The Indian Radicals give themselves away. What they want to
urge is that the present financial position of the Indian Government is in part the result of waste and mis- management, and that there ought to be a thorough investiga- tion, both of expenditure and of the way that expenditure presses on the people. That is a tenable position, and especially as regards the land-tax in the Provinces not under the Perpetual Settlement, agitation might be attended with good results ; but they ask, instead, for a fishing Commission of Inquiry, and allow the Parsee Member, Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji, to act as their mouthpiece. He either does not know facts, or does not care about them, and on Tuesday, in a rambling invective against the British Administration, actually denounced the Naval contribution, only £50,000, because India had no trade. Her trade is £192,000,000 a year. The Secretary of State, of course, smashed him in a speech full of detailed information, the only defect of which was that it was too optimistic. Sevenpence-halfpenny a head per annum drawn from salt is really a heavier poll-tax even than he thinks; and he condemned it. It presses on the very poorest, and amounts in their case to a fortnight's income per household. Moreover, though the land-tax is a rent and not a tax, still the conduct of the Government as supreme land- lord is fair matter for inquiry. If Mr. Fowler will ask for the instructions of the Northern Revenue Boards, in regard to recent "Settlements," he will find that the idea of meeting the fall in the rupee by raising the number of rupees demanded of the peasant, has a great hold upon Indian financiers. It is a policy which is fair or unfair, according to local circumstances, but it has everywhere risks.
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