That is, that the Government of India having "pledged itself not to spend one rupee of these special resources," except "for the construction of a particular class of public works"--having declared that "the sole justification for the increased taxation" is that it should be devoted to a particular end--no sooner gets the money into its possession than it expends the entire sum on something else, and then "thinks it wise" not to discuss the matter any further. The Government is very sorry; it really wanted to make an Insurance Fund against famine; but it finds that it "cannot even approximately tell what income will be required to meet the necessary expenditure of the State." Under such circumstances the Government finds it extremely difficult to follow "any settled financial policy," except that of spending every shilling which it can get possession of. Thus it is that an Imperial Government "redeems to the uttermost" the honour of the British nation, and strengthens the confidence of India in "the good faith of her rulers." The Cotton Duties. I come, lastly, to the action of the Indian Government in respect to the Cotton Duties. It is, I fancy, generally supposed in England that the duty on imported cotton was designedly protective--_i.e._, that it had from the beginning been imposed with the intention of favouring the Indian manufacturer at the expense of Manchester. This is a mistake. The duty was imposed at a time when there were no Indian manufactures to compete with those from England, simply as a source of revenue. In India there is a great difficulty in so arranging the incidence of taxation that the well-to-do classes shall contribute their proper share to the necessities of the State. A light duty on imported cotton--as being the universally used material for dress--enabled the Government to reach these classes in a manner that was effective without being burdensome. Even now that mills are at work in India, by far the larger part of these duties had nothing protective in their character, because there is in India no manufacture of the finer sorts of cotton. Whether, however, the duty was or was not protective in its character, both the Indian Government and the House of Commons had repeatedly given pledges that the duty should not be repealed until the Indian finances were in a position to justify the loss of revenue thereby occasioned. Lord Lytton, who throughout his viceroyalty has made a point in all important matters of making a confession of political faith exactly the opposite of his subsequent political action, expressed himself on the subject of the Cotton Duties with his usual copiousness. In reply to an address from the Calcutta Trades' Association, shortly after his arrival in India, he said:--