:

widened.

The nation would have been more resourceful and self-relying to-day; famines would have been rarer. But the endeavours to make the nation prosperous weakened after the first generation of the servants of the Crown had passed away. Increase of revenue and increase of expenditure became engrossing objects with the rise of Imperialism. The proposal of Canning and of Lawrence was dropped in 1883.

The reader will no doubt clearly grasp the two distinct principles which were held by the two different schools of administrators. One was the school of Lord Canning and Lord Lawrence, of Lord Halifax and Lord Iddesleigh, who urged a Permanent Settlement of the Land Revenue. They knew that land in India belonged to the nation and not to a landed class, that every cultivator had a hereditary right to his own holding, and that to permanently fix the Land Revenue would benefit an agricultural nation, and not a class of landlords. The other school demanded a continuous increase of the Land Revenue for the State, by means of recurring LandSettlements, in course of which the State-demand was generally increased at the discretion of Settlement-Officers.

The Marquis of Ripon was the Viceroy of India from 1880 to 1884, and he proposed a masterly compromise between the opinions of the two schools. He maintained the right of the State to demand a continuous increase of the Land Revenue on the definite and equitable ground of increase in prices. But he assured the cultivators of India against any increase in the Statedemand, unless there was an increase in prices. He assured to the State an increasing revenue with the increasing prosperity of the country as evidenced by prices. And he assured to the cultivator a permanency in the State-demand reckoned in the proportion of the field produce taken as Land Tax. Lord Ripon's scheme happily combined the rights of the State with that security to cultivators without which agriculture cannot

flourish in any part of the world. But Lord Ripon left India in December 1884; and his wise settlement was negatived by the Secretary of State for India in January 1885. The compromise which had been arrived at after years of inquiry and anxious thought in India was vetoed at Whitehall; and a nation of agriculturists was once more subjected to that uncertainty in the Statedemand which is fatal to successful agriculture.

The Half-Rental Rule still remained-in theory. But in practice it had been violated. The expenses of the Mutiny wars had vastly added to Indian liabilities, and demanded increase in taxation. Commerce could not be

If

taxed against the wishes of British merchants and British voters; the increased taxes therefore fell on agriculture. Accordingly, from 1871, a number of new taxes were assessed on land, in addition to the Land Revenue. the Land Revenue was 50 per cent. of the rental, the total assessment on the soil, including the new taxes, came to 56 per cent., or 58 per cent., or even 60 per cent. of the rental. And the people of India asked, what was the object of limiting the Land Revenue, if the limits were exceeded by the imposition of additional burdens on agriculture.

The late Marquis of Salisbury was Secretary of State for India in 1875. His deep insight in matters to which he devoted his attention is well known. And he condemned the weakness and the one-sidedness of the Indian Fiscal policy in a Minute recorded in 1875, which is often cited. "So far," his lordship wrote, "as it is possible to change the Indian Fiscal system, it is desirable that the cultivator should pay a smaller proportion of the whole national charge. It is not in itself a thrifty policy to draw the mass of revenue from the rural districts, where capital is scarce, sparing the towns where it is often redundant and runs to waste in luxury. The injury is exaggerated in the case of India where so much of the revenue is exported without a direct equi

valent. As India must be bled, the lancet should be directed to the parts where the blood, is congested, or at least sufficient, not to those which are already feeble from the want of it."

Lord Salisbury's warning has been disregarded. And while we hear so much of the prosperous budgets and surpluses since the value of the rupee was fixed at Is. 4d., no advantage has been taken of this seeming prosperity to relieve agriculture. Not one of the special taxes on land, imposed in addition to the Land Revenue since 1871, has been repealed.

