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 A FEW PAGES ABOUT IT. 
 
 BY 
 
 Sir EDWAED WILLIAM WATKIN, Bart., M.P. 
 
 1889. 
 
 C. F. RO WORTH, GREAT NEW STREET, FETTER LANE. 
 
 1889 
 
•iM0- 
 
 yg^'"' 
 
 HC A-S3 
 
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 These few pages are offered io the Most Honorable the 
 MAKaUIS OF SALISBUEY, K.G., 
 
 Her Majesty's Prime Minister, 
 
 Formerly Secretary of State for India, 
 
 — in the hope that the vast resources of India may he fully ^ and soony 
 developed; that Indian Railways may he extended and commercialised; 
 a7id that a paternal Government may spare no efforts towards 
 strengthening the competitive powers of the cultivator and nurchant 
 of a wonderful country ; so that Protection in America may he met 
 by Production in India. 
 
 E. W. W. 
 
 NORTHENDEN, 
 
 June^ 1889. 
 
 313099 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introductory and Personal - . . - g 
 
 " Visit India !" - - - . . u 
 
 My Route in India - - - -14 
 
 Facts about India - - - - - 1 5 
 
 Indian Railways AND Indian Supplies - - -17 
 
 Gauge - - - - - - 27 
 
 Railway Extension - - - -30 
 
 Comparative Rates of Carrlvge, by RAIL^VAY, in 
 
 India and the United States - - - - 37 
 
 Petroleum finding in India - - - - 43 
 
 Indian " Private Enterprise," and the non-develop- 
 ment of Indian Resources - - - - 51 
 
 Government Control of Mineral and other De- 
 velopment - - - - - -63 
 
 The " National Congress " - - - - - 67 
 
 Hindu Widows - - - - - - 93 
 
 Undetected Crime - - - - - 93 
 
 Other Undetected Crime - - "97 
 
 The Native Press and the Congress-Wallahs - - 10 1 
 
 The Indian Government a Despotism - - 1 04 
 
 Arming the Hindoo, &c. - - - - 105 
 
 Libelling the Viceroy and the Government - 107 
 
 Opposing Frontier Defence - - - - 113 
 
 " Official Statements" issued from the India Office 115 
 
 Indian Statistics - - - - - 116 
 
 Remarkable Progress - - - - 122 
 
INTRODUCTORY AND PERSONAL. 
 
 f7\N the eve of my leaving England for India in October 
 last a high official was good enough to invite me to 
 suggest to him any notions which, in travelling about, 
 might strike me — especially in reference to railway and 
 industrial development. I complied with his wish from time to 
 time ; and on my return I sent to him some time ago a copy 
 of some notes I made on the voyage home. 
 
 I now somewhat expand those notes for the use, primarily, 
 of a few friends, and relatives, of my own. 
 
 Having been a student of India, and in communication with 
 people of all sorts interested in India, all my life, my visit to 
 the country has pieced together the links of previous know- 
 ledge and given me some better insight into questions, many of 
 which it would require almost a lifetime to master. But I am 
 not immodest enough to consider that much that I may in all 
 good faith propose, is not capable of modification by larger 
 experiences, if not of much correction. Therefore it is that in 
 these pages I have confined myself, mainly, to matters which I 
 understand, and I doubt if, therefore, I can be much mistaken, 
 save as respects the adaptation of Indian agencies to western 
 practice. The leaders in all industrial progress in India, as it 
 seems to me, have been, are, and must be, as a rule, men of 
 
( lO ) 
 
 I British and European race. The'' white ."man rules in India, 
 \ industrially, by reason, net merely :o;r his. 'courage and force of 
 ■ character, but through the comp'leteri6SS of his experience. 
 
 What can be a better illustration than the tea planting ? a 
 new and modern industry in India. Three hundred thousand 
 acres of Indian land are planted with tea, of which two hundred 
 thousand are in Assam. If the total were divided by the average 
 size of the plantations, there would turn out to be probably 
 about one thousand separate organizations for the growth and 
 sale of tea ; and I doubt not that almost the whole are ruled over 
 by British people, and have been founded and worked by the 
 agency of British capital.* 
 
 The European merchant and government of India have 
 between them developed the supply of jute and cotton, and so 
 with everything else. 
 
 British capital has made almost all the railways, docks, and 
 other public works of India; and British men must and will 
 lead where, in time, the Mussulman and the Hindoo may follow. 
 In writing this I am not indifferent to the enterprise of the 
 Parsees, the Jews of India, as they are called, or to the extra- 
 ordinary push of the smaller native merchant, who follows a 
 traveller about and noses out a possible customer wherever he 
 may be — in bed, shaving, bathing, walking out, or sitting in his 
 room ; or to the patient industry of the people who do the hand 
 labour and art labour of the country. 
 
 Succinctly, the suggestions I humbly venture to make as the 
 result of my observation and enquiry are : — (i) The establish- 
 ment of a powerful department of the Indian State, consisting of 
 
 * In passing, I may remind those who read these pages, that Ceylon is 
 becoming a great tea-growing comitry, thanks, mainly, to the initiative of my 
 friend, Mr. George Wall, of Colombo, and to the persistent efforts and thorough 
 enterprise of English planters like Mr. Thring, and others. Tea, in Ceylon, 
 is making up for the loss of the coffee crop. In past times the export of 
 coffee from Ceylon was valued at about seven millions sterling a year ; now, 
 the fatal fungus, which has so widely ruined the crop, has brought the pro- 
 duction down to a little more than a tenth of its old average value. And a 
 comparatively small number of years ago, all the Cingalese consumption of 
 tea was derived from China, and a little later from China and India. 
 
( " ) 
 
 practical men, which, provided with adequate means and with the 
 fullest powers, shall develop thoroughly the undeveloped mineral 
 and other resources of India, especially its coal and petroleum. 
 
 (2) The extension of Indian railways and works, by the econo- 
 mical credit and efficient organization of the Indian State. 
 
 (3) The commercialisation of the Indian Railway system, giving 
 business, rather than military, management. (4) A complete 
 change in the storage and warehousing system. (5) The laying 
 down of independent submarine cables by the State, and the 
 provision of far cheaper means of passing to and fro between 
 the United Kingdom and India. 
 
 I shall endeavour to show by what the Indian State organiza- 
 tion now does, that it can do more, and that the Indian civil 
 servant — if given full responsibility and if freed from needless 
 interference, either from Downing Street, Calcutta, or Simla — 
 is fully equal to any task placed on his shoulders in the interests 
 of India. Let me, however, say that the military servant is, to 
 my mind, an excellent public officer; that where he has been 
 allowed to construct and work, for instance, the railway system, 
 in his own way, he has been equal to any, and every, difficult 
 occasion. But the trouble comes from head-quarters, in the 
 constant attempt to apply military rule to industrial distribution, 
 and in delays and cross purposes by too much reference home 
 of details. 
 
 But I shall endeavour to show, further, by the many failures 
 of most efforts to substitute " private enterprise " for the action 
 of the State, that the great, immediate, wide-spread develop- 
 ment of the undeveloped riches of India can only be thoroughly 
 accomplished, in our time, by the united and unsparing efforts 
 of the Indian State itself. 
 
 "VISIT INDIA!" 
 
 I had all my life a desire to visit India. I once, a very long 
 time ago, was nearly precipitated into an Indian career. I had 
 taken much interest in the Indian railway system; in the 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 affairs of Ceylon; in the growth of cotton in India, and so 
 on, for very many years.* 
 
 * As an amusing incident, I may relate that, in early childhood, I narrowly 
 escaped sudden death owing, remotely, to the modification of the Indian tea 
 monopoly. The facts were these: the date was about 1826 or 1828 ; the close 
 monopoly of the sale of tea had led to "gunpowder" tea being considered 
 cheap at a guinea a pound ; gunpowder and guinea made a good practical 
 alliteration ; in trade, one was the equivalent of the other. The relaxation of 
 the monopoly — I quite forget the form and extent of relaxation — enabled 
 enterprising tea dealers largely to reduce prices, and the result was, that an 
 enterjDrising firm — "Jones & Co.," tea dealers. Market Street Lane, Man- 
 chester — advertised that, incredible as it might appear, they would be prepared 
 to sell " gunpowder tea" for " ten shillmgs and sixpence a pound." I must 
 now remind, or rather infoim, the reader— assumed to have been bom since 
 the enlightened period in question — that the ladies of the house regarded tea 
 in those days as a precious, almost a sacred, article. The " tea-caddy" was 
 a sort of jewel-box. It had always a key. It was always kept locked for fear 
 some Tabitha might be tempted to abstract a spoonful of the valued thing ; 
 and a lady going out to dinner, or even to a ball, would often turn pale and 
 stop the coach, with the ejaculation to her astonished husband, " Oh, dear ! 
 I have left behind the key of the tea-caddy !" Tea, thus, was tea in those 
 days. In those days ladies wore "gigot" sleeves and high "waists," in 
 compliment to the Queen, whose natural shape was, they said, the same from 
 the hips to the armpits. Whether it was so I am unable to say ; I am only 
 positive on the fact of the ladies' dresses. But the effect of these fashions led 
 to much display of redundant bombazine, as the fashionable material then in 
 vogue was called. My escape from sudden death arose thus: — I was taken 
 " a-shopping" by my mother, who had an eye to business, and quite under- 
 stood that a guinea would, now, go as far as two would have gone before. 
 So we entered the shop of "Jones & Co.," of Market Street Lane, Man- 
 Chester, with a crowd of housewives, who, by their struggles to the counters, 
 made "confusion worse confounded," and my poor little child-body was soon 
 lost amidst the bombazine. I was crushed, smothered, warmed up to a high 
 degree, and imbibed an odour of bombazine, &c., &c., which I can (as the 
 Scotch put it as to smells) " feel" to this day ! How I got out I know not. 
 In the dark and dismal surroundings — hot smellmg, suffocating — I fancy I lost 
 consciousness ; fancied I was drowning ; and striking out in the darkness 
 frantically, did some injury to a very fat woman, who thereon backed lesser 
 women out, and I was restored to air and daylight. 
 
 But at that time no tea was brought from India : it all came from China, 
 and the East India Company had a close monopoly. Tlieir old tea warehouses 
 in Mint Street in the City are now the property of the London and North 
 Western Railway Company. After my little story of suffering and miraculous 
 escape, none of my friends will wonder at the great interest I have always 
 taken in the tea question. Any way, I have suggested a way to more than 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 I need not recall the sorrow which compelled me, in search 
 of forgetfulness, to go a long way from home somewhere. I had 
 been thirty times across the Atlantic, the last voyage having 
 been in 1887, and I therefore gravitated to India as a new field. 
 
 My visit gave me incredible interest : and to all who want to see 
 the real British Empire, I cannot hesitate to recommend my own 
 example : I say, emphatically, " Visit India ! " To all who want 
 to obser\-e how the moral force of a small body of our countr}-- 
 men prevails in keeping the peace amidst the most hostile 
 creeds and races ; to watch the processes by which a most 
 just, impartial, and capable government is furnished to over 
 200,000,000 of people — who never knew real liberty, either 
 civil or religious, until they obtained the blessing — the priceless 
 blessing — of British paternal rule — to all these I say, " Visit 
 India." To all who want to see grand rivers, stately mountains, 
 and wondrous plains, I say again, "Visit India." It is a land 
 of wonders all round. 
 
 To the naturalist, the geologist, the scientist of every division, 
 India is an infinite field of observation. There, too, you see, side 
 by side, in many places, almost every race of man the world 
 contains. 
 
 I shall never forget the sight at Darjeeling ; Chinese, Bur- 
 mese, Tibetans, Nepaulese, Bhotans, .Nagas, Hindoos, Mussul- 
 men ; men the exact pattern of the red Indian of the Canadian 
 Pacific route, and of the yellow Indian of British Columbia; 
 English types, German types — every type almost. 
 
 Ever}' variety of man. Ever}- species of animal, plant, flower, 
 reptile. Ever)- variety of custom, and of social life. 
 
 Architecture of the most opposite ideality, but often massive 
 and magnificent ; dress as varied as race. 
 
 Agriculture so different from ours ; but when studied found 
 
 one Chancellor of the Exchequer, by which the duty on tea could be repealed 
 without putting on any new tax. But my plan is too simple for official accept- 
 ance. I certainly hope that everj- poor soul who has now to pay 2s. Gd. 
 for a pound of what, at prime cost, grown in India, and delivered in England, 
 only stands at 6|<f., will soon be able to have three cups of tea for what is now 
 the price of one. 
 
( 14 ) 
 
 to be simple, and therefore scientific — the most being made of 
 the simplest and readiest means. 
 
 MY ROUTE IN INDIA. 
 
 I left the Thames in the P. and O. ship, the "Arcadia," 
 commanded by that veteran sailor. Captain Andrews. I landed 
 at Gibraltar, Marseilles, Naples, and Port Said. The ship 
 stopped at Aden, and arrived at Bombay after a voyage with- 
 out a breeze or a drop of rain. At Bombay the kindness 
 of Messrs. Ralli, the great merchants of India, enabled me 
 to see something of the industries and the commerce of that 
 remarkable city. From Bombay, following the good advice 
 of Sir Michael Biddulph, I went right away north and up the 
 Khyber Pass till within view of Allah Musjid, stopping on the 
 way at Ajmere, Jeypore, Delhi, Lahore, and Peshawur. Return- 
 ing, I visited Rawul Pindi, Lahore again, the salt ranges at 
 Kewrah, Umritser, Agra, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Allahabad, and 
 other centres, and then went down to Calcutta, where I had the 
 happiness to be the guest of Mr. Henry Gladstone, in Clive 
 Street. Then, after some days at this great port, I went by way 
 of the Eastern Bengal Railway up to Darjeeling, in sight of 
 the vast Himalayas, and back to Siligouri, from whence across 
 country and across rivers to Dhubri, thence up the Brahmapootra 
 to Dibrughar, and on to the farthest corner of Assam up to the 
 Naga country, the limit of British territory to the north-east. 
 Then returning to Calcutta, I had the diversion of a slight earth- 
 quake, and after a Christmas dinner at Mr. Gladstone's, I left 
 for Colombo in the " Rohilla," Captain Haslewood. Spent 
 two days in Ceylon, going up to Kandy, and then on to Aden, 
 Suez, Port Said, Marseilles, and home. 
 
 Murray's Guide or Baedeker give better descriptions of places 
 of interest and of scenery than I could, so I do not propose to 
 attempt anything of that sort. But for all things archseological, 
 I refer every one to General Cunningham's excellent and inte- 
 resting works on the monumental and other remains of India. 
 
( '5 ) 
 
 FACTS ABOUT INDIA. 
 
 It is well to tabulate some leading facts about British India, 
 and I have done so in a final chapter. Two Parliamentary Blue 
 Books are annually issued. I shall have a few words to write 
 about the backward dates of much of the information given ; but 
 they will throw no doubt upon the great value of the insight 
 afforded. They are the " Statement exhibiting the moral and 
 material progress and condition of India," and the " Statistical 
 Abstract relating to British India," which gives a decennial 
 tabulation, and may compare with that afforded by the similar 
 " Statistical Abstract" more especially affecting the United 
 Kingdom. If some one would, to use a phrase of the late 
 Mr. W. Newmarch, F.R.S., "boil down" these papers, and let 
 them be sold for a few pence, a great national service would be 
 performed. Our people would read India by the light of its 
 progress, instead of seeing it in the disguises exhibited now and 
 then by the Indian, or Russian, agents of discontent, some of 
 whom live amongst us in apparent personal prosperity. These 
 gentlemen would have us to believe that the Indian Government 
 is an unenlightened tyrant, that the population of the country 
 is on the wane, its wealth decreasing and misery augmenting. 
 All this is untrue : nay, the very converse of the truth, as the 
 facts and figures quoted in my concluding chapter demonstrate. 
 
17 ) 
 
 INDIAN RAILWAYS AND INDIAN SUPPLIES. 
 
 I AM somewhat informed about Indian Railways and 
 their history. As early as the 17th July, 1857, I moved 
 this Resolution in the House of Commons : — " That the 
 slow progress of the East Indian Railways involves 
 danger to the military occupation of India, and retards 
 the development of the industrial resources of that 
 country" ; and I concluded my speech with these words: 
 — " India had, physically speaking, all that was neces- 
 sary for a rapid and full development, except the means 
 of transit. Cease to keep from her those means, and 
 she would, in spite of mismanagement, and of internal 
 disorders, rise in the industrial scale ; and the very mea- 
 sures which promoted her prosperity would consolidate 
 our power." I see nothing to correct in that declaration 
 of nearly a generation ago. 
 
 My personal observations of Indian Railways have 
 greatly impressed me with admiration for those who 
 have planned and executed, and especially for those 
 who now work, them, under conditions of difficulty un- 
 known at home. I do not think that I write, biassed by 
 the extreme courtesy shown to me by every railway man 
 I knew, and by numbers of others whose acquaintance I 
 made for the first time. These gentlemen aided me in 
 every way to conquer the vast distances of India, and, 
 by travelling at night in their comfortable officers' car- 
 
 B 
 
( i8 ) 
 
 riages, through wastes and jungles, as well as cultivated 
 lands, to visit the places and scenes of great interest, 
 otherwise shut to me in a visit of under two months. 
 To Colonel Campbell, the honoured agent of the East 
 Indian ; Major Bissett, of the Bombay and Baroda ; 
 Colonel Wallace, of the North Western State, and Major 
 Boughey, of the Eastern Bengal State, — Railways, I am 
 specially debtor, for every form of kindness and facility 
 to inspect the magnificent undertakings, happily, under 
 their control. 
 
 Having thus travelled over more than a third of the 
 whole mileage of Indian railways, I return with unmixed 
 respect for the works and the workers. I have travelled 
 on the Government gauge of 5 ft. 6 in. ; the " metre " 
 gauge of thirty-nine inches ; the 2 ft. 6 in. gauge ; and 
 the I ft. II in. gauge of the wonderful Darjeeling rail- 
 way. Nowhere have I seen works more daring — often 
 to the point of grandeur — and I have, specially, in my 
 mind, while writing, the bridge over the Indus, below 
 its junction with the Cabul river, at Attock ; Sir Brad- 
 ford Leslie's bridge over the Hooghly, above Calcutta 
 {the Jubilee Bridge) ; and, I might add, the Great Indian 
 Peninsular Station at Bombay — these are many and 
 varied Indian monuments of the art of our engineers and 
 contractors, working in India in wider fields than home 
 presents. I was disappointed in finding myself unable, 
 owing to time used in visiting Assam, to see the Sukkur 
 Bridge over the Indus, or to go up to Quetta — where I 
 was most kindly invited by Sir R. Sandeman — to see 
 the new (Sind Pishin) railways there, and the petroleum 
 springs near Sibi. 
 
 The story of the construction of these Quetta rail- 
 way works reads like a romance, and excites admira- 
 tion for the courage and resources of the engineers, 
 proving them to be men who would not be beaten. 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 The report on Indian Railways for 1886 says, "From 
 the 8th May, 1886, and onwards, from mile 175 
 the plate-laying was pushed forward uninterruptedly, 
 and with no very heavy diversions, Harnai being 
 reached on the ist July, 1886, and mile 201 on the 
 I St August, 1886. The heat throughout this whole 
 time was terrific, and so trying, that, on many occa- 
 sions, it seemed impossible to go on with the work. 
 The staff suffered terribly from fever ; the plate-laying 
 gangs were practically renewed every month by fresh 
 importations from India, as they melted away from fever, 
 dysentery and scurvy. In the same way, the gangs of 
 girder-erectors dropped off, and during four months 
 
 were twice replaced from India On the ist 
 
 November, 1886, the rail-head had reached mile 224 
 (opposite the mouth of the Chupper Rift), passing over 
 many diversions, where heavy girders were being erected 
 and difficult foundations of bridges were being taken 
 out. Although the higher elevation reached somewhat 
 reduced the heat, the exceptional unhealthiness of the 
 climate retarded the work, whole gangs of workmen 
 being prostrated at one time by fever, dysentery and 
 scurvy." I will only give one more extract, and then 
 say, " All honour to our countrymen, who can trample on 
 such difficulties ! " " The line via Harnai, from Sibi to 
 Quetta (155 miles), was practically commenced as a 
 railway only about ist July, 1884. It labours under the 
 disadvantage of its lower half being so hot in summer, 
 and its upper half so cold in winter, that on those 
 sections, as far as progress is concerned, about half the 
 year is lost. This section was opened for the engine as 
 a permanently bridged, metalled and tunnelled railway 
 in 32I months, giving a progress of little less than 
 five miles of finished railway per month, in a moun- 
 tainous country, where the engineering difficulties, though 
 
 B 2 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 formidable enough in themselves, are not, perhaps, the 
 greatest obstacle to rapid progress." 
 
 The official " Statement," in dealing with the year 
 1887, states that, as compared with 1886, while there 
 had been an increase of 1,203 miles of railway, or 9*35 
 per cent., there was a decrease in the gross earnings of 
 ;^244,954, in silver, or 1-31 per cent.; an increase of 
 £i'j2yiio, in silver, or 1*93 per cent,, in the working 
 expenses, — and thus, that the total net earnings showed 
 a decrease of ;^4i 7,064 (in silver), or no less than 4*27 
 per cent. This is a serious result ; and I have heard 
 that, while failure of crops and a lesser carriage of rail- 
 way material have contributed, the lowering of rates on 
 some of the railways under State management has had 
 a pernicious effect on net revenue. 
 
 The total capital expended on Indian railways to the 
 end of the year 1887 was ^187,221,521, and the cost of 
 the lines open averaged ;,^ 13,000 a-mile; the least costly 
 opened line being the Jodhpore, ^1,843 — and the most 
 costly, the East Indian line, ;^2 1,483, per mile. The 
 gross earning of all lines was ;!^i 8,459,582 ; and the 
 working expenses averaged 49 per cent. ; the net revenue 
 yielding a return of 5| per cent, per annum on the capital 
 cost. Still the State complains that it lost ;^2, 267,800 
 (in silver) in 1887-8, by two causes: first, that the two 
 guaranteed railways were entitled to one-half the 
 surplus profits on their lines above 5 per cent., or 
 ;^989,702 (Rx.) ; and second, because interest on gua- 
 ranteed railway capital has to be paid in gold, while 
 the earnings of the lines are realized in silver. 
 
 If in early days the Indian State had boldly made 
 these, now, guaranteed railways on their own credit, 
 about 25 per cent, more railway would have existed in 
 India for the same annual outgoing for interest. Clearly 
 it is the interest of every such country to raise its capital 
 
( ^I ) 
 
 for expenditure, on permanent works, at the cheapest 
 rate, which means on the best credit, which means, 
 again, its own. 
 
 The Indian State began by guarantee at a high rate, 
 and with division of profits over that high rate (of 5 per 
 cent). In 1870 the policy of developing railways by the 
 credit and under the charge of the State was inaugurated. 
 In 1 880- 1 a recurrence to the system of aiding "private 
 enterprise " took place : " assisted '"' railways. What the 
 policy is now, I do not know. But it is obvious that the 
 Indian State could raise railway loans in perpetuity, in 
 gold, at 3, and on 99 years' terminal annuity at 3^ per 
 cent., or perhaps less. This is, at least, i, to i^, per 
 cent, less than would be demanded by " assisted " 
 private enterprise ; and to adopt the former, means that 
 the State gets for the same annual charge more than 
 5 miles of railway if it finds its own money, and less 
 than 3 in the case of " assisted " private enterprise. 
 
 I am told that guarantees, in gold, of 4 per cent, and 
 a quarter of profits, of 4^ per cent., in gold, and of 4 per 
 cent., in gold, with an addition of one quarter of net 
 profits, have been given. If that be so, the State gets, 
 clearly, much less line for its guarantee than it does for 
 its own money. Who will defend this waste and loss ? 
 
 It will thus be seen that I am opposed to any more 
 tinkering at private enterprise, and advocate the ex- 
 tension of railways and other public works, also, in 
 the most economical and efficient way, viz., by cheap 
 capital, founded on the undoubted credit, of the State ; 
 and through the agency of the efficient and all-powerful 
 and experienced executive of the State, rather than by 
 the wasteful system of raising capital on indifferent 
 credit, and by the weak and inefficient (in fact, totally 
 inadequate) executives of the individuals and asso- 
 ciations who pester the Indian State for concessions. 
 
( 2^ ) 
 
 I want to see the whole benefit of the capital and 
 property of the State going into the coffers of the State, 
 which now, in many cases, gets a doubtful nibble, only, 
 at its own cake. 
 
 But I feel it my duty, admiring as I do the Indian 
 railway system, to express the opinion that in its working 
 details it wants commercialising — if I may coin a word, 
 to better express my meaning. The whole question of 
 speed of trains wants reconsidering. In India the speed 
 of trains is behind the age, and many of the regulations 
 are too much like those of a military cantonment. I rode 
 on the engine of one of the North Western lines, and 
 going down, at a crawl, an incline of a mile or two of 
 I in 50, 1 asked the driver, why ? " Not allowed to go at 
 more than ten miles an hour;" and, looking round, I 
 saw a board with that announcement on it — " By order." 
 At the bottom of this incline came an ascending gra- 
 dient of I in 50, which we had to mount dead from the 
 bottom, instead of getting the benefit of some extra 
 velocity ; all of which would have been left, in England 
 or France, to the discretion of an experienced driver, 
 such as was the man I rode with. This may be looked 
 upon as a little matter of detail, but it is one of many 
 straws which inclined me to think that there is too much 
 military order about it all, and not enough individual 
 authority. 
 
 At a station, which I need not name, a carriage, 
 full of natives and their manifold bundles, pots, pans, 
 baskets, pipes, sticks, and so on, was taken off, to be 
 sent on by another train, to start some hours later. I 
 asked, why ? " Regulation that we are only to send on 
 ten." "Bad gradient to place where those people are 
 going " ? " No, nearly flat." " Cannot the engine take 
 the extra carriage ? " " Oh ! yes ; but that is the regu- 
 lation." 
 
