230 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [Voxr. VIII. 
THe DRAIN OF WEALTH FROM INDIA TO GREAT BRITAIN. 
This brings me to the greatest of all the causes of the impoverish- 
ment of the Indian people. It is the steady and heavy drain of wealth 
that is going on, and has been going on for a century and a half, from 
India to England. I have already several times referred to this drain, 
but it should be spoken of more definitely. 
Just what is it? It is India’s ‘‘indirect tribute’ to Great Britain. 
It represents the savings from salaries of officials, sent home to England; 
pensions of officials who have retired and are living in England; interest 
on English investments of many kinds made in India; profits sent home 
to England from business transactions in India; and the various kinds 
of financial returns that come back to England as the result of the many 
forms of industrial and financial exploitation of India carried on by English- 
men, growing out of the advantages which they possess there.as the 
Dominant Power. Part of this drain is included in what the Indian 
Government calls ‘‘home charges;’’ but only a part, there are large amounts 
besides which are purely private in character. Says a British Parliamen- 
tary paper: ‘‘Great Britain, in addition to the tribute which she makes 
India pay her through the customs, derives benefit from the savings of 
the service at the three Presidencies being spent in England instead of in 
India; and in addition to these savings . . . . she derives benefit 
from the fortunes realized by the European mercantile community, which 
are all remitted to England.’”’* Of course the effect on India of the drain- 
ing away of her wealth to another land is the same whether done through 
private or public channels. Edmund Burke, referring to India, said, it 
‘‘must always have been evident to considerate persons that the vast 
abstraction of wealth from a country, lessening its resources in proportion 
to the increase of its burdens,” is not good, and cannot be long endured. 
Lord Salisbury, in 1875, spoke of India as a country ‘‘where so much of 
the revenue is exported without a direct equivalent.”” Sir George Wingate 
explains the effects of the drain with great clearness. Let me quote his 
words: ‘‘Taxes spent in the country from which they are raised are totally 
different in their effect from taxes raised in one country and spent in 
another. In the former, the taxes collected from the population are 
again returned to the industrial classes. . . . But the case is wholly 
different when the taxes are not spent in the country from which they 
are raised. They (such taxes) constitute an absolute loss and the extinc- 
tion of the whole amount drawn from the taxed country, and might as 
* Parl. Paper, 1853, (445-IT.), p. 580. 
