out, be looked at as a whole. Such expenses as that of suppressing the Mutiny were essentially imperial, and the attempt to localise them could only be justified on the ground of a narrow and baneful provincialism. 'We are one great dependency under one Sovereign, and we have one clear duty before us — to unite with all our efforts and all our means in maintaining her Empire prosperous and inviolate.'
Another point which Mr. Wilson's Budget raised and decided was the liability of the Bengal landholders, under the Permanent Settlement, to the general taxation of the country. The concession to them by the State of the right to hold their lands at settled rates has sometimes been put forward as justifying a claim to exemption to other burdens common to the entire community. The Finance Minister now distinctly declared this contention to be unsustainable. He showed, from Lord Cornwallis' Minutes, that no such exemption was contemplated by the framers of the Permanent Settlement; and he pointed out how unsound and dangerous a policy it would be to relieve the richest and most privileged class in India from its lawful share in the national expenditure, and how essential it was, in the general interest of the country, to adhere strictly to the rule laid down by Lord Cornwallis himself, that 'all who enjoy the protection of the State must pay for it in accordance with their means.'
In matters of structural reform Mr. Wilson principally insisted on the creation of efficient machinery
