. If a Parliamentary Committee
were called upon here to consider any proposed measure that would widely
effect the people of England as a whole, and the landed classes in
particular, would it not be scandalously unjust if not a single landed
proprietor, or any person directly or indirectly connected with land, were
requested to give evidence before it? But notwithstanding that a certain
proportion of the witnesses were Indian officials, and that the
examination of representatives of the classes chiefly concerned (the
producers) was carefully left out, the weight of the evidence was entirely
against the monetary policy of the Government. And yet the committee
supported the Indian Government. So that this measure has been passed
after a partial investigation, during which the most important points that
ought to have been minutely examined were never even touched upon, and
even then in the teeth of the majority of the witnesses examined, and
whose opinions, from their character and position, were of great value.
Were it not that the Committee was composed of English gentlemen, who
would not wittingly do anything but examine into matters to the best of
their ability, it would really seem, after a careful survey of the whole
situation, as if this Committee was a mere sham got up as a shield to
protect a foregone conclusion.

There can be little doubt that the Indian Government and the Currency
Committee were acting under the idea that (1) India had been pushed into a
financial corner, and (2) in fear of the result of the probable repeal of
the Sherman Act in the United States; and so, urged on by a panic-stricken
feeling to rush somewhere, the Government began in haste to burn the whole
house down in order to roast its financial pig. As to the first point, the
state of the finances in India no doubt requires all the care and economy
that can be exercised; but to imagine, as many people seem to do, that it
has exhausted its taxational resources, is ridiculous. The salt tax,
taking the price all over India, is lower than it was fifteen years ago,
and this could be raised without hardship to the people. Import duties
might be imposed to the amount of several millions. Then, considerable
charges now defrayed from current revenues might be passed to capital
account, as they would be in England. And if the worst came to the worst
an export duty of three per cent. might be imposed, for though is would
not be good policy to do so, it