Imatges de pàgina
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heavy taxation in a famine year, to apply to this same purpose, and then claims credit for extinguishing yearly an equal amount of the debt. Verily we have here a scheme for the Insurance of Famine, if ever one was set afoot. We drag food from half-starved people to build these losing State railways, and then wonder that starvation is perpetuated by the process. Not long since Lord Lytton proclaimed that 10,000,000l. ought to be spent in similar fashion in the North-West Provinces. I rejoice to believe that these harebrained schemes are now meeting with a check, and that this terrible mania for public works, which yearly absorbs 6,000,000l., 7,000,000l., 8,000,000l. of the revenue, may shortly receive its quietus. Meanwhile, however, the mischievous policy goes relentlessly on, and endless misery is engendered because Indian financiers will not see that to force natives to borrow at 12 to 60 per cent., to pay taxes which are invested to lose 3 per cent., is as baneful a superstition as ever blighted the fortunes of a people. For this is what it means. Every rupee thus foolishly squandered, every anna thus wantonly taken from the pockets of the people, is another step towards the hopeless impoverishment of the whole country.

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Until we can build public works out of savings from a really light 'I must deal briefly with a few of Mr. Morley's remarks unnoticed in the text. (1) In touching on the local and municipal causes (p. 873), the writer challenges my figures, but gives none of his own to correct them by. (2) The Sikh Government, whatever its drawbacks, levied one-tenth of the salt-tax we get out of the Punjab. (3) Mr. Morley says that I am guilty of 'a singular inconsistency,' because I extol a light permanent settlement as 'one of my panaceas,' and in the next breath deplore 'the miserable, abject condition of the Bengal ryot.' Mr. Morley himself can never have written this. The miserable, abject condition of the Bengal ryot' is not my remark at all, as Mr. Morley will see if he will refer back to my article. I am in favour of a light permanent settlement undoubtedly, and though that of Bengal was made by Lord Cornwallis with the wrong people, it has been a great boon to the Province. (4) If Mr. Morley will examine into the facts he will find that in many districts the ryots who had got out of the hands of the money-lenders have been thrown back into them by the rigidity of our assessment. (5) How is it, if the North-West Provinces are so much improved as Mr. Colvin alleges, wages, according to the Moral and Material Progress for 1872-73, have scarcely varied at all since the early part of this century, and after payment of the rent the margin left for the cultivator's subsistence is less than the value of the labour expended on the land'? (6) Indian investments are, as I said, almost unknown; and Mr. John Morley himself shows what a ridiculously small fraction of the total debt is held in India. What is more, it has decreased of late years. (7) The import of cotton has ruined the weavers. When the employment of a whole caste is destroyed, and they are reduced to pauperism, I can see, free-trader though I am, that more harm is done than all the free-trade maxims will salve over in India in one generation. (8) I put the home charges since 1857 at 270,000,000l. at least. But, says Mr. Morley, 'a large amount is, for example, interest on capital which has been most profitably invested in railways.' The total amount so paid since 1857-58 is 28,000,000l., excluding net traffic receipts; or including these about one-fifth of the total, 270,000,0007. Besides, the profitable investment is a matter itself in dispute. But when I read Mr. Morley's concluding sentences, his 'most sombre views,' his certainty that there is boundless room for improvement in all our methods,' I wonder what possessed him to come forward to champion, in this half-hearted way, the system which evidently he sees the weakness of as clearly as I do.

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taxation, until we have stanched, in part at least, this exhausting economical drain, every public work-no matter how promising to start with -should be charged as unremunerative, and no further mock surpluses should be foisted on Parliament. For they are mock surpluses still. The deficits of the last three years have been, as I stated, over 16,000,000l., and it is futile for the Indian Government to deny its own figures, or to claim works as 'productive' on which, by their own showing, they lose not less than 3 per cent. Owing to the extra taxation for famine insurance' (which, now that the illusory phrase has served its turn, is put in, I notice, as part of the regular Budget), and an exceptional return from opium in excess of the estimate, the deficit this year will probably be a good deal less than was anticipated. But who can say that the war now being waged in Afghanistan will not cost more than is calculated? Yet further taxation, I repeatnay, the very taxation already levied-is most hurtful to the population and dangerous to ourselves. Unavoidable, therefore, as this Afghan war was, to lay any considerable portion of the extra expense on the Indian exchequer, is both impolitic and unjust.

