HC Deb 14 August 1894 vol 28 cc1047-75

*MR. S. SMITH (Flintshire) moved the following Amendment:— That, in the opinion of this House, a full and independent Parliamentary inquiry should take place into the condition and wants of the Indian people, and their ability to bear their existing financial burdens; the nature of the Revenue system and the possibility of reductions in the expenditure; also the financial relations between India and the United Kingdom, and generally the system of Government in India. He assured the House that he moved this Resolution with very great pleasure. He had taken a great interest in the people of India ever since he first visited that country more than 30 years ago, and his sympathy was very much increased by a late visit paid for political and social purposes. He did not move this Resolution, nor did his friends support it, in any spirit of antagonism to the British Government in India. Their desire was not to attack British rule there, but to improve it. They were all deeply sensible that no other form of Government was possible in India at the present time except the strong Government of Great Britain; and he believed he was expressing the opinion of all the educated people of India when he said there was a unanimous feeling that in the present state of Indian affairs the British rule should be predominant. But there was no doubt that there was a feeling of deep discontent with the working of this Government in many directions; and to these he wished to call the attention of the House. He would, in the first place, say that the Government of India was a pure bureaucracy. It was the only example in the whole world at the present time of the Government of a great country entirely by a bureaucracy. They might imagine what it would be like if the Government of the United Kingdom was in the hands of permanent officials without the direction of Parliament and without the control of a Ministry. The Secretary of State for India, who was thoroughly acquainted with official life, could form for himself a pretty good idea of what the Government of this country would be in the course of 100 years if it were entirely under the control of permanent officials. He held that the system of bureaucracy was in itself most imperfect. It necessarily produced a whole class of abuses peculiar to itself. The official classes looked upon themselves as a privileged class. They were drawn together by an esprit de corps. The tendency of all bureaucracies was to condone the faults of their members, and to whitewash the black sheep that might turn up amongst thorn; for in all bodies of men they had a certain number of black sheep. He willingly admitted that the British Indian officials were for the most part men of singular ability, and, as a rule, men of perfect integrity; yet he must sorrowfully admit that in late years there had been some very notable eases of black sheep among that bureaucracy. He might mention the notorious Crawford case in Bombay some few years ago. Wherever people were governed by a bureaucracy the tendency was for the officials to hold together, to form a sort of mutual admiration society, and to explain away and condone as much as they could the faults of each other. Now this system of bureaucracy was only possible under British rule in India when first established. The growth of Indian education and habits, of political thought, made this system of government more difficult than it was 50 years ago. The machine worked with increasing friction, and he feared it was beyond doubt there was far more discontent in India than there used to be. Under the old East India Company there used to be a Parliamentary inquiry every 20 years, but there had been none since the assumption of government by the Crown nearly 40 years ago. They held that the hour was ripe for such an inquiry, and it was promised in this House several years ago (1886) by the Government of the day. He should like to allude briefly to the points to which the inquiry should be directed. The main complaint of the Indian people was that our system of government was too expensive for a very poor country. He held that they were right. They did not comprehend the excessive poverty and the extremely small tax-paying power of that country. The vast majority of the people could only keep body and soul together; nine-tenths of the population were poor peasants just subsisting on patches of land of five acres or less, and they were never far removed from famine. A drought, or failure of crops, might at any time sweep away millions of the people. The average income of the population was £2 per head against £36, per head in England. One penny in the £1 of Income Tax produced over £2,000,000 sterling in the United Kingdom, and in India less than £200,000, though levied on six times as many people—that was to say, the average wealth of India liable to Income Tax was 1–60th of the amount available here on equal areas of population. Now our official system was very expensive; the higher posts were almost entirely filled by Europeans with high salaries. He did not say they were too high, looking at the difficulties and drawbacks of a tropical climate, but they appeared to the natives of India very high. To a native 100 rupees per month meant wealth, but our high officials drew salaries of 3,000 to 4,000 rupees per mouth, and the Indian people naturally thought that they could replace them by much cheaper agency. Then the military expenses were enormous, and constantly increasing. This was the abyss that swallowed up the resources of India. In 10 years they had risen from 18,000,000 to 24,000,000 of tens of rupees. The natives of India bitterly complained of the endless frontier wars, and of the tendency to push the outposts of the Empire further and further; above all, they objected to the policy on the North-West Frontier; they considered we wore going much too far from our natural base. These military railways on the frontier of Afghanistan had swallowed up an enormous amount of money. The Indian accounts disguised the real expenditure. Some years ago he tried to make out the cost of the defensive works on the North-West Frontier, and reckoned it at £15,000,000 at least; probably it was much more now. It is extremely doubtful whether we were not on the wrong track altogether; we kept up constant friction with the frontier tribes, and made ourselves liable to endless frontier wars. Then the natives justly complain of our excessive pension list. It had grown to £4,600,000, including furlough allowances, equal to about 8,000,000 of tens of rupees—a prodigious draft on so poor a country as India. They also complained that our method of governing India caused an enormous balance to be annually due to this country. The Government had to pay some £16,000,000 or £17,000,000 annually in gold in this country as interest on debt for Army stores, pensions, &c, and, besides this, a large amount was remitted home by merchants for interest on capital invested in India, and for payments by officials for the support of their families in this country, the general result being that whereas Indian exports last year reached 110,000,000 of tens of rupees she only received back in imports 95,000,000 of tens of rupees, including treasure. The balance remained in this country as payment of debt. The people of India considered that this represented a tribute. It was not so in reality, for much of it was payment for value received, such as interest on the construction of the railways. Still there was a sufficient element of truth init to cause real dissatisfaction in India. The natives of India likewise look with alarm on the increasing embarrassment of the finances of India, and dreaded the infliction of fresh taxation. The last three years had shown annual deficits amounting altogether to 3,000,000 of tens of rupees, owing to the heavy fall of exchange. This current year would, however, show a large further deficit, for exchange was already more than 1d. below the rate taken in the Financial Statement for 1894–5. The Secretary of State might not unlikely have a deficit of 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 of tens of rupees this coming year. He submitted to the House that if they wished to make the people of