1904-5.] THE CAUSES OF FAMINES IN INDIA. 227 
ernor of Madras: ‘‘they are better accountants than Europeans, more 
patient and laborious, more intimately acquainted with the state of the 
country and the manners and customs of the inhabitants, and are alto- 
gether more efficient men of business.’’ Why then are they not allowed 
an equal chance with Europeans? 
Only the blind can fail to see how great a burden upon the people of 
India is their present government by foreigners,—who pay themselves 
such enormously high salaries and pensions, and who remain in the country 
the shortest time possible, never identifying themselves permanently 
with its interests, but quitting its shores as soon as possible after their 
prescribed term of service expires, and carrying away their wealth to spend 
it in a distant land. 
UNNECESSARILY HEAvy MILITARY EXPENDITURE. 
Another heavy, unnecessarily heavy, burden upon the Indian people, 
is the large and ever growing expenditure of the government upon the 
army. In India the military element is strong, and has great influence 
with the government, and it always clamors for more and more money. 
Within the past twenty years, in a time of profound peace, when no new 
dangers threatened in any quarter, the military expenditure has nearly 
doubled; and we are told that still larger expenditures are ahead. I 
am not complaining of the support of such an army as may be necessary 
for safety. My complaint is—and this is the complaint of millions of 
the loyal Indian people—that the country is taxed to maintain an army 
far larger than is needed. ‘The truth of this claim is seen in the fact that 
with perfect safety to India, the government was able to withdraw from 
Indian garrisons and camps and send to South Africa, at the time of the 
Boer war, 13,200 men, and to China during the Boxer rebellion, 21,300 
men. (These are Lord Curzon’s figures). Why should the Indian people 
be taxed to maintain troops that they do not require:—to make their 
country a rendezvous for military forces to be used for imperial purposes 
in distant parts of the world? 
A still more serious ground for complaint is that the Indian people 
have had to pay vast sums for wars and military campaigns entirely out- 
side of India, of no benefit to India, and against which they have pro- 
tested, for example, in Afghanistan, Beluchistan, Burmah, the Soudan, 
and Egypt. The expenditures for outside wars during the nineteenth 
century, which Indian taxpayers were compelled to meet, reached the 
enormous sum of $450,000,000. Could anything be more unjust? How 
much of this kind of thing could any land endure without impoverishment ? 
