are to a greater extent open to conviction, and who, if their conversion can be effected, are, in the interests of the cause which he advocates, well worth convincing. These blemishes--for blemishes they unquestionably are--should not, however, blind us to the fact that Sir Roper Lethbridge deals with a subject of very great importance and also of very great difficulty. It is most desirable that it should be discussed. Sir Fleetwood Wilson, in the very statesmanlike speech delivered in the Indian Legislative Council last March, indicated the spirit in which the discussion should take place. "The subject," he said, "is one which in the public interest calls for consideration, not recrimination." It would be Utopian to suppose that it can be kept altogether outside the arena of party strife, but those who are not uncompromising partisans, and who also strongly deprecate Indian questions being made the shuttlecock of party interests, can at all events endeavour to approach the question with an open mind and to treat it dispassionately and exclusively on its own merits. The main issue involved may be broadly stated in the following terms. Up to the present time the fiscal policy of the Indian Government has been based on Free Trade principles. Customs duties are collected for revenue purposes. A general 5 per cent _ad valorem_ duty is imposed on imports. Cotton goods pay a duty of 3½ per cent. An excise duty of a similar amount is imposed on cotton woven at Indian mills. A duty of three annas a maund is paid on exported rice. Sir Roper Lethbridge and those who concur with him now propose that this system should undergo a radical change. The main features of their proposal, if the writer of the present article understands them correctly, seem to be that the duty on cotton goods imported from the United Kingdom, as also the corresponding excise duty levied in India, should be altogether abolished; that the duties raised on goods--apparently of all descriptions--imported into India from non-British ports should be raised; that a preference should be accorded in British ports to Indian tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, etc.; and that an export duty should be levied at Indian ports on certain products, notably on jute and lac. This new duty would not, however, be levied on goods sent to the United Kingdom.