A Life of the Earl of Mayo (Fourth Viceroy of India)

4710 and by a strict adherence to those simple rules of prudence and economy which in the conduct of the affairs alike of nations and individuals are indispensable to the attainment of safety and success to use to the utmost extent for the benefit of the people the mighty resources of this great Empire. [...] There is no doubt that a great deal of the evil that has existed for some years has been owing not so much to the fault of the administration as to the cicumstance that the Government have never been in possession of the great financial facts of the year at a sufficiently early period to make real use of them for the purposes of administration. [...] The proposal was immediately acquiesced in by Bombay and I may say that though there may be some differences of opinion as to the details of the reductions we propose we have never received any expression of doubt as to the necessity of the case or as to the duty of the Local Governments to assist to the utmost of their ability the Government of India in the difficult and arduous task which we [...] time those great works of improvement which are so necessary to the life the comfort the health and safety of the people and to the speedy completion of which the honour and the credit of this Goverment are pledged.' I have mentioned the immediate measures by which Lord Mayo endeavoured to stay the impending deficit. [...] James Wilson in 186o to the year of Lord Mayo's death 1872 these statements were annually delivered before the Legislative Council by the Finance Minister and there discussed in the presence of the public and of the representatives of the press.