John Law

“ The next time that I saw His Highness the Nizam was at Delhi, where, at the Coronation Durbar, he, as premier prince of India, walked first to the thrones and bowed there to King George, who, at the same time, and in the same way, returned his homage. He wore a plain English morning suit and the yellow Hyderabad turban, and his quiet manner and dignified bearing seemed to make a very favourable impression on the vast assembly. ”

“ Money is not a pledge, as some call it. it’s a value payed, or contracted to be payed, with which ’tis supposed the receiver may, as his occasions require, buy an equal quantity of the same goods he has sold, or other goods equal in value to them: and that money is the most secure value, either to receive, to contract for, or to value goods by; which is least liable to a change in its value.
Silver money is more uncertain in its value than other goods, so less qualified for the use of money. ”

“ Everything had its price in Hyderabad. If a man wanted a place he counted out his money to buy it. If a man wanted justice, he bade for it as for any other marketable commodity. Every public office, in every department of the State, was accessible to a bribe . . . Neither life nor property was secure . . . There was nothing left indeed but the name of government, all the rest was lawlessness and confusion." In 1853 the Minister, Nawab Seraj-ul-Mulk, died; and his nephew, Nawab Salar Jung, who was then only twenty-five years old, was chosen by Nizam Nasir-ud-Daula to succeed him. ”

“ The merchant who deals in English goods gains no more than when exchange was at the par, tho’ he sells dearer; nor the merchant who deals in Scots goods less, tho’ he sells cheaper; they have both the same profit as when exchange was at the par. [Pg 45] Scotland pays 2 per cent more for English goods, and England 2 per cent less for Scots goods: all, or a great part of the loss falls at last on the landed man in Scotland, and it is the landed man in England has all, or a great part of the benefit. ”

“ Now, in England, kings and queens visit hospitals and send gifts of game, fruit, and other things to the patients, rich people endow beds in and leave large sums of money to hospitals, and well-educated and refined women nurse the sick and attend to the ying. And in British India, the wives of viceroys and governors all try to follow the royal example as regards hospitals and nurses.
Government charity must always be a cold and barren business; yet in a purdah country how can any woman become a Florence Nightingale and make hospital nursing fashionable? ”

“ If all import, and foreign expence were discharged, Scotland would then be so much richer, as there was bullion or money imported: but, if that prohibition be supposed, Scotland would be richer by keeping the money at the value it has; because, a greater quantity would be brought in, to buy the same quantity of goods.
If we could be supposed to be without any commerce with other nations, a 100 lib. may be allayed and raised to have the same effect in trade as a million: but, if a stranger were suffered to come to Scotland, he might purchase a great part of the land or goods with a small sum. ”

“ An easy and somewhat cynical nonchalance characterises him; and being kind-hearted and courteous, he has made many friends and few enemies during the long period that he has held his important office. The knowledge of the State and State affairs that Nawab Faridoon Jung possesses to-day makes him invaluable to H. H. the Nizam and to His Highness's Government, and his marvellous capacity to say and do the right thing on the spur of the moment — well to few do the gods give these gifts in such a happy combination. ”

“ At all times Hyderabad city presents kaleidoscopic views of peculiar interest; but on Langar Day it seems to surpass itself, for then the streets are filled with men in holiday clothes, among whom pace gorgeously-caparisoned elephants, while carriages dash past, driven by syces in rainbow-coloured liveries, and carrying little children dressed in the most brilliant and varied garments. ”

“ So long as foreign trade, and expence kept equal, exchange was at the par: but when a people imported for a greater value, or had other occasions abroad, more than their export, and the expence of foreigners among them would ballance; there was a necessity of sending out the ballance in money or bullion, and the merchant or gentleman who owed, or had occasion for money abroad, to save the trouble, expence and hazard of sending it out, gave so much per cent to another, as the trouble, expence and hazard was [Pg 39] valued at. thus exchange rose above the par, and became a trade. ”

“ Goods will continue equal in quantity as they are now to the demand, or won’t differ much: for the increase of most goods depends on the demand. if the quantity of oats be greater than the demand for consumption and magazines, what is over is a drug, so that product will be lessened, and the land imployed to some other use: if by a scarcity the quantity be lesser than the demand, that demand will be supplyed from magazines of former years ”

