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144 had led to deficit, and to prevent their recurrence by a systematic readjustment of the finances.

The first step taken by Lord Mayo and Sir John Strachey was to reduce the overgrown grant for Public Works by about £800,000, — a measure suggested and carried out with unsparing faithfulness by Colonel, now Lieut.-General, Richard Strachey, then Secretary to the Government of India in the Public Works Department. Other Departments, equally important and equally clamorous, had augmented their expenditure at a rapid rate. In fact, the ten years which had elapsed since the dominions of the Company passed to the Crown had seen the administration rendered more efficient in many ways; and the cost of the improvements, however admirable they were in themselves, had in the aggregate become too great for the revenues to bear. In addition, to the reduction of £800,000 for Public Works, Lord Mayo found himself compelled to curtail temporarily by £350,000 the grants to the spending Departments which had received so rapid a development during the decade since India passed to the Crown. The whole saving amounted to £1,150,000 during the current year 1869-70.

It became apparent, however, that reductions alone would not suffice to produce equilibrium. Lord Mayo had therefore to decide whether he would permit the Budget arrangements of the year to stand, with the knowledge that they would result in deficit, or resort to the unusual, and in India almost unprecedented,