This state of things bears out the estimates of the average income of the Indian ryot, calculated by the late William Digby, C.I.E., after long residence and experience in India, the results of whose study of the question are given in detail, from undisputed authorities, in his striking work, “Prosperous British India,” in which is accumulated an appalling mass of evidence, all pointing to the conclusion that for famine should very largely be read poverty, which is also the root cause of bubonic plague. The railways, of course, might convey corn to the starving districts, but where the people have no money to pay for it they must starve all the same, Government relief-works being the only alternative; but this sort of relief must often be too late for poor creatures reduced by hunger and too weak to work.
The ordinary unprejudiced observer is naturally inclined to ask, Why this desperate poverty in an industrious population, supposed to be under beneficent British rule and administration? The answer must be sought in the fact that thirty millions and upwards are annually extracted from the country without any equivalent return, and this must necessarily mean a heavy burden of taxation on the chief sources of wealth, land and labour.
One of the greatest principles of our Constitution of which our public men are never tired of boasting is, “No taxation without representation,” or, “Taxation and representation must go hand in hand.” This principle is, however, entirely ignored in India, where British rule is as autocratic as that of Russia. Is it surprising in these circumstances that there should be “unrest”?
The educated Hindu or Mohammedan—the many who come to England and are trained in English Universities, or read for the Bar, or study for their degrees in medicine, feel that there is no part or lot for them in the administration of the affairs of their own country except in a very subordinate way. I understand that the highest Government post a native can attain to is the office of assistant-commissioner.
Time was when, after the great upheaval of the Mutiny—which was really an attempt to regain possession of the reins of government by the native princes of Oude, the principle of native representation under British administration was advocated by leading English politicians. Nothing, however, came of it, and the policy of the India Office has remained unchanged through all the changes of party government, there being no difference in this matter between Liberals and Conservatives. A Liberal like Mr John Morley, when in office as Indian Secretary, promptly orders the arrest and deportation without trial of Indian agitators under an old law of the East India Company which has never been ratified by the English Parliament.
Mr Laipat Rai, however, appears to be a self-sacrificing and devoted advocate of the cause of his people, and as editor certainly cannot have written so strongly against the English Government as Mr H. M. Hyndman, who has for years past denounced the conduct of the India Office, while challenging attention to and redress of the system under which the people of India are impoverished.
The attenuated ploughman who has been the occasion of these remarks was a typical figure. Looking on such figures, able only to secure a bare subsistence, so common throughout India, one cannot but feel that all the magnificence and luxury of the Maharajahs, as well as the heavy burden of the cost of the British Government, is maintained by the sweat of the brows and the ceaseless toil of such as these.