“ There is, in fact little to rouse the intelligence of Hindu children in places far from a railway station and reached only by a fair-weather road or a cart-track, and it seems to me that if the Hindu religion were not so much neglected in government schools, there might be a desire on the part of parents to let their children learn the things that the Education Department is so anxious to teach them, for with Hindus religion is not only a duty but, also, a stimulus. ”

“ The people of this island know nothing of manufacture; the island being plentiful, furnishes enough for their consumption, and an overplus which they exchange on the continent for cloaths, and what other goods they want: but as that overplus is only sufficient to make a return of such a quantity of goods as they consume yearly, so they have no magazines of their own or foreign goods to serve them in bad years, nor no magazines of arms, ammunition, &c. ”

“ I do not care to argue this point, more especially in the case of the Hyderabad State, where all women — both Mahomedans and Hindus — of the higher classes (with a few notable exceptions) , live behind the curtain. We have seen in the new census that Hindu working-women in the Dominions are engaged in almost every kind of business, and that they show a marked aptitude for trade and possess a keen money-making instinct. And we have read in the education reports that the schools for girls of the upper classes in Hyderabad city are as good, if not better, than similar places in British India. ”

“ But numbers of people, the greatest riches of other nations, are a burden to us; the land is not improv’d, the product is not manufactur’d; the fishing and other advantages for foreign trade are neglected: and the reason generally given is, that laziness and want of honesty are natural to us.
If want of honesty and laziness were natural, they would be so to [Pg 210] mankind; or if peculiar to a people, this would be so to the Dutch rather than to us: the air of Holland is grosser which inclines to laziness ”

“ Government schools are too strict as regards clothes and cleanliness to suit illiterate parents, and they prefer to pay a few dubs to a Hindu school-master, who in some small, ill-ventilated room will teach the boys to repeat by heart some well-known Hindu legends, and to do a little bazaar arithmetic.
There is no gainsaying that while the government is most anxious to educate the masses, employers, in country places, are just as desirous to keep them in slavish ignorance. The sowcars, too, hinder education all they can. ”

“ A nation may gain where the merchant loses, but wherever the merchant gains, the nation gains equal, and so much more, as the maintenance and wages of the people employ’d and the duty on the goods amounts to. if a ship insur’d is lost, the nation loses, and the merchant loses nothing; but in that case the insurer is the merchant, and loses equal to the nation.
As trade depends on money, so the encrease or decrease of the people depends on trade. ”

“ Every little heap of stones beside the railway line had been guarded by policemen while the viceregal train rushed past, and motor cars had conveyed Their Excellencies from entertainment to entertainment in Hyderabad city and its suburbs, while the lives of the common people had been made wretched by police regulations and restrictions, and the public had offered up a daily and hourly prayer that the Viceroy might go safely and quickly away. ”

“ That any measures proposed for increasing the silver money or establishing a credit promising a payment of silver money are ineffectual. that silver money has fallen much from the value it had. that land is of greater value. that silver may lose the additional value it received from being used as money.
National power and wealth consists in numbers of people, and magazines of home and foreign goods. these depend on trade, and trade depends on money. so to be powerful and wealthy in proportion to other nations, we should have money in proportion with them ”

“ I venture to disagree with a member of His Highness's government in his opinion that the illiteracy of the masses in Hyderabad State is largely due to the fact that the girls of the lower classes are kept totally ignorant. It seems to me that the whole environment of the people in the districts is at fault, and that a desire for more education will come when roads open up the districts, the jagirdars are brought to a sense of their great responsibilities as landlords, and some Hindu religious text-book is introduced into the primary schools. ”

“ The landed man, by having engaged his person and estate for the payment of a species, which is not in his power to perform; and having no alternative: by the law his person is at the mercy of the creditor, and his estate to be sold for so much of that species as it will yield. if 2 or 3 money’d [Pg 213] men call in their money, with a design to force their debitors to part with their estates, at what prices they please to impose: they may bring the price of land to 15 or 10 years purchase. for they would not take bonds in payment, and few or none would be in a condition to buy with money. ”

