1904-5.] THE CAUSES OF FAMINES IN INDIA. 231 
well be thrown into the sea. Such is the nature of the tribute we have so 
long exacted from India. . . . . From this explanation some faint 
conception may be found of the cruel, crushing effect of the tribute upon 
India.’’* 
THE AMOUNT OF THE DRAIN. 
How large is this drain,—this tribute which India pays to England 
each year? The question is not very easy to answer, because the streams 
through which it flows are many, and the Indian Government seems to 
make efforts to keep them as far as possible out of sight. In the quota- 
tion which I have made from Mr. A. J. Wilson in the Fortnightly Review, 
he estimates the amount as 430,000,000 ($150,000,000) a year. Mr. 
Dadabhai Naoroji, of London, (late M.P.), agrees with these figures, and 
has repeatedly given to the public the financial data upon which his esti- 
mate is based. Mr. Wm. Digby places the sum at from £25,000,0c0 
to 430,000,000, and in his great work on the subject publishes with 
much fullness the facts and figures which are the grounds of his conclu- 
sion.t Mr. R. C. Dutt, a very high authority, who has written the ‘‘Eco- 
nomic History of India’’ from 1757 to 1900, ene £20,000,000 as 
a very conservative estimate.{ 
Says Mr. Alfred Webb (late M.P.), an Anglo-Indian official, who 
has studied the subject with care: ‘‘In charges for the India Office (in 
London); for recruiting (in Great Britain—soldiers to serve in India); 
for civil and military pensions (to men now living in England, who were 
formerly in the Indian service); for pay and allowances on furloughs 
(to men on visits to England); for preparations in England for the military 
establishment in India; for private remittances and consignments (from 
India to England); for interest on the Indian debt (paid to parties in 
England); and for interest on railways and other works (paid to share- 
holders in England), there is annually drawn from India and spent in the 
United Kingdom a sum calculated at from £25,000,000 to £30,000,000”’ 
(between $125,000,000 and $150,000,000).** 
* ‘‘Tndia,’”’? March 16, 1900, p. 123. 
+ ‘‘‘ Prosperous’ British India,” especially Chapters VI. and VII. 
t If we consult statistical tables of India’s exports and imports we find that her exports are regu- 
larly about £20.000,000 in excess of her imports. According to the official Indian Budget for 
1899- 1900, we find £22, 024,500 ($106,818,825) set down as the sum paid by the Indian Govern- 
ment for ‘‘net expenditures i in England charged on the revenues of the year with the exchange added.” 
The more common figures given us in England and in statistical year books are, for that year, £16,- 
392,486 (for the years 1903-1904, £17,619,300). The difference comes from difference of manner 
of estimating. One is more complete than the other, but neither covers all the wealth sent from India 
to England. Very large amounts are transmitted privately, in one form and another, every year, 
which are never mentioned in any statistical report. But even the official figures given above are 
enormous. 
** The British Friend, April, 1900. 
