One would have thought that under the pressure of the war, your
Government in India would make an honest and earnest effort to reduce
expenditure on public services, at least under heads mainly ornamental
or which only afford luxuries to your agents in India; but on the other
hand, what is the actual situation? A perusal of the proceedings of the
Imperial Legislative Council and also of the Provincial Councils shows
that all efforts made by the non-official members to obtain additional
money for education and sanitation by the reduction of expenditure on
luxuries, were opposed by your Government, and were consequently
defeated. All efforts to reduce expenditure on comforts were of course
resisted by those who enjoyed them, and it is they whose votes count in
the Indian Councils. For example, it was proposed that the huge
expenditure incurred by the different Government Departments, Imperial
and Provincial, in moving to the Hills for seven months of the year,
should be reduced, at least partially. Many persons competent to express
an opinion on the subject, among them Lord Carmichael, the retiring
Governor of Bengal, have placed it on record that this "exodus to the
hills" was not necessary, and was in fact prejudicial to the interests
of good government; yet the Government opposed the motion of the
non-official member and he was forced to withdraw it. A similar motion
to curtail the expenditure on the ornamentation of the residence of the
Lieutenant Governor of the United Provinces was also opposed and met a
similar fate. The huge allowances made to the heads of the different
governments in India for kitchen expenses, for dispensing hospitality,
and for traveling in royal style have not been reduced by a penny. The
Punjab Government has provided in its current budget a large amount of
money for providing palatial residences for its officers in summer
resorts, and has sanctioned large pensions, from father to son, for a
few of their Indian supporters. These men are mostly wealthy men. They
did nothing more than help you in your suppressive and exploiting
policy. Your Government naturally rewards them. Is it not bribery. If an
expert financier were to examine into these items, which can only pass
unchallenged in a country wherein the people have no voice in the
raising of the taxes and in spending them, it would be found that great
savings could be effected and the money thus made available used for
other urgent needs of the people. The fact is that the Indian ryot who
pays for all these extravagances has no voice to check the vagaries of
those who spend his money for their own comforts. I have not mentioned
the lavish scale on which special traveling allowances are granted to
high officials in India. It is a matter of common knowledge that these
officials do not spend as much as they draw under this head. Yet it is
actually proposed that the salaries and the allowances for the European
members of the Indian services be substantially raised. _Verily,
taxation without representation_ is a crime of the worst possible kind.