to turn back to my Introductory Chapter, and consider the facts relating to famines—­facts which show how constantly the fear of famine lies before the Indian administrator, both from a financial and humane point of view.  I ask him carefully to survey these facts, and then consider what effect the forcing up of the gold value of the rupee is likely to have on famine-producing causes.  And is it not evident that the effect of the measure in diminishing the demand for labour must be enormous; that if less money is spent on labour, less will be spent in improving and developing the agricultural resources of India, in digging wells and other famine-preventing works; and that if the labourers fail to find the amount of employment they can now readily obtain, the greater will be the financial burden thrown on the hands of the State in times of famine and scarcity?  And must it not be equally evident to anyone possessed of the humblest form of human reason that the Government had far better exhaust every taxational resource before embarking on a course which, if the anticipations of Government are realized as to silver, will be ruinous to the country, and which, at a vast direct and indirect cost to the people, will only, as I have shown, afford a comparatively speaking trifling financial relief to the State?  But it is time now to pass to other points connected with the measure.  And first of all let us glance at the evident political results that must arise from it.

From what has been previously said, it is evident that the Government has arrayed against itself every class in India excepting its own civilian and military servants, and to these we have only to add, not another class, but only a small proportion of the mercantile class.  With the exception of some just complaints they had to make as regards charges[67] that had been unjustly thrust on the Indian Exchequer, and which I myself made in the “Times” and elsewhere long before the Congress was even thought of, the agitators of the Congress had no serious grounds to go upon.  But who can say that now?  Up till lately there was no cause for discontent.  India has never been more prosperous, and has never shown greater, or nearly as great signs of progress, as she has within the last twenty years.  Not only has the demand for labour been abundant, but in many instances it has exceeded the supply.  The rates of wages had largely increased, and were producing, as I have previously shown, an accelerated quickening of attention to the development of the resources of the soil.  All that the country wanted was to be let alone, and if the financial conditions required increased taxation, no agitator could have successfully complained of this, seeing that it could only have been imposed on account of that cheapening of silver which has been one of the great causes (railways were the other) of the increased prosperity which all classes have enjoyed in recent years.  But, if the Government measure raises the gold value of the rupee, the agitator will be able to point out that, at an enormous cost to the producers of India, the Government has only obtained a most trifling financial relief, and be able to complain with justice that the Government has lessened the profits of the agriculturist and diminished the employment for labour.  What an admirable advantage has the monetary measure of the Government conferred on the popularity of British Rule in India!