had seemed necessary, in a moment of embarrassment, for the State to lay its hand.
The most interesting portion of Mr. Laing's statement, however, was that in which he dealt with the general character of the Indian revenue. His views, he admitted, had been greatly modified by a longer acquaintance with the subject: — 'It is only by degrees, and as the result of close enquiry, that the conviction has forced itself on my mind that the revenue of India is really buoyant and elastic in an extraordinary degree.' In support of this view he pointed out that the national revenues had increased by eleven millions in five years, and that, though half of this increase was due to fresh taxation, acquisition of new territory and other exceptional causes, it was not possible to put the normal growth of Indian revenue for the previous ten years at less than £700,000 per annum — an increment which it was reasonable to suppose would have been greater but for the large amount of additional taxation meanwhile imposed. 'I know of no other country,' the Finance Minister observed, 'of which it can be said that her revenue is increasing by £750,000 per annum, while her expenditure has been reduced in one year by four millions; and that she is maintaining an equilibrium, while expending out of revenue four millions a year on public works and another million for interest on unfinished railways.'
The financial strength which Mr. Laing was the first to announce, perhaps to discover, is now a matter of notoriety to everyone with the slightest familiarity
