army in India, and both on this account and from a sense of national pride Indian critics of military expenditure have pressed for a reduction in the British element. Up to 1921 the Indian Government and its military advisers, though committed gener- ally to reducing army charges that have doubled since 1914, had not admitted that the British garrison could be safely reduced. In a debate in the Legislative Assembly in March 1921 the com- mander-in-chief (Lord Rawlinson) made out a strong case for not altering the proportion of British to Indian soldiers while the requirements of internal and external defence were unchanged.
In 1914, when the World War broke out, the regular forces in India comprised 75,575 British soldiers, including 2,689 commissioned officers; 159,861 Indian army troops, including 2,771 British commissioned officers and 341 British warrant and non-commissioned officers; and 21,069 Imperial service troops. The reserves of the Indian army numbered 36,000 odd. Many of these were found during the war to be unfit for active service. The Volunteer force consisted of some 38,000 Europeans and Eurasians. During the World War the Indian army was greatly enlarged, as demands were made upon it by the Home Govern- ment for service abroad. In the last year of the World War the Government of India undertook to raise an additional half- million combatant recruits, and no doubt the full number would have been raised had the Armistice not intervened. All charges were borne by the Home Government, but the heavy task of recruiting, training, equipping and despatching the new armies fell on the Indian administration. Demobilization commenced in the beginning of 1919, but was interrupted by the Afghan War and the subsequent campaign against the tribes in Waziristan. At the end of 1920 the Indian troops serving in India mustered 226,000 men, or some 70,000 above pre-war strength. The British troops on the same date were only 65,390 men, or some 14.000 below pre-war strength.
The Kitchener Reforms. Lord Kitchener, in the course of his prolonged tenure of the post of commander-tn-chief in India, set to himself the task of reconstituting the army in India as regards organization and administration, improving its military efficiency, distributing it territorially to the best advantage, and giving it the mobility and power of rapid concentration which modern warfare requires. Though able men before him had done much to make the Indian army an efficient instrument of war. Lord Kitchener brought to bear upon the problem new ideas and methods. He had this advantage over his predecessors that he enjoyed a prestige and authority that enabled him to override opposition and obtain the concurrence of the home and Indian authorities to a large, and, in many respects, a contentious, scheme of reconstruction. The abolition of the military department and the military member of council, and the subsequent suppression of a separate depart -nent of supply, made him eventually the sole military adviser of the viceroy, and con- centrated in the person of the cpmmander-in-chief all executive and administrative authority in military affairs. In reorganizing the army he made the defence of the north-west frontier against the possible advance of Russia through Afghanistan his primary con- cern. The organization of the troops which he found existing dated from the Mutiny. It failed, he considered, to distinguish sufficiently between the requirements of internal security and those of offensive warfare. It did not ear-mark troops for these two distinct purposes and train and equip them accordingly, but left the selection and mobilization of an active army in the event of war to the last mo- ment. He aimed, therefore, at creating out of the forces at his dis- posal (some 230,000 men in all) a field armv, capable of being im- mediately mobilized, of the strength which fie considered 'would be required to defend India against a Russian advance through Afghan- istan, until help could be obtained from England. He proposed to mark off this army from the troops allotted for internal defence, to distribute it conveniently by divisions (each division comprising some 13,500 combatants of all arms) in homogeneous military areas, and to train it in war formations under the general officers who would command in the field. He broke up the four army commands which he found existing and replaced them by nine "divisional" com- mands. In each divisional command he proposed to place a self- contained division of the field army together with the necessary complement of garrison troops that would be left behind for internal defence in the event of mobilization. Fully mobilized his field army would absorb some 120,000 combatant troops, or more than half the total strength of the army in India. Adequate transport and supplies were to be provided and every arrangement made to en- able each division of the field army, thoroughly trained and fully equipped, to pass rapidly into a state of war, when required, with- out confusion and dislocation.
It was a large scheme, involving many subsidiary reforms, such
as enlarged staffs, extensive regrouping of troops and building of
barracks, better training and equipment, increased pay and allow-
ances for the native ranks of the Indian army.
