Ir is instructive to residents in China, to compare once and a while the failures and successes of British government in India, as in many respects there are analogies between the two countries. Mr Markham's "Statement," exhibiting the moral and material progress of the British Empire in India, reviewed in the 'Academy of 27th February, is one of those works which gives' us an indig! into what has been doing in that great dependency. The spirit which actuated Trojan and the better-minded of the Roman emperors is not very different from that of the British rulers of India. Both attempted to set up, as the rule of government, entire justice, and to promote the happiness of the subjects who came under their rule, as well morally as materially. The great works undertaken by England in India will stand comparison with those of the Romans in their Asintic possessions, and it is to be hoped that the influence of the modern empire will remain even more permanent than that of her ancient prototype. As the reviewer says—the keystone to the subject is finance. "England could not afford to govern India, if the latter did not pay its own expenses; and the real difficulty of the problem to be solved by her rolers is to curtail philanthropic expenditure within due bounds, and not to purchase material improvements fat the cost of a deficiency in the yearly budget, or the odious alternative of the necessary imposition of taxes foreign to the spirit of the people." As in China, the mainstay of Imperial revenue is @ Jand-tax, or rather rent, bringing in £21,000,000 per annum. Opium brings in some £9,000,000 more; £6,000,000 are levied on salt. Customs, excise and stamps make up the difference. No taxes exist on internal trade, the development of which is anxiously encouraged by the Government, and the only foreign tax introduced, the Income tax, has, in deference to the wishes of large sections of the more influential classes, British and Native, been taken off. Theoretically the tax is fair enough, but the experiment seems to prove that the Government had not yet obtained that confidence which would enable them to Jew the tax in an unoppressive and equitable manner. Nations in an inferior state of civilisation steadily resist all attempts at direct taxation, because that confidence in their government which can only be gained when it is learned that the interest of governors and governed can be identical, does not yet exist. Ib look many years in England itself to reconcile the taxpayers to direct taxation, and the feeling of dissatisinction is not even yet extinct. Still, although to reimpose the tax may not at present be expedient, it may be well to keep it before the eyes of the natives, as one with many good points to recommend it so soon as the requisite confidence on their part shall be acquired. Intellectually, Great Britain has made great strides in raising the capabilities of the subject races. It is undeniable that the effect is in many cases grotesque. The Indian mind is supple rather than retentive. It readily receives an impress from without, even before it has fully comprehended the reason or condition which has led to that impress being communicated. We have not, here, to look so far as India for a some. what similar condition of affairs, More than any Asiatic nation, the Japanese are desirous of rendering themselves a civilized people. They possess many of the necessary qualifications, and have set Uhemselves seriously and conscientiously to the work. Still, even their greatest admirers cannot deny that, amidst much that is sterling, there exists a vast amount which is simply superficial and often descends even to the ridiculous.
The labours of Great Britain will, however, probably be longest preserved in the public works with which she has overspread the land. It is curious, therefore, to note how the results have tallied with the predictions of those who observed their first beginnings, The most important of these works have been railways or works connected with irrigation. Many of those experienced in Indian ways boldly asserted that li tion works were what was mainly required, while railways were unsuited to the wants of the country and the feelings of the people. The opinions of these men were worthy of consideration; they were not spoken idly or without knowledge. Curiously enough, the exact reverse has been the issue of the works undertaken. The large sums spent on irrigation have resulted in too many cases in positive loss, while the railways, constructed as they were at too often extravagant outlay, and after paying guaranteed interest, at present cost the government less than 1} per cent. on the original cost, while this charge is itself yearly diminishing. On the other land, the soils of India differ materially, and serious mistakes have been made in introducing irriga~ tion works where they were positively deleterious. It is not always where there is least rainfall that irrigation is most needed. The coast of Madras is adduced as an example, where with an annual rainfall of from 50 to 60 inches a-year, irrigation is absolutely necessary, because what is called in India ary cultivation is, owing to the poorness of the soil, impossible. In the central districts of the same presidency, with a rainfall of only 30 inches, the rich soil of the plains only requires an occasional shower to produce plentiful crops. Here the farmers have been accus. tomed for centuries to grow, in rotation, crops to which in Northern China we are no strangers—millet, pulse, hemp, cotton and oil seeds. Irrigation is here worse than useless. Tt would only force the farmer to exchange his more wholesome and profitable crops for the culture of rice, one of the least profit. able, if not the very least profitable of cereals. Of irrigation schemes, the great works undertaken at Orissa, Midnapur and Kurmol have, from causes such as the above, turned out complete failures. Besides these causes which have rendered so many of the irrigation schemes practical failures, there are others at work to produce the same result. It was hoped that canals would afford a ready means of communication during the year, and that even in the face of failure of the irrigation project, the industrial uses of the canals would repay their cost, Experience has proved this hope also fallacious. "Except in the rainy tracts in Bengal, and along the western coast, all attempts to keep canals open throughout the year have proved illusory, and a vast scheme for making the Godavery river navigable, after ten years persevering efforts and an enor: mous expenditure," has been finally abandoned as impracticable. For tunately for China, she does not Inbour under many of the peculiar difficulties of India. Possessing a rich soil for the most part, and an abundant supply of rivers, few portions are actually sterile, What she does want is increased means of internal com. munication. Where canals are practicable, there is little fear of & want of water. Where from natural causes impracticable, the empire is as a whole admirably adapted for the construction of railways. England has honestly set herself in India to improve the condition of her people. China has persistent made it a policy to throw obstacles in their way. It is better sometimes to have failed in a good cause, then never to have attempted it, and not only England but China may well take example from the failures as well as the successes of British government in Asia.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.