India, and proceeded to make somewhat melancholy arrangements for leaving
this country. He broke up his establishment here, bade farewell to his
constituents at Devonport and to the inhabitants of his native place,
attended some influential public meetings in towns deeply interested
in the commerce of India, and on October 20, 1859, left England, as it
proved, for ever.
Of Mr. Wilson’s policy in India it would not be proper to give more than
a very brief sketch here. That policy is still fresh in the memory of
the public; it has been very frequently explained and discussed in the
_Economist_; it is still being tried; and, though he was fully persuaded
of the expediency of his measures, he would not have wished for too warm
a eulogy of them while they are as yet untested by the event. In almost
the last letter which the present writer received from him, there was
a sort of reprimand for permitting this journal to draw too great an
attention to his plans, and to ascribe the merit of them too exclusively
to him, and too little to the Government of which he was a member.
On his arrival in India he found that the Governor-General was on a
tour in the Upper Provinces of India, and before doing any business of
importance at Calcutta he travelled thither. This journey he thought
very advantageous, because it gave him a great insight into the nature
of the country, and enabled him to consult the most experienced revenue
officers of many large districts on their respective resources, and on
the safest mode of making those resources available to the public. He was
much struck with the capabilities of the country, and wrote to England in
almost so many words ‘that it was a fine country to _tax_.’ On the other
hand, however, he was well aware of the difficulty of his task. The only
two possible modes of taxation are direct and indirect, and in the case
of India there is a difficulty in adopting either. If we select indirect
taxation and impose duties on consumable commodities, the natives of
India meet us by declining to consume. Their wants are few, and they
will forego most of them if a tax can be evaded thereby. On the other
hand, if we adopt in India a direct tax on property or income, there is
great difficulty in finding out what each man’s property or income is.
In England we trust each person to tell us the amount of his income,
but even here the results are not wholly satisfactory; and it would be
absurd to fancy that we can place as much reliance upon the veracity of
Orientals as upon that of Englishmen.
These difficulties, however, Mr. Wilson was prepared to meet. On February
18, 1860, he proposed his Budget to the Legislative Council at Calcutta,
and the reception given to it by all classes was remarkably favourable.
He announced, indeed, a scheme of heavy taxation, but the Indian public
had been living for a considerable time under a sentence of indefinite
taxation, and they were glad to know the worst. Anything distinct was
better than vague suspense, and, as usual, Mr. Wilson contrived to
make his meaning _very_ distinct. His bearing also exercised a great
influence over the Anglo-Indian public. In England he had been remarkable
among official men for his constant animation and thorough naturalness
of manner: in his office he was as much himself as at a dinner-table or
in the House of Commons: he had no tinge of supercilious politeness or
artificial blandness. In any new scene of action—especially in such a
scene as British India—these qualities were sure to tell beneficially.
Plain directness and emphatic simplicity were the external qualities
most likely to be useful at Calcutta, and these were Mr. Wilson’s most
remarkable qualities.
The principal feature of Mr. Wilson’s Budget was the Income Tax, which
he avowedly framed after the English fashion. It is true that but little
reliance can, perhaps, be placed on the statements of Orientals as to
their wealth. It is very possible that the complicated machinery of forms
and notices which is in use here may not be applicable in India. All this
Mr. Wilson well knew. But he thought that our Indian subjects should have
an opportunity of stating their income before they were taxed upon it.
If they should state it untruly, or should decline to state it, it might
be necessary to tax them arbitrarily. But he did not think, it would be
decent—that it would be civilised—to begin with an arbitrary assessment.
By the Income Tax Act which he framed, it is enacted that other modes may
be substituted if in any instance the English mode of assessment should
prove inapplicable. In other words, if our Oriental fellow-subjects will
not tell us the truth when they are asked, we must tax them as best we
can, and they cannot justly complain of unfairness and inequality. _We_
would have been mathematically just, if _they_ had given us the means.
