"Please discourage relief works in every possible way. It may be, however, that when agricultural operations are over, some of the people may want work. This, however, except on works for which there is budget provision, should only be given if the collector is satisfied that without it the people would actually starve. Mere distress is not a sufficient reason for opening a relief work. And if a relief work be started, task-work should be rigorously exacted, and the people put on the barest subsistence wage; so that we may be satisfied that if any other kind of work were procurable elsewhere, they would resort to it."
In accordance with the letter and spirit of these instructions the famine-stricken multitudes were literally starved off such scanty works as were open. The "barest subsistence wage" was fined down, smaller and smaller, until the people abandoned the works in despair, and returned to their villages to die. Nay, in some places, the public works which had been duly sanctioned in the yearly budget were transformed into relief works; and the labourers upon them, instead of being paid at the ordinary market rates, were reduced to the "barest subsistence wage, task-work being rigorously exacted." A beneficent but economical Government took advantage of the dire extremity to which its subjects were reduced to reap this unexpected profit out of their miseries. None the less, "the Viceroy in Council unhesitatingly accepts the statement of the local government, that no one who was willing to go to a relief work need have died of famine."
The License Tax.
The foregoing is an illustration of the manner in which an Imperial Viceroy secures "the progressive well-being of the multitudes committed to his fostering care." I purpose now to illustrate the manner in which the same Imperial functionary deals with the finances "committed to his fostering care." The position of "isolation and scarcely veiled hostility" which, without any provocation, Lord Lytton had assumed towards the Ameer of Afghanistan rendered a war against that sovereign a mere question of time and opportunity. Meanwhile, funds were necessary for its prosecution in addition to those which had been obtained from the starving population of the North-West. Accordingly, in his Budget statement for 1878-79, Sir John Strachey announced that the Indian Government had arrived at the conclusion that they ought to regard famines as normal occurrences for which provision should be made in the budgets of each year. Famine expenditure could not be estimated at a smaller sum than a million and a half annually. This sum he now proposed to raise by means of a License Tax on trades and dealings, to be levied throughout India, and which, it was estimated, would yield £700,000. The remainder of the sum required was to be obtained by a tax on the agricultural classes in Northern India and Bengal alone. The peculiar incidence of these taxes was justified on the ground that the classes taxed were the same classes which, in periods of famine, had to be supported by the State. It was therefore only just that they should provide the fund which was to insure them against famine. This money was in fact a sum raised for a special purpose, at the expense of certain classes, for whose benefit it was to be exclusively applied. This was acknowledged by Lord Lytton with his usual superabundance of emphasis:—
"The sole justification for the increased taxation which has just been imposed upon the people of India, for the purpose of insuring this Empire against the worst calamities of future famine ... is the pledge we have given that a sum not less than a million and a half sterling, which exceeds the amount of the additional contributions obtained from the people for this purpose, shall be annually applied to it. We have explained to the people of this country that the additional revenue raised by the new taxes is required, not for luxuries, but the necessities of the State; not for general purposes, but for the construction of a particular class of public works; and we have pledged ourselves not to spend one rupee of the special resources, thus created, upon works of a different character.... The pledges which my financial colleague was authorized to give, on behalf of the Government, were explicit and full as regards these points.... For these reasons, it is all the more binding on the honour of the Government to redeem to the uttermost, without evasion or delay, those pledges, for the adequate redemption of which the people of India have, and can have, no other guarantee than the good faith of their rulers."
The ink which recorded this solemn pledge was hardly dry before it had been broken. The predetermined war with Shere Ali began in the wanton manner I have told, and the question of cost was mentioned in the Houses of Parliament. The British Imperialist glories in war when the chances are all in his favour, but he has an invincible objection to paying the costs of such transactions. And they are costly. It was therefore very necessary so to arrange matters, that while the glory of hunting an ally to death should be appropriated by British Imperialism, the expenses of the chase should be defrayed by India. Accordingly, towards the end of November, Lord Cranbrook informed the House of Lords that India was in possession of a surplus more than sufficient to defray the costs of the war:—
"I am bound to say, that after looking very carefully into the financial condition of India, I believe it will not be necessary, at least in the initial steps, to call on the revenues of England. I am in possession of facts which, I think, would convince your Lordships that, without unduly pressing on the resources of India, there will be no necessity to call on the English revenues—at least during the present financial year. It was announced by my noble friend in another place the other night that, including the £1,500,000 of new taxes, the surplus of Indian revenue will amount to £2,136,000."
A fortnight later the "facts" of which Lord Cranbrook professed to be in possession were discovered not to be facts, and the surplus was reduced by Mr. Stanhope to a million and a half—in other words, to exactly the sum which Lord Lytton had solemnly pledged his honour to apply to no purpose except that of insuring India against the ravages of famine. On the most elastic system of interpretation, the acquisition of a fictitious "scientific frontier" cannot be made to appear as a fulfilment of this pledge. However, on the faith of the surplus thus created by Lord Cranbrook and Mr. Stanhope, Parliament voted that the expenses of the Afghan war should be charged upon India. Mr. Stanhope said,—" The surplus being of the amount he had mentioned, it must be perfectly obvious that the Indian Government could pay the whole cost of the war during the present year, without adding a shilling to the taxation or the debt of the country."
The intention here is sufficiently obvious. Lord Cranbrook and Mr. Stanhope were quite prepared to disregard the pledges given to the people of India, and apply the Famine Insurance Fund to an illegitimate purpose. They had all the will to do this, but their desires were frustrated by the fact that there was no such fund in existence. It had already been spent and disappeared. Lord Lytton thus calmly announces its extinction in the Budget resolution of March, 1879:—
"The insurance provided against future famines has virtually ceased to exist, and the difficulties in the way of fiscal and commercial and administrative reform have been greatly aggravated. Nor can it be in any way assumed that the evil will not continue and go on increasing. Under such circumstances, it is extremely difficult to follow any settled financial policy; for the Government cannot even approximately tell what income will be required to meet the necessary expenditure of the State.... For the present the Governor-General in Council thinks it wise to abstain from imposing any fresh burdens on the country, and to accept the temporary loss of the surplus by which it was hoped that an insurance against famine had been provided."