INDIA (FINANCE, &c.)—RUMOURED DEFICIT.—RESOLUTION.

HC Deb 20 February 1888 vol 322 cc926-79

MR. S. SMITH (Flintshire)

Sir, I rise to move the Amendment to the Address which stands in my name, and I trust the House will not consider that I unduly trespass upon its time in taking this opportunity of calling its attention to the concerns of our vast Indian Empire— But this House humbly expresses to Her Majesty its regret that another deficit is threatened in the Indian Budget, and that it has been deemed necessary to raise the Salt Tax in order to meet the same: That it views with anxiety these recurring deficits in the Indian Revenue Accounts, and urges greater economy in the Administration: That it calls upon the Government of India to meet the wishes of the Native population, both in respect of finance and administration, so far as it can do so consistently with prudence and sound policy, and that it urges Her Majesty's Government to redeem the promise made in the Queen's Speech two years ago, that an inquiry should be made into the Government of India by the appointment of a Royal Commission for that purpose. It is several years since Indian affairs have been seriously discussed in this House. The Indian Budgets are invariably kept to the close of the Session, and are feebly discussed by a handful of jaded Members. It was the 8th of September last year when Parliament was invited to consider the affairs of 200,000,000 of the subjects of the Queen, the attendance averaging 10 to 16 Members. The condition of affairs in India demands more vigorous criticism; the finances are steadily drifting into confusion; there is much Native discontent; reforms are urgently needed that will never be granted, unless this House intervenes; and I trust I shall be pardoned if I set before this House, to the best of my power, some of the grievances of the patient and long suffering population of India. My Amendment calls attention, in the first place, to the recurring deficits in the Indian Budgets. Let me state what these are. I find, from the Statistical Abstract of India, that in the 10 years ending March, 1886, the aggregate deficits amount to about 15,000,000 of tens of rupees, or conventional sterling, as it is called in the Indian Accounts, while the surpluses are a little over 8,000,000, showing a total deficit of about 6,500,000. Last year another deficit would have been shown had not the Famine Insurance Fund been intercepted, and this year a still larger deficit unless the Famine Fund had again been taken and the Salt Duty also raised; in fact, the aggregate real deficit in the last 12 years amounts to about 9,000,000, for I regard the Famine Insurance Fund as a sacred trust, which should never be devoted to other purposes. But what adds to the gravity of the matter is this. We have had a succession of bountiful seasons in India; we have had no famine of note since 1879, and in the ordinary course of things we must be approaching what is known as a famine cycle in India; these cycles recur about every 10 or 12 years; the last one commenced in 1866 and lasted till 1879—it embraced five great famines—it cost the lives of 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 of people, and, I believe, cost the Government £15,000,000 to £20,000,000 sterling for relief; and we may depend upon it that if another succession of famine years occurs, the Government of India will not be allowed to let the people die in millions, as happened in those years. A vigilant opinion on this side will insist that, at all costs, the people shall be fed, and true wisdom would point to the need of accumulating a reserve fund in times of plenty to meet the inevitable demands that will come upon us some day. Now I will ask, what are the causes of this lamentable state of things? I reply, the heavy expenses in Upper Burmah and on the North-West Frontier, and the great loss by exchange. The total expenses of the Army has grown, in the 10 years ended 1886, from 16,500,000 of tens of rupees to fully 20,000,000, from which it has come down to about 19,000,000 the last two years. The extra expenses may be divided roughly between the North-West Frontier and Upper Burmah; but there are also heavy civil charges in Upper Burmah; and, as far as I can make out, from the very complicated accounts that are presented to us, the cost of that annexation has been about £2,000,000 per annum the last two years, in place of the estimate of £300,000, which was given to us by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill), when he lightly embarked in that aggressive policy. This policy has cost India dear; and I can only repeat the view I have formerly stated to this House, that it was most unjust to saddle the cost of this war upon a poor country like India, whose people were strongly opposed to it, and gained no advantage from it. I will not, however, attempt to re-open a question which the House has decided. I pass now to the other source of embarassment in the finances of India, the loss on exchange. It amounts this year to the alarming figure of £5,500,000. We all know the cause of this, and I will not waste the time of the House in discussing it. There is no remedy that I know of except the re-establishment of the old bi-metallic system of Europe, which for 70 years gave a virtually fixed exchange of 1s. 11d. per rupee. I am aware there are some deductions and set-offs from this enormous loss; but I think few experts in Indian affairs will put the net loss to the Government of India from exchange at less than 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 of tens of rupees. I now ask the House to consider the means by which the Indian Government is seeking to restore equilibrium to the finances. It is by cancelling the Famine Relief Fund of £1,500,000 a-year, and adding 25 per cent to the Salt Duty, which is expected to bring in fully £1,500,000 a-year. I think both these methods are disastrous. I have already pointed out what a strain may come upon the Famine Fund any day, and with regard to the Salt Tax I assort that salt is about the last thing a benevolent Government should tax. It is an absolute necessary of life to an extremely poor population, and is just as odious as a tax on bread would be to the people in this country. Nearly all the taxation of India is already borne by the poor, and this will add greatly to their heavy burdens. The Salt Tax at 2½ rupees per maund, to which it is now raised, amounts to 16 times the prime cost of the Native product. Think of a tax of 1,600 per cent on a necessary of life. I am told that such is the dearth of prime salt in some parts of India, and such is the poverty of the people, that they have been known to mix earth containing saline particles with their food. Let me quote the opinion of Lord Lawrence on this subject— When I was a magistrate many men accused of smuggling salt were brought before me; and I had to try them and punish them under the Customs Law. I thought it was very hard and very severe system. Here are the people in India paying an excessive price for salt. I think it is an enormous rate, and not only does it limit the consumption as regards human beings, but, I think, it limits the consumption very much as regards cattle, and I believe myself that a great deal of the loss of cattle from murrain in India has arisen from want of salt. I believe the Salt Tax is more oppressive in India than a corresponding duty on tea, sugar, or milk would be in this country. Consider what would be the feeling in this country if a duty of 10s. per lb. was levied on tea, 3s. per lb. on sugar, or 4s. a quart on milk; yet we are doing the same thing in India with a stroke of the pen. We are doing it to a people who have no representation, who are dumb and helpless, and whose silent sufferings are unknown to the nation that governs them. I protest against this monstrous and cruel tax in the name of humanity, and in the name of Christianity, whose voice we are disregarding. I will boldly affirm that if India had popular representation its taxation would be arranged in a very different way. The 200,000,000 of British subjects in India would, with one voice, re-impose the cotton duties, which in no way press on the people, and are hardly perceptible. India imports over £40,000,000 worth of manufactured goods and metals, a duty of 10 per cent on this would produce £4,000,000, and would at once place the Indian Exchequer in affluence. A duty of 5 per cent would produce £2,000,000, and meet the existing deficit. I know how unpalatable this suggestion will be to my Manchester friends; but justice compels me to say that, though interested in the trade myself, I will contend that our duty is to consider solely what is good for India. Of course, Indian machine manufactures would have to be taxed pro ratâ, to avoid all appearance of Protection. I fear, however, no English Government will have courage enough to do what is right in this matter, unless we decide on giving to the Native population of India an efficient voice in the Government of their own country. This leads me to what I regard as the pith of my Amendment, and far the most important point of it—namely— That this House calls upon the Government of India to meet the wishes of the Native population, both in respect of finance and administration, so far as it can do so consistently with prudence and sound policy, and that it urges Her Majesty's Government to redeem the promise made in the Queen's Speech two years ago, that an inquiry should be made into the Government of India, by the appointment of a Royal Commission for that purpose. I cannot deny that an implication lurks in these words that the existing policy of the Government is not giving satisfaction to the Natives of India. This House will permit me to say that a recent visit to India, and conference with many of the ablest representatives of the Native population, opened my eyes to the fact that there is much more discontent in India than I was aware of, and than this country is aware of, and that unfortunately there exist only too good grounds for this discontent. It is far better for us not to live in a fool's paradise, and I am sure that this House is only too anxious to know the real state of affairs, and will welcome any light that can be thrown upon it. The universal complaint of the Natives of India is that the country is too expensively governed, considering the extreme poverty of the people and the paucity of its resources. The real crux of the situation is the poverty of India, and, till we realize that, all our views, both of administration and policy, are certain to be wrong. The fact is that the vast majority of the Indian population can scarcely do more than support life in ordinary seasons. When a year of scarcity comes their sufferings are extreme; when a famine comes they die by millions, unless supported by the Government. I could not satisfy my mind that there has been any great increase of well-being in India as compared with the early part of this century. Certain it is that there are large districts of India, such as Bengal, Oude, the Deccan, parts of Madras, & c, where human life is supported on the barest minimum. All our wisest Indian Administrators have recognized this. Permit me to quote from Lord Mayo and from Lord Lawrence. Lord Mayo said— I admit the comparative poverty of this country, as compared with many other countries of the same magnitude and importance, and I am convinced of the impolicy and injustice of imposing burdens upon this people which may be called either crushing or oppres- sive. Mr. Grant Duff, in an able speech which he delivered the other day in the House of Commons, the report of which reached by the last mail, stated with truth that the position of our finance was wholly different from that of England. 'In England,' he stated, 'you have comparatively a wealthy population. The income of the United Kingdom has, I believe, been guessed at £800,000,000 per annum; the income of British India has been guessed at £300,000,000 per annum; that goes well on to £30 per annum as the income of every person in the United Kingdom, and only £2 per annum as the income of every person in British India.' I believe that Mr. Grant Duff had good grounds for the statement he made, and I wish to say, with reference to it, that we are perfectly cognizant of the relative poverty of this country as compared with European States. Lord Lawrence, before the Finance Committee, said— The mass of the people in India are so miserably poor that they have hardly the means of subsistence. It is as much as a man can do to feed his family, or half feed them, let alone spending money on what you would call luxuries or conveniences. Several years have elapsed since these statements were made; exhaustive inquiries have subsequently been made into the relative resources of both England and India. It is generally admitted that the aggregate income of the United Kingdom is now £1,200,000,000 to £1,250,000,000, or £35 per head; but the best authorities on India state that its income cannot be put at more than £2 per head, or £400,000,000 sterling for the 200,000,000 people that inhabit British territory. (Sir Evelyn Baring, one of the best Finance Ministers, estimated the income at Rs. 27 per head; but Mr. Dadhabhai Naoroji, one of the best Native statists of India, and a man universally respected, puts the income at only Rs. 20 per head. Compare that with even the poverty of Ireland, where the income, according to Mulhall, is £ 16 per head, or with Russia, where it is £9 10s. per head. The Income Tax Returns of India fully confirm all this, as I have already stated in this House. They show that a given area of population in India only produces one-sixtieth part as much as in England, and that only one inhabitant in 700 reaches an income of £50 per annum. I apologize for wearying the House with these statistics, which I have already given; but they are essential if any just conception is to be formed of the financial policy we should pursue in India. Now I must protest against the highly misleading statements of taxation circulated by the Under Secretary of State for India in his Explanatory Memorandum along with the last Budget. A table was appended to it, page 19, to show