England's Debt to India: A Historical Narrative of Britain's Fiscal Policy in India

Front Cover
B. W. Huebsch, 1917 - British - 362 pages
 

Contents

I
II
1
III
3
IV
41
V
43
VI
69
VIII
103
IX
119
XIII
243
XIV
245
XV
261
XVI
263
XVII
283
XVIII
299
XIX
308
XXI
314

X
121
XI
162
XII
181

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Page 64 - They covered with their protection a set of native dependents who ranged through the provinces, spreading desolation and terror wherever they appeared. Every servant of a British factor was armed with all the power of his master ; and his master was armed with all the power of the Company. Enormous fortunes were thus rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, while thirty millions of human beings were reduced to the extremity of wretchedness.
Page 224 - The village communities are little republics, having nearly everything that they want within themselves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. They seem to last where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down : revolution succeeds to revolution; Hindu, Pathan, Moghul, Mahratta, Sikh, English are masters in turn ; but the village communities remain the same...
Page 224 - This union of the village communities, each one forming a separate little state in itself, has, I conceive, contributed more than any other cause to the preservation of the people of India, through all the revolutions and changes which they have suffered, and is in a high degree conducive to their happiness, and to the enjoyment of a great portion of freedom and independence.
Page 61 - ... it is no wonder that the lust of riches •should readily embrace the proffered means of its gratification, or that the instruments of your power should avail themselves of their authority, and proceed even to extortion, in those cases where simple corruption could not keep pace with their rapacity.
Page 224 - Community collect their cattle within their walls, and let the enemy pass unprovoked. If plunder and devastation be directed against themselves and the force employed be irresistible, they flee to friendly villages at a distance, but when the storm has passed over they return and resume their occupations.
Page 204 - The inhabitants gave themselves no trouble about the breaking up and divisions of kingdoms; while the village remains entire, they care not to what power it is transferred, or to what sovereign it devolves; its internal economy remains unchanged.
Page 203 - A village, geographically considered, is a tract of country comprising some hundred or thousand acres of arable and waste lands: politically viewed it resembles a corporation or township.
Page 71 - It must give pain to an Englishman to have reason to think that since the accession of the Company to the Dewani the condition of the people of this country has been worse than it was before, and yet I am afraid the fact is undoubted....
Page 262 - But millions of peasants in India are struggling to live on half an acre. Their existence is a constant struggle with starvation, ending too often in defeat. Their difficulty is not to live human lives — lives up to the level of their poor standard of comfort — but to live at all and not die.
Page 55 - ... to buy or sell the articles they trade in ; and if the country people do it, then a repetition of their authority is put in practice ; and again, what things they purchase, they think the least they can do is to take them for a considerable deal less than another merchant, and oftentimes refuse paying that ; and my interfering occasions an immediate complaint.

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