India loyal to the British Crown and Government, there was one effectual way, and that was to give them perpetual fixed rent. They would then be the most loyal population in the world. They would be induced to put all their powers into improving the soil, and particularly in sinking wells. They were now afraid that even if they put a new door or a new window to a house they would have to pay a few more rupees' rent. There was also a system of bribery and corruption by the under officials of the Government. He was repeatedly informed in India that it was always a ease of so many rupees to be paid to an under officer, and unless it was paid there was a huge over-assessment, and, as a matter of fact, everyone had to pay in order to have his assessment made at a proper rate. If the Secretary for India could do anything to prevent this he would do a good deal to ensure the loyalty of the Indians. If he was not mistaken it was Lord Halifax, when Secretary for India, who proposed to consider settlement of land perpetual. He passed to another class of grievances which was felt throughout India—namely, the tendency of the Administration to stimulate the use of alcoholic drugs. Three years ago a very strong condemnation was passed by this House on the opium revenue. The Government of India felt themselves constrained to issue an order closing the opium smoking dens in India. But these dens which had been officially closed were unofficially opened. They were not opened by the Government, but by the same class of men who had owned them before, and who by changing their name were allowed practically unchallenged to open these unlicensed places for this abominable traffic. These opium clubs had been exposed by a band of earnest and determined men who resolved to bring to the light of day the abominations practised in connection with them. They visited these illicit clubs and exposed the scenes they witnessed in The Bombay Guardian. They condemned the opium department for permitting this infraction of the law, and they stigmatised by name the officer who, in their opinion, was bound to put the law in force. This officer prosecuted them for defamation of character, and won his case before a Lower Court in Bombay. Four of these missionaries were condemned to a fine or in default to a month's imprisonment. They refused to pay the fine, as most of it went to the inculpated official, and so they suffered a month's imprisonment. He did not say the sentence was technically wrong, but claimed that they were in reality right, and did a public service by exposing these illicit clubs. These incidents showed, he feared, that the Indian administration was out of touch with the best moral feeling of this country and India. It was indeed pushed on by an unfortunate need of the Revenue to adopt a policy it would otherwise avoid. A far more economical administration of India must be adopted if they were to avoid increasing unpopularity and scandal in the government of that country. He thought he had made out a case for inquiry. He admitted that the language of his Resolution was strong, but he would engage to modify it if the Government would concede the substance. He would omit the last words about the Government of India, which were too wide. He believed that, looking to the state of opinion in India, this Government could not do a wiser thing than promise inquiry. Public opinion there was sore at the rejection of the Resolution of this House last year in favour of simultaneous examinations. The adoption of this Resolution would soothe it and restore faith in the justice of this country. The Indian people had touching faith in the justice and impartiality of the British people; they believed if they could bring their grievances before this august tribunal they would be sure of redress. He begged the Secretary of State not to disappoint this expectation of countless millions of their fellow-subjects; they had no Parliament of their own; they made their mute appeal to this mother of Parliaments. He begged the House not to reject it.

* MR. NAOROJI (Finsbury, Central)

said, he undertook now to second this Resolution, and before going into the subject of the different parts of which it consisted he would say a few preliminary words. The Government of India distinctly admitted and knew very well that the educated people of India were thoroughly loyal. The hon. Member for Kingston (Sir R. Temple) had stated that the state of the country and of the people often invited or demanded criticism on the part, of the natives. It was in every way desirable that their sentiments and opinions should be made known to the ruling classes, and such outspoken frankness should never be mistaken for disloyalty or disaffection. Nothing was nearer to his (Mr. Naoroji's) mind than to make the fullest acknowledgment of all the good that had been done by the connection of the British people with India. They had no complaint against the British people and Parliament. They had from them everything they could desire. It was against the system adopted by the British Indian authorities in the last century and maintained up till now, though much modified, that they protested. The first point in the Motion was the condition of the people of India. In order to understand fully the present condition of the people of India, it was necessary to have a sort of sketch of the past, and he would give it as briefly as possible. In the last century the Administration was everything that should not be desired. He would give a few extracts from letters of the Court of Directors and the Bengal Government. In one of the letters the Directors said (8th of February, 1764)— Your deliberations on the inland trade have aid open to us a scene of most cruel oppression; the poor of the country, who used always to deal in salt, beetlenut, and tobacco, are now deprived of their daily bread by the trade of the Europeans. Lord Clive wrote (17th of April, 1765)— The confusion we behold, what does it arise from?—rapacity and luxury, the unwarrantable desire of many to acquire in an instant what only a few can or ought to possess. Another letter of Lord Clive to the Court of Directors said (30th of September, 1765)— It is no wonder that the lust of riches should readily embrace the proffered means of its gratification, or that the instruments of your power should avail themselves of their authority and proceed even to extortion in those cases where simple corruption could not keep pace with their rapacity. Examples of this sort set by superiors could not fail of being followed in a proportionate degree by inferiors; the evil was contagious, and spread among the civil and military down to the writer, the ensign, and the free merchant. He would read one more extract from a letter of the Court of Directors (17th of May, 1766)— We must add that we think the vast fortunes acquired in the inland trade have been obtained by a scene of the most tyrannic and oppressive conduct that ever was known in any age or country. Macaulay had summed up— A war of Bengalees against Englishmen was like a war of sheep against wolves, of men against demons.