commerce and people of India.”  Now, the people of India almost entirely live either directly (and I think about ninety per cent. do so directly) or indirectly on the land; and yet, though in England there are to be found persons who, like myself, are Indian landowners, and who, from having lived amongst the people in the rural districts, are well able to testify to the effects of the measure on the welfare of the people, not a single Indian landed proprietor was called before the Committee.  If a Parliamentary Committee were called upon here to consider any proposed measure that would widely effect the people of England as a whole, and the landed classes in particular, would it not be scandalously unjust if not a single landed proprietor, or any person directly or indirectly connected with land, were requested to give evidence before it?  But notwithstanding that a certain proportion of the witnesses were Indian officials, and that the examination of representatives of the classes chiefly concerned (the producers) was carefully left out, the weight of the evidence was entirely against the monetary policy of the Government.  And yet the committee supported the Indian Government.  So that this measure has been passed after a partial investigation, during which the most important points that ought to have been minutely examined were never even touched upon, and even then in the teeth of the majority of the witnesses examined, and whose opinions, from their character and position, were of great value.  Were it not that the Committee was composed of English gentlemen, who would not wittingly do anything but examine into matters to the best of their ability, it would really seem, after a careful survey of the whole situation, as if this Committee was a mere sham got up as a shield to protect a foregone conclusion.

There can be little doubt that the Indian Government and the Currency Committee were acting under the idea that (1) India had been pushed into a financial corner, and (2) in fear of the result of the probable repeal of the Sherman Act in the United States; and so, urged on by a panic-stricken feeling to rush somewhere, the Government began in haste to burn the whole house down in order to roast its financial pig.  As to the first point, the state of the finances in India no doubt requires all the care and economy that can be exercised; but to imagine, as many people seem to do, that it has exhausted its taxational resources, is ridiculous.  The salt tax, taking the price all over India, is lower than it was fifteen years ago, and this could be raised without hardship to the people.  Import duties might be imposed to the amount of several millions.  Then, considerable charges now defrayed from current revenues might be passed to capital account, as they would be in England.  And if the worst came to the worst an export duty of three per cent. might be imposed, for though is would not be good policy to do so, it would still be better than the seven per cent. export duty the