and drive the people wild with nervous irritation. It ought not to be forgotten, however, that the Indian Government spends much too freely ; that there is no real check except the overburdened Viceroy upon incessant pro- posals for "improvements," and that the expenditure on the Army is beyond all reason. If we could trust even one of the fighting races, a permanent surplus could be secured within three years.
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