THE POVERTY OF INDIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5406, 25 July 1878, Page 3

THE POVERTY OF INDIA.

(From the London Examiner). India. hag been for half a century too poor even to bear the slight cost of developing her own" resources. The grand mistake we have made has been in ruling her as if she were the El Dorado of romance instead of the faminestricken, pauperised empire of reality. What wealth there is exists in the hands of the few, of whom the majority are foreigners. But public burdens and the cost of government are wrung from the penniless pockets of the poor, who, while they can scarcely keep body and soul together, have been expected to pay for costly. " improvements," involving liabilities that it would tax the energies of the. richest States to meet. . Two millstones hang round the neck of the Indian Einpire—(l) ever increasing debt, (2) constantly recurring deficits. When the Company handed over the country to the Crown in 1858, the debt of India was £59,500,000. It' is now £234,000,000. In 1858, the charge for interest on debt was £2,500,000. It is now over £11;000,000; and, allowing that railways and canals clear off annually about £3,700,000," we have still, an annual debt charge to be' met out of the taxes of £7,300,000. Of course, it is said that this huge debt has oonferred benefits on India in the shape of public works. Of the railways we may safely say they were built on an extravagant gauge, which even a rich country like England could not have afforded, and that when- tHey are not a dead loss they pay about 3J per centum of the 5 ; per centum dividend guaranteed by tho State. The very " improvement" in their business is due to the famine traffic As to the irrigation works, they are a dead loss. In Bengal alone the loss on. these schemes in 1875-1876 was £203,700, and that, too, when only £4,072,742, was spent by way of outlay. Even Sir John Strachey dares riot conjecture what the loss will be when tho outlay reaches, as under the existing system it must, £8,000,000.