ial and fiscal relations between the two countries, and often
against the better judgment and sense of justice of Anglo-Indian
officials. In this respect the enlarged Indian Councils will lend far
greater weight than in the past to any representations which the
Government of India may make at Whitehall.

Even in the course of its first session at Calcutta the Imperial Council
has given abundant indications of its attitude. In the Budget debate,
Sir Vithaldas Thackersey, one of the Indian elected members from Bombay,
remarked very pointedly that "there is an impression abroad that, in
deciding most important questions of economic and financial policy, the
Government are obliged to be guided by political exigencies." Official
secrets have a way of leaking out in India, and Sir Vithaldas knew what
he was talking about when he added with regard to the Budget under
discussion--"It is generally believed that, if the Government of India
had had a freer hand, they would have preferred the raising of the
general tariff or a duty on sugar, which would have been less
objectionable than the levying of the proposed enhanced duties in the
teeth of the practically unanimous opposition of the non-official
members of this Council and of the public generally".

It is certainly unfortunate that on the first occasion on which the
Government of India had to lay a financial statement before the enlarged
Council, Indian members should have come to the conclusion that the
unpopular Budget submitted to them was not the one originally proposed
by the Indian Finance Department, but that it had been imposed upon that
Department by the Secretary of State in deference to the exigencies of
British party politics. Equally unfortunate is it that the financial
difficulties which this Budget had to meet were mainly due to the loss
of revenue on opium in consequence of the arrangements made by Great
Britain with China, in which Indian interests had received very scant
consideration. Not only had Sir Edward Baker, when he was Finance
Minister three years ago, given an assurance that the new opium policy
would be carried out without any resort to extra taxation, but there is
a strong feeling in India that the praiseworthy motives which have
induced the Imperial Government to come to terms with China on the
subject of the opium trade would be still more creditable to the British
people had not the Indian taxpayer been left, with his fellow-sufferers
in Hong