the annuity fund; after completion of ten years and before completion of full term, to 250l. per annum, plus value of subscriptions.

13. After completion of prescribed term every civil servant shall be entitled to a retiring annuity of 5001. per annum, plus value of his accumulated subscriptions. For farther services beyond prescribed term, Home Government to have power to grant special pensions in special

cases.

14. Widows and children of men who have served less than ten years to receive from the civil fund per annum, widow 1501., each child 50%.

Of men who have served more than ten years, widows 300%., each child 1007. (as at present); in all cases without reference to private property.

CHAPTER VI.

MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS.

Financial importance of the army; its statistics; distinction between regulars and troops commonly called irregular; cost of the army; comparative cost of different arms, of different elements, and of different presidencies; composition of the native army; comparison with former periods; necessity of European troops; regular sepoy army, its state, causes of its deficiencies; employment of natives in superior grades; proposed cavalry arrangements; proposed infantry arrangements; infusion of new blood into the native army; the commissariat, proposed change; supply of European officers to the army; naval establishments.

It is principally with reference to finance that I shall venture to touch on military subjects, and if I incidentally allude to some opinions on matters not purely financial, contracted during a service in which civilians are brought into very close contact with military affairs, I hope that I shall be excused.

Financial importance of the army.

The army is not only vastly important as the means of that security, without which the best government would be of little avail, but is also the overwhelming financial item, on the regulation of which our financial prosperity principally depends. It is our army which is really the expensive part of our government of India. While we owe to it our superiority over the native powers, we have at the same time obtained that superiority by a more lavish expenditure. Our armies have been less numerous than those against which they fought, but they have cost infinitely more; and it is in the cost of our army, not of our civil establishments, that the natives of the country pay for the advantages of our rule. The reason that we have smaller funds at our disposal for public works and public

magnificence than the Mahommedan emperors, is simply that the money saved by our more economical civil administration is lost by the much larger military expenditure. We have incurred of late many extraor dinary military expenses, but even supposing these to be abated, the annual cost of the army maintained on its present scale is still enormous. It amounts, in fact, to about two-thirds of the net revenues of the countryto twice as much as every other charge of every kind put together.

Our net revenue, as usually calculated, is in round numbers about twenty-one millions sterling; but of this sum about three millions go to payment of the interest of debt and stock, and of the remaining eighteen millions upwards of twelve millions is the cost of the army, and about six millions is the sum devoted to the whole of the civil, political, marine, and ecclesiastical expenses at home and abroad, judicial and police charges, public works, post-offices, outlying settlements (including Scinde), and everything else of every kind. It is clear, then, that the possibility of a moderately cheap government of India depends on our military system.

The peculiarity of our military situation is this,that neither are the numbers of the army very excessive in proportion to the magnitude and population of the country, nor is the expense of each soldier very great when judged by European standards. But it is when we compare the expense with the revenues of the country and the price of labour that we find the great disproportion. We have not a larger army than France, while we have a much larger territory and population; but then our Indian army costs, I believe, nearly as much as that of France, notwithstanding a very much smaller revenue, and in a country where labour is vastly cheaper.

The Government has at its disposal, in round numbers, about 310,000 fully disciplined troops, of Its statistics. which about 22,000 are regular contin

gents under European officers paid by native states, and about 288,000 constitute the British Indian army. Of this latter force the numbers attached to each presidency are nearly as follows:

The different arms of the service stand as follows:

Distinction between regulars and irre

gulars.

In classifying the different arms I have used a periphrasis in regard to the infantry usually designated as "irregular," because the term is not, properly speaking, in any way correct. The irregular infantry are just as regular soldiers as those called regulars. They are disciplined and equipped in exactly the same way. But the only European officers are a commandant, a second in command, and an adjutant. The officers of companies are exclusively native, and are efficient men, promoted on the ground of fitness, not of seniority. Some of these corps are also more or less local. The regulars, on the other hand, are supposed to be provided with European officers of companies, besides a peculiar class of native commissioned officers, and this is the sole distinction between the two branches of the infantry service. With this explanation, then, I shall use the conventional terms regular and irregular infantry. In the cavalry, on the other hand, the irregulars are on a totally different footing from the regulars. They are officered in the same way as the irregular infantry, and the men find their own horses, arms, and equipments, and dress, ride, and fight in purely native fashion.

Cost of the army.

In regard to cost there is a discrepancy in this as in all other matters of account between my statements and those officially furnished to the parliamentary committees, resulting from the fashion. which still obtains at the India House of turning the Company's rupees into the extinct Sicca rupees, and thence into pounds at 10 rupees per pound. I believe that 10 current Company's rupees per pound sterling is the most correct value, and it is certainly the most con

*There is more silver in a Company's rupee than in two shillings, but a smaller seignorage on silver is taken in India, so that, on an average, I believe that a rupee in India and two shillings in England will purchase, as nearly as may be, the same weight of silver.