classes. But unlike the English excise, it can hardly be called Excise. an elastic source of revenue, for the rate is intentionally kept so high as to discourage consumption. No duty whatever is levied upon tobacco. Stamps, as in England, form a complex Stamps. item. The greater part is derived from fees on litigation, and only a comparatively trifling amount from stamps proper on deeds of transfer, etc. Customs are divided into import and Customs. export duties, both of which have been so greatly lightened or abolished in recent years, that their permanent maintenance may be considered doubtful. At the present time (1881), import duties, usually at the rate of 5 per cent. ad valorem, are levied upon a list of commodities.1 The reduced duty still remaining on cotton goods forms a difficult question for Indian financiers. All duties on exports have now been removed, with the single exception of that on rice, which brings in about £500,000 a year. This is levied at the rate of 3 ánnás a maund, or about 6d. per cwt., being equivalent to an ad valorem rate of about 10 per cent. The salt tax is a matter of more importance, and of greater difficulty. It is an impost upon an article of prime necessity, and it falls with greatest severity upon the lowest classes. On the other hand, it may be urged that it is familiar to the people, and levied in a manner which arouses no discontent; and that it is the only means available of spreading taxation proper over the community. The reforms of 1878, referred to on p. 347, have tended to equalize the incidence of the salt tax over the entire country, with the immediate result of abolishing arbitrary and vexatious customs lines, and with a view to its ultimate reduction. ture in GROSS EXPENDITURE.-Putting aside the cost of collection Indian and civil administration, which explain themselves, the most im- Expendiportant charges are the Army, Interest on Debt, Famine Relief, 1878. Loss by Exchange and Public Works, to which may be added the complex item of Payments in England. Military expendi- Army exture averages about 16 millions, and in 1879 was 17 millions. penditure. Of the 16 millions, about 12 represent payments in India, and 4 millions payments in England. Regimental pay accounts for nearly 7 millions, the commissariat for about 2 millions in India, and stores for another million in England. In 1877-78, the total of the Indian public debt and obligations was returned Public 1 The Customs Tariff of British India, with the rates on each article, and the duties realized in 1878-79, are given in full as Appendix X. p. 554–556. debt. Its growth. Famine Loss by at over 146 millions sterling, being just 15s. 4d. per head of the population. Part of this was of the nature of obligations or deposits not bearing interest. The total charge for interest was 5 millions, being at the rate of 3 per cent. on the whole. But this excludes the interest on capital expended on railways, amounting to 120 millions in 1879. In 1840, the debt amounted to only 30 millions, and gradually increased to 52 millions in 1857. Then came the Mutiny, which added nearly 40 millions of debt in four years. The rate of increase was again gradual, but slow, till about 1874, when famine relief conspired with public works to cause a rapid augmentation, which has continued to the present time. The most significant feature in this augmentation is the larger proportion of debt contracted in England. During the last ten years, the silver debt has risen only 10 millions, whereas the gold debt has risen 28 millions. No charge has recently pressed harder upon the Indian exchequer than that of Famine Relief. Apart from loss by reduced revenue, the two famines of 1874 and 1877-78 have caused a direct expenditure on charitable and relief works amounting in the aggregate to nearly 15 millions. Loss by exchange is an item which has lately figured largely exchange. in the accounts, and is due to the circumstance that large payments in gold require to be made in England by means of the depreciated rupee. In 1869-70, the loss by exchange was more than balanced by an entry of gain by exchange on the other side of the ledger. In 1876-77, the loss attained its maximum of nearly 1 million net. Public The expenditure on Public Works is provided from three Works ex- sources—(1) the capital of private companies, with a Governpenditure. ment guarantee; (2) loans for the construction of railways and canals; (3) current revenue applied towards such works as are not directly remunerative. In 1877-78, the total capital raised by the guaranteed railway companies was 95 millions; the net earnings were 5 millions, showing a clear balance-sheet as regards payment of interest. In the ten years ending 1877-78, 29 millions had been expended under the second head upon works classed as reproductive or extraordinary, of which 19 millions Railways. were appropriated to State railways and 10 millions to irrigaIrrigation. tion. The amount spent from revenue upon ordinary public works in 1877-78 was nearly 3 millions. The total capital invested on both guaranteed and State railways up to 1879 was, as already stated, 120 millions sterling. Independent of imperial finance, and likewise independent finance. of certain sums annually transferred from the imperial Local exchequer to be expended by the provincial governments, there is another Indian budget for local revenue and expenditure. This consists of an income derived mainly from cesses upon land, and expended to a great extent upon minor public works. In 1877-78, local revenue and expenditure were each returned at about 3 millions. finance. Yet a third budget is that belonging to the municipalities. Municipal The three Presidency towns of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay had in 1876-77 a total municipal income of £668,400, of which £519,322 was derived from taxation, being at the rate of 75. per head of population. In addition, there were 894 minor municipalities, with a total population of 12,381,059. Their aggregate income was £1,246,974, of which £979,088 was derived from taxation, being at the rate of 1s. 7d. per head. In the Presidency towns, rates upon houses, etc. are the chief source of income; but in the District municipalities, excepting Bengal, octroi duties are more relied upon. The chief items of municipal expenditure are conservancy, roads, and police. army. At the present time (1880), the entire constitution of the ConstituIndian army is under the consideration of