for a moment as merely a board of directors conducting a great development business on behalf of the Indian people, they can certainly show an excellent balance-sheet.  Let us admit that some of the “home charges” may be open to discussion, and I shall have a word or two or say about them later on.  But taken altogether they may fairly be regarded as the not unreasonable cost of administering a concern which, if we wished to liquidate it and to retire from business to-morrow, would leave a handsome surplus to India after paying off the whole debt contracted in her name.  The case was stated very fairly by the late Mr. Ranade, whose teachings all but the most “advanced” politicians still profess to reverence, when he delivered the inaugural address at the first Industrial Conference held just 20 years ago at Poona:—­

There are some people who think that as long as we have a heavy tribute to pay to England which takes away nearly 20 crores of our surplus exports, we are doomed, and can do nothing to help ourselves.  This is, however, hardly a fair or manly position to take up.  A portion of the burden represents interest on moneys advanced to, or invested in, our country, and so far from complaining, we have reason to be thankful that we have a creditor who supplies our needs at such a low rate of interest.  Another portion represents the value of stores supplied to us, the like of which we cannot produce here.  The remainder is alleged to be more or less necessary for the purpose of administration, defence, and payment of pensions, and, though there is good cause for complaint that it is not all necessary, we should not forget the fact that we are enabled by reason of this British connexion to levy an equivalent tribute from China by our opium monopoly.

If India must now forgo this tribute from China, it is not at any rate the fault of the Government of India that the whole cost of the awakening of the national conscience in England to the iniquity of the opium traffic is being thrown upon India.

The question is not whether we have done well, but whether we might not have done better, and whether the economic development of India, industrial, commercial, and agricultural, has kept pace with that of the rest of the world.  If the answer in this case is more doubtful, we have to bear in mind the idiosyncrasies of the Indian people and especially of the educated classes.  Indians have been as a rule disinclined to invest their money in commerce or industry or in scientific forms of agriculture.  It is estimated that the hoarded wealth of India amounts, at a conservative calculation, to L300,000,000, and this probably represents gold alone.  The annual absorption of gold by India is very great.  Lord Rothschild remarked to the Currency Commission that none of the smooth gold bars sent to India ever came back.  There is, in addition, an enormous sum hoarded in silver rupees and silver ornaments.  It is no uncommon sight, in the cities