brothers Strachey in their admirable work have dwelt on the difficulties which beset any attempt at financial comparisons between the past and the present in India[1]. I shall, therefore, confine myself to reproducing the main figures from the official statement annually presented to Parliament[2].
During the twenty-one years, from 1842 to 1862 inclusive, there were seventeen years of deficit, and only four years of surplus, in the Indian Exchequer. Those sole four years of surplus were the central years of Lord Dalhousie's rule, from 1850 to 1853 inclusive[3]. Yet Lord Dalhousie spent with a liberality never ventured on by any previous Governor-General upon Public Works. The Parliamentary figures on this item are obscured by changes in account. But we are informed by Lord Dalhousie's first historian that his Public Work expenditure was 2½ millions in 1854, 3 millions in 1855, and 2¼ millions in 1856 (according to the Parliamentary Abstract close on 2½ millions): as compared with an average expenditure of only £169,901 during seventeen preceding years.
In every Department Lord Dalhousie, while increasing efficiency chiefly by re-organisation, did not
