The Report of the Royal Commission appointed five years ago
to inquire into the financial relations of the British and Indian Governments has at length appeared. It is only a majority Report drafted by the chairman, Lord Welby, but the Report of the three dissentients, Sir W. Wedderburn, Mr. Caine, and Mr. Naoroji is so obviously based upon a desire that natives should replace Englishmen in the Civil Service, salaries being lowered until only natives would seek appoint- ments, that it may safely be disregarded. The decisions arrived at are generally conservative, but the Commissioners wish to strengthen the control of the Auditor-General—good advice if the Viceroy is invested with reserved power of over- ruling him in emergency—and to pay off Debt a little more rapidly, scarcely half of the Mutiny Debt having been paid off in forty years. That is sound counsel, but it will never be acted on, unless a charge of £2,000,000 a year for " repay- ment " is made the first charge upon Indian revenues. The Commissioners approve the financial effect of the short- service system, but want a special inquiry into pensions— which should end in every man buying his own pension as the civilians buy half theirs—and evidently think India not quite fairly treated as to the cost of foreign expeditions. They would therefore graduate them by defining the regions in which India is more or less interested,—which is clever, bat will hardly stand the teat of emergencies, as indeed the Report acknowledges. On the whole, we do not expect much from the Report except as dissipating any idea that there is any flagrant abuse.
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