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    that fissure is sufficient , to swallow up the edifice . It is impossible to meet it by loan , to add halt a million every year to the immoveable charges , it is impossible to throw it upon England , for England with a continental war upon lier hands ; would yield up India to its princes rather than subject herseli to taxation for its sake . The deficit must be met either by permanent reductions , or by permanent imposts , or by both . Mr . Campbell accepts the last alternative , and while admitting the necessity of a redistribution of civU allowances believes that in the military expenditure alone will real relief be found . to be briefly thus de

    He would reduce it on a plan - scribed . He would turn at least half the native army , and two-thirds « f the military police throughout India , into constabulary , with military organisation , but no arms . Every man now in the army should be allowed on dismissal to volunteer into the constabulary , customs , patrols , and other quasi military departments , and the numbers then gradually reduced . We should le rid thus at once of the military police and of the native army , without giving any shock to vested interests . The new constabulary will still require European officers , while the decrease in armed natives will enable us to decrease

    the number of royal regiments . The total saving Mr . Campbell estimates at four millions sterling . The estimate is probably under the truth , more particularly if we postpone it to the time when the Triangular Railway will be completed ; but it is the only saving as yet possible . All savings from civil establishments must be spent in increasing the gross number of officers . There remains the resource of taxation , and the following shows the line our efforts in this direction ought to take : — ^ Reduction of the army £ 4 , 000 , 000 Special taixcs on the wealthy 400 , 000 Succession duty ... 400 , 000 Tax on trades and professions : 400 , 000 Equalisation of stamps and fines 200 , 000 Local taxes to pay local police 200 , 000 Equalisation of the opium tax 500 , 000 Madras and Bombay salt : increase 400 , 000 Tax on tobacco , betel , &e .... < ............... 2 , 000 , 000 Saving- of interest on Government Bank Notes 1 , 000 , 000 , Sea customs increase ... 800 , 000 Total . £ 10 , 300 , 000 This is very nearly what has been attempted , with the exception of the issue of Government notes , and it allows a fair margin for the increase of expense which inevitably attends civilisation . That equilibrium cannot , however , be maintained without another reform , one to which most Indian thinkers are . gradually drawn : — "We shall never succeed in remodelling our taxation and expenditure to the advantage of our

    finances , till we have in a very large degree something of that localisation of finance which is so extraordinarily wanting in India ; till , I mean , every local administration , great and small , is in some degree bound to regulate its expenditure by its receipts . In this particular subject we have obtained a false centralisation , which is in fact nothing but anarchy . The Supreme Government is in a most difficult and unsatisfactory , position . It checks the finances without really administering the executive administration .

    " . Local finance is a thing unknown . Everything , collected goes to the credit of the Government of India and everything expended is expended from the common treasury of the empire . Officials in this country are , to a remarkable extent , local in their prejudices and ambitions . ' Most public spirited they certainly are . But every man looks to the good of his own province , and listens , to those around him . Consequently we find that the better the administration the more he looks to loctvl interests . "No one cares to propose a new tax in his own province , for the proceeds would only go to the Government of India 3 and few much care to reduce an expenditure . Every man shpws that this or that expenditure is desirable , o « d probably shows so with very good reason , but no one weighs the' cost / The budget system seems to have been

    in some degree designed to remedy this evil , but it has . been very imperfectly understood , and as yet the only result seems to be to cause additional delay in obtaining sanction for anything preseingly required . Who has yet heard of propositions for ' seltVtaxation volunteered by any local government P Madras and Bombay havo been for years aggrieved about the check upon their expenditure , but has any propositions for raising the disproportionately low salt duties of those Presidencies , or equalising the stamp duties , or otherwise improving their finance , over come frona Madras or Bombay ? Are not , on the contrary , such propositions usually strenuously resisted- ?•—and oven in these days is thero not a disposition to maintain the claim of those faithful armies in which the mutiny did not ocour , and to object to their reduction ?" Mr . Campbell'doeB not apparently perceive that with the power of taxation the power of legislation must weo be divided ; that his plan'ls , in its main features ,

    that of Mr . Bright . It is one which , however opposed to all the instincts of the dominant qlass , may yet be forced on their attention by circumstances it will be impossible wholly to disregard . Any serious collapse of the exchequer would compel the ministry at home either to redistribute power , or abandon the outlying provinces . They are not likely to adopt the second expedient first . It is even now the vastness of our rule which checks the development of new sources of revenue . Twenty taxes could be put Northern

    on in Bengal which are inapplicable to India . The Madras Government , deprived of its nominal surplus for imperial expenses , and left free to carry out its own irrigation ideas , would probably soon find itself with disposable resources . Bombay has a wealthy class who might be taxed with effect , and the rulers of the Punjab would gladly shift part of the heavy burden now borne by the cultivators on to the non-agricultural class . The centralisation of power , however valuable to check expenditure , is powerless todevelope new resourees .- ^ -Frcenrf of India .