… The business of a servant of the Company was I simply to wring out of the natives a hundred or two hundred thousand pounds as speedily as possible. Such was the character of the Government and the Administration in the last century; when all this was disclosed by the Committee of 1772 of course a change was made, and a change for the better. He would now give the opinion of Anglo-Indian and English statesmen, and the House would observe that he did not say a single word as to what the Italians themselves said. He put his case before the House in the words of Anglo-Indian and English statesmen alone; some of them had expressed great indignation with usual British feeling against wrong-doing, others had expressed themselves much more moderately. Sir John Shore was the first person who gave a clear prophetic forecast of the character of this system and its effects as early as 1787. He then said (Ret. 377 of 1812)— Whatever allowance we may make for the increased industry of the subjects of the State, owing to the enhanced demand for the produce of it (supposing the demand to be enhanced), there is reason to conclude that the benefits are more than counterbalanced by evils inseparable from the system of a remote foreign dominion. The words were true to the present day. In 1790 Lord Cornwallis said, in a Minute, that the heavy drain of wealth by the Company, with the addition of remittances of private fortunes, was severely felt in the languor thrown upon the cultivation and commerce of the country. In 1823 Sir Thomas Munro pointed out that were Britain subjugated by a foreign Power, and the people excluded from the government of their country, all their knowledge and all their literature, sacred and profane, would not save them from becoming in a generation or two a low-minded, deceitful, and dishonest race. Ludlow, in his British India, said— As respects the general condition of the country, let us first recollect what Sir Thomas Munro wrote years ago, 'that even if we could be secured against every internal commotion and could retain the country quietly in subjection, he doubted much if the condition of the people would be better than under the Native Princes'; that the inhabitants of the British Provinces were 'certainly the most abject race in India'; that the consequences of the conquest of India by the British arms, would be in place of raising to debase the whole people. Macaulay, in introducing the clause of our equality with all British subjects, our first Charter of our emancipation in the Bill of 1833, said in his famous and statesmanlike speech— That would, indeed, be a doting wisdom which, in order that India may remain a dependency…which would keep a hundred millions of men from being our customers in order that they might continue to be our slaves. And, to illustrate the character of the existing system, he said— It was, as Bernier tells us, the practice of the miserable tyrants whom he found in India, when they dreaded the capacity and spirit of some distinguished subject, and yet could not venture to murder him, to administer to him a daily dose of the pousta, a preparation of opium, the effect of which was in a few months to destroy all the bodily and mental powers of the wretch who was drugged with it, and to turn him into a helpless idiot. This detestable artifice, more horrible than assassination itself, was worthy of those who employed it. It is no model for the English nation. We shall never consent to administer the pousta to a whole community—to stupefy and paralyse a great people whom God has committed to our charge—tor the wretched purpose of rendering them more amenable to our control. In a speech (19th of February, 1844) he said— Of all forms of tyranny I believe that the worst is that of a nation over a nation. Lord Lansdowne, in introducing the same clause of the Bill of 1833 into the House of Lords, pointed out that he should be taking a very narrow view of this question, and one utterly inadequate to the great importance of the subject, which involved in it the happiness or misery of 100,000,000 of human beings, were he not to call the attention of their Lordships to the bearing which this question, and to the influence which this arrangement must exercise upon the future destinies of that vast mass of people. With such high sense of statesmanship and responsibility did Lord Lansdowne of 1833 break our chains. The Indian authorities, however, never allowed those broken chains to fall from our body, and the grandson—the Lord Lansdowne of 1893—now rivetted back those chains upon us. Look upon this picture and upon that! And the Indians were now just the same British slaves, instead of British subjects, as they were before their emancipation in 1833. Mr. Montgomery Martin, after examining the records of a survey of the condition of the people of some Provinces of Bengal or Behar, which had been made for nine years from 1807–1816, concluded— It is impossible to avoid remarking two facts as peculiarly striking: First, the richness of the country surveyed; and, second, the poverty of its inhabitants. He gave the reason for these striking facts. He said— The annual drain of £3,000,000 on British India has amounted in 30 years at 12 per cent, (the usual Indian rate) compound interest to the enormous sum of £723,000,000 sterling. So constant and accumulating a drain, even in England, would soon impoverish her. How severe, then, must be its effects in India where the wage of a labourer is from 2d. to 3d. a day. The drain at present was seven times, if not 10 times, as much. Mr. Frederick Shore, of the Bengal Civil Service, said, in 1837— But the halcyon days of India are over. She has been drained of a large proportion of the wealth she once possessed, and her energies have been cramped by a sordid system of misrule to which the interests of millions have been sacrificed for the benefit of the few. The fundamental principle of the English had been to make the whole Indian nation subservient in every possible way to the interests and benefits of themselves. And he summarised thus— The summary was that the British Indian Government had been practically one of the most extortionate and oppressive that ever existed in India. Some acknowledged this, and observed that it was the unavoidable result of a foreign yoke. That this was correct regarding a Government conducted on the principles which had hitherto actuated us was too lamentably true, but, had the welfare of the people been our object, a very different course would have been adopted, and very different results would have followed. For again and again I repeat that there was nothing in the circumstance itself of our being foreigners of different colour and faith that should occasion the people to hate us. We might thank ourselves for having made their feelings towards us what they were. Had we acted on a more liberal plan we should have fixed our authority on a much more solid foundation. After giving some more similar authorities, Sir R. Temple and others, the hon. Gentleman proceeded: Mr. Bright, speaking in the House of Commons in 1858, said— We must in future have India governed, not for a handful of Englishmen, not for that Civil Service whose praises are so constantly sounded in this House. You may govern India, if you like, for the good of England, but the good of England must come through the channels of the good of India. There are but two modes of gaining anything by our connection with India—the one is by plundering the people of India, and the other by trading with them. I prefer to do it by trading with them. But in order that England may become rich by trading with India, India itself must become rich. Sir George Wingate, with his intimate acquaintance with the condition of the people of India, as the introducer of the Bombay land survey system, pointed out, with reference to the economic effects upon the condition of India, that taxes spent in the country from which they were raised were totally different in their effect from taxes raised in one country and spent in another. In the former case the taxes collected from the population were again returned to the industrial classes; but the case was wholly different when taxes were not spent in the country from which they were raised, as they constituted an absolute loss and extinction of the whole amount withdrawn from the taxed country; and he said, further, that such was the nature of the tribute the British had so long exacted from India—and that with this explanation some faint conception may be formed of the cruel, crushing effect of the tribute upon India—that this tribute, whether weighed in the scales of Justice or viewed in the light of the British interests, would be found to be at variance with humanity, with common sense, and with the received maxim of economical science. Mr. Fawcett quoted Lord Metcalf (5th May, 1868), that the bane of the British-Indian system was, that the advantages were reaped by one class and the work was done by another. This havoc was going on increasing up to the present day. Lord Salisbury, in a Minute [Ret. c. 3086–1 of 1881], pointed out that the injury was exaggerated in the case of India, where so much of the revenue was exported without a direct equivalent—that as India must be bled, the lancet should be directed to the parts where the blood was congested or at least sufficient, not to the rural districts which were already feeble