These measures were in process of being carried out, when Lord Kitchener left India in 1909 after seven years' tenure of the office of commander-in-chief. Though planned with the greatest economy, and though it was curtailed and altered in order to reduce expense, the scheme necessarily increased the army charges, which rose from 16,000,000 in 1901 to 20,500,000 in 1910. Financial difficultiei then beset the Indian Government. Fears of Russian aggression had subsided and a halt in military expenditure was thought advisable. When the World War broke out, the reorganization so far completed fell considerably short of Lord Kitchener's original scheme, though representing a great advance on what it had superseded. In the meantime much greater progress had been made in the United Kingdom in the organization, training and equipment of the British army. The expeditionary forces despatched from India wi found in the earlier stages of the World War to be inferior in th respects to British troops. Then came the Mesopotamian break- down, the inquiry of the Mesopotamian Committee set up by Ad of Parliament, and the grave indictment of the Indian military sys- tem, as regards both administration and organization, contained in the Committee's report. The system was described as cumbrous, slow-moving and overcentralized in the last degree. The new com- mander-in-chief (Sir Charles Monro) effected some improvement, but the Afghan War of 1919, followed by the Waziristan campaign, led to renewed complaints against Indian army administration.
Under Lord Chelmsford's viceroyalty, the appointment of Committee, with Lord Esher as chairman, to inquire into the < ganization and administration of the army in India, was deem necessary. In the judgment of this Committee, which reported 1920, the existing military system, as regards both organization and administration, was defective in many respects. Their recommenda- tions would, if acted on, modify considerably the Kitchener scheme. Effect had already been given by 1921 to one such recommendation involving an extensive measure of delegation and decentralization. The nine divisional commands created by Lord Kitchener were replaced by smaller territorial units, and these were grouped into four army commands, the commanders of which would dispose of much work hitherto dealt with by the commander-in-chief and army headquarters. The more important proposals of the Com- mittee regarding the functions of the military forces of India in any scheme o? Empire defence, the authority to be exercised over their organization and administration by the British War Office, and the position and duties of the commander-in-chief were in 1921 still before the Indian Government and the Cabinet. As they stood, the proposals were not acceptable to Indian nationalists, who saw in them a design to subordinate the Indian army to the necessities of the Empire and to encroach on the independence of India.
FINANCE
The Indian revenues are largely dependent on the seasonal i If the monsoon is bad, and the crops fail, land revenue is remit or its collection postponed, railway traffics decline, the agricultur population consumes less, the customs and excise receipts fall ' and heavy expenditure is incurred in the relief of distress. G< and bad seasons occur in cycles. Lord Minto entered upon his ad ministration in a good cycle. In 1905-6 there was a surplus of : " ooo.ooo, 1 although the salt duty had been reduced, certain 1; cesses remitted and special grants made to local Governments from Imperial revenues. It may here be explained that the budget of the Government of India included also the transactions of the local Governments, the revenues enjoyed by the latter being mainly de- rived from sources of income which are shared between the Imperial or central Government and themselves. A grant from " Imperial revenues" to " provincial revenues" meant that the central Govern- ment from its surplus made a gift to the local Governments. In 1906-7 further remissions of land cesses and additional grants to local Governments were made and a surplus of 1,500,000 secured. In 1907-8 in expectation of continued prosperity the salt duty was reduced to the low rate of R.I per maund (82 pounds), and the opium revenue precautionally written down in view of an agreement with the Chinese Government, under which the export of Indian opium to China would be progressively diminished until in the space of ten years it would altogether cease. But adverse times now set in. In the autumn of 1907 theVains failed over a great part of India. Con- ditions continued unfavourable throughout 1908 and the first
1 The conversion of rupees into sterling throughout this article has been made on the basis of Rs. I5 = i. This was the ratio, as fixed by Act of the Indian Legislature, up to Sept. 1920. It was effec- tively maintained in the exchanges, and was the accepted notation of the Indian Government in its financial and other returns. The ratio has now been altered to R.I ='/io of the gold contained in a sovereign by the Indian Coinage Act, 1920, in accordance with the recommendation of the Indian Exchange and Currency Committee. But the new ratio failed to become effective, and no steps to stabilize it had been taken up to the middle of 1921. In the latest Indian re- turns the notation is in lakhs and crores of rupees. If and when a 2s. rupee becomes effective, a lakh will =io,oooand acrore =1,000,000.