( 23 ) 
 
 But before passing from such small things to great, 
 let me say, that I look upon India as a source of 
 supply, making us less and less dependent upon the 
 protectionist United States. There is nothing in the 
 United States — to which we at home pay ^100,000,00.0 
 a-year for food and raw materials — which cannot, by 
 proper organization, be produced better and cheaper in 
 India — tobacco, sugar, cotton, petroleum, coal, wheat, 
 maize, rice, raisins, all sorts of dried fruits, precious, and 
 other, metals, and so on ; while, amongst many other 
 things, may be mentioned tea, coffee, varied tropical 
 fruits, and the useful article of jute, which are on the 
 Indian list of productions and not on that of the United 
 States. 
 
 Again, India has the greatest advantage over the 
 United States, in the abundant supply, and the cheap- 
 ness and docility of its labour resources. But if India 
 is, in the near future, to take some scores of the millions 
 which are now paid to the protectionist United States, 
 United States modes of cultivating the best quality of 
 things, of rapid, through, ■ transport, and of exchange, 
 will have to be largely copied. 
 
 Now, while from Chicago, or any other emporium in 
 the United States portion of North America, or from 
 Montreal, or from any other big town or village in 
 Canada, you can get a through bill of lading to Liver- 
 pool, London, or elsev/here, there is no such thing known 
 in all India — save the recent experiment of Colonel 
 Wallace from the port of Kurrachee, in connection with 
 parts of the North Western State line, by an arrangement 
 with the Hall, or Holt, line of steamers to Liverpool. 
 To establish the United States system efficiently, the 
 co-operation of all interests is essential, because the 
 soul of the matter is a through rate : one single, mode- 
 rate, and — in the case of such products as are sold to us 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 by the United States — competing — charge throughout — 
 combined with rapid transit and the best facilities for 
 loading and discharge. I addressed the Secretary of 
 State for India on this subject before I left England, and 
 I have taken some pains to explain, in both railway and 
 mercantile circles, the bearing of the through bill of 
 lading on the competitions, and on the simple action and 
 finance, of shipment and distribution. For such a pur- 
 pose the whole railway system of India, in food and raw 
 material districts, should be worked, for through rate 
 purposes, as one. At present, I fear that system is, on 
 the contrary, worked sectionally, if not, here and there, 
 in antagonism. This is a great question. 
 
 And now for another great question. Wherever I 
 went all over India, I asked, where are your elevators ? 
 and where are your public warehouses, in which every 
 man, big or little, may deposit his grain, or his jute, or his 
 rice, and take away an official receipt for his property r 
 
 I found that there was not an elevator in all India ; 
 and I could not trace the existence, at least, as a system, 
 of public depots. Every man his own " Godown," or 
 warehouse. 
 
 I should here explain that the American elevator is a 
 public depot for grains, as well as a system of machinery 
 by which grain can be " elevated " to floor levels, and 
 shifted about with great rapidity, cheapness, and benefit 
 to the grain itself. As respects the grain trade, our 
 American cousins have developed theirs into a perfect 
 system, and I never look at the vast, tall, wooden build- 
 ings at Montreal, New York, Chicago : everywhere — even 
 amongst the growing villages on the Canadian Pacific 
 Railway, where, a few years ago, there was nothing but 
 the buffalo and the wandering Indian — without recog- 
 nizing one of the finest phases of industrial progress. 
 To Indian State officials, I say, " Go and see," 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 The elevator, I repeat, is not only machinery and a 
 deposit warehouse, but, practically, a bank. The pro- 
 cesses are various. The machinery — very much like a 
 chain-pump, with small tin buckets on a band — takes up 
 the grain from the trough, into which it is put out of 
 bags, or from bulk, to the intended floor space, and then 
 through a spout, which can be directed anyw'here, it 
 deposits the grain in the allotted space on the floor. If 
 there is any fear of heating or mildew, the grain can be 
 passed up and down, and the friction between grain and 
 grain, in rapid passages, dries and brightens it, and at 
 the same time gets rid of dust and rubbish. And when 
 the grain is sent to market, the elevator machinery puts 
 it into bags, or waggons, or anything, far better and more 
 quickly than could be accomplished by manual labour. 
 So far for the mechanical processes. 
 
 Now, one great obstacle to cheap storage and distri- 
 bution is varying quality and separate ownerships. At 
 our great grain warehouse, with seven acres of floor, at 
 Grimsby, you find numbers of separate heaps ; and often 
 the wheat or barley heaps, laid side by side, are of 
 exactly the same quality, though, because belonging to 
 separate owners, kept apart. In the United States an 
 independent State ofiicer is appointed, whose duty it is 
 to classify the grain into qualities. I forget the number 
 of classes. I will assume it as six — it may be more or 
 less. Well, you bring (say) i,ooo quarters of wheat to 
 the great elevator of (say) Sturgis & Buckingham, at 
 Chicago. The State ofiicer certifies that it is of No. i — 
 or 2 — or 3 — or 4 — or 5 — or 6 class ; and, accordingly, it 
 is elevated to the floor, or portion of floor, containing 
 the particular quality so numbered. Then you receive 
 from Sturgis & Buckingham a small certificate, stating 
 that you have deposited so much wheat, of such and such 
 a number of quality. Thus, having put your property 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 in safe custody, and got your receipt, you need take no 
 further trouble. If you intend to keep it a while, paying 
 a moderate monthly (I think) charge, and want money, 
 any banker will lend you money on the deposit, or as- 
 signment of your receipt. On the contrary, if you prefer 
 to keep your property, you can, at any time, at any city 
 you may be staying at, sell your receipt at any Corn 
 Exchange, and get your money, and have done with it. 
 
 I am not unmindful of objections in India to this 
 mixing up your property with other people's. They had 
 to be educated up to the common-sense of the matter, 
 even in the United States, as since then they have been 
 educated up to united dairies, and joint stock milk and 
 cheese and butter factories. But assume that the pro- 
 ducer is not ripe for so valuable, because so simple, a 
 system, the elevator can still go on. All that would be 
 needed would be more floor space. But I would point 
 out the moral good of such a classification in leading to 
 an emulation for improved quality, cleanness, &c. I am 
 aware that the great merchants, who now make fortunes 
 by buying locally the dirty grain, full of dust and stones, 
 and sifting and cleaning it before bagging it for market, 
 might object to through rates, elevators, and all ; but 
 the system must prevail, nevertheless. What I have 
 written above applies to grain only. I may, however, 
 mention that in many stations in America I have, in past 
 times, seen husking machines for maize (Indian corn), at 
 which any farmer could have his grain husked before 
 transport ; and I see no reason why Indian railways 
 should not provide that, and many other facilities for 
 trade, to the cultivator, at a moderate fixed rate. 
 
 I take it that what is wanted in India, especially, is — 
 (i) more facilities for storage, transit, and loading and 
 unloading ; (2) places of secure deposit ; (3) facilities 
 for sifting, cleaning and drying ; (4) in connection with 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 the two latter, a system of certificates of deposit, on 
 which the cultivator, or the dealer, could borrow money 
 at the lowest rate, or sell at his pleasure, without having 
 more to do than stamp and indorse over his certificate to 
 the purchaser. 
 
 Now, if this system of deposit were adopted for grains, 
 why not for jute, cotton, or any other product of India r 
 And what is the objection, under a paternal Government, 
 to the railways of India, the property of, or controlled 
 by, the State, providing the warehouses, the machinery, 
 and all the appliances required r To begin with, it would 
 pay handsomely to do it. Then it would tend largely to 
 develope the resources of the land in competition with 
 competing nations ; and, above all — and I ask this ques- 
 tion with grave interest — would it not tend to relieve 
 the poor cultivator fi*om the grasp and tyranny of the 
 bunia, the schrofF, and the petty dealer r Again, would 
 it not help the merchant, by providing him with storage 
 for his local purchases ; and might it not be made very 
 useful in many districts, in time of scarcity or famine r 
 for the tendency would always be to keep stocks of food, 
 more or less, at each depot station. Here is my sugges- 
 tion, then, for whatever it may be worth. 
 
 Gauge. 
 
 Whoever proposed the 5 ft. 6 in. gauge for India, for 
 Ceylon, for Canada, and the 5 ft. 3 in. for Ireland, or the 
 6 ft. gauge for the Erie Railway, was no fi-iend to indus- 
 trial mankind. Indian railways began amidst the smoke 
 of the " War of Gauges" — the 7 ft. Great Western gauge 
 of Brunei, as against the 4 ft. 8| in. of the elder Stephen- 
 son : and I assume 5 ft. 6 in. was adopted in a spirit of 
 compromise. It was certainly an experiment at the cost 
 of the shareholders and the countries affected. The 7 ft. 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 gauge of Brunei has been largely obliterated on the 
 Great Western, save that, for the sake of ancient his- 
 tory, it remains on a small portion of that noble railway, 
 interwoven mostly with the 4 ft. 8^ in, in mixed gauge 
 working. The whole of the 5 ft. 6 in. gauge lines have 
 been taken up on the Grand Trunk lines in favour of 
 4 ft. 8| in., and thus the Great Canadian line has become 
 part and parcel, without change or break, of the whole 
 railway system of the North American Continent. The 
 Erie 6 ft. gauge has long since disappeared : and, when 
 Ireland is physically connected with Scotland by a 
 tunnel of something over twenty miles — as it can be at a 
 cost of ten millions sterling — the 5 ft. 6 in. gauge will 
 disappear by the time the first train runs through from 
 Glasgow to Cork. 
 
 I went over the Ceylon 5 ft. 6 in. railway from Colombo, 
 as far as Kandy ; and my previous impressions of the 
 absurdity of such a wide, expensive, and needless gauge 
 were greatly strengthened. The line, too, winds about 
 mountains, skirts their edges in a startling way — in one 
 place you look down a perpendicular face of 1,500 feet 
 upon the beautiful green of the young rice — and passes 
 down to Kandy over a summit, — easily avoidable by using 
 valleys full of industry, fertility, and trafiic. But I re- 
 member that my old friend, Mr. George Wall, who has 
 done more for the progress of Ceylon than any other 
 man now living (and, who, by the way, in the Jubilee 
 distribution of honours was wholly passed over, probably 
 for that very reason), combatted the railway proposals of 
 the day; but the Governor .and his nominated Council 
 carried their own way, and Ceylon has got about a-fifth 
 less railway than it might have had, for the money ex- " 
 pended, if using the world's gauge of 4 ft. 8| in. This 
 extravagance has, in India, been the parent of the metre 
 gauge, and of narrower gauges still ; and the evil of 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 change and breaking bulk can only be mitigated by 
 completing the metre gauge connections, where the 
 length of metre gauge railway amounts to something 
 like a system ; by enlarging the narrower gauges to the 
 metre gauge (39 inches) here and there ; and, especially, 
 by using, in dealing with important centres of traffic, the 
 mixed gauge. The 5 ft. 6 in. gauge has certainly the 
 advantage that a rail may be laid inside it, and thus the 
 narrower vehicles may run through without impediment. 
 This mixing of gauges would in Ceylon much cheapen 
 future extensions, say, to Trincomalie, and other parts 
 of the island now isolated for want of railway commu- 
 nication. 
 
 I may illustrate my meaning by giving one of my own 
 experiences. The route between Darjeeling and Dhubri, 
 on the Brahmaputra, is full of breaks. You travel on 
 the Darjeeling line of 2 ft., or rather i ft. 1 1 in., gauge to 
 Siligouri. From Siligouri to Parbatipur, and on to the 
 Teista River, you have the " metre " gauge of 39 in. 
 At the Teista you have to cross the river in a native boat 
 to Darhla, from whence to Teista you have a 2 ft. 6 in. 
 gauge. At Teista you go down and cross the river, 
 again, in a native boat, to Darhla Ghat, whence again 
 there is a 2 ft. 6 in. gauge ; and from Darhla Ghat to 
 Dhubri, 60 miles, you have a Government stem-wheel 
 steamer. Coming upwards from Calcutta, you have to 
 cross the river in a steamer at Sara Ghat, and to change 
 trains. Such breaks and transhipments, on what is the 
 mail route for the Brahmaputra ports and towns, and to 
 Northern Assam, is so obstructive to travelling and 
 interchange, that it is to be hoped that the Indian 
 Government will make the gauge from Siligouri to 
 Darhla Ghat uniform, and will arrange to cross the 
 trains, or vehicles, over the rivers by adequate boats, as 
 was, and is, done in many countries, should they find 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 that the construction of bridges is too costly, or difficult, 
 where shifting streams have to be dealt with. 
 
 Looking to the future, who will deny that before the 
 end of the next quarter of a century India will be con- 
 nected with England and with Europe by railways on 
 the world's gauge? and, if so, it is not unreasonable to 
 suppose that the uniformity introduced, at great cost, in 
 England, in Canada, and in the United States, will 
 force itself upon India, and that the 5 ft. 6 in. gauge will 
 go " down among the dead men." 
 
 Railway Extension. 
 When the present Secretary for India took office, I 
 took the liberty of long acquaintance to urge him to do 
 a great work, which would redound alike to his credit 
 and contribute in the most marked manner to the growth 
 of Indian industries. At that time all articles of metal 
 were at least ten per cent., all round, cheaper than they 
 are at present. India wanted a fillip, and British indus- 
 tries were in that condition of stagnation out of which 
 things do not start again without a push behind from 
 some quarter or another. My advice was that he should 
 prepare a project for his colleagues, under w^hich the 
 second stage of Indian Railway and other works should 
 be accomplished in a period of five years, taking advan- 
 tage of the unusually favourable conditions of low prices, 
 and also of low freights, — conditions which probably 
 would yield ten to fifteen per cent, more length of Rail- 
 way for a lakh of rupees than might ever be achieved 
 again. For the purpose of the completion of this 
 second stage of development, I proposed that a hundred 
 millions sterling be raised at, or under, three per cent. ; 
 and either on Imperial credit, with an Indian counter 
 guarantee, or absolutely on Indian credit. I did not 
 forget my often repeated advice, that such loans should be 
 
( 31 ) 
 
 raised by way of terminable annuity, and not perpetual 
 annuity, the term being the old-fashioned ninety-nine 
 years, which period meant the assumed duration of the 
 three stories of life, always existing together — the child, 
 the parent, and the grand parent. 
 
 The noble Viscount had, I am convinced, the foresight 
 and the courage of the occasion, but little was done. 
 True, the Nagpore line — which opens out a good district, 
 where grain has rotted for want of transport, while 
 famine was decimating the people at no great distance 
 from abundance — was commenced, and is now nearly 
 completed for opening. This Railway will also give a 
 short route between Bombay and Calcutta. The line com- 
 pleting the communication throughout, as between the 
 Port of Rangoon and ]\Iandalay, in Burmah, has also been 
 opened ; and the military lines on the North Western 
 frontier, together with important works, such as the 
 great Sukkur Bridge and others, have been proceeded 
 with ; but no distinct mark has been made. 
 
 One hundred millions sterling would make twenty 
 thousand miles of new railway at five thousand pounds 
 sterling a mile. 
 
 In his most interesting address, recently delivered at 
 the Society of Arts, Sir Juland Danvers said, " There is 
 no cause for boasting. More railways are required ; and 
 it is hoped that private enterprise will step in and 
 provide what is wanted. Government has done much, 
 but the taxes of the country cannot stand a larger 
 demand upon them than they at present bear," &c. 
 But the answer is — (a) That private enterprise will not 
 "step in," except on wasteful terms, leading, I repeat, 
 to India acquiring three miles of railway where she 
 ought to get five at the same annual interest charge ; 
 (b) That if private enterprise did " step in," it would do 
 so slowly, extravagantly, and on no single concentrated 
 system; and (c) That, as "a rule, what is called "private 
 
i 32 ) 
 
 enterprise " in India has been, and always will be, a 
 failure as contrasted with the combined action of the 
 State, with its perfect credit and the thorough organiza- 
 tion of its executive. 
 
 But, on the matter of taxation, to stop making rail- 
 ways, to help the Indian Budget, is simply suicidal. 
 Sir Juland tells us that, while many lines were in- 
 complete, and many others had been opened so recently 
 that they were undeveloped, still, on the whole rail- 
 way capital expenditure in 1887, a return of £5 : 2s. $d. 
 per cent, was realised. Thus the outlay is a profitable 
 investment. Assuming the future railways, w^hich have 
 been to a large extent planned and estimated for under 
 the charge of the Indian Government, to do as well, the 
 profit on the capital outlay would be the difference 
 between, not exceeding three per cent, as the cost of the 
 capital, and over £$ per cent, as the profit on the invest- 
 ment as such. But what would be the profit to India, 
 to the Indian of every class, from the labourer upwards ? 
 
 General Strachey has stated that the present Indian 
 railways give a gain to the country of upwards of forty 
 millions of pounds a-year. 
 
 Colonel Conway Gordon, the able Director-General of 
 Indian Railways, says: "The whole history of Indian 
 Railways is one long and unsuccessful attempt to get 
 railways constructed without a State guarantee." 
 
 English doctrinaire "fads" do not fit Indian necessities. 
 
 The refusal to extend Indian Railways on the credit of 
 the State is simply a refusal of a large profit on the 
 investment itself, and a denial to the whole people of 
 India of the far larger profit that investment would 
 create and distribute. 
 
 But let us make one or two comparisons. Canada, with 
 little over five millions of people, has over three-fourths 
 as many miles of railway opened as the whole mileage 
 of India and Burmah ; and Canada, having tried private 
 
' { 33 ) 
 
 enterprise, has found the absolute necessity of State aid, 
 in addition. The United States of America, with sixty 
 millions of people, or a little over a-fifth of the popula- 
 tion of India and Burmah, possessed, at the end of 1888, 
 one hundred and forty-six thousand miles of railway. 
 In America, thirteen thousand and eighty miles of rail- 
 way were made and opened in the single year, 1887 ; as 
 against the total of fourteen thousand eight hundred and 
 ninety miles, which it has taken forty solid years in India 
 to construct. 
 
 Is it surprising, then, that America has supplied the 
 Mother Country and some of the Colonies with the corn, 
 the meat, and the cotton which India, to the enrichment 
 of her people, might have furnished ! 
 
 I always expect to find " old womanism " in all admi- 
 nistration of human affairs ; simply because there is a class 
 which "cannot dig, and to beg is ashamed" — who must, 
 under the exigencies of party politics, be put into posi- 
 tions they are unfit to occupy ; and while, as I honestly 
 believe, the disease is not so bad in India as in Great 
 Britain, it may be bad enough. I have on my table 
 many papers about railway extensions fi-om the Port of 
 Kurrachee — ^which is four hundred miles nearer England 
 than Bombay — and fi-om the neglected port of Chitta- 
 gong, leading into Upper Assam and Upper Burmah, 
 and, in the future, to connect with China. Well, a 
 Minute of the Government of India — dated Simla, 
 August 2^, 1887 — strongly recommends the construction 
 of a new system of railways from Chittagong to Badar- 
 pur, 253I miles ; Laksham, Chandpur branch, 32 miles ; 
 Badarpur to Lumding, 115! miles ; Lumding to ^Makum, 
 2 1 3I miles; Gonhatti branch, 1105 miles; Pilchar branch, 
 18 miles: total, 742 miles. And there can be no doubt 
 that the construction of this system of lineSj^at a cost of 
 
 c 
 
( 34 ) 
 
 ;^6,505,ooo (Rs. x), would be profitable as an invest- 
 ment, made with cheap Government credit and cash, 
 and would bring to the State and people development, 
 security, and peace. No doubt whatever. " But," the 
 Government Minute goes on, " fully as the Government 
 of India recognizes the importance of opening up by 
 railway the tracts of Eastern Bengal and Assam, now 
 in question, they are not in a financial position which 
 would justify the offer of a guarantee for a purely com- 
 vtercial railway, and must, therefore, adhere to the deci- 
 sion of January, 1883 Sjicrd} beizveen six and seven years 
 ago, with nothing done\ by which the project was classed 
 in Schedule B., and can receive no aid from the State 
 beyond such as is comprised in a concession under what 
 are known as Bengal and North Western terms." Now, 
 what is the pith and the arithmetic of all this ? It is ad- 
 mitted that this system of railways is most essential. 
 But it is stated that the Government is "not in a finan- 
 cial position which would justify the offer of a guarantee 
 for a purely commercial railway." The " purely com- 
 mercial" railway pays : the purely military railway does 
 not. Therefore Government is in a financial position to 
 construct the latter, but not the former. 
 
 Going back and applying the figures • preceding, the 
 arithmetic would be this : had the Indian Government 
 gone ahead over six years ago and done the work with 
 their own 3 per cent, capital, they might have made a 
 profit of over 2 per cent, on _£6,505,ooo = in six years 
 to nearly a million : and the people, applying the figures 
 stated of the profit in development and general benefit, 
 would have received, all round (as ;^40,ooo,ooo is to an 
 outlay of ;^i 82,879,655) = about i^7, 500,000, on an outlay 
 of £6,505,000 for (say) six years, plus compound profit. I 
 give the figures as I have received them. I see little to 
 
( 35 ) 
 
 object to in them ; but if they are approximate in the 
 slightest degree what are we to say about the Simla 
 Minute r 
 
 I question the entire exactness of the division of 
 "military," and "purely commercial" railways. It is, 
 no doubt, a question of degree ; but, in principle, every 
 railway must sen^e all purposes, more or less. But the 
 " commercial " railway is assumed to be eminently 
 remunerative, while the military is not. Thus the Simla 
 !Minute assumes that " private enterprise " is to do what 
 will pay, and the State what will not pay. 
 
 It will be observed that the rough estimates above 
 assume that six years of benefit have been wiped out, and 
 tend to show the loss by the delay. 
 
 The, undeniable, advance of the wages of labour, is no 
 small portion of this profit to the people, of ^40,000,000 
 annually. 
 
 If the reader will consult the Appendix to the " Final 
 Report of the Royal Commission on Gold and Silver," he 
 will find a table showing the average wages of agri- 
 cultural and skilled labour in selected districts of India 
 and Burmah. Excluding Burmah and sea-ports — ^where 
 wages are abnormally high — the average wages where 
 the country has been opened up are, for common labourers 
 59 rupees per annum, and for skilled labourers 152 rupees 
 per annum, as compared with the calculation of Mr. Bar- 
 bour, the Financial Secretary, in 1882, of 27 rupees per 
 annum. 
 
 Note. — Five years ago, when India had less than 1 1,000 miles of railway, 
 General Strachey, the highest authority, probably, when asked whether the 
 construction of railways in India had increased the value of land so far as to 
 enable the people to more easily contribute the taxes they have to pay, replied : 
 * ' Certainly. The relief to the country is immense. The saving to the people of 
 India is, probably, twice the gross income received by the railway companies. 
 
 C 2 
 
( 36 ) 
 
 It is a very large sum indeed ; it amounts to _^30,ooo,ooo or ^^^40, 000,000, 
 prohably, ani7ually/' Thus, in 1888-9, with nearly 15,000 miles of railway, 
 against 1 1,000, the people's gain must be over the;^40,ooo,ooo I have assumed, 
 above. But, at the Society of Arts, Sir Charles Bernard, now Revenue 
 Secretary at the India Office, said : " The Government of India is often 
 taunted with having directly lost forty millions sterling on the whole railway 
 account in the last thirty years. I do not hesitate to say that the people of 
 India have benefited, every year, to that extent by the introduction of 
 railways in that country." 
 
( 37 ) 
 
 COMPARATIVE RATES of Carriage, by Railway, 
 in INDIA and the UNITED STATES. 
 
 It is very difficult to contrast the rates and fares on 
 United States and on Indian railways. There is the 
 difference of currency, the difference of weights and 
 measures ; and the draw^backs, transit combinations and 
 rings in America; dollars and cents are one thing; 
 rupees, annas and pies, quite another. Then there is 
 the "maund" in India, and the loolbs. with 2,000 lbs. to 
 a ton — and not 2,240 lbs. as in England — in the United 
 States. Then the circumstances of the people, as regards 
 passenger travelling, in the two countries are totally 
 dissimilar. 
 
 Thus, I should have been in despair in trying to make 
 even an approximate contrast, if my kind friend and 
 old acquaintance, Mr. T. W. Wood, of the Bombay 
 and Baroda Railway, had not given the following 
 information : — 
 
 45, FiNSBURY Circus, 
 London, E.G. 
 
 tth April, i88g. 
 My Dear Sir Edward, 
 
 I have pleasure in enclosing two Statements, prepared 
 on the same basis, giving some selected long distance actual 
 rates for railway carriage of main descriptions of produce or 
 manufacture now in force in India. The one marked (A) 
 relates to this Company's system; the other, marked (B), 
 relating to the East Indian Railway, and furnished to me for 
 
( 38 ) 
 
 communication to you by my friend, Mr. Dunstan, tiie Secre- 
 tary of that Company. 
 
 These Statements will, I hope, supply you with the information 
 you wish for, as regards India, in an authentic shape. 
 
 I wish I could give you similarly authentic particulars as 
 regards American rates, but I have no reliable or sufficient 
 details. 
 
 Poor's Manual for 1886 states, however, that for the year 
 1885 the averages on 123,110 miles operated by American (U.S.) 
 Railroad Companies were as follows, viz. : — 
 
 cents 
 
 Per passenger per mile 2*198 
 
 Per ton (2,000 lbs.) oi goods per mile 1*05 7 
 
 Now, Conway Gordon's Report on Indian Railways for 1887 
 indicates (see para. 12, Chap. VIII., page 98, Part L), dividing 
 receipts by mileages of units, that the average receipts on 
 13,578 miles worked were as follows, viz. : — 
 
 pies 
 
 Per passenger per mile 2-50 
 
 Per ton of goods (2,240 lbs.) per mile 7-17 
 
 These average rates represent, taking the rupee as = x^. ^d. 
 sterling, and the dollar as = 4^. sterling — 
 
 io'23 pence, 
 or 
 0*48 cents, 
 this being little more than one-fifth of the average American 
 charge — 
 
 For goods, an average receipt per ton of i ° ^^ pence, 
 2,000 lbs., of, say, per mile ( j-ig cents, 
 
 this being about 12^ per cent, more than the average American 
 charge. 
 
 The Statements I enclose show that main staples of Indian 
 agricultural produce are carried at much lower rates than the 
 averages quoted. 
 
 Believe me. 
 
