The India Office has made a considerable financial experi- ment,
and has had a great success. The Department wanted three millions, and offered 3t per cent, in gold in London, pro- mised not to pay off the loan for fifty years, and fixed 98 as the minimum, below which tenders would be refused. They had miscalculated the plethora of money, the attraction of the- fifty years' clause, which suits trustees exactly, and their own credit. A single firm took a million and a half at 104, and 141 millions were offered, a large part of it above 103. The whole was allotted above 103}, and there is every probability that the loan will keep step with the Metropolitan Consols. Mr. Gladstone's declaration that the British Government might be compelled to guarantee the Indian Debt has evidently not been forgotten by the public.
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