hat is practically a heavy export tax on the products of India, and
in a form, too, most injurious to its best interests, and ultimately to
the finances of the State. And I say in a form most injurious, because the
Gladstonian Government (for the Cabinet is distinctly responsible for the
policy proposed to be carried into execution) has practically adopted a
policy of protection, not for the benefit of the productions and
industries of India, but for the protection and encouragement of the
productions and industries of those silver-using countries which now
compete with India. Of all the grotesquely ludicrous policies that have
ever been adopted by perverted human reason this surely is by far the most
absurd. By one and the same measure to stamp down the progress of India
and promote the progress of other silver-using countries; to diminish the
traffic on Indian railways, and correspondingly increase the traffic in
such countries; to diminish the volume of India's trade and increase that
of other Eastern countries; to raise a comparatively small sum for the
Indian Exchequer at a vast cost to the producers of India; to diminish the
amount of capital that would otherwise flow into the hands of the people,
and to, at the same time, sacrifice all its consequential effects; to
diminish employment for labour and increase the causes that aggravate
famines and scarcities; to ultimately diminish the financial resources of
our Indian Empire; to create a serious cause of dispeace (a useful Scotch
word) between us and the people we govern;--such are some of the effects
that must be produced should the Government be successful in carrying out
that monetary policy which it has forced on India in the most arbitrary
and tyrannical manner. Can we wonder then that Sir David Barbour, the
Indian Finance Minister, said that the measure would have "far-reaching
effects, and ought not to be attempted unless under the pressure of
necessity?" No such necessity, as I have completely shown, has arisen. Out
of its own mouth, then, does the Government stand condemned.

In this connection it may be interesting to quote the opinion of the great
Duke of Wellington, who, speaking in the House of Lords in 1833 (July 5),
said, "My lords, I wish the noble lords opposite had taken the advice of
Sir John Malcolm upon the subject of forming an independent body in
London, representing the interests and carrying on the concerns of India.
My lords, it is persons