 My dear Sir Edward, 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 T. W. WOOD. 
 Sir E. W. Watkin, Bart., M.P. 
 
( 39 ) 
 
 (A) 
 
 BOMBAY, BARODA, AND CENTRAL INDIA RAILWAY 
 (includes the Rajputana State Railway, the Holkar State 
 Railway, the Sindia-Neemuch State Railway, the Ruoari- 
 Ferozepore State Railway, and the Cawnpore-Achnera State 
 Railway). 
 
 Long Distance Rates. 
 
 March, 1889. 
 
 Exchange, \s. ^d. the rupee; one ton = 2,000 lbs. 
 
 T.S. means transhipment at Sabarmati from one gauge to 
 
 another. 
 Wheat. 
 
 Delhi to Bombay, T.S. 888 miles. 
 
 I aw. 9/. per maund = Rs. 16 : ^as. 3^. per ton. 
 
 = £1 : S-f. i^d. per ton, or •312^/. per ton mile. 
 
 Catanpore to Bombay, T.S. 1,071 miles. 
 
 Rs.^g : 2as. Sp. per 100 maunds=i?j.i9 : ^as. lop. per ton. 
 
 =£1 : "js. ^d. per ton, or '2,o^d. per ton mile. 
 
 Food Grains (other than wheat, including rice). 
 Delhi to Bombay, T.S. 888 miles. 
 
 was. per maimd = Rs.i6 : lias. /\p. per ton. 
 
 = £1 : IS. 8d. per ton, or '^igd. per ton mile. 
 Cawnpore to Bombay, T.S. 1,071 mUes. 
 Rs.'jg : I las. per 100 maunds = Rs.ig : ^as. i ip. per ton. 
 
 =£1 : Js. sid. per ton, or '^o^d. per ton mile. 
 
 Common Seeds (including oil seeds). 
 Cawnpore to Botnbay, T.S. 1,071 miles. 
 
 lias, per maund = Rs.i6 : iias. i\p. per ton. 
 
 = £1 : Ss. Sd. per ton, or •26^d. per ton mile. 
 
 Salt. 
 
 Kharaghoda to Botnbay, 371 miles. 
 
 8aj. per maund = Rs.iz : zas. ^p. per ton. 
 
 = ijs. 2\d. per ton, or •556^/. per ton mile. 
 Kharaghoda to Cawnpore, T.S. 818 miles. 
 Rs.'^-.bas. %p. per ioomaunds=i?j.i8 : las. $p. per ton. 
 
 =£^ '• S^' 7i'^' P^'' ^0"^' ^^ '37 S^' PC'' Ion mile. 
 Kharaghoda to Agra, T.S. 594 miles. 
 
 loas. Sp. per maund = Rs.is : i$as. 2p. per ton. 
 
 = £i : 2s. 5</. per ton, or '^S^d. per ton mile. 
 
( 40 ) 
 
 Sugar. 
 Bombay, for distances over 800 miles, T. S. 
 \p. per maund per mUe = Rs.is, : $as. \p. per ton. 
 
 (for 800 miles) 
 = £^ '• ^l^- 'i-o^d. per ton, or -^nd. per ton mile. 
 
 Cotton. 
 
 (i) Full-pressed, i. e., more than 24 Us, per cubic foot. 
 Broach to Botnbay, 202 miles. 
 
 /[as. ip. per maund = Rs.6 : ^as. 3^. per ton. 
 
 = 8j. gd. per ton, or 'Sigt/. per ton mile. 
 IVudwan to Bombay, 377 miles. 
 ?>as. lop. per maund = Rs.i^ : 6as. %p. per ton. 
 
 = 19^. per ton, or -604^. per ton mile. 
 
 (2) Half-pressed, i. e., it to w lbs. per cubic foot. 
 Broach to Bombay, 202 mUes. 
 
 "jas. \p. per maund = Rs.\o : \2as. 2p. per ton. 
 
 = I5J-. Zd. per ton, or -got^d. per ton mile. 
 Wudwan to Bombay, 377 miles. 
 iicu. 9/. per maund = Rs.I^ : iT^as. ^p. per ton. 
 
 = ;^i '■ l^- Z\d. per ton, or -805^. per ton mile. 
 
 (3) Three-quarter pressed, i.e., between 11 and 24 lbs. per cubic foot, 
 carried at approximately proportionate intermediate rates. 
 
 Piece Goods, yam and twist (in bales). 
 Bombay to Agra, T.S. 847 mUes. 
 Rs.2 : las. ip. per maund =i?j-. 53 : ^as. 8p. per ton. 
 
 =£S '• 15-y- ^d. per ton, or i-o6gd. per ton mile. 
 Bombay to Delhi, T.S. 888 miles. 
 Rs.2 : 6as. Ip. per maund =i?j.58 : goj. 9^. per ton. 
 
 =£^ '■ l^' ^d. per ton, 01 i'\2\d. per ton mile. 
 Bombay to Cawnpore, T.S. 1,071 miles. 
 .^j.222 : /\as. per 100 maunds =Rs.c,^ : oas. ip. per ton. 
 
 =£Z '• I 6j. (y^d. per ton, or •8s7</, per ton mile. 
 
 Coal. 
 
 Bombay to IVudwan, 377 miles. 
 
 SOS. lip. per maund = i?j.8 : 150^. lop. per ton. 
 
 =;^o : i2s. 9<f, per ton, or -405 per ton mile. 
 
 Iron and Steel. 
 Bombay to Delhi, T.S. 888 miles. 
 
 I4aj. Sp. per maund = Rs.22 : ^as. 6p. per ton, 
 
 = £1:1 IS. 6|rf. per ton, or •426<f. per ton mile. 
 
( 41^ ) 
 
 Timber (unwrought). 
 
 Bombay to IVudwan, 377 miles. 
 
 Jos. per inaund=:^j.io: loas. \p. per ton. 
 
 =£,0 : 1 5 J. Q^d. per ton, or •479<f. per ton mile. 
 
 Ke&osine Oil. 
 
 Bombay to Delhi, T.S. 888 miles. 
 
 Rs.\ : yis. dp. per maimd = i?j.29 : 901. ii/. per ton. 
 
 =£,2. : ij. \\\d. per ton, or 'S(>7cl. per ton mile. 
 
 T. W. W. 
 
 45, FmsBURY Circus, E.G., 
 6/A April, 1889. 
 
 (B) 
 
 EAST INDIAN RAILWAY. 
 
 Long Distance Rates. 
 
 Febraary, 1889. 
 
 Exchange, is. sd. the rupee; one ton = 2,000 lbs. 
 
 Wheat, Edible Grains, Seeds, &c. 
 Delhi to Horjtrah, 954 miles. 
 i?j.53 per 100 maunds = Rs. 12 : 140?, xp. per ton. 
 
 = i&r. 3<f. per ton, or •229</. per ton mile. 
 
 Cotton axd Wool (from Saharunpm- and beyond). 
 Ghaziabad to Hovfrah, 941 miles. 
 Rs.^ : oas. ^p. per bale of 300 lbs. \ = Rs.2f> : 150^. ip. per ton. 
 
 (pressed to not less than 43 lbs. > =£1 : i8j. 2^. per ton, or •487</. per ton 
 per c. foot). ' mile. 
 
 Coal. 
 
 Gerideh to Delhi, 795 miles. 
 Rs.}^ per 100 mamids = Rs.Xi^ : \as. bp. per ton. 
 
 = 19J. I \\d. per ton, or •301^. per ton mile. 
 
 Salt. 
 
 Howrah to Cawnpore, 684 miles. 
 i?j.45 per 100 maunds = Rs.io : \yis. op. per ton. 
 
 = 15^. bd. per ton, or •2y2d. per ton mile. 
 
( 42 ) 
 
 Piece Goods. 
 
 Howrah to via jfubbulpore, 784 miles. 
 Rs.ib^ per 100 maunds = i?J.40 : las. ip. per ton. 
 
 =£2 : i6j. Oi\d. per ton, or 'Zld. per ton mile. 
 
 Iron, Steel, Spelter, and Zinc. 
 Howrah to Delhi, 954 miles. 
 
 RsXifi per 100 raaunds =Rs.i<^ : las. ip. per ton. 
 
 = ;^i : 7J. ()d, per ton, or '^i\(>d. per ton mile. 
 
 Kerosine (for Saharunpur and beyond). 
 Howrah to via Ghaziabad, 941 miles. 
 i?j.79 : 40^'. per 100 maunds = Rs.i() : 40^. 2p. per ton. 
 
 =;^i : 7j. 2,\d. per ton, or •348(?. per ton mile. 
 
 These rates must be taken as the mileage earnings on 
 the railways ; and the cost of bringing the traffic to and 
 taking it from the stations must be added. Then con- 
 trasting Indian with United States rates, it must be 
 remembered that, while Indian rates, under the present 
 system of management, are very difficult to alter, our 
 American cousins do not hesitate in competition to 
 "cut" rates. Then the extraordinary facilities for load- 
 ing, unloading, and warehousing in the United States is 
 in itself a reduction of price. Indian rates and Indian 
 methods are not yet framed to meet United States com- 
 petition. 
 
( 43 ) 
 
 PETROLEUM FINDING IN INDIA. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 It came to the knowledge of, I believe, Sir R. Sande- 
 man, that the camels passing through the country near 
 Quetta appeared very frequently with their noses, heads, 
 and other parts of their bodies blackened by what 
 appeared to be petroleum ; and it was found that, for 
 time out of mind, this black stuff, whatever it might be, 
 had been used by the camel drivers as a cure for mange 
 and scurvy, and to heal wounds caused by the friction 
 of harness. The drivers, when appealed to, showed the 
 places — black oozes out of the ground and rocks — 
 where they gathered the substance. This led to inquiry 
 and prospecting, and Lord Dufferin having appealed 
 to Lord Lansdowne, in Canada, a very able and 
 experienced Canadian, known also, I believe, to Lord 
 Dufferin himself, was set to work to report on these 
 "finds." 
 
 His report is a public document, and I have a print of 
 it now before me. It is dated "Simla, September lo, 
 1887," is addressed "To the Secretary to the Govern- 
 ment of India, Public Works Department," and signed 
 "R. A. Townsend, Superintendent, Petroleum Works, 
 Beluchistan." The report begins thus : " At several 
 places in the Rawal Pindi plateau, in the North Pun- 
 jaub, petroleum makes its appearance, saturating sand- 
 stones, shales, and limestones of tertiary age, with little 
 or no surface accumulations ; and it may be seen in 
 small quantities upon the waters of sulphurous springs." 
 
( 44 ) 
 
 After describing the various " finds " in detail, the re* 
 port says : — " The ease with which this supposed oil-field 
 can be reached — the North Western Railway skirting it 
 for miles — the favourable lay of the land, over long wide 
 valleys, the question of fuel, water, labour and food 
 supplies, and character of climate, place it in great con- 
 trast with others known to me, where there is a pro- 
 bability of obtaining petroleum in quantity." Again, 
 " Colonel Lovett has, against hostile criticism, steadily 
 maintained his faith in petroleum being obtained in 
 quantities in his district; and he and Mr. Blackburn 
 have recently conducted boring operations at Fatehgung, 
 with poor appliances, in the hope of getting sufiicient 
 crude oil to supply Rawal Pindi with gas : let us hope 
 they may not be disappointed." 
 
 Colonel Lovett is the district engineer of the State, 
 just returned from the Black Mountain war, where his 
 sword-sheath was struck by a musket-ball, which just 
 missed his body. Mr. Blackburn is the engineer of the 
 petroleum gas-works at Rawal Pindi, which supply the 
 cantonments there. He is an " Owens College " man of 
 great promise. 
 
 The report concludes : — " To one who for years has 
 sought, and found, oily fluid in its jungle fastnesses and 
 in some dark and ugly corners of the earth, there comes 
 at this stage the temptation to make the wish the father 
 to the thought, and to recommend, without hesitation, 
 costly and extensive trial borings over the Rawal Pindi 
 plateau, which, by comparison, is so fair a land and so 
 easy of access : but this I am not prepared to do, for, 
 notwithstanding fine shows, and many of them, the 
 element of uncertainty, in testing for large deposits of 
 petroleum, is a constant attendant upon the wisest and 
 most experienced among oil miners, even with the 
 addition of a geological knowledge pertaining to such 
 
( 45 ) 
 
 work. But a steam engine and considerable plant is 
 already in the field at Rawal Pindi, and in view of the 
 many and good shows which mark the rocks at the sur- 
 face, after climbing through, perhaps, hundreds of feet 
 of strata, and in view of the great value to the Punjaub 
 in particular, and to India as a whole, which a large 
 production of an excellent quality of oil would be, I 
 think it a pity to let the question of oil or no oil, in the 
 North Punjaub, remain much longer an unsolved pro- 
 blem. The adventurous miner of America would sniff 
 the oil shows, which I have seen during the past month, 
 with mental visions of derricks, tanks, pipe-lines, and 
 refineries in the near future, and would give it a trial 
 were it in any other country than far-off India." 
 
 I have also another public document before me : a 
 report "dated Simla, the 14th September, 1888. — From 
 R. A. Townsend, Superintendent of Petroleum Works, 
 Beluchistan, to the Secretary to the Government of India, 
 Public Works Department, Simla." It begins : " I have 
 the honour to submit the following report of a recent 
 examination of the petroleum deposits in the Upper 
 Assam Valley, made by orders of the Government of 
 India ;" and while it is a very full and clear exposition 
 of w^hat the writer saw and of his views thereon, I will 
 merely quote one or two extracts, as the pith of the 
 document : — 
 
 "Throughout these hills (Tippam), so far as examined, 
 the oil shows are abundant, and of the most surprising 
 character. The sandstones bordering the chief nallas 
 are dripping with oil ; the loose sand in the stream-beds 
 is so charged with it in places that a hole made with a 
 walking-stick is immediately filled, and if a handful of 
 sand be squeezed, it parts with its oil as a sponge with 
 water. Numerous holes on the hill-sides are half filled 
 with oil, mud, leaves, &c. ; and there are places so charged 
 
( 46 ) 
 
 with oil vapour, or gases, as to be unpleasant to one 
 unaccustomed to the fumes of an oil refinery. Nowhere 
 have I seen such shows of oil in a state of nature ; they 
 are not confined to one or two isolated places, but extend 
 for miles continuously, every hill-side and nalla being 
 more or less marked by its presence." 
 
 " For want of time I did not undertake an examination 
 of the vast tract of country to the south-east of Jaipur, 
 known to contain shows of petroleum along the northern 
 border of the Nagas, and far up the valleys within them. 
 I believe them to be very like those of the Makum dis- 
 trict, but I cannot speak of their value without a careful 
 examination, further than to say, that they, together with 
 other shows, found in water- wells on many tea planta- 
 tions — such as at Bazalona and Talup, far out in the 
 plains — stamp the country in which they appear as being 
 in connection with and a continuation of the Makum 
 area, and that collectively they are an index to an oil 
 deposit of vast extent and probably of surprising rich- 
 ness." 
 
 These are the observations of an experienced and able 
 explorer, evidently endeavouring in vain to induce the 
 Indian Government to prove the extent and value of 
 their own property by their own executive organizations. 
 
 Stumbling by mere chance upon another public docu- 
 ment: it is "dated 23 March, 1888," and docketed — 
 " The Secretary of State for India in Council, and John 
 d'Oyly Noble, Esq. — Agreement." 
 
 Rumour has it that this Mr. Noble came from Canada 
 with Mr. Townsend, and managed to get this agreement 
 made in his own name. But I have only to deal with 
 the agreement as I find it. 
 
 The agreement recites that all earth oil is, by the 
 Punjaub Land Revenue Act, 1887, "deemed to be the 
 property of the Government," and that " it is competent 
 
( 47 ) 
 
 to the Government to assign and make over the right 
 to search for and extract earth oil." Then the agree- 
 ment stipulates (Clause i) : "On and from the ist day 
 of January, 1888, until the 31st December, 1890, inclusive, 
 or until the contractor has selected, in the manner here- 
 after in this article provided, five blocks of land in the 
 area and for the purposes in this article described, 
 whichever may first happen," that "the contractor 
 (Noble) shall enjoy the exclusive right of prospecting 
 for earth oil throughout the whole of the Punjaub as now 
 existing, north and west of a line drawn from the town 
 of Jammu to the town of Sialcot, thence following the 
 line of the railway via Wazirabad, Lala Musa, Pind 
 Dadan Khan, and Kundian to Khoawar, and from the 
 last-named place due west to the Western frontier of 
 the Punjaub." A reference to the map will show the 
 excessive area of this " exclusive right " of prospecting. 
 
 Then the "blocks" may "be less than, but shall not 
 exceed, five in number," and they " shall be square, 
 with sides each four miles long, each block amounting 
 to 16 square miles in total area." That is, the contractor 
 has the "exclusive right" to find out the' best and 
 richest sites, and then may select 80 square miles of 
 such best sites. The acreage is 51,200 acres. 
 
 Clause 4 stipulates that the contractor " shall imme- 
 diately after the execution of this agreement proceed to 
 Canada, and shall bring out with all despatch to the 
 area specified in Article i . . . . machinery, tools, skilled 
 mechanics, and all other necessary machinery and 
 appliances, sufiicient for the purpose of effectively pro- 
 secuting his search for earth oil with all due diligence 
 and despatch, and shall put down, to a depth of 500 feet 
 each, not less than 10 wells in the area specified in 
 Article i before the expiration of the period referred to 
 in the said article." 
 
( 48 ) 
 
 I cannot find that Mr. Noble has complied with this 
 clause, so far — but he may be doing so. 
 
 Then by Clause 7 : " The Government agrees .... 
 to buy from the contractor during a term of five years, 
 at a fixed rate of 11 Rs. 4a. 3p. per cwt., whatever 
 quantity of lubricating oil may from time to time be 
 required by the North Western Railway, and not in any 
 case less than 804 tons per annum. The said oil to be 
 delivered in bulk by the contractor into tank-wagons of 
 the said railway, &c." 
 
 The price named is £22 : los. a ton, in silver, or 
 ;^i 8,090 per annum, minimum, or a total purchase by 
 the Indian Government equal to ;i{^90,450, in silver, in 
 the five years. The price deserves criticism. 
 
 Then, " The Government agrees to transport, during 
 a period of five years, over all Indian railways worked by 
 the State, any quantity of earth oil extracted from wells 
 sunk under this agreement, and of products manu- 
 factured by the contractor .... at the uniform rate of 
 one quarter pie per maund {82 lbs.) per mile in the case 
 of consignments of full wagon-loads." 
 
 No land taxes are to be levied on the contractor. 
 
 Clause 1 1 stipulates that the royalty receivable by the 
 Government, "by way of land revenue or rent," shall be 
 "the value of one-twentieth part (calculated at the rate of 
 three rupees for every 315 pounds weight of crude earth 
 oil)," &c. 
 
 Clause 16 stipulates that "The contractor shall not 
 nor will assign, sub-let, or otherwise transfer or dispose 
 of the rights and privileges conferred by this agreement, 
 save with the written consent of the Government first 
 had and obtained." 
 
 Clause 5 is peculiar : 
 
 " For every well up to, but not exceeding, a maximum 
 of ten in all, sunk by the contractor for the purpose of 
 
( 49 ) 
 
 prospecting only, and previously to the selection by him 
 of the blocks of land hereinbefore in Article i of this 
 agreement referred to, to the depth of five hundred feet 
 or more, below the level of the ground, which does not 
 produce earth oil in remunerative quantities, and is, con- 
 sequently, abandoned by him, the Government will (but 
 subject always to the proviso hereinafter in this article 
 contained) pay to him the sum of Rs. 2,500 on account 
 of each such well so abandoned : Provided alwaySy that 
 nothing shall be payable by the Government to the con- 
 tractor on account of any such well, unless and until he 
 shall have filled up such, and shall have removed any 
 obstructions which he may have placed in, on, or near 
 the same ; and the contractor hereby binds himself to, 
 fill up all such wells so abandoned, and to remove all 
 such obstructions in, on, or near the same." 
 
 Now, I simply ask what the Government has got, or 
 can get, by thus giving a monopoly of discovery to 
 Mr. Noble ? I may be told that l^Ir. Noble's " blocks " 
 are " alternate ;" so that a spare block will always be 
 between his blocks. I have little doubt that this agree- 
 ment was made in the despair of the Indian Executive 
 of getting any better means sanctioned under the 
 shadow of "private enterprise." We must try to change 
 all this. 
 
( 51 ) 
 
 INDIAN "PRIVATE ENTERPRISE," AND THE 
 NON-DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN RE- 
 SOURCES. 
 
 — ♦ — 
 
 I NEVER like to be knocked down by such phrases as 
 "individual effort," "private enterprise," and so on. 
 The individual, and the co-operation of individuals, have- 
 functions, no doubt, and great ones. But they do not 
 possess the vast powers of the State. And thus, when 
 State work is handed over to "private enterprise" — 
 usually with some job at the back of it — there is a 
 muddle and a mess. So it will always be. 
 
 Private enterprise — meaning the action of individuals, 
 or the association of individuals unassisted by guarantees, 
 special privileges, or adequate grants in aid — has, it 
 seems to me, been a costly failure in India. It has been 
 a mistake — as respects irrigation works, railways, docks, 
 and harbours, the getting and working of minerals, and 
 so on — to rely upon it. It is true that spinning and 
 weaving companies in cotton, and in jute, cotton press 
 companies, and other such organizations, employing' the 
 cheap and sharp labour of the country, have done fairly 
 well. It is true that one or two manufacturers have 
 left England and set up mills in India, and have 
 made fortunes, free from hostile legislation and trade- 
 unions. Cawnpore may be cited as a good example ; 
 and its boot and shoe factory, where little children take 
 
 D 2 
 
( 52 ) 
 
 stitching and other piece-work, and employ as subs 
 lesser children at small pittances, to aid them — is very 
 interesting proof of the attraction of regular work with 
 regular money wages to all child-kind in India. Such 
 industries are local and domestic : no doubt they will 
 spread, there is plenty of room ; and freedom from 
 factory inspectors and strikes for wages — at least at 
 present — are valuable. People in England often forget 
 that the Government of India is paternal : and that when 
 it ceases to be so, it will cease altogether — so far as the 
 Sovereign and people of England are concerned. How 
 the Statesmen of such a Government can, even now, call 
 out for " private enterprise " to come into their parlour 
 and make great public works — as, for example, the rail- 
 ways of 720 miles, needed to open out Assam by the 
 Chittagong, Cachar and Dibrughar, and the Goalunda 
 routes, with any expectation of present or future success 
 (except by paying through the nose), — is past my 
 understanding. They know well that they never have, 
 and never will, to the world's end, raise money on bad 
 credit as well as on good. They know that the Govern- 
 ment credit always brings the cheapest money, and the 
 largest native investments. They forget the deterring 
 effect on the confidence of capital of these annual meet- 
 ings of delegates, where combination and treason-talk is 
 permitted, and the day of native rule over English people, 
 and their property, predicted. They ought to know that 
 almost everything within the range above defined, hitherto 
 committed to " private enterprise," has either had to be 
 bought back again, or is now languishing in the little- 
 ness of its results. And what is the consequence ? why, 
 that enlargement of the means of transport, and extension 
 of irrigation, and docks and harbours, go on at snails- 
 paces ; and that the " development of the vast mineral 
 resources " of India has no existence whatever — while 
 
( 53 ) 
 
 the Indian Government is waiting for the moon to come 
 to bed to them. 
 
 Fifty years ago it was known to the Indian Govern- 
 ment that wonderful deposits of coal existed in Assam : 
 notably, around and south of iSIakum, in the extreme 
 north-east of the English boundary, — as well as in other 
 districts, such as Shillong, for instance. Some eight or 
 nine years ago "private enterprise," in the persons of a 
 Calcutta firm of merchants (since in dissolution, I hear, 
 got a "concession" from the Indian Government of 30 
 square miles of coal land, and of the coal and petroleum 
 in it, in the north-east of Assam. This " private enter- 
 prise " sold its rights for a " consideration " to a London 
 Company : that London Company has spent £'j 20,000 on 
 87 miles of railway and in opening up the coal, and has 
 parted with a few hundreds to refine the petroleum found 
 in 1863 by Mr. Metcalf — who had to abandon his efforts 
 for want of capital and of transport, — and in poking about 
 in two other places. 
 
 This company — " private enterprise " — after raising 
 money in all sorts of ways, and being put to great 
 straits, earns about i per cent, on its capital, to which 
 must be added an annual " Lakh," as subsidy from India, 
 now reduced to ^7,200 in gold in London, by reason of 
 the depreciation in silver (almost all of which is absorbed 
 in paying high interest upon its debenture debts). The 
 " royalty" paid by the company on coal sent to market 
 is three annas a ton, in silver, or fourpence half-penny 
 in silver, or about threepence in gold. The largest get 
 of coal, according to the company's last report, for the 
 year 1887, was 87,000 tons, on which the royalty in 
 silver would be ;^ 1,630, as against the subsidy of a lakh, 
 or ;^ 1 0,000 in silver. So much for the profit and loss 
 account, as between the Indian Government and " pri- 
 vate enterprise" in Assam. The account would be more 
 
( 54 ) 
 
 unsatisfactory still if past years', greater, losses were 
 totalled up. But the account as between the industrial 
 and other interests of India and " private enterprise" is 
 summed up thus : the Indian taxpayer has been paying 
 thousands a year in subsidies, yet the coal — existing in 
 abundance and most easily worked — has not been got 
 out of the ground and sent to market in any adequate 
 quantity. When I was at Dibrughar, I saw about 50,000 
 tons of this really fine coal lying in stacks on the sandy, 
 muddy shore — the " private enterprise " directors in 
 London having forbidden its sale to a steamship com- 
 pany trading up there who wanted it, because of some 
 quarrel between that steamship company and another 
 steamship company — each controlled by a leading 
 Scotchman — into which quarrel "private enterprise" had 
 foolishly, and needlessly been thrown. 
 
 Then, as to petroleum, which, so far as the Govern- 
 ment agent's practical opinion goes, lies up there in 
 boundless quantity — not a physic-bottleful has been sent 
 to market after all these years under this " private enter- 
 prise." The date of the original concession was May, 
 i'88o. 
 
