Sir Stafford Northcote proposed on Thursday that the salaries of
the Indian troops should be paid by India, in a speech addressed rather to India than to England. He explained, for the benefit of Calcutta rather than London, as indeed he admitted, why he had entrusted the expedition to the Government of Bombay—a slight keenly felt by the Viceroy—and based his proposal on three "argunients,—the value of prestige to India, which of all countries sends most Envoys to wild States ; the impolicy of allowing India to make money by hiring out her troops ; and some former pre- cedents—arguments to which we should add this one, that India gains in such an expedition practical training for her garrison. He was opposed by Lord Cranborne mainly on the ground that to treat India as a " bank " of recruits on which we could draw at pleasure was a dangerous precedent, and _supported by Mr. Gladstone and Sir H. Rawlinson on the ground we have so often indicated, that as matters now stand between the two countries, it is England, not India, which has to complain, England providing her fleet gratuitously, and taking back troops at short notice from India, "-not because England wants them, but because India does not," a frightful nuisance to the Exchequer. It is to be observed that the proportion of the whole charges borne by India in the war will be 150,000/. in every 1,000,0001., much less than she has -ever yet borne in an Asiatic war.
