On this page

• Departments (1)
  • 
• Text (3)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    INDIA.— FINANCE TAXATION.

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    them , after great suffering , to a pauper ' s grave ? Is it surprising that they should believe that the Government of India desired then-deaths ? Of course the public will not accept that conclusion of theirs ; but it must believe that the Government of India did desire to inflict a paltry vengeance on the poor fellows , and carelessly handed them over to what it must have known would prove pestilence . If , however , the tragedy of the Great Tasmania is in some respects novel , the farce winch immediately followed it is a close copy of the orthodox pattern . The coroner's jury finds that the provisions were unfit for human food , and that the officers who signed the General Inspection report were the for

    culpable parties ; but what will these worthies care such a finding ? There will be a long correspondence between the Council for India and the Government of Bengal , which will be terminated some two or three years hence by a declaration from the Secretary of State that the officers in question are injured innocents , and that the soldiers merely suffered the penalties of their own folly . There is a complete immunity from all such crimes if the Government is trusted with the punishment of the criminals . One board will protect another ; one office veil the offences of another department . They all row in the same boat , are all alike nests of jobbery , incapacity , and impertinence , and they all join together to burke everything like public inquiry . It would have been well if the verdict of hter

    Liverpool jury had returned a manslaug against the officers , of whose culpability it felt no doubt . Suiely such a verdict would have been quite as legal as those given against negligent pointsmen , and porters . But as juries are not likely to act in that decisive mariner , the question becomes one for the people of England . Are they content to go on any longer making hypocritical professions of gratitude to their brave deiehders , all the while allowing those brave defenders , their wives and children , to be . slaughtered like the freight op a Cuban slaver , or a Coolie immigrant ship ? It is-. all very well to denounce the military autliorities , but the nation is equally culpable ; its servants would not be guilty of the negligence which cries aloud for vengeance , if . they did not . feel perfectly assured of . its apathy . '

    Untitled Article

    / COMMON sense ,, truth , and honesty have begun to manifest 1 ^ the mselves in the management of the government of India , and liave at once excited almost , general reverence . That the finance . accounts of that great empire have long been mystified ; that its expenditure has , as the rule , exceeded its revenue ; that the country is extremely ijopiilous and extremely fertile ;\ that the people are ingenious , docile , and submissive ; that trade is rapidly increasing—since 1854 oui trade with India has augmented upwards of 70 percent . ; that the multitude are comparatively prosperous , and unharmed by that mutiny which struck only

    the puling caste ; that India has before it , as every other country has , old or new , if riders be sagacious and people enlightened , a career of unbounded prosperity , are facts well known , or inferences readily suggested . Mr . Wilson , however , is the first member of the Government there who has had the honesty and the good sense to proclaim them . He has done this with much industry and earnestness , and is regarded as having achieved wonders . He has acquired by the work a world-wide approbation . It is delightful to see such qualities enthroned , find equally delightful to see the least gleam of them so instantly and thoroughly appreciated . JJroin India , heretofore , has come to us

    love for Asiatic tyranny , with a desire to exercise it , and our hopes for the future of our country , and of society at large , are only increased by the complete change we may hereafter expect in its moral exports . We have had numerous telegrams coriveying imperfect accounts of the mode in which Mr . Wilson proposes to deal with its'finances . They have tempted some of our' contemporaries into errors , but not us ; wo have now his great oration , delivered on the 1-8 th nit ., in the Council-chamber at Calcutta , densely crowded to hear from him the future fate of India , and we can speak with some certainty and in some detail of

    his labours . An unexpectedly great deficiency in the revenuo was the first unpalatable truth laid before the Council and the assembled bankers and merchants . Tn September an account was sent home , which showed a deficit , including homo charges , of about £ 6 , 000 , 000 in the revenue , as against the expenditure in the year 1859 ^ 60 . In fact , however , the dofiqit was £ 9 , 290 , 129 . A mistake had been made at Bombay , in the military expenditure , of £ 600 , 000 ; nt Madras , in the commissariat , of £ 800 , 000 j there was a mistake of £ 750 , 000 in the revenue expected . The railway account was wrong £ 833 , 000 ; the public works depart-

