The Modern Review

interests of fair judgment we feel bound to offer. A celebrated Protestant Divine: James Henthorn Todd, D. D., Treasurer of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, though "sincerely attached to the Reformed Church" admits that the "old and deep-seated disaffection to England which is the parent of almost all the political and social evils of the country......is mainly caused, not by religious differences, but by the impolitic measures enforced in the twelfth and some following centuries, for compelling the Irish people to adopt manners and laws for which they were wholly unprepared; not to speak of the arbitrary confiscation of landed property, for the benefit of the English colonists, and the sudden overthrow of the authority of the native chieftains."

The author makes much of the massacre of Protestants under the inquisition: we do not dispute so well known a fact; the hunting of Protestants by Catholics was only equalled by the hounding down of Catholics by Protestants whenever their turn came. We could give from the Catholic side quite as imposing a list. For example in Charles II's reign over 10,000 convictions for recusancy, i.e, refusal to attend the Protestant services, took place. In George II's reign death was the penalty for any Catholic who converted a Protestant and for any priest found saying Mass. From 1577 to 1681 three hundred Catholics, whose names are preserved, suffered at the gallows for their faith. Both parties made use of exactly the same instruments of torture in their so-called trials.

In his zeal to redden the "Scarlet" the author is betrayed into altogether unworthy and unfounded insinuations. He would have us believe that not only the crimes of the past but the cruelties of the present are those of Catholicism, and he cites as examples the horrors of the Congo and Putumayo. Yet he can hardly be unaware that Sir Roger Casement who "investigated" the Putumayo scandal and insisted on a thorough public enquiry, is a Catholic, nor that the British share-holders were largely, if we remember rightly, exclusively, Protestant, nor that Mr. C. Reginald Enock, F. R. G. S., in the "Devil's Paradise" says: "In all probability such a terrible situation would never have grown if the fine work of the old Jesuit and Franciscan friars in Brazil and Peru had been allowed to flourish. One of the greatest names associated with the Amazon is that of the famous Padre Samuel Fritz, who passed the larger part of his life......in Peru as a Jesuit missionary, among the Indians of the Amazon forests. Living with the native tribes of the Huallaga, the Napowhich parallels the Putumayo-the Icayali, and others of the great affluents of the Amazon, this devoted priest carried on his Christianising work, winning the natives to Christianity in a way so remarkable as has never been equalled since." Again our Ulsterman if interested in social conditions must be aware of the cruel sweating carried on by Protestant employers under a Protestant government.

Perhaps no more revolting cases of cruelty and torture have come under notice in recent years than those connected with the Indian indenture, system of South Africa. Yet the brutal slave-drivers who starved, overworked, beat, and even burned-on more than one occasion-to death their wretched Indians employees who frequently committed suicide as the only means of escape, were Protestants in a self-governing colony under the English Crown. Again it was Sir Frederick Weld, G. C. M. C., a Catholic, who as Governor of Western Australia, protested against and did so much to check the brutality of the (Protestant) British settlers to the Aborigines.

No, Catholics have not all the glory of devildom. As a matter of fact these brutalities are the perquisite of no special creed, but since Fidelis is determined to be sectarian we will meet him on his own platform, It is unfortunate that his attacking valour is not tempered with some discretion, he falls headlong into some deep and amusing quagmires, as when he bids us observe that the "Heretics, i. e. the Protestants were obedient to royal or established authority-it was reserved for the Popes to encourage the crime of rebellion for secular ends: although St. Peter directed, 'Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the King as supreme, or unto governors." It seems to escape his notice that at the present juncture he has ranged himself on the side of those who have already committed High Treason and are preparing armed rebellion against the British Crown. Not that we find fault with the argument of Ulster, though we may not endorse her methods; we hold that government is for the convenience of the people and should express their personality, but a timely and saving grace of humour would prevent a 1913-14 Orangeman from inadvertently proclaiming obedience to civil authority as a specifically Protestant virtue !

The calendar which gives in tabulated form the various accretions which the Roman Church has developed from the Primitive doctrine is quite useful. The Catholic Church inherited the Roman Empire: She was and is, an Imperial Church politically and spiritually, and she has found it expedient to enlarge her dogmas and strengthen her authority to meet the necessities of her position.

Take one instance only: Mariolatry was quite unknown in the Primitive Church: its origin is to be found in the Eastern Churches of ancient Armenia and Syria. Historically it grew out of the cult of the Holy Church or Ecclesia, who was the Virgin Mother, bringing forth many "Sons of God." It is a spurious doctrine, but it has its pragmatic justification. Psychologically it fulfills the needs of many to whom the masculine personification of Deity makes no appeal but who find comfort and refreshment in devotion to the "Holy Mother."

