INDIA. 



309 



000, railroad receipts 905,000, irrigation 208,- 

 000. Land revenue, on the other hand, showed a 

 decrease of 383,000. There was an increase in 

 expenditure of 870,000 for famine relief and in- 

 surance, 323,000 for operating railroads, and 

 200,000 for interest, and a decrease of 118,000 

 for public works other than railroads, 1,185,000 

 for army services, chiefly savings from the em- 

 ployment of troops by the imperial Government 

 in Soulh Africa and China, and 124,000 in the 

 expenditure of the civil departments. The budget 

 estimate for the year ending March 31, 1902, make 

 the revenue 1,086,000 more than the revised esti- 

 mate for 1901, an increase of 475,000 being an- 

 ticipated in land revenue, 331,000 in railroad re- 

 ceipts, and 183,000 under other heads, while in 

 opium revenue lower prices are expected to cause 

 a decrease of 589,000, in customs a lower esti- 

 mate of sugar imports causes a decrease of 136,- 

 000, and 127,000 less are expected from irriga- 

 tion. In expenditure an increase of 2,002,000 

 is estimated for armv services, 652,000 for rail- 

 roads, 728,000 for other public works, 493,000 

 for civil departments, and 124,000 for miscel- 

 laneous civil charges, while on famine relief and 

 insurance the expenditure is estimated at 3,245,- 

 000 less, leaving the net increase 923,000, exclud- 

 ing mint operations, which gives an estimated sur- 

 plus of 691,000. The sum of 16,400,000 rupees 

 is allotted as a grant in aid to provincial revenues 

 to restore financial equilibrium. The capital ex- 

 penditure for 1902 is stated at 5,395,000 for rail- 

 road and irrigation works and 1,247,000 for dis- 

 charge of temporary debt, etc., and the capital 

 receipts will be 691,000 from the imperial sur- 

 plus, 1,663,000 to be raised by railroad com- 

 panies, 2,240,000 from new loans, including 1,- 

 000,000 in England and 20,000,000 rupees in India, 

 502,000 from savings-bank deposits, etc., and 

 111,000 from repayments of advances. The rail- 

 road program proposes the expenditure of 46,000,- 

 000 rupees on open lines, 45,900,000 rupees on 

 lines under construction, and 11,300,000 rupees on 

 lines only recently begun. The expenditure on 

 irrigation works will be 10,000,000 rupees. The 

 famine expenditures of 1901 were 63,400,000 rupees 

 for direct relief, 41,100,000 rupees in loans to na- 

 tive states, and 14,200,000 rupees for special agri- 

 cultural advances, while the loss of land revenue 

 and provincial rates amounted to 14,700,000 ru- 

 pees and compensation for dearness of provisions 

 to 6,600,000 rupees. A royal commission that was 

 appointed to inquire into the relations between 

 Indian finance and the imperial exchequer spent 

 several years in taking evidence, and then ceased 

 to do anything until questions in the House of 

 Commons and threats of proceedings against the 

 members for contempt extracted a report. The 

 commission recommended that charges amount- 

 ing to 257,000 a year that had been borne by the 

 Indian treasury be transferred to British expendi- 

 ture. The Imperial Government decided to as- 

 sume this burden henceforth. Statesmen w r ho 

 deem the financial administration of the English 

 in India to be unjust in many respects thought 

 that in view of the losses sustained by India 

 through recent calamities it would be fight to 

 reimburse India for the past expenditure under 

 the same heads to the amount of about 6,000,- 

 000. Lord George Hamilton denied the principle 

 that the payment was a restitution, and in a year 

 when tho British budget showed an enormous defi- 

 cit and that of India a surplus fewer voices than 

 ever were raised in the House of Commons for 

 the righting of India's financial wrongs, such as 

 the contribution of 43,000 a year toward defray- 

 ing the expenses of British consular establish- 



ments and embassies in Persia. and China, the 

 heavy charges for the support of tin- entire estab- 

 lishment of the Secretary of State for India, and 

 the millions that should be avuilal.l" lor irriga- 

 tion and for other purposes fro pn-vent farnTni; 

 that India is obliged to raise every yuir hy a, 

 most oppressive system of taxation in order to 

 pay enormous military expenses for the security 

 and aggrandizement of the British Empire. The 

 Government of India, which spoke slightingly of 

 irrigation as a preventive of famine while vast 

 sums were being diverted to the northwest forti- 

 fications now regarded as of little use, has decided 

 to promote irrigation by public enterprise if pri- 

 vate enterprise can not be induced to enter this 

 field; to correct the land assessments, now ac- 

 knowledged to be too high in some provinces; and 

 to establish agricultural banks, at first experi- 

 mentally, for the purpose of rescuing cultivators 

 from the grip of money-lenders. Lord Curzon has 

 instituted an inquiry into the system of education 

 with a view to the development of industrial and 

 technical education, for the development of which 

 he perceives a serious need, while literary education 

 and the English branches studied eagerly with the 

 object of obtaining official positions has been 

 overstimulated, and its effect in Europeanizing na- 

 tives has not been always beneficial. The dis- 

 placement of native handicrafts through the im- 

 portation of machine-made goods and the estab- 

 lishment of factories in India has increased the 

 proportion of agriculturists, who form four-fifths 

 of the population of a country peculiarly liable to 

 drought. The fostering of indigenous industries 

 through the efforts of the present Viceroy is 

 therefore an additional means of famine insurance. 



The total expenditure for 1902 was estimated 

 at 16,345,000, an increase of 1,745,000 over the 

 average for the last three years. The increased 

 expenditures on irrigation and on public works 

 for the development of the economic resources of 

 the country, as well as for famine insurance, was 

 coupled with extraordinary military expenditures, 

 of which 9,400,000 rupees were for new artillery, 

 rifles, and ammunition, 825,000 rupees for fac- 

 tories for manufacturing munitions of war, and 

 2,150,000 rupees for animals and transport. The 

 initial expenditure of 2,333,333 w r as sanctioned 

 in order that India might benefit by the lessons of 

 the frontier warfare of 1897. The rearmament of 

 the native army and the volunteers, which will 

 be completed in 1903, instead of in 1905 as origi- 

 nally intended, will cost 1,360,000. The extra 

 military expenditure for 1902 is 1,008,000. 



The Government of India has begun to accu- 

 mulate a gold reserve to safeguard the gold stand- 

 ard which is officially held to have aided the Gov- 

 ernment in fighting famine. The coinage of sil- 

 ver in the year ending March 31, 1901, was over 

 150,800,000 rupees, yielding 3,000.000 of profits, 

 all of which the Government intended to pay into 

 the reserve fund if resources permitted. In March 

 there were 3,913,000 in the coin reserve and in 

 the currency reserve 6,957,000 of gold and 17,- 

 800,000 rupees of silver bullion against a note 

 emission of 280,900,000 rupees. The currency in 

 circulation was 238,400,000 rupees, having in- 

 creased steadily since 1897. The gold reserve fund 

 contained 800,000. The total reserves of gold 

 were 7,757,000 and of silver 76,500,000 rupees, 

 equal to 5,107,000. 



The debt of British India in 1899 reached 2,467,- 

 361,700 rupees, of which 1,126,546,980 rupees was 

 the amount of the permanent debt in India, 1,197,- 

 686,050 rupees that of permanent debt in England, 

 and 143.128,670 rupees the amount of unfunded 

 debt in India. The Indian Government, after an- 