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    LATEST INDIAN INTELLIGENCE . The overland mail which arrived this week brought Calcutta advices to the 9 th of September . There had been a disturbance in Central India , at Mundleseer , which is said to have been caused by the rebel chief , the Delhi Prince , Feroze Shah . He is reported to have made an attack on the station , releasing no less than 700 men confined in the gaol at that station . Captain Hawes , the recently appointed political agent was killed . A force has been ordered from Bombay . On the frontier of Oude , the Nana , Bala Rao , and the Begum continue to find a refuge , with numerous followers . This is the only vitality remaining in the rebellion , and

    which would have been ended ere now but for the duplicity of Jung Bahadoor . He is angry at the treatment he has-received ; like all Asiastics , he exaggerates enormously the aid he has rendered , and seems to have proposed to himself the most preposterous rewards . The rebels in Nepaul live by plunder , and are still fed by the Nana With false hopes . A very few lopSasionally surrender . Scattered bodies lurk in their old haunts , the Seronj and Lullutpore jungles , where they are helped by neighbouring chiefs , and occasionally sally forth to plunder- ^ in one recent case the dak—on the Bombay and Agra Trunk Road .

    Some of the discharged European troop 3 have already sailed from Calcutta . The behaviour of all except the 5 tii Europeans still at Berhampore , has been good . With a view to being ready for dispatch to China , some of the royal regiments are being concentrated around Calcutta and Madras . The Legislative Council of India was to be adjourned . The Englishman attributes the resolution of the Governor-General to displeasure at the independence the council has displayed , and asserts that its adjournment nominally for two months is really sine die . _ . ,, , . ,.. . and trades in India

    The bill to tax professions , after much opposition in the Council , had passed its second reading , and been referred to a select committee . Officials are not to be exempt . The bill will probably come into operation on January 1 st , 1860 It amounts to an income tax of sevenpence in the pound . ' The provision of the Criminal Procedure Bill which would havo rendered Europeans liable to undergo a preliminary investigation before native magistrates had been successfully resisted . In the overland summary of the Friend of India we read : — " The Legislative Council have closed their labours for an interval of two months after

    passing an act to enable the Governor-General to leave Calcutta for seven months , carrying with him the full powers of the Governor-Goneral in Council , except that ? of making laws . Lord Canning will leave in the first or second week of October , accompanied by two of his secretaries . His tour is to be ' a season for the public recognition of services rendered during the late mutiny , and a visible assertion of the Queen ' s government . It is to embrace * the recognition of many new tenures in Oude , the reception of the influential native chiefs from the west of the Jumna , in the Cis-Sutlej States , the Punjaub ,

    and elsewhere . ' He is to inspect Luoknow and Delhi , and hold ' personal conferences with the Lieutenant-Governors of the North-West Provinces , the Punjaub , and the Chief Commissioner of Oude , in respect to the future government of those vast and important territories . ' Meanwhile the Incomo Tax Bill lies with ft select committee of the Council , and wijll be rend a third thne on their reassembling , in order to its coming into operation by the beginning of 1860 . But what' changes may it not meanwhile undergo , with Mr . Wilson as Finance Minister , and Sir Sortie Frere in the Council ; P " The shareholders of the North-Western Bank have intrusted the winding-up of their affairs to Mr .

