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Referring to the argument used by the Hon'ble Sir Vithaldas Thackersey that India wants all her labour for herself and she cannot afford to lose those who emigrate to the colonies, the Hon'ble Member says that such emigration cannot appreciably affect the labour-supply of India. But if the reduction in the labour-supply is sosmall, the benefit that India gets from the remittances of emigrants is also trivial; so really both factors must be eliminated from our consideration of this matter.

The Hon'ble Member holds that the colonies are a part of the Empire, and that, though the question of their interests does not directly concern us, it cannot be left out of account altogether on Imperial grounds. Well, Sir, if the colonies are a part of the Empire, we too are a part of the Empire. But do the Self-governing Colonies ever take that into account? What have they ever done for us and what obligation rests on us to take the interests of the colonies into our consideration and submit on their account to conditions which, in essence, are not far removed from the servile? Moreover, if the people of India and of the colonies belong to the Empire, so do the emancipated negroes. But what happens to them? It is a heart-rending tale which is told in the appendices to the Sanderson Committee's Report-that of the manner in which these neglected people are driven to emigrate from the colonies in which they were born by want of employment.

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Finally, the Hon'ble Member objects to my comparison between this system and slavery. It is true that the system is not actual slavery, but it is also true that it is not far from it. The contract is not a free contract. have here the right of private arrest, just as they had in the case of slavery. Moreover, the labourer is bound to his employer for five years and he cannot withdraw from the contract during that period. And there are those harsh punishments for trivial faults. Therefore, though the system cannot be called actual slavery, it is really not far removed from it.

One word more, Sir, and I have done. The Government, it is clear, are not going to accept this Resolution. That being so, the Resolution is bound to be thrown out. But, Sir, that will not be the end of the matter. This motion, the Council may rest assured, will be brought forward again and again, till we carry it to a successful issue. It affects our national self-respect, and therefore the sooner the Government recognize the necessity of accepting it, the better it will be for all parties.

THE COST OF BUILDING NEW DELHI.

[On 7th March 1912, the Hon'ble Mr. Gokhale, in moving a Resolution in the Imperial Legislative Council recommending that the cost of building new Delhi should be met entirely out of loan funds, spoke as follows:—]

My Lord, I beg to move that this Council recommends to the Governor-General in Council that the amount of the loan to be raised during the next year be increased by one crore of rupees, so that the expenditure proposed to be incurred for building new Delhi in 1912-13 should be met entirely out of loan funds and not partly out of next year's estimated surplus.

My Lord, I do not think it is necessary for me to occupy the time of the Council for many minutes in discussing this question, because the issue which the Resolution raises is a comparatively simple one and may be Briefly stated. In the Government of India despatch of 25th August last, recommending the administrative changes, recently carried out, to the Secretary of State, the question of the cost of building new Delhi is thus dealt with:

The cost of the transfer to Delhi would be considerable. We cannot conceive, however, that a larger sum than 4 millions sterling would be necessary, and within that figure probably could be found the three years' interest on capital which would have to be paid till the necessary works and buildings were completed. We might find if necessary to issue a "City of Delhi" gold loan at 3 per cent. guaranteed by the Government of India, the interest, or the larger part of the interest, on this loan being eventually obtainable from rents and taxes.

It is quite true that the language of this extract is guarded, but still what the Government mention here is that a loan to be called 'the City of Delhi loan' might have to be raised in order to meet the cost of constructing the new capital. There is no mention made here of spending any money on the new capital out of current

revenues-either out of regular revenue allotments in the budget or out of surpluses. The Hon'ble Finance Member, however, in his Financial Statement explains the course he proposes to adopt in the following words :

I may say at once that we are not yet in the possession of any estimates of its cost. Plans for the temporary housing of the Government of India headquarters are under preparation; but no plans for the permanent Imperial City are to be thought of until the best available experts have studied and advised upon the project in all its bearings. Meanwhile, my immediate duty has been to devise a scheme for financing the work, a scheme which will be as little onerous as possible to the taxpayers of India. Three possible alternatives have presented themselves throughout. The first, and in some ways the most attractive, would be a special Delhi loan. The second would be to charge the whole expenditure as it occurs against current revenue. The third would be to put the Delhi works on precisely the same footing as our large railway and irrigation works, treating them as capital expenditure and financing them partly from loans and partly from whatever spare revenues remain in each year after meeting our ordinary administrative needs. I shall not weary the Council by the various considerations which decided us, with the full approval of the Secretary of State, to adopt the third of these courses. It will, I believe, commend itself to the financial and commercial community of India. By treating the Delhi operations as ordinary capital work, we ensure the greatest possible elasticity in the provision of funds; we avoid unnecessary additions to our unproductive debt; and I hope we allay the feat so far as I am concerned a baseless fear-that the new city will be built from the produce of fresh taxation.

The Hon'ble Member goes on further to say that—

If money is easy and we can obtain more than we immediately require, it will lie in our cash balances available for future use. Meanwhile, as we shall now have three sections in our annual capital programme instead of two, we may reasonably enlarge the conventional figure of one crore which we have hitherto endeavoured to secure as our revenue surplus. There is no need to fix any standard surplus; much will depend on the circumstances of the year and on the other interests concerned; but whenever we find ourselves able to budget for a larger surplus than £€67,000 without detriment to the other claims upon us, we shall do so until the financing of new Delhi is completed.

It will be seen that in this extract the Hon'ble Member does not confine himself to the idea of building Delhi out of loan funds but makes prominent and even pointed mention of devoting such surpluses as may be available to

the new capital. Now, my Lord, I do not say that there is necessarily any inconsistency between the despatch of the Government of India and the statement which the Hon'ble Member has made. It may be urged that while the despatch of the Government of India merely mentions that it might be necessary to raise a loan, it does not bind the Government to build Delhi out of loan funds only; on the other hand, the language of the Hon'ble Member, though it speaks of devoting surpluses to the construction of Delhi, does not exclude the possibility of raising a loan for building the capital. This, my Lord, is perfectly true. But the general impression left on the minds of those who read the despatch undoubtedly was that the new capital would be built out of loan funds, as any one can see from what appeared in various newspapers at the time on the subject. On the other hand, the impression that is strongly created by the words which the Hon'ble Member has used in his Financial Statement is that surpluses would first be devoted to the building of Delhi, and if any more money is required, that would be found by means of loans.

My Lord, the Hon'ble the Finance Member says that he wishes to allay the fear-so far as he is concerned, he thinks it is a baseless fear-that the new city will be built from the produce of fresh taxation. Now, in speaking of fresh taxation, I fear the Hon'ble Member is taking only a technical advantage of certain expressions which have appeared in the Press in this connection. It is true that immediately after the Delhi announcements some newspapers started the cry that the new capital would cost a lot of money, and that fresh taxation would be necessary. But, my Lord, whether the Government imposes fresh taxation for building Delhi or keeps up taxation at a higher level than is necessary for the ordinary needs of the country and secures surpluses which it devotes to Delhi, is after all the same thing. For when you devote your surpluses to this work, you practically take that money out of the current revenues of the country. My Lord, what is a surplus? It is so much more money taken by the Government from the people than what is necessary