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agreement arrived at between it and the Durbar, in 1886, at the instance of the Bombay Government, Rs. 15,000 per annum in consideration of the protection afforded to the pilgrims by the Palitana Durbar. The protection is nowadays something less than a legal fiction, since the railroad which carries the pilgrim right to the foot of the hill makes him almost entirely independent of such watch and ward as the extremely circumscribed resources of this petty State in Kathiawar can afford. It may have been quite a different thing in the days when there was no settled authority in the country, especially after the decay and disruption of the Mughal Empire, as the series of agreements between the Jains and the Durbar, even now available, shows. But, granting for the sake of argument,-though utterly against the weight of reasoning-that there is the least little bit of truth in the allegation of the "protection" afforded to the pilgrims by the Palitana Durbar, granting further that this exaction from the Jains is in the nature of a quid pro quo, what ground has the Agent to the Governor-General to decide on such an extraordinary award making at a stroke 700 per cent. increase in the "consideration"? Has the cost of this precious "protection" increased seven times between 1886 and 1926? The slighest regard to facts would show that the cost of living has not even double in this interval,-the ex
