Mr. Grant Duff on Tuesday introduced the Indian Budget, in
a speech which had all the merits and most of the defects of his style. He thinks clearly, and his broad statement that since 1861 the income of India had been £569,000,000, and the -outlay of India £576,500,000, and that for the difference of £7,500,000 we had to show roads, canals, State railways, and barracks, worth four times the money, really threw -a flood of light on Indian finance, as also did his further statement that the local taxation of India, a continent as big as Europe within the Vistula, was only £5,000,000. But his speech was terribly long,—three hours ; his case for the income-tax rested too much on authority—the weight of which is the other way ; and his final dig at Mr. Fawcett, that "he could not con- ceive that the House would derive any advantage from any of the remarks which the hon. Member for Brighton was about to make," was a bit of prophetic arrogance scarcely worthy a man who believes so in Geist, that is, in the result of incessant free dis- cussion.
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