“ Visvesvaraya's scheme has not been materially altered. It has, however, received an addition of great importance. The occasion has been seized not only to protect the city from floods but also to provide it with a pure and bountiful supply of drinking water, the first requisite of health and well-being in any country, but in India above all. We hope that in four years the city of Hyderabad and the cantonment of Secunderabad will be blessed with a supply of water that for purity, copiousness and permanence, can challenge comparison with any town in the East. ”

“ It is objected that we are under a necessity of having goods from countries who will take none of ours. France does not allow money to be exported, nor any ship to import goods, unless French goods are exported from the same port, to the value of [Pg 197] the goods which were imported. by our law we are forbid to export money. but as I don’t think the example of nations a good answer, I shall endeavour to give a better. suppose our money is not valued abroad, and we have occasion for goods from Denmark, who takes none of ours. ”

“ Needless to say, the things that interested me most, while travelling in the districts, were the differences that I noticed there between Mahomedan and English rule. I came to the conclusion that the former is the most popular with Hindus, and chiefly so because it interferes the least with their customs and habits. In British India, Hindus are always being hustled by energetic young English civilians and "chartered hands," who want to have everything done in a hurry and done according to their own customs. ”

“ The paper money propos’d is equal to its self; but to continue equal to such a quantity of any other goods, is to have a quality that no goods can have: for that depends on the changes in these other goods. it has a better and more certain value than silver money, and all the other qualities necessary in money in a much greater degree, with other qualities that silver has not, and is more capable of being made money than any thing yet known. land is what is most valuable, and what encreases in value more than other goods ”

“ Considering the present state of Europe, France and Spain being masters of the mines, the other nations seem to be under a necessity of setting up another money. the only reason can be given why it has not yet been done, is, that the nature of money has not been rightly understood: or they would not have continued buying silver from Spain above its value as a metal, when they had a more valuable money of their own ”

“ Behind the chicks of the windows, unseen but felt, are the secluded ladies, for whom, no doubt, the Langar is a great annual event, and every roof and every doorstep is covered with sightseers, who seem to vie one with another as regards the brilliancy of their attire. ”

“ Silver will continue to fall in value, as it increases in quantity, the demand not increasing in proportion; for the increase does not depend on the demand. most people won’t allow themselves to think that silver is cheaper or less valuable, tho’ it appears plainly, by comparing what quantity of goods such a weight of fine silver bought 200 years ago, and what quantity of the same goods it will buy now. if a piece of wine in France is equal in value to 20 bolls [Pg 132] of oats there, that quantity of oats can never be worth more or less wine ”

“ Concerning the wages received by farm servants and farm labourers, nothing definite is known, because such people are largely paid in kind, and are more or less the slaves of the cultivators. "To sell into slavery" is a criminal offence in Hyderabad State, but there is no doubt that in remote places farm labourers still sometimes sell their children to their employers, and sometimes bind themselves to work for a certain number of years, and even for a life-time in return for money given to defray marriage expenses, and little girls are sometimes bartered for food, clothes, and sandals. ”

“ If ’tis ask’t how a Dutch merchant trades who has only 500 lib. stock? he restricts his expence so as he can afford to trade at 10 per cent profit: or money being in greater quantity in Holland, whereby it is easier borrowed, and at less use; he gets credit for more at 3 or 4 per cent, by which [Pg 26] he gains 6 or 7. and unless money be in greater quantity in Scotland, or expence retrench’d, we cannot trade so cheap as the Dutch; tho’ we have advantages for trade that they have not, and tho’ they be under disadvantages we are not lyable to. ”

“ In undertaking any legislative measure, the Council is bound to be guided by the principles of Mahomedan law, the tenets of the Hindu shastras, the special laws of every community residing in His Highness's Dominions, the customs and usages having the force of law and the jurisprudence of British India or other civilised countries. No Act of the Council, nor any power granted to it, can in any way affect the rights and prerogatives of His Highness as the supreme ruler of the State. ”