revenue would the Chancellor of the Exchequer obtain from the people of
England? Instead of 60,000,000_l_. a-year, would he get
10,000,000_l_.? I doubt it very much. If the House will follow out
the argument, they will come to the conclusion that the taxes of the
people of India are oppressive to the last degree, and that the
Government which has thus taxed them can be tolerated no longer, and
must be put an end to at once and for ever. I wish to say something
about the manner in which these great expenses are incurred. The
extravagance of the East India Government is notorious to all. I believe
there never was any other service under the sun paid at so high a rate
as the exclusive Civil Service of the East India Company. Clergymen and
missionaries can be got to go out to India for a moderate sum--private
soldiers and officers of the army go out for a moderate remuneration--
merchants are content to live in the cities of India for a percentage or
profit not greatly exceeding the ordinary profits of commerce. But the
Civil Service, because it is bound up with those who were raised by it
and who dispense the patronage of India, receive a rate of payment which
would be incredible if we did not know it to be true, and which, knowing
it to be true, we must admit to be monstrous. The East India Government
scatters salaries about at Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Agra, Lahore, and
half a dozen other cities, which are up to the mark of those of the
Prime Minister and Secretaries of State in this country. These salaries
are framed upon the theory that India is a mine of inexhaustible wealth,
although no one has found it to be so but the members of the Civil
Service of the East India Company. The policy of the Government is at
the bottom of the constant deficit. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has
twice recently declared that expenditure depends upon policy. That is as
true in India as in England, and it is the policy that has been pursued
there which renders the revenue liable to this constantly recurring
deficit.