on March 31, 1909, at 12,200,000l. in India and at 3,759,000%. in England. Coinage and Mint.-The demand for rupees for trade purposes continued brisk in the earlier months of the financial year, but from September it slackened considerably, and it was estimated that for the whole year 1907-8 the rupees coined would only amount to 17,30 lakhs as compared with the 25,37 lakhs coined during 1906-7. The new nickel coins were available for issue to the public in August, 1907, and during that month nearly 2,500,000 of them were issued. They proved very popular, and by the end of February the issue had increased to nearly 20,000,000, to the face value of 12 lakhs of rupees. Exchange. -Down to August, 1907, exchange remained steady at a point or two above 1s. 4d., although the drawings of the Secretary of State in July had been unusually heavy. But in August the prospects of the jute trade were depressed and there was not the usual demand for money for it. In September the failure of the monsoon rains foretold the stoppage of the export trade which soon followed. At the end of October the financial crisis in America caused a drain to the extent of 23,000,000l. on the gold supply of Europe. By November exchange was steadily falling, and on the 25th it reached its lowest point, namely 1s. 311d. Not only was the Secretary of State compelled to discontinue the sale of Council Bills, but on November 25 he released 1,000,000l. of gold in the Currency Chest in London, another 1,000,000l. on December 6, and a further 500,000l. on December 18. The effect of these measures was a steady recovery in exchange, and the Secretary of State was enabled to resume the sale of Bills in February, the price for which never fell below 1s. 32d. The average obtained for the eleven months of the financial year to the end of February, 1908, was 1s. 4·03d. (2) PLAGUE. At last the returns show a great abatement of plague throughout India, and especially in the Punjab. Although the deaths in October, 1907, were in excess of those of the preceding month and amounted to 40,491, the increase did not, as in previous years, continue throughout the cold weather. In November the deaths fell to 22,050 and in each of the two succeeding months they were only a little more, 13,000. They rose in February, 1908, to 21,575 and to 31,855 in March, but from that month they decreased steadily until July when they were only 2,100. They rose again to 4,361 in August and to about 9,000 in September, but for the year ending with the latter month the total was only 201,750, a welcome contrast to the total of 1,206,055 between October 1, 1906, and September 30, 1907. (3) FAMINE. The sudden cessation of the monsoon rains early in September, 1907, and the consequent failure of the Kharif or Autumn harvest in the districts affected caused considerable distress and apprehension of a very serious famine. At the beginning of January, 1908, there were about 140,000 people employed on relief works or in receipt of gratuitous relief; although good rains in January throughout the greater part of Northern India did much good, they could not repair the damage already done. By the end of February the number had increased to 1,250,000 and by the end of March to 1,500,000. In introducing the Budget in the Viceroy's Legislative Council the Financial Member gave a full review of the whole situation. He stated that famine had been officially declared to exist in nearly all the districts of the United Provinces, in the eastern districts of the Punjab, in the northern half of the Central Provinces, some parts of Bengal and Bombay and many of the Native States in Central India. The area of the affected region was 118,000 square miles in British India and 15,000 square miles in the Native States, with a total population of 49,000,000. But although the situation was serious, it was much less so than in the famines of 1896-8 and 1899-1901, in each of which the number of persons in receipt of relief at the close of the month of February was about 3,000,000. The experience gained during those famines was of much help in dealing with the present one; advances to agriculturists were made on a liberal scale as soon as signs of distress appeared; for the two years 1907-8 and 1908-9 they amounted to about 4 crores of rupees as compared with 2.3 crores advanced in 1896-8 and 29 crores advanced in 1899-1901. Large suspensions of the Land Revenue were also granted as soon as it became clear that the crops would fail; 222 lakhs were suspended in 1907-8, and it was expected that 135 lakhs more would have to be suspended in 1908-9, making 357 lakhs in the two years. A large proportion of these suspensions will no doubt have ultimately to be remitted, but it was impossible to estimate this amount or the total loss to the State. The direct expenditure on relief was not expected greatly to exceed 2 crores of rupees, which compares favourably with the 740 lakhs of 1896-8 and the 930 lakhs of 1899-1901. It was also observed that the spirit of the people themselves had been far better in the present than in the preceding famines; they had faced the situation manfully and there had been no aimless wanderings about or general loosening of social ties. The situation continued critical to the end of June, and the anxiety was increased by the delay in the appearance of the monsoon current from the Arabian Sea. But early in July both the Arabian Sea and the Bengal currents were well established, and abundant rain, in some places excessive, fell throughout India during July and August, and there was a fair supply through the greater part of September. By the end of August the number of persons in receipt of relief had fallen to 561,000, which was reduced to 58,000 by October 12, and at the end of the latter month the Viceroy was able to state that relief works had everywhere been closed and that further reports would be discontinued. (4) GENERAL. The seditious agitation and the riots and attempts to murder described in last year's volume (p. 383 seq.) continued with increased violence in the first part of 1908. In Bombay on February 13 a fight between Shiahs and Sunnis was fanned by agitators into a general riot, which was only quelled by the calling out of the military. At Tuticorin early in March there was a strike at the Coral Mills, and Pillay, the local agent of the Swadeshi Trading Company, in contravention of the orders of his employers, used the strike for political agitation. On his being arrested and taken to the jail at Tinnivelly the mob marched on the place where they wrecked the interior of the Missionary College, the Municipal Offices and Munsiff's Court, and burnt the records of the two last places. Troops had to be brought from Trichinopoly to restore order, which they did on March 14. In Bengal an attempt which fortunately resulted in nothing was made to wreck a train by which the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir A. Fraser, was travelling. At Muzaffarpur on May 1 two European ladies were killed as they were driving home from the local club in the evening by a bomb thrown by two young Bengalis, one of whom committed suicide and the other was duly tried, convicted and executed. The assassins had mistaken the