Considering the resources of India its taxation is heavy. Our Government pays its servants of every description, high and low, civil and military, with a regularity utterly unknown under native rule, and the income must in regularity keep pace with the outlay. When we read of seventy millions as the expenditure, it must be remembered that what is called the land-tax is really rent, for in India the land has always been considered the property of the state. This is kept before the mind of the people of Madras by the yearly assessment of the tenants, and before the people of the North-Western Provinces by the new assessment made every thirtieth year. By the perpetual settlement of Bengal, the tax-collectors were at once raised to the position of landholders, of which they have often taken undue advantage. It must also be remembered that a considerable sum is expended on remunerative works, such as canals and railways. The expenditure on the army is great. I cannot conceive why our Government keeps up so large a native army. It would appear to those who are outside the Government circle, that its reduction would conduce to safety as well as to economy. The European part of the army is comparatively very small, and it would be most perilous to lessen it. Years before the Mutiny, Sir Henry Lawrence said it was the backbone of our strength, and events proved how true his remark was. Yet it is, and must continue to be, very expensive, like every other form of European agency. The Mutiny among its other results left behind it heavy pecuniary responsibilities, which have added to the debt and led to increased taxation. Many are of opinion that the amalgamation of the Royal and Indian armies was an unwise measure, and has caused much unnecessary expense. Often complaints have been made that successive home Governments, from their unchallenged control over the affairs of India, have imposed an unjust burden on its resources by keeping at home too large a force at its expense, and by undue charges for stores sent out, as well as by making it pay sums which were more properly due by the imperial exchequer.
"The net land revenue has risen in the ten years beginning 1870-71 from £20,335,678, or nearly half the total net revenue of £42,780,417, by about two millions sterling, to £22,125,807, with a total net revenue of £49,801,664. The gross revenue of the latter year, 1879-80, was £68,484,666, the difference being derived from sources other than taxation, such as the opium monopoly. The revenue of 1880-81 was £72,920,000, and the gross expenditure £71,259,000. Including the land revenue as land-tax, the 200 millions in the twelve Provinces of British India pay about 4s. a head of imperial taxation, besides municipal or local and provincial cesses, which purchase such local advantages as roads, schools, police, and sanitary appliances. This incidence of taxation varies from 5s. 6d. per head of the land-owning classes to 3s. 3d. for traders, 2s. for artisans, and 1s. 6d. for agricultural labourers. The fiscal policy of the Government has of late been to reduce the burden of the salt monopoly, which is a poll-tax, and to abolish import duties. The 54½ millions in the Native States pay only to their own chiefs, who enjoy a net annual revenue of fourteen millions sterling, and pay £700,000 as tribute, or less than the cost of the military and political establishments maintained on their account" (Dr. George Smith's "Geography of British India"). Deducting land-tax, opium, railways, irrigations, post-office, and suchlike remunerative services, the taxation is reduced to 2s. per head of population.
If the European army in India be the backbone of our military sway, European administrators are, I believe, the backbone of our government. During the terrible years 1857 and 1858, the services rendered by those who were engaged in civil employment were of the highest value in restoring peace to the distracted country, and in re-establishing our government. European officials of every grade showed equal zeal and determination. There were many native officials in these Provinces, some of them highly paid and greatly trusted. A few remained faithful and did good service, though the help rendered, when summed up, cannot be reckoned great. Many proved unfaithful, and some became our bitter enemies. If instead of Englishmen as judges, magistrates, and collectors, we had had at that time highly educated natives of Bengal holding these offices, the men who receive for themselves the best hearing in England, can we suppose that, however well inclined, they could have borne the brunt of the contest, and aided largely in securing the victory? It would ill become me to speak against these men. I know some of the class for whom I have not only a high esteem but warm affection. Among them there are not a few who are great in attainment, keen in intellect, and strong in purpose to do the right. Still I do not think they themselves would maintain they have the physical courage, the firm mental calibre, the moral strength, and the high place in the confidence of the community, which would qualify any of their number to occupy the position of Governor-General, Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, and Chief Commissioner, or would make it desirable they should form the leading body of the administrative staff. The successful candidates for the Civil Service have come, we believe, exclusively from the highly-educated youth of the Presidency cities, between whom and the millions of their own Provinces there is no such bond as unites the so-called leaders of the Irish with the majority of their countrymen. In the other countries of India they are little known, and are regarded with no special interest.
