When presenting a petition to the House of Commons from European residents and natives of India, who complained of the expenditure on public works and asked for greater economy, Fawcett moved that a commission be sent to India to obtain evidence on the spot—a motion that he afterwards withdrew. During the debate arising out of his motion, he was attacked with such asperity and lack of civility by one of the Under Secretaries of State, that it aroused the protest of other members. Fawcett was content to reply with a very characteristic maxim. ‘Five years’ experience in the House,’ he said, ‘had taught him that a member was always right in bringing forward a question, when the fact of his bringing it forward caused the minister concerned to lose his temper.’ On another occasion the same antagonist warned Fawcett that his love of competition was becoming a fetish. But Fawcett smilingly retaliated, ‘Beware of the fetish of officialism.’ Good advice for many! Fawcett’s stand from the first was taken so surely and firmly, that his ground could not be cut from under him. His success was merely a question of work and time. Part of his power lay in his frank realisation of his own limitations. [Sidenote: Supporting a family on fourpence halfpenny a day.] He had no special knowledge of Indian religion and customs, and was not competent to judge questions of internal policy. But the financial relations between England and India, as well as the methods of dealing with finance in India itself, were well within the compass of his clear mind. With these he proposed to deal exhaustively. He knew whether the balance-sheets shown by Indian statesmen were intelligible or not, whether charges made to India were just, and he set himself with a will to study these questions. And to them he knew how to give a most intimately personal touch. He was an untravelled man, and lived within the isolation of his blindness. But he had the great gift of realising habitually the existence of the world beyond his experience. He made England understand that India is no rich country from the Arabian Nights, but a poor country, where the ryot, the peasant of India, had but fourpence halfpenny a day to keep himself and his family, where taxes were increased only with great hardship to the poor, and where of all places money must not be wasted. In 1870, in a long and technical speech, he criticised the Indian Budget. He complained that it was brought on so late in the session that there was no time for proper discussion, and urged that a committee on Indian finance should be appointed. In this speech, which showed his careful study of the whole Budget, he singled out one item for especial scorn. The Queen’s second son, the Duke of Edinburgh, had recently journeyed through India, and had distributed royal gifts amounting in value to £10,000. These had been paid for out of the Indian revenues, that is to say, by the Indian taxpayers themselves!