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INDIA

straits in India have led to the reimposition of duties on
cotton and on most articles of European manufacture,
and there has always been an export duty on rice.
The expansion of trade in India has been very rapid.
Between the years 1873 and 1884 it increased 60 per
cent. In 1886 it amounted to seventy-three million,
value of imports, and ninety million, value of exports.
In 1897 it was eighty million, and one hundred and
nine million respectively. The difference in value between
 exports and imports is returned to India by a
process which requires a little explanation. India has
to meet many charges in England. There is interest
on debts incurred by English investments of capital in
India ; interest on railway capital ; army charges, civil
pensions, and the cost of the India office and Secretary of
States administration. Now the difference between export
and import values represents a sum that has to be paid in
[ndia for produce consumed in Europe, and this can only
be done by sending silver to India, or by purchasing bills
on India in London. The Secretary of State makes the
chief demand for remittances from India, so he draws bills
on the Government treasuries in India, and it is by means
of these bills that the balance is struck between merchants’
payments in India and the funds needed by the Secretary
of State in England. There is no drain on Indian
resources to enrich England in this process. England
only gets paid for investments made in India, or for other
services performed. India, indeed, only pays for her
Government, and for the enormous amount of English
capital invested in the country for the country’s benefit,
There is very much misconception about the financial
value of India to England. Financially the relations
between the two countries are those of ordinary business.
[ndia pays for nothing for which she does not receive a
fair equivalent. The cost of the army, the civil charges
for pay of her administrators and their staff, the charges
for pensions, or for interest, are all represented in India
by such good value as security, peace, order, and justice,
and the benefits of economic development in railways,