the burden of taxation on the people of British India. In it the total Budget Estimate of Revenue, about £77,500,000, was pared down to £20,500,000 as far as taxation was concerned, and when divided per head over the population of British India was set forth as Rs. 0:15:2, or something less than one rupee; then a note was appended stating that if the land revenue was included the amount was Rs. 2:0:3. I should like to know why the land revenue was excluded; it is the sheet anchor of Indian finance; it yields in gross £22,500,000; it is in many parts of the country an oppresive tax. I was repeatedly assured by the Natives that in times of scarcity it was an intolerable burden, and in order to raise it that they got hopelessly in debt to the moneylenders. Sir James Caird says— The right of the cultivator to mortgage the public land has made him the slave of the moneylender. Government rent must be paid on the day it becomes due. It is rigorously exacted by the officials, and as the money-lender is the only capitalist within reach the cultivator gives a charge on the lands and hands over all his crop as a security for cash advances. The only pretext for not counting it as revenue is that in most of India there is no intermediary between the tiller of the soil and the Government, and it is assumed that what the cultivators pay the Government is equivalent to rent paid the landlord here. The fact is the ryots have no surplus to pay a landlord, for they can barely exist themselves. Sir William Hunter, the well-known Government statist, calculates that 40,000,000 of the people go through life on insufficient food. I was myself repeatedly informed that a large proportion of the people only eat one meal a day; their condition is lower than that of the Connemara peasantry, and it is ridiculous to exclude from consideration the heaviest tax they pay. A large part of the Opium Revenue is also paid by the people of India; for, were it not for the profit made by the Government, the cultivator would get a far higher price. I estimate the true incidence of taxation in India as follows (from "Statis- tical Abstract," p. 70):—Gross land tax, £22,500,000; one-half the opium duty (not counting what is grown in Native States), £4,500,000; salt tax, £6,250,000; stamps, £3,500,000; excise, £4,000,000; provincial rates, customs, assessed taxes, and sundries, about £6,000,000. Total, in round numbers, £47,000,000. I have excluded any branch of revenue which cannot be clearly defined as taxation. Let us compare it with the taxable Revenue of the United Kingdom. It was calculated in last Budget as £76,000,000; that is almost exactly 6 per cent on the aggregate income of the nation, if that is reckoned at £1,250,000,000. If we take the aggregate income of British India at a point half-way between the estimates of Mr. Dadhabhai Naoroji and Sir Evelyn Baring—namely, £470,000,000, it follows that the taxable revenue is just 10 per cent, against 6 per cent paid in the United Kingdom. I believe these figures to be as reliable as can be given, and they show clearly that the pressure of taxation is already very-heavy, and that it would be cruel to add to it, unless on the direst necessity. I am aware that many consider the great increase of the foreign trade of India a proof of the growing prosperity of that country. I believe the figures, if analyzed, show just the reverse. The average imports and exports of India for the last 10 years, given in the Statistical Abstract, excluding Government stores and treasure (p. 138, No. 82) is—imports, including treasure, £58,000,000 a-year; exports, about £77,000,000, or an average surplus of exports over imports of about £19,000,000; but, to make a fair comparison, we must deduct freight and charges on the imports, seeing the exports are valued without these charges. If we put these at only 10 percent, then it follows that India exports on the average about £25,000,000 more than she receives; in other words, she virtually pays to this country what may be called a tribute to that extent. Of course, I admit she has had value in return for much of this. It represents guaranteed interest on railways, and remittances on private investments; but it also represents a large sum payable for interest incurred in wars of which the people of India disapproved, and a heavy pension list which they do not regard with ad- miration. In my opinion, the growing indebtedness of India to England is a real source of danger. If the time should ever come when India becomes self-governing, one may conceive the temptation that would arise to repudiate these claims. The fact is, India is, in many respects, what Ireland has been for ages, a country whose wealth is drained by absentees; and the time may come, if we are not careful, when it will reproduce many of the political features of Ireland. One other remark I would make about the growth of the foreign trade; it is largely swollen by the destruction of the hand manufactures of India. Many millions of small artificers and weavers have been thrown out of employment by our cheap-made manufactured goods; and these people have been often reduced to the greatest penury, as no employment could be obtained in lieu of the one they had lost. We have, in fact, by our Free Trade system, forced nearly the whole population on the soil for their maintenance. That soil is becoming poorer and poorer from over-cropping, and the vast bulk of the peasantry are deeply and hopelesshy in debt to the money lenders. I repeat that the great expansion of foreign trade is no gauge of the increased prosperity of the people of India; and it is very doubtful indeed whether any substantial improvement is taking place in their condition. Now, I may be asked, what remedy do the Natives of India propose for this state of things? I will reply by calling attention to a Parliamentary Return, moved for in 1878 by the senior Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright),of the salaries, pensions, & c, paid to persons in the employ of the Government of India. I find the salaries of those resident in India came to £7,640,000; non-resident, £3,473,000; total, £11,013,000. Of this amount, upwards of 80 per cent was payable to Europeans, while of salaries of £2,000 and upwards, not one was held by a Native. I am aware that since then some changes in favour of the Natives have been made; but I believe the facts thus disclosed are not very materially altered. Now, the people of India think that the time has come to redeem the promise made in the Queen's Proclamation 30 years ago. I will read the noble words in which it is couched— It is our further will that, as far as maybe, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to offices in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their education, ability and integrity, duly to discharge, In their prosperity will be our strength, in their contentment our security, and in their gratitude our best reward. And may the God of all power grant to us, and to those in authority under us, strength to carry out these our wishes for the good of our people. I make bold to say this Proclamation has not been adequately carried out yet, and unreasonable obstacles have been put in the way of the Natives entering into the higher Services. For instance, entrance to the Covenanted Civil Service was formerly open to youths up to 22 years of age, and several Natives of India, at great cost to themselves, came over to this country and successfully competed with the flower of our youth at the entrance examination; but, as I think, unjustly and unwisely, the age was reduced to 19, and this has effectually stopped the entrance of Indian youths into the Covenanted Civil Service. India now produces a large class of well-educated men, and it is as impolitic as it is unjust to exclude them from a full share in the Service of the Crown. They contend most reasonably that if this extraordinary drain for salaries and pensions is to be lessened, it must be by employing cheaper Native agency whose incomes will be spent in India. But the fundamental change which the Indian people demand is a voice in the government of their own country. I must impress on the House the urgent necessity of dealing with this question. The time is past when we can govern India as a nation of children. We have given them education; we have familiarized them with our own political maxims; and we cannot complain if they try to act up to the lessons we have taught them. It is vain to think that we can impart the great political literature of England, with its lofty traditions of human freedom, without begetting the desire, and even the fitness, to receive this freedom for themselves. The ills under which India suffers can never be remedied by a purely foreign government. The real wants and desires of its people can never be fully understood by strangers, and we must be prepared gradually and prudently to introduce representative institutions. Of course, that can only be done very gradually and cautiously; but I wish to call the attention of the House to a remarkable development of political life that is now occurring in India. Three National Congresses have been held, attended by delegates from all parts of India. One of them was held at Madras last year, and another at Calcutta the year before, attended by 500 or 600 delegates from all parts of India. The proceedings were conducted in English, and the speeches were as able as they were loyal and moderate in tone. There is not the slightest wish among these intelligent Indians to overthrow British supremacy; but there is a striking agreement on the lines of reform that are required. Their main contention is that Native Members should be elected to the Legislative Councils of India, in place of being nominated as at present. This is a most reasonable request, and I hope the Government of India will concede it. Then they demand that the Budget shall be discussed and voted upon annually, which also seems a most reasonable request; and they also ask that a Standing Committee of Parliament should be formed to supervize Indian affairs, to which they could carry their complaints. But perhaps the most practical resolution of all is the demand for an inquiry to be held into the Government of India on the lines announced by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill), when he held the Office of Secretary for India two years ago. I do most earnestly urge this demand on Her Majesty's Government. The Natives of India have been most eagerly expecting this inquiry, since it had a place in the Speech from the Throne two years ago. The present Government was then in power, and it placed these words in Her Majesty's mouth— The time which has elapsed since I assumed the direct government of India renders it desirable that the operation of the statutes by which the change was effected should be carefully investigated. I commend this important matter to your earnest attention. That statement was commented upon by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) as follows:— I am of opinion that Her Majesty's Government are eminently right in asking the House to appoint the Committee. I trust that it will be a carefully selected Committee, and that it will be efficient in proportion to the greatness of the subject; and that it will devote itself to that subject with a zeal and diligence such as we have known in former years and former generations. I now call upon them to redeem this pledge; it has awakened hopes which it would be dangerous to disappoint. I expect the hearty support of the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington, who so ably advocated the inquiry two years ago. I verily believe that the safety and welfare of our Indian Empire demand such an inquiry; grave discontent is arising among the Indian population at the neglect of their interests; this country and this House are too much occupied with home affairs to do justice to India. A full, complete, and impartial inquiry is necessary. Let me add that no inquiry at all would be better than one which was not both searching and impartial. It is absolutely necessary, in my opinion, that a Royal Commission should be appointed, containing eminent men outside Parliament and the official class, that some leading Natives of India should be on the Commission, and that it should visit India in the cold season, and take evidence on the spot. Untold advantage would flow from such a course. It would give a new lease of life to our Indian Empire; it would appease Native discontent, and nobly vindicate the Royal Proclamation on the assumption of the Sovereignty of India by the Crown. I will close this speech in the noble words of Macaulay, uttered as long ago as 1833 in this House, which are as true to-day as when they were spoken, and which are far nearer their fulfilment— The destinies of our Indian Empire are covered with thick darkness. It is difficult to form any conjectures as to the fate reserved for a State which resembles no other in history, and which forms by itself a separate class of political phenomena; the laws which regulate its growth and its decay are still unknown to us. It may be that the public mind of India may expand under our system till it has outgrown the system; that, by good government we can educate our subjects into a capacity for better government; that having become instructed in European knowledge they may in some future age demand European institutions, Whether such a day will ever come I know not. But never will I attempt to avert or to retard it. Whenever it comes it will be the proudest day in English history, To have found a great people sunk in the lowest depths of slavery and superstition, to have so ruled them as to make them desirous and capable of all the privileges of citizens, would indeed be a title to glory all our own. The sceptre may pass away from us. Unforeseen accidents may derange our most profound schemes of policy. Victory may be inconstant to our arms. But there are triumphs which are followed by no reverses. There is an empire exempt from all natural causes of decay. These triumphs are the pacific triumphs of reason over barbarism. That empire is the imperishable empire of our arts and our morals, our literature and our laws.