The reception of Mr. Wilson’s Budget was universally favourable until the
publication of the minute of Sir C. Trevelyan, which, as was inevitable,
produced a serious reaction. Heavy taxation can never be very pleasant,
and in the Presidency of Madras Sir Charles gave the sanction of the
Government—of the highest authority the people saw—to the hope that
they would not be taxed. The prompt recall of Sir Charles, however, did
much to convince the natives of the firm determination of the English
Government, and Mr. Wilson hoped that the ordeal of criticism through
which his measures had to pass would ultimately be favourable to them.
It certainly secured them from the accusation of being prepared in
haste, but it purchased this benefit at the loss to the public of much
precious time, and to Mr. Wilson of precious health. Of the substance
of this minute it is sufficient to say that its fundamental theory that
additional taxation of any sort was unnecessary in India, has scarcely
been believed by any one except its author. Almost every one has deemed
it too satisfactory to be true.
On another point Mr. Wilson’s Budget has been criticised in England,
though not in India. It has been considered to be a protective Budget.
The mistake has arisen from not attending to what that Budget is. The
changes made by Mr. Wilson in the import duties were two. ‘The first was
a reduction from twenty to ten per cent. upon a long list of articles,
including haberdashery, millinery, and hosiery, all part of the cotton
trade; the second was an increase in the duty upon cotton yarn from five
to ten per cent., thus creating a uniform tariff of ten per cent.’[38] Of
these two, it is plain the reduction from twenty per cent. to ten was not
a change that would operate as a protection to Indian industry; and the
increase of the duty on yarn has a contrary tendency. Yarn is an earlier,
cloth a later, stage of manufacture, and in Mr. Wilson’s own words, ‘it
is a low duty on yarn and a high duty on cloth that encourages native
weaving.’ For the effect of the general system of high Customs duties in
India Mr. Wilson is not responsible, but his predecessors. What _he_ did
has no protective tendency.
If the Income Tax should, as may be fairly hoped, become a permanent part
of the financial system of India, it will serve for a considerable period
to keep Mr. Wilson’s name alive there. So efficient an expedient must
always attract the notice of the public, and must in some degree preserve
the remembrance of the Minister by whom it was proposed. Mr. Wilson,
however, undertook two other measures of very great importance. One of
these has been frequently described as the introduction into India of the
English system of public accounts. But it would be more truly described
as the introduction of a rational system of public accounts. There are
three natural steps in national finance, which are certainly clearly
marked in our English system, but which have a necessary existence
independent of that recognition. These three are—first, the estimate
of future expenditure; secondly, what we call the Budget, that is the
official calculation of the income by which the coming expenditure is
to be defrayed; thirdly, the audit which shows what the expenditure has
been and how it has been met. The system of finance which Mr. Wilson
found in India neglected these fundamental distinctions. There were
no satisfactory estimates of future expenditure, and no satisfactory
calculation of future income. In consequence, the calculations of the
official departments have been wrong by millions sterling, and English
statesmen have felt great difficulty not only in saying how the deficit
was to be removed, but likewise in ascertaining what the amount of the
deficit was. At the time of his death, Mr. Wilson was eagerly occupied in
endeavouring to introduce a better system.
Mr. Wilson will likewise be remembered as the first Minister who
endeavoured to introduce into India a Government paper currency. On March
3, 1860, he introduced into the Legislative Council an elaborate plan for
this purpose, which, with a slight modification by Sir C. Wood—curious
in the theory of the currency, but practically not very important—will
speedily, it is probable, be the fundamental currency law—the ‘Peel’s
Act’ of British India.
The exact mode in which Mr. Wilson regarded these great objects, will
perhaps be better explained by two extracts from his latest letters than
by any other means. On July 4, he wrote to a friend:—
‘Firmness and justice are the only policy for India: no
vacillation, or you are gone. They like to be governed; and
respect an iron hand, if it be but equal and just. I have,
I think, more confidence than ever that the taxes will be
established and collected, and without disturbance. But the
task is still an enormous one. I must retrench yet at least
three and a half millions, and get the same sum from my new
taxes to make both ends meet. I am putting the screw on very
strongly, but rather by an improved policy in army and police
than in reductions of salaries and establishments, which cannot
be made. I have set myself _five_ great points of policy to
introduce and carry out.
