Lord Mayo found therefore three financial tasks imposed on him. He had first of all to attack the immediate deficit: amounting to 2-1/2 millions in the year immediately preceding his rule. In the second place he had to reform the whole financial system, which allowed of the Budget estimates being annually falsified by the actual results. In the third place he had to devise and to enforce measures of economy sufficiently stringent to place the finances on a sound footing for the future. With how resolute a will he carried out this work, the following pages will disclose. But before entering on that memorable struggle I may briefly exhibit its results. The subjoined statement shows more forcibly than any words of mine what those results meant to India. The three years preceding Lord Mayo's rule had left a deficit of 5-3/4 millions in 'ordinary' expenditure alone. In the very first year of his rule he established an equilibrium in the finances of India, and produced a small surplus. The three years which followed his reforms {140} left an aggregate surplus of 5-3/4 millions, and that period of surplus was only interrupted by the Behar famine two years after his death. _Bird's-eye view of the results of Lord Mayo's Financial Administration._ +---------------------+----------------------+---------------------+ | Years of Deficit. | Year of Equilibrium. | Years of Surplus. | | (Before Lord Mayo's | (Lord Mayo's first | (After Lord Mayo's | | arrival.) | year.) | Reforms.) | +---------------------+----------------------+---------------------+ | pounds | pounds | pounds | | 1866-7 2,307,700 | 1869-70 108,779 | 1870-1 1,359,410 | | 1867-8 923,720 | | 1871-2 2,863,836 | | 1868-9 2,542,861 | (Surplus in | 1872-3 1,616,888 | | --------- | Sterling.) | --------- | | 5,774,281 | | 5,840,134 | | | | | | Total deficit of | | Total surplus for | | three years reduced | | three years reduced | | to Sterling. | | to Sterling. | +---------------------+----------------------+---------------------+ The four continuous years of surplus which thus resulted from Lord Mayo's measures had only one precedent during the period from 1842 onwards, for which the Parliamentary Abstract gives the returns. That single precedent is found in the years 1849 to 1853, under the rule of the great Governor-General, Dalhousie. Nor has there been any subsequent example of four consecutive years of surplus since Lord Mayo's Viceroyalty down to the present date (1891).