So obvious is the peril of the situation, that all sorts of schemes are floating about to relieve debt by counting two and two as five. But there is no financial philosopher's stone to transmute the famine and deficits of extravagance and miscalculation into prosperity and surplus. The total net revenue of India, even now that the extra taxation has been imposed, is scarcely 40,000,000l. a year, and of this sum little short of one half will be expended in home charges alone, when the loss by exchange is taken into account. Apart from the gradual substitution of natives for Europeans in all branches of administration and management, which, though absolutely necessary, must be in its nature a slow process, the only hope of improvement lies in persistent economy, in a relentless determination to curtail home expenditure, and in the encouragement of those simple native methods of agricultural development, which have been so ruinously neglected to foster more ambitious but less beneficial projects. Only now are we beginning to understand that forests, groves, tanks, and wells do more to enrich a poor tropical country than vast systems of railroads and irrigation works. Economy must commence with the army, the public works, and the home expenditure. In these departments alone at least 6,000,000l. a year might be saved, to the positive gain of both England and India. It is needless, however, to point out what grave difficulties will be encountered. There will be plenty to cry out

On this point nothing can be added to Mr. Fawcett's admirable article in the last number of this Review. Had his persistent warnings for years past-given altogether without reference to party-been attended to, we should not now be in such serious difficulty. Fortunately there have been many signs of late that the Government of India at home intends to look closely into the affairs of our Empire, and cautiously to introduce necessary reforms. With two more famines threatening, retrenchment will indeed have been begun none too soon if commenced at once.

at every turn that the services' are being ruined, because the country is being benefited at the expense of the lifelong prejudices of an official class. But first let these show that they are in any way entitled to a hearing, for at this moment they, and their whole administration, are on their trial. What have they done? The results of this excessive Europeanisation, and this Pelion upon Ossa of paper government, we see. It has crushed the very life out of the people we rule. Surely it is high time to try less heroic methods. Every thousand pounds drawn away from India unnecessarily to pay expensive European agency, pensions, and interest on unremunerative public works, is so much capital diverted from profitable investment in our dependency, at a high rate of interest so much taken from profitable purchases to be made from our own people. Famines in India mean stagnation in England and distress in our own manufacturing centres. When the interests alike of England and of India are on one hand, and the well-meaning but mistaken theories of a bureaucracy on the other, who can doubt which will have to stand aside?

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It is on this ground that appeal may be fearlessly made to the English people, who-whatever a small minority may shrilly urgetake pride in the greatness of their Empire, and have the capacity to see that the well-being of our fellow-subjects is far more to our advantage than a steady decline in their prosperity, owing to a system which benefits but few among us. If we cannot keep India save by inflicting perpetual impoverishment and starvation upon an increasing number of the population, then we cannot leave the country too soon. But if, as I firmly believe, we can stay to the advantage of all, then let us at least begin to correct the blunders we have made. It was no economical bigot who proclaimed that India could be defended and governed for 30,000,000l. a year, and that every rupee spent in addition did but work injury to the population; it was no mere sciolist who contended that the cost of the army ought never to exceed 12,500,000l. All admit the extravagance, but no one as yet has shown the courage and determination to apply the necessary remedies. To say that in future India must be governed for the sake of its inhabitants, means undoubtedly the displacement in the future of many of our own countrymen from offices in that country. But we cannot shrink from this necessary change because of its difficulty or the opposition it will provoke. Already the first steps are being taken, and, as years pass on, our constant endeavour must be to secure our position by the welfare, prosperity, and, as far as possible, the self-government of the immense population under our control. The work will be troublesome, but the end is noble, and the reward is sure. Planting a great policy is like planting a great tree; we may never live to see it in full vigour, but generations to come shall bless us for its beauty and its shade.

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H. M. HYNDMAN.