‘1. To extend a system of sound taxation to the great trading
classes, who hitherto have been exempted, though chiefly
benefited by our enormously increased civil expenditure.
‘2. To establish a paper currency.
‘3. To reform and remodel our financial system, by a plan of
annual budgets and estimates, with a Pay Department to check
issues, and keep them within the authorised limits,—and an
effective audit.
‘4. A great police system of semi-military organisation, but
usually of purely civil application, which, dear though it be,
will be cheaper by half a million than our present wretched and
expensive system,—and by which we shall be able to reduce our
native army to at least one-third;—and by which alone we can
utilise the natives as an arm of defence without the danger of
congregating idle organised masses.
‘5. Public works and roads, with a view to increased production
of cotton, flax, wool, and European raw materials.
‘The four first I have made great progress in: the latter must
follow. But you will call it “a large order.” However, you have
no idea of the increased capacity of the mind for undertaking
a special service of this kind when removed to a new scene of
action, and when one throws off all the cares of engagements
less or more trivial by which one is surrounded in ordinary
life, and throws one’s whole soul into such a special service,
and particularly when one feels assured of having the power to
carry it out. I cannot tell you with what ease one determines
the largest and gravest question here compared with in England;
and I am certain that the more one can exercise real power,
there is by far the greater tendency to moderation, care, and
prudence.’
In a second letter, dated July 19, he wrote to the same friend from
Barrackpore:—
‘The Indian Exchequer is a huge machine. The English Treasury
is nothing to it for complexity, diversity, and remoteness
of the points of action. Our great enemies are time and
distance; and with all our frontier territories there is
scarcely a day passes that we have not an account of some row
or inroad. It is a most unwieldy Empire to be governed on
the principle of forcing civilisation at every point of it.
One day it is the frontier of Scinde and a quarrel with our
native chiefs, which our Resident must check; another, it is
an intrigue between Heraut and Cabul, with a report of Russian
forces in the background; the next, there is a raid upon our
Punjab frontiers to be chastised; then come some accounts of
coolness, or misunderstanding, or unreasonable demands from
our ally in Nepaul; then follow some inroads from the savage
tribes which inhabit the mountains to the rear of Assam and
up the Burrampootra; then we have reported brawls in Burmah
and Pegu, and disputes among the hill tribes whose relations
to the British and the Burmah Governments are ill defined;
then we have Central India, with our loyal chiefs Scindiah and
Holkar, independent princes with most turbulent populations,
which could not be kept in order a day without the presence of
British troops and of the Governor-General’s Agent. Besides
all these, we have among ourselves a thousand questions of
internal administration, rendered more difficult by the
ill-defined relations between the Supreme and the Subordinate
Governments—the latter always striving to encroach, the former
to hold its own. Hence, questions do not come before us simply
on their merits, but often as involving these doubtful rights.
Then we have Courts of Justice to reform, as well as all
other institutions of a domestic kind not to reform alone,
but to extend to new territories. Then we have a deficit of
7,000,000_l._, and had a Government teaching the people that
all could be done without new taxes. But unfortunately all,
except the taxes, are a present certainty—_they_ are a future
contingency. What will they yield? I have no precise knowledge.
I think from three to four millions a year when in full bloom:
this financial year not more than a million.
‘I have now got a Military Finance Commission in full swing;
a Civil Finance Commission also going: I am reorganising the
Finance, Pay, and Accountant-General’s Department, in order
to get all the advantage of the English system of estimates,
Pay Office, and Audit:—and this with as little disturbance
of existing plans as possible. The latter is a point I have
especially aimed at. On the whole, and almost without an
exception, I have willing allies in all the existing Offices.
