JOBBERY IN INDIA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XL, Issue 196, 10 August 1876, Page 4

JOBBERY IN INDIA.

An American paper says:— Our English contemporaries have lately been lecturing us with some severity upon the official corruption and jobbery uncovered by the various investigating committees at Washington. This leoturing, perhaps, ia well deserved, and the moral reflections, of which the subject is so profuse, may neither be inopportune nor out of place; still our ceneors would do well to bear in mind the old proberb about the impropriety of people living in glass houses, etc. For, curiouely enough, in the same London journals which are coming to us with homilies upon the heinousness of American Government jobbery, we have a debate in the House of Commons upon a correspondence recently submitted to tbat body, with reference to the operations of the British Government contractors in Bengal, during the famine there last year, which, as it strikes us, affords abundant material for moral reflection upon tbe dark ways of official delinquents nearer home. The debate followed a motion for a select committee to inquire into the mode in which the relief measures of the home Government had been administered by its agents and contractors in India. The motion was supported by the mover of it by many statements of a startling character. For instance, tbe real extent and severity of the famine were purposely exaggerated by persons who expected to reap a rich harvest in supplying the necessities of -the people. These exaggerations were practised both in India and in England, and the same machinery was used in diffusing them, that was usually employed in getting up joint stock companies. The newspapers teemed with alarming articles to work upon the sympathies of the public. Correspondence was published, detailing the horrors of the famine, dated at Bombay, but in reality indited in London. Meanwhile, there were strange, not to say suspicions, proceedings on the part of "high official personages " connected with the Government, but we have room only to glance at theße. Sir Richard Temple having been deputed to go down to Bahar to see precisely how things stood, in the short space of 24 hourß came to the conclusion that four million maunds of rice would be required at once; hut bis estimate was cut down by Sir G. Campbell, (whose opportunity for forming aa intelligent judgment on the matter could not be gainsaid,) to about 1,500,000 maunds and yet m the face of this tact the Temple estimate was by the Indian Government! Again when the famine was really under way the Government bought 450,000 tons of grain for a certain district. Of this 100,000 tons remained on hand after tbe exigency had passed, " aod," said a membar advocating the Committee of Inquiry," no one ever knew how the other 350,000 were disposed 0/." Furthermore, it was shown that while the most accurate calculations were that the probable number of persons who would require to be fed during the famine would be an average of 660,000 for sis: months, and that the coat of feeding that number for that period would be only £396,000, the Government had actually expended no less than £_,4UG,000 in the purchase of grain, besides spending an enormous sum on transport in consequence ot their neglecting to avail themselves of the water and railway carriage which existed throughout tbe whole district. As to the " relief works," the extravagance, mismanagement, and peculation which characterised their management were represented scarcely within the limits of belief. Several advances of money were mads to parties, who used it to promote private enterprises of their own. In some instances, several towns got money to effect local improvements. Another way in which the money went was this : £50,000 was given over to the native landholders for distribution without any voucher being taken irom them, and, as in the case of the Irish famine, much of it failed to reach the people lor whom it was intended. It ia unnecessary for us to go into further details. The principal allegations calling for inquiry were four, viz.: that tbere had been excessive expenditure io tbe lace of the best knowledge; that men were extravagantly employed on relief works; that there had been reckless advances and no returns; and that money had been squandered in costly transport, out of which speculators bad made fortunes. The strongest reason for investigation was that India is a country of recurring famines, and it would be prudent to settle the principles on which they should be dealt with in future. The House, however, saw fit to negative the motion for the enquiry, and so the "principles" upon which future India famines must be dealt with are left to conjecture.