2Be TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [Vov. VIII. 
Such is the drain from India to England to-day according to the most 
careful and reliable estimates, made largely by men connected officially 
with the British or the Indian Government, or with both. If this drain were 
for a single decade or even a single year it would be bad enough. But 
India’s tribute to her foreign conquerors began with the day she came into 
their power and has continued ever since. 
First of all she was compelled to pay to the victors every penny of the 
cost of the long and bloody wars which resulted in her subjugation. With 
the first conquests, the flow of treasure to England began, and it increased 
as the conquests went on. India was then one of the richest countries in 
the world; but, all too soon she was to become one of the poorest. The 
great industrial prosperity of great Britain, which began about the middle 
of the eighteenth century, and which was unparalleled in any other Euro- 
pean country, owed its origin to the sudden and vast influx of wealth from 
India. Says Mr. Brooks Adams: ‘‘Very soon after Plassey (fought in 
1757) the Bengal plunder began to arrive in London, and the effect appears 
to have been almost instantaneous. . . . Possibly since the world 
began no investment has ever yielded the profit reaped from the Indian 
plunder.’’* The amount of treasure wrung from the conquered Indian 
peoples, and transferred from Indian hoards to English banks between 
Plassey and Waterloo (fifty-seven years) has been variously estimated at 
from £500,000,000 to £1,000,000,000. 
The methods of plunder and ‘‘embezzlement”’ by which nearly every 
Briton in India enriched himself during the earlier history of the East 
India Company, gradually passed away. The difference between that 
earlier period and the present time is that India’s tribute to England now 
is obtained ‘‘according to law;’’ but the amount of it is not less than in 
the earlier days. Indeed it actually increases. In the Westminster 
Gazette, of London, (April 24, 1900), the estimate is made that the drain 
from India to Great Britain during the last twenty-five years of the nine- 
teenth century, aggregated £500,000,000 ($2,500,000,000). These fig- 
ures are so enormous as to be incredible were they not undeniable. Is 
it any wonder that India is impoverished? Is there any country in the 
world that would not be impoverished, and her people be driven to starva- 
tion by such a pitiless and never ceasing financial drain? 
THE CLAIM THAT INDIA IS PROSPEROUS. 
Many supporters of the present condition of things in India assert 
that India is prosperous. In a sense this assertion is true. But whose 
* “Taw of Civilization and Decay,’ (Swann, Sonnenschein & Co.), pp. 259-264. 