No attempt that I see is anywhere made to thwart or impede.
‘You can well understand, then, how full my hands are, if to
all these you add the new currency arrangements; you will not
then wonder that my health has rendered it necessary to come
down here for a day or two to get some fresh air.’
It will be observed that in the last extract Mr. Wilson alludes to his
impaired health. For some time after his arrival in India he seemed
scarcely to feel the climate. He certainly did not feel it as much as
might have been anticipated. He worked extremely hard; scarcely wrote
a private letter, but devoted the whole of his great energies to the
business around him. His letters for a considerable time abound with
such expressions as ‘Notwithstanding all my hard work, my health is
excellent.’ From the commencement of the rainy season at Calcutta,
however, he ceased to be equally well, his state began to arouse the
apprehensions of experienced observers, and he was warned that he should
retire for a short time to a better climate. He would not, however,
do so until his financial measures had advanced sufficiently far for
him to leave them. His position was a very peculiar one. In general,
if one administrator leaves his post, another is found to fill it up.
But Mr. Wilson was a unique man at Calcutta. He was sent there because
he had certain special qualifications, which no one there possessed;
and, accordingly, he had no one to rely on in his peculiar functions
save himself. His presence on the spot was likewise very important. The
administration of a department can be frequently transacted by letter,
but the organisation of new departments and new schemes requires the
unremitting attention of the organiser—the impulse of his energy. The
interest, too, which Mr. Wilson took in public business was exceptionally
great, and no one who knew him well would suppose that _he_ would leave
Calcutta while necessary work, or what he deemed so, was to be done there.
Nor was labour the sole trial to which his constitution was exposed. The
success of measures so extensive as his, must ever be a matter of anxious
doubt until the event decides; and in his case there were some momentary
considerations to aggravate that anxiety. There was no experience of
such taxation as he had proposed, and the effect of it must therefore be
difficult to foresee. Moreover, for a brief period, a famine seemed to be
imminent in Upper India, which must have disturbed the whole operation
of his financial schemes. In his debilitated state of health this last
source of anxiety seemed much to weigh upon him.
About the middle of July he went for a week to Barrackpore, near
Calcutta. The change was, however, too slight, and, as might be expected,
he returned to Calcutta without any material benefit. From that time
the disease gradually augmented, and on the evening of August 2, he went
to bed never to rise from it again. For many days he continued to be
very ill, and his family experienced the usual alternations of hope and
fear. He was quite aware of his critical state, and made all necessary
arrangements with his habitual deliberation and calmness.
Lord Canning saw him on the 9th for the last time, and was much struck
with the change which illness had made in him. He believed that he saw
death in his face, and was deeply impressed with the vivid interest
which, even in the last stage of weakness, he took in public affairs,
with his keen desire for the success of his plans, and with the little
merit which he was disposed to claim for his own share in them.
It was hoped that he would be strong enough to bear removal, and it was
intended to delay the mail steamer for a few hours to take him to sea—the
usual remedy at Calcutta for diseases of the climate. But when the time
came there was no chance that his strength would be adequate to the
effort. During the whole of the 11th he sank rapidly, and at half past
six in the evening he breathed his last.
The mourning in Calcutta was more universal than had ever been
remembered. He had not been long in India, but while he had been there he
filled a conspicuous and great part; he had done so much, that there were
necessarily doubts in the minds of some as to the expediency of part of
it. No such doubts, however, were thought of now. ‘That he should have
come out to die here!’—‘That he should have left a great English career
_for this_!’—were the phrases in every one’s mouth. The funeral was the
largest ever known at Calcutta. It was attended by almost the entire
population, from the Governor-General downwards, and not a single voice,
on any ground whatever, dissented from the general grief.
Very little now remains to be said. A few scattered details, some of them
perhaps trivial, must complete this sketch.
Mr. Wilson’s face was striking, though not handsome. His features were
irregular, but had a peculiar look of mind and energy, while a strongly
marked brow and very large eyebrows gave to all who saw him an unfailing
impression of massive power and firm determination.
