Enormous Foreign Tribute. Rev. J. T. Sunderland. Rev. J. T. Sunderland in his work “The Causes of Famine in India,” like all impartial writers, has conclusively proved that neither “failure of rains” nor “over population” is the cause of famines in India. He has stated that the real cause of famine is the extreme, the abject, the awful poverty of the Indian people caused by “Enormous Foreign Tribute,” “British Indian Imperialism” and the destruction of Indian industries.
Government assessment too high. Sir W. Hunter. “The government assessment does not leave enough food to the cultivator to support himself and his family throughout the year.”—Sir William Hunter, K. C. S. I., in the Viceroy’s Council, 1883.
The Ryot. Herbert Compton. “There is no more pathetic figure in the British Empire than the Indian peasant. His masters have ever been unjust to him. He is ground until everything has been expressed, except the marrow of his bones.”—Mr. Herbert Compton in “Indian Life,” 1904.
Hindustan is an extensive agricultural country and the average land produces two crops a year, and in Bengal there are lands which produce thrice a year. Bengal alone produces such large crops that they are quite sufficient to provide all the population of Hindustan for two years.
Indian Plunder. Adam Brooks. Adam Brooks says, (“Laws of Civilization and Decay,” page 259-246) “Very soon after the Battle of Plassey (fought in 1757) the Bengal Plunder began to arrive in London and the effect appears to have been almost instantaneous. Probably since the world began, no investment has yielded the profit reaped from the Indian plunder. The amount of treasure wrung from the conquered people and transferred from India to English banks between Plassey and Waterloo (57 years) has been variously estimated at from $2,500,000,000 to $5,000,000,000. The methods of plunder and embezzlement, by which every Briton in India enriched himself during the earlier history of the East India Company, gradually passed away, but the drain did not pass away. The difference between that earlier day and the present is, that India’s tribute to England is obtained by “indirect methods,” under forms of law. It is estimated by Mr. Hyndman that at least $175,000,000 is drained away every year from India, without a cent’s return.”
Swami Abhedananda. “India pays interest on England’s debt, which in 1900 amounted to 244 millions sterling, and which annually increases. Besides this, she pays for all the officers, civil and military, and a huge standing army, pensions of officers, and even the cost of the India Building in London, as well as the salary of every menial servant of that house. For 1901-2 the total expenditure charged against revenue was $356,971,410.00, out of which $84,795,515.00 was spent in England as Home Charges, not including the pay of European officers in India, saved and remitted to England.—Swami Abhedananda (“India and Her People”).
Alfred Webb (late M.P.): “In charges for the India Office (in London); for recruiting (in Great Britain, for soldiers to serve in India); for civil and military pensions (to men now living in England, who were formerly in the Indian service); for pay and allowances on furloughs (to men on visits to England); for private remittances and consignments (for India to England); for interest on Indian debt (paid to parties in England); and for interest on railways and other works (paid to shareholders in England), there is annually drawn from India and spent in the United Kingdom, a sum calculated at from £25,000,000 to £30,000,000 (Between $125,000,000 and $150,000,000).”
“Narrow and Shortsighted Imperial Policy.” Sir Archibald R. Colquehoun. “The present condition of affairs undoubtedly renders the struggle for existence a hard one, as may be realized when it is considered that a vast population of India not only from the inevitable droughts which so frequently occur, but also from a narrow and shortsighted imperial policy which places every obstacle in the way of Industrial development and imposes heavy taxes on the struggling people. According to various authorities, Russia’s demand upon landowners in her Central Asian possession are not so exacting as ours in India, for the British Government insists on a fifth of the produce, making no allowance for good or bad years; while Russia is said to ask only a tenth and allow for variation of production.” (Pages 135-6, “Russia Against India,” by Sir Archibald R. Colquehoun, Gold Medalist, Royal Geographical Society.)
Taxation. Lord Salisbury. The British policy of bleeding Indian people. “The injury is exaggerated in the case of India where so much of the revenue is exported without a direct equivalent. As India must be bled, the lancet should be directed to the parts where the blood is congested or at least sufficient, not to those already feeble for the want of it.”—Lord Salisbury.