The Friend of India and Statesman Friday May 24th 1878

On the legal question the authority of the Lord Chancellor on the side of the Government will have less weight with the country than that of Lord Selborno on the other side. [...] THE FAMINE OOMMIB8-1011 first step' under' our rule that shook the prosperity of the Mahratta districts of the Deccan was the demand malt upon the people for payment of the lend revenue in inctheyi We forgot that there was little or no money in the country —a consequence itself largely of the exactions and rapacity which had every where marked our course in the last centery from 1757 to 1780. [...] But they brought about more important consequences still ; for the payment of troops and establishments and the interest of the public debt in cash of necessity involved the collection of the revenue in Gash too and the latter measure however little thought of at the time of its introduction by our Indian land revenue collectors and financiers has produced a momentous revolution in the val [...] The bulk of the troops consisted of a kind of militia furnished by jagheerdars and other landlords to whom the collection of the tams was assigned for the support of these levies and for conducting the civil admiuistration of the districts placed under their jurisdiction The troops or retainers of these feudatories were in great measure maintained on the grains forage and other supplies furnis [...] The immediate and inevitable consequence of this general enforcement of money assessments wee that the amount of coin previously circulating and sufficient for the ajustment of the limited transactions connected with revenue and commerce under the Native system proved quite inadequate for the settlement without a derangement of prices of the greatly enlarged transactions resulting from the