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"THE PEOPLE OUGHT TO HAVE RIOTED' 107

country if there be an agricultural country anywhere, had had the same proportion as Australia, she would have had 2,628,000,000 animals! This, however, would have been more than she wanted, and grazing land enough for them could not have been found. In respect to this same question of grazing land, here is an example of injustice to which the people are exposed. The Salvation Army in Gujarat wanted land for cultivation; about 560 acres were found which suited them admirably. But it was mainly grazing land, and had been under grass from time immemorial. If it were broken up or taken away from them a large village of cultivators would suffer. The cultivators protested. They might have saved their breath. The new-comers were in the land to bring the people into the way of eternal life, even though this life were ended through the combination (by the missionaries) of things seen with things unseen, things earthly with things heavenly. Only by very great exertions was a riot averted. To the man who told me this story I said, 'The people ought to have rioted.' He answered, 'Perhaps they ought. They were not very far from a riot once.'

3. THE FORESTS.

Conserved by Government and managed for general revenual purposes, India, so far as may be, getting the whole benefit, though not, perhaps, in the way her people desire. The total revenue from this source in 1898 was £1,239,912. To obtain this amount a little over 10s. in the was paid for oversight and maintenance. What the people lost by deprivation of grazing grounds, dead wood for fuel, etc., is unknown. A large sum would be needed to recompense the cultivators deprived of ancient rights of grazing, fuel collection, gathering of roots, and other privileges.

4. MINERALS.

(a) Coal.-Over 4,000,000 tons are raised annually, nearly all by English companies,

(b) Iron Ores.-Neglected everywhere-by Europeans because the ore-measures are too far from the seaboard, by Indians for want of capital and business connections, and often by both because of the stupid restrictions which are put upon would-be enterprise. A startling example of this occurred only a few years ago in the Central Provinces. Now the authorities would be glad to see the effort they then thwarted carried to success. With them, however, as with others :

'He that will not when he may,

When he would he shall have nay.'

(c) Gold.-Produced wholly by European exploitation. (d) Petroleum.-Products of Assam and Burma, in whose hands does not appear from the records.

5. FISHERIES.

These are almost wholly in the hands of Indians. A few years ago an attempt was made in England to form a limited liability company to exploit the Fisheries in the Hooghly, the northern part of the Bay of Bengal, and on the coast of Burma. Sufficient capital, however, was not raised to enable the project to be carried through.

6. MANUFACTURES.

(a) Cotton Mills.-One hundred and seventy-six in 1898-99. Capital, £14,900,000. Persons employed, 156,056, Almost entirely in Indian hands, and capital largely (but not exclusively) subscribed by Indians. The proportions are said to be-two-thirds Indian investments, onethird European. The advantages derivable from the employment of native Indian capital is apparent in Bombay and Ahmedabad especially. A noble use has, from the first, been made of the wealth thus acquired. Parsee benefactors of the community have been numerous; their generosity forms an indication of what India might

UNIMPORTANT AND INSIGNIFICANT

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have done in the way of kindly and gracious acts of generousness under a judicious mode of administration.

(b) Jute and Hemp Mills.-Thirty-three in number. Capital, £4,955,000. Persons employed, 95,540. Almost wholly European.

(c) General.-Woollen and Paper Mills, Breweries, Cotton Ginning, Cleaning and Pressing Mills, Coffee Works, Flour Mills, Rice Mills, Oil Mills, Jute Presses, Indigo Factories, Timber Mills, Sugar Factories, and Silk Filatures. Three-fourths in European hands.

7. JOINT STOCK ENTERPRISES.

In all India there are the following Companies :—

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Of this £36,000,000, even reckoning in all the Cotton Mills, by the utmost straining of estimates, not more than £10,000,000 can be credited to the Indian people. Note also that, for all India, Banking and Insurance, and, indeed, everything else, financial as well as industrial, the total capital invested is less than £36,000,000. How unimportant and insignificant all this is for a mighty Empire, which has been under British control for nearly

one hundred and fifty years, may be judged from the fact that, in Manchester, the money extent of

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'The commercial institutions of Manchester are too numerous for detailed description. Its chamber of commerce has for more than sixty years held a position of much influence in regard to the trade of the district and of the nation. There are eleven joint-stock banks, seven of which have their head offices in the town; these banks, besides numerous branches in the surrounding district, have sixteen branches in the town; and there are several private bankers.' Since then the progress of this city in the United Kingdom has been very great. Mr. Elijah Helm, secretary of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, in answer to inquiries I made of him, courteously writes to me thus :

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'The estimates of the total value of the trading operations of this city, to which you refer, must have been conjectural, I think. I know of no method of arriving at anything like precise figures. Perhaps the most reliable way of forming an opinion as to the rate of progress is to take the yearly returns of the Manchester Bankers' Clearing-house. In 1891 the total amount of the clearings was £131,163,961, and in 1900, £248,750,600. These sums represent the value of the cheques exchanged between the various banks in Manchester, and do not of course include the cheques paid, or credited to the amounts of their customers, by the banks themselves. The increase between these two years may no doubt be, to some extent, the result of an extension of the practice of paying debts by cheque, but any allowance on this score must, I fancy, be comparatively small, and in the main the increase of clearings must be taken as indicative of increase of business.

'There can be no doubt that for many years both the industries and the commerce of Manchester have been growing--not always steadily perhaps but still growing, both in variety and in magnitude. But I should not like to have to put the rate of progress into figures pretending to be at all authentic.

'Nor do I think one could give an entirely satisfactory account of the number and capital of the joint stock enterprises here. Some of

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COSTLY TERMS TO THE INDIAN TAXPAYER 111

them are merely conversions of private concerns into limited companies, and some of these are placed under the Companies Acts for family reasons, their shares being privately held.

I may add that the amount of the Manchester Bankers' clearings far exceeds that of any other city in the country except London, and these are swollen, as you know, by international and national settlements in London as well as by the payments of the Government.'

8. RAILWAYS.

Over 22,000 miles in length, and have cost, with land acquired, loss on interest, and other expenses, considerably more than £300,000,000. Practically, the whole of the sum invested in railways is held by Europeans, barring that which certain Feudatory States benevolently 'loaned'; in regard only to a portion of it has amortisation been provided, and that-as in the cases of the East India and Great Indian Peninsular Railways-on most costly terms to the Indian taxpayer; amortisation from the start would have made a difference of many millions of pounds sterling to the advantage of the Indian taxpayer, and, with wise provision, the earlier railways might have been largely redeemed before the great fall in the value of silver occurred. India has been very hard hit in all these transactions. The accounts show that £40,000,000 have been taken from the general revenue to make up the guaranteed interest to shareholders. That sum will never be repaid.

How the guarantee system has worked in practice may be judged from the facts narrated by Miss Ethel Faraday, M.A., in a paper on 'Indian Guaranteed Railways: An Illustration of Laisser Faire Theory and Practice,' read before the Economic Science and Statistics Section of the British Association in 1900. Miss Faraday says: 'The result, that laisser faire, like other religions, proves somewhat less beneficent in practice than in theory, might be illustrated by the later history of the Indian guaranteed railways. The guaranteed system, in origin a purely practical expedient, had outlived its utility before it was revived by the English Government

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