The Case for India | Page 5

made in 1885-1905, including the

reorganisation under Lord Kitchener, who became
Commander-in-Chief at the end of 1902. Even in this hasty review, I
must not omit reference to the fact that Army Stores were drawn from
Britain at enormous cost, while they should have been chiefly
manufactured here, so that India might have profited by the expenditure.
Lately under the necessities of War, factories have been turned to the
production of munitions; but this should have been done long ago, so
that India might have been enriched instead of exploited. The War has
forced an investigation into her mineral resources that might have been
made for her own sake, but Germany was allowed to monopolise the
supply of minerals that India could have produced and worked up, and
would have produced and worked up had she enjoyed Home Rule.
India would have been richer, and the Empire safer, had she been a
partner instead of a possession. But this side of the question will come
under the matters directly affecting merchants, and we may venture to
express a hope that the Government help extended to munition factories
in time of War may be continued to industrial factories in time of Peace.
The net result of the various causes above-mentioned was that the
expense of the Indian army rose by leaps and bounds, until, before the
War, India was expending, £21,000,000 as against the £28,000,000
expended by the United Kingdom, while the wealthy Dominions of
Canada and Australia were spending only 1-1/2 and 1-1/4 millions
respectively. (I am not forgetting that the United Kingdom was
expending over £51,000,000 on her Navy, while India was free of that
burden, save for a contribution of half a million.)
Since 1885, the Congress has constantly protested against the
ever-increasing military expenditure, but the voice of the Congress was
supposed to be the voice of sedition and of class ambition, instead of
being, as it was the voice of educated Indians, the most truly patriotic
and loyal class of the population. In 1885, in the First Congress, Mr. P.
Rangiah Naidu pointed out that military expenditure had been
£1,463,000 in 1857 and had risen to £16,975,750 in 1884. Mr. D.E.
Wacha ascribed the growth to the amalgamation scheme of 1859, and
remarked that the Company in 1856 had an army of 254,000 men at a
cost of 11-1/2 millions, while in 1884 the Crown had an army of only
181,000 men at a cost of 17 millions. The rise was largely due to the

increased cost of the European regiments, overland transport service,
stores, pensions, furlough allowances, and the like, most of them
imposed despite the resistance of the Government of India, which
complained that the changes were "made entirely, it may be said, from
Imperial considerations, in which Indian interests have not been
consulted or advanced." India paid nearly, £700,000 a year, for instance,
for "Home Depôts"--Home being England of course--in which lived
some 20,000 to 22,000 British soldiers, on the plea that their regiments,
not they, were serving in India. I cannot follow out the many increases
cited by Mr. Wacha, but members can refer to his excellent speech.
Mr. Fawcett once remarked that when the East India Company was
abolished
the English people became directly responsible for the Government of
India. It cannot, I think, be denied that this responsibility has been so
imperfectly discharged that in many respects the new system of
Government compares unfavourably with the old.... There was at that
time an independent control of expenditure which now seems to be
almost entirely wanting.
Shortly after the Crown assumed the rule of India, Mr. Disraeli asked
the House of Commons to regard India as "a great and solemn trust
committed to it by an all-wise and inscrutable Providence." Mr. George
Yule, in the Fourth Congress, remarked on this: "The 650 odd members
had thrown the trust back upon the hands of Providence, to be looked
after as Providence itself thinks best." Perhaps it is time that India
should remember that Providence helps those who help themselves.
Year after year the Congress continued to remonstrate against the cost
of the army, until in 1902, after all the futile protests of the intervening
years, it condemned an increase of pay to British soldiers in India
which placed an additional burden on the Indian revenues of £786,000
a year, and pointed out that the British garrison was unnecessarily
numerous, as was shown by the withdrawal of large bodies of British
soldiers for service in South Africa and China. The very next year
Congress protested that the increasing military expenditure was not to
secure India against internal disorder or external attack, but in order to

carry out an Imperial policy; the Colonies contributed little or nothing
to the Imperial Military Expenditure, while India bore the cost