    G . H . Fergusson , controlled by a committee of two shareholders-T-Mr . * Gubbins and Colonel Davidson . A telegram has since been received in advance pf the Bombay mail Of the 27 th , which says that Central India is still unsettled , and the frontier districts of Nepaul are still occupied by the Nana and his followers . The Waghers , we are informed , are still in insurrection , arid a force is to be sent against them . ,

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    THE PROPHET OF THE PUNJAB . The Sealkote Fuqueer , Hubeeb Shah , was hanged at the Lahore district jail on Siaturday , the 24 th od August . The thing went off just like any ordinary execution , and there was not the slightest stir en excitement . Inquiries have for the past six months been on foot regarding him arid his antecedents , and though the inquiries are not yet complete , we cob give our readers a few particulars regarding him . He declared himself to the last to be a sheikh by birth , and a native of Meerpoor Choumuk , jieai Poonch , in the territories of the Maharajah ^ ol Jummoo . But it is shown almost conclusively that he was not born there . He is believed to be of the

    low But-kunjur tribe , and to be a native of Juriomoo itself . In this tribe it is well known that the men are all scamps , and the women prostitutes . Under these circumstances , it is no wonder that the man never could explain satisfactorily who his father was . Some of this Fuqueer ' s antecedents are equally edifying . For some time he was the menial servant of a dancing girl at Sealkote ; he used to fill her hookah and light her pipe . The arrant impostor , however , soon took to religious mendicancy . He announced himself a devotee of Imam Mehndee ( who in the Mahomedan belief is a prophet yet to come ) , and took the name of Mehndee Shah , since changed toHubeeb Shah . One day in 1852 , whenpetty

    rent-free tenures were being investigated at Sealkote , he swaggered into the Settlement-office , arid said that when his prophet appeared on earth all the land would be rent-free . During 1857 he appears to have domesticated himself with the mutinous cavalry at Sealkote . In 1858 , that is last , summer , he appeared at Nonar , a village in the Sealkote district , and alighted at a shrine . While there he invoked the name of God with a good deal of star-gazing , and said there was to be a joint reign on earth of Hindoo and Mahomedan divinities ; a

    Devee for the Hindoos and an Imam for the Mahomedans . He would say " To horse , to horse 1—the time is near ! " By these means he would terrify the rustics , and make them propitiate him by food and lodging . His costume at this time was elegant , we might say imposing . A conical peaked hat , a long bluish robe , a green kerchief , and loose trousers , made people think he was a saint from the far countries beyond the Indus . Not content with this , however , he did while at Nonar a stroke of business which ultimately brought him to the gallows .

    He goes to a Mahomedan Moulvee who follows the mild profession of village schoolmaster , under the Educational department . This gentleman , though physically a cripple , has got a fanatical spirit . The Fuqueer then gets the schoolmaster to draft some proclamations . Some five or six are written in this way ; some few more copies are made by the little boys at the school ( ingenious youth ) . These precious documents breathe the spirit of the doctrino which the Fuqueer had been preaching orally j they appeal both to Hindoos and Mahomedans ; the former are called on to arm for the Devee , the latter for the Imam . The revenue officials are invited to establish treasuries on behalf of those " nartioa . " Double pay is promised , to everybody ,

    and a reward is fixed Tor the headof every European . But the Fuqueer paid us the bad compliment of fixing the reward at a very unremunerative rate —• Rs . 20 a head Most fanatics would say that they could not do the job at so low a figure ; also the Fuqueer did not kowtow to the Sikhs ; neither ihey nor their Gooroo are montioned in the proclamation . Each proclamation is addressed to some particular locality either in the Soalkote district or in some part of the Reohna Doab . This shows that his nsnirutions were not extensive . Armed with , these papers , the Fuqueer has for the last twelve months been wandering about the Sealkote district . He doubtless unfolded his doctrine more or less everywhere t in some cases it s ls proved that ho did .

    It is to be presumed that he showed his proclamations to a select few , but it would bo impossible to prove oxaotly to whom he showed them . However , in July last the talk about Imam Mehndee be *' came more general , and the Moulvees generally CM * the prisoner himself said ) seemed to expect a pronhet 1 so our Fuqueer goes to Zuflbrwal , near Seal- * kote and gives a proclamation to the Tehseeldar , fcae » chief native official there , and requests that it might be acted on immediately . The Tehseeldswvft , M « w homedan , had the sense and loyalty to give himvugM to the authorities 5 the result has * been the exeeat tionof the Fuqueer , As he was mountings the *

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    Vo . 500 . OcT . 22 , 18 S 9 A THB LEAD 1 B . UT ^

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 22, 1859, page 1175, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2317/page/11/