Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/100

 redress of grievances, for words of sympathy and comfort. The unique position which the member for Hackney holds in the hearts of the Indian people of itself makes Mr. Fawcett a power in the state. His presence at the India office would do more to secure India than twenty Afghan expeditions. This being so, the ministerial wisdom of his appointment as Postmaster-General is by no means obvious. Mr. Fawcett has been at enormous pains to acquaint himself with the actual state of India; and yet his first application to the subject was more like an accident than any thing else. He happened to oppose, as a gross and shameful injustice, the proposal of the Government of the day to saddle the Indian exchequer with the cost of a particular entertainment given to the Sultan of Turkey. Bit by bit his knowledge of the systematic manner in which India is "exploited" by England grew; and he at last resolved to subject the whole question of Indian finance and Indian administration to a patient and searching analysis. For years he worked four hours every day at the tangled skein as one would for an examination; and, when data failed him, he had influence enough to secure the appointment of a parliamentary committee on Indian finance, which sat for three whole sessions. At the end of the investigation he had as fully mastered the subject as it was possible to do. He has all the more important figures by heart, and can hurl them with crushing effect at the head of whoever takes it upon him to unfold the Indian budget. It is one of the beneficial effects, if I may so speak, of Mr. Fawcett's blindness, that he speaks, and does not read, his figures to the House. These, through his youthful but smart secretary, he selects so appropri-