§ THE EARL OF ELLENBOROUGHsaid, he saw by the newspapers that the Directors of the East India Company had altered the rate of exchange at which they were prepared to receive funds in this country for Bills drawn on the Indian Government. This alteration was merely a reduction of one farthing in the rupee, but it amounted to 2½d. in the pound; and its effect had immediately been to create a reduction in the price of bar silver and dollars, which of late had been exported to a considerable extent to India. It might be that the Court of Directors had adopted this step at the suggestion of Her Majesty's Government, in order to check the export of silver to that country, which had been increasing to an alarming extent; but whether the step had been taken on this ground or, by offering more favourable terms of remittance, to obtain a large accession of funds to the home treasury in this country, the effect upon the Govern- 853 ment of India would be precisely the same. The Indian Government remitted the funds for home expenditure chiefly by two modes. It advanced the funds of India on the security of goods hypothecated to the Company, and on bills payable to the Company here; and it paid in India bills drawn by the Company in tins country on account of money paid into the home treasury. Over the funds it remitted on the security of hypothecated goods the Government of India had power. It could limit the amount of those funds at its pleasure; but it had no power over the sums it paid in discharge of bills sent from this country. The revenue of India at the present moment was subject to three considerable dangers, the first of which was the non-collection of the revenue. There could be no doubt that the largest portion of the country above Agra was in such a state that the difficulty of collecting the revenue must be extremely great. In India no one paid if he could help it; and if it appeared probable that there would be a deficiency in the means of enforcing payment, the revenue would not be regularly paid. More than that, large as was the cash balance of the Government of India, it was by no means accumulated in two or three places, but was distributed and separated in the various treasuries in India. He regretted that there was reason to believe the mutineers of Delhi must have obtained possession of a sum of £400,000 or £500,000. He did not say that the whole of this sum belonged to the Government. The stock of the Delhi Bank must be included in it, but the largest portion of the sum must have belonged to the Government. These treasuries were dispersed all over the country, and when the Government was understood to have a sufficient force at its disposal for their protection they were perfectly safe; but when the contrary was the case, and when a state of things such as that which at present existed in India prevailed, there was no security that these treasuries might not be seized upon by parties who were anxious to enrich themselves at the expense of the Government. It was, further, the custom in India not to transmit money from place to place to any considerable extent by means of bills, but by escorts of military, consisting of regular troops, and occasionally by police. Under present circumstances the Government could not, however, altogether depend upon the regular troops, and therefore could not resort to them as a means of escort. It was there- 854 fore in the position of having to encounter great difficulties in the collection of the revenue—of being open to the inconvenience of having the money which was collected plundered—and of not being able to send it to the great centre from which payments were made, owing to the want of an escort on which reliance could be placed. Bearing in mind those triple difficulties, he should entreat the Government to consider most carefully the question whether it might not be expedient to leave it to the discretion of the Government in India whether they should remit or not the sums which might be necessary for expenditure in this country. There might be cases of emergency in which it would be absolutely essential for the Government of India to retain those funds in its own hands to provide for its own security. The Government in this country—the Court of Directors—had other means of supply, as, for instance, by the issue of India bonds or by the assistance of Her Majesty's Government, who, he concluded, would be ready to lend their aid in case of any emergency which might arise. His own immediate predecessor, as he understood, when the catastrophe which took place at Cabool occurred, had called upon the Court of Directors not to require him to make remittances to this country for a period of two years. The subject was one of no ordinary importance, and he wished, therefore, earnestly to call the attention of the Government to the question whether, by means of any extraordinary demand for money to be remitted to this country, the Government of India might not be precluded from taking those steps which, under existing circumstances, they might deem to be absolutely necessary for their own safety.
§ EARL GRANVILLEassured the noble Earl that the reduction in the rate of exchange was altogether attributable to the ordinary operations of commerce. There was no fear of any undue drain upon the Indian Treasury, as the amount of bullion in the hands of the Governor General was at present £10,000,000, while he had opened a loan of £3,000,000 to meet any contingency which might arise. He, however, quite admitted the importance of the subject, and the noble Earl might rest satisfied that the Government would take the necessary precautions to prevent the drain of money from India to any extensive extent, particularly under existing circumstances.