 There are plenty of parallels. In the above case, 
 "private enterprise" has fought against great odds 
 and vast difficulties. It has opened a highway into a 
 wilderness. Maybe, in time, it will get its money back. 
 But the great purpose of quickly and thoroughly develop- 
 ing the production of coal and petroleum in the wonder- 
 ful district of North Assam is too big for " private enter- 
 prise;" and "private enterprise" has merely kept out 
 the energy of the State. 
 
 The " Statement exhibiting the moral and material 
 jDrogress and condition of India during the year 1886-7, 
 23rd number" — ordered by the House of Commons to 
 be printed loth August, 1888 — throws a deal of light on 
 
( 55 ) 
 
 this " private enterprise" business, though it hides a good 
 deal. For instance, no statement of the royalties paid, 
 and services done, by " private enterprise" is given, under 
 any " head." 
 
 Under the head of "Mines and Mineral Resources" 
 (p. 2107), it is therein recorded : — " Out of 105 collieries, 
 there were 69 at work during the year. They em- 
 ployed 24,794 hands, as compared with 22^745 in the 
 previous year : and the total output of coal rose from 
 1,294,221 tons to 1,388,487 tons. The total imports 
 of coal from Europe and Australia during the year 
 were 765,668 tons." Now, as the East India and other 
 Railways are the owners and workers of coal-mines for 
 their large and increasing working consumption, I can 
 understand where the increase over 1884-5 ^^^ come 
 from. Certainly, where " private enterprise," in the 
 main, has got concessions for 105 collieries, and only 
 works 69 of them, development cannot be going on very 
 fast. But it must be remembered that coal has been 
 mined and carried along the great rivers and railways 
 of India for, certainly, a generation ; and yet the total 
 output is less than one-eightieth of the output of the 
 coal areas of England, Wales, and Scotland. 
 
 So much for coal. Now for iron. This Blue Book 
 says : — 
 
 "Iron is worked to a limited extent, after native 
 methods, in all provinces, and in many districts. The 
 Barrakur Ironworks, which have, within a radius of five 
 miles, excellent coal, iron, and lime, did not pay any- 
 thing during the year : the stock of pig-iron rose from 
 677 tons to 3,683 tons, and there were few buyers." 
 Now this iron-works was "private enterprise," which 
 failed ; and then the Government took it in hand, and, 
 apparently, has made a mess of it, for want of a proper 
 
( 56 ) 
 
 practical staff, and by grudging the capital necessary to 
 enable a trade to be conducted large enough to pay. 
 
 But I return to petroleum. This Blue Book says : — 
 " The companies working petroleum on the Arakan 
 coast have failed, and earth oil, there, is raised only by 
 native workers on a limited scale. The Upper Burma 
 oil-field, near Tenangyoung, is being prospected, and the 
 old oil wells are being worked under the same system as 
 under the Burmese rule. The oil is brought down to 
 Rangoon, to a refinery. It yields a comparatively 
 small proportion of burning oil, and the industry is not 
 at present flourishing. At the end of the year (1887) 
 the Khatun oil-field in Baluchistan was still being 
 investigated ; and it is hoped that it may pay to burn 
 this oil in locomotives on the Quetta Railway." 
 
 So much for a product, of which there is probably 
 more in the various regions of India than in all the 
 United States or Russia. But I will return to this 
 (Sibi) oil-find hereafter. 
 
 Now for copper. The Blue Book says : " Though 
 copper ore is found in many parts of India, and was 
 worked in old times, and though some little copper is 
 still worked in Rajputana, nearly all the copper used in 
 India comes now from Europe, China, and Australia." 
 
 Then as to lead, " Lead is found in great quantities : 
 but the company joined to work the rich lead mines of 
 Tenasserim was at a standstill, and the only lead work- 
 ings, of which report was made during 1886-7, were the 
 mines in the Shan States, some of which were visited by 
 an officer of the Geological Survey." 
 
 The next quotation is as to tin : " Tin is produced by 
 Chinese miners in the south of the province of Tenas- 
 serim ; but the Mergui mines are not nearly so productive 
 as tin mines further down the Malay peninsula." 
 
( 57 ) 
 
 I give next (p. io8) all that affects British India as to 
 gold : — " No gold sources, except river sand, yielding a 
 very poor out-turn, as with gold workings in Continental 
 India, have yet been discovered in Upper Burma." 
 The report says of the Mysore State : — " Altogether five 
 mines are returned as having been worked in Mysore 
 and the IMadras Presidency. Only one company is said 
 to be in a flourishing condition, and the Mysore Govern- 
 ment report the output of that company to be about 
 2,000 ounces a month. Though extensive areas have 
 been granted for gold mining in IMysore, actual mining 
 operations have been carried on only in a very small and 
 insignificant proportion of the areas taken up ; and in 
 no case has the work been carried on by the applicants 
 for the grant themselves." So much for " private enter- 
 prise" and gold grants. 
 
 Then as to silver : " The only silver mining of which 
 report has been made is the extraction of silver from 
 lead works in the Shan Hills. Many silver mines are 
 reported to exist in the Shan Hills ; but, as yet, only one 
 or two sites on the western edge of the Shan States 
 have been visited." 
 
 " Visited " by whom ? I regret I cannot find, so far, 
 anywhere, reports as to the perennial visits and the 
 doings of the " officers of the Geological Survey." I was 
 told that one of them said of a place, where coal has 
 since been found in abundance, that " if ever coal were 
 found there he would eat it." Has he done so ? 
 
 What is wanted is the experienced miner, and deep 
 borings systematically made, and not mere theorists in 
 geology. A system of rewards for native "findings" 
 would operate well. 
 
 The Russian Government at Bakou are developing 
 their vast petroleum supplies, and already they are com- 
 petitors of growing importance with the United States 
 
( 58 ) 
 
 and Canada, even in the Indian markets ; and had the 
 Indian Government shown a tithe of the energy dis- 
 played by Russia, Indian petroleum might by this time 
 have shared the whole trade, with a fair prospect of pro- 
 viding the bulk of Indian supply, hereafter. 
 
 An interesting article, the work of a Russian engineer, 
 appeared in the " Revue des deux Mondes," last October. 
 I recommend it to the perusal of all who care about the 
 subject, and I translate the following short extract. I 
 may premise by stating that the production of petro- 
 leum in the United States and Canada, in 1884, was 
 3,023,253 tons ; and it was probably 4,000,000 tons in 
 1888, a quantity which, at the price per ton agreed to be 
 paid by the Indian Government to Mr. Noble, as shown 
 on page 48, would be worth ^90,000,000, in silver. 
 
 " In comparing the Russian official reports with those 
 of the United States, the annual production of the latter 
 would be about double that of Russia. The propor- 
 tion would even be greater — approaching three-fold — in 
 favour of the United States, if we admit the approximate 
 estimates of M. Hue, who brings the annual production 
 of the United States up to 5,376 millions, and those of 
 Russia up to 1,954 millions, of kilogrammes. (Bakou, 
 1,932,000,000; Caucasia, 6,720,000; and Transcaucasia, 
 15,624,000, kilogrammes.) It would result from this that 
 Bakou supplies very nearly the total of the annual pro- 
 duction, since its figure qua^itity is more than 80 times 
 above that of all the other Russian localities put 
 together. But the district of Bakou, even including all 
 the peninsula of Apcheron, has only an area of 1,828 
 kilometres square, of which a portion only has been 
 worked ; it will be seen, therefore, how the producing 
 power of the United States is inferior to that of Bakou 
 in the light of the proportion between the product and 
 the extent of territory which furnishes it. In fact, that of 
 
( 59 ) 
 
 the United States being 921,355 kilometres square, or five 
 hundred times the extent of the peninsula of Apcheron, 
 the United States ought to produce, not merely two or 
 three times, but five hundred times, more than Russia. 
 This important fact proves that the richness of the supply 
 of Bakou amply compensates for what it wants in extent 
 of area. In fact, we have seen that the wells of Bakou 
 give, daily, about three times as much as those of the 
 United States. Besides that, the enormous height to 
 which the jets of petroleum at Bakou are thrown upwards, 
 constitutes a further proof in favour of the power of the 
 mass which evicts those jets, of which the height at 
 Bakou attains to 84 metres, as against 19 metres in the 
 United States. In a word, the richness of Bakou is 
 such, that jMarvin has been able to state, without exag- 
 geration, what the most favoured American miners could 
 imagine : miners obliged to sink to great depths before 
 finding the stores below, which in Russia are not far 
 distant firom the surface of the soil ; the masses which 
 are plunged in its bowels being reserved for the future." 
 
 The importation of petroleum into the United King- 
 dom — coming fi^om everywhere except India — was 
 16,613,000 gallons in 1874, and 77,390,435 gallons in 
 1887. So there is a vast market at home. 
 
 I want specially to contrast the energetic action of 
 Russia with the non-understandible inaction of India. 
 
 I go on to quote the report as to the ruby mines of 
 Burma. The report says: "The Burma ruby mines, the 
 only source of first-class rubies in the world, are not yet 
 scientifically worked .... Rubies exist, and are worked 
 fi-om the layers of gravel and earth below the surface, 
 and also fi-om clefts in the magnesian limestone, which 
 is the matrix of the gems .... The working is, however, 
 at present, clumsy, unscientific, and wasteful. It is ex- 
 pected that when machinery and experience are brought 
 
( 6o ) 
 
 to bear on the ruby sources, a much larger output of 
 rubies will be secured." 
 
 Then as to diamonds : " .... no satisfactory results 
 were gained by prospectors for diamonds, who visited a 
 part of the Deccan, which is reported to have yielded 
 diamonds several centuries ago." 
 
 One great difficulty in ruby and other mines is the 
 avoidance of theft. While I was in Calcutta I gave ;^ioo 
 to a well-known merchant to buy, when occasion offered, 
 a ruby for my dear daughter. In course of discussion 
 this gentleman told me a story he had heard from a lead- 
 ing native dealer in precious stones. It illustrates my 
 meaning : A Burmese got illicit possession of a splendid 
 ruby at the mines ; he had a hole cut in a non-dangerous 
 part of the inside of his leg ; he put the ruby inside, and 
 waited till the wound had healed up ; and he then started 
 for Calcutta, where he cut his leg open again, and sold 
 the ruby for ;^2,ooo. 
 
 Now, where it is as easy to steal, or buy from the stealer, 
 as it is to secrete precious stones — plain men would say, 
 that the strongest power of watch, of search, and of 
 punishment, was essential. That strongest power must 
 ever rest with the Executive Government. "Private 
 enterprise " is nowhere in such a case. Yet the Govern- 
 ment of India has handed over " the only source of first- 
 class rubies in the world " to an enterprising and adver- 
 tising firm of jewellers in London. Robbing them will 
 be robbing the "poor taxpayer of India" (always quoted 
 when uncovenanted servants are to be cheated out of 
 sterling pensions), and robbed they will be. " Private 
 enterprise" again! How do the Indian Government 
 propose to account with " private enterprise " in such a 
 case ! 
 
 Now, let us look at " private enterprise " and the vital 
 work of irrigation. I will only quote one sentence from 
 
( 6i ) 
 
 "this same" Blue Book, p. 14: — "The irrigation works 
 of the Cauvery, Kistna, and Godavery deltas, and of 
 Sind, yield net returns of more than 10 per cent, on the 
 capital outlay ; and the great canals of Upper India will 
 yield about 5 per cent, when complete. But the irri- 
 gation account is burdened with Rx. 8,812,423 capital 
 expended on the Orissa, Kurnool, Sone, and Deccan 
 Canals, of which the Orissa and Kurnool Canals were 
 taken over from private companies, and none of which 
 yield any appreciable dividend." 
 
 Let it be remembered that, excepting a few embarrass- 
 ing concessions dotted over the land, the granting of 
 such things being always, however unjustly, open to sus- 
 picion — concessions which merely stop the way, owing 
 to the weakness of the concessionaire — all the minerals — 
 gold, silver, iron, copper, tin, lead, precious stones, coal, 
 petroleum, fire-clay, and so on, — are the property of 
 the British Empire, the rulers and best friends of India. 
 It is not as in England, where private owners possess 
 the underground treasures of the land, and levy heavy 
 royalties. 
 
 The vital importance of the development of the mineral 
 resources of India may be regarded in several serious 
 lights: (i) as the way to redress — by the production 
 and sale of minerals on a large scale — the gold and 
 silver Indian Government difiiculty. India has to pay 
 ;^ 1 4,000,000 annually in gold in England; and it loses 
 about a third of that sum by having to realize in silver. 
 If it could pay this ;^ 14,000,000 by the sale of its 
 mineral and other resources, the difficulty would dis- 
 appear. Again, (2) as a means of effecting thereby a 
 large reduction of the taxation of the people, or as a 
 means of promoting needful and profitable public works. 
 Again, (3) as affecting enormously the employment and 
 — the same thing in a better shape — the comfort, and 
 
( 62 ) 
 
 quietude of the people. Again, (4) as rendering India 
 and England less dependent on the great protectionist 
 United States : and, (5) last of all, as giving a powerful, 
 immediate, and healthy push along to the whole industry, 
 commerce, and wealth of India. 
 
 Let me return once more to the petroleum question. 
 There is hardly a town or village in India, from the 
 Kyber Pass, and Sadija, in the extreme east of Assam, 
 to Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, where the American 
 petroleum is not used and sold — superseding mustard oil, 
 cotton-seed oil, and other native lubricants and illumi- 
 nants. One sees everywhere the inevitable Yankee 
 soldered tin can, bearing the inscription, " Warranted to 
 contain 65 pounds net of the pure kerosene oil, from the 
 celebrated Sun Refinery of Yankeedoodledum, U. S." 
 The empty cans are used for water carrying, and for all 
 conceivable purposes, all over India. Certainly it does 
 "rile" one to know that where our monopolist cousins 
 are driving a roaring trade — free of import duty — all 
 over India, there are stores of petroleum far exceeding, 
 as I believe, all that exists between the Canadian boun- 
 dary and the Gulf of Mexico : and, still, not one drop of 
 Indian petroleum has yet found its way into the great 
 markets of the world. But, alas ! this applies of many 
 other Indian things besides petroleum. 
 
( 63 ) 
 
 GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF MINERAL AND 
 OTHER DEVELOPMENT. 
 
 I ADVOCATE the establishment of a State department 
 for the development of the great mineral resources of 
 India. Those resources, now, are all but lying dormant 
 and neglected. 
 
 If objection be taken to the devotion of the State 
 Executive to the development of the State's property, 
 or to the capacity of that Executive for so serious a 
 duty, reference should be made to what the State and 
 its Executive undertakes now. By the " State " I mean, 
 of course, the Government of India in its dual condition, 
 of the Viceroy and his Council, in India, and the 
 Secretary of State for India and his Council, in 
 England. 
 
 To begin with (taking the year ended 3 1 st December, 
 1887), the State has made, or taken over, and is working 
 and managing, 8,816 miles of railway ; and is supervising, 
 and will probably take over, in whole or in part, 3,902 
 miles of railway, which have been constructed under its 
 guarantee. It has reserved power to take over the 595 
 miles of "assisted railway"; while, also, it keeps a watch, 
 and practically controls, 753 miles of "Native State" rail- 
 ways. I find in the " Summary" of the " Statement" I 
 am using, that, "on the 31st March, 1888, there were 
 14,338 miles of open railway in India, of which 988 miles 
 were opened during the previous twelve months ; 
 
( 64 ) 
 
 2,487 miles more were under construction." But no 
 doubt the State's participation in construction, working 
 and control, was the same as in the year ended 
 31st December, 1887. Therefore, it is fair to state that, 
 substantially, the railways in India are the charges of 
 the State. So are the telegraphs ; and the Indian 
 Government make submarine cables at their establish- 
 ment beyond Kurrachee. 
 
 As respects agriculture, the " Summary " reports, 
 "There is now an Agricultural Department, with a 
 selected officer for its director, in every large province 
 of India. One of the chief objects to which this officer 
 gives attention is, the maintenance and improvement of 
 the village field map and record of rights, which ought 
 to be corrected and re-written yearly for every village in 
 the Empire." Then there is a " Forest Department," 
 " manned by European officers," specially trained, which 
 conserves, cuts down, and sells timber, plants new forests, 
 and establishes " fire protection." But the great " Land 
 Revenue" Department manages the whole State property 
 with its millions of tenants, and which yields a revenue 
 "proper" of;^ 2 2,500,000, in silver, thus : "permanently 
 settled estates, ;^4,3 11,000; temporary settled estates, 
 held by proprietary brotherhoods or large proprietors, 
 ;^ 10,399,000 ; held by petty proprietors on what is called 
 Ryotwaree tenure, ;^ 7,790,000," or in total ;^2 2,500,000, 
 in silver. Then, further, a department of the State 
 Executive manages, under the title of " Wards' Estates," 
 the estates of minors and incapable persons and encum- 
 bered estates, of which, in 1886-7, there were 999, with 
 a revenue of ;^ i ,849,000, in silver (Rx.) . Coming to great 
 sources of revenue, the State plants, buys, manufactures, 
 packs, sells, and generally manages the great opium 
 revenue. This revenue in 1886 was ;^8,942,976 gross, 
 and ;^ 6, 2 1 4,000 net, in silver (Rx.). The State, again, 
 
( 65 ) 
 
 manufactures 48 per cent., and mines 22 per cent., of all 
 the salt consumed in India, only 30 per cent, coming in, 
 on duty, from abroad. The gross salt revenue was 
 ii 6,65 7,644, in silver, in 1886-7. 
 
 Beside all this, the State is sole postman, sole tele- 
 graph constructor, worker, and manager; carries out 
 and manages the great irrigation works, and all civil 
 and military works. It charges itself with the botanical 
 and other gardens, exchanging, through its able officers, 
 such as Dr. King, of Calcutta, and others, seeds and 
 plants with all the world. Under the State, chinchona 
 and other valuable drugs are grown upon "3,052 acres of 
 Government plantation in Sikkim and the Nilgiri hills, 
 and 11,417 acres of private plantations. The yield of 
 the Sikkim plantation w^as 225,631 lbs. of dry bark, 
 worked up into 6,790 lbs. of febrifuge or quinine, of 
 which 5,885 were consumed by Government hospitals and 
 dispensaries, or by the public ; the Nilgiri harvest, of 
 124,333 lbs. dry bark, was mostly sold in open market. 
 The yield of private plantations is returned at 626,146 lbs." 
 The report concludes : — " The Sikkim plantations more 
 than covered their expenses by the yield of febrifuge 
 and quinine; and the benefit to the people of India 
 from the cheapness of the drug was great." Then we 
 find State farms, State exhibitions of agricultural imple- 
 ments, State officers engaged on silkworm enquiries, 
 State stallions and brood mares — both horse and donkey, 
 and State bulls. 
 
 I think the above recital shows that the State in 
 India is capable of developing the great, untouched, 
 mineral resources belonging to the State; and that it 
 either possesses, or knows where to get, the men of 
 experience and energy needful in order to make its 
 underground and overground mineral riches valuable, in 
 increasing volume to India and to the world. 
 
 £ 
 
( 66 ) 
 
 A great executive department, created for such a great 
 purpose, should not only contain men personally expe- 
 rienced in mines and minerals, but railway men, con- 
 versant with the duties of the carrier, and men of the 
 merchant class. Let me express the belief that such a 
 department, organized on the fitness of its proposed 
 members, chosen without favouritism or patronage, 
 would, within a very few years of exploration, experi- 
 ment, and organization, send to market, in India and 
 abroad, " every year," twenty millions' worth of wealth, 
 now lying useless below and upon the surface of India. 
 
 I may be told that this is all a dream. Time will 
 show. If it could be realized, who would not approve r 
 Is it not, at least, worth the thoughtful consideration of 
 our Indian statesmen ? 
 
( 67 ) 
 
 THE "NATIONAL CONGRESS." 
 
 While at Allahabad, last December, I had the curiosity 
 to go, with a resident friend, to see the building in which 
 the Baboos, who thus entitle their annual assembly, in- 
 tended to meet this year. It was large and oblong, the 
 walls of well-moulded mud, made ornamental by round 
 pillars and simple capitals in some places, both inside 
 and out. The size was 120 feet by 80: a good-sized room, 
 which would seat 2,000 people. The roof, of rough bam- 
 boos, had been put on, but was waiting for the matting 
 and canvas, which would cover its nakedness. My friend 
 and I found a number of the organizers on the ground ; 
 and they, rather volubly, explained their arrangements 
 about the building. The contract price of the building 
 was 3,000 rupees, or £200 in gold. The building was to 
 be removed as soon as the proceedings had concluded. 
 The leading personage present, of the committee, was a 
 rich Baboo, one of a family of money lenders and owners 
 of property, to whom a good deal of that quarter of the 
 town belonged. He was also the owner of my friend's 
 house — for which he charged a big rent ; but was always, 
 I heard, greatly exercised in his mind when any little 
 repairs were needed and demanded. The cost of a broken 
 window hurt his feelings ; but any heavy work was tor- 
 ture in the extreme. 
 
 This gentleman, in brown turban and plain dress, a 
 
 £ 2 
 
( 68 ) 
 
 small, thin, grey moustache on his upper lip, carried 
 a British sovereign, with the Queen's effigy upon it, 
 suspended by a thin gold chain from his neck. This 
 was to show his loyalty, I suppose. Perhaps, also, his 
 gratitude for being allowed to live in peace and usury, 
 oppressing the poor by excessive exaction of interests 
 and prices, — without having his throat cut. All which 
 was, no doubt, also, quite consistent with his present 
 attitude as a stirrer-up of sedition, and abuse of English 
 officials in general, and now and then of English women 
 in particular. He was very proud of a meeting with Lord 
 Dufferin last year, after the Congress at Madras. He 
 said, he and six others met the Viceroy, who said they 
 might each ask a question, and he would answer. It 
 came to the turn of this gentleman last ; and his account 
 was, that he asked the Viceroy " if the income tax would 
 be taken off ?" and the Viceroy replied, " I don't think 
 it will ; but I don't think it will be increased." Whether 
 this rich, sleek, and sly old Bunia paid as little income 
 tax as he could help, may be probable. A noteworthy 
 fact appears in the " Statement " of the progress of 
 India, under the head of " Income Tax," as follows : 
 (p. 83) : "About 30 per cent, of the amount (of in- 
 come tax) collected was charged on salaries and 
 pensions (three-fourths of those paying in this sche- 
 dule being Government servants). There were 774 
 companies, paying an average of 964 rupees, whose 
 contributions were less than 6 per cent, of the total 
 proceeds ; from interest on securities, rather more than 
 5 per cent, was derived; and the remaining 59 per cent, 
 was obtained from other sources of income; one-third 
 of those assessed in this schedule being money-lenders^ 
 paying about 24 rupees each on the average ; and nine- 
 tenths of the whole number being assessed on incomes 
 of 2,000 rupees or less." I wonder if my anti-income-tax 
 
( 69 ) 
 
 friend, of the Congress Hall, is one of those who, "being 
 money lenders," pay "about 24 rupees each on the aver- 
 age." I ask Mr. "Bonargee of the 'Arcadia,' " to answer 
 the question. 
 
 On board the " Arcadia," in which, noble, ship of 
 the Peninsular and Oriental Company I left the 
 Thames on the 20th October, was a Hindu gentle- 
 man named Bonargee, a very pleasant, intelligent, 
 man. The names of Bengalee Brahmans generally end 
 in " gee " or " gi " ; and there is another Bonargee in 
 Calcutta (Surendronath), a leading congress-wallah, 
 now editor of a paper, established to abuse English rule 
 and rulers, who was educated at an English university, 
 and was at one time in an important and lucrative 
 office under the Indian Government. Why he was 
 parted, or parted, from that office, I know not. But 
 he has the repute of being an earnest and laborious 
 agitator. 
 
 While both Bonargees are, or were. Government em- 
 ployes — Bonargee of the "Arcadia" being a Govern- 
 ment counsel, holding, even now, an important office, 
 and Bonargee of Calcutta, having still, I hear, an allow- 
 ance or pension from Government — they, nevertheless, 
 deem it proper and consistent to join in the Congress 
 howl. A Mr. Hume, who predicted (according to the 
 admirable speech of the late Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, at 
 the St. Andrew's Dinner at Calcutta) mutiny and rebel- 
 lion, if his notions were not soon realized, and I believe 
 other leading wallahs, are pensioners of the State. All 
 round it is a queer position. Clearly discipline is not 
 maintained ; and it is time to call attention to these men 
 and their doings. 
 
 Now, on board the "Arcadia" there was an esteemed 
 merchant of London, Manchester, and Calcutta — Mr. 
 Yule. He is a thoughtful and very able man. Ho 
 
( 70 ) 
 
 can play two games at chess at once, and usually 
 beats his two opponents. At Calcutta I learned, 
 with surprise, that Mr. Yule had agreed to preside at 
 the Allahabad Congress ; but I think, now, I may guess 
 the reason — in one word, Bonargee of the "Arcadia:" 
 Bonargee was the tempter ; Yule bit the apple, and was 
 lost. But in justice to Mr. Yule, I must say that his 
 views, as explained, by him, to me — before he went to 
 preside at the mud temple at Allahabad, by-the-bye — are 
 moderate ; but I fear they merely serve as the purpose of 
 the sugar with which our doctors hide the interior nasti- 
 ness of their pills. I think Mr. Yule has been simply 
 made use of. How could such an astute Scotch- 
 man have been thus taken in r Mr. Yule says that 
 he merely asks that, whereas the Viceroy's Council is 
 now a nominated, it should become, as regards half its 
 members, an elected body. But the qualification of the 
 candidates, and the suffrage of the electors, he leaves to 
 the State Government ; and I think he wishes, also, to 
 leave a veto, always, in the power of the Viceroy. At 
 present, the Viceroy and his advisers give to the com- 
 mercial interests of India, and to the natives of India, 
 distinct representation ; and I have not heard any com- 
 plaint of the selection, for instance, of Mr. Steel, of Cal- 
 cutta, or of the native gentlemen picked out from a great 
 body of, no doubt eligible, candidates. Though Mr. 
 Yule's plan would, practically, substitute for a careful 
 selection of the best of the eligible men, the heat and fury 
 of an election contest, would that be a gain to thoughtful 
 and enlightened government ? In fine, would better men 
 be chosen ? It must be remembered that we are dealing 
 with a Government whose great function is that of being 
 standing arbitrator between hostile, and hating, races, 
 creeds, and customs. We do not choose high arbitrators 
 by popular election. But, would Mr. Yule's proposal 
 
( 71 ) 
 
 satisfy the Bonargees ? I will put that question in the 
 light of facts, and I will appeal to more experienced 
 opinions than my own. 
 