from the want of blood. This bleeding of India must cease. Lord Hartington (the Duke of Devonshire) declared (23rd Aug., 1883) that India was insufficiently governed, and that if it was to be better governed, that could only be done by the employment of the best and most intelligent of the natives in the Service; and he further advised that it was not wise to drive the people to think that their only hope lay in getting rid of their English rulers. Lastly, with regard to the present condition of India, and even serious danger to British power, a remarkable confirmation was given, after a hundred years, to Sir John Shore's prophesy of 1787, by the Secretary of State for India in 1886. A letter of the India Office to the Treasury said (Ret. c. 4868 of 1886)— The position of India in relation to taxation and the sources of the public revenue is very peculiar, not merely from the habits of the people and their strong aversion to change, which is more specially exhibited to new forms of taxation, but likewise from the character of the Government, which is in the hands of foreigners, who hold the principal administrative offices and form so large a part of the Army. The impatience of the new taxation which will have to be borne wholly as a consequence of the; foreign rule imposed on the country and virtually to meet additions to charges arising outside of the country, would constitute a political danger, the real magnitude of which, it is to lie feared, is not at all appreciated by persons who have no knowledge of or concern in the government of India, but which those responsible for that government have long regarded as of the most serious order. To sum up—as to the material condition of India—the main features in the last century were gross corruption and oppression by the Europeans; in the present century, high salaries and the heavy weight of the European services—their economic condition. Therefore, there was no such thing as the finances of India. No financier ever could make a real healthy finance of India, unless he could make two and two equal to six. The most essential condition was wanting. Taxes must be administered by and disbursed to those who paid. That did not exist. From the taxes raised every year a large portion was eaten up and carried away from the country by others than the people of British India. The finances of that country were simply inexplicable, and could not be carried out; if the extracts he had read meant anything, they meant that the present evil system of a foreign domination was destroying them, and was fraught with political danger of the most serious order to British power itself. It had been clearly pointed out that India was extremely poor. What advantage had been derived by India during the past 100 years under the administration of the most highly-praised and most highly-paid officials in the world? If there was any condemnation of the existing system, it was in the result that the country was poorer than any country in the world. He could adduce a number of facts and figures of the practical effect of the present system of administration, but there was not the time now. The very fact of the wail of the Finance Ministers of this decade was a complete condemnation. He was quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India was truly desirous to know the truth, but he could not know that clearly unless certain information was placed before the House. He would suggest if the right hon. Gentleman allowed a certain number of Returns which would give the regular production of the country year by year, and the absolute necessaries of a common labourer to live in working health. In connection with the trade test there was one fallacy which he must explain. They were told in Statistical Returns that India had an enormous trade of nearly £196,000,000, imports and exports together. If he sent goods worth £100 out of this country to some other country, he expected there was £100 of it returned to him with some addition of profit. That was the natural condition of every trade. In the Colonies and in European countries there was an excess of imports over exports. In the United Kingdom for the past 10 years—1883 to 1892—the excess had been 32 per cent., in Norway it was 42 per cent., Sweden 24 per cent., Denmark 40 per cent., Holland 22 per cent., France 20 per cent., Switzerland 28 per cent., Spain 9 per cent., Belgium 7 per cent., and so on. Anyone with common sense would, of course, admit that if a quantity of goods worth a certain amount of money were sent out, an additional profit was expected in return; if not, there could not be any commerce; but a man who only received in return 90 of the 100 sent out would soon go into the Bankruptcy Court. Taking India's profits to be only 10 per cent. instead of 32 per cent., like those of the United Kingdom, and after making all deductions for remittances for interest on public works loans, India had received back Rs. 170,000,000 worth of imports less than what she exported annually. On the average of 10 years (1883 to 1892) their excesses of exports every year, with compound interest, would amount to enormous sums lost by her. Could any country in the world, England not excepted, stand such a drain without destruction? They were often told they ought to be thankful, and they were thankful, for the loans made to them for public works; but if they were left to themselves to enjoy what they produced with a reasonable price for British rule, if they had to develop their own resources, they would not require any such loans with the interest to be paid on them, which added to the drain on the country. Those loans wore only a fraction of what was taken away from the country. India had lost thousands of millions in principal and interest, and was asked to be thankful for the loan of a couple of hundreds of millions. The bulk of the British Indian subjects were like hewers of wood and drawers of water to the British and foreign Indian capitalists. The seeming prosperity of British India was entirely owing to the amount of foreign capital. In Bombay alone, which was considered to be a rich place, there were at least £10,000,000 of capital circulating belonging to foreign Europeans and Indians from native States. If all such foreign capital were separated there would be very little wealth in British India. He could not go further into these figures, because he must have an occasion on which he could go more fully into them. If only the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India would give them the Returns which were necessary to understand more correctly and completely the real condition of India, they would all be the better for it. There was another thing that was very serious. The whole misfortune at the bottom, which made the people of British India the poorest in the world, was the pressure to be forced to pay, roughly speaking, 200,000,000 rupees annually for European foreign services. Till this evil of foreign domination, foretold by Sir John Shore, was reduced to reasonable dimensions, there was no hope, and no true and healthy finance for India. This canker was destructive to India and suicidal to the British. The British people would not stand a single day the evil if the Front Benches here—all the principal military and civil posts and a large portion of the Army—were to be occupied by some foreigners on even the plea of giving service. When an English official had acquired experience in the Service of 20 or 30 years, all that was entirely lost to India when he left the country, and it was a most serious loss, although he did not blame him for leaving the shore. They were loft at a certain low level. They could not rise; they could not develop their capacity for higher government, because they had no opportunity; the result was, of course, that their faculties must be stunted. Lastly, every European displaced an Indian who should fill that post. In short, the evil of the foreign rule involved the triple loss of wealth, wisdom, and work. No wonder at India's material and moral poverty! The next point was the wants of the Indians. He did not think it would require very long discussion to ascertain their wants. They could be summed up in a few words. They wanted British honour, good