exporters could afford to give them just so much
less than they now do. Now, taking the exports of India at one hundred
millions,[65] the currency measure of the Government would cause a loss to
producers of 7 per cent., which is equivalent to a tax on the exported
productions of India of seven millions. The result of course is, that to
get little more than one million and a half into the Treasury, the
Government proposes to take seven millions out of the pockets of the
people. Now I have no wish to pose as what is commonly called an expert,
and I naturally shrink from any idea of criticising that long chain of
financial luminaries which, beginning at the Council Chamber at Calcutta,
stretches through the rooms of the Currency Committee which recently sat
in London, right up to that Cabinet over which the greatest of financial
luminaries presides, but I trust I may be allowed to go as far as to say
that the arrangement made by Mr. Gladstone's Government which is the body
ultimately responsible--does not seem to be of a very alluring character,
as it entails on India, viewed as a whole, a loss of L5,500,000. And this
cheering result has apparently been viewed with such satisfaction by the
financial experts, that it is to be regarded as merely a small instalment
of the blessings they have in store for the happy toilers whose destinies
they have been empowered to influence. For if the policy of taking five
and a half millions sterling out of the pockets of the people in order to
put about one million and a half into the financial till is a good one,
the extension of the process, up to certain limits, must be equally so.
For such an extension the Indian Finance Minister is evidently prepared,
as one may see by looking again at the sentence I have quoted from the
speech, in which he declares that "it is not intended to do more _at
present_ (the italics are mine) than aim at a rate of 1s. 4d." This,
coupled with statements subsequently made, and by what the Currency
Committee has suggested as to a farther increase if it should seem
necessary, shows that the Government evidently contemplates a rise to 1s.
6d.; and indeed this must obviously be the case, as the anticipated gain
from a rise to 1s. 4d., when put against the probable loss on opium, and
the allowances to be made to Government servants to compensate them for
the loss they sustain on home remittances, would go far to swallow up the
gain to the State from a 1s. 4d. rate.