Mr. Forsyth, on his arrival in the Yárkand territory, found that Yákúb had not yet succeeded in consolidating his dominions. He scrupulously abstained from being drawn into political discussions of any sort, and after a brief halt at the southern capital, Yárkand, to refit his camp with provisions and beasts of burden, he returned to India. He brought back complete information regarding the most practicable routes across the Himálayas, the industrial capabilities and resources of the country, its recent history, and the actual position of its Ruler. From first to last he made it clearly understood that his mission was of a purely tentative and commercial character.
As a part of the same policy, Lord Mayo opened up a free trade-route through the Chang Chenmu valley by a treaty with Kashmír, and placed the transit of Indian merchandise across the Himálayas on a securer basis. The traffic which will pay the cost of carriage across the snowy altitudes of Central Asia can never seem great, when expressed in figures and compared with the enormous sea-borne exports and imports of India. But it is a very lucrative one to certain classes in the inland and warlike Province of the Punjab, whose population we were trying to habituate to peaceful industry by every ameliorating influence of wealth and commerce.
I have now described the measures which Lord Mayo took in pursuance of his fixed resolve to create a cordon of friendly and well-governed States on our western and northern frontier, from Balúchistán on the Arabian Sea, round by Afghánistán, to Eastern Turkestán. He acted in the same spirit to his neighbours along the north-eastern and south-eastern borders of the British dominions. Towards Nepál he maintained an attitude alike firm, friendly, and dignified, and consolidated the satisfactory relations which he found existing with that State. On the north-east of Bengal he may be said to have created a frontier, by means of the Lúshai Expedition, and to have given to those long distracted regions a period of quiet and peace. Proceeding farther south, we find him equally busy in Burma, restraining the warlike propensities of the king, developing trade relations, and enforcing respect for the British Power. But the hard work of his foreign policy lay on the western and north-western frontier, and I have given so much space to its narration, that I must close this chapter without branching out into less essential details.
CHAPTER VI
LORD MAYO'S FINANCIAL REFORMS
The financial history of Lord Mayo's Viceroyalty divides itself into two parts. The first narrates the resolute stand which, at the outset of his administration, he found himself compelled to make against deficit. The second records the measures by which, after grappling with the immediate crisis, he endeavoured to reform certain grave defects in the financial system, and to bring about a permanent equilibrium between the revenue and the expenditure of India.
When Lord Mayo received charge of the country the financial position stood thus. The conquests and accretions of a century had left behind a British Indian Empire nearly equal in size to all Europe less Russia, with a population of close on 200 millions in our own Provinces, and 50 millions in the Feudatory States. The cost of creating that Empire was represented in 1869-70 by a Public Debt of 102 millions sterling; together with another debt of 91 millions sterling expended on the guaranteed railways and other productive public works. Of the Public Debt, aggregating 102 millions, about 52 millions may be taken as the charges of establishing the British Power in India, and 50 millions as the price of reconquering and reorganising the Empire after the Mutiny of 1857. The 102 millions represented, however, not alone the cost of wars and conquests. For the English in India had to construct for themselves the whole fabric of a civilised government. That material fabric included roads, public offices, barracks, courts, jails, schools, hospitals; and this vast outlay explains in part the frequent financial deficits to which I shall presently refer. The other debt of 91 millions represented the cost of constructing 4265 miles of opened railway, and of defending great tracts from famine by canals.1 The two debts aggregated a capital of 193 millions sterling laid out in conquering, establishing, and organising the British India of 1869-70, the first year of Lord Mayo's rule. The revenue amounted to 509 millions of rupees, then equivalent to over 46 millions sterling: namely 33½ millions of taxation from the people, or about 3s. 4d. per head, and 12½ millions from opium, public works, &c., not of the nature of actual Indian taxation.2
1 To facilitate reference by the reader I take the above figures as given in the Parliamentary Abstract, Twenty-third Number, 1889, p. 300. But in the subsequent and more detailed statements (except in direct quotations from State Papers), I convert the rupee for the sake of accuracy at 1s. 10d., its value at the time. Where my figures seem to differ from those in certain of the Blue Books, the explanation usually is that the Blue Books take the rupee at its nominal value of 2s.