a loss to producers of 7 per cent., which is equivalent to a tax on the exported productions of India of seven millions.  The result of course is, that to get little more than one million and a half into the Treasury, the Government proposes to take seven millions out of the pockets of the people.  Now I have no wish to pose as what is commonly called an expert, and I naturally shrink from any idea of criticising that long chain of financial luminaries which, beginning at the Council Chamber at Calcutta, stretches through the rooms of the Currency Committee which recently sat in London, right up to that Cabinet over which the greatest of financial luminaries presides, but I trust I may be allowed to go as far as to say that the arrangement made by Mr. Gladstone’s Government which is the body ultimately responsible—­does not seem to be of a very alluring character, as it entails on India, viewed as a whole, a loss of L5,500,000.  And this cheering result has apparently been viewed with such satisfaction by the financial experts, that it is to be regarded as merely a small instalment of the blessings they have in store for the happy toilers whose destinies they have been empowered to influence.  For if the policy of taking five and a half millions sterling out of the pockets of the people in order to put about one million and a half into the financial till is a good one, the extension of the process, up to certain limits, must be equally so.  For such an extension the Indian Finance Minister is evidently prepared, as one may see by looking again at the sentence I have quoted from the speech, in which he declares that “it is not intended to do more at present (the italics are mine) than aim at a rate of 1s. 4d.”  This, coupled with statements subsequently made, and by what the Currency Committee has suggested as to a farther increase if it should seem necessary, shows that the Government evidently contemplates a rise to 1s. 6d.; and indeed this must obviously be the case, as the anticipated gain from a rise to 1s. 4d., when put against the probable loss on opium, and the allowances to be made to Government servants to compensate them for the loss they sustain on home remittances, would go far to swallow up the gain to the State from a 1s. 4d. rate.  Supposing, then, that the Government should be able to carry out its project of a 1s. 6d. rate, the blessings previously showered on the producers will be trebled; so, of course, will be the gain to the Exchequer; and the account will then in round figures stand thus:—­gain to the Exchequer on home remittances, L4,500,000; loss to the producers, L21,000,000; or, in other words, the levy of an export tax of 21 per cent. on all the productions of India,[66] and a total annual loss to India considered as a whole of L16,500,000 sterling.  This seems pretty well for a beginning, but it is really a very small part of the results that may with certainty be anticipated from the measure, which, as Sir David Barbour says, will have far-reaching effects.  Of this, as we shall see, there can be no doubt whatever.  Of the direct loss we can form a rough calculation; the indirect losses are indeed incalculable.  But let me proceed.