The Cotton Duties.
I come, lastly, to the action of the Indian Government in respect to the Cotton Duties. It is, I fancy, generally supposed in England that the duty on imported cotton was designedly protective—i.e., that it had from the beginning been imposed with the intention of favouring the Indian manufacturer at the expense of Manchester. This is a mistake. The duty was imposed at a time when there were no Indian manufactures to compete with those from England, simply as a source of revenue. In India there is a great difficulty in so arranging the incidence of taxation that the well-to-do classes shall contribute their proper share to the necessities of the State. A light duty on imported cotton—as being the universally used material for dress—enabled the Government to reach these classes in a manner that was effective without being burdensome. Even now that mills are at work in India, by far the larger part of these duties had nothing protective in their character, because there is in India no manufacture of the finer sorts of cotton. Whether, however, the duty was or was not protective in its character, both the Indian Government and the House of Commons had repeatedly given pledges that the duty should not be repealed until the Indian finances were in a position to justify the loss of revenue thereby occasioned. Lord Lytton, who throughout his viceroyalty has made a point in all important matters of making a confession of political faith exactly the opposite of his subsequent political action, expressed himself on the subject of the Cotton Duties with his usual copiousness. In reply to an address from the Calcutta Trades' Association, shortly after his arrival in India, he said:—
"I think that no one responsible for the financial administration of this Empire would at present venture to make the smallest reduction in any of its limited sources of income. Let me, however, take this opportunity of assuring you that, so far as I am aware, the abolition or reduction of the Cotton Duties, at the cost of adding one sixpence to the taxation of this country, has never been advocated, or even contemplated by her Majesty's Secretary of State for India.... It is due to myself, and the confidence you express in my character, that I should also assure you, on my own behalf, that nothing will ever induce me to tax the people of India for any exclusive benefit to their English fellow-subjects."
A short time previously he had told the Bombay Chamber of Commerce that "he was of opinion that, with the exception of about forty thousand pounds sterling, the duties were not protective, because Manchester had no Indian competitors in finer manufactures. He thought the £800,000 collected yearly as duty, on finer fabrics, a fair item of revenue. With regard to the duty on coarse goods, he thought it protective, because Bombay mills competed with Manchester; but he did not see how it could be abolished, because it would lead to irregularities in order to evade duty."
These assurances were given in 1876. In 1879, when the finances of India were in a state of almost hopeless embarrassment—when the Famine Insurance Fund had been misappropriated in the way I have related—when the Indian Government frankly acknowledged that it was beyond their power to estimate their future expenditure, even approximately, the Indian Government deliberately sacrificed revenue to the amount of £200,000 derived from this source. The motives which persuaded them to this sacrifice may have been as pure as driven snow; but with Lord Lytton's assurances fresh in their memories, I need not say that their motives were not so interpreted by those in India. There the explanation given was this:—The war in Afghanistan, from which so much had been expected, had resulted, not in success, but ignominious failure. The Government had been compelled to patch up a peace without a single element of permanence in it. Despite of the choral odes which Ministers sang together on the occasion of this peace, it was impossible that they could have been wholly blind to the real character of the Treaty of Gundamuck. They felt that discovery could not be long delayed, and, like the steward who had wasted his master's goods, they hastened to make themselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. While, therefore, the war was still nominally unfinished, they sought to propitiate Manchester by throwing its merchants this sop of £200,000. Like Canning's famous policy of calling on the New World to redress the balance of the Old, the prestige of Imperialism, damaged by the failure in Afghanistan, was to be re-established in Manchester at the expense of the Indian taxpayer.
If the Indian Government had any better reason than this for their partial repeal of the Cotton Duties, it is a pity that they did not communicate it to the world. The reason which they did condescend to give was simply this—that the finances of the Empire were so heavily embarrassed, and in such confusion, that it was a matter of no consequence if they become still further involved to the extent of £200,000. I give the actual words, that I may not be suspected of caricaturing the Government:—
"The difficulties caused by the increased loss by exchange are great, but they will not practically be aggravated to an appreciable extent by the loss of £200,000. If the fresh fall in the exchange should prove to be temporary, such a loss will possess slight importance. If, on the other hand, the loss by exchange does not diminish ... it will become necessary to take measures of a most serious nature for the improvement of the financial position; but the retention of the import duties on cotton goods will not thereby be rendered possible. On the contrary, such retention will become more difficult than ever."
According to the Government of India, it was the peculiarity of these £200,000 to be simply an incumbrance, happen what might. If the exchange did not fall, they were reduced to insignificance; if it did fall, their retention became more difficult than ever. The reader will not be surprised to learn that these enigmatic propositions were not accepted in India as a sufficient justification of the act they were supposed to explain.