The strength of the Roman Church lies in her assumption of absolute authority in matters of faith, and in her scientific guidance of the emotional and mental activities of her children. On the other hand the very existence of Protestantism depends upon simplicity of creed and freedom of individual interpretation. Even within the narrow confines of the English Church we find the Bishop of Oxford, the other day lamenting that the view "that in the matter of His immediate coming as the Son of Man in the clouds of Heaven, our Lord was the victim of a delusion induced by contemporary ideas which He shared but which the course of events falsified, and that we cannot any longer think of Him as an infallible teacher" does not prevent those who hold it from entering the ministry, while the controversy as to whether acceptance of the doctrines of the Incarnation and Resurrection, are essential for such as are ordained, is perennial. Those who chafe at the Roman curb find an easy yoke in Protestantism, while many who are disquieted by the absence of a central authority and direct guidance find in Catho licism their spiritual home-coming.

We cannot help regretting that the author has wasted so much energy in pursuing nightmares-such as the possible return of the Inquisition-and tiltingnot too accurately-at familiar and obvious windmills, and so has neglected a valuable opportunity of

disclosing some of the methods-psychological, social, and political, by which the Papacy at the present day, slowly, secretly, but surely, draws those whom it chooses within its orbit. There is no danger of any one entering any of the Protestant churches unless he himself with fully conscious will so decide. Many of strong intellect find themselves knocking for admission at the Gate of Rome without any precise knowledge as to how their steps were impelled thither. Had Fidelis turned his attention to the hidden forces directed by the Catholic Church all over Europe and Great Britain today, he would have done great service to those whom it may concern. We may however suggest that an attitude of violent partizanship is not the best equipment for such investigation.

We should be sorry for our readers to judge the great Protestant Churches too literally in the spirit of this little book, valuable as it is in indicating the implacable religious antagonism which animates the struggle in Ireland. But we trust and are assured that the venom which overcoming regard for charity and truthfulness so frequently blots its pages is not to be taken as widely characteristic even of Ulster. We would rather conclude with the dignified plea put forward by Dr. H. Montgomery, ex-Moderator of the General Assembly, when addressing the Ulster Volunteers,

Nothing, he said, "could ever make the impossible Home Rule proposals acceptable to the people of Ulster. They humbly submitted that they were not bigots in any unworthy sense, that they were not unreasonable, but they honestly believed that they had a fair and incontrovertible case when people were willing to hear them patiently and they believed that in the long run right and not might would prevail. They spoke no words of bitterness about their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, they conld live with them as neighbours and be friendly, but only on terms of absolute equality. But when the British House of Commons proposed to set up a Parliament in Dublin of which 70 or 75 p. c., would be devoted members of the R. C. Church they must resist to the last extremity. Protestants held that a grave and ples of religious and civil liberties, the principles vital matter like this, involving the deathless princiwhich had made England great, could never be settled finally by a mere counting of heads in Ireland; there were other factors which must be taken into account, and whether the conflict was speedily settled or dragged on for months and years, in the end the principles for which the Ulster Covenanters contend must win the day."

HILDA M. HOWSIN.

THE INDIAN PUBLIC DEBT AND THE RAILWAY PROGRAMME

NDIA never is but always to be blest.

This is the burden of the plaintive lament of Sir William Meyer's financial statement. The new finance member said in presenting his financial statement: "I hope that in judging my administration it will not be reckoned to my personal demerits, or put down to sins committed in a previous existence, that I have failed to maintain the persistent grasp of good fortune which marked most of Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson's career in India." In spite of this, Sir William has committed the country to a heavy railway programme of £12 millions a year. British capitalist and industrial interests clamour for a big railway programme, and they exercise a predominant influence in the Secretary of State's dictation of financial policy, especially relating to railways. It is the excessive railway expenditure and inflated army charges that block the way of educational and sanitary progress. The paramount cultural needs of the country loudly call for a radical change in the policy of Government in regard to heavy

capital outlay on Railways and increase of the Public Debt, especially, the sterling obligations incurred in London.

In order to realise the financial position of India in relation to her resources in the proper perspective, it is necessary to have a clear grasp of the Public Debt, its genesis and management.

On the 31st March, 1912, the debt of India amounted to about £276 millions; consisting of a rupee debt of about £93 millions and sterling debt of about £183 millions. The total debt is divided into Public Works Debt and Ordinary Debt. The amount entered under the former head is the equivalent of the total capital expenditure incurred by the State on public works, together with the amount advanced to railway companies for capital expenditure. The remainder of the Debt is the Ordinary Debt.

A big item in the Home Charges of the Government of India which annually amount to £19 millions, is that relating to interest and management of debt and payment of interest and annuities on ac

count of railways and irrigation works. amounting to nearly £11 millions.

