of the increase in produce obtained
through irrigation works alone is estimated at L30,000,000 annually. In
the last 50 years the total volume of Indian trade, imports and exports,
has increased from L40,000,000 to L200,000,000. The remaining items are
roughly, home military charges, L2,000,000; India Office, &c., L250,000;
leave allowances, L750,000; pensions, L4,000,000. A considerable part of
these pensions represent merely deferred pay. Moreover, unlike some
other countries, e.g., the United States, where L32,000,000 are spent
on pensions, mostly unearned, India has had good value, brimming over,
for her pensions. The private remittances to England, which must be
added to these sums, are not treated in any other country as an economic
loss. No American economist would so regard the enormous annual sums
remitted by immigrants to Ireland, Italy, and other European countries,
or the vast annual expenditure of American tourists in Europe. Indian
immigrants remit L400,000 annually to India from the Straits Settlements
and Malay States alone, and considerable sums must be sent from East and
South Africa and Ceylon, as well as smaller sums from Mauritius and the
West Indies. Yet these colonies do not apparently complain about a
"drain" to India.

What India is entitled to ask is whether Indian loans have been expended
for the benefit of the Indian people, and the answer is conclusive.
India possesses to-day assets in the shape of railways, irrigation
canals, and other public works which, as marketable properties,
represent more than her total indebtedness, without even taking into
account the enormous value of the "unearned increment" they have
produced for the benefit of the people of India. If, therefore, we look
at the Government of India for a moment as merely a board of directors
conducting a great development business on behalf of the Indian people,
they can certainly show an excellent balance-sheet. Let us admit that
some of the "home charges" may be open to discussion, and I shall have a
word or two or say about them later on. But taken altogether they may
fairly be regarded as the not unreasonable cost of administering a
concern which, if we wished to liquidate it and to retire from business
to-morrow, would leave a handsome surplus to India after paying off the
whole debt contracted in her name. The case was stated very fairly by
the late Mr. Ranade, whose teachings all but the most "advanced"
politicians still p