cannot be broken with those who are entitled to pensions. No one, of course, can be so unreasonable as to suggest that a policy of repudiation should be adopted, and that India should not meet the obligations which have been incurred on her behalf. Such considerations as these, however, do not in the slightest degree affect the importance of preventing in the future that which has happened in the past. Nothing can more conclusively show the peril involved in adding to the debt of India, than the fact that the interest which she has annually to pay on the debt already incurred imposes on her a burden which she finds it difficult to bear. The pensions and allowances which she has undertaken to grant must of course be paid; but if these pensions and allowances throw upon her a charge altogether disproportionate to her resources, an irresistible argument is at once supplied in favour of a fundamental change in the system. Taking the figures of the actual expenditure in 1876-77, the latest year for which they are available, it appears that no less an amount than 2,800,000l. of the revenues of India has annually to be paid in England in pensions, and furlough, compassionate, and absentee allowances. The real significance of this drain upon the resources of a country will be understood, when it is remembered that her entire net or available revenue is less than 38,000,000l. The home charges for the army are constantly increasing. In December 1877 the present Finance Minister, Sir John Strachey, in bringing forward his financial measures for the creation of a famine fund, said: "I examined in some detail, in my minute laid before the Council on the 15th of March, the accounts of the army. I showed that it now costs upwards of 17,000,000l. a year; that its cost has increased by upwards of 1,000,000l. since 1875-76; and that a large share of this increase is in the expenditure recorded in the Home Accounts.' Sir John Strachey added: 'I do not assert that the whole of the additional expenditure on the army has not been incurred for excellent objects, or that it could have been avoided; but that the Indian revenues are liable to have great charges thrown upon them without the Government of India being consulted, and almost without any power of remonstrance, is a fact the gravity of which can hardly be exaggerated.' Serious as is the state of things thus disclosed, it is not difficult to understand how it has been brought about. Change after change is introduced into the organisation of the army, without a moment's thought being given to the effect which will be produced on Indian finance. A large part of the increase in the home military charges, to which reference has just been made, is no doubt to be attributed to the short-service system which has lately come into operation. As previously remarked, although short service may be an excellent arrangement for England, it was scarcely possible to have devised a more costly scheme of army organisation for India ; and yet it appears from evidence given before a parliamentary com

mittee by Sir Thomas Pears, late Secretary of the Military Department at the India Office, that there is no official record that the influence which would be exercised on the finances of India by the short-service system was ever considered by the English Government."

Although it may be fairly contended. that, whatever reforms in administration are introduced, a considerable time must elapse before such great items of charge as those just referred to can be materially reduced, yet an important saving might at once be effected if the work of retrenchment were vigorously taken in hand. An examination of the home charges will at once show that a year never elapses without various acts of extravagance being sanctioned. In some instances the amounts involved may be small, but it not unfrequently happens, that the want of due economy is most strikingly brought to light by some transaction in which the expenditure involved is not large. I might quote almost innumerable examples to show this. Looking over the latest accounts of the home charges, it will be found that India is charged 1,200l. for the 'Passage and Outfit of a Member of the Council of the Governor-General.' In the same year she is charged 2,450l. for the Passage and Outfit of the Bishops of Calcutta and Bombay and their Chaplains.' But if any one requires to have brought home to him the lavishness with which the money of India is spent, it is only necessary to pay a visit to the India Office, and remember, as we pass along its spacious corridors, that that palatial building was erected by the Indian Government, and its costly establishment is maintained, at the expense and for the use of one of the poorest countries in the world.

In thus directing attention to the great importance of reducing the home charges, it must not be supposed that this policy of retrenchment ought alone to be carried out with regard to the expenditure of Indian revenues in England. I have, however, in a previous article, referred to the general costliness of Indian administration, and I have thought it important to make here special reference to the home charges, because the chief object which the Government seem anxious to obtain is a diminution of the loss by exchange, and there is, I believe, no hope that the exchange will become more favourable, unless the home charges are reduced. I trust it will not be thought that I underrate the difficulties which will have to be encountered, in carrying out a policy of rigid economy in the administration of Indian finance. Many who, until quite lately, always spoke of India as a country which could scarcely be administered on too liberal a scale, are now going to the opposite extreme, and express the most alarmist views as to her future financial position. In some of the leading English journals scarcely a week elapses, without reference being made to the hopeless embarrassment of the finances of India, and her future insolvency is alluded to as if it could not be averted.

See Report of East India Finance Committee, 1874, p. 53.

Although I do not share these desponding views, yet it must be evident that, unless something is promptly done, the financial condition of India will indeed soon become one of hopeless embarrassment. It is not more certain that a stone, if it is not checked in its fall, will gather increased momentum, than it is that the system, which has received its greatest development during the present year, of perpetually adding to the indebtedness of India, will, if it is not arrested, soon burden her with charges which she will be powerless to meet. The simple truth cannot be too persistently insisted upon, that India, throughout every department, has of late years been far too expensively governed. Although great economies may be effected, the smallest saving should not be neglected, and to those who are responsible for the management of Indian finance the fact should ever be present, that India is so poor that the waste of a shilling of her money may be of far more serious consequence than the waste of a pound of the money of England.