The history of the Indian Debt is a dismal record of financial extravagance and injustice. If India had been relieved of Home Charges from the commencement of British rule-as the colonies,-India would have had no public debt when she was transferred from the Company to the Crown.

The total Indian Debt bearing interest was little over 7 millions sterling in 1792 and had risen to 10 millions in 1799. On account of the Mysore and Maharatta wars of Lord Wellesley that followed, it rose to 21 millions in 1805 and stood at 27 millions in 1807. Though it increased to 30 millions in 1829, Lord William Bentinck ably and carefully carefully managed India's finances with the result that in 1836 he brought it down to about £27 millions.

The Afghan War of Lord Buckland left its impress on the country's finances and the Debt rose in 1844-5 to £431⁄2 millions. The East India Company vehemently protested against the expenses of the Afghan War being thrown on the finances of India. Many members of the House of Commons agreed with John Bright when he said: "Last year I referred to the enormous expense of the Afghan War-about 15 millions sterling -the whole of which ought to have been thrown on the taxation of the people of England, because it was a war commanded by the English cabinet, for objects supposed to be English."

The annexation of Sindh by Lord Ellenborough, the Sikh Wars of Lords Hardinge and Dalhousie, augmented the Debt to £591⁄2 millions in the last year of Dalhousie's administration. The Mutiny of 1857, raised it in one year by 10 millions, so that on April 30, 1858, the total Debt of India stood at 692 millions sterling.

John Bright spoke frankly and fearlessly on the mutiny expenditure. "I think," he said, "that the 40 millions which the revolt will cost is a grievous burden to place upon the people of India. It has come from the mismanagement of the Parliament and the people of England. If every man had what was just, no doubt that 40 millions would have to be paid out of the taxes levied upon the people of this country."+

* John Brights' speech made on August 1, 1859. + John Bright's speech on East India Loan, March 1859.

A popular error prevails in England that the whole of the Indian Debt arose out of the capital spent by England for the conquest and administration of India and for the development of her resources. These facts clearly show that that was not the genesis of the Indian Debt up to 1858.

India had paid for her conquest and administration: also for the frequent wars of annexation and conquest in India.

When the East India Company ceased to be the rulers of India, they had piled up an Indian Debt of 70 millions sterling. The Act for the better government of India of 1858 provided for the direct administration of India by the Crown. The financial clauses of this Act added the entire capital stock and the debts of the East India Company to the Public Debt of India and the annual tribute so long paid as interest on the stock was made a perpetual burden. The Crown purchased the Empire of India from the Company; the people of India had to pay, and are still paying the purchase money. The value received by the shareholders of the Company's stock was added to the Indian Debt, but the Crown which won an imperial property did not pay even a shilling. This act of injustice towards a dependency after saddling her with an additional expenditure of forty millions sterling is unexampled in the colonial history of a modern empire. When the Philippines were acquired by the Americans the former were not saddled with the purchase money. Nor was it the case when Japan annexed Formosa and Korea. Great Britain herself on numerous occasions has borne the entire cost of colonial expenditure and the administration of dependencies. When in 1900, the British Government took over Nigeria from a company, it paid the purchase money. The South African War cost England more than £200 millions. Not a penny of this huge debt was thrown on the venues of South Africa. The Boer States enjoy the use of Imperial troops, a charge on the Imperial exchequer.

As the Company's debt and the cost of suppressing the mutiny were thrown on India, her public debt in 1860 rose to over a hundred millions sterling, while in 1857 it was 60 millions. The Government abandoned in 1869 the guarantee and system of railways began to reckless railway borrow capital for

construction: and the Debt rose rapidly from 1870. A Select Committee on Indian Finance in 1870 revised the figures so as to include some obligations not previously exhibited, and this arrangement was followed in subsequent years. At the close of 1876-7 the total Debt was £139 millions. This includes the sums borrowed and spent by the Government on State Railways and irrigation works, but does not include the money spent by private companies under guarantee of interest from the Indian revenues nor the East India Stock of twelve millions sterling, forming forming the capital of the Company on which India still paid interest. In nineteen years, (1859-1877) the Crown doubled the Debt, bringing it up to 139 millions-not including the East India Stock.

We hear so much of international arbitration and peace tribunals in these days. If the Hague tribunal, for instance, deals with this Indian debt question up to 1877, when Queen Victoria assumed the title of Empress of India, it would make a clean sweep of the East India Company's debt of 70 millions and transfer to the English Treasury the mutiny debt of 40 millions. If this had been done in 1877 -as it ought to have been done out of equity and justice, the sole guiding factorsa hundred millions of the so-called Public Debt of India would thus have been struck off and the balance would have been extinguished from the revenues of India, once free from the payment of interest of this enormous and unjust liability. As R. C. Dutt remarks, there would have been no National Debt; for there need be no National Debt. This is the burden of the veteran Dadabhai Naoroji's monumental work "Poverty and Un-British Rule in India."