MR. SLAGG (Burnley)

, in seconding the Amendment, said, that when a non-official Member ventured to address the House on Indian subjects it was sometimes asked—" What can you, a non-official, non-resident in India, possibly know of the complex subjects affecting that great and distant country?" Well, for his own part, he claimed no special personal knowledge of Indian affairs. He claimed only to know and to discuss those matters which were presented to them by officials themselves, and to criticize the evident results of their acts and policy; and it appeared to him that no apology was needed on the part of any hon. Member in the House who ventured to think that he might be permitted to take part in Indian debates by reason of the great responsibility which rested upon them in respect of all Indian affairs. It could not be denied that they in England, whether they knew anything of Indian matters or not, were responsible for everything that was done in their name respecting the Government of India. They were under great responsibilities, political, financial, and commercial. Politically, he thought it would be agreed that India drew them into close connection—he might say into dangerous connection—with everything which took place in Europe, with every political phase of affairs in the whole of Europe. With regard to finance, although we did not pretend formally to guarantee the financial affairs of India, it could not be disputed that we were responsible for them, and that the Debt of India was as much an obligation on this country—[An hon. MEMBER: No, no !]—yes, as much an obligation on this country as though it were added to our own Budget every year. An hon. Member said "No," but he should like to see an Indian official rise to-night and tell them that they were not so responsible. India we had got and India we must hold, and for India in every respect and degree we were responsible, and certainly from a financial point of view. Commercially, also, it could not be disputed that we leaned upon the consuming power of our Indian fellow-subjects for a vast portion of our trade. He was one of several Members who represented manufacturing constituencies whose very existence rested on their trade with that great country, and which, if that trade were withdrawn, would be at once deprived of all employment. Well, he thought it would be very pleasant for him and for all of them to accept the smooth and pleasing official declarations which they were accustomed to hear in the House respecting the prosperity of India, the soundness of Her finances and the well-being of everything connected with her. He, for one, should be very glad if he could take that roseate view of her affairs, but the bitter lessons of experience taught us that we could not so readily accept those assurances. Official blunders of a grave nature had been made in the past. It was not too much to predict that they would be made in the future, and it was open to question whether, even at the present moment, the policy of Her Majesty's Government in regard to India was not open to very grave objection and mistrust. It would be within the memory of every hon. Gentleman here to-night, that when our troops entered Burmah we were assured that we were going to have a very easy walk over—in fact, that the inhabitants of that country were positively pining for us to take possession of it, and that we had only to present ourselves there in order to be received with open arms by every class of the population. Well, we knew what had happened. The hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for India (Sir John Gorst) had told us that for several years past this Expedition, which was to cost us nothing at all, really cost us a considerable sum—£1,000,000, or—his hon. Friend the Member for Flintshire (Mr. Samuel Smith) said—£2,000,000 annually. It occupied some 20,000 of our troops, and, he believed, a very large number of police as well. But it was in regard to the Indian Budget that he thought the mistakes and miscalculations of their official friends showed in their most exaggerated and extraordinary form, for every year they were assured that they were going to have a surplus, and yet, year after year, a mistake was discovered, and they were presented with a deficit, until this deficit in the financial accounts had become almost as regular as the procession of the Equinox. And now they were confronted with the problem of additional taxation to fill up this chronic deficit in our Indian finance. As they heard this deficit was to be made up by an addition to the Salt Tax, and they were assured—as they had been assured before on similar occasions—in the name, he supposed, of the Indian people, that this addition to the Salt Tax would not be felt. Well, he begged to differ from that opinion, and to state that, on the contrary, this addition to the Salt Tax would be felt, and felt very severely, by these 40,000,000 of inhabitants whom his hon. Friend had alluded to as living perpetually on the very brink of starvation. But that question whether an increase of the Salt Tax would be an evil or not was completely thrashed out at the time when Lord Ripon reduced it; and he remembered well, in the course of that discussion, a missionary of very great experience in India describing a little incident which showed how those matters were felt by the people of India. He saw in a bazaar a man. half-clothed and shivering in the keen air of a winter evening squat down and begin to bargain for his evening meal. He wished to buy rice, salt, and chilis, but if he took the two condiments he could not get more than half enough rice for a full meal; and it was pitiable to see the poor wretch trying so to adjust the account as to get a little salt with his rice and chilis. There were many scores of millions of people in India who would have to make this pathetic computation, and ask themselves whether they would be able to get a little salt to season their rice and chilis. But it was in the North-West Provinces that the weight of this Salt Tax would be felt most severely, for there there was already a rise in the price of grain. There were signs of an impending scarcity of food. In Burmah, he was sure, it was not too much, to say that this increase of duty—whioh would amount, he supposed, to about half a rupee per maund of 80 pounds—would be very strongly resented by the people; and we need not be surprised if we found an outbreak there such as took place in Orissa when we did a like thing. The Salt Tax showed something much more ominous, much more threatening, than anything that related even to the feelings and resentment of the people. It showed with perfect distinctness that the financiers of our Indian Empire had come pretty nearly to the end of their resources, for it did not appear to him that they would have adopted an expedient so offensive, and he might say so sad, if by any process of financial ingenuity they could have levied a tax which would have produced a similar amount. In short, the Indian Government confessed by that act that they were at the end of their resources, and yet the limit of their expenditure was very far from having been reached. Now, one of the chief causes of the excess of expenditure which had produced this call upon the very poorest of the population was, of course, the very large sum of money that had been expended on frontier operations, which, as they were told the other day, had already cost an enormous sum; and he supposed the whole system of railway works in connection with the frontier defence had cost two or three times more than was originally anticipated, and yet millions of money were still needed to fit those vast preparations for anything useful in the way of a military defence. Now, in the Queen's Most Gracious Speech, we were assured that what was called the settlement of our boundary difficulty as between Afghanistan and Russia was a matter of very great satisfaction to the Government, and we were supposed to be relieved by this act of very grave sources of anxiety, but he would remind the House that a frontier line, however scientific and however complete it might be, was not by any means a frontier defence; and it appeared to him that by those preparations and that boundary settlement, and the extraordinary importance which we attached to all those defensive operations on our North-West Frontier, we did little more than disclose to Russia our most vulnerable point. Our frontier could only be said to be safe so long as we were at peace with Russia in Europe. Now, it would be remembered how, when Lord Beaconsfield made his great coup by sending 5,000 Native troops to Malta in order to eat up Skobeloff and his 25,000 troops, Russia responded by a simple act. She sent three men out to Cabul, and this simple act landed us in such turmoil that we had eventually to undertake the war in Afghanistan with what consequences we were familiar. What did those facts disclose? That Russia could always paralyze our action in Europe by simply threatening us with difficulties in Afghanistan. There could be no doubt that a very influential Party in that House would drag us now into an alliance with Austria and Italy, and was it unreasonable to suppose that if that were done Russia would at once respond by occupying the Dependencies of Afghanistan, or was it doubted on the part of anyone that she would be hailed with delight by the population there as a welcome deliverer? Unless, therefore, we could act harmoniously with Russia our new boundary seemed only to have thrown us more into her path. What followed? It seemed to him that the millions that had been spent on those frontier preparations were simply and solely preparations for further expenses, and it was not an unreasonable apprehension, he was perfectly sure that when the present frontier operations and the railways were completed it would be discovered that we had not gone quite far enough, and that it was absolutely necessary, in order to complete our military preparations and make everything quite secure, to continue our line to Candahar. We now stood certainly committed to the Ameer to defend Afghanistan and all its Dependencies, but he ventured to say we were utterly unable to do anything of the sort. We had undertaken what we could not perform, and, in the absence of roads or any means of communication, it was absurd to imagine it was practicable or possible to keep any such engagement. Now, just a few words on the Revenue Question. It seemed to him that an endless vista of growing expenditure was stretching out before us in India, and he wanted to ask hon. Members—who, he hoped, would give them some comfort later on when speaking from the other side—where the money was to come from? We could not go on increasing the Salt Tax; it was unreasonable to think that the population could stand another application of the screw in relation to a necessity like salt. His hon. Friend had pointed out that the Opium Revenue was steadily declining and there was no doubt whatever that it would decline very much more. Revenue from an Income Tax was wholly out of the question for it had already been discarded as an impracticable expedient, which could only produce annoyance and irritation. He ventured to describe this as a desperate condition of Indian finance, and he heartily joined with his hon. Friend in asking for this inquiry into our Government in India. He would most gladly accept the dogma of official infallibility if one could possibly do so. They knew very well the official picture presented to them in glowing and pleasant colours, but what they wished to know was the Native opinion. They wished to know from their own lips how they regarded our Government, and how they felt and saw our acts and our legislation. In asking for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the working of the Acts relating to the Government of India they on that side of the House were asking for nothing new. His hon. Friend referred to the consensus of opinion which existed on both sides of the House with relation to the desirableness of this Commission, but the hon. Member neglected to remind the House of the fact that in having recourse to this inquiry they were only reverting to a very ancient and wholesome practice. The House would remember that during the time of the East India Company's Charter every 20 years a similar inquiry was made, and he (Mr. Slagg) was sure no one would deny that those inquiries were useful and beneficial to the Government and the people of India. Before he sat down he might allude to the enormous changes that had taken place since the last inquiry was made—changes of so fundamental a nature that it seemed impossible to resist such a review of our relations with the many races of India. He thought it was not too much to allege that within the last 30 years education upon an extensive and general scale had only sprung into existence in India, or, at any rate, that was so from a Western point of view. We knew how a large class had betaken themselves with a sort of passion to the study of Western ideas and forms of Government, and had acquired a complete mastery of our own language. He must refer with the same satisfaction expressed by his hon. Friend to the Reports of the Congress at Madras. We had there 700 delegates from all parts of India speaking in the name of vast masses of the people, and no one could, he was sure, peruse the Report of that Congress without being struck by the extreme moderation of the resolutions and the thoroughly practical spirit which animated the whole of their proceedings. Not one word of disloyalty; not one scintilla of suspicion was shown as to the doings of the Government; but, on the other hand, favourable comments as to our rule; but, underlying all, an intense and burning desire to share, to some reasonable extent at least, in the Government of their own country, and to take part and lot in the heritage which we had professed so long to be holding only in their name. Now he (Mr. Slagg) did not, for one moment propose to tell the House or profess to think himself that these delegates at the Congress of Madras represented in our conception of the word their fellow-countrymen, but we might be certain of this: that the time was not far distant when they would so represent them, and when the spirit that animated those highly-educated Natives in such a thorough and practical manner would be transmitted to the masses of the people. Thus it was not only a matter of wisdom, but a matter of prudence, for us to take up this question in time. He felt perfectly certain that we should be amply rewarded for a step so judicious. At any rate, it was inconceivable that it would do harm. If such an inquiry produced evidence to show that our acts, our administration, and our system of government, were all that could be desired why then we should be fortified in going on in the same way. If, on the other hand, we discovered that in many respects our system of administration and taxation, our laws and enactments bore heavily on the masses of the people, we should be able by the evidence which such an inquiry afforded us to apply at once those wise and timely reforms which would do more than anything else to produce a spirit of confidence in the country—a spirit which would lie deeper even than the sentiment of loyalty which already existed. He was sure that we should thereby give universal satisfaction to all classes of the population and produce in them an esteem for our rule and a feeling of security as to our intentions which would afford the most impregnable frontier for our territory, and provide the surest resistance to the assaults of our enemies.

Amendment proposed,

At the end of the Address, to add the words,—"But this House humbly expresses to Her Majesty its regret that another deficit is threatened in the Indian Budget, and that it has been deemed necessary to raise the Salt Tax in order to meet the same;

"That it views with anxiety these recurring deficits in the Indian Revenue Accounts, and urges greater economy in the Administration;

"That it calls upon the Government of India to meet the wishes of the Native population, both in respect of finance and administration, so far as it can do so consistently with prudence and sound policy, and that it urges Her Majesty's Government to redeem the promise made in the Queen's Speech two years ago, that an inquiry should be made into the Government of India by the appointment of a Royal Commission for that purpose."—(Mr. Samuel Smith.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

SIR RICHARD TEMPLE (Worcester, Evesham)

said, that the speeches of the Proposer and Seconder of the Amendment, although nominally supposed to have reference to the Salt Tax, in reality were speeches de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis. To reply to them concisely was, therefore, next to impossible. As to the Mover of the Amendment, he felt sure that the Natives of India, whatever they might think of his facts and arguments, would recognize gratefully the charitable and sympathetic spirit in which he had dealt with the subject. His hon. Friend, however, was a philanthropic pessimist, and a political Jeremiah. His hon. Friend chose to wear dark green spectacles through which to view the condition of the people of India, and there fore the picture which he saw was, of course, very dark. If any man chose to put on the same kind of spectacles, he might make out a very touching story regarding the unfortunate condition of any people under the sun. The hon. Member had been to India to see for himself, and that was laudable, for his subsequent as compared to his previous knowledge must be as light compared with darkness. Still, his knowledge of India had been acquired in a winter's tour, and, having returned home, he now treated the House to "a winter's tale." Might he remind the hon. Member that a tour of such short duration could not make a man omniscient in regard to so vast an Empire and population? The hon. Member, no doubt, had met a certain number of highly educated Natives who could speak to him in the English language; but there were some 20 different tongues spoken in India, and with those who spoke them the hon. Member had, of course, been unable to converse. Who were the educated Natives whom he had met? They were men who only spoke for themselves and not for their countrymen collectively, and who had but two objects in view, one of which was to obtain for themselves a larger share in the management of the country, through representative institutions; and, in the second place, to secure for themselves also some of the loaves and fishes distributed among Europeans. These men, in order to make out a case in furtherance of their objects, painted India black, exaggerated everything, and strove to make all facts and arguments point to the conclusion which they desired. With both the objects above referred to be sympathized. He quite admitted their title to consideration at our hands, and he acknowledged their many virtues; but he must say he thought the hon. Member pretended to utter the universal opinion of the Natives of India when, as a matter of fact, he only repeated the sentiments of a limited class. Indeed, their claim to represent the people would be repudiated by the Natives generally. They were a class of political agitators who would be swept into the sea if the protection of England were withdrawn from them. When that was considered they appeared rather ungrateful, for they were constantly vilifying their protectors. Their own evidence might be turned against them, for, as the House knew, there had, as just mentioned by his hon. Friend, been large conferences at Calcutta and other capitals, at which strong loyalty had been expressed, and even laudation of the British Government. These really responsible utterances ought to be set against such irresponsible conversations as his hon. Friend had held with Natives in trains, railway stations, and other public places of resort. To prove his contention that the people of India were excessively poor, his hon. Friend contrasted the statistics relating to their condition with English statistics. But poor and rich were comparatively relative terms, and. his hon. Friend had overlooked the fact that an Englishman was five times as strong as a Native of India, did five times as much work, and had a vastly greater number of artificial wants. Besides that, he possessed vast mechanical resources which were wanting to the Native. The Indian, it was true, earned comparatively little, but his wants were few and he could supply them without difficulty. There was, therefore, less of real grinding poverty in India, and fewer people suffered from the extreme pinch of the res angusta domi. Would the House be surprised to hear that the people whose poverty was so feelingly, even so pathetically, described by his hon. Friend, were a people whose numbers were increasing annually, whose cultivation was continually extending, whose internal transactions were multiplying, and whose surplus of wheat enabled them to flood British markets for several years—and now to begin flooding the markets of Southern Europe, as we learned from the newspapers of this very day? It should also be noted that they absorbed vast quantities of the precious metals. Much had been made of the evidence of Lord Lawrence as to the existence of poverty and misery, and he yielded to no one in respect for Lord Lawrence's memory. But it was a mistake to suppose that his words had exclusive application to India. They were, unfortunately, applicable to every nation under the sun. Statistics showed that the Natives of India were probably the most lightly taxed people on the face of the earth, for it had long been our policy to reduce the rate of taxation, limit its incidence, and abolish the imposts which were exacted under Native rule. As to the Land Tax, he would not enter upon the hon. Member's discussion as to whether this was rent or revenue. It mattered little to those who paid the tax whether the name of rent or revenue were used. His hon. Friend said, on the authority of certain Natives with whom he had conversed, that the tax amounted to 25 per cent of the gross produce; but according to the most competent administrators and statisticians, who had examined the figures closely, it only amounted to between 7 and 10 per cent. Would the House consider that casual conversations with the most unstatistical people in the world were to be set against official and responsible dicta founded upon careful inquiry? The old subject of opium had been referred to. If the hon. Member wished in the course of the Session to initiate an opium debate, questions could be raised and answered then; but there was one point which he (Sir Richard Temple) wished to impress upon the House. The hon. Member had said that we intercepted the profits of the opium culture, which would go to the people of India if it were not for us. Nothing of the kind; if our opium revenue were abolished tomorrow, the people of India would not get the profit, but the Chinese Government would get it; and it was a question whether the Indian Government should get it, in whose country the article was grown, or whether they should let the Chinese take it. With regard to the question of Excise, in a miscellaneous speech such as he (Sir Richard Temple) was obliged in the circumstances to make, he would only give this general assurance—that the policy and effect of our Excise revenue in India was to tax drugs and spirits, and so to guard against intemperance by making their consumption expensive and difficult. When accidentally rein was in some degree given to intemperance, the Government stepped in and applied an effectual remedy. The Government of India was plainly determined to repress intemperance, and, in his opinion, subject to occasional shortcomings and failures, it had done its duty well in that respect. With regard to the statement that the people of India continuously lived upon the verge of famine, and that any failure of the crops brought them into immediate danger of starvation, he ventured to assure the House from his own experience that the very reverse was the case. It had been his lot to command in the field the largest operations of famine relief ever undertaken in India. He consequently knew that the people of that country always had a considerable reserve of food, generally lying buried in the dry earth beneath the floors of their dwellings. If the crops were destroyed, the wages of the people ceased, and their em- ployment was subverted, Nevertheless, it would take three or four months after the commencement of famine before these stores were exhausted or any stage approaching starvation was reached. He doubted whether the working classes of England, with their many artificial needs, could hold out as long, were a similar calamity to overtake them. He appealed to hon. Members who know the condition of our working classes whether in this respect the comparison was not in favour of the people of India, with their few and simple needs? With regard to finance, the hon. Member who had moved the Amendment had made out a seemingly strong case against the Government by dexterously handling figures taken at comparative periods suiting his argument. But if they took the period from the last Russo-Turkish War they would see that since that time the Government of India, acting on behalf of the people of India, had succeeded in paying out of current revenue a very large sum for famine relief and almost all their share of the last Afghan War, and after that war was over had enjoyed several years of surplus which had been beneficently expended on the construction of railways and canals to safeguard against famine. After this cycle of successful years the Government of India had, he admitted, fallen into an unfavourable position financially, which, however, he hoped, was but a passing cloud. The causes of that had been in part explained by the hon. Member who had moved the Amendment. The troubles in Burmah and the frontier defences had been mentioned; but he (Sir Richard Temple) thought that there were two other reasons for these difficulties which had not been alluded to. One consisted in this—that a certain trouble had arisen from the Cheefoo Convention, by which the Chinese were able to levy import duties on the opium, whereby about £1,000,000 of revenue was lost to India. The second reason was the peculiar loss which are se from the fact that, owing to the very low price of wheat prevalent in England, the exportation from India had been considerably diminished, thus bringing a loss upon the traffic receipts of the State railways. But all these losses would have been but a feather's-weight for India had it not been for the loss by exchange, a grave circumstance, wholly beyond the control of the Government. The hon. Seconder of the Amendment (Mr. Slagg) said that the Afghans were sighing for a release from their yoke by the intervention of the Russians; but that he (Sir Richard Temple) did not regard as at all likely, because the Ameer was an Afghan of the Afghans, and if the people prayed to be delivered from his yoke, they were praying to be delivered from their own yoke. And naturally the Afghans preferred their own dominion to that of any Foreign Power. He could assure the House that the people of India had no wish to exchange British for Russian rule, and an evidence of the spirit that animated the country was recently afforded by the loyal offer of the Native Princes of funds for the defence of the frontier. They said—We give you our money now, but in the day of danger you may count upon our sword. The hon. Seconder alluded to our obligations to defend Afghanistan against Russia, and seemingly regarded this obligation as impossible of fulfilment. He (Sir Richard Temple) would not, in the absence of official Papers, like to say whether we did precisely incur any such obligation; but if we had incurred it morally, he quite agreed that it would be very unwise for England to attempt to meet Russia in arms upon the Central Asian frontier. England would appoint her own battle-field; she would fight where she chose, and would not let her enemy select the site he pleased. Russia would be struck in the Baltic, the Black Sea, and perhaps in the China Seas; thus, heavily wounded and stricken, Russia would have to relax her grip on the frontiers of Afghanistan. As regarded the Salt Tax—which was the proper subject of this Amendment, though the Mover and Seconder had strayed widely from it, and he had been obliged to follow them—he must remind the House that the words "raising this tax," as set forth in the Amendment, were somewhat misleading. Five years ago the Salt Tax was lowered very considerably. Of course, the well-wishers of India were very thankful to see it lowered, if the Government could afford it. But many long-headed men shook their heads at the time, and now it turned out that they had to go back to the standard from which they departed some years ago. He was positive that if inquiries were made in the markets of India it would be found that even this addition of one-fifth—[Mr. S. SMITH: One-fourth.]—he would correct himself, one-fourth—would still leave the price of salt cheaper than it was 10 years ago. The Salt Tax was, of course, a tax on the poor; but if the labouring poor were protected by the arm of British power from plunder and devastation, and to be secured in reaping the fruits of their labour, they must pay something to their protectors. And what else did they pay, or could they pay, but the Salt Tax? They smoked indeed; but there was no tobacco tax. They paid nothing to the Excise, for they did not drink. According to calculations of totals of revenue and of population, the Salt Tax was now only 1s. per head per annum to an adult. The very poorest peasant, of whom one of his hon. Friends had spoken as being able to support himself, his wife, and family on 1s. 6d. per week, represented an extreme case. A peasant and his wife would probably earn about 120s. a-year, and the Salt Tax upon them would come to It. per annum. If the tax were raised it would amount to 2s. 6d. per annum; and, although he would deprecate the raising of the tax as much as the hon. Member, still he would remind him that it would not be very sensibly felt. He found by statistics that when the tax was lowered five years ago there was no considerable increase in the consumption of that article, as would probably have been the case had the tax been oppressive. Therefore, if it were raised, the people of India would probably not lessen their consumption. It had been said that the Salt Tax was the sole remaining resource of taxation for the country. That was not so, as there remained the Income Tax, which was now only 2½ per cent, or 6d. in the pound, as a further resource. Then it had been proposed that, instead of raising the Salt Tax, they should revive the old import duties and tax the British manufactures imported into India. This proposal ought to be exposed, as being one simply for transferring a part of the Indian burden from the Indian peasant to the British working man. To that course he could not assent, believing the British Empire to be for British industry. With respect to the hon. Mover's proposal for some Parliamentary in- quiry, he would submit that any inquiry ought to be strictly limited in its scope, or otherwise the field would be too wide for any practical result to be arrived at. He remembered an inquiry into Indian finance by a Committee of that House some years ago, which sat for more than one Session, which ranged over a vast variety of subjects and never made a Report. A Commission of Inquiry embracing all the subjects dealt with in the speeches of the hon. Mover and Seconder would occupy the time of several Sessions of Parliament. If it were granted, he should recommend that its scope should be closely confined to some three points, otherwise its duties would never be completed, owing to the immense range of the subjects which would inevitably present themselves. Those points should be—first, the general question as to whether any money could be saved in the administration of the government of India—and he believed economy could be effected; secondly, whether any representative institutions could be devised for the country—and he, for one, said certainly they could; and, thirdly, the question of substituting, in some degree, Native for European agency. On the last-named measure, he would say let that be done so far as was consistent with the safety of the Empire. It was our duty to make the Natives fit to manage their own affairs, to make them feel the responsibilities of action, and teach them how to hold the highest offices. These were the ultimate objects of truly national education. To this grand goal we should make gentle and gradual approaches; but in all the offices in which absolute firmness and energy, and all the higher attributes of human nature were required, the position should be held by officials of British nationality. If we arranged otherwise we should drift into peril. He recollected hearing an hon. Member opposite—the hon. Member for Cardiff—descanting last Session on the ability of British iron-clads to enter hostile harbours and fight under severe conditions. That which an iron-clad was above all other ships, a British officer was above all other men in Eastern countries. His armour-plating was courage, his barbette was firmness, his turret was tenacity, and his cannon was enterprize.

SIR WILLIAM PLOWDEN (Wolverhampton, W.)

said, he wished to advert to one or two points touched on by his hon. Friend who had spoken on the subject of the reduction of the Salt Tax (Mr. Slagg). He did not think it was quite fair to the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment to the Address (Mr. S. Smith) that the hon. Member had not explained accurately the present position of the Salt Duty. The hon. Gentleman seemed to put forward the fact that the Salt Duty had been reduced as the argument against raising it now; but their complaint was not that it was reduced in former years, but that it was now to be increased. He (Sir William Plowden) had been one of the officers of the Legislative Council when the Salt Duty was reduced, and he was aware that the Viceroy expressed his opinion that we should in future look to that tax as a possible resource in financial difficulties, and that we might raise it again; but the question was whether they should raise it now, and there he thought he might join issue with the hon. Gentleman. They considered that the part of the hon. Member's Amendment referring to economical administration was a matter which they should have before them as a means of dealing with the practical difficulties which surrounded them in India. It was admitted that we could economize, and to his mind there could be no doubt about the matter. Then, with regard to meeting the wishes of the country, it was certain that we must go forward in that direction, and meet the desires of the Natives to be more closely associated with us in the administration of their own affairs. He was surprised, with the long experience of the hon. Gentleman opposite, that he should feel able to express himself as he had on our relying entirely upon British valour and intellect. Those who, like himself, had been associated in the troublous times of 1857 with the Natives, could not share entirely the view put forward by the hon. Baronet the Member for the Evesham Division of Worcester (Sir Richard Temple). He had been associated with the people of India when their lives had been in great danger, and when there were no Europeans with him; and he felt that it was owing to the good faith and gallantry of his Native friends that he was able to encounter the difficulty in which he was placed. In his opinion, they could rely on the good faith, loyalty, and courage of our Native fellow-subjects quite as much as upon that of our own people. We had had proof of the good feeling which animated the Native Princes; and he had been greatly gratified with the terms in which the hon. Gentleman had referred to the manner in which they had shown their loyalty. With regard to the economy of their administration, when the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for India (Sir John Gorst) came to deal with that Amendment, he might, perhaps, turn his attention to the question of economy of our Indian administration; but, taking the Revenue and Expenditure of our great Indian Empire, he found that they were now in receipt of £77,000,000, and an expenditure of the same amount. That great Revenue was made up of six main heads, and the charges were likewise made up under four or five main heads. He would turn briefly to two points, on which they had recently had an expression of opinion from men who were quite capable of giving good advice. With regard, first, to the Army Service; the Army Charges for the last year of which they had the figures before them amounted to over £20,000,000, while the Civil charges amounted to £21,000,000. A very able Committee sat in 1878 or 1879 under the Presidency of a Gentleman who held high Office in India—whose death they had since to deplore—assisted among others by the present Commander-in-Chief (Sir Frederick Roberts), and that Committee, sitting with every possible means of information before them, came to very definite conclusions as to the manner in which the Army administration might be largely economized; and he would ask the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for India, with reference to the opinions expressed in their Report, whether up to the present time they had been acted upon? There were undoubtedly several definite methods by which economy in the Army Service might be effected. Then in the Civil administration there was plenty of room for large reductions and economies; while with regard to the Local Governments of Madras and Bombay, he asked why they should not be upon the same footing as the Local Government of Bengal? There seemed to him to be no reason why these economies should not be effected. He would not refer to the second portion of the Amendment; but he sincerely trusted that some active measures would be taken in the direction of the view of the hon. Member.

SIR ROPER LETHBRIDGE (Kensington, N.)

said, he thought it was to be regretted that the hon. Member for Flintshire (Mr. S. Smith) should have thought it necessary to include within the terms of his Amendment a specific condemnation of the increase of the Salt Tax as the means adopted by the Government of India for meeting the existing deficit; and it was also to be regretted that the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment should have introduced into their speeches references to such controverted topics as the Burmah Annexation and the Afghan War; because if that condemnation of the Salt Tax had been omitted, he felt very certain that the hon. Member would have obtained a far larger amount of support for the really substantial part of his Amendment, not only from his own side of the House, but from those Benches, than he was aware of. For his own part, he entirely agreed with the remainder of the Amendment. He was altogether of opinion that the recurring deficits of which the hon. Member spoke, perhaps in too sombre terms, were to be regarded by that House and the country with very serious anxiety. He did not think that the hon. Member was merely a philanthropic pessimist, as had been suggested, but he did believe there was great reason for anxiety with regard to the finances of India. He thought also that the Government ought to be urged to study wiser and more intelligent economy in their administration, and endeavour to meet Native public opinion both in matters of finance and administration, so far as prudence and sound policy permitted; and he would add that prudence and sound policy would permit and demand that the Government should go a great deal farther than it had gone in that direction. Above all, he thought that the pledges of the Government should be fairly, fully, and honourably carried out, and that a real inquiry should be instituted into the administration of Indian affairs generally, and not a sham inquiry such as they had seen hitherto generally proposed. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman the Mover of the Amendment in objecting to the increase of the Salt Tax; but he must say that he considered that if they were to have an increase of taxation, there was no other tax that could be imposed which would be so little oppressive to the people of India, or that would so closely meet their own wishes on the subject. The hon. Member had mentioned another tax, which he (Sir Roper Lethbridge) admitted would be preferred by the great majority of the people of India; but, whatever might be their own private opinion as to the desirability of re-imposing the duty on cotton goods imported from England, he thought that as practical men hon. Members would not consider the proposal of the hon. Member as feasible. He believed it was absolutely impossible that public opinion in this country would sanction any return to the Protectionist theories which formerly dominated the taxation of India. He did not think it would be possible for the Government of India to re-impose those duties, seeing that they were not only opposed to the sacred principles of Free Trade, but also to the just and legitimate interests of the English and Scotch cotton manufacturers. He objected to the Salt Tax being raised; but he agreed with the hon. Baronet the Member for the Evesham Division of Worcester (Sir Richard Temple) that its incidence was infinitesimal, and the only alternative would be, in his opinion, direct taxation. But every person who had a knowledge of the wants and habits of the Native people would, he thought, agree with him in saying that direct taxation was utterly unsuitable to them, for the obvious reason that for every rupee raised by direct taxation that reached the Treasury, two, five, or even 10 rupees would stick to the fingers and fall into the pockets of the underling extortioners who had to collect them. He would suggest to the hon. Member (Mr. S. Smith) that he should withdraw that portion of his Amendment which referred to the Salt Tax, in order that he might emphasize his resistance to the increase of taxation at all—in order to insist on what really was the true alternative—namely, retrenchment in the expenditure of the Government. It was no use for the hon. Member to demand retrenchment by the old-fashioned method of Departmental inquiries. The hon. Member evidently appreciated that fact when he asked for a Royal Commission. A Committee of officials, they all knew, would recommend a ruthless cutting down of the salaries of messengers and doorkeepers and such small deer as that. They would abolish a few offices here and there, giving to the incumbents of those offices pensions, and increasing the pay of the survivors. But what happened with the next swing of the pendulum. The abolished offices came back, but the special pensions and increased pay continued, and the result was a larger expenditure than before. To be real, an attempt at retrenchment must be carried out by the inquiries of a Royal Commission, or some such independent body, which would inquire on the spot in the full light of publicity and without fear or favour. And so, too, in the matter of meeting the wishes of the Native population. He asked those hon. Members who were acquainted with the circumstances of the appointment of the Public Service Commission of last year to say whether there could be any greater sham than that Commission, which was intended to meet the desire of the educated Natives for increased admission to the Civil Service? He was quite sure, and the House would appreciate the fact, that Lord Dufferin was anxious that that inquiry should be a full and impartial one. He believed that Lord Dufferin's advisers nominated the Members of that Committee with the view of making it a Committee for full and impartial inquiry; but the Committee sat, inquired into a certain number of details of administration, and the result, so far as he could learn, was simply nil. The same thing had happened with regard to the Committees of Inquiry here in England, in full light of English public opinion. Of all the Indian Secretaries of State within his memory, the one who had enjoyed the greatest amount of popularity with all classes in India, European as well as Native, official as well as non-official, was undoubtedly the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill). Now, why was that? It was very largely due to the fact that the noble Lord stood forward boldly as the exponent of a policy of full and thorough inquiry. Unfortunately, as he (Sir Roper Lethbridge), and as many others, especially in India, thought, the noble Lord's tenure of Office was a short-lived one, and since his retirement from the India Office both Parties had had a spell of power. Both of the Front Benches had seemed to him to enter into a sort of conspiracy to shirk an inquiry altogether. Of course, he did not accuse right hon. Gentlemen of anything approaching a criminal conspiracy in the matter, but he could not help thinking that, in the interest of India, the agreement of the two Front Benches in the matter of an inquiry was much to be regretted. When the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington left the India Office and the Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) came into power, what did they do in regard to this matter? They proposed to return to the old state of things. They proposed a Parliamentary Committee which was to sit upstairs in the dim religious light of one of the Committee Rooms. It was to consist mostly of present or past officials—Gentlemen of whom he would not speak except in terms of the highest respect—but he could not but remember that those Gentlemen would, to a large extent, be reviewing their own proceedings. Surely it was not likely that they would ask many awkward or inconvenient questions with regard to their own achievements. At that time he felt it his duty, as an independent Member of the House, to block the proposal of the Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian by an Amendment, declaring that no inquiry would be satisfactory to the people of India that did not provide for a full and impartial investigation on the spot by an independent authority. And if he felt bound to urge those views on the Government of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, he felt doubly bound to urge them upon the present Government. He knew he should be told that Parliamentary inquiries were of great efficacy in the olden times of the India Company, when the House of Commons used to overhaul the administration of the Company for 20 years, on the occasion of the renewal of the Charter. Quite true, these inquiries did bring about an immense amount of good in the way of reform, but it should never be forgotten that in those days both the Ministry and Parliament were exceedingly jealous of the extraordinary privileges and immunities of the Company, and they narrowly scanned the administration of the Company. The examination of Parliament was very often not very just. It certainly was often not very intelligible, but it was, at any rate, rigorous. At the present time, under the circumstances he had detailed to the House, the examination by a Parliamentary Committee of the kind that was intended would certainly be anything but rigorous. The official Gentlemen certainly would, in reviewing their own achievements, be likely to be to their faults a little blind, and be to their virtues very kind. The fatal objection, in his opinion, to a Parliamentary inquiry here in England was that there was no possibility of getting any Native evidence that was worth having. Notwithstanding the recent revolt against old prejudices in India, which had spread to a considerable extent, it was perfectly true that at the present moment nearly all that was most worthy and that was most reputable in Indian society absolutely refused to cross the black water and to come to England or elsewhere. They objected to come here on social and religious grounds, and he appealed to the House to say—frankly to say—what moral value could attach to an inquiry from which all reputable Native evidence was absolutely and necessarily excluded? He maintained, notwithstanding the disclaimer of his hon. Friend the Member for the Evesham Division of Worcester, that there was great and urgent need of full and impartial inquiry not only in the interest of India, but for our own credit, for the credit of our own administration, and for the honour of England. He believed that the more the administration of India by Englishmen was fully and impartially inquired into, the more favourably would that administration be judged by the whole world. Ever since the Crown had taken over the administration of India from the Company there could be no doubt that charges had been accumulating against the Government that we ought for our own credit to have investigated and inquired into. Grievances—many of them, he believed, exaggerated, but some doubtless true—had accumulated, and those, too, should be looked into. Why, there was not a community in India—English, European, or Native, official or non-official—that had not its own special grievances, and many of them of a specially damag- ing character to the Government. Now, of those grievances many had found no tongue in England. They found their way into the Press of India; and those who, like himself, followed that Press from week to week, could understand what the grievances were. But otherwise they were not heard unless they affected what he called—although he did not use the phrase in an offensive oonse—the ruling clique of India. When a grievance affected that clique it was very quickly redressed, but that clique usually sat up aloft in the Himalayan heights, like the Olympian gods of old, far removed from all sublunary cares; and even when that clique retired from India and came home to England it was to obtain a further apotheosis in the venerable Council of the Secretary of State. With rare exceptions those gentlemen who followed this official career were the enemies of these reforms. In perfect good faith, and in the full belief that reforms were not needed, they considered that ex-Lieutenant Governors and ex-Chief Commissioners should be above the captious criticisms of Committees or Royal Commissions; and so for 30 years they had succeeded in averting this inquiry, and the House of Commons had consented to this burking of the inquiry. Year after year the House of Commons consented to allow the Government not only to shirk the inquiry for which the hon. Member for Flintshire (Mr. S. Smith) had pleaded this evening, but also to burke anything that was more than a mere sham and simulated debate on Indian affairs. What could be more unreal than the debate on the Indian Budget, which came on usually at the end of the dog-days in August or September, when a few hon. Members, jaded with a long Session, came to listen to a few speeches on matters which concerned the highest interests of 200,000,000 of Her Majesty's subjects? He contended that the dismissal of the debate on Indian affairs to such a period of the Session not only hid all knowledge of contemporaneous Indian events from the House of Commons, but was really a disgrace to the Government and the House of Commons. It is true that the enterprize of The Times newspaper on every Monday morning, in the singularly able and interesting telegrams that were received from their Calcutta correspondent, put before the public an account of current Indian history, and of the wants and aspirations of the Indian peoples. But, he asked, who amongst the English people, who even amongst hon. Members of the House, recognized when he read these telegrams that they were the record of a vast Continent occupied by something like 100 different races? But did he realize when he was told of this movement in Bengal, or of that movement in the North-West Provinces, that just two or three lines were obliged to suffice as a description of a popular movement that might be convulsing a population as large as that of France or Germany, and nearly as highly organized? The echoes of all these things reached us through the columns of The Times, but they reached us in a condition that was altogether faint and insufficient. The cry of those people went up to Heaven that they were unheard in this House—that they were unheard in England at all to any practical extent. If he (Sir Roper Lethbridge) were not wearying the House, he would like to mention without comment one or two cries raised by the people of India. He did not wish to attempt to comment upon them, but he would say that these cries deserved the attention of the House of Commons. He did not know—he could not know—whether they were true, but he said this, that the Government ought to enable him, and ought to enable every Member of the House of Commons, to say that the cries were not founded upon real grievances. First, there was a cry that was almost universal as to the Home charges. That cry was referred to by the hon. Gentleman the Mover, and also by the hon. Gentleman the Seconder, of the Amendment, but he found that only in the present week the leader of the independent Members of the Viceroy's Council (Mr. Evans) had drawn the attention of India and the world to this point of the Homo charges. These were charges, of course, for the cost of the India Office, for stores, for troops, for the interest on debt, and so forth. Now there was hardly one item of these charges that was not impugned in some way not only by the Native Press in India, and by the less reputable of the English Press, but by some of the leading papers and by some men of the highest authority in India. This very week he had been much impressed by an article in The Calcutta Englishman which was undoubtedly the first newspaper in India. The article was upon the Hindoo and European Telegraphic Department, and in it it was asked— How many persons in India know that the head-quarters of a purely Indian Department are fixed permanently in England, and that a considerable staff are employed there in assisting the Director in Chief to delay the publication of the annual report until it has lost all human interest? All the office work of the Department is done at Kurrachee, and a report is drawn up there every year, a report which is afterwards sent home to the Director in Chief to be returned to the Government of India at Simla, to be again sent to the Secretary of State in London, and again finally to be sent out to India to be immortalized in the pages of the Official Gazette, Anything more absurd it would be impossible to imagine. It is circumlocution run mad. It is not only circumlocution that is the gravamen of the charge. It is unjust to the staff, who are exposed to the rigours of a fierce climate in the Persian Gulf to keep a nest of drones in London on high pay. Then there was the outcry—which he thought was universal in the Native Press—against the temper and even sometimes against the honesty of our relations with the Native States, against the gentlemen who, as Residents or as Political Agents, were bound to control those Native States. There was one State that had been treated, it seemed to him, with considerable harshness—having its Native ruling family set aside during the minority of its Princes and subordinated to an English official placed in charge there. He believed the facts were undisputed, and when he asked for information in the House he understood that the Indian Office had heard nothing of the transaction. Then we unhappily snubbed or treated with something like indignity those Maharajahs and great Nobles who happened to belong to our own territories and to be subjects of the Queen, who was Empress of India, and this merely because they were subjects of the Queen as distinguished from petty Chiefs who had their dominions in what was called Feudatory India. We did not allow to the greatest of those Maharajahs even the small civility of a salute which was a privilege enjoyed by the petty Chiefs in other parts of India. The classes to whom we imparted our English education and Western civilization, and of whom my hon. Friend the Member for the Evesham Division of Worcester spoke just now had their demands to make, and he (Sir Roper Lethbridge) thought that many of them were just demands. They demanded, for instance, to have representation in the Legislative Councils of the various Provinces, and he thought many of them were admirably qualified for seats on those Councils. They demanded increased employment in the Civil Service generally; and the Government, in replying to this demand, simply appointed such a Commission as the Public Service Commission, of which he had already spoken. Turning to the European communities in India, he found that all the various Uncovenanted Departments of the Civil Service, those Departments which dealt with the scientific and technical affairs of the Government and so forth, were absolutely excluded from the Olympian clique at Simla. These Departments were only kept from almost open revolt by a most stringent system of rules against combination. No two men were allowed to sign the same Petition, and no Petition could be sent to England except through the Government of India, a prohibition with regard to Petitions to this House which he regarded as somewhat unconstitutional. Those of the Education Department of the North-West Provinces and of the Postal Department of the Punjaub declared that they were grossly ill-treated by the Government of India in regard to the headships of their Departments, and with regard to promotion being taken away by the imposition over their heads of members of the Covenanted Services. Then, with regard to their furlough, pay, and pensions when they retired to England, they complained that their pay and pensions were not only calculated on a scale 50 per cent less favourable than that which was given to the Covenanted Civil servant, but that, in addition, these pensions were calculated in rupees in a fluctuating standard. The House would appreciate what that meant when he mentioned that an officer who 10 years ago retired on a pension of £200 per annum—which he thought at the time would be a bare subsistence for himself and his family—had, owing to the depreciation of the rupee since then, received in lieu of that pension a pension of £135 per annum on which he and his family had to starve. Then he (Sir Roper Lethbridge) turned to the Army—English and Native. He found that those officers who were on what was termed the General List complained in a very recent number of The Civil and Military Gazette, a first-class English paper published at Lahore, of grievances that were quite as hard as those of Uncovenanted civilians. He also found it stated that the whole Native Army was in a ferment at a trick which they considered had been played upon them by the Government, and this in direct opposition to the expressed wish of their distinguished Commander-in-Chief, Sir Frederick Roberts. It was said that an amnesty was offered to all deserters on account of the Jubilee, and that afterwards all the deserters who came in and confessed were actually punished. Such a thing seemed incredible; but the authority of The Civil and Military Gazette was a very high one. Then the whole unofficial community protested against the annual retirement of the Government to Simla in the Hills; and the Native community almost universally protested against our Excise policy by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Evesham Division (Sir Richard Temple). The Natives complained that it increased the liquor traffic; and he was very glad to see—though he expressed no opinion upon it, for he thought that at present they were in want of further information—that the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Caine) intended to raise the question upon a subsequent occasion. Again, the planters complained that the Government had set up experimental farms and such like institutions, and then turned round and competed with private enterprize by making a profit out of the sale of cinchona. There was a complaint that the Government would not extend railways. In fact, there was not a single corner of the administration that was not the subject of some complaint or other. He did not say, for one moment, that all, or anything like all, of these charges could be sustained. On the contrary, he hoped and believed that a thorough inquiry would show that none of them could be sustained in the odious sense in which they were often brought; but he held that the English administration in India should be, like Cæsar's wife, above suspicion; and he thought that the mere fact that these charges were made and were reiterated so often was amply sufficient ground for demanding a full and searching inquiry. In conclusion, he implored the House to remember that in neglecting the interests of India, and in ignoring the just wants and aspirations of her people, we were not only neglecting our duty to the teeming millions of India, but we were also wronging the working classes of this country. It had been well pointed out that a very large percentage of the English working classes depended entirely for their subsistence on the trade with India; and he (Sir Roper Lethbridge) was very certain that the whole of the working classes of this country would receive a very great injury alike to their work and wages by any injury done to our connection with India.

THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Sir JOHN GORST) (Chatham)

said, he did not think that the hon. Member for North Kensington (Sir Roper Lethbridge) would consider it disrespectful of him if he declined at that extremely late period of the evening to follow him into the many topics which he had submitted to the consideration of the House. No doubt, many of the subjects which he had enumerated might be very advantageously discussed in the House at a convenient season. He was rejoiced to find that there was a healthy public opinion springing up in India on those subjects, and that the Government of India was subjected to a full and efficient criticism of its administration of that Empire. On the whole, however, it might be best if the Government were to reserve its opinion on these matters until they were formally and properly brought under the consideration of the House, when some action on the part of the Government might become necessary. He would, therefore, confine himself in the remarks he intended to make almost exclusively to the case made out by the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment. They were entitled to an official answer to the allegations made, and though he must endeavour to make that official answer as brief and as concise as he could, he would, at the same time, endeavour to meet fully the various statements made. He understood the complaints of the Mover of the Amendment against the administration of India to be practically three—(1)the deficit in the Revenues of India; (2) the particular mode in which the Government of India were going to meet that deficit; and (3) a general complaint of a want of regard for the wishes of what the hon. Member called the people of India, and a demand for the fulfilment of the pledges which had been given by the Government for a Parliamentary inquiry. In regard to the deficit, he wished to call the attention of the House to this extremely important fact—that the deficit was caused by a concurrence of circumstances over which the present Government had had no control whatever, and most of which had been entirely independent of any action on the part of any Government that had preceded the present one. If it had not been for a combination of those financial misfortunes which had fallen upon the Government of India, there would be no deficit of which to complain. The first cause of the deficit was, no doubt, the expenditure in Upper Burmah. He would not attempt to defend the policy of the annexation of Upper Burmah. It was a policy for which the present Government were not responsible; but it was a policy which had been approved by the two preceding Governments, and on more than one occasion by more than one House of Commons. One fact connected with the annexation of Upper Burmah he had frankly admitted, and that was that a very insufficient estimate was originally made of the expenditure which this annexation would, in the course of the next few years, cause. But the present Government, after a review of the whole policy of that annexation, was strongly of opinion that it was prudent and necessary, and that, even if the full cost which would be incurred during this and the next few years had been known to those by whom that policy was initiated, they would have been justified in the annexation. Though he frankly admitted that the charges in the last two years and in the present year were much greater than was expected, he must not be understood to be giving up the estimate which the Government of India had made of the ultimate results of that annexation. There was no reason to doubt that ultimately the Revenue of Upper Burmah would repay all that had boon spent on that country, and that, so far from being a burden, it might become one of the most valuable Provinces of our Indian Empire. The next cause which had produced the present deficit was the increased Army charges. For those increased charges the present Government was not responsible. They were the result of a policy which had been long pursued by successive Governments of this country and by successive Viceroys of India. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Sir William Plowden) had found fault with the administration of India because economies had not been made in the Army expenditure. But he would remind the hon. Gentleman that economies had been made in the Army expenditure and administration of India. If it had not been for those economies the increase of Army expenditure would have been much greater than it actually was. The expenditure had increased, as a whole, in consequence of the additions which it had been thought necessary to make to the numerical strength of the Army, and in consequence of certain improvements which had been effected in the Native regiments. The increase shown in Sir Auckland Colvin's estimate was in 1886–7 Rx.1,126,900, whereas, owing to the economies, a reduction was made in other parts of that expenditure, so that the actual increase of expenditure in 1886–7 was only Rx.465,200, showing that a very considerable saving would have been effected in the total military expenditure had it not been for the necessary increase of the Army. He did not understand that the hon. Member for Flintshire (Mr. S. Smith), or the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, or any of those who complained of the increased expenditure, would challenge the policy which led to that increased expenditure. Would they say that it was not the duty of the Government of India to make the people of India secure from the danger and disaster of foreign invasion? He thought that at a time when the independent Chiefs of India were coming forward and voluntarily offering to subscribe to the defence of the North-West Frontier, it certainly would be inopportune if the British Government were either to reduce their military expenditure or to abandon a policy which was deliberately adopted by previous Governments, not for the purpose of aggression, but for the purpose of making the North-West Frontier secure against invasion. Then a third cause which had co-operated in producing this deficit was the falling-off in the opium revenue. That was a cause which the Government of India was absolutely impotent to prevent. It had been the result of the general Imperial policy of this country. It had been pointed out by the hon. Baronet the Member for Evesham (Sir Richard Temple) that it was the direct result of the Chefoo Convention with China. In the last few years the price of Indian opium had fallen considerably, and the loss thereby occasioned—which fell exclusively upon the Indian Revenue—had amounted to about Rx.1,500,000. The next reason was the falling-off in the amount of the railway receipts, which, although showing a great increase over those of three years ago, had fallen below the Budget Estimate by, in round numbers, Rx.550,000. There need, however, be no real apprehension about the future receipts of Indian railways, or their profitable working. But all the various financial misfortunes which had befallen India would have been powerless to produce the present result, had it not been for the fall in exchange. Neither the present nor any Government could be blamed for the fall in exchange. The fall in the value of silver was a phenomenon which no one had ever expected would occur. Since 1883–4, when there was a surplus, the exchange had become worse year by year. In 1885 the charge was greater than in 1883–4 by Rx.1,840,000; in 1886, by Rx.2,197,000; in 1887, by Rx.2,289,000; and in 1889 the estimated increase was Rx.2,989,000, or, in round numbers, Rx. 3,000,000. That was a dead loss for which the Government was not responsible, and which alone would amply account for the present unfortunate position of Indian finance. He hoped he had said enough to convince the House that the present Government—he would go as far as to say the Government which preceded them—was not responsible for the deficit of which the hon. Member complained. To put the position of the Government clearly before the House, he must point out that these recurring deficits which were complained of were not really any cause of anxiety with reference to the finances of India. He did not wish, however, to disguise the fact that in the present financial year their position was not very satis- tory. After the observations which had been made as to the customary optimism of officials at that Table, he would state the facts about this matter that hon. Members might judge them for themselves. During the last 13 years there had been six years of surplus, showing altogether a surplus of Rx.10,123,118. During the same period there had been seven years of deficit, showing a total deficit of Rx. 18,993,675. So that during the last 13 years the deficits had amounted to Rx.8,870,557, or a little more than the figures given by the hon. Member. But in considering that deficit it should be remembered what exceptional charges had been paid by the Indian Government out of revenue during that period. In the first place, Rx.15,338,960 had been paid out of revenue for military operations. Then they had paid for famine relief and famine insurance no less a sum than Rx.16,589,055. Of that sum Rx.8,664,463 had been spent in actual relief of famine, and Rx. 4,259,747 in construction of protective works, and Rx. 3,664,845 in reduction of debt. It was not correct, therefore, to say that during the period of prosperity no provision had been made by the Government of India against famine. Provision had been made by the Government in the shape of insurance against famine, so long as it did not involve additional taxation to do so. It was only last year that the Government found it impossible to make such insurance without laying additional taxation on the people—an expedient they would not have recourse to. The Government had constructed out of revenue further railways to the amount of Rx. 6,582,744. On special defence works they had spent Rx. 1,045,200. They had also spent a sum of Rx. 1,140,000 in converting the Four per Cent India Stock into Three-and-a Half per Cent—an operation performed last year under the authority of the House, and the effect of which would be a great and permanent saving to the Revenue of India. The total sum which they had thus spent was Rx. 40,695,959; and but for this exceptional expenditure made out of revenue, the 13 years, instead of showing a deficit, would have shown a surplus of Rx. 31,825,402. That was a very good account. But that was not all. If it had not been for the alteration in the rate of exchange these figures would have been enormously increased. In 1875–6, before the fall in the value of the rupee began to take place, the net charge for exchange on expenditure in England was Rx. 1,434,486. In 1887–8 it was estimated at Rx. 5,779,400. If the exchange had remained at the same rate as it was in 1875–6, the charge on the revenue during the remaining 12 years would have been less by Rx. 23,301,608, and the net deficit of Rx. 8,870,557 would have been converted into a net surplus of Rx. 14,431,051. Then, again, if they reckoned the normal expenditure and excluded the extraordinary fall in exchange and the exceptional expenditure of Rx. 40,695,959, the surplus of the 13 years would have been Rx. 55,127,010. These were hard figures, and he thought that the consideration of them showed that we had no right to complain of our financial position in India. There was one thing more which he wished to refer to, and that was the debt. During the 13 years of which so much complaint had been made, the ordinary debt of the Government of India had been enormously reduced. He said the ordinary debt, because the debt might be divided into two parts—one, the debt for military expenditure, famine, and the other purposes for which all civilized Governments incurred debt; the other, the productive debt, which was incurred for railways and public works, which was not, properly speaking, a burden to the State at all, but which was invested at a profit so as to assist the revenue. Although the whole debt of India had increased enormously, that part which was not profitably invested had greatly decreased. In 1875–6 the ordinary debt was Rx. 102,224,000, and the productive debt was Rx. 16,223,000. In 1887 the ordinary debt had fallen to Rx. 74,888,000, and the public works debt had increased to Rx. 102,061,000, so that the reduction of the ordinary debt for the 13 years was Rx. 27,336,000. The cause of the burden of debt to a country was the interest it had to pay. For her ordinary debt India used to pay Rx. 4,442,300 in 1875–6; in 1887–8 she paid Rx. 4,025,100, making a reduction of Rx. 417,200 for the charge of the ordinary debt. For public works in 1875–6 the charge was Rx. 973,100; in 1887–8 it grew to Rx. 4,343,300, or an increase in the charge for the productive debt of Rx. 3,370,200. The result of the investment of this large sum in public works was that for the railways the net charge in 1875–6 was Rx. 1,558,760, and in 1887–8 it was Rx. 1,589,400, showing an increase of Rx. 30,640. But had it not been for exchange, on which there was an. increase of Rx. 1,485,800, the railway account would have shown an improvement of Rx. 1,455,200. For irrigation the net charge in 1875–6 was Rx. 1,147,000; in 1887–8 it was Rx. 753,300, showing an improvement of Rx. 393,700. Thus, interest on ordinary debt gave an improvement of Rx. 417,200, the result of irrigation gave Rx. 393,700—total, Rx. 810,900, against which were to be set railways worse by Rx. 30,600, leaving a net improvement of Rx. 780,300. It appeared, then, that there was a relief in the burden of the debt of India of Rx. 3,000,000 if exchange was omitted. Therefore, though there was an unhappy deficit in the revenue of the present year, the gloomy views of the hon. Member for Flintshire were not borne out by the facts of the case. It was said that one of the expedients of the Government for meeting the deficit was the exhaustion of the Famine Fund. As the House knew, it was determined some years ago that out of the Revenue of India the Government should set aside £1,500,000 as a kind of insurance fund against famine. But railways were calculated to prevent famine and pay off the debt. The provision made for the Famine Fund was an extremely wise one; but would the hon. Member go so far as to say that the Government of India should raise this £1,500,000 by putting on additional taxation? The hon. Member found fault with the Salt Tax, and he said the only alternative to that tax would be an import duty on manufactured goods. He doubted whether the House would be disposed to agree to an import duty on manufactured goods. That would certainly be an expedient which could only be resorted to in the last extremity, and one which he did not anticipate that the state of the Revenues of India would ever render necessary. The Salt Tax had been the subject of a good deal of what he might term ignorant opposition. It was to be noted that the Vernacular Press, which the hon. Gentleman who had brought forward this subject regarded as expressing the voice of the people of India, was, on the whole, in favour of this proposal to raise the Salt Tax. It had struck him that possibly an explanation of this might be found in the fact that the editors and proprietors of the Vernacular Press belonged to the educated class, who recognized that the only alternative to the increase of the Salt Tax was an increase in the Income Tax. It should be borne in mind that the present proposal was only to restore the tax to the figure which existed prior to March, 1882, when it was two and a-half rupees throughout India, having in some Provinces been higher than that previously. It was reduced to two rupees in March, 1882, and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, who was a Member of Council when that was done, had given an explanation of the circumstances under which that reduction took place. Sir Evelyn Baring, in his Financial Statement in 1882, gave the following important explanation, which he should like to read to the House. He said— In answering, therefore, the question of how far we may safely take off taxes in reliance on the opium revenue, a great deal depends on the nature of the tax we take off. If we abandon a source of revenue which involves a permanent and absolute loss of money, and which, moreover, from whatsoever reason, it would he difficult, in the event of the opium revenue failing, to restore to its former position, then the course would he open to great objection. If, on the other hand, we reduce a duty with a fair hope that the reduction will increase consumption, and thus, after a while, recoup us for any loss, and if, moreover, the duty can, without any great fiscal disturbance, be re-imposed in the event of the opium revenue falling off, then the reduction of taxation would be unobjectionable. The Salt Duty falls within the latter of these two categories. I have said that, by reducing the Salt Duty, the general financial position will be strengthened. We hope that we shall he able to maintain the duty at two rupees a maund, and we have at present no reason to suppose that we shall be unable to do so. By a return to a higher rate we should, of course, to some extent at all events, sacrifice the main object we have in view—namely, to afford some relief from taxation to the poorest classes. At the same time, I should observe that if any unforeseen circumstance, such as a heavy fall in the value of silver, takes place, and if, at the same time, the reduction in the Salt Duty does not result in any considerable increase in the consumption of salt, it would be open to us to return temporarily to a higher rate. This is an expedient to which the Government would have recourse with great reluctance. I allude, however, to the possibility of its adoption, for it is clear that, should an emergency arise of a nature to diminish our other sources of revenue or to increase our expenditure, we shall he in a better position to meet it if the Salt Duty is two rupees a maund than if it were levied at a higher rate. It was clear, therefore, that had Sir Evelyn Baring foreseen that there would be not only a heavy fall in silver, but also that the opium revenue, in reliance upon which the Salt Tax had been diminished, would itself fall off, he would have agreed in the expediency of a temporary rise in the Salt Tax. It must not be supposed that he (Sir John Gorst) appeared as an enthusiastic defender of the Salt Tax. That tax had been increased by the Government of India as the only expedient to meet the difficulties of the moment, with the assent of the Secretary of State, and on the unanimous advice of his Council. At the same time, it had been increased with the greatest reluctance. The Secretary of State was fully conscious of the necessity of strengthening the position and powers of the Finance Department, and long before it was decided to increase the tax on salt steps had been taken to bring the whole subject under the consideration of the Government of India with a view to strengthening the control over the finances. It was right, he thought, that an exaggerated view of this increase of taxation should not be allowed to get current, and it should not be supposed that a tax had been imposed that would grind the inhabitants of India to the dust. The increase in the tax was equal to about one-eighth of 1d. Per lb., and as the average consumption per head was about 101b. in the year, it really came to a tax of about 1½d. per head in the year. It might be a tax one would gladly abolish; but it was one that could safely be adopted as a temporary expedient without being condemned in the strong language which some of those who were little acquainted with the difficulties of the Government of India made use of. There remained only one other point, and that was the question of an inquiry into the Administration of India. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment, in describing what he wanted, seemed to him to describe almost exactly the Public Service Commission of last year. The hon. Member for North Kensington; was pleased to find great fault with that Commission. That Com- mission consisted of six Covenanted servants, one Uncovenanted, six Natives, of whom one was a Judge of the High Court, and three independent persons. That seemed to him a Commission which really answered the description which the hon. Member for Flintshire gave of what he required. That Commission sat in all the principal parts of India and heard evidence, and their Report had just been presented and would be immediately considered by the Secretary of State in Council. In these circumstances he, of course, could not as yet express any opinion upon the contents of the Report. Whether it would be expedient to have any inquiry in this country was a matter for consideration. Instead of neglecting the wishes of India, the Government had been taking the best stops to arrive at a knowledge of the wishes of the people. The Mover of the Amendment appeared to think that in the Speech from the Throne two years ago a promise was made to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the condition of India. This, however, was an error on the hon. Member's part, for the Speech contained no such promise. It was true that the late Government proposed to appoint a Committee, and when they came into Office the present Government would have been quite willing to carry the proposal into execution. But just before the late Government left Office they ordered the appointment of the Public Service Commission, and the present Secretary of State felt that while a Commission of that kind was sitting it would be idle to ask a Royal Commission or a Committee in this country to inquire simultaneously into Indian affairs. He trusted that the hon. Member for Flintshire would not press his Amendment to a Division. Even if the Amendment were carried the interests of the people of India would not in any way be furthered, and the vote would not be a Vote of Censure upon the present Government, but upon the last and last but one.