 First of all, the Congress is, to all intents and pur- 
 poses, a convention : as close an imitation of a distinct 
 representative body as the artful and clever agitators 
 can make it. Its members are chosen under the cloak, 
 more or less a disguise, of popular election in open 
 meeting. Its aspirations are the substitution of a Hindu 
 majority government for the government of the Viceroy 
 and his Council: while, for the purpose of the moment, 
 great loyalty to the Queen is loudly shouted out — the 
 tongues of many of these patriotic Baboos being in their 
 cheeks all the while. 
 
 Far be it from me to say that there are not gentlemen 
 learned and honest amongst those who have attended 
 the Congresses already held. But no one of those 
 learned and honest men will contradict me when I say 
 there is no pretence for calling these meetings ''National." 
 It is a false pretence. These gentlemen will not contra- 
 dict me when I say that the whole action is in opposi- 
 tion to British rule — political action. But that not one 
 attempt has been made to improve the social condition 
 of the people of India, What about the miserable Hindu 
 widow r What about the profane and grovelling super- 
 stitions, endowed as they are with immense properties — 
 as Juggernaut, for instance — swarming with priests and 
 degrading sacrifices r Where is the rebuke of the " gom- 
 been" men of India, who fatten upon the ruin of the 
 poorest of the poor r Where is the censure of the zemin- 
 dar, who, as middleman, too often grinds the faces of 
 the cultivators ? Where do we find any denunciation of 
 the exactions, the tyranny, the torture, the licentiousness 
 of Native Rule r No The whole is an attack upon the 
 best Government India ever had. 
 
( 72 ) ' 
 
 There are men at the bottom of it all who seek to 
 parody David, and create a Cave of Adullam : 
 
 "And everyone that was in distress, and everyone 
 that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented, 
 gathered themselves unto him : and he became a captain 
 over them." 
 
 I lay it down as undeniable, that a majority Govern- 
 ment in India would of absolute consequence be a des- 
 potism ; and I say that the Hindus have done nothing 
 for their own social regeneration : while we English 
 have done all the little that could be done to raise 
 them up. 
 
 My attention was called, by a Mahommedan gentle- 
 man of great learning and influence — who, I should 
 state, is, as a representative of his religion and his class, 
 strongly opposed to these Congresses (which are no more 
 "National" than were the "Three tailors of Tooley- 
 street"), as the beginning of mischief, and as, especially, 
 tending to revive buried antagonisms of religion and of 
 race — to a series of strictures on the Congress by Pro- 
 fessor Beck, a learned Englishman, now President of the 
 College at AUighur. The gentleman I allude to assured 
 me that Professor Beck's views represented the general 
 convictions of the great Mahommedan bodies in India. 
 
 In a paper entitled " In what will it End," Professor 
 Beck says : — " As it is my belief that the agitation, of 
 which the National Congress is the visible head, will, 
 if unchecked, sooner or later end in a mutiny, with its 
 accompanying horrors and massacres, followed by a 
 terrible retaliation on the part of the British Govern- 
 ment, bringing absolute ruin for the Mussulman, the 
 Rajputs, and other brave races, and resulting in the 
 retardation of all progress, I wish to place before my 
 countrymen the reasons which have led me to form this 
 opinion, and to invite a refutation of the arguments 
 
( 73 ) • 
 
 adduced. We had a sharp lesson in 1857 about the 
 inadvisability of not studying the under-currents of 
 thought in India, and I fear that if we let the Bengali 
 press and the Congress agitation go on for another ten 
 or twenty years, we shall have as disagreeable an 
 awakening as we had then." 
 
 To show the real objects of the agitators, the Pro- 
 fessor quotes from one of their publications, " The Tamil 
 Catechism," for instance, sent out — at somebody's cost — 
 to millions of ignorant people. 
 
 "^. Then you think the Congress will really be of 
 great use r — A . Yes, most certainly : for one of the best 
 means of promoting the welfare of India is the establish- 
 ment of a Grand Council, on the lines of the English 
 Parliament ; and if persevered in wisely, and guided 
 and supported by the whole country, the Congress will 
 gradually, when India is fit for this, be converted into 
 an Indian Parliament, which will take the place of the 
 sham Councils of the present day." 
 
 And he quotes the speech of Surendronath Bonargee, 
 to show what use would be made of the Councils which 
 are to supersede the "sham Councils of the present 
 day": — 
 
 " It is impossible to think of a domestic grievance, or 
 a matter of domestic complaint, which will not be reme- 
 died if the constitution of the Councils were changed 
 and remodelled according to our programm^e. Talk of 
 the separation of judicial from executive functions, why 
 the reform would be effected at once, if we had the 
 making of our own laws ! Talk of the wider employ- 
 ment of our countrymen in the public service, why the 
 Queen's Proclamation would be vindicated to the letter, if 
 we had some control over the management of our domestic 
 concerns ! You fret and fume under the rigour of an 
 income tax, which touches even the means of subsistence 
 
( 74 ) 
 
 [money lenders paying 24 rupees apiece !], why the in- 
 cidence of the tax would be altered, the minimum raised, 
 if we had anything to do with the imposition of the tax, 
 or if we were permitted to modify it ! " 
 
 And to show the extent of the demands, hidden behind 
 " loyalty to the Queen," but peeping out now and then, 
 Mr. Beck quotes a speech of a Mr. Eardly Norton — 
 whether, also, a Government employe or pensioner, is 
 not stated* — thus : — 
 
 " The day will come when an infinitely larger and truer 
 freedom will be yours, when the great question of taxa- 
 tion will be within your grasp ; when you will, in truth, 
 realize that you have got something more than mere 
 potential power; when you shall place you hand upon 
 the purse-strings of the country and the Government. 
 (Loud and continued applause.) Money is power, whether 
 it be in the hands of an individual or of a government. 
 He who has the dispensing of money is he who has con- 
 trol of all ultimate authority. (Cheers.) Once you control 
 the finance, you will taste the true meaning of power and 
 freedom." (Cheers.) 
 
 When we read "we" and "you," let us ask, who 
 are the "we" and "you" of the present? — A band of 
 Bengal lawyers and editors, aided by the flies they have 
 lured into their web. The "we" and "you" of the in- 
 tended future are the great Hindu majority of popula- 
 tion — for there can be no popular rule save that of the 
 majority ; and here the majority is formed of the most 
 ignorant and helpless of the whole people — a majority 
 steeped in the grossest and most degrading superstitions ; 
 
 ♦ Note, — I learn that this Mr. Norton is a Madras barrister. He used to 
 get so much per month from Government as coroner for Madras. The office 
 was abolished in 1888. 
 
( 75 ) 
 
 men who believe in Juggernaut and the Suttee still, and 
 whose priests would restore both to-morrow if they 
 had the power : men who at this day preserve the cruel, 
 the horrible, Hindu widow system as one of the sacred 
 articles of their religion : a system so revolting that all 
 humanity should cry out against it. 
 
 But I wish to allow Professor Beck — ^whose eminent 
 father is kno^vn in all scientific circles, and who himself 
 has had a distinguished university career — to speak for 
 himself. I shall, therefore, quote a few extracts from his 
 various " Indian Papers," and ask my friends thought- 
 fully to read them. 
 
 In answer to a book by a Mr. Cotton, who is now one 
 of the Secretaries of the Government of Bengal — a 
 Government whose returns are wanting in the Statistical 
 Abstract*— the Professor says : — 
 
 " The first obvious mistake in the book is a very common 
 one — an exaggerated importance attached to Calcutta — a belief 
 that Calcutta sways the rest of India, and hence a flattering 
 assumption that by studying Calcutta we may read the minds of 
 the people of other parts of India. Mr. Cotton writes : — ' The 
 public opinion is moulded in the Metropolis, and takes its tone 
 almost entirely from the educated community which centres in 
 the chief towns. No one can pretend to possess any knowledge 
 of native feeling who does not keep his finger on the pulse 
 of public opinion in the Presidency Towns. The people of 
 India cannot but act and think as that section of the com- 
 munity which monopolises the knowledge of politics and 
 administration, may instruct them. The educated classes are 
 the voice and brain of the country. The Bengali Babu now 
 rules public opinion from Peshawar to Chittagong.' It may be 
 concluded from these remarks that Mr. Cotton is not well 
 acquainted with Upper India or with the Mahomedan com- 
 munity of any part of the continent. To begin with, it is a 
 very erroneous assumption to suppose that the only educated 
 people in India are the people who have learnt English. This 
 is certainly most untrue of the Mahomedan community, for 
 
( 76 ) 
 
 learning has been the heritage of Islam for ages ; and although 
 INIahomedan civilization has fallen much into decay, there are 
 still to be found in India thousands of men well versed in the 
 literature of Persia and Arabia, who would be recognised in any 
 society as educated and cultivated men. It is a mistake to 
 suppose that these men have no knowledge of politics and 
 administration, that they never think about these subjects, and 
 that they exert no influence on their countrymen. On the 
 contrary, in logical thought and sound sense, their opinions 
 often contrast very favourably with the utterances of those who 
 are the apostles of the new school. Being the descendants of 
 men who have governed a mighty empire, they have very distinct 
 traditions as to the best principles of government, and the best 
 means of captivating the affections of an Oriental people ; and 
 they criticise English measures from a very different point of 
 view from that of Young Bengal. They have been largely 
 utilised by the British Government in the administration of 
 Upper India, and many of them hold important positions in the 
 Native States. Their political thought resembles the old Tory 
 school of England far more than the Radical, and they are 
 by no means so enthusiastic for democratic measures as is 
 commonly supposed by Englishmen. For example, most of 
 them dislike the freedom of the Press, and think that it is 
 calculated to fan the numerous race animosities of which India 
 is a hot bed. On the other hand, they have their own grievances 
 which find inadequate public utterance. Their first demand is 
 for sympathy from their rulers, and that they should not be 
 looked upon as an inferior race. They would prefer the Army 
 to the Civil Sen'ice, and they feel it as a stain on the national 
 honour that none of them are allowed high rank in that, to them 
 the most honourable, profession. But in thought and feeling 
 they are eminently conservative. And they are the real leaders 
 of their communities, and command their hearts and their 
 swords. 
 
 " In estimating the political situation in India, it should be 
 remembered that questions of Indian politics affect more nearly 
 the fundamental basis of society than questions of English 
 politics ; and the first essential for a sound appreciation of them 
 is to keep clearly before the mind the great physical forces 
 which lie quiescent under the calm surface of Indian life, and 
 which are the most important, and in the event of a disturbance, 
 
( 77 ) 
 
 would be the only important factors to be reckoned with. Now 
 the control of these latent forces is not, as far at least as the 
 Bengal Presidency is concerned, vested in Calcutta. If the 
 English left the countr)-, the Mahomedans, Sikhs, Rajputs, and 
 Jats would choose as their leaders men whose existence 
 Mr. Cotton ignores in his book, and these people might begin 
 to make things very unpleasant for the disciples of the new 
 school of thought. To overlook this is to overlook one of the 
 most essential facts of the political situation in India ; in New 
 India we may say, if by * New India ' we mean not the visionary 
 India of the future, but the actual India of to-day, the India we 
 see about us with our eyes — sweet and beautiful, full of attractive 
 sights and of quaint old customs, and the home at once of two 
 great Oriental civilizations, Islam and Hinduism inextricably 
 mixed. But the term 'New India' has an ambiguity which, 
 unless noticed, is fruitful of error. For it may mean those 
 political and social forces which owe their existence to English 
 influence, and which at present form so small a proportion of 
 the whole ; or it may mean the India of to-day : and it is verj' 
 easy by starting an argument in which the first premise pre- 
 supposes the former meaning, and the conclusion the latter, to 
 arrive at ver}- fallacious, though often neat and pleasing, results. 
 " The next subject I would deal with is the thesis of Chapter I., 
 that a common Indian nationality is showing itself all over 
 India. English education, as the author points out, tends to 
 bring the different peoples of India nearer together by giving 
 them a common language and a common culture. That this is 
 a cause which ought in time to produce some assimilation of the 
 different peoples of India, few will deny. But when he says 
 that an actual spirit of common nationality is fast growing up, 
 he is, it seems to me, going far ahead of the facts, and will 
 certainly give English readers a wrong impression. The facts 
 adduced to shew the existence of this sentiment are the common 
 feeling among the peoples of India on the Ilbert Bill, raised by 
 Anglo-Indian opposition, the ovation given to Lord Ripon, the 
 protestations of loyalty at the time of the Russian crisis, and last 
 of all, the mourning stated to have been general on the death of 
 Keshub Chunder Sen. With regard to the last fact, he makes 
 the following remarkable assertion : — ' The natives of all parts 
 of India, whatever their religion may have been, united with one 
 voice in the expression of sorrow at his loss, and pride in him as 
 
( 78 ) 
 
 a member of one common nation.' So far was this from being 
 the case that many well cultivated and very influential men of 
 Upper India do not even know his name. What ignorance ! 
 People may exclaim to whom the name of the leader of the 
 Brahmo Somaj is familiar. But the ignorance is no greater 
 probably than that of the learned Brahmo's countrymen of, let 
 us say, Shah Abdul Aziz, the ' Sun of India.' These facts must 
 strike one with surprise until one realises that not less than the 
 physical difference between the burning plains of Mecca and 
 the snowy heights of the Himalaya is the difference in thought 
 and feeling between the Mahomedan and Hindu worlds." 
 
 Then, in dealing with the idea of a common Indian 
 nationality, composed of all races, religions, and customs, 
 the Professor says : — 
 
 " In connection with.this idea of a common Indian nationality, 
 some interesting questions arise. In the first place, is it desirable ? 
 This is very often assumed, but it requires some proof, for 
 nobody wants to make Europe one nation. Then suppose it be 
 desirable, and highly desirable, so that it is an object worth 
 working for, what are the necessary conditions of accomplishing 
 it ? It is quite clear that if there is to be a real approximation, 
 every community in India must be prepared to sacrifice some 
 cherished customs. Are people prepared to make the necessary 
 sacrifices ? We believe not one man in ten thousand is, and 
 among the ten thousand must be reckoned Mr. Cotton. For 
 what is a nation ? The word nation implies that the people 
 who compose it have some marked points of resemblance which 
 differentiate them from other people. In a nation like England 
 we find a body of men united by race, country, government, 
 religion, language, manners and customs, and culture. In 
 Europe it is considered essential that the people to be of one 
 nation should be of one race, but in India we are obliged to 
 make an exception to this in the case of the Mahomedans, who, 
 if not a nation in the strictest sense of the term, are united by a 
 feeling very like national feeling, and derived from the religious 
 and social bond. Therefore to produce a nation in India of the 
 European type, it would be necessary that for some generations 
 there should be free intermarriage between all communities, a 
 proposal which in the East would stagger the boldest man ; 
 
( 79 ) 
 
 while a nation of the Mahomedan type would require community 
 of religion, manners and customs, and culture. In either case 
 the people of India must be made really to resemble one 
 another ; and, to begin with, the Hindus must give up their 
 caste system, which is indeed a barrier to a thorough-going 
 national feeling in their own body." 
 
 The great usury question, in combination with a plan 
 for removing populations in India, for greater union of 
 race and religion, brings this, pungent, paragraph : — 
 
 "I do not know in what part of the country the natural 
 tendency alluded to is observed. In the North-West Provinces 
 the prevailing natural tendency seems to be for the unwar- 
 like usurers — the banias — to buy up and cheat out the noble 
 old martial races, Hindu and Mahomedan alike, and to oust 
 them from their lands. And this tendency, far from offering 
 any basis for political reconstruction, is one of the least hopeful 
 signs of the future, for the banias are about as popular as their 
 brethren the Jews in Germany and Russia, and are absolutely 
 without powers of self-defence. But as for the British Govern- 
 ment, or, to speak more accurately, ' the party of foreign 
 occupiers' assisting this movement, bodily clearing off all the 
 Mahomedans of wealth and good family, and importing Hindu 
 grandees to occupy their estates and step into their social 
 position, the suggestion is worthy of Mahomed Tughlak.* 
 And when Mahomedan nobility have been replanted, how can 
 we prevent the banias from buying them up again ? Like that 
 of the land, the settlement cannot be a permanent one, but a 
 fresh sorting out will frequently be required as after a com- 
 munists' redistribution of money. Mr. Cotton's great complaint 
 of the ' foreign occupiers ' is that they have interfered too 
 much ; that they have played too paternal a part ; that their 
 railways have been too great a shock for the instincts of a 
 conservative people ; but all that they have done would be 
 child's play compared with what he now calls on them to do. 
 The aristocrats are to be driven from the associations of home 
 
 * A Mahomedan Emperor who marched off the whole city of Delhi by 
 force to the Deccan, and thereby caused infinite suffering and misery. His 
 other acts were equally interesting and mad. 
 
( 80 ) 
 
 and from the lands their ancestors have held for centuries. 
 And who are the aristocrats ? By no means only the rich 
 classes ; for many a poor man has a far higher social position 
 . than his rich neighbours. But if the charge can be brought 
 home to any man that he is a genuine aristocrat, he must be 
 hunted out like a French prince and transported. Mr. Cotton 
 is a humane man, and would no doubt not like to see this done ; 
 but it is the logical outcome of his solitary proposal for dealing 
 with the most obvious and greatest difficulty that besets his 
 scheme. Like many other Indian reformers, he does not 
 think out carefully enough the results of his proposed re- 
 forms. Although he shows in one part of his book that he 
 has observed some of the salient facts of Indian politics, yet 
 when he evolves his plans of reform he practically ignores 
 them." 
 
 And he concludes the reply to Mr. Cotton in these 
 words : — 
 
 "And inasmuch as the discontent has a social origin, it is 
 perfectly clear that if a healthy state of things is to be produced, 
 it must be through the medium of the English who come in con- 
 tact with the people, i.e., Anglo-Indians, and not by trying to 
 ride roughshod over them by means of the English in England. 
 The great result to be attained is that Englishmen, Hindus, and 
 Mahomedans, may all alike feel they are component parts, and 
 have ■ a share in the glory of a magnificent and enlightened 
 Empire. This mysterious union of East and West should be 
 beneficial not to the former only. In estimating the value of 
 India to England, most people dwell only on the material side. 
 They point to the amount of British trade with India. But India 
 might have a much higher value for the English if we knew as a 
 nation how to appreciate her — a moral and intellectual value. 
 It is the narrowest opinion of Western prejudice to suppose that 
 all beautiful ideals, all noble and profound thoughts on life, all 
 graces of civilization, have been collected in Europe alone. The 
 East, which has given birth to every religion which dominates 
 mankind, has yet, I believe, something to teach the West. In 
 this age of violent industrial competition, of socialism, of com- 
 munism, and of nihilism ; of the decay of old faiths and the 
 pessimistic wails of philosophers and poets, it may act as a 
 
( 8i ) 
 
 soothing and peace-giving influence on many a mind oppressed 
 by the fever heat of modern intellectual life to go to India, to 
 live among its people, and to breathe in the gentle influence of 
 ideals of life that belong to a far earlier but a simpler and 
 fresher period of the world's existence. England need fear no 
 impoverishment of her intellectual life by her closer union with 
 India. It is the ardent aspiration of many Natives of India and 
 of many Anglo-Indians that this union may become every day 
 a closer one, and that the Asiatic and British subjects of Her 
 Majesty may be united by growing ties of affection and respect." 
 
 Writing, specially, under the head of " The National 
 Congress," the writer says : — 
 
 " The two ' National Congresses ' hitherto held have pro- 
 claimed as the chief upshot of their proceedings a verdict in 
 favour of the introduction of representative institutions into 
 India, and it seems to be a foregone conclusion that the ap- 
 proaching meeting at Madras will endorse their opinion. In 
 fact, in the public mind, the National Congress has become 
 identified with this political scheme, to a criticism of which the 
 following lines are devoted. Now to many men this task may 
 appear superfluous. The notion of violating all historic con- 
 tinuity ; of expecting a people saturated through the centuries 
 of its long life with the traditions of autocratic rule to shake off" 
 at once its old feelings and habits, and transform itself into a 
 modem democracy; of assuming that institutions which work 
 not without friction in those nations which are most homogeneous 
 and have been longest trained in their exercise could be adapted 
 to a population five times as great as the largest in which they 
 have hitherto been tried, and as varied and heterogeneous as the 
 diverse peoples of Europe, seems to many thoughtful men, both 
 English and Native, so preposterous as to need no refutation. 
 Nevertheless, it would be optimistic to assume that unwise 
 opinions have no effect in determining the course of events; 
 nor should we trust too much to the wisdom of our rulers in 
 England." 
 
 And again : 
 
 "There are, it seems to me, at least four insurmountable 
 obstacles to the success of representative institutions in India : 
 
( 82 ) 
 
 to wit, the ignorance of the peasantry, the absence of a class 
 from which to select capable statesmen and legislators, the 
 inability of a parliament to control the army, and the mixture 
 of nationalities. First let us consider the ignorance of the 
 peasantry. The essence of parliamentary government is that it 
 is popular government ; it is a device by which the millions of 
 common men in a country control the action of the State : the 
 will of the people is the paramount power. They effect it by 
 keeping a check on their representatives, and so effective is that 
 check that the eyes of members of parliament are ever fixed on 
 their constituencies, and the actions of English statesmen are 
 curbed by the effect they are likely to produce on the popular 
 mind. The virtues of popular government are : — Firsts the great 
 stability of the constitution, due to its being backed up by more 
 than half the people; secondly, that the poor classes have a 
 means of checking the natural tendency to selfish legislation in 
 the governors. Does any one imagine that the people of India 
 are capable of performing this political feat } More than 90 
 per cent, of the population are peasants. Real representative 
 government means government subject to the control of the 
 peasantry. The Indian peasant is unable to protect himself 
 from the exaction of his zemindar or the extortions of the police- 
 man. Has he the independence or the wisdom to direct the 
 affairs of this great Empire .'' The ryot is a man not without a 
 certain culture of mind and of feeling: he has a wonderful 
 knowledge of old ballads and of the mythology of his religion ; 
 but his ignorance of politics is abysmal. Clearly he could, 
 through his representative, exercise no control over the supreme 
 legislature. And if he could, would it be desirable ? What 
 would he do } Perhaps forbid cow-killing, and spend the 
 national income on temple-building and religious celebrations. 
 Certainly his government would be a government of ignorance 
 and of superstition. It is, I contend, neither possible nor desir- 
 able that the peasant should govern India. And unless he 
 exercise real control over the government, there can be no true 
 representative government in India." 
 
 Further on : 
 
 "The government, therefore, would be neither popular as the 
 
( 83 ) 
 
 English, nor bureaucratic as the Indian, but would be a species 
 of oligarchy, giving complete political supremacy to a class 
 forming a minute percentage of the population. Now the 
 pseudo-representative government would lack the two great 
 virtues of popular government which are generally held to 
 balance its defects — its stability and its impartiality — while it 
 would not secure us the efficiency of our present method. 
 
 " First, as regards stability and strength, a prime requisite 
 in an Indian government, it is to be observed that the English 
 educated class does not at present hold in its hands the keys 
 of the magazines of physical force in this country. They have 
 no control over the native army, nor over those classes of war- 
 like peasantry which form the inflammable material of the 
 countr}'. There are two ways in which a government may 
 command the allegiance of the masses. The one is by appealing 
 to them directly, as in England ; the other is by reaching them 
 through their leaders. The former of these methods is im- 
 possible in India, on account of the ignorance of the people. 
 There is, I suppose, no doubt that although Government may 
 protect the ryots against the oppression of the taluqdar, yet in a 
 time of civil war they would join his standard rather than that 
 of the Government. They are, as they were at the time of the 
 Mutiny, completely under the influence of their hereditary chiefs, 
 who are Conservatives of a palaeozoic type ; and in some cases, 
 such as the wahabis, of their fanatical religious teachers. This 
 is a fact which our political globe-trotters rarely recognize. 
 Familiarity with modern political notions, though ultimately a 
 great assistance, acts at first rather as an impediment in coming 
 to a true knowledge of the East, as it leads the mind off" on 
 wrong tracks, and makes it jump by analogy to false conclusions. 
 But our visitors think otherwise. Flattering themselves that 
 their training in Western politics gives them a vast superiority 
 over residents of the country in appreciating the importance of 
 popular sentiment, estimated by them by the cheap method of 
 reading newspapers and talking in their own language to casual 
 men they meet, they offer the Indian statesman many prudential 
 truisms about the danger of resisting national aspirations, 
 which, as they cannot look below the surface, they completely 
 misunderstand, identifying them with such sentiments as are 
 expressed at the National Congress." 
 
 F 2 
 
( 84 ) 
 
 And : 
 
 " To this consideration must be attributed the anxiety felt by 
 men who otherwise show but little sympathy towards that nation 
 to induce the Mahomedans to take a part in this annual demon- 
 stration, and thereby increase the effect on the mind of the 
 untutored politician. Even as it is the National Congress 
 dazzles the travelling M. P., who at once thinks that he has the 
 whole moral dynamite of India bottled up in a room. As I said, 
 this is not the case. But so often is it stated to be by the 
 Native Press and by Mr. Hume, Mr. Cotton, Mr. Lai Mohun 
 Ghose and others, that I will give a concrete example taken 
 from British India, which, in the spread of modern ideas, is far 
 ahead of the Native States. The fighting men in the district of 
 Aligarh, containing a population of about a million, are under 
 the control of the following families : — The Sherwani Afghans, 
 who settled here in the time of the Pathan Emperors ; the Syeds 
 of Jelali, a noble Shia family which has supplied many good 
 ofl&cers, civil and military, to Government ; the Lalkhani 
 Pathans, converted Rajputs, one of whom was prime minister of 
 a large Native State ; the unconverted Rajputs, and the great 
 Jat taluqdars. The chiefs of these clans, numbering, we will 
 say, about two dozen, fine strong men, fonder of horses and 
 guns than of newspapers and congresses, are all ignorant of 
 English, and some of them are bitterly opposed to its teaching, 
 which they think destructive of the faith and customs of their 
 ancestors. Of their children a small minority are learning. 
 Probably the next generation will send their sons to school, 
 and in two generations, or some sixty years, the district of 
 Aligarh may have a landed gentry speaking English, if they have 
 not been by then eaten up by the banias. To satisfy the 
 aspirations of these men, one of which is for a military career, 
 nothing is done, so much is our attention taken up with the 
 attempt to conciliate irreconcilable journalists, mistaking those 
 that wear the lion's skin for the royal beast himself. 
 
