The foregoing is an illustration of the manner in which an Imperial Viceroy secures "the progressive well-being of the multitudes committed to his fostering care." I purpose now to illustrate the manner in which the same Imperial functionary deals with the finances "committed to his fostering care." The position of "isolation and scarcely veiled hostility" which, without any provocation, Lord Lytton had assumed towards the Ameer of Afghanistan rendered a war against that sovereign a mere question of time and opportunity. Meanwhile, funds were necessary for its prosecution in addition to those which had been obtained from the starving population of the North-West. Accordingly, in his Budget statement for 1878-79, Sir John Strachey announced that the Indian Government had arrived at the conclusion that they ought to regard famines as normal occurrences for which provision should be made in the budgets of each year. Famine expenditure could not be estimated at a smaller sum than a million and a half annually. This sum he now proposed to raise by means of a License Tax on trades and dealings, to be levied throughout India, and which, it was estimated, would yield £700,000. The remainder of the sum required was to be obtained by a tax on the agricultural classes in Northern India and Bengal alone. The peculiar incidence of these taxes was justified on the ground that the classes taxed were the same classes which, in periods of famine, had to be supported by the State. It was therefore only just that they should provide the fund which was to insure them against famine. This money was in fact a sum raised for a special purpose, at the expense of certain classes, for whose benefit it was to be exclusively applied. This was acknowledged by Lord Lytton with his usual superabundance of emphasis:--