ladies' carriage for that of Mr. Kingsford, who as one of the Presidency Magistrates in Calcutta had tried and punished several persons charged with sedition, and had lately been transferred to Muzaffarpur. About the same time the police discovered in a garden at Calcutta a large quantity of arms, bombs, and materials and instructions for making them, besides a quantity of seditious literature and papers disclosing the existence of a widespread and most serious anarchist conspiracy. A number of persons were arrested in consequence, and some of them made full confessions, from which it appeared that the conspirators were nearly all young men of the student class who had failed to pass examinations or obtain appointments. They then took to attending seditious meetings and reading seditious literature until they imagined themselves to be Mazzinis and Garibaldis. Unfortunately they were not content with mere imaginings; some of them seriously studied the art of bomb-making and pursued the general methods of anarchists. It was admitted that the attempt to murder Mr. Allen in December, 1907, and that to wreck the Lieutenant-Governor's train, as well as the Muzaffarpur outrage, were all the work of these conspirators. There were several minor attempts to murder by bombs in Calcutta and also in other parts of India, and these outrages were applauded by the worst class of the vernacular press. To check this two Bills were passed through all their stages in the Legislative Council and at once became law, one containing stringent provisions against the manufacture or possession of explosives, the other rendering the press and plant of any paper publishing incitements to murder or outrage liable to confiscation by order of the magistrate, subject to an appeal to the High Court. Criminal proceedings were from an early period of the year instituted in all parts of India against the editors, printers and publishers of newspapers containing seditious articles of a serious character, and when convictions were obtained, as they were in nearly all cases, heavy sentences were passed. The case which excited most attention was one in which Mr. Tilak, a man of education and position and editor of a Marathi newspaper, was tried before the High Court of Bombay, and on conviction by a jury sentenced to six years' transportation and a fine of Rs. 1,000. By the order of the Bombay Government the fine was remitted and the sentence of transportation changed to one of simple imprisonment. This leniency was strongly condemned by nearly all the Anglo-Indian papers, and at first attributed by them to the interference of the Secretary of State for India. This idea was however found to be incorrect, for the Governor of Bombay took upon himself the sole responsibility. The second half of the year was marked by fresh and even more daring outrages. On August 31 Gossain, who had turned approver in the Calcutta anarchist conspiracy case, and whose evidence was of the greatest importance to the prosecution, was visited in the Alipur jail by two young men, Kanai Lal and Satyendra Nath Bose, and shot by them with revolvers they had concealed. Both men were seized and subsequently tried and executed. On November 7 as Sir A. Fraser, the LieutenantGovernor, entered a room in Calcutta to preside at a public meeting he was confronted by a Bengali youth who attempted to fire a revolver from a distance of only a foot or two. Fortunately it missed fire and the youth was at once seized. At his trial he expressed deep contrition and received only a sentence of ten years' imprisonment. On the evening of November 9 the Bengali inspector of police who had been chiefly instrumental in tracking and capturing one of the murderers in the Muzaffarpur case was shot dead in a lane in Calcutta by men who escaped without leaving any clue to their identity. In the meantime the proceedings in the trial of the anarchists had been protracted by every means in the power of the defence, and they had not concluded at the end of the year. Further special legislation to check outrage and expedite trials was clearly necessary. Accordingly on December 11 the Legislative Council passed at a single sitting without any opposition the Indian Criminal Law Amendment Act, which became immediately operative in the Provinces of Bengal, Eastern Bengal and Assam, and which may be extended by the Governor-General in Council to any other part of India. The sections of the Indian Penal Code relating to sedition, murder and outrage and disturbance of the public peace are set forth in detail in a schedule attached to the Act, and it is provided that, when a magistrate has taken cognisance of any of these offences, the Governor-General in Council, or the Local Government with his sanction, may order that the case shall be dealt with under the special procedure provided by the Act. On receipt of this order the magistrate is to take the evidence for the prosecution, and the accused is not to be present unless the magistrate so direct, and he is not to be represented by a pleader during any part of the inquiry, nor is any person to have access to the court or the magistrate on his behalf. If the magistrate finds the evidence for the prosecution sufficient to justify the framing of a charge against the accused, he is to commit him to the High Court, before which he will be tried by a bench of three judges without a jury; and it is provided that if any witness whose evidence has been recorded by the magistrate is prevented from attending at the trial, and the Court is of opinion that he is kept out of the way in the interest of the accused, his evidence as recorded by the magistrate may be admitted at the trial. The second part of the Act deals with unlawful association, which is defined as an association which (a) encourages or aids persons to commit acts of violence or intimidation, or (b) which has been declared by the Governor-General in Council to be unlawful. Such a declaration may be made on the ground that the association has for its object interference with the administration of the law, or with the maintenance of law and order, or that it constitutes a danger to the public peace. Any person who is a member of an unlawful association, or assists it, may be punished with imprisonment for six months or with fine or both, and in the case of any one managing the association or directing its operations the imprisonment may extend to three years. In addition to passing this Act the Government of India made free use of its powers under Regulation 3 of 1818, and seven persons believed to be leaders in the seditious agitation were arrested in Calcutta and its neighbourhood and deported or placed in confinement. On November 1, the fiftieth anniversary of the assumption by the Crown of the direct government of India, the KingEmperor issued a Message to the Princes and peoples of India which was read by the Viceroy in the Durbar held at Jodhpur on November 2 (p. 218). The Message, after repeating and confirming the declarations and assurances contained in Queen Victoria's famous Message of 1858, reviewing the material progress of India during the last fifty years and paying a warm tribute to the loyalty of the Feudatory Chiefs and the Native |