SIR JAMES DIGGS LA TOUCHE.
The home charges, as they are called, absorb practically one-third of the entire revenues. About one hundred million dollars go out of India to England every year, and over fifteen millions are paid to European officials in the civil employ. What nation could stand such a drain without impoverishment?
Taxation is nearly twice as heavy in India as in England, in proportion to the income of the people. Compared with the people of other countries, the Indian's income is, on an average, one-twentieth of the average English income, one-seventh of the average Spaniard's income, one-sixth of the average Italian's income, one-fifth of the (European) Russian's income, and one-half of the income of the Turk. Sir Henry Cotton shows that the average per capita deposit in banks in England is one hundred dollars while the average per capita deposit in India is fifty cents; but how can the Indian be expected to have a large bank account when the average yearly income is only ten dollars? I have, in another article, referred to the jewelry worn by Indian women. The bracelets and anklets are silver except among the poorest, and this was formerly a form of hoarding, but the suspension of the coinage of silver deprived the people of the privilege of converting this hoarded silver into rupees. It will be remembered that the late Senator Wolcott, a member of the monetary commission appointed by President McKinley in 1897, on his return to Europe declared that the suspension of the coinage of silver in India had reduced the value of the savings of the people to the amount of five hundred millions of dollars. The suspension was carried out for the benefit of European interests, regardless of the welfare of the masses.
So great have been the drain, the injustice to the people and the tax upon the resources of the country, that famines have increased in frequency and severity. Mr. Gokhale, one of the ablest of India's public men, presided over the meeting of the last Indian national congress (held in December) and declared in his opening speech that the death rate had steadily risen from twenty-four to the thousand in 1882-4 to thirty in 1892-4 and to thirty-four at the present time. I have more than once within the last month heard the plague referred to as a providential remedy for over-population! Think of it, British rule justified because "it keeps the people from killing each other" and the plague excused because it removes those whom the government has saved from slaughter!
The railroads with all their advantages have been charged with adding to the weight of famine by carrying away the surplus grain in good years, leaving no residue for the years of drouth. While grain can now be carried back more easily in times of scarcity, the people are too poor to buy it with two freights added. The storage of grain by the government at central points until the new crop is safe would bring some relief, but it has not been attempted.
If it is argued that the railroads have raised the price of grain in the interior by furnishing a cheaper outlet to the sea, it must be remembered that the benefit has accrued not to the people, nearly all of whom are tenants, but to the landlords, the government being the largest holder.
Not only are the people being impoverished, but the land is being worn out. Manure, which ought to be used to renew the fields, is consumed as fuel, and no sight is more common in India than that of women and children gathering manure from the roads with their hands. This, when mixed with straw and sun-dried, is used in place of wood, and from the amount of it carried in baskets, it must be one of the chief articles of merchandise. There are now large tracts of useless land that might be brought under cultivation if the irrigation system were extended. Proof of this is to be found in the fact that the government of India has already approved of extensions which, when made, will protect seven million acres and irrigate three million acres. The estimated cost of these extensions is about forty-five million dollars, and the plans are to be carried out "as funds can be provided." Ten per cent of the army expenditure, applied to irrigation, would complete the system within five years, but instead of military expenses being reduced, the army appropriation was increased more than ten million dollars between 1904 and 1905.