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SOME TIME AGO' I endeavoured to show by a copious exhibition of Homer's phrases of colour, that his discrimination of the various forms of decomposed light was imperfectly developed, while his perceptions of light itself, apart from colour, were highly vivid and effective. It is matter of interest to consider as kindred topics the manner in which he appreciated other visible phenomena, such as those of form and movement. I now propose to investigate his use of epithets in connection with movement. These epithets are not only copious and diversified, but in some important respects may be called even scientific: namely, where they have reference to velocity in its several degrees, and in the manner of its production. ber

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Corporeal motion may be considered, first of all, as slow or quick. These terms are relative only, and do not rest upon a distinction of definable essence. But as darkness offers little material and little attraction to the Poet in compârison with light, so slowness is for him a trivial and barren subject in comparison with speed. At the very threshold, accordingly, we are met by this fact that slow movement has little of particular description in Homer. I do not recollect that he anywhere distinguishes majestic and stately movement from such as is merely slow. It may seem as if his mind already indicated in germ a reaction from Egyptian art, and its main principle of repose, în favour of the principle of motion, which was characteristic rather of the Assyrian school. Most certainly we do not find the distinction taken where we might positively have expected it, as when Zeus, after his interview with Thetis, moves into the circle of the gods. And at any rate, be the cause what it may, bradus (ẞpadús), which may be considered as the staple expression of slowness, is only used six times in the Poems. Its substantive ẞpadúrns is also found, but only once. Of the seven passages, four refer to the pace of horses. He uses no other word to describe the slow pace of the animal. For its rapid pace he has, between epithets and phrases, eight or nine.

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The root of bradūs is brad, bard; and the meaning of this root träg, stumpfsinnig, and the like (Benfey, i. 509). Signifying dull Nineteenth Century, October 1877. Also Studies on Homer (1858), vol. iii.

p. 457.

and sluggish, it is not akin to bri the root of obrimos, though the idea of weight be a middle term between them: for weight may be considered on the one side as embodying force; on the other as resisting motion by inertia.

In Homer, bradūs is applied to the mind; but only in the comparative degree (Il. x. 225, ẞpáσowv te vóos) and metaphorically. Considered as an epithet descriptive of movement between place and place, it is at the bottom of the quantitative scale, as wxús is at the top. In the first of these, mass is at a maximum, and the element of speed is evanescent; in the second, speed is superlative, and mass approximates to zero.

This may be the proper place for two remarks before entering into the general discussion.

First. All use of epithets of motion for the mind is, of course, metaphorical and secondary. In one very curious passage (Il. xv. 80) this figurative movement is actually made the basis of a simile to illustrate the flight of Herè from Ida to Olumpos. This will be noticed under the term xpatπvós: but the general inquiry will turn mainly upon material motion.

Secondly. We may take material motion as it is quantitative, or as it is qualitative. By quantitative motion, I mean that which has reference only to rate or speed: by qualitative motion, that which embraces other ideas, such as those of direction, or of intermission; or properties of the mind exhibited in motion, or suggested by it. I now proceed with the discussion.

This purely quantitative motion of material objects is expressed in the mathematical formula McQ V: signifying that Momentum varies as, or corresponds with, the Quantity of matter, or mass, multiplied into the Velocity, or time in which a given space would be traversed. It is the product of those two factors: and momentum is the force which belongs to matter when in movement, and which may be spent in overcoming pressure, or in traversing aerial space. As a given momentum is thus the product of two factors, it admits of being supplied, where M is a constant, by different combinations of the two, in each of which the one factor will be greater as the other is smaller. Bradūs and okus exhibit the extremes of the combination. Between these two come other words-namely (Boós), thoos, (Ooûpos), thouros, and (ößpiuos) obrimos; and the five epithets may be arranged as follows in a quantitative scale :

1. Okus. Here Q is at its minimum; the mind hardly takes notice of it; it may be practically disregarded: and V is at its maximum.

2. Thoos. Here both Q and V are distinctly presented to the mind as the factors from which momentum, or force of impact, results. But velocity decidedly predominates over mass or quantity of matter.

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