368 



INDIA. 



The people of India are discontented with the 

 military expenditures, from which they derive 

 no benefit, and which have increased enormously 

 within a recent period, and with the general ex- 

 pensiveness of the Indian Government and the 

 grinding and unjust taxation to which they are 

 subjected. The salt tax has been successively 

 raised until it is five times as great as it was in 

 the early part of the century, amounting to six- 

 teen times the cost of production. The conse- 

 quence is that many poor people must take their 

 food without salt. The military expenses are 

 twenty times as great as the expenditure on- edu- 

 cation, and the pension list of the Indian army 

 is proportionately the heaviest in the world, 

 amounting to 4,250,000. The Hindus com- 

 plain that the licensing of opium shops is con- 

 ducted in a way to force the consumption of the 

 drug on the people, and that the excise laws 

 have encouraged the spread of the drinking habit, 

 although in quite recent years a better supervis- 

 ion has enabled the Government to collect more 

 revenue from alcohol and at the same time to 

 diminish the number of stills and drinking shops, 

 narrowing the producers and sellers down to a 

 limited number of large distillers and licensees 

 who can be watched. Opium is manufactured 

 by the Government, and is grown in the native 

 states of Malwa and in Bengal, where no one can 

 cultivate the poppy without a license. The gross 

 revenue from opium in 1890 was Ex 8,500,000, and 

 the net revenue Rx 5,500,000. The production 

 and the revenue have diminished chiefly becausa 

 of the extension of poppy cultivation in China. 

 The land devoted to the poppy in Bengal in 1890 

 was 100,000 acres less than in 1880, and the quan- 

 tity of the drug manufactured in British India 

 had fallen from 5,006 to 4,800 chests. The Gov- 

 ernment is accused of having endeavored to stop 

 the decline in the revenue by encouraging the 

 smoking of opium in India, and deliberately in- 

 troducing it into Burrnah, where, in the reign of 

 Thebaw, it was death to sell opium. Under Brit- 

 ish rule the consumption of the narcotic has be- 

 come alarming, and the people are visibly impov- 

 erished and demoralized thereby. On April 10, 

 1891, Sir Joseph Pease, a member of the Temper- 

 ance party in England, moved in the House of 

 Commons a resolution declaring the system by 

 which the opium revenue is raised morally in- 

 defensible, and urging upon the Indian Govern- 

 ment that it should cease to grant licenses for 

 the cultivation and sale of opium, and take meas- 

 ures to arrest the transit of Malwa opium into 

 Indian territory. Members of the Govern- 

 ment endeavored to refute the assertion that 

 Great Britain had waged wars to force the opium 

 traffic on the Chinese. Sir J. Ferguson said 

 that China was free under the Chefoo conven- 

 tion to impose any tax she chose on Indian opium 

 or to exclude it entirely, and declared that if 

 th\ Chinese thought proper to place a prohib- 

 itive v< duty on it, Great Britain would not " expend 

 a sovereign or provide a soldier or the cost of a 

 single gunshot to force it upon them." The 

 attendance was slim, and when the House divided 

 160 member^ went into the lobby with Sir Joseph 

 Pease, while ^e Government had only 130 sup- 

 porters present^ War, famine, a further fall in the 

 price of opium, decreased railroad traffic, military 

 armaments, and a fall in the rate of exchange 



are contingencies that may interfere with the 

 realization of the budget estimates for 1891-'92, 

 in which the revenue is calculated at Rx 85,318,- 

 500, and expenditure at Rx 82,526,000, reckon- 

 ing the rupee at Is. 5d. The rate of exchange 

 affects not only the regular expenditure of the 

 Indian Government in Great Britain, which 

 amounted to Rx 21,954,657 in 1889, but also the 

 interest payable in gold on the Indian railroad 

 bonds. The actual and expected action of the 

 American Congress caused the price of silver to 

 rise in 1890-'91 from 43%d. an ounce to 54|d., 

 and then to fall again to 45d, corresponding 

 to the rate of exchange anticipated for 1891-'92. 

 Before 1873 the rupee was practically worth its 

 nominal value of 2s., but for many years it has 

 remained below Is. 5d. 



In addition to the expenditure charged against 

 revenue, there was a capital expenditure for pub- 

 lic works of Rx 3,461,800 in 1889-'90, and Rx 

 3.750,000 in 1890-'91. The public debt of British 

 India in 1889 amounted Rx 206,619,559 ; the per- 

 manent debt in India being Rx 100,879,742, the 

 permanent debt in England Rx 95,033,610, and 

 the unfunded debt in India Rx 10,706,207. 



The Army. The Penjdeh incident and the 

 conquest of Upper Burmah, bringing India into 

 contact with Russia and China, led to a great re- 

 organization and extension of the Indian de- 

 fenses, the notable results of which are the for- 

 tification of the northwestern frontier and a 

 line of strong places farther back, a network of 

 railroads and military roads giving access to the 

 frontier, and a large addition to the European 

 and native army. The coast defenses have also 

 been improved, and the principal harbors pro- 

 tected by submarine mines and torpedo boats. 

 The frontier railroads, which are the most expen- 

 sive part of the new defenses, having been prac- 

 tically completed according to programme. Sir 

 Frederick Roberts, commander-in-chief, and Sir 

 George Chesney, military member of the Council, 

 have worked out a plan for the general rearma- 

 ment of the troops, the European infantry with 

 the new British magazine rifle, the native infan- 

 try with Martini-Henry rifles having the same 

 bore, which is 303, the cavalry with a new car- 

 bine, the field artillery with "breech-loading 12- 

 pounder cannons in part mounted on hydraulic- 

 buffer carriages, and the siege artillery with 4- 

 inch and 5-inch breech-loading guns with hy- 

 draulic gear that can be anchored down, and 

 with the new howitzers not yet furnished to 

 the British army. The turret-ships are to have 

 10-inch breech-loaders and torpedo catchers. 

 The military expenditure rose from under 18,- 

 000,000 average during the three years ending 

 with 1885 to over 20,000,000 a year in the suc- 

 ceeding four years, besides 1,500,000 annually 

 for special defense works for three years of the 

 four. In 1890 the expenditure was 21,000,000, 

 taking the rupee at the conventional rate of ten 

 to the pound sterling. The necessity of fre- 

 quently rearming the Indian troops and ex- 

 tending the defense works, and the constant 

 danger of war are a perplexing feature in In- 

 dian finance. While the British forces have 

 been greatly strengthened at the cost of new bur- 

 xlens on the impoverished people, a change in the 

 policy of the Government toward the feudatory 

 states has either added greatly to the defensive 



