Punjab budget debate

SIR John Maynard was in the happy position of being the recipient of almost universal congratulations when the general discussion on the Punjab budget took place in the Legislative Council on Monday. This was inevitable because the budget he had introduced was apparently a prosperity budget. Here and there the congratulation was, indeed, qualified, while two of the non-official members actually refused to join in it. But the qualification in the one case and the refusal in the other were for the most part due only to pervading consciousness of the members in question, a consciousness which could scarcely have been absent and which we know as a matter of fact was not absent from the mind of Sir Maynard himself that the appearance of prosperity was the result of the large addition he had made to the taxpayer’s burdens during the last three years. Only in one case, that of Rana Feroz Din, does the refusal to congratulate the Finance Member appear to have been based on more general grounds. Nor was Sir Maynard the only member of the Government to be congratulated. Sir Fazl-i-Hussain also received some measure of congratulation for the substantial increase that had taken place in the Government’s educational expenditure during the last three years. At a time when money has been so scarce, this is undoubtedly moderately gratifying, though as more than one member pointed out, it was far from adequate, considering the volume of illiteracy and ignorance that has still to be wiped out.