As I have now considered three of the four financial proposals of the Indian Government for the present year, namely, the reduction of the cotton duties, the raising of 3,500,000l. in India, and the borrowing of 10,000,000l. in England, it only remains to say a few words on the last of the four proposals-the advance of 2,000,000l. by England to India, free of interest, as a contribution towards the expenses of the Afghan war. This advance may be regarded from two entirely distinct points of view. In the first place, it may be considered as a gift or a charitable offering; and, secondly, it may be looked on as a discharge of an obligation legally and equitably imposed on England to bear some share of the cost of the Afghan war. If no such obligation really rests on England, then this advance of 2,000,000l., without interest, is a gratuitous sacrifice on the part of England on behalf of India. It is scarcely necessary to remark that the consequences involved in the grant of such a subvention are most serious. The financial relations between England and India are at once placed on an entirely new footing. The Indian Government, by the acceptance of such an eleemosynary loan, virtually confess that the strain now put on the finances of India is more than she can bear, and that she is obliged to come to England for assistance. Not only is it an admission of financial exhaustion, but the granting of such assistance may produce a most disastrous effect upon the future financial administration of India. If the idea is once permitted to spread that the Indian authorities, whenever they are pressed for money, can draw upon the English Exchequer, every guarantee for economy will be swept away, and an incalculable injury may be inflicted both upon England and upon India. It will, however, be probably said that the advance of this 2,000,000l. is not intended in any way as a gift, but that it must be solely regarded as a contribution, which India is legally bound to make, towards the expenses of the Afghan war. By the fifty-fifth section of the Government of India Act of 1858 it is distinctly pro

vided, that when the Indian army is employed for imperial purposes beyond the frontiers of India the cost shall be borne by England, and when for Indian purposes the cost shall be borne by India. There seems to be no room for doubt that the present war has been undertaken, in part at least, for imperial purposes, and, therefore, India cannot be legally called upon to bear its entire cost. It has, in fact, been most distinctly stated by the Prime Minister that the military expedition into Afghanistan was not simply an Indian war, but was undertaken for imperial purposes; for, in a speech which he made in the House of Lords on the 10th of December, he said: "This is not a question of the Khyber Pass merely, and of some small cantonments at Dakka or at Jellalabad. It is a question which concerns the character and the influence of England in Europe.' As no one would for a moment think of throwing upon India the entire cost of maintaining the influence and character of England in Europe, no other conclusion is possible, than that the advance of 2,000,000l., without interest, to India is intended to be England's contribution towards the expense of an expedition which has been undertaken in the interest of the two countries. This being the case, it will be desirable to explain the exact share of the expense which will be borne by England and India respectively. As the 2,000,000l., which England can borrow at 3 per cent., is to be repaid by seven equal annual instalments, and as the first instalment will become due at the end of next year, the amount which England will contribute by foregoing the interest on the loan is somewhat less than 320,000l. This sum, therefore, represents the amount which England will pay towards the expense of an expedition which, it is officially stated, will cost 2,600,000l., and which, in the opinion of almost all independent military authorities, will greatly exceed this amount. But, assuming that the official estimate should prove strictly correct, it appears that India will pay 2,280,000l. and England 320,000l. India, therefore, will contribute more than seven pounds for every pound that is contributed by England. It is scarcely credible that a proposal should have been brought forward which would lead to such a result. It is, perhaps, only fair to conclude that when the real nature of the scheme is understood it will be promptly abandoned. At any rate it is difficult to suppose that it will ever be sanctioned by Parliament. The English people, whatever may be their faults, have never been charged, even by their bitterest detractors, with meanness. But it is not easy to see how we can escape from such a charge, if, when an expedition has been undertaken, not simply in the interest of India, but to maintain the influence and character of England in Europe,' we compel the Indian people, whether they wish it or not, surrounded as they are with poverty and financial embarrassment, to pay more than seven times as much as is contributed by all the wealth of England.

HENRY FAWCETT.

RECENT SCIENCE.

(PROFESSOR HUXLEY has kindly read, and aided the Compilers and the Editor with his advice upon, the following article.)

It is not only to the geologist, to the physicist, and to the astronomer that speculations as to the probable nature of the interior of the earth are full of interest. So fascinating a subject appeals to a circle of inquirers far outside the pale of the special sciences. Every thoughtful man naturally feels curious to know something about the nature of the innermost parts of this earth on which we dwell. Is our globe a stony sphere, solid to its very core? Or is it made up of a hollow shell, with a mass of molten matter within? Or is there nothing but compressed gas inside the hollow sphere? Or, finally, is there a solid crust on the outside and a solid nucleus in the centre, separated from each other by an intermediate layer of liquid? Each of these views, in turn, has found its advocates; and each has been supported by arguments of more or less weight. As direct observation of the earth's interior is manifestly impossible, except to a depth which is utterly insignificant in comparison with the magnitude of the earth, all reasoning on this subject must needs be based on evidence of an indirect kind. The arguments which have been advanced are drawn principally from the figure of the earth, from its mean density, from the increase of temperature which is observed on descending to accessible depths, and especially from the widely occurring phenomena of vulcanicity. A noteworthy contribution to the subject from the volcanic side has recently been made by Herr Siemens, whose investigations will be found recorded in a paper recently published in the monthly reports of the Berlin Academy.1

In seeking an explanation of the phenomena which he witnessed during a visit to Vesuvius last May, the author has been led to some general studies in vulcanology which have far more than local interest. At the time of his visit steam, or other vapour, was being ejected in explosive puffs from the cone in the centre of the great crater. Sharp explosions succeeded each other at tolerably regular

''Physikalisch-mechanische Betrachtungen, veranlasst durch eine Beobachtung der Thätigkeit der Vesuvs im Mai 1878.' Monatsbericht der k. preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1878, pp. 558-582.