HINDUSTANEES AND BENGALEES.
Many mistakes would be prevented if English people would remember that we have in India nations differing widely from each other. We have a striking illustration of this fact in the part of India in which we have lived. Bengalees abound in the public offices in the North-West Provinces and in the Punjab. They are deemed sharper in intellect, and are better educated, than the Hindustanees, and on account of their superior education they have got situations which would have been filled by natives of the country, had their educational acquirements been equal. These Bengalees are not strangers in these Provinces to the same extent as Englishmen, but they are strangers, and are looked upon as such by the people. Where they are numerous they keep mainly to themselves, and however friendly they may be with Hindustanees they are regarded as belonging to another country. When you meet them you know them at once by their look, dress, language, and habits. A part of Benares, called Bengalee Tola—Bengalee district—is inhabited almost wholly by Bengalees, and when you enter it you feel you have come among another people, who speak a different language and present a different appearance. During the Mutiny they were regarded in the North-West with suspicion, as half-English, and many were happy to seek shelter where we were able to keep our footing. If the question was put in Hindustan Proper to any large body of people—Would you have Bengalees or Englishmen for your magistrates and judges? I think in most places the well-nigh unanimous response would be, The Englishman.
If my opinion is to rest on my own observation, I would confidently say that notwithstanding the injustice and unkindness charged against some English officials, the people generally have profound trust in our justice—in our insaf—and as a rule, except when they think the native partial to themselves, they prefer to have their cases tried where an Englishman presides. When on a journey I once came up to two men engaged in eager talk. I heard them use frequently the words, Ungrez and Insaf—Englishmen and Justice—and on stopping I heard the one telling the other of the bribes taken by native officials in a case he had, and of the justice done when the Englishman took it up. He ended with the words, "What a wonderful people for insaf these English are!" to which remark the other man assented. I thanked them for their good opinion, and held on my way.
If the administration of India in its present state must, in its chief offices, remain in the hands of Europeans, it must be expensive. The great officers of state, considering the dignity they have to maintain and the establishments they have to keep, must be highly paid. When we think of the qualifications required by those who are charged with the ordinary administration, the great expense to which they are put, the years they spend in laborious work in an exhausting climate, and their unfitness as a rule for work in England on their retirement, I do not think their income or pension can be to any large extent safely or justly reduced. The era of nabobs, returning with vast wealth to astonish the English people, has long since passed away. These men had small pay, but great perquisites. The pay has been greatly increased, but the perquisites are gone, and India has benefited vastly by the change.
Indian magistrates have much to tell of the litigiousness of the people, their constant attempts to overreach each other, the carefully woven lies which they have daily to unravel, the trust put in bribes to influence decisions, and the deeply ingrained notion in the minds of native officials that they should get more for their services to the public than the bare pay, the sookha tulub—dry wages—as it is contemptuously called.
THE POVERTY OF THE PEOPLE.
The people of Northern India are mainly agricultural, and they are unquestionably poor. Our very success has in one aspect tended to their impoverishment. With very few exceptions they marry young, and during the many years of peace which have passed over them, with the exception of the short sharp crisis of the Mutiny, the population has greatly increased. Whenever an epidemic breaks out, means are at once employed to check it. There is a vaccination department for the purpose of preventing the ravages of small-pox. Female infanticide, which had prevailed to a frightful extent among certain castes, has been diminished, though not, it is feared, wholly suppressed. It is well known that famines have been sadly destructive of life, but there is evidence that previous to our rule, when there were few roads and little communication between one part of India and another, famines were still more so. Among so vast a population directly dependent on the soil, in a country where rain is so indispensable, and is now and then a failure, we have too much reason to fear famines may yet recur; but such provision is now made against their ravages, that it is hoped the catastrophes of the past will be escaped.