It will appear from these facts, which I have men-... tioned, as briefly as possible, that Agriculture, as a source of the nation's income, has not been widened under British administration. Except where the Land Revenue is permanently settled, it is revised and enhanced at each new Settlement, once in thirty years or once in twenty years. It professes to take 50 per cent. of the rental or of the economic rent, but virtually takes a much larger share in Bombay and Madras. And to it are added other special taxes on land which can be enhanced indefinitely at the will of the State. The Land Assessment is thus excessive, and it is also uncertain. Place any country in the world under the operation of these rules, and agriculture will languish. The cultivators of India are frugal, industrious, and peaceful; but they are nevertheless impoverished, resourceless, always on the brink of famines and starvation. This is not a state of things which Englishmen can look upon with just pride. It is precisely the state of things which they are remedying in Ireland. It is a situation which they will not tolerate in India when they have once grasped it.

. If we turn from the sources of wealth to its distribution, and to the financial arrangements of India, the same melancholy picture is presented to us. The total revenues of India during the last ten years of the Queen's reign1891-92 to 1900-1-came to 647 millions sterling.

The annual average is thus under 65 millions, including receipts from railways, irrigation works, and all other sources. The expenditure in England during these ten years was 159 millions, giving an annual average of nearly 16 millions sterling. One-fourth, therefore, of all the revenues derived in India, is annually remitted to England as Home Charges. And if we add to this the portion of their salaries which European officers employed in India annually remit to England, the total annual drain out of the Indian Revenues to England considerably exceeds 20 millions. The richest country on earth stoops to levy this annual contribution from the poorest. Those who earn £42 per head ask for IOS. per head from a nation earning £2 per head. And this 10s. per head which the British people draw from India impoverishes Indians, and therefore impoverishes British trade with India. The contribution does not benefit British commerce and trade, while it drains the life-blood of India in a continuous, ceaseless flow.

For when taxes are raised and spent in a country, the money circulates among the people, fructifies trades, industries, and agriculture, and in one shape or another reaches the mass of the people. But when the taxes raised in a country are remitted out of it, the money is lost to the country for ever, it does not stimulate her trades or industries, or reach the people in any form. Over 20 millions sterling are annually drained from the revenues of India; and it would be a miracle if such a process, continued through long decades, did not impoverish even the richest nation upon earth.

The total Land Revenue of India was 17 millions in 1900-1. The total of Home Charges in the same year came to 17 millions. It will be seen, therefore, that an amount equivalent to all that is raised from the soil, in all the Provinces of India, is annually remitted out of the country as Home Charges. An additional sum of several millions is sent in the form of private remittances

by European officers, drawing their salaries from Indian Revenues; and this remittance increases as the employment of European officers increases in India.

The 17 millions remitted as Home Charges are spent in England (1) as interest payable on the Indian Debt; (2) as interest on railways; and (3) as Civil and Military Charges. A small portion, about a million, covers the cost of military and other stores supplied to India.

A very popular error prevails in this country that the whole Indian Debt represents British capital sunk in the development of India. It is shown in the body of this volume that this is not the genesis of the Public Debt of India. When the East India Company ceased to be rulers of India in 1858, they had piled up an Indian Debt of 70 millions. They had in the meantime drawn a tribute from India, financially an unjust tribute, exceeding 150 millions, not calculating interest. They had also charged India with the cost of Afghan wars, Chinese wars, and other wars outside India. Equitably, therefore, India owed nothing at the close of the Company's rule; her Public Debt was a myth; there was a considerable balance of over 100 millions in her favour out of the money that had been drawn from her.

Within the first eighteen years of the Administration of the Crown the Public Debt of India was doubled. It amounted to about 140 millions in 1877, when the Queen became the Empress of India. This was largely owing to the cost of the Mutiny wars, over 40 millions sterling, which was thrown on the revenues of India. And India was made to pay a large contribution to the cost of the Abyssinian War of 1867.

Between 1877 and 1900, the Public Debt rose from 139 millions to 224 millions. This was largely due to the construction of railways by Guaranteed Companies or by the State, beyond the pressing needs of India and beyond her resources. It was also largely due to the Afghan Wars of 1878 and 1897. The history of the

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