 " The claim, therefore, of the National Congress to represent 
 the voice of India we may dismiss as unfounded. We have 
 shown that our pseudo-representative or mock-popular system 
 would not possess the first merit of popular government — its 
 stability : it remains to investigate how far it would possess its 
 freedom from partiality. Now, the fact that the cry that one 
 
i S5 ) 
 
 class should have absolute power begins and ends with that class, 
 is no proof that it is less disinterested than other classes. All 
 classes and most individuals love power, sometimes for itself, 
 sometimes as a means of beneficence ; and who appreciate it 
 better or enjoy it more than we Anglo-Indians ? My opponents 
 may say that now India is governed by one class, what loss 
 of impartiality if it be governed by another ? To this 
 two answers are open. Either it may be said that one 
 of these classes is more disinterested than the other; or, the 
 bureaucratic system in vogue may be pronounced more impartial 
 than a representative oligarchy. The first of these ans\\*ers 
 involves a thesis as invidious as it is diflBcult to prove: it is 
 better to assume that in any class self-interest is the rule and 
 self-sacrifice the exception. But the second position is real and 
 tangible ; and I hold that if government by a class is unavoidable, 
 the present bureaucratic system is more free from gross partiality 
 than a representative one would be. Suppose India were governed 
 by a parliament composed of, and elected by, the Anglo-Indian 
 population ; would it not be tenfold less impartial than the 
 present government ? Our Anglo-Indian statesmen, actuated by 
 deep policy or by a genuine desire for the progress of the people 
 who have been so mysteriously entrusted to the care of England, 
 represent a policy far in advance of any that could be distilled 
 out of Anglo-India by universal suffrage. How many native 
 high court judges would there have been if it had depended on 
 this vote ? Or how many statutory civilians, deputy collectors 
 and subordinate judges ? Would the income-tax — that most 
 just of taxes — have been imposed if either of the classes in 
 question had formed the electorate ? The absurd agitation 
 over the Ilbert Bill showed how much bile could be stirred up 
 both in English and native communities by applying popular 
 methods to India. The first essential of the Indian Government 
 is that, based on a true knowledge of popular sentiment and on 
 an impartial regard of the interests of all classes, it should 
 possess a strength that can afford to neglect alike the prejudiced 
 suggestions of Defence Associations and the interested proposals 
 of the Native Press. We have indications enough that the class 
 that supports the latter is not without the human failing of 
 partiality. Its ever reiterated cry is to open all civil appoint- 
 ments to competitive examination, z'.e., to take them all to itself. 
 Any regard for classes less advanced is stigmatised as iniquitous. 
 
( 86 ) 
 
 And as to whether it is phenomenally anxious to do justice to 
 the Government that has called it into existence, let those who 
 read the papers judge. 
 
 "We must abandon, therefore, the hope of securing by the 
 proposed system the impartiality of a popular government. We 
 have now to consider its probable efficiency, and this brings us 
 to our second difficulty : where are the members of parliament, 
 the capable legislators and statesmen, to come from } No 
 organisation, no institution however perfect, can be a success 
 unless the human units composing it be each adequately equipped 
 for the task assigned him. And for the government of an 
 Empire, many men provided with technical knowledge of varied 
 description, endowed with the highest practical faculties, and 
 trained by long experience, are needed. Some people think the 
 government of a country a task not beyond the capabilities 
 of an average intellect. It is admitted that the engineer who 
 has to construct a bridge, the lawyer who must master an 
 intricate case, the doctor who heals the diseases of the body, all 
 require a long special training ; but any fool is supposed capable 
 of constructing a State, of dealing with foreign diplomacy, and 
 of prescribing for the diseases of the body politic. This idea is 
 as prevalent in England as here, — perhaps more so ; but luckily 
 there is a large body of men of independent means who have 
 been trained since youth in the art of government, and into 
 whose hands the actual business falls : there is our aristocracy, 
 which always produces a crop of good statesmen and able 
 diplomatists : and there is our enormous highly-educated and 
 affluent middle class, which is the political backbone of the 
 nation. Has India any such resources } Her aristocracy is, 
 from want of training, obviously incompetent for the work, and 
 she has no middle class like ours. Her ablest men are either in 
 government service or in the legal profession. As these two 
 classes depend for their livelihood on their work, they cannot 
 afford to give their lives to legislation. Only when they retire 
 would it be possible. But parliamentary government requires 
 men to devote to it the best years of their manhood. A house 
 composed of illiterate ignoramuses, with a leaven of super- 
 annuated Government servants and briefless barristers, could 
 not supply the requisite brain-power for dealing with such 
 matters as foreign policy, the land laws, the currency questions 
 and fiscal matters, which tax to their full the powers of the 
 
( 87 ) 
 
 human intellect. The difficulty of selecting a very few competent 
 men for the Legislative Councils is a sufficient illustration. In a 
 countr}' like India, where highly-trained ability is ver)- scarce, 
 the State must make the most economical use of the materials at 
 hand. And that is done at present by attempting to select the 
 best men when young, training them for a long period of years 
 in administration, and from these choosing out the most dis- 
 tinguished for the great offices of State. Parenthetically one 
 may remark that there can be no greater cause for anxiety as to 
 the future than the doubt whether the present method of recruit- 
 ing in England for the Civil Service is furnishing us with the best 
 material available for the manufacture of statesmen. From the 
 facts stated above, there is ever}- reason to believe that the first 
 breakdown of a representative system in India would arise from 
 the inefficiency of the governing body. But this difficulty, while 
 at present the most serious, will, if the British rule lasts, be the 
 first to disappear. In two generations time it is not inconceiv- 
 able that there may be an educated aristocracy, and an influential 
 middle class grown out of the development of industry and 
 commerce. And it will no doubt be the aim of wise statesman- 
 ship to devise some method of giving these classes, which will 
 have the greatest stake in the country and be the best possible 
 conservative force and guarantee of order, a part in political life 
 without imperilling the interests of other classes, thereby satisfy- 
 ing their just aspirations to a greater share in the glory and 
 prestige of the British Empire. 
 
 " When we come to consider the powers of the proposed 
 supreme parliament, and ask what its relations are to be to the 
 British Crown and the English Parliament — whether it is to be 
 entrusted with the direction of foreign policy or confined in 
 its action to domestic affairs ; if the annual budget is to be placed 
 before it ; what powers, if any, it is to possess over the Army and 
 the Civil Service — whether, in fact, it is to have any executive 
 authority or be only a legislative machine, a fresh crop of 
 difficulties arise, one of which, the connection between the 
 parliament and the army, is singled out for discussion." 
 
 I conclude my extracts from this Paper by quoting its 
 concluding, and noble, words : 
 
 " The conclusion of the whole matter is that the representa- 
 
( 88 ) 
 
 tive system proposed by the National Congress would not be 
 true popular government, but government by a class ; would be 
 neither stable nor impartial ; would be in the hands of incom- 
 petent men ; be helpless before the army ; and offer no solution 
 of the problem how the different nations scattered throughout 
 India are to live at peace with one another ; but would fan race 
 prejudice and provoke civil war. The idea is an importation 
 from Europe, and has not arisen, as a natural solution of the 
 problems before us, from a study of the facts of the country. If 
 we are to copy anything from the West, we must compare India 
 with the whole of Europe and not with a small homogeneous 
 nation like England. Now, a parliament for the whole of 
 Europe is an obvious impossibility. And the present political 
 state of Europe, with all the nations armed to the teeth against 
 one another, and engaged every now and then in tremendous 
 wars which become more terrible every decade, is not the most 
 attractive ideal to put before India. Rather let us have patience, 
 work slowly and surely towards absorbing a larger element of 
 the diverse native races into the administration, give time for 
 the development of the splendid latent capacity of human intel- 
 lect to which every generation in India gives abortive birth, and 
 for the great industrial future which will raise India to such a 
 state of material prosperity as she has never before enjoyed, and 
 cast to the winds these ill-digested and illusory schemes, the 
 realization of which would be the triumph of anarchy." 
 
 In a further Paper, headed, " In what will it end," 
 there are grave sentences. I merely give three : — 
 
 "Real loyalty tries to strengthen the Government and breathes 
 a spirit of gratitude. The other loyalty is identical in its effects 
 with the disloyalty of a wily enemy. We judge of men by their 
 deeds and not by their words, and we judge of their loyalty by 
 whether their actions tend to remove the soreness from the hearts 
 of men or to aggravate it. 
 
 "Coming now to the means adopted in this Congress agitation, 
 the essential feature is that they do not confine their action to 
 the educated classes, but make every effort to extend it to the 
 ignorant. This tomfoolery about delegates necessitates it. Mass 
 meetings are held and addressed by fiery orators ; and inflam- 
 matory literature is circulated in the vernacular. Only the man 
 
( 89 ) 
 
 who believes in the infinite gullibility of the Englishman can 
 dare state that the masses in India can understand the question 
 of the reform of the Legislative Councils, of which they have 
 never even heard the name. As easily could a company of 
 English rustics comprehend the philosophy of Kant. To under- 
 stand how the Hindu is to govern India under the cloak of the 
 British name by means of a representative system imported from 
 England, the English with their swords standing by as the willing 
 slaves of their rulers, is a conception sufficiently difficult to tax 
 the intellectual resources of even a Calcutta graduate. One 
 broad issue arises at once to the popular mind. British rule or 
 Native rule .'' And when the English are abused and the griev- 
 ances of the people are dwelt on, can there be any doubt on 
 which side they will decide ? To illustrate this by an example : — 
 At a certain town a meeting was held, and as usual they secured 
 as chairman (by what means I will not specify) a ]\Iahomedan, 
 so as to keep up the deceitful farce that the Mahomedans are 
 with them. He was an uneducated nobleman, with nothing but 
 the primitive ideas of rule in his head prevalent in the savage 
 land from which he hails. They stood up and abused the 
 English before him, one man calling English Assistant Collec- 
 tors monkeys. What will be the effect on the mind of that wild 
 and ignorant chief ? I know of an unlettered Thakur Baron in 
 a Native State who asks of his friends when the next mutiny is 
 coming, being quite indifferent which side he takes, but longing 
 for something to relieve the monotony of his dull life. I will 
 not give his address lest the Congresswallahs should invite him 
 to be chairman of a meeting in his country, or should send 
 him a copy of the pamphlet to which I shall allude further on, 
 when I shall bring more specific charges of disloyalty. 
 
 " In the first part of this discussion I pointed out that the 
 very constitution of the National Congress was such that it was 
 bound to foster a spirit of discontent and mutiny in the people ; 
 that a Grievance Hall, as a permanent institution, would be like 
 a running sore bringing all kinds of aches and pains to the body 
 politic ; and that the delegate system, based as it was on popular 
 support and popular discontent, was bound to encourage a kind 
 of public speaking and literature, the object of which would be 
 to picture in glowing colours the injustice of Government. 
 And thus, however strong and however loyal the hands that 
 controlled the movement, however much they might wish not to 
 
( 90 ) 
 
 inflame discontent among the ignorant, it would be practically 
 impossible to prevent the National Congress and its ramifica- 
 tions from becoming a deadly engine of sedition. 
 
 " What, then, will be its effect when the leaders of this 
 Congress, the authorised official heads, publish in their autho- 
 rised official volumes, and throw broadcast over the land, as 
 an example to their followers in every district, literature of an 
 actively incendiary nature ? At the end of the report of the 
 National Congress is printed a pamphlet which, I am told, 
 has been largely circulated in the vernacular, in which case 
 a certain number of potential mutineers has probably been 
 already created by it. I shall make some extracts from this 
 poisonous tract, but I can, in so short a space, give no adequate 
 notion of the amount of venom hidden in it. I request all who 
 take an interest in public affairs, and in the future of this glorious 
 country and of its gifted peoples, to purchase a copy of the 
 report and study the tract for themselves." 
 
 And again : 
 
 "Now what does. this mean, and what will it lead to? It 
 means — if Government allows this sort of propaganda to go 
 on — it means the massacre of Englishmen and their wives and 
 children. For on what material is this seditious trash thrown .? 
 Not on the educated and cultured. Not on those who owe their 
 means of livelihood to British rule, and who would be swept 
 away at once if it went. Not on men who are afraid of fighting. 
 The people of these Provinces are not cowards; they love a fight 
 as well almost as an Englishman. We had examples at Delhi 
 and Etawah. And some classes of these people, notably the 
 Mahomcdan and the Thakur, the most spirited and pugnacious, 
 have lost terribly by the turn in the political kaleidoscope. 
 Religious fanaticism is not yet dead. And the poverty of the 
 whole Mahomedan community and of the noble families is so 
 distressing, and their backwardness in English education is so 
 great, that only a Government which was the slave of noise or 
 doctrinaire theories would frame measures in disregard of it. 
 Now if they are urged to dwell on their sorrows, which are in- 
 variably laid to the British Government, instead of trying to 
 improve themselves by trade and education, the result will be 
 that disloyalty will take its seat in their hearts. Do you think 
 they will stop at reform of the Legislative Councils ? And do 
 
( 91 ) 
 
 you think the Congress people who have stirred up these pas- 
 sions can allay them ? They would be blown away as butterflies 
 in a hurricane. 
 
 " The worst sufferers by a mutiny would be Mahomedans. As 
 far as savagery goes both sides would have a good fling. At 
 such a period men become fiends, and the innocent and the 
 guilty, the strong and the defenceless, share the same fate. The 
 English nation, on whose benevolence at home the Congress- 
 wallahs lay such stress, would forget all about constitutions and 
 elective councils, and cry only for vengeance. But England 
 would not lose her national existence, while the Mahomedan 
 would be irretrievably ruined. This is why the Mahomedan 
 leaders wish to keep their people from the whirlpool of political 
 agitation. My revered chief, Sir Syed Ahmed, whose humble 
 disciple in matters political I boast myself, has pointed this out 
 clearly. No one has even grappled with his arguments, but in 
 place of reason a shower of mud and abuse has been hurled at 
 him ever since. He has been called selfish, foolish, childish and 
 a flatterer. But the fact is people in other Provinces and of 
 other nations can in no way understand the circumstances and 
 feelings of the people here." 
 
 And lastly : 
 
 " In the two previous discussions I laid down the proposition 
 that popular political agitation — which has now for the first time 
 manifested itself in India on a large scale — will, unless checked, 
 presently throw the country into a most terrible state of anarchy, 
 and deliver it a prey to murder and rapine. And that as re- 
 gards this particular agitation of the National Congress, the 
 methods employed are so noxious, characterised by a spirit of 
 incendiarism so rash and so reckless (more especially in the 
 English agitators), that it has become imperatively necessary to 
 grapple with the evil in good earnest, and to apply radical 
 remedies for this dangerous disease." 
 
 In conclusion, I sincerely wish that the English press 
 would publish in full the speech of Lord DufFerin at the 
 St. Andrew's Dinner, in Calcutta, last December; and 
 also these admirable literary articles, which I have 
 quoted, by Professor Beck. 
 
( 93 ) 
 
 HINDU WIDOWS. 
 
 Mr. Reid, now Transhipment Inspector on the postal 
 route to Assam, has sent to me the following pages ; 
 and, as, I think, they disclose a terrible condition of 
 affairs, I print them on his authority. Mr. Reid w^as Chief 
 of the Detective Police Department of Calcutta for many 
 years, and was attached to the retinue on the occasion of 
 the visit of the Prince of Wales to India : 
 
 UNDETECTED CRIME. 
 By R. Reid. 
 
 Late Superintendent Calcutta Detective Department. 
 
 Ignore it as we may — for the reflection is by no means comfor- 
 ting or agreeable — there is, in truth, no serious crime committed 
 in this country which can be committed with greater safety and 
 impunity than the crime of murder. A Hindoo widow yields to 
 the temptation of " love unlawful," the intrigue continues until 
 the secret of the frail fair one becomes too prominent for conceal- 
 ment ; then her family and friends awake to the bitter and 
 humiliating position. They beat their heads after the Oriental 
 fashion (Europeans would beat the head of some one else, in true 
 British fashion — under similar circumstances), and curse the 
 English Government for abolishing suttee! Yet the matter is 
 kept a profound secret, and ever}- possible precaution is adopted 
 to prevent the scandal getting abroad. The offending widow is 
 sent on a " pilgrimage," or goes into *•' retreat " (I must apologise 
 to my Roman Catholic friends for using the word "retreat" in a 
 
( 94 ) 
 
 new sense) ; and if she is fortunate enough to survive the course 
 of treatment usually prescribed, by way of penance, for such 
 transgressions, reappears, absolved of the burden of hor sin. 
 But how few survive the ordeal ? For the Dai is but a clumsy 
 operator, and more succumb to her treatment than survive it. 
 But oh ! how much more unfortunate still is the luckless widow 
 whose case will not yield to the manipulations of the native 
 midwife } and woe be to her if she belongs to a respectable 
 orthodox Hindoo family. Then they get up a ceremony in her 
 honour, which is called a cold suttee; they ply her with sweet 
 intoxicants, and cap her last supper on earth with a cordial that 
 covers her shame more effectually than the uncertain manipu- 
 lations of the Dai. The widow is soon a cold suttee, and is 
 hurried off to the burning ghat before the breath is out of her 
 body. (It would be a religious crime, involving the loss of caste, 
 for the pious Hindoo to permit even his dearest and nearest 
 relation to die in his house.) This ^'' cold suttee" means a double 
 murder. But the most distressing part of the business is when 
 the victim suspects foul play in the midst of these nocturnal 
 festivities got up in her honour, and manifests a disinclination 
 to partake of the "cup" intended to drown her shame and 
 sorrow in everlasting forgetfulness. Turning piteously to her 
 mother, she wails, " Mercy, mother, save me ! " but is urged in 
 reply, " Drink, daughter, drink, to save thy mother's honour and 
 keep thy father's abru ! " With regard to the crime of infanti- 
 cide, pure and simple, it is too common, and the circumstances 
 under which it is practised too well understood, to require much 
 explanation. A high caste widow gives birth to a child. The 
 new comer's mouth is immediately stuffed with hot kitchen 
 ashes. Thus, " religiously disposed of," it is thrust into a basket 
 of rubbish, and deposited by its loving grandmother in the 
 nearest river! The immorality responsible for this phase of 
 crime prevails to an extent few Englishmen would believe pos- 
 sible in a country where the social seclusion of women is the rule, 
 and liberty the exception ; and the criminals are assured a 
 certain amount of immunity because the religion and time- 
 honoured customs of the people virtually sanction the heinous 
 and revolting practice. It can be no secret to any one acquainted 
 with the inner life of the Hindoo, as to what takes place behind 
 the purdah ! yet how few, even of the men who pose as social 
 reformers, have the moral courage to expose the evil I And the 
 
( 95 ) 
 
 district officer deems it safer to blink the delicate question than 
 to grapple with it. 
 
 As for the village policeman, he is too stupid, as a rule, to be 
 of any use — and where he is less stupid than his brother, he 
 makes up by that low cunning and duplicity, which make him 
 dangerous to the community. He is open to corruption in any 
 form, and where caste conflicts with duty, he is to be least trusted. 
 He bullies the weak and the helpless. With the powerful and 
 well-to-do the policeman is always complaisant. But what can 
 the policeman do even where he is intelligent as well as honest } 
 The lapse of a widow is no offence in the law ; the magistrate 
 receives anonymous letters ; many of these he does not attend 
 to, but when the communication appears ^(>«a^</(?, the magistrate 
 forwards it on to the police authorities. But even such a case is 
 not regarded as a pressing one, and, all things considered, I 
 think wisely. Delays being frequent, the police are unable to 
 prove five cases of abortion out of five hundred. I have only 
 touched the fringe of this subject; the details would make your 
 flesh creep and your blood run cold ! There are, I admit, in 
 this, as in every other country in the world, social evils which no 
 government can grapple with ; but here, at all events, something 
 might be done to remedy the wrongs of the unfortunate widows 
 of India. Legalise re-marriage, and deprive caste of the power 
 of excommunicating the man who has the courage to unite him- 
 self to a widow, and see the result. 
 
 This far the Government might safely go, but no further. No 
 sane statesman would attempt to plunge direct to the root of 
 the evil, and abolish infant marriage, whatever that small but 
 noisy section of advanced Hindoos may say to the contrar}-. 
 This reform must be left in the people themselves. I may 
 be told that Government already sanctions the re- marriage of 
 widows. Yes ; but caste opposes it. What a position for the 
 Government of an empire ! It is all very well for English 
 oflUcials to say that the widow and her friends ought to defy 
 caste. They do not know the terrible effects of the MahajatCs 
 curse. The widow and her husband, and very often her and his 
 families, are shunned like poison. Thus, some forty or fifty 
 people may suffer for the courage of two. They suffer in life 
 and in death. No caste-man joins them in any domestic 
 ceremony ; none of them can take part in the social affairs 
 of any caste-man. 
 
 So cruelly rigid is the discipline, that it drew tears of 
 
( 96 ) 
 
 anguish from the most patient Hindoo martyr, Karsandas 
 Mulgi. He used to cry helplessly when his wife would ask 
 him when her family would be re-admitted into caste. English 
 men and women can have no idea of the bitterness of this 
 social seclusion — it is worse than the bitterness of death. 
 One result of the persecution is that few re-married couples 
 live happily together. They are hunted out of their profession, 
 and even out of their inheritance, if they have any. And not 
 being sufficiently educated to take to new modes of life, 
 husband and wife pine away in despair, accuse each other of 
 folly, and, under a sense of injury, they sometimes take to 
 evil courses. What a triumph for caste ! That the widow- 
 marriage movement in India is making head in spite of such 
 crushing oppositions, is a proof of its necessity and ultimate 
 success. If the Government would only rule that caste has no 
 right to prevent re-marriage, and instruct the Public Prose- 
 cutor to institute proceedings against the Mahajan for putting 
 a re-married widow out of caste, the reform would have an 
 easy victory. It may be asked. What are the conditions which 
 render so great an outrage on human liberty possible ? The 
 answer is ready at hand. The Hindoo marriage law is based — 
 or presumed to be based — upon their sacred books, which have 
 been received and acted upon by millions of people for untold 
 centuries. The Hindoo religion inculcates that every Hindoo- 
 girl must be married. For a father to have an unmarried 
 daughter in his house, is not only to become an outcast, and to 
 forfeit every social position, but even worse. It is regarded as 
 a religious crime, involving not merely degradation in this 
 world, but eternal punishment in the next. Every Hindoo girl, 
 therefore, must be married, to a suitable person, of course, if 
 possible ; but — suitable or unsuitable — she must be married to 
 someone, as in the case of Lubskmebai I On this subject I will 
 just quote a short passage from the published account of the 
 Decennial Missionary Conference held at Calcutta in 1882-83. 
 That noble Englishwoman, Mrs. Etherington, is speaking : — 
 
 "The last Government census brought to light the startling, 
 the fearfully significant, fact, that there are more than twenty-one 
 millions of widows in India. Have we seriously considered 
 what this really means ? There is, in India, a widow for about 
 every five males of the entire population, including even the 
 youngest male child. Am I wrong in believing that more than 
 half of these millions are widows who never were wives in any 
 
( 97 ) 
 
 true sense : mere children, whose boy husbands, in thousands of 
 cases, were never known, scarcely ever seen by them ? Only 
 those of us who have free access to them and their homes — if 
 a Hindoo widow can be said to have a home — can at all under- 
 stand what child-widowhood really means. The least that it 
 can mean is, the being deprived for ever of all that makes life — 
 I will not say enjoyable, but even bearable. Can we wonder 
 that she should say, as many a widow has said to me, ' Your 
 Government took away from us the power of perishing with our 
 husbands, and left us nothing but a life of misery. Far better 
 for us to have shared the funeral pyre of our husbands.' 
 
 " An intelligent, well-educated, and influential Hindoo gentle- 
 man once told my husband, that at least nine-tenths of the 
 children who are left widows go astray, and from my own expe- 
 rience among Hindoo women, I fear this may be no exaggera- 
 tion. I have dwelt upon this evil to the exclusion of other 
 diflSculties and hindrances to our work among the women of 
 India, in the hope that this Conference, as a large and influential 
 body, may be held to do something to seek its removal. I pre- 
 sume not to say what ought to be done, but, I venture to say, 
 that if men will not before long move in this matter, women will 
 be constrained to do so." 
 
 OTHER UNDETECTED CRIME. 
 
 But I must leave the Hindoo widow and her woes to the social 
 reformer, and proceed to another class of undetected crime very 
 common in this countr}-. A murder is committed in the neigh- 
 bourhood of a line of railway. The body of the victim is car- 
 ried, under cover of the night, and laid across the rails. The 
 train in due course passes over the corpse, and the crime is 
 converted into an accident or suicide. This ruse invariably 
 succeeds in throwing the police off" the scent of a murder ; and, 
 where it fails, it aff"ords an excellent opportunity of shirking a 
 troublesome inquiry. It is easy to see to which side opinion 
 will lean where the police are lazy, or interested in keeping down 
 the bill of serious crime in their district. 
 
 If the investigating officer is, however, enthusiastic and up to 
 his work, he will see through the deception in an instant. But, 
 as the number of police officers who understand their business 
 are few and far between, I will explain, for the benefit of the 
 majority, how to distinguish a murder from an accident or suicide. 
 
( 98 ) 
 
 When a dead body is run over by a train, the blood that escapes 
 from the mutilated trunk will be scanty in quantity, and thin and 
 watery in appearance, and will not coagulate. On the other hand, 
 if life was in the body when run over, the blood that escapes 
 from the wounds will not only be considerable in quantity, but 
 will coagulate on exposure to the atmosphere, and will also 
 appear of deeper and brighter red than the blood that escapes 
 from a dead body after mutilation. 
 
 While on this subject, of serious crimes in connection with 
 railways, it will not be out of place to say a word or two 
 regarding the diabolical attempts so frequently made to upset 
 or wreck passenger trains, and the safety and impunity with 
 which this heinous offence can be committed. When the driver 
 of a train observes the line in front of him obstructed, this is 
 what he does. He applies his brake, and brings his train to 
 a stand as speedily as possible. The guard and driver alight 
 and examine the nature of the obstruction. This done, the road 
 is cleared, and the train is pushed on to the next station, 
 where the matter is reported. 
 
 In the meantime, the perpetrators, who were probably con- 
 cealed in a nullah, or behind a copse, a short way from where 
 the line was obstructed, watching the result, walk quietly away : 
 and when the police, some hours afterwards, arrive at the spot 
 to investigate the matter, they leave the neighbourhood as wise . 
 as when they entered it. If the guard of a train in such cases 
 had the presence of mind to collect such men as he found avail- 
 able, and the moment the train is brought up send them out in 
 various directions to search every cover in the vicinity, the 
 offenders would most probably be found. 
 
 I will relate an instance of my own experience in this line of 
 detection. When the K. & D. State Railway was opened for 
 traffic, several attempts had been made to upset the train. 
 I took up the matter myself, and travelled daily by the passenger 
 train, accompanied by a set of smart trolly-men. As the line 
 was unfenced, the trains ran at reduced speed, and were easily 
 brought to a stand on observing danger ahead. I had not long 
 to wait before an opportunity offered of testing the efficacy of 
 my plans. One night the driver observed the trunk of a tree 
 placed across the rails ; he pulled up suddenly ; I rushed from 
 my carriage, and made for the most likely cover in the vicinity 
 of the obstruction, my men spreading out in various other 
 
( 99 ) 
 
 directions. As I approached a clump of bamboos, two men 
 started up and made for the nearest village. I followed them, 
 but they gained the hastee before being arrested or recognized. 
 On reaching the village, every house was searched, but the 
 inhabitants appeared fast asleep. I went round the sleepers, 
 placing my hand on the breast of each, and in this way 
 discovered the delinquents by the violent beating of their 
 hearts. This was not, of course, sufficient evidence to obtain 
 a conviction, but it put a stop to placing obstructions on the 
 line. The offence was never afterwards repeated. 
 
 The following is another instance of the ease and impunity 
 with which serious crimes may be committed. A man of the 
 Moochee caste murdered his son-in-law in the course of a domestic 
 quarrel. A short distance from their common dwelling, a tiger 
 had killed a cow, and the murderer, taking advantage of this 
 circumstance, carried the body of his victim, under cover of the 
 night, to the spot and left it there. In the morning the murderer 
 went straight to the police station and reported that his son-in- 
 law had gone to the "kill," to secure the hide of the cow, when 
 the tiger sprang upon him from a neighbouring thicket and 
 mauled him to death. This story appeared so probable, con- 
 sidering the parties made their living dealing in hides, and the 
 fact of a tiger having killed a cow at the place indicated, that the 
 police unhesitatingly accepted the statement of the murderer as 
 true. 
 
 Another instance of ingenious concealment of serious crime, 
 and I have done with this blood-curdling subject. A deliberate 
 murder was committed in an out-of-the-way place in the 
 mofussil, in the presence of several eye-witnesses. Information 
 of the crime was sent to the magistrate of the sub-division, and an 
 inspector of police was ordered to investigate the matter. He 
 proceeded, accompanied by some constables, to the scene of the 
 reported murder and arrested the parties accused. They, however, 
 denied there was any bloodshed in the neighbourhood, and told 
 the police that the man who was reported murdered had simply 
 cleared out to avoid being arrested for getting up a danger in a 
 land dispute. The opposite party maintained they saw the 
 missing man beat to death with lathees before their eyes. The 
 evidence on both sides was so well balanced that nothing but 
 the production of the body of the man alleged to have been 
 murdered could establish the charge against the accused. To 
 
 G 2 
 
( lOO ) 
 
 this task the police inspector addressed himself with commend- 
 able energy, though, unfortunately, not with equal intelligence. 
 Every tank in the neighbourhood was drawn, and the jungles for 
 miles round diligently searched, but without success. A piece of 
 ground about fifty yards from the residence of the accused 
 appeared to have been recently disturbed ; this was dug up, and 
 the police came across the carcase of a horse, which they partly 
 uncovered, but went no further ; had they done so they would 
 have found the corpse of the murdered man : it was sewn up in 
 the body of the horse, which had been disemboweled to receive 
 it. The jackals in this case proved better detectives than the 
 police, for they brought the crime to light after the guardians of 
 life and property had given the matter up as hopeless and left 
 the neighbourhood in despair. Now, considering the investi- 
 gating officer was a native, one would scarcely believe it possible 
 that he could have been deceived by a ruse of this nature. Such 
 an unusual occurrence as a native voluntarily undertaking the 
 trouble to bury a dead animal would at once excite suspicion in 
 the mind of any man possessing the slightest knowledge of the 
 country and people. 
 
( loi ) 
 
 THE NATIVE PRESS AND THE CONGRESS- 
 WALLAHS. 
 
 The Native Press, with several honourable exceptions, 
 supports the Congress-Wallahs : as the Congress-Wallahs 
 support their supporters in the Native Press : as always 
 the bad, organised, over-shout the good, unorganised. 
 
 People at home should study a little more closely the 
 question of the sources from whence the agitation-money 
 comes. It has been denied by one of the chief paid 
 agents, now in London, that Russian money has found 
 its way into the Congress pockets ; but he, at the same 
 time in a letter, very improperly sent — by way of solici- 
 tation to vote — to Members of Parliament, very naively 
 declares that any Russian money, stirring, is used 
 against the objects of the Congress. I have known 
 cases where the special advocacy of disappointed, dis- 
 honest, and tyrannical native rulers has been entrusted to 
 English agents in England. There was the case of the 
 King of Oude. There have been others. ]More recently 
 there was the Berar agitation, more or less to bring 
 English public opinion to justify handing back the 
 government of the Province of Berar to the tender 
 mercies of a native rule, which had been distinguished 
 
( 102 ) 
 
 by gross mismanagement,* and as gross injustice and 
 venality. These sins compelled the Indian Government 
 to take over the control ; and the Indian Government 
 made a thorough reform : and, as regards the Finances, 
 changed a constant deficit into an annual surplus of 
 some ^150,000 a-year, which they handed over to the 
 native ruler. Agitation, through English agents, suc- 
 ceeded in the case of Gwalior, where ;^7,ooo,ooo, in silver 
 
 * Note. — My attention has just been called to this instance of what may 
 occur under Native rule : — 
 
 "Revolting Cruelty in the Deccan.— Nothing more terrible in the 
 history of superstition- tragedies has happened for many years than that which 
 the local papers report having taken place recently in the Deccan. In a small 
 village in the Chennar taluka, in the Nizam's dominions, were several shep- 
 herds, who for some unknown, or at any rate unstated, reason were looked 
 upon by the natives with a suspicious eye. It was held that there was some- 
 thing uncanny about them, and a bachcha falling sick after being ' looked at ' 
 by one of the unhappy Strephons, it began to be whispered that the man had 
 dealings in witchcraft. Like most isolated villagers, the people were super- 
 stitious to a degree, and when an outbreak of cholera took place they 
 naturally attributed the epidemic to the evil influence of the shepherds. The 
 people murmured at them when they met, and threatened them with sticks, 
 and eventually, when the cholera had carried off fifteen or sixteen of their 
 number, the survivors assembled in a body, and went out to seize the evil 
 ones. They were successful in finding only two of them, and these they 
 brought down to the village-well, where they were solemnly tried by zpunch- 
 ayat for witchcraft. They were found guilty, of course, and sentenced to 
 death by torture. They were first carried to an open space on the outskirts 
 of the village, and there, in the presence of all the people who had escaped 
 the epidemic, their teeth were drawn with pincers and their heads shaved. 
 ' Water in which leather had been well soaked ' was then given them, and 
 they were compelled to drink liberally of it. While all this was going on, 
 two narrow pits were being dug in the sandy soil, and, when these were ready, 
 the miserable victims of superstition — alive, but in desperate agony — were 
 buried in them up to their necks. Then, as a crowning horror, wood was 
 piled round the living heads, a fire was lighted, and the skulls of the unhappy 
 men were roasted into powder. It is a melancholy kind of satisfaction to learn 
 that some twenty-eight or thirty of the villagers who took part in this ghastly 
 tragedy have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment varjdng from seven to 
 fourteen years, and we understand that Colonel Ludlow, the British Resident, 
 is moving to have this punishment increased. There is, observes the lYmes 
 of India, which gives the details, evidently a great field for missionary effort 
 in the Nizam's territory." 
 
( I03 ) 
 
 rupees, was found buried for treasonable use in the 
 future. There are other, habitual, cases where large 
 hoards have been made, and are making. All this 
 justifies the suspicion that there are sources of supply 
 which demand inquiry. Parliament ought to know 
 where the agitation-money comes from ; and the Indian 
 Government should insist on having officially audited 
 accounts ; and should enact that anyone paying or re- 
 ceiving any such moneys, except through such audited 
 accounts, should be held in penal consequences. The 
 special rancour of the British agents of the Congress- 
 Wallahs can only be attributed to the venality coming 
 from good pay, past disappointment, or the class of 
 mind which makes the spy, the procureuTy the black- 
 mailer, and creates the sort of " patriotism " which 
 Dr. Johnson described as " the last refuge of a scoun- 
 drel." Parliament ought to know the names, the careers, 
 and the varied pay and pensions of each of these indi- 
 vidual agitators. 
 
 The "Report on the administration of the Bombay 
 Presidency for the year 1887-8," referring to the native 
 newspapers of this Presidency, states : — 
 
 " Out of the 63 newspapers started in 1885, 1886, and 
 1887,-24, or over 40 per cent., were edited by men 
 either dismissed from the Government service, or con- 
 victed of theft, breach of trust, and similar offences, or 
 notorious for loose character, or of unknown social 
 status, and limited education, or by school boys, reli- 
 gious mendicants, and the like." A Native paper, com- 
 menting on this, says, this "requires to be seriously 
 considered by all the Native Newspapers in the Bombay 
 Presidency"; that instead of making such a vague asser- 
 tion, the Government ought to have published the names 
 of the newspapers whose editors were convicted of the 
 specified offences, and that the sooner the newspapers in 
 the hands of such persons are stopped by Government 
 
( I04 ) 
 
 the better ; and earnestly calls upon the Government to 
 publish the names of these papers, so that the respectable 
 portion of the Press may sever all connection with 
 them. 
 
 The Gtigerat Mitra^ of the 20th January last, says : 
 " These, and some of the older papers of the lower grade, 
 have by their writings brought shame on the Native 
 Press, which ought to establish a Newspaper Associa- 
 tion, composed of the older and respectable members of 
 the Press, under such rules as would serve to keep up 
 the high position of the vernacular portion of the fourth 
 estate." The Hitechchhu of Ahmedabad, of the 24th 
 January last, echoes these, healthy, sentiments. 
 
 I have thought it desirable to make some extracts from 
 Native newspapers, published about the time of my stay 
 in India. They are, I hear, samples of the general style 
 of the Congress Press. Their objects are — to describe 
 England as selfish, despotic, and cruel : to stir up opposi- 
 tion to the protection of our frontier, and, especially, to 
 the war of protection on the frontier of Thibet ; and to 
 the punishment of murderers by the Black Mountain 
 expedition : to libel the Viceroy : and to advocate the 
 arming of the Hindoo; and the equal authority of Native . 
 and English officering of regiments and armies. 
 
 No man can shoot a partridge in Great Britain 
 without a licence, and anyone having a gun must 
 pay an annual tax. The people of India are in 
 pretty much the same condition ; and, so far as I 
 know, no one in any class of life who could show his 
 good character, and the need for arms to defend him 
 from robbers, wild beasts, or snakes, would have difficulty 
 in obtaining a licence to carry arms. 
 
 THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT A DESPOTISM. 
 
 The Hindu .-—The Anglo-Indian Government has beep, on 
 the whole, more humane and just than were the native govern- 
 
( I05 ) 
 
 ments that preceded it ; and it is no special credit to British 
 rulers that it has been so. For they never professed to be 
 guided by the examples of Asiatic rulers ; but have declared the 
 European principles of Government to be their sole guide. 
 And judged by this standard, the Anglo-Indian despotism has 
 not shown greater justification for its perpetuation than the 
 despotism of Louis the XIV. or Frederick the Great. It 
 betrays the same selfishness, the same arrogance, and the same 
 jealousy of popular advancement, which gave birth to the 
 hideous monster of the Revolution which swept away all 
 European despotisms. But in one essential respect the Indian 
 despotism betrays the worst evil of its foreign character ; whereas 
 in European countries in times of great crises the Governments 
 depended upon the loyalty and co-operation of the people, in 
 whom they encouraged a spirit of liberty and moral elevation, in 
 India all efforts in this direction are misrepresented and opposed 
 in all the narrow and jealous spirit worthy of a ruling caste con- 
 sisting of foreigners. 
 
 The Chdruvdrtd, of the 14th January, says that though the 
 work of administration is being carried on with considerable 
 vigour under the British rule, and evidences of material power 
 meet the eye everywhere in the shape of powder and shot, and 
 though Government is raising a large revenue, still the people of 
 India are far from being happy. There are not wanting means 
 which conduce to material prosperity. There is no lack of 
 Colleges, Schools and Pathsalas, of Railways, Post Offices and 
 Law Courts. And there is the police stationed ever}-where to 
 preserve the peace. The people, nevertheless, are not happy. 
 Not only are the rulers indifferent in the matter of promoting 
 popular prosperity : they do not even hesitate to throw obstacles 
 in the way of such prosperity. 
 
 ARMING THE HINDOO, &c. 
 
 The Sahachdr,o[i\ie 5th December, says : The necessity of open- 
 ing a military school in India, of officering the native army with the 
 descendants of the ancient Indian nobility and gentr}-, and of 
 teaching the science of war to the officers of the native army, is 
 then dwelt on. As the affectionate understanding which formerly 
 existed between the sepoys and their English officers is now 
 
( 106 ) 
 
 ceasing to exist, with the result that English officers cannot now 
 inspire enthusiasm in the sepoy, and as education is infusing the 
 sentiment of patriotism into the minds of many of the sepoys, 
 the changes above indicated seem to be required for the main- 
 tenance of efficiency and martial ardour in the native army. 
 
 The Kalpataru, in its issue of the loth February, says that 
 India is under a foreign rule and has been reduced to poverty, 
 not because the people have no courage or intelligence, but 
 because there is no unity among them ; that a reference to 
 history will show that under the leadership of Shivaji the illiterate 
 Mavlas performed great exploits and overthrew the Moghal 
 empire simply by the force of unity, and that it is therefore 
 necessary for the people of India to regain the unity which once 
 existed among them, and for want of which the native rulers 
 have lost their kingdoms and have had to wander all over the 
 country. 
 
 Dealing with English opinion, another paper says : — They 
 cannot or will not understand that a remarkable change has 
 been effected by time and education among the people of this 
 country, and they therefore oppose every necessary or season- 
 able reform which is proposed for the benefit of the Indians. 
 Alarmed at the success of the Bombay Cotton Mills, whose 
 outturn is fast driving Manchester, not only out of India, but 
 also out of Burmah, China, and Japan, the Manchester mer- 
 chants are calling for the extension of the English Factory Law 
 to India. These selfish and self-seeking Englishmen are pur- 
 suing, with obloquy and hatred, all natives who are devoting 
 themselves to the welfare of their country, as well as noble- 
 hearted Englishmen like Ripon, Hume, and Caine, who favour 
 native movements for securing political rights for the people of 
 India. These people showed all the frenzy of hydrophobia in 
 their attacks upon Lord Ripon, and they that, on that occasion, 
 insisted upon their right to exercise their privileges as British- 
 bom subjects on every soil, and in every country, are now denying 
 to Mr. Hume the right of exercising in India his British privilege 
 of free political agitation. 
 
 The Samaya, of the 7th December, thanks Lord Dufferin for 
 his order on the subject of training the soldiers of the native 
 chiefs with a view of utilizing them for imperial purposes, and 
 
( 107 ) 
 
 says that if this order is carried out, Government will get some 
 30,000 soldiers gratis. 
 
 It is, therefore, time for Government to consider whether the 
 30,000 men recently added to the British army in India should 
 not be discharged. Such a reduction will set free two crores of 
 rupees from the army expenditure, and enable Government to 
 complete the works of public utility which have had to be 
 stopped for want of funds. It is hoped that Lord Dufferin will 
 advise Lord Lansdowne to this effect. 
 
 LIBELLING THE VICEROY AND THE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 The Dacca Gazette, of the loth December, says that those who 
 did not know Lord Dufferin before will be able to see him in his 
 true character in his speech at St. Andrew's Dinner. Lord 
 Dufferin is a clever diplomat, but he is a heartless man. 
 
 The same paper of the same date makes the following ob- 
 servations on Lord Dufferin's administration : — Lord Dufferin, 
 on his arrival at Bombay, declared that he would foster the 
 system of Local Self-Government inaugurated by his illustrious 
 predecessor Lord Ripon. But his Lordship has done nothing 
 in that direction. He has, on the contrar}', given his assent to 
 the obnoxious Calcutta Municipal Act, and vetoed the proposal 
 of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal to extend the right of 
 election to mofussil municipalities, and reduce the number of 
 nominated Commissioners in these municipalities. His Lordship 
 has not carried out a single recommendation of the Education 
 Commission. The Finance Committee has cost Government a 
 lot of money, but no retrenchment worthy the name has been 
 effected. The Public Service Commission has yet done no good 
 to the natives, and very little is expected from it. Lord Dufferin 
 has drained the resources of the country in wasteful and unpro- 
 fitable wars. He has exhausted the imperial treasury by 
 annexing Burma and by waging the Sikkim and Black Mountain 
 wars. He has oppressed the weak. He has, in all his acts, 
 been guided by the principle, might is right. He might have 
 averted unnecessary bloodshed, loss of life and waste of money, 
 if he had shown some patience and moderation. On the occasion 
 of the Jubilee, Lord Dufferin held out to the people of this country 
 the hope that they would get reconstituted Legislative Councils 
 But he has done nothing in this way. 
 
( io8 ) 
 
 The Navavibhdkar Sddhdrani, of the loth December, says that 
 Lord Dufferin's speech at St. Andrew's Dinner has revealed him 
 completely. His Lordship pronounced a benediction on the 
 Congress when it was born, but as it grew in years and strength 
 he began to look askance at it, like the whole official body. 
 And he concealed up to his very last moment in this country his 
 real feeling in regard to the Congress. His Excellency's 
 opposition to the Congress, which aims principally at the 
 reconstitution of the Legislative Councils on a representative 
 basis, shows that his declaration in favour of the representative 
 system in his Jubilee speech was an insincere declaration made 
 with the object of deluding the people. 
 
 The PoQua Vaibhav, in its issue of the 6th January, says : — 
 Men like Mr. Maclean, Lord Salisbury, Lord Dufferin and the 
 editor of the Pioneer, who speak in disparagement of our ambi- 
 tion, are said to be our enemies ; but we do not take this view. 
 Messrs. Hume, Gladstone, Bright and others of their opinion are 
 really the persons who are doing injury to India. It is the firm 
 determination of the people of England that the people of India 
 shall not have a particle of administrative power, howsoever 
 learned and qualified they may be, that they shall never be 
 allowed to touch the sword howsoever loyal they may be, and 
 that the British army shall never be diminished. In brief, the 
 British rule in India is intended solely for the benefit of the 
 people of England without any regard being paid to principles 
 of justice or equity, and such measures as are conducive to this 
 object are strictly to be enforced. These facts are so patent as 
 not to be doubted by any except learned fools, and they ought 
 to be deeply impressed on the minds of our countrymen. Public 
 associations and the National Congress are shams and will be of 
 no avail. Every one should remember that there is no awaken- 
 ing a man who pretends to be asleep, and should shape his con- 
 duct according to the determinations of the English nation. 
 Notwithstanding this, Mr. Gladstone and men of his type create 
 false hopes in us and mislead us. We are in vain roaming in a 
 desert in pursuit of mirage instead of taking the right direction. . 
 Our exertions are therefore futile. So long as we were unac- 
 quainted with Western education and there was no public opinion 
 amongst us, our sweet-talking rulers said, " Be educated and 
 unanimously make a reasonable demand and the generous 
 
( I09 ) 
 
 English nation will accede to it." We have done all that and 
 our rulers have now shown themselves in their true colours. 
 They plainly say, " The people of England will not give you the 
 smallest privilege. You had better canvass your social topics, 
 that is to say, hold large meetings and discuss whether women 
 should be shaved or not. Contend in this way among yourselves 
 and sit on one another's breast, and we will applaud you and 
 enjoy the spectacle ; and when you have tired each other down 
 we shall ourselves appropriate the subject of your contention." 
 Lord Dufferin says, " Under British Government one class 
 cannot predominate over another." Quite true. In the dreadful 
 conflagration that has come from the west, high or low, small or 
 large, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, are all reduced to 
 ashes. How can one then predominate over another ? How 
 can there be justice when warrants are selfishly issued against 
 persons who preach against the drinking of liquor and when 
 authority is used for suppressing temperance leagues ? What 
 compassion can there be where useful and revered cows, whose 
 safety was guaranteed even under the Moguls, are hewed and 
 slaughtered ? What happiness can there be where, while half- 
 fed people are rolling and tossing through pain, becoming lank 
 and meagre for want of salt, and shivering for want of fuel, 
 and are being starved to death on account of the exportation of 
 wheat and the slaughter of cattle by cruel people, voluminous 
 reports one after another are submitted asserting the well-being 
 and prosperity of the subjects ? Who could make us happy and 
 what was Lord Duiferin's power after all ? Who would give us 
 privileges for the mere asking ? Wake up, you learned fools, 
 even now and look around with your eyes wide open. Don't 
 you run about in pursuit of a delusion. Put the unction of 
 Lord DufFerin's speech into your eyes. Bear well in mind that 
 His Lordship's opinion is the opinion of the English nation. 
 The Proclamation of 1858 is useless. Lord Dufferin's speech is 
 the real charter of our nation. Learn it by heart and shape your 
 conduct in conformity with it. It is explicit enough as to how 
 far the English people will do anjthing willingly for you ; you 
 need only look with your eyes open. There is much meaning 
 stored in the sentence, " The police practise tyranny over the 
 people, because they are impotent." This expression of opinion 
 by Lord Dufferin is worth a lakh of rupees. He has only 
 expounded the truth and pointed out the right path. His obli- 
 
( no ) 
 
 gations cannot be adequately acknowledged. He has not said 
 that the Hindus are ineligible for any particular privileges. 
 What he has said in many places is that the English people 
 will give them none. Why should not such a magnanimous per- 
 son be hailed then ? When people like Mr. Gladstone perish 
 and the country is full of great-minded DufFerins, then only the 
 day of our rise may be said to have approached, and hence we 
 wish all success to Lord DufTerin. 
 
 The Praja Bandhu, of the 7th December, says that though 
 His Excellency Lord Dufferin had high literary attainments, 
 bore a pure character, and was not a bad man, still he failed as 
 an administrator of India. And the cause of his failure will be 
 found in his anxiety to serve the interests of his countrymen 
 rather than those of the people confided to his care. He made the 
 Burmese and Sikkim wars, and strengthened the frontiers of India 
 with the sole object of furthering the interests of his countrymen. 
 It is true he appointed lots of Commissions on the plea of doing 
 good to India. But as his heart was not in the matter, his 
 Commissions came to nothing. His partiality for his own 
 countrymen was so great that he left unpunished the acts of 
 oppression which were committed by them on the people of 
 India, and notably Sir Lepel Griffin's act of oppression against 
 the Begum of Bhopal. He tried to frustrate the Congress 
 movement by creating differences between Hindus and Mussul- 
 mans. 
 
 The Pratod, in its issue of the 31st December, says : — An in- 
 fluential newspaper published at Calcutta charges the Government 
 of India with having secretly paid money from Government 
 Treasury to several Anglo-Indian newspapers for writing against 
 the Indian National Congress. How far this allegation is true 
 is not known ; but if it be well founded, we do not know what 
 to say of this mean act of Government. Instead of taking this 
 circuitous course, is it not better to suppress the National Con- 
 gress altogether.? Why should the Government make such a 
 bugbear of a National Congress of the conquered Hindus } 
 Who will question the Government if by one stroke they stop 
 the whole agitation } The time is distant when people will be 
 called to book for their just and unjust deeds, and when they 
 will be dealt with according to their merit. Till then Govern- 
 
( III ) 
 
 ment officers should spare no pains to bring about the discom- 
 fiture of the poor Natives, and if they fail in this we shall say 
 that they are not genuine Europeans. 
 
 The Kdthidivddi, in its issue of the 12th Februarj-, writes: — 
 India weeps! There are many to wipe off her tears, but there is 
 not one in a thousand to sincerely support and help her. This 
 is India's misfortune. Twenty-five krors of her unfortunate and 
 destitute children weep day and night for a piece of bread, but 
 Britons intoxicated with the pride of riches, learning, &c., pay 
 no heed to it and turn a deaf ear to it. This is India's mis- 
 fortune. India weeps and krors of her weak and meek children 
 most helplessly entreat Britannia's sons for mercy, but these 
 hard-hearted men do not show it to them. This is India's mis- 
 fortune. Injustice is done to her ignorant children, the innocent 
 are found guilty, while the guilty are let off through influence, 
 and great distinction is observed between black and white skin. 
 Can am-thing be more unfortunate for India ? Injustice is done 
 in broad daylight to India and to her dear and innocent children. 
 European huntsmen kill several innocent Indians like dogs, and 
 the modesty of their wives and daughters is outraged in numerous 
 ways, but nothing is done to stop it. The British authorities are 
 blind though they have eyes. Favouritism and influence are 
 rampant. This is India's misfortune. Hind, how much shall 
 we mourn for you .'' Our heart breaks, we are pained at heart 
 and die without cause ! Alas ! 
 
