n of capital over India as this feudal aristocracy which
tends everywhere to destroy that feeling of security without which
men will nowhere accumulate and concentrate it. They do so, not only
by the intrigues and combinations against the paramount power, which
keep alive the dread of internal wars and foreign invasion, but by
those gangs of robbers and murderers which they foster and locate
upon their estates to prey upon the more favoured or better governed
territories around them. From those gangs of freebooters who are to
be found upon the estate of almost every native chief, no
accumulation of movable property of any value is ever for a moment
considered safe, and those who happen to have any such are always in
dread of losing, not only their property, but their lives along with
it, for these gangs, secure in the protection of such chief, are
reckless in their attack, and kill all who happen to come in their
way.[14]

Notes:

1. This phrase is meant to include America.

2. Money-lenders naturally have flourished daring the long period of
internal peace since the Mutiny. They vary in wealth and position
from the humblest 'gombeen man' to the millionaire banker. Many of
these money-lenders are now among the largest owners of land in the
country. Under native rule interests in land were generally too
precarious to be saleable. The author did not foresee that the growth
of private property in land would carry with it the right and desire
of one party to sell and of another to buy, and would thus favour the
growth of large estates, and, to a considerable extent, counteract
the evils of subdivision. Of course, like everything else, the large
estates have their evils too. Much nonsense is written about sales of
land in India, as well as in Ireland. The two countries have more
than the initial letter in common.

3. Theorists declare that it is right that the tax-payers should know
what is taken from them, and that, therefore, direct taxes are best;
but practical men who have to govern ignorant and suspicious races,
resentful of direct taxation, know that indirect taxation is, for
such people, the best.

4. This illustration would give a very false idea of modern Indian
finance.

5. They have no duty to perform as creditors; but as citizens of an
enlightened nation they no doubt perform many of them, very important
ones. [W. H. S.] The author's whimsical comparison between
stockholders and Adam and Eve, and his not