a Commission. The tion of the existing organization is based upon the historical division into the three Presidencies of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay. There are still three Indian armies, each composed of both European and Native troops, with their own Commanders-in-Chief and separate staff, although the Commander-in-Chief in Bengal exercises supreme authority over the other two. There is also a fourth army, known as the Punjab Frontier Force, which, although on the Bengal establishment, is under the immediate orders of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province. The Bengal army garrisons Bengal Proper and Assam, the NorthWestern Provinces and Oudh, a portion of Central India and Rajputána, and the Punjab. In 1877-78, its total strength. was 104,216 officers and men, of whom 63,933 were native troops. In the Bengal native army, the distinguishing feature is the presence of 6 batteries of artillery, and an exceptionally large proportion of cavalry, both of which arms are massed in the Punjab. The Madras army extends beyond the limits of The armies that Presidency into Mysore, the Nizám's Dominions, and the of the Central Provinces, and also across the Bay into Burma. 1877-78, its total strength was 47,026 officers and men, of whom 34,293 were native troops. In the Madras native army, the distinguishing features are the large proportion of sappers and three PreIn sidencies. Police. Jails. Education. miners, the small proportion of cavalry, and the entire absence of artillery. The Bombay army occupies Bombay Proper and Sind, the Native States of Central India, and the outlying station of Aden in the Red Sea. In 1877-78, it consisted of 38,355 officers and men, of whom 26,645 were native troops. In that year, therefore, the total established strength of the European and Native army in British India (exclusive of native artificers and followers) consisted of 189,597 officers and men, of whom 64,276 were Europeans, and 124,871 were native troops. The four chief arms of the service were thus composed: -(1) Artillery, 12,239 European and 901 native; (2) cavalry, 4347 European and 18,346 native; (3) engineers, 357 European (all officers) and 3239 native; (4) infantry, 45,962 European and 102,183 native. Excluding the village watch, which is still maintained as a subsidiary police in many parts of the country, the regular police of all kinds in British India in 1877 consisted of a total strength of 157,999 officers and men, being an average of 1 policeman to about each 6 square miles of British area, or to about each 1200 of the population within our police area. The total cost of maintenance was £2,511,704, of which £2,165,073 was payable from imperial or provincial revenues. The former figure gives an average cost of under £3 per square mile of area, and under 3d. per head of population. The average pay of each constable is Rs. 7 a month, or £8, 8s. a year. In 1877, the total number of places of confinement in British India, including central and district jails and lock-ups, was 636; the total number of prisoners admitted during the year, or remaining over from the previous year, was 587,288; the daily average was 113,065 males and 5369 females-total, 118,456. The latter figures show 1 male prisoner to every 868 of the male population, I female prisoner to every 17,244 of the female population, and I prisoner to every 1618 of the total population of both sexes, within criminal jurisdiction. The places of transportation for all British India are the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where there are two penal establishments, containing, in 1877, a daily average of 9145 convicts. PUBLIC INSTRUCTION in India is directly organized by the State, at least in its higher departments, and is assisted throughout India. by grants-in-aid, under careful inspection. But at no period of its history has India been without some system of popular education. The origin of the Deva-Nágari alphabet is lost in antiquity, In ancient though it is generally admitted not to be of indigenous invention. Inscriptions on stone and copper, the palm-leaf records of the temples, and in later days the wide-spread manufacture of paper, all alike indicate, not only the general knowledge, but also the common use, of the art of writing. From the earliest times the Bráhman caste preserved, first by oral tradition, then in manuscript, a literature unrivalled alike in its antiquity and in the intellectual subtlety of its contents.2 The Muhammadan invaders introduced the profession of the historian, which reached a high degree of excellence, as compared with European writers of the same period. Through all changes of government, vernacular instruction has always been given, at least to the children of respectable classes, in every large village. On the one hand, the tols or Village seminaries for teaching Sanskrit philosophy at Benares and schools. Nadiyá recall the schools of Athens and Alexandria; on the Sanskrit other, the importance attached to instruction in accounts reminds us of the picture which Horace has left of a Roman education. Even at the present day, a knowledge of reading and writing, as taught by Buddhist monks, is as widely diffused throughout Burma as in many countries of Europe. Our own efforts to stimulate education have been most successful, when based upon the existing indigenous institutions. tols. efforts at Madrasa During the early days of the East India Company's rule, the Our first promotion of education was not recognised as a duty of Government. Even in England, at that time, education was entirely left to private, and mainly to clerical, enterprise. A State system of instruction for the whole people is an idea of the latter half of the present century. But the enlightened mind of Warren Hastings anticipated his age by founding the Calcutta Madrasa for Muhammadan teaching (1781), and by Calcutta extending his patronage alike to Hindu pandits and European and other students. Wellesley's schemes of imperial dominion led to the Colleges. establishment of the college of Fort William for English officials. Of the Calcutta seminaries, the Sanskrit College was founded in 1824, when Lord Amherst was Governor-General; the Medical College, by Lord William Bentinck in 1835; the Húglí Madrasa, by a wealthy native gentleman in 1836. The Sanskrit College at Benares had been established in 1791, the Agra College in 1823. 1 See ante, p. 112. 2 See ante, p. III. 3 See ante, p. 106. |