 The Navavibhdkar Sddhdrani, of the 1 2th November, says : — 
 Sir Auckland says that the English Government's highest 
 glory consists in its having taught Indians for the first 
 time "that the end and aim of rule is the welfare of the people 
 and not the personal aggrandisement of the Sovereign." If 
 India had been always governed on this high principle, she 
 would have had few sorrows. But she has been not only not 
 governed on this principle ; she has not been governed even on 
 the principle of the personal aggrandisement of the Sovereign. 
 Government, on the principle of the personal aggrandisement 
 of the Sovereign, does far less injur)' than government on the 
 principle of the personal aggrandisement of the whole dominant 
 race. And it is the cardinal principle of British rule in India to 
 
( "2 ) 
 
 secure the personal aggrandisement of the whole English nation 
 at the expense of the Indian people. It is this principle alone 
 that can give a meaning to the aboHtion of the import duties, 
 to the monopoly of salt, to the large salaries of the English 
 officials, to the maintenance of Cooper's Hill College, and to 
 the reserving of all the posts in jthe Foreign Department for 
 Englishmen. It is government on this principle that is gradually 
 impoverishing India. 
 
 Referring to Lord DufFerin's speech at St. Andrew's Dinner, 
 the Surabhi and Pataka observes as follows : — It is no wonder 
 that the educated classes of this country should by their severe 
 criticism of Lord Dufferin's administrative measures have incurred 
 His Excellency's special displeasure. It was for this reason 
 that, before leaving India for good, His Excellency was looking 
 for an opportunity of revenging himself upon the educated 
 classes. And he did find an opportunity at the last St. Andrew's 
 Dinner. His speech at that dinner is conceived in a spirit of 
 bitter hostility towards the educated classes and the Congress 
 move'ment which the educated classes have inaugurated. Indeed, 
 so bitter is that spirit of hostility that not all the resources of his 
 splendid oratory could enable His Excellency to hide it. His 
 speech consists of two parts, one of which is devoted to extoll- 
 ing his own administration, and the other to abusing educated 
 Indians and the Congress movement. If His Excellency can 
 derive any real satisfaction from a boastful enumeration by him- 
 self of his own good qualities, and from himself characterising 
 his own administration as a faultless one, by all means let him 
 have that cheap pleasure. But the future historian of India, it is 
 certain, will not readily accept his own verdict, and will condemn 
 his administration as one of a very dark description. If depriving 
 the Burmese of their independence with the view of finding a 
 new market for British goods, if kindling the flames of war for 
 nothing in Tibet and sacrificing innumerable lives and large 
 sums of money in those flames, and if making the poor Indian's 
 mouthful of rice uneatable by robbing it of its customary pinch 
 of salt, be acts worthy of a Governor-General of India, then it 
 must be admitted that His Excellency has done his work exceed- 
 ingly well. If, however, it be dacoity to annex other people's 
 country, foolishness to unnecessarily sacrifice men and money, and 
 oppression to unnecessarily increase the burdens of a people, 
 
( "3 ) 
 
 then it will be for the future historian to say that Lord Dufferin 
 has been guilty of very grave crimes. 
 
 The Bangabdsi, of the 17th November, says that, in his reply to 
 the address presented to him by the Lahore Municipality, Lord 
 Dufferin has praised himself and his administration. His 
 Excellency has said that the people of India will derive in- 
 estimable benefits from the Public Ser\'ice Commission. The 
 writer does not know what view the Punjabis have taken of this 
 assurance of His Excellency ; but the people of Bengal are not 
 so foolish as to be thrown into ecstacies by any assurance of 
 this kind. It is ver}' much to be doubted whether the recom- 
 mendations of the Commission will be accepted by the Home 
 authorities. And even if they are accepted, the Indians will 
 certainly derive no such blessing therefrom as can make them 
 dance in joy. The English are a people who will not grant any 
 rights to the people of this country unless and until they are 
 absolutely compelled to do so. 
 
 OPPOSING FRONTIER DEFENCE. 
 
 Ihe Datnik and Samdchdr Chandrikd, of the 12th December, 
 blames Lord Dufferin for waging war against Sikkim, and His 
 Lordship will incur greater blame if he is found to have given 
 his sanction to the annexation of that State. The war against 
 Sikkim was a most unrighteous one, and has been condemned 
 from its commencement. Government vindicated its action in 
 the Sikkim affair by saying that its object was to rescue the 
 people of Sikkim from Tibetan oppression. But ever^-body 
 knows that its real object was to open a new market for English 
 traders. And this strengthens the suspicion that Government 
 will not only annex Sikkim, but also carry war into Tibet. 
 
 The Sanjivant, of the 26th January', says that it is not a desire 
 to revenge the deaths of the English officers killed by a Lushai 
 youth, but a desire to annex the countries of the Lushais and 
 the Cochins — independent States lying between the British 
 territories in India and Upper Burma respectively — which is the 
 real cause of the wars with those tribes. 
 
 The same paper says that no one has been able to show that 
 native soldiers have ever been guilty of such disgraceful be- 
 haviour as that of which the 9th Lancers, according to the late 
 
 H 
 
( 114 ) 
 
 Sir Charles Macgregor, were guilty during the Afghan War of 
 1878, and which is recorded of other English regiments on the 
 pages of Cunningham and Thornton. And yet native sepoys 
 have to serve on small salaries under young and inexperienced 
 English oflScers. 
 
 The Bangabdsi, of November 1 7th, says : — But the per- 
 sistent instigation of the British merchants, and a love of money, 
 which is so marked a characteristic of the English people, led 
 Lord Dufferin to alter this decision in spite of the strong pro- 
 tests of the Vernacular Press. As for the plea that war with 
 Tibet became necessary because the Tibetan troops at Lingtu 
 were a menace and source of irritation to the peaceful in- 
 habitants of Sikkim and Darjeeling, who that has seen the 
 English Government looking calmly on while hundreds of 
 thousands of its subjects are dying of starvation, will believe 
 that the spectacle of a mere handful of men in Sikkim and 
 Darjeeling, suffering a little annoyance, moved it so deeply as to 
 plunge it into a costly war ? 
 
( "5 ) 
 
 OFFICIAL STATEMENTS " ISSUED FROM THE 
 INDIA OFFICE. 
 
 It is unfortunate that official papers with statistics are 
 often behind the time. It is so at home with the Board 
 of Trade ; it is so at the India Office. The paper I have 
 much to quote affects the year 1886-7, rnainly, and it 
 was not "ordered to be printed" till the 1 8th August, 
 1888. Obviously, all statistics quoted are from returns 
 regularly made to date. All other information comes 
 from reports, which follow on the heel of events. Thus, 
 why we should never be allowed to follow the current as 
 it flows, is a mystery of government. 
 
 I remember, well, how the old quidnuncs of English 
 railways derided my proposals for issuing accounts, in 
 careful estimate, of expenses and net profit, fortnightly 
 or four-weekly. Still, the plan has been found to be 
 easy and economical, and, where I have had control, has 
 gone on for a generation, and is going on still. The 
 whole process is based on doing the work of the day in 
 the day, and not next day or next week. But I think if 
 I were Mr. J. A. Godley, Under-Secretary of State for 
 India, I should be ashamed to send forth a statement for 
 the year 1886-7, dated from the " India Office, September, 
 1 888." Much later, and consecutive, information must be 
 in an office presided over by Viscount Cross, who is a man 
 who will always demand the last fact, to reason upon. 
 
 H 2 
 
( ii6 ) 
 
 At all events, Parliament might have been favoured 
 with a resume^ in brief, of what had happened since the 
 year 1886-7. J^^t think of the "last information" as to 
 the petroleum finds, near Sibi, being given under date 
 "India Office, September, 1888 " : — 
 
 " At the end of the year, the Khatum oil-field in 
 Beluchistan was still being investigated, and it is hoped 
 that it may pay to burn this oil in locomotives on the 
 Quetta Railway." 
 
 Much of the information, possessing the greatest 
 interest, is merely to the end of 1886. In fact, for 
 current purposes, Mr. Godley's paper, most valuable, 
 undoubtedly, is of small use. 
 
 Here are sample entries in this " Statement" from the 
 "India Office, September, 1888." "The latest Madras 
 report upon land revenue affairs pertains to the year 
 (July to June) 1885-6." " In Ajmere the rainfall of 1886 
 was below the average, water in some of the tanks 
 failed, and the out-turn of the crops was deficient." 
 "The rainfall of 1886 was full and seasonable in the 
 Brahmaputra Valley, and was excessive in the Surma, 
 especially in the Sylhet district, where the rice crop was 
 the shortest known for many years, and prices ruled 
 high for a short time." 
 
 Why should the Madras Land Report be two or three 
 years behind ? 
 
 INDIAN STATISTICS. 
 However, here is an epitome of some of the informa- 
 tion which it is well to bear in mind when the question 
 of Indian development is being considered : — 
 
 The total population of India in the " British Territory " and 
 the "Native States" was, according to the census of 1881, 
 253,891,821. The estimated total population in March, 1887, 
 was 268,137,044. The difference is accounted for by (i) that 
 
( 117 ) 
 
 " the estimated population of Cashmere, in 1873, was 1,500,000 ; 
 of Upper Burma in 1886, 3,000,000 ; and of the Burmese Shan 
 States, 2,000,000 ;" and (2) by the fact that "the yearly increment 
 to the population is at least one half per cent." Dealing with 
 this increment alone, totally apart from any possible additions of 
 territory, the population of India in 1897 ^^'^'^ ^^ 281,543,851 
 (^ per cent, per annum for 10 years=5 per cent.=to an increase 
 of 13,406,807) (plus compound increase) ; and by the end of the 
 century it will be not far short of three hundred millions of 
 souls. So much for the alleged decrease of population. 
 
 The " distribution of population of India according to re- 
 ligion" — " as shown in the census of 188 1 " (Statistical Abstract) 
 — was stated to be : — 
 
 Hindus i87,937,438 
 
 Mahomedans 50,121,595 
 
 Aboriginals 6,426,511 
 
 Buddhists 3,4i8,895 
 
 Christians 1,862,626 
 
 Sikhs 1,853,426 
 
 Jains 1,221,885 
 
 Parsees 85,397 
 
 Jews 12,009 
 
 Others 952,039 
 
 Total 253,891,821 
 
 Note in the Abstract. — The total of all religions here given differs from 
 the total population in Table No. i, page 6, owing to the exclusion of 
 Aden and Port Blair. 
 
 The population divides itself into — 
 
 Males 129,941,851 
 
 Females 123,949,970 
 
 and it is a remarkable and sad fact that out of these totals there 
 are under the head "widowed" (see p. 31, Statistical Abstract) — 
 
 Males 5,678,382 
 
 Females 20,872,595 
 
 or an excess of female "widowed" persons of 15,194,213. In 
 other words, about one-sixth of all the women of India are 
 
( "8 ) 
 
 in the unfortunate, all but hopeless, condition of widowhood. 
 Out of the total, 16,117,135 are Hindu widows. 
 
 There were in British India, in 1885-6, 114,303 public and 
 private, primary, schools, mostly connected with the Indian 
 educational system. These schools had 2,806,471 pupils, out of 
 which only 149,922 were girls. 
 
 The area of "British territory" in 1881 was 868,314 square 
 miles, and that of "Native States" 509,730 square miles, or a 
 grand total of 1,378,044 square miles. 
 
 The number of " houses occupied " was in " British terri- 
 tory" 33,032,607, and in "Native States" 10,516,551 — or a 
 grand total of 43,549,158. The number of " towns and villages" 
 was 544,862 and 169,903 respectively, or a total of 714,765. 
 
 The average death rate in "British India," with its population 
 of 197,585,350, was, in 1878, at the rate of 28*40 per 1,000 ; in 
 1886 it was 25*33 per 1,000 of population. The death rate of 
 1886 divides itself into the following proportion of causes: — 
 
 Cholera 1-05 
 
 . Small Pox 0-26 
 
 Fevers I7'57 
 
 Bowel complaints i '34 
 
 Injuries 0*44 
 
 All other causes 4*67 
 
 Total 25-33 
 
 I may here add, that the eminent financial adviser of the 
 Viceroy of India, Mr. Westland, who resides at Calcutta, told 
 me that since the water supply of Calcutta has been made 
 abundant and wholesome, cholera has entirely disappeared from 
 the area in which that water is supplied. What cholera there 
 remains in the outside — the "country" or "mofussil" — comes 
 from the tank districts, the Hindus washing their clothes and 
 their bodies in these tanks and drinking the water. 
 
 Taking the year 1886-87, ^^^ ^^^^ of land "shown by the 
 Survey Department " is 480,667,094 acres, or about an acre and 
 three-quarters per head of population. From this total are 
 deducted in the return (p. 53) 31,540,608 acres, under the head 
 of "Feudatory and Tributary States"; and 85,074,875 acres 
 
( 119 ) 
 
 under the head of " Area for which Returns are othersvise not 
 available," leaving 364,051,611 acres as the "Net area dealt 
 with in this return." Strange to say, that as respects " Bengal " 
 the return has this indorsement, " Statistics not available." 
 How is this ? 
 
 Then this 364,05 1,61 1 acres, the " Net area dealt with in this 
 return," is explained thus : — 
 
 According to the Survey of India. 
 
 According to the village Papers. 
 
 Acres. 
 364,051,611. 
 
 Acres. 
 123,235,273- 
 
 Then, under the head of " Cultivated^'' the Statement gives 
 
 these figures : — 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Actually cropped 130, 109,249 
 
 Current fallows 22,725,391 
 
 Total 152,834,640 
 
 Under the head of " Uncultivated" as follows: — 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Available for cultivation , 78,460,324 
 
 Not available for cultivation 75,821,460 
 
 Total 154,281,784 
 
 Then " Forests" are given as 40,185,729 acres. 
 
 It is repeated that this is all ex Bengal, and I cannot make 
 the figures check at all. 
 
 Again, excluding Bengal ("statistics not available"), the 
 figures under the head of "Crops Cultivated " are — 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Rice 23,114,662 
 
 Wheat 19,883,040 
 
 Other food Grains, including Pulses 71,439,218 
 
 Other food Crops 3>546,347 
 
 Sugar Cane 1,478,895 
 
 Coffee 117,367 
 
 Tea 226,412 
 
( 120 ) 
 
 And, as respects Raw Materials, &c. — 
 
 Acres. 
 
 Cotton , 9,852,654 
 
 Jute , 13,610 
 
 Other Fibres , 347,779 
 
 Oilseeds 7,678,382 
 
 Indigo 1,034,889 
 
 Tobacco 370,502 
 
 Chinchona 9,632 
 
 Miscellaneous 2, 100, 792 
 
 Total area cultivated 141,214,181 
 
 Deduct area cropped more than once , 1 1,631,425 
 
 Actual area on which crops were grown . . 129,582,756 
 
 The area {ex Bengal) " Irrigated" is given thus — 
 
 Acres. 
 
 By Canal — Government 7,019,886 
 
 Private 928,047 
 
 Tanks 3,481,366 
 
 Wells 8,811,503 
 
 Other sources 3,022,325 
 
 Total area of crops irrigated 23,263, 127 
 
 Two inferences may be drawn from these figures ; the one, 
 that irrigation is far behind the necessities of cultivation, where 
 water is the condition of food and life in so many districts ; the 
 other, that with 78,460,324 acres "available for cultivation," but 
 uncultivated, without including Bengal, there are ample areas for 
 the support of an increasing population. 
 
 I repeat the regret which every one must feel, that under every 
 item of cultivated and uncultivated areas — areas under crops and 
 areas irrigated — the figures of Bengal are a blank page ; all that 
 is learnt being " statistics not available." 
 
 The classification of the occupations of a people is always 
 especially worthy of note. In the return before me, out of 
 129,941,851 ** males," 48,794,195 arc returned as "persons of no 
 stated occupation " ; and out of a total of 123,949,970 "females," 
 
( 121 ) 
 
 86,135*617 are similarly returned. The main heads of occupation 
 are — 
 
 Agriculturists — 
 
 Males 51,089,021 
 
 Females 18,863,726 
 
 Total 69,952,747 
 
 Attendants (Domestic Servants) — 
 
 Males , 2, 149,629 
 
 Females , , , 651,966 
 
 Total 2,801,595 
 
 Mercantile Men — 
 
 Males 983,869 
 
 Females , 124,409 
 
 Total 1,108,278 
 
 General Dealers — 
 
 Males 886,148 
 
 Females . . , . , , 286,464 
 
 Total ,......,. 1,172,612 
 
 Persons engaged about animals — 
 
 Males 754.512 
 
 Females 235,830 
 
 Total , 990*342 
 
 Labourers and others (branch of labour undefined) — 
 
 Males t . . . . 7,248,491 
 
 Females 5,244,206 
 
 Total 12,492,697 
 
 Then there are large numbers of men and women described 
 as "workers in" books, musical instruments, prints and pictures, 
 carving, tackle for sports and games, arms, machines and tools, 
 carriages and harness, houses and building, cotton, flax, wool, 
 worsted, silk, skins, feathers, earthenware, glass, "gold, silver, 
 and precious stones" (males, 459,157 ; females, 13,799; total, 
 472,956); copper, tin and quicksilver, zinc, lead and antimony, 
 brass and other mixed metals, and iron and steel (473,361 per- 
 sons). In fact, there is a full proportion of the artizan and trades- 
 man class. 
 
( 122 ) 
 
 Of other classes : — 
 
 Authors and Literary Persons 
 
 Artists 
 
 Musicians 
 
 Actors 
 
 Males. 
 32,177 
 10,347 
 187,695 
 58,807 
 
 Females. 
 
 3.464 
 
 584 
 
 19,631 
 
 40,381 
 
 Of the actors, 47,398 males and 26,145 females, are returned 
 as "in villages." 
 
 I Males. 
 Teachers 1 166,356 
 
 Females. 
 4,345 
 
 Clergymen, Ministers, Priests, Church and Temple Officers — 
 
 Males 601,164 
 
 Females 94,250 
 
 Or a total of 695,414. 
 
 Workers in Animal Food , 
 
 and 
 
 Workers in Vegetable Food 
 
 Or a general total of 4,255,155. 
 
 Against this are the — 
 
 Workers in drinks and stimulants — 
 
 Males 
 
 Females 
 
 Males. 
 640,521 
 
 1,445,916 
 
 Females. 
 449,205 
 
 1,719,513 
 
 Total 
 
 708,699 
 204,331 
 
 913,030 
 
 The return of "Agricultural Stock" (p. 69) is very incom- 
 plete : Bengal ticketed ** statistics not received " ; Central Pro- 
 vinces, "not received"; Assam, "not known." But the agricul- 
 tural stock, ex these countries, is — 
 
 Cows and Bullocks 35,394,495 
 
 Bullocks and he- Buffaloes 4,786,823 
 
 Cows and she-Buffaloes 4,971,132 
 
 Horses and Ponies 898, 765 
 
 Mules and Donkeys 1,054,482 
 
 Sheep and Goats 25,299,725 
 
 Carts 1,733,061 
 
 Ploughs 9,843,927 
 
 Boats 101,088 
 
 REMARKABLE PROGRESS. 
 . We have no reliable estimates of the wealth of India, though 
 we can to some extent gauge it by the area under cultivation, 
 
( 123 ) 
 
 the general industries of the country, the growth of towns, and 
 so on. The income tax is, doubtless, a great cause of deception 
 and concealment, as regards individual incomes ; and, to some 
 extent, no doubt, it aids the system of hoarding, and, as regards 
 the humbler people, the conversion of any ready money into 
 ornaments to wear, or coins to conceal. I gave a new sovereign 
 to one of our " boys " — a most kind, genial, gentle creature. 
 He was asked what he intended to do with it ? His answer was, 
 he should " keep it and never part wdth it." But is not the 
 wealth of a country simply the difference between the consump- 
 tion and production of a countr}- ? In India the great mass of 
 people, aided by climate, habit, religious dogmas, and so on, 
 live in health and strength on very little, and clothe on less. 
 And the amount of their individual contributions to the total 
 production of wealth must far exceed the European, and still more 
 the Northern American proportions. Thus, I should imagine 
 that the margin, which means accumulation of wealth, is, as a 
 matter of proportion — wants of one people against wants of the 
 others — in excess of European or Northern American accumula- 
 tions. That is only conjecture ; but all external statistics would 
 go to prove this ; and one hears of native Shroffs, and Bunias, 
 and Kiahs, or by whatever name the Indian " Gombeen men" — 
 who work in family connection — go, as the possessors of mil- 
 lions, and as taxing the poor and needy and ignorant, as they are 
 taxed in Ireland, unmercifully. 
 
 Take, for instance, the external evidence of shipping, which 
 shows something to ship and the payment for the produce and 
 the profit of the merchandise. In 1878 the number and tonnage 
 of sailing and steam vessels engaged in the foreign trade, 
 " entered and cleared " at " ports of British India," was, in 
 total, 12,537 ships, with a tonnage of 5,754,379 tons. While, 
 in 1887, the tonnage was 7,172,193 tons — the number of ships 
 being, however, less than in 1878, owing to larger ships super- 
 seding smaller craft. 
 
 The material and industrial progress of India between 1842 
 and 1857 was enormous. Taking every head of import and 
 export, the increase in 1857 over 1842 was, on the average, 100 
 
( 1^4 ) 
 
 per cent. I do not propose to go so far back ; but to compare 
 1887 with 1857, a period of thirty years, dating from the Mutiny. 
 I find the following results : — 
 
 The length of railway opened was, in 1857 273 miles. 
 
 While in 1887 it was H^S^i » 
 
 The total imports of merchandize in 1857. .^a;. 14,200,000 
 
 In 1887 61,770,000 
 
 The total exports of merchandize in 1857. . 25,340,000 
 The same, in 1887 88,430,000 
 
 To these figures must be added the imports and exports to, 
 from, and beyond the external land frontier. Thus dealt with, 
 the year ending March, 1 887, shows a total export of/'gz, 904,000, 
 and a total import, including the net import of treasure, of 
 /'71, 630,000. The imports of merchandize by sea were thirteen 
 per cent., and the exports five per cent., larger than the previous 
 year. The exports of the year, March, 1887, included: values 
 
 of:— ^(Rx.) 
 
 Cotton 13,468,000 
 
 Oil Seeds 9,198,000 
 
 Rice 8,764,000 
 
 Wheat 8,625,000 
 
 Jute and Jute Goods 6,021,000 
 
 Tea 4,727,000 
 
 Indigo 3)691)000 
 
 The Government and Joint Stock Banks of India and the 
 Savings Banks tell the same story of accumulation of wealth over 
 wider and wider areas of people. 
 
 The Government Banks of British India had, in 1882, 361 
 "native" depositors or accounts, and in 1887, 6,230 of such 
 accounts : of " Eurasian and European " accounts, the number 
 in 1882 was 43,194, and in 1887, 58,843. 
 
 All the " district " Savings Banks were taken over by the 
 "Post Office" on the ist April, 1886; and during the following 
 year the number of deposit accounts increased from 155,009 to 
 219,010, and the balance at the credit of depositors nearly 
 doubled, rising from 2 J to 4^ millions of pounds. 
 
 Testing progress by the post office and the telegraph, the 
 
( 125 ) 
 
 results go all the same way. The number of letters, newspapers, 
 &c., passing in the year 1887, was 254^ millions. The parcel 
 insurance and money order business was "expanding greatly." 
 The length of telegraph line and cable was, in the year quoted, 
 30,034 miles ; the number of messages was 2,516,826, and cer- 
 tainly the system of " opening telegraph offices at outlying post 
 offices " is having the happiest results. It struck me much to 
 see the bamboo huts of post offices in the jungle, or the forest, 
 from which communication could be made with all the world. 
 
 But a great deficiency is want of direct, independent 
 cable communication with England. Here again comes 
 the thraldom and mess of "private enterprise." Why 
 should a vast domain like India have to communicate 
 its messages of State or business through Persia or 
 through Turkey ? The effect, where secrecy is important, 
 is obvious. The effect, where facility is demanded by 
 trade, is obvious. The dependent thing is dear, almost 
 to exclusion. I sent a message of no great length from 
 Calcutta to England and the cost was about three pounds 
 sterling. Every consideration of State and business de- 
 mands the laying down of an independent cable, the pro- 
 perty of England and the State of India. What is the 
 objection ? In principle none; but whatever the damage 
 to the safety or progress of the State, we are exhorted 
 that we must never interfere with the sacred nest of jobs 
 and bad bargains called " private enterprise." An in- 
 dependent State cable could be laid from Plymouth to 
 Bombay, calling at Lisbon, and on the west coast of 
 Africa at Senegal, Congo, and the Cape ; and on the east 
 coast at Natal, Delagoa Bay, Mozambique, and Zanzibar 
 — a total of about 1 1,300 miles — for ;^i, 200,000. 
 
 Great good would result from enabling the European 
 residents in India, and their families, to go and return 
 home at very cheap rates. There are seasons when the 
 
( 126 ) 
 
 p. & O., and other steamers, carry very few passengers. 
 The " Rohilla," in which I came, had not on the average 
 of the voyage more than forty or fifty of both classes of 
 passengers, with accommodation for three or four hun- 
 dred. Here, again, "private enterprise" dictates its 
 conditions and stops the way. 
 
 We hear much about the burden of the debt of India. 
 But there are public works to show for most of it. 
 The permanent debt in India is ;^92, 653,000 (Rx.); in 
 England, ;^84,2 28,ooo; the Savings Bank deposits and 
 other unfunded debt, ;^ 8,789,000, or a total of (Rx. &;^) 
 185,670,000. This money is represented by ;^ 7 7,644,000 
 spent on profit-earning railways; by _;^ 2 5, 2 90,000 on pro- 
 fitable, on the average, irrigation works (the only unpro- 
 fitable works being the " private enterprise" things taken 
 over) ; and by ;^73, 947,000 for other purposes of essential 
 public expenditure. What other country can show a 
 better record of its capital outlay of borrowed money ? 
 
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