INDIA. 



435 



The movement of shipping for 1875-' 76 was 

 j follows : 



On March 31, 1878, there were 7,551-5 miles 

 of railroad in operation. 



On March 31, 1876, there were 3,661 post- 

 offices. The number of letters sent in the year 

 preceding was 107,576,943, and the number of 

 papers 9,423,670. 



The length of the telegraph lines on March 

 31, 1875, was 16,649 miles, and of the wires, 

 33,798 miles; number of stations, 225. In 

 1875-'76 the number of dispatches sent was 

 1,166,833, the receipts 212,914, and the ex- 

 penditures 387,581. 



The budget was officially published on March 

 20th. The accounts for 1876-77 show the rev- 

 enue to have been 56,022,277, and the ordi- 

 nary expenditure 58,205,055. The loss en- 

 tailed by the famine was 3,450,000, and the 

 deficit amounted to 2,182,778, exclusive of 

 3,809,288 expended in productive works. In 

 the regular estimates for 1877-'78 the revenue 

 was stated at 56,310,900, the ordinary ex- 

 penditures at 62,113,000, and the loss by fam- 

 ine, virtually a deficit, at 3,431,000. The 

 surplus on the ordinary account, excluding the 

 expenditure on account of the famine, was 3,- 

 069,000. The budget estimates for 1878-'79 

 include 2,750,000 for provincial rates and tax- 

 es. The new taxation on account of the fam- 

 ine appeared for a gross amount of 1,200,000 ; 

 arrears of land revenue, 671,000 ; ordinary 

 expenditures, 61,094,000, including 500,000 

 expenditure on account of famine in Madras. 

 The surplus was estimated at 2,156,000, ex- 

 clusive of 4,555,000 expended in productive 

 works. The loss on exchange was estimated at 



3,000,000, on an amount of 17,000,000 re- 

 mitted. 



The latest " Statistical Abstract relating to 

 British India "gives a table of the chief features 

 of Indian finance for the last 39 years, from which 

 it appears that only 13 of these years have 

 yielded a surplus of income over expenditure, 

 and that the net deficit for the whole period 

 amounts to a total of nearly 54,000,000. Dur- 

 ing the last five years 14,000,000 have been 

 absorbed in relief of sufferings from famine, and 

 the debt has increased by 29,000,000. Up 

 to March, 1877, nearly 25,000,000 had been 

 spent on so-called productive works, of which 

 about 10,000,000 were applied to irrigation 

 works, and 15,000,000 to state railways. 

 During the year ending March, 1877, the irriga- 

 tion works produced a gross revenue of 520,- 

 000, against an expenditure on revenue account 

 of 586,000. The state railways yielded a net 

 profit during 1877 of 141,000, or a return of 

 nearly 1 per cent., while the guaranteed rail- 

 ways, on which 94,000,000 had been expended 

 to the close of 1877, earned for that year more 

 than 6,000,000 net, or an average of consider- 

 ably more than 6 per cent. The state railways, 

 it must be remembered, are mostly new lines, 

 constructed mainly for strategic purposes or as 

 feeders to trunk lines. The annual trade of 

 British India with Afghanistan is estimated at 

 1,830,000, nearly equally divided between 

 exports and imports. Of the total, 1,500,- 

 000 passes through the Punjaub and 330,000 

 through Sinde. The trade of Beloochistan is 

 valued at less than 100,000. 



On March 14th the Council passed a bill for 

 the better regulation of the native press. In 

 the course of the debate it was explained that 

 the operation of the measure was confined to 

 papers in the vernacular, as they alone ap- 

 pealed to the peasant classes. The Govern- 

 ment did not object to fair criticisms of its 

 acts, but the articles against which the bill 

 was directed were not of that character. They 

 attacked established institutions in a manner 

 which no country in the world would suffer. 

 Lord Lytton said it was his deliberate judg- 

 ment that the bill was imperatively called for 

 by the supreme law of the safety of the state. 

 English rule and English race were maligned 

 in the vernacular precs, and sometimes sedition 

 was openly preached. The provisions of this 

 act were extended to Bombay, Bengal, Oude, 

 the Northwest Provinces, and the Punjaub. 

 The immediate passing of this measure into a 

 law was deemed by the Government to be of 

 such grave and paramount importance, that 

 the bill was introduced without the customary 

 notice, the standing orders were also suspended, 

 and it was carried through all its stages at a 

 single sitting of the Council. It was stated to 

 be worthy of note that some of the most sedi- 

 tious of these attacks were published in Mah- 

 ratta papers, and that the most disloyal of all 

 the papers was published in the capital of Ma- 

 harajah Holkar, Indore. 



