309 



pose that the Bengalis, a race wholly devoid of 

 physical courage, who have ever been at the mercy 

 of the first stalwart race of Northern men who 

 chose to invade them, should be protected both 

 in life and property at an enormous cost to Govern- 

 ment, that the State should be saddled with a debt 

 of a hundred millions sterling on this score, and they 

 contribute nothing towards its liquidation. It is 

 wholly inconcievable, out of India, that persons 

 situated as are the Zemindars of Bengal, persons 

 who, as before shown, within little more than a 

 quarter of a century, have been permitted to accu- 

 mulate a hundred and fifty millions sterling over 

 and above their legitimate gains, should be unwill- 

 ing to aid a Government which had successfully 

 strained every nerve to save them and their 

 property from destruction ; yet in 1859, when an 

 income tax was proposed, the Zemindars of Bengal, 

 not only declared themselves such, but claiming 

 immunity under the very Act that effected, it may 

 be said, the creation of their wealth, they most 

 stoutly resisted its incidence, loading the Govern- 

 below, does not in my opinion bear out this assertion," and lower down 

 in his statement he adds," the consequence of these defects in the 

 Law is, that the village-watch, the basis of our Police system, is 

 utterly inefficient, the Chowkedars are inadequately and uncertainly 

 paid, and 'being 1 kept in a permanent state of starvation,' they 

 keep themselves comfortably, by leaguing with thieves and robbers." 

 In the original the extract given in the text, is in the present 

 tense. 