faith, righteousness, and justice. They should then get everything that was good for themselves, and it would benefit the rulers themselves, but unfortunately that had not been their fortune. Here they had an admission of the manner in which their best interests were treated. Lord Lytton, in a confidential Minute, said— No sooner was the Act passed than the Government began to devise means for practically evading the fulfilment of it…We all know that these claims and expectations never can or will be fulfilled. We have had to choose between prohibiting them and cheating them, and we have chosen the least straightforward course. He would not believe that the Sovereign and the Parliament who gave these pledges of justice and honour intended to cheat. It was the Indian Executive who had abused their trust. That Act of 1833 was a dead letter up to the present day. Lord Lytton said— Since I am writing confidentially, I do not hesitate to say that both the Governments of England and of India appear to me up to the present moment unable to answer satisfactorily the charge of having taken every means in t heir power of breaking to the heart the words of promise they had uttered to the ear. What they wanted was, that what Lord Salisbury called "bleeding" should have an end. That would restore them to prosperity, and England might derive ten times more benefit by trading with a prosperous people than she was doing now. They were destroying the bird that could give them ten golden eggs with a blessing upon them. The hon. Member for Kingston, in his India in 1880, said— Many native statesmen have been produced of whom the Indian nation may justly be proud, and among whom may be mentioned Salar Jung of Hyderabad, Dunkar Rao of Gwalior, Madhar Rao of Baroda, Kirparam of Jammu, Pundit Manphal of Alwar, Faiz Ali Khan of Kotah. Madha Rao Barvi of Kolahpur, and Purnia of Mysore. Mountstuart Elphinstone said, before the Committee of 1833— The first object, therefore, is to break down the separation between the classes and raise the natives by education and public trust to a level with their present rulers. He addressed the Conservative Party. It was this Party who had given the just Proclamation of 1858—their greater Charter—in these words— We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligations of duty which bind us to all our other subjects, and those obligations, by the blessing of Almighty God, we shall faithfully and conscientiously fulfil. It was, again, the Conservative Party that, on the assumption of the Imperial title by our Sovereign, proclaimed again the equality of the natives, whatever their race or creed, with their English fellow-subjects, and that their claim was founded in the highest justice. At the Jubilee, under the Conservative Government again, the Empress of India gave to her Indian subjects the gracious assurance and pledge that— It had always been and always will be Her earnest desire to maintain unswervingly the principles laid down in the Proclamation published on Her assumption of the direct control of the Government of India. He (Mr. Naoroji) earnestly appealed to this Party not to give the lie to these noble assurances, and not to show to the world that it was all hypocrisy and national bad faith. The Indians would still continue to put their faith in the English people, and ask again and again to have justice done. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India, and to the Government and the Liberal Party, who gave them their first emancipation. They felt deeply grateful for the promises made, but would ask that these words be now converted into loyal, faithful deeds, as Englishmen for their honour are bound to do. Some weeks ago the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian wrote a letter to Sir John Cowan in which he stated that the past 60 years had been years of emancipation. Many emancipations had taken place in these years; the Irish, the Jews, the slaves, all received emancipation in that wave of humanity which passed over this country, and which made this country the most brilliant and civilised of the countries of the world. In those days of emancipation, and in the very year in which the right hon. Gentleman began his political career, the people of India also had their emancipation at the hands of the Liberal Party. It was the Liberal Party that passed the Act of 1833 and made the magnificent promises, explained both by Macaulay and Lansdowne. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian to say whether, after the Liberal Party having given this emancipation at the commencement of his political career, he would at the end of it, while giving emancipation to 3,000,000 of Irishmen, only further enslave the 300,000,000 of India? The decision relating to the simultaneous examinations meant rivetting back upon them every chain broken by the act of emancipation. The right hon. Gentleman in 1893, in connection with the Irish question, after alluding to the arguments of fear and force, said— I hope we shall never again have occasion to fall back upon that miserable argument. It is better to do justice for terror than not to do it at all; but we are in a condition neither of terror nor apprehension, but in a calm and thankful state. We ask the House to accept this Bill, and I make that appeal on the grounds of honour and of duty. Might he, then, appeal in these days when every educated man in India was thoroughly loyal, when there was loyalty in every class of the people of India, and ask was it not time for England to do justice to India on the same grounds of "honour and duty?" The right hon. Member also said— There can be no more melancholy, and in the last result no more degrading, spectacle upon earth than the spectacle of oppression, or of wrong in whatever form, inflicted by the deliberate act of a nation upon another nation, especially by the deliberate act of such a country as Great Britain upon such a country as Ireland. This applied to India with a force tea times greater. And he appealed for the nobler spectacle of which the right hon. Gentleman subsequently spoke. He said— But, on the other hand, there can be no nobler spectacle than that which we think is now dawning upon us, the spectacle of a nation deliberately set on the removal of injustice, deliberately determined to break—not through terror, not in haste, but under the sole influence of duty and honour—determined to break with whatever remains still existing of an evil tradition, and determined in that way at once to pay a debt of justice, and to consult by a bold, wise, and good act, its own interests and its own honour. These noble words applied with tenfold necessity to Britain's duty to India. It would be in the interest of England to remove the injustice under which India suffered more than it would be in the interest even of India itself. He would repeat the prayer to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, that he would not allow his glorious career to end with the enthralment of 300,000,000 of the human race whose destinies are entrusted to this great country, and from which they expect nothing but justice and righteousness. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India the other day made a memorable speech at Wolverhampton. Among other things, he uttered these noble words— New and pressing problems were coming up with which the Liberal Party would have to deal. These problems were the moral and material conditions of the people, for both went very much together. They were the problems that the statesmen of the future would have to solve. Mr. Bright once said that the true glory of a nation was not in ships and colonies and commerce, bat in the happiness of its homes, and that no Government and no Party deserved the confidence of the British electorate which did not give a foremost place in its legislation and administration to those measures which would promote the comfort, health, prosperity, well-being, and the well-doing of the masses of the people. He would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for India that in that spirit he should study the Indian problem. Here in England they had to deal with only 38,000,000 of people, and if the right hon. Gentleman would once understand the Indian problem and do them the justice for which they had been waiting for 60 years, he would be one of the greatest benefactors of the human race. He appealed also to the present Prime Minister with confidence, because he had had an opportunity of knowing that the Prime Minister thoroughly understood the Indian problem. Few Englishmen so clearly understood that problem or the effect of the drain on the resources of India. He saw clearly also how far India was to be made a blessing to itself and to England. Would he begin his promising career as Prime Minister by enslaving 300,000,000 of British subjects? He appealed to him to consider. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for India that the feeling in India among the educated classes was Hearing despair. It was a very bad seed that was being sown in connection with this matter if some scheme was not adopted, with reasonable modifications, to give some effect to the Resolution for simultaneous examinations, as was promised a few months ago. The Under Secretary for India assured them in the last Indian Budget Debate that neither he nor the Secretary of State for India had any disposition of thwarting or defeating that Resolution. Indians then felt assured on the point, and their joy was great. But what must be their despair and disappointment when such statements are put before the House of Commons and the country as were to be found in this dark Blue Book. It was enough to break anybody's heart. It would have broken his but for the strong faith he had in the justice of the British people and the one bright ray to be found even in that Return itself, which had strengthened him to continue his appeal as long as he should live. That ray has come from the Madras Government. They had pointed out that they felt bound to do something. They also pointed out the difficulties in the way, but these difficulties were not insurmountable. About the want of true living representation of the people he would not now say anything. Every Englishman understood its importance. The next point in the Motion was the ability to bear existing burdens. Indians were often told by men in authority that India was the lightest-taxed country in the world. The United Kingdom paid £2 10s. per head for the purposes of the State. They paid only 5s. or 6s. per head, and, therefore, the conclusion was drawn that the Indians were the most lightly-faxed people on earth. But if these gentlemen would only take the trouble of looking a little deeper they would see how the matter stood. England paid £2 10s. per head from an income of something like £35 per head, and their capacity, therefore, to pay £2 10s. was sufficiently large. Then, again, this £2 10s. returned to them—every farthing of it—in some form or another. The proportion they paid to the State in the shape of Revenues was, therefore, something like only 7 or 8 per cent. India paid 5s. or 6s. out of their wretched incomes of £2, or 20 rupees, as he calculated, or 27 rupees, as calculated by Lord Cromer. But even taking the latter figure, it would not make any great difference. The three rupees was far more burdensome compared with the wretched capacity of the people of India to bear taxation than the £2 10s. which England paid. At the rate of production of Rs.20 per head India paid 14 per cent. of her income for purposes of revenue—nearly twice as heavy as the incidence of the United Kingdom. Even at the rate of production of Rs.27 per head the Indian burden was 11 per cent. Then, again, take the test of the Income Tax. In the United Kingdom 1d. in the Income Tax gave some £2,500,000; but in India, with ten times the population, 1d. only gave about Rx.300,000, with an exemption of only Rx.50 instead of £150 as in this country. In the last 100 years the wealth of England had increased by leaps and bounds, while India, governed by the same Englishmen, was the same poor nation that it was all through the century that had elapsed, and India at the present moment was the most extremely poor country in the world, and would be poor to the end of the chapter if the present system of foreign domination continued. He did not say that the natives should attain to the highest positions of control and power. Let there be Europeans in the highest positions, such as the Viceroy, the Governors, the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, and the higher military officers, and such others as might be reasonably considered to be required to hold the controlling powers. The controlling power of Englishmen in India was wanted as much for the benefit of India as for the benefit of England. The next point in the Motion was, what were the sources of Indian Revenue? The chief sources of the Revenue were just what was mainly obtained from the cultivators of the soil. Here in this country the landlords—the wealthiest people—paid from land only 2 or 3 per cent. of the Revenues, but in India land was made to contribute something like Rx.27,000,000 of the total Revenue of about Rx.67,000,000. Then the Salt Tax, the most cruel Revenue imposed in any civilised country, provided Rx.8,600,000, and that with the opium, formed the bulk of the Revenue of India, which was drawn from the wretchedness of the people and by poisoning the Chinese. It mattered not what the State received was called—tax, rent, revenue, or by any other name they liked—the simple fact of the matter was, that out of a certain annual national production the State took a certain portion. Now, it would not also matter much about the portion taken by the State if that portion, as in this country, returned to the people themselves, from whom it was raised. But the misfortune and the evil was that much of this portion did not return to the people, and that the whole system of Revenue, and the economic; condition of the people became unnatural and oppressive, with danger to the rulers. In this country the people drank nearly £4 per head, while in India they could not produce altogether more than half that amount per head. Was the system under which such a wretched condition prevailed not a matter for careful consideration? So long as the system went on, so long must the people go on living wretched lives. There was a constant draining away of India's resources, and she could never, therefore, be a prosperous country. Not only that, but in time India must perish, and with it might perish the British Empire. If India was prosperous, England would be prosperous ten times more than she was at present by reason of the trade she could carry on with India. England at present exported some £300,000,000 worth of British produce, yet to India she hardly exported produce to the value of 2s. 6d. per head. If India were prosperous enough to buy even £1 worth per head of English goods she would be able to send to India as much as she now sent to the whole world. Would it not, then, be a far greater benefit to England if India were prosperous than to keep her as she was? The next point in the Motion was the reduction of expenditure. The very first thing should be to cancel that immoral and and cruel "compensation" without any legal claim even. That was not the occasion to discuss its selfishness and utter disregard of the wretchedness of the millions of the people. But as if this injustice were not enough, other bad features were added to it, if my information be correct. The compensation was only for remittances to this country. But instead of this—every European and Eurasian, whether he had to make any family remittances or not, was to have a certain addition to his salary. That was not all. The iniquity of making race distinctions was again adopted in this also; Europeans and Eurasians, whether remittances had to be made or not, were to receive compensation; but an Indian, who had actually to make remittances for the education of his sons, could have no consideration. But he (Mr. Naoroji) deprecated the whole thing altogether—to take from the wretched to give to the better-off. This compensation should be cancelled as the first step in reduction. