The contest arising from the mutiny in India is officially
con- sidered to be settled, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been charged to provide the form of a national thanksgiving, and the requisite " thanks " have this week been officially voted in Par- liament. Meanwhile the most important intelligence from the East is the announcement that the Governor-General is about to propound an entirely new scheme for renovating Indian finance. It consists of import-duties ranging from 10 to 20 per cent, excepting " Manchester goods," which are to be charged with 5 per cent, while some articles of export are also to be taxed,— ilialwa opium as high as 100 rupees per chest. Undoubtedly, the Government has here fallen upon the right principle,—moderate taxes collected from as wide a field as possible ; but while some of the commodities, such as Manchester goods, will scarcely bear the pressure of even moderate taxation without a formidable con- traction in the market, the whole plan needs very important preliminaries—the development of transit, of British colonisation, and of native confidence in British cooperation as the means of calling forth the dormant and crude mercantile capacities of India.
