Lord George Hamilton must be a happy man this week.
The regular business of a Secretary of State for India when introducing his Budget is to apologise for it, to show that the deficit was due to exchange, or war, or famine, to prove that a loan was necessary, and to promise retrenchments in which nobody believes. This year, on the contrary, Lord George was able on Tuesday to make a prosperity speech, to dilate on a surplus for 1898-99 of Rx. 4,059,000, and to attribute half of this improvement to reductions in expenditure. The other half arises from the enlargement of trade, which for the same year amounted to 2120,000,000 for exports and 290,000,000 for imports, and to the recuperation from the famine, shown not only in that trade, but in the Revenue returns and the rail- way receipts. Next year (1899-1900), the India Office expects the Revenue to be Rx. 62,400,000 and the expenditure Rx. 58,500,000, the surplus, therefore, being Rx. 3,900,000, or possibly, on very recent official information, 2500,000 more. There is still a cloud on the horizon in the shape of deficient rainfall, but this might pass away ; and, if not, Government could deal with the resulting scarcity. Lord George, whose speech was unusually vigorous, spoke with contempt of the theory that we were "bleeding India to death," a theory con- tradicted by all the facts, and announced that the gold standard would be introduced at once, that all gold from the Indian mines would be regularly purchased, and that Govern- ment had a project for establishing a great "Bank of England" in India.
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