SIR UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH (Lancashire, Clitheroe)

said, hon. Members need not be afraid that at that late hour of the night (1 o'clock) he should trouble them with many observations. But one or two points had been raised in the course of the debate in respect to which he felt bound to say a word or two. Perhaps, he might in the first place, be allowed to say that he thought the House felt thankful to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Flintshire (Mr. S. Smith) for the spirit in which he had addressed himself to the subject of his Amendment. He sympathized strongly with the spirit which animated the hon. Gentleman's speech, and he was sure many Members of the House would feel that it was well for the future of India that the grievances and complaints of certain sections of the Native population of India should find kindly and sympathetic expression from such Members of the House as the late Mr. Fawcett, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Flintshire (Mr. S. Smith), and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Burnley (Mr. Slagg). The House would always listen with attention to such advocates of the feelings of any section of the Native population of India. After the debate of that night it must be quite evident to the millions of our fellow-subjects in India that there was no fear that that House or this country would ever regard India merely as a mine of wealth, or merely as a source of trade and profit to England. He might also congratulate his hon. Friend on the interesting statement he had elicited from the Under Secretary of State for India (Sir John Gorst); but he hoped that after the debate and after the statement of the hon. Gentleman his hon. Friend would not think it necessary to divide the House. He (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth) did not intend to dwell long upon the question of the deficit and the Salt Tax. The House would have observed that the Under Secretary guarded very carefully what he said about the Salt Tax. He had told them that the Government did not regard the Salt Tax with enthusiasm. He (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth) was cot surprised at that statement. But he doubted whether the Government were yet in possession of all the views of the Government of India for raising the Salt Tax, or of the views of the Natives on the subject. When the time came for the introduction of the Indian Budget they would have very much fuller information, and it would be much more useful to take a discussion on the question at that time. At the present moment, in the absence of full information, it would not be proper for the House to agree to an Amendment to the Address which might be read in India as a condemnation of the policy of the present Viceroy, Lord Dufferin. Lord Dufferin had great claims upon the consideration of the House—every Viceroy had such claims; but he (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth) urged the special claims of Lord Dufferin as an able and popular Viceroy of India, and one who had served Ms country with great distinction in various parts of the world. He would not go through the various causes of the deficit which had been stated by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Flintshire (Mr. S. Smith) and by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Evesham Division of Worcestershire (Sir Richard Temple); but there was one point which was referred to by the Under Secretary for India (Sir John Gorst) to which he must allude. Amongst the causes of the deficits, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the increase of the Army charges, and said that successive Governments were responsible. He was not quite sure that that was a fair statement; because he did not understand that the late Government, whose views it might be supposed that he (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth) in some measure represented, were in any degree responsible for the large increase in the Army charges. The late Secretary of State for India (Lord Kimberley) more than doubted the expediency of the action of his Predecessor in augmenting the European Forces in India to the large number of 70,000 men; therefore, he must utter one word of protest against any attempt to make all Governments responsible for the increase in the Army charges. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) was mainly, perhaps wholly, responsible for the increase of the Army charges. He would pass on to say one word about the Salt Tax. As a matter of fact, the onus probandi of justifying any increase of the Salt Tax, rested with the Government of India. He said this, for the reason that it had always been the recognized policy of the Government of India to regard the increase of the Salt Tax as a reserve for great emergencies. The hon. Gentleman opposite had quoted the words of Sir Evelyn Baring, which pointed to the possibility of recourse to the Salt Tax in case of a diminution of the opium revenue, and in case of a largely increased charge in respect of exchange; but he (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth) reminded the House that it had been held by the Government of India in times past that besides an increase of the Salt Tax there was no other financial recourse for great emergencies except loans. It was a very serious step, in times of peace, to have recourse to an increase of the Salt Tax, which had always been regarded as a reserve to which the Government might have recourse in case of great emergency—in case of war or famine. Therefore, he joined in the regret expressed by his hon. Friend (Mr. S. Smith) in respect to the increase of the Salt Tax, although he would not go so far as to vote for the Amendment, which seemed to condemn, without full information, a step taken by the Government of Lord Dufferin. In regard to the proposal to institute an inquiry, he noticed that the hon. Gentleman (Sir John Gorst), although he had before him the Report of the Public Service Commission—and there he had an advantage over the House generally—guarded himself from promising on behalf of the present Government to have an inquiry like that which was proposed by the late Government and its predecessor. He did not know that he was called upon at that moment to express any opinion upon that hesitation on the part of the present Government; but he would say that if there was to be an inquiry, he sympathized with the objections which were urged against a Commission as compared with a Parliamentary inquiry. All the precedents were in favour of a Parliamentary inquiry. All the inquiries which had been held at the successive epochs, when the Charter to the East India Company was renewed, were Parliamentary inquiries. It was a question, not of inquiry into the Civil Service, which had already been inquired into by the Commission to which reference had been made, but an inquiry into other large parts of the subject. It was a question of inquiry into the machinery of government. That was a Parliamentary question, and it did seem to him that such an inquiry should be held here in Parliament. He observed that the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Kensington (Sir Roper Leth- bridge) condemned the proposals which had been submitted to the House in the past—he supposed the proposal he (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth) had to submit two years ago was included in the condemnation—as proposals for inquiries by present and past officials only. [Sir ROPER LETHBRIDGE: Chiefly.] That was a very different allegation, but he was not quite sure that the hon. Gentleman was correct even there, because he had before him the Notice which he gave in the House. From that Notice he found that the part of the Joint Committee nominated by the House of Commons was to consist of 16 Members, seven or eight of whom were not official Members, eight of whom never held office in India, and seven of whom never held office at all. Therefore the hon. Gentleman's statement was misleading, so far as the proposal he (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth) had intended to make if he had had an opportunity. He could assure his hon. Friend (Mr. S. Smith) that he and many of those who had responsibilities in the late Government sympathized with the general spirit of the Amendment, but they could not support it, because it might appear to reflect upon the present Viceroy of India, and upon the Government of India, and might be taken to condemn the policy of the Viceroy and his Government. He hoped, therefore, the hon. Gentleman would not divide the House, but be content with the interesting debate he had raised, and the interesting statement he had elicited from the Under Secretary of State for India.

SIR ROBERT FOWLER (London)

said, that while sympathizing with the object the hon. Gentleman (Mr. S. Smith) had in view he could not support the Amendment, for the reasons which had been already mentioned. It seemed to him that the Amendment, as it stood on the Paper, would be regarded as a censure upon that illustrious man, Lord Dufferin, a man to whom, as the right hon. Baronet (Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth) had said, this country was very deeply indebted. He rose simply to express the earnest hope that though the Government of India found it necessary to raise the tax on salt, the next Viceroy, Lord Lansdowne, and his Government, would take the earliest opportunity of reducing the impost. The Salt Tax was a tax on the food of the people. It was a tax which weighed heavily on the poorer classes of the population. His hon. Friend the Under Secretary for India (Sir John Gorst) said that the extra tax only amounted to1½d. per head; but 1½d. was a large amount for some of the people to pay. He therefore hoped the Government would take the earliest opportunity of reducing the tax to its former level of two rupees.

MR. S. SMITH

said, he would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment, and must express his gratification at the debate. He also begged to thank the Under Secretary for India (Sir John Gorst) for the courtesy of his reply, though he wished the hon. Gentleman had gone a little further and had granted a Committee.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question, again proposed.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned,"—(Dr. Cameron,)—put, and agreed to.

Debatefurther adjourned till To-morrow.