The Case for India by Annie Wood Besant
page 61 of 62 (98%)
page 61 of 62 (98%)
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is shown, by the Report of the Commission, not to need any destructive
activity on the part of the Bureaucracy to prove their unwillingness to pass it, for the Report protects them in their privileged position. We may add to Gokhale's tests one more, which will be triumphantly passed, the success of the Bureaucracy in increasing the cost of administration. The estimates for the revenue of the coming year stand at £86,199,600 sterling. The expenditure is reckoned at £85,572,100 sterling. The cost of administration stands at more than half the total revenue: Civil Departments Salaries and Expenses £19,323,300 Civil Miscellaneous Charges 5,283,300 Military Services 23,165,900 ___________ £47,772,500 ___________ The reduction of the abnormal cost of government in India is of the most pressing nature, but this will never be done until we win Home Rule. It will be seen that the Secondary Reasons for the demand for Home Rule are of the weightiest nature in themselves, and show the necessity for its grant if India is to escape from a poverty which threatens to lead to National bankruptcy, as it has already led to a short life-period and a high death rate, to widespread disease, and to a growing exhaustion of the soil. That some radical change must be brought about in the condition of our masses, if a Revolution of Hunger is to be averted, is patent to all students of history, who also know the poverty of the Indian masses to-day. This economic condition is due to many causes, of |
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