Despotic as an Indian Viceroy is, there are even in India certain Constitutional checks on his authority, as, for instance, the Members of Council, the Vernacular and the English press. How was it, the reader may ask, that these constitutional checks were evaded; for it cannot be that they all concurred in such a policy as I have described in the foregoing pages? The principal means of evasion was secrecy. The negotiations with Shere Ali were kept sedulously hidden from the public knowledge, and their nature was only to be dimly inferred from the devout and philanthropic orations of the Viceroy himself. The same course was adopted with respect to the North-West famine; and but for the accident of Mr. Knight's visit to Agra, the truth would have remained hidden to this day. But Lord Lytton did not trust to secrecy alone. The vernacular press was gagged by a Press Act, which was hurried through Council, and made a law in the course of a few hours. The English press could not be gagged precisely in this fashion, but it was very ingeniously drugged through the agency of a curious functionary, styled the Press Commissioner. When Mr. Stanhope was questioned in the House regarding the special duties of this nondescript official, he replied that he had been appointed to superintend the working of the Vernacular Press Act. Actually, he was in operation for several months before that Act had come into existence, and never has had any duties in connection with it. The Press Commissioner is attached to the personal staff of the Viceroy, and may be regarded as a kind of official bard, whose duty it is to chant the praises of his master, and advertise his political wares. The description of Lord Lytton as a "specially-gifted Viceroy" is believed in India to have proceeded from the affectionate imagination of the Press Commissioner. But, besides this, he is a channel of communication between the Government of India and the Indian press. When he was first called into existence, India was informed that a new era was about to begin, in the relations between the press and the Government. The Government, anxious that its policy should be fully discussed by an intelligent press, had appointed a Press Commissioner, whose duty it would be to keep editors supplied with accurate information, from the very fountain-head, of all that Government was doing, or intended to do. It is unnecessary to say that the Press Commissioner has done nothing of the kind. The greater part of the matter he communicates to the press is simply worthless, and wholly devoid of interest to any sane person. If anything of importance occurs which the Government desires to keep secret, but which it fears will leak out, the Press Commissioner communicates the matter to the editors "confidentially," and then it is understood that they are in honour bound not to allude to the subject in their papers. At distant intervals, however, the Press Commissioner, of necessity, allows some interesting scraps of information to escape from him; and it is by means of these that the English press is drugged. Any newspaper which offends the Government by criticism of too harsh a character is liable to have the supply of such morsels suspended until it gives evidence of amendment. And as there is in India, among the readers of newspapers, quite an insatiable craving for these morsels of official gossip, it would be extremely prejudicial to the circulation of a newspaper if they no longer appeared in its columns. The vengeance of Lord Lytton and the Press Commissioner has already fallen upon one journal. The Calcutta Statesman, having poured ridicule on this Press Commissioner, has been deprived of his ministrations. In brief, the Press Commissionership is simply an agency for bribing the English Press, which costs the Indian taxpayer the sum annually of £5000. But the most effective check on the arbitrary authority of the Governor-General is furnished by his Council. These are selected as men of long Indian experience, in order to aid the Governor-General with their advice and special knowledge. The last Governor-General who set at nought the advice and remonstrances of his Council was Lord Auckland, when he plunged into the disastrous war in Afghanistan. Lord Lytton, who in other respects has so carefully trod in the footsteps of his predecessor, did not fail to imitate him in this. His frontier policy was carried out in spite of the opposition of the three most experienced members of his Council; his repeal of the Cotton Duties in the face of their unanimous opposition, with the single exception of Sir John Strachey. Thus it is that, under Lord Lytton, British rule in India has become a tawdry and fantastic system of personal rule. It might perhaps do well enough if an Empire could be governed by means of ceremonies, speeches, and elegantly written despatches—"fables in prose," they might very fitly be called. But an Empire cannot be so governed, and the result of the experiment has been an amount of human suffering appalling to contemplate. The Indian air is "full of farewells for the dying and mournings for the dead," and the path of the Government can be traced in broken pledges and dead men's bones. These bones are as dragon's teeth, which Lord Lytton is sowing broadcast all over India and Afghanistan, and they will assuredly be changed into armed men if the hand of the sower be not promptly stayed.
"Nothing," writes Sir Alexander Arbuthnot, one of the Indian Members of Council, "would have induced me to have been a party to the imposition of restrictions on the press, if I could have foreseen that within a year of the passing of the Vernacular Press Act the Government of India would be embarked on a course which, in my opinion, is as unwise and ill-timed as it is destructive of the reputation for justice upon which the prestige and political supremacy of the British Government in India so greatly depend. And here I must remark that the slight value which in some influential quarters is now attached to the popularity of our rule with our native subjects, has for some time past struck me as a source of grave political danger. The British Empire in India was not established by a policy of ignoring popular sentiment, and of stigmatizing all views and opinions which are opposed to certain favourite theories, as the views and opinions of foolish people. Nor will our rule be long maintained if such a policy is persisted in."
Robert D. Osborn.