or to collect the old ones in their own name. In like manner the services they administered became a charge of the Government of India, which distributed among the various provinces sums from the consolidated fund for the maintenance of the services. It was by law provided that without the previous sanction of the Government of India the provinces were not to spend the fund allowed to them in creating any new office or granting any salary, gratuity, or allowance.[1] The public debt was no longer a charge upon the revenues of any particular Presidency alone, nor did there remain any question of primary or secondary liability as between the revenues of the other Presidencies. All the provincial debts became the debts of the Government of India and were charged to the revenues of India as a whole. In short, the financial system which was roughly analogous to the system of separation of sources and contributions from the yield was changed into a system of aggregation of sources and distribution of the yield; for, as observed in a Government Resolution by virtue of the Act of 1833,
"British India, though for the sake of convenience subdivided into Presidencies under separate locally controlled governments, (became) in reality one sole grand Power in dependence on Great Britain, having undivided interests, a single exchequer, and controlled in all essential and general principles by one Government—the Governor General in Council. … The entire resources of India (were) applicable to one purpose only, the discharge of its engagements and those connected with its management in England, and to whatever section of British India funds (were) wanting, funds (were) supplied, as a matter of course, without any reference to the particular source from whichthey were derived."[2]
So comprehensive did the system of Imperial Finance become in time that when in 1858 the Crown took over