The position of India is different from that of modern aggressive states which are encumbered with National Debts resulting from their conquests and imperialistic ventures. There was no such thing as a National Debt Institution when India was ruled by Hindu and Moslem sovereigns, though they occasionally borrowed many from bankers on their own credit. Modern European nations pile up National Debts primarily to extend their conquests and colonies and to maintain their position, naval and military, among rivals. India needs no conquests. She has no rivals

in Asia nor is she given a free hand in framing her financial policy. This being so it is all the more necessary to desist from further augmenting an already swollen public debt. But this is not yet to be, as the Government is merrily going on borrowing huge sums with a light heart, and we have been committed this year-with_famine conditions prevailing in Upper India-to a railway programme of £12 millions sterling.

Lord Lawrence endeavoured to meet all expenditure from the annual income. It was Lord Mayo who inaugurated the policy of constructing public works with borrowed capital. Alarmed at the growth of Indian Debt and Expenditure, Gladstone moved for a Select Committee on Indian Finance in 1871, and appointed Mr. Henry Fawcett as one of the members. No recommendations. or remedial measures ensued though the committee sat for four years. It was discontinued in 1874 when the Liberal Government was upset. But it recorded valuable evidence. Mr. Massey and Sir Charles Treveleyan, ex-finance minister of India, protested against the increase of taxation and debt burdens.

The real weakness in the machinery of the Indian Government is well brought out in the evidence of Lord Salisbury, who was Secretary of State for India in 1874.

"Henry Fawcett :-Then it comes to this simply, that throughout the existence of an administration, the Secretary of State for India is aware that India is being unjustly charged: that he protests and protests, again and again; that the thing goes on, and apparently no remedy can be obtained for India unless the Secretary of State is prepared to take up this line and say "I will not submit to it any longer: I will resign?"

"Lord Salisbury:-It is hardly so strong as that, because the Secretary of State, if his Council goes with him, can always pass a resolution that such and such a payment is not to be made; but of course any Minister shrinks from such a course, because it stops the machine.

"Henry Fawcett :-You have three alternatives: you must either stop the machine, or you must resign, or you must go on tacitly submitting to what you consider to be an injustice.

"Lord Salisbury-Well I should accept that statement, barring the word 'tacitly.'

I should go on submitting with loud remonstrances." (Report of 1874).

The cry from England is always for tresh lines of railways and fresh expenditure and capital outlay in India. Apart from these, other burdens have been thrown on the Indian finances such as the cost of the Chinese War and of the Abyssinian War, the cost of telegraph lines and military charges properly payable from English estimates. There is no effective resistance to financial injustice towards India. The system of taxation without representation has failed in India as in every civilised country. John Stuart Mill recognised this clearly and objected to the Act of 1858 making the Secretary of Sate a financial autocrat, with a dependent Council, powerless for good, a Cave of Adallum for reactionaries. Lord Morley quoted Mill and Bright, in his Indian speeches, but curiously enough made no reference to nor learnt any lesson from their trenchant remarks on India's financial position and management. The Refromed Councils of Lord Morley are merely advisory bodies: working under double and triple vetoes with official majorities, and have no voice in taxation, expenditure and financial policy.

The East India Company, with all its faults, managed to keep down the Home Charges as low as possible. Under their administration it was a little over one tenth of the annual revenues of India. It is under the Crown that India's Home

charges have increased, absolutely and relatively to the revenues, the Crown Government being irresponsible. Fiftyfive years of Crown Government (18581913) bear ample testimony to the opinion of John Stuart Mill, that the administration of India through a Secretary of State and his Council "would be the most complete despotism that could possibly exist under British Rule."

The spirited forward policy of Beaconsfield and Lytton brought about the Afghan War and as a result £20 millions were added to the Indian Public Debt. Lord Beaconsfield frankly stated the real cause of the war. In a speech at the Mansion House (November 9, 1878), he said that it was not undertaken to punish the Amir of Afghanistan for his reception of the Russian Mission at Kabul-as the Indian Government declared-but for a rectification of boundary and for securing a scientific frontier. Though the Prime Minister of the day openly declared that the war was undertaken, not for the safety of the Indian frontier as is alleged by Anglo-Indian historians, but for Imperial purposes, the cost of the war was thrown on the Indian finances.

In 1901-02, the total Debt was about £227 millions. No effort has been made to reduce the Debt and create a sinking fund. Another dismal feature of Crown Gɔvernment has been to enhance the Public Debt of India held in England as the following table shows: