The Friend of India and Statesman Friday November 29th 1878

The enormous importation of the last is attributed by the Collector to the over-trading of Manchester firms caused by the stoppage of the markets of Eastern Europe and the general stagnation of demand. [...] The vast majority of the people in Bengal are agriculturists and though to the non-agricultural part of the community the dearness of food would be en undoubted burden it might yet follow that the main section of the populace was enriched. [...] The four counts consequently in the judgment of the Englishman make the present war the justest the world has ever seen are (1) ingratitude on the part of the Amir (2) a police capable of improvement (3) the punishment of traitors (4) a persistent refusal to receive an Embassy which came to deprive him of his independence. [...] To state it for the hundredth time :—it is that the Government should have closed the mints to 2 rivato coinage while the value of silver remained Ito fluctuating as it now is ; or what amounts to the same thing it should have levied a seignorage thereon proportionate to these fluctuations to protect the standard of the country from the unlooked-for aberrations that have shown themselves in the [...] Where seine may ask will all this end ? Is there any assurance that of the thousands of people who have passed through the pear-houses of the North-Western Provinces in the last ton mouths none will feel the want of similar aid in the slack time of the coming year ? Have we not taught the poorer classes to look to the State for their daily broad as is certainty instead of the uncertainty of be