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the other day in his splendid speech at his magnificent ovation by the Liberal Members, in speaking of the landowners, the burden was always shifted on to other shoulders, and always on those least able to pay. This was exactly the principle of Anglo-Indian authorities. If it was really intended to retrench with regard to expenditure in India, why not begin with the salary list? The Viceroy surely could get his bread and butter with £20,000 a year instead of £25,000. The Governors could surely have bread and cheese for £6,000 or £8,000 instead of £10,000, and so on down till the end of the salary list was reached at Ks.200 a month. This would afford a much-needed relief, because India could not really afford to pay. Sir William Hunter had rightly said that if we were to govern the Indian people efficiently and cheaply we must govern them by means of themselves, and pay for the administration at the market rates of native labour; that the good work of security and law had assumed such dimensions under the Queen's government of India that it could no longer be carried on or even supervised by imported labour from England, except at a cost which India could sustain, and he had prophesied that 40 years hereafter they would have had an Indian Ireland multiplied fifty-fold on their hands. The Service must change from that which was dear, and at the same time unsatisfactory, to one which would require less money and which would at the same time be fruitful to the people themselves. Next, three Secretaries of State and two Viceroys the other day in the House of Lords condemned in the strongest, terms the charge that was made by the War Office for troops in India. But it seemed that one Secretary for India (Lord Kimberley) trembled to approach the War Minister, because each new discussion resulted in additional charges and additional burdens. He also truly said that the Authorities here, not having to pay from their own pockets, readily made proposals of charges which were unjust and unnecessary, to make things agreeable. The consequence was that charges were imposed which were unjust and cruel. In fact, whatever could have the name of India attached to it, India was forced to pay for it. That was not the justice which he expected from the English. With reference to these military charges, the burden now thrown upon India on account of British troops was excessive, and he thought every impartial judgment would assent to that proposition, considering the relative ma- terial wealth of the two countries and their joint obligations and benefits. All that they could do was to appeal to the British Government for an impartial consideration of the relative financial capacity of the two countries, and for a generous consideration to be shown by the wealthiest nation in the world to a dependency so comparatively poor and so little advanced as India, fie believed that if any Committee were appointed to inquire, with the honest purpose of finding out how to make India prosperous and at the same time to confer as much if not more benefit to England, they could very easily find out the way, and would be able to suggest what should be done. Now, with regard to the financial relations between India and England, it was declared over and over again that this European Army and all European servants were for the special purpose of maintaining the power of the British Empire. Were they, therefore, not for some benefit to England? Were they only for the service of India, for their benefit and for their protection? Was it right that they did avowedly use machinery more for their own purposes than for the purposes of India, and yet make India pay altogether? Was it right, if India's prosperity was, as Lord Roberts said, so indissolubly bound up with their own, and if the greatness and prosperity of the United Kingdom depended upon the retention of India, that they should pay nothing for it, and that they should extract from it every farthing they possibly could? They appealed to their sense of justice in this matter. They were not asking for this as any favour or concession. They based their appeal on the ground of simple justice. Here was a machinery by which both England and India benefited, and it was only common justice that both should share the cost of it. If this expenditure on the European Army and the European Civil Services, which was realty the cause of their misery, was for the benefit of both, it was only right that they, as honourable men, should take a share. Their prayer was for an impartial and comprehensive inquiry so that the whole matter might be gone into, and that the question of principles and policy which, after all, was one for their statesmen to decide, should be properly dealt with. They knew that during the rule of the East India Company an inquiry was made every 20 years into the affairs of India. This was no reflection upon the Government; it was simply to see that the East India Company did their duty. There was such an inquiry in 1853, and he thought it was time, after 40 years had elapsed since the assumption of British rule by the Queen, that there should be some regular, independent inquiry like that which used to take place in former days, so that the people and Parliament of this country might see that the Indian Authorities were doing their duty. The result of the irresponsibility of the present British Administration was that the expenditure went on unchecked. He admitted fully that expenditure must go on increasing if India was to progress in her civilisation; but if they allowed her to prosper, India would be able not only to pay her £60,000,000 out of the 300,000,000 of population, but she would be able to pay twice, three times, and four times as much. It was not that they did not want to expend as much as was necessary. Their simple complaint was that the present system did not allow India to become prosperous, and so enable her to supply the necessary revenue. As to the character of the inquiry, it should be full and impartial. The right hon. Member for Midlothian said on one occasion not long ago, when the question of the Opium Trade was under discussion in that House— I must make the admission that I do not think that in this matter we ought to be guided exclusively, perhaps even principally, by those who may consider themselves experts. It is a very sad thing to say, but unquestionably it happens not infrequently in human affairs that those who might, from their position, know the most and the best, yet, from their prejudices and prepossessions, know the least and the worst. I certainly for my part do not propose to abide finally and decisively by official opinion. And the right hon. Gentleman went on to say that what the House wanted, in his opinion, was "independent but responsible opinion," in order to enable it to proceed safely to a decision on the subject which was to be considered. He was asking by this Resolution nothing more than what the right hon. Gentle man the Member for Midlothian had said was actually necessary for the Opium Commission. How much more necessary it was when they meant to overhaul and examine all the various departments of administration, and the affairs of 300,000,000 of people, all in a state of transition in civilisation—complicated especially by this evil of foreign rule ! What was wanted was an independent inquiry by which the rulers and the ruled might come to some fair and honourable understanding with each other which would keep them together in good faith and good heart. He could only repeat the appeal he had made, in the words of the Queen herself, when Her Majesty in Her great Indian Proclamation said— In their prosperity will be our strength, in their contentment our security, and in their gratitude our best reward! and then She prayed— 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! He said Amen to that. He appealed once more to the House and to the British people to look into the whole problem of Indian relations with England. There was no reason whatever why there should not be a thorough good understanding between the two countries, a thorough goodwill on the part of Britain, and a thorough loyalty on the part of India, with blessings to both, if the principles and policy laid down from time to time by the British people and by the British Parliament were loyally, faithfully, and worthily, as the English character ought to lead them to expect, observed by the Government of that country.

Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words— In the opinion of this House, a full and independent Parliamentary inquiry should take place into the condition and wants of the Indian people, and their ability to bear their existing financial burdens; the nature of the revenue system and the possibility of reductions in the expenditure; also the financial relations between India and the United Kingdom, and generally the system of Government in India."—(Mr. S. Smith.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

SIR A. SCOBLE (Hackney, N.)

did not know how far, if at all, the Government proposed to meet this Resolution by accepting it, but could only say that the inquiry upon which the House was asked to enter would be very tedious and very expensive, and that although it might add something to the knowledge of those gentlemen who were not familiar with Indian affairs, it would really only give information which could already be obtained from other sources by any person who chose to take the trouble to look into them. Not one of those who listened to the hon. Member for East Finsbury but must have felt that he put forward his case with a strong conviction that it was a good one, and that he was supporting it by honest argument. He could only lament that the absence of the hon. Member from India during so many years had so far broken his recollection of the state of things that obtained during the time he was in residence that the hon. Member had had to go back to the last century for proofs of Indian maladministration instead of directing his attention to what had been done in India since the government of that country was assumed by Great Britain. They had not now to do with the days of Nabobs, with the state of things exposed by Mr. Sheridan, with what followed after the trial of Warren Hastings, and with what occurred in the earlier parts of this century. This inquiry was asked for to ascertain how India was governed under the Queen, how far that government corresponded with the requirements and condition of that country, and in what respect, if any, that government could be improved. That was an inquiry which had occupied the attention of successive Governments of India ever since Her Majesty assumed the government. It was a great mistake to suppose that the Government of India was not as fully alive as the hon. Member for East Finsbury, or as the National Congress, whose voice he expressed in that House, to the condition of India, to the points that required amendment, and the points on which amendments could be carried out. No one who knew India would deny that, as compared with the United Kingdom, it was a poor country, but, as lie said last year, poverty was a relative term. A man who would be poor in England upon an Indian income would upon that same income be very well off indeed in India. It was idle for the hon. Gentlemen to quote Lord Cromer, and to give as the result of his own inquiries the statement that the average income in India was only 27 rupees a year. No data existed by which a calculation of the average income could be made in an accurate form. Some might suppose that the conditions of life in India were the same as those of this country, where most of the people were employed for wages, and where they had to buy all the necessaries of life in shops and to pay rent for their houses. These expenses required a certain cash income to meet them. But they were not the expenses which were incurred by the Indian people at large. More than 70 per cent. of the whole population of India—of the 220,000,000 under the Queen's direct government—lived upon the land which had descended to them from their ancestors and which they cultivated. They paid no rent for their houses—these had been constructed by their own industry. They had nothing whatever to buy. Their sustenance they derived from the fields they cultivated, their luxuries from the gardens they kept; and their only financial transactions were made when they sold their surplus crops to pay the demands of the Government for the rent of the land they occupied, and when they purchased any additional luxuries for their own delectation. It was impossible that the income of people whoso sustenance was derived in this way could be put into reliable statistics; and the estimate by statisticians of an average income of 27 rupees per head among the natives only came to this: that as far as money transactions were concerned that might be a fair representation of their income, but as far as the necessaries of life and those conditions which made all the difference between poverty and wealth were concerned, these depended upon matters not measured by money, and into whose calculation in India money did not enter at all. He considered that the monetary demands made upon the poor, who were the bulk of the population, were of a very small character indeed. First of all, the rent which the collector paid for his land was not a tax and could not possibly be turned into one. It was very small, amounting to little more than a rupee per man. Measured in money it was only about 1–25th part of the 27 rupees of which the House had heard that night; but when measured by produce it was less than 8 per cent. of the total outcome of the land. Even in the North-West Provinces, where the Land Revenue was higher than in other parts of India, it only amounted to 8 per cent, of the total produce of the land. The bulk of the population of India paid no tax at all, except a proportion of the Salt Tax, and that was about 5d. per head. Even taking the comparison between the United Kingdom and India they would find that instead of the contribution of the Indian individual being very much greater than that of the English peasant, the Indian peasant paid less even in proportion to the 27 rupees than the Englishman did on the average income of £35 or £36 a year. If that were true, as regards the great bulk of the population, how did the taxation of India affect the other classes of the community? No doubt there was very great difficulty in obtaining any tax such as might be expected in this country with its great wealthy cities, well able to bear an Income Tax; but in India, as in other parts of the world, wealthy men were astute enough to successfully avoid to a large extent the Income Tax.

It being Midnight, the Debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed To-morrow.