    Untitled Article

    ment and the home charges showed each an unexpected increase , and the errors : amounted to millions . He was too practised an official to blame individuals for these mistakes , he blamed the discreditable system . Madras and Bombay each pursues a course of its own ; and , though neither has suffered severely from the mutiny , they shirk its burdens , and seek sectional or individual advantages . Extravagance , Mr . Wilson showed , has always been the rule in India . Even without war and mutiny , the Government of

    the Company , like most of the Governments of Europe , generally expended more than its revenue . Of the twenty-six years which have elapsed since it ceased to be a trading , and became merely a governing body , only seven show a revenue equal to the expenditure ; nineteen show a deficiency . The debt prior to the mutiny was nearly £ 60 , 000 , 000 ; that sad event augmented it—or will on the whole augment it , for all its cost is not yet defrayedby nearly £ 40 , 000 , 000 ; and now , with taxes yielding only £ 9 , 027 , 973 , the interest of the debt absorbs £ 4 , 461 , 029

    annually . There is not room for much economy , however desirable . Improvement in arrangements may be made ; but the civil expenditure cannot be reduced . The army may be more advantageously distributed , the commissariat expenditure may be diminished , the native army may be reduced ; a force like the Irish constabulary may assist in the civil government ; but , whatever be Mr . Wilson ' s inclination , he has no power to reduce a single soldier , or substitute one kind of force for another . We did not need his remarks to inform us that the Saturday

    Review , and other journals , which last week severely condemned , or eulogised ; , as their leanings were favourable or otherwise to a native army ,. •" Mr : ¦ ¦ Wilson ' s policy '' were at once ignorant and mistaken .. They wrote as if he who has merely to find the funds were the " Viceroy-and the Secretary . of State -for India and , the Parliament , all rolled into one , and responsible for the entire government of India . Contrary to their statements , he avows his inability , whatever may be his wish , to diminish the expenditure , and anticipates , though he is careful to avoid a precise estimate—the data are so uncertain—a deficiency of revenue , even with much new taxation in 1860-61 , of £ 6 , 500 , 000 .

    " Notwithstanding this present and . prospective deficiency , Mr . WjLsqn does not propose a new loan , and protests strongly against increasing debt . He insists equally strongly on the necessity of the finance miniatcr possessing the supreme control over all the financial departments , and corresponding responsibility in all local governments and functionaries . We can hardly reconcile his boast of having cash balances in his hands to . the amount of £ 19 , 000 , 000—greater than for many years—with the extent of the avowed deficiency ; for no government can be authorized to borrow , as the Indian Government lately borrowed , in order to place money in the hands of its bankers . It is satisfactory , however , to find the Government strong in funds , in spite of the deficiency , as it will be better enabled to carry into effect Mr . Wilson ' s plan for increasing ; . the taxes , and redeeming the Government from what would in a private man be habitual insolvency .

    His plan involves , like Mr . Gladstone ' s budget , and like the budgets of most modern finance ministers , greater changes than improvements , both in direct and indirect taxation . lie is to impose an income tax of 2 per cent , on all incomes between £ 20 and ; £ 5 Q and of 4 per cent , on all incomes above £ 50 . From this impost levied by schedules like our income tax , there are to be no exemptions . The cavalry soldier as well as the general officer and the civil servant must submit to be mulcted . There must be a misunderstanding of the intention here , or an

    error in India . In the hands of the military is the real power of the State , and it is most undesirable to risk a second mutiny by affronting * the soldiers , and most dangerous if it be of European ) troops . Wo presume if this tax be permanent , it will bo cx- < tended from our ancient territories to those wo have recently acquired , and those merely in alliance now , but which are destined to bo incorporated in our , empire . At present , we are uninformed ns to the extent of the area to which tho tax will be applied , and the amount it is expected annually to yield . Mr . Wilson doesTnot

    profess to estimate it , and as yet no person can . Besides a tax on incomes , he js to levy a license duty of 2 s . a year on artisans ; 8 s . a year on retail traders , and 20 s . a year on wholesale traders and all professional men . This is to be a permanent impost , owl the license is to be renewed yearly . Itis justified as supplying , like Mr , Gladstone ' s penny taxes , « statistical register of employments . The itch ot politicians always to know what men are doing , betrays the origin of their duties in tho slavery of the masses , A . license tnx to carry on a business sins against all the canons of taxation laid down by tho best writers , for it necessarily demands a portion of income before any is earned . Tlint it will be unpopular and in *

    Untitled Article

    293 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ Makch 31 , 186 &

    India.— Finance Taxation.

    INDIA . — FINANCE TAXATION .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 31, 1860, page 298, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2340/page/6/