Mr. Wilson’s moral character in its general features resembled his
intellectual. He was not a man of elaborate scruples and difficult
doubts, and he did not much like those who were. His conscientiousness
was of a plain, but very practical kind; he had a single-minded rectitude
which went straight to the pith of a moral difficulty—which showed him
what he ought to do. On such subjects he was somewhat intolerant of
speculative reasoning. ‘The common sense is so and so,’ he used to say,
and he did not wish to be plagued with anything else.
In one respect his manner did not uniformly give a true impression of
him. He always succeeded in conveying his meaning, in stating what he
wished to have done and why he wished it; he never failed to convince
any one of his inexhaustible vigour and his substantial ability;
but he sometimes did fail in giving a true expression to his latent
generosity and real kindliness. He shrank almost nervously from the
display of feeling, and sometimes was thought by casual observers to
feel nothing, when in reality he was much more sensitive than they
were. Another peculiarity which few persons would have attributed to
him aided this mistake. It may seem strange in a practised Secretary of
the Treasury, but he used to say that through life he had suffered far
more from shyness than from anything else. Only very close observers
could have discovered this, for his manner was habitually impressive and
unfaltering. But common acquaintances, sometimes even persons who saw him
on business, erroneously imputed to unthinking curtness, that which was
due in truth to nervous hesitation.
With his subordinates in office he was, however, very cordial. He
discussed matters of business with them, listened carefully to their
suggestions or objections, and very frequently was guided by their
recommendations. He had no paltry desire to monopolise the whole credit
of what might be done. He probably worked harder than any Secretary of
the Treasury before or since; but so far from depressing those below him,
he encouraged their exertions, co-operated with them, and was ever ready
to bear hearty testimony to the tried merit of efficient public servants.
He was also quite willing to forget the temporary misunderstandings
which are so apt to occur among earnest men who take different views of
public affairs. He was eminently tolerant. Though he had almost always
a strong conviction of his own, he never felt the least wish to silence
discussion. Believing that his own opinions were true, he was only the
more confident that the more the subject was discussed, the more true
they would be found to be. Few men ever transacted so much important
business with so little of the pettiness of personal feeling.
In the foregoing sketch Mr. Wilson has of necessity been regarded almost
exclusively as a public man, but his private life has many remarkable
features, if it were proper to enlarge on them. His enjoyment of simple
pleasures, of society, of scenery, of his home, was very vivid. No one
who saw him in his unemployed moments would have believed that he was one
of the busiest public men of his time. He never looked worn or jaded, and
always contributed more than his share of geniality and vivacity to the
scene around him. Like Sir Walter Scott, he loved a bright light; and the
pleasantest society to him was that of the cheerful and the young.
The universal regret which has been expressed at Mr. Wilson’s death is
the best tribute to his memory. It has been universally felt that on his
special subjects and for his peculiar usefulness he was ‘a finished man,’
and in these respects he has left few such behind him. The qualities
which he had the opportunity of displaying were those of an administrator
and a financier. But some of those who knew him best, believed that he
only wanted an adequate opportunity to show that he had also many of the
higher qualities of a statesman; and it was the feeling that he would
perhaps have such an opportunity which reconciled them to his departure
for India. As will have been evident from this narrative, he was placed
in many changing circumstances, and in the gradual ascent of life was
tried by many increasing difficulties. But at every step his mind grew
with the occasion. We at least believe that he had a great sagacity and
a great equanimity, which might have been fitly exercised on the very
greatest affairs. But it was not so to be.
The intelligence of Mr. Wilson’s death was formally communicated by the
Indian to the Home Government in the following despatch:—
‘To the Right Honourable Sir Charles Wood, Bart., G.C.B.,
Secretary of State for India.
‘SIR,—The painful task is imposed upon us of announcing to Her
Majesty’s Government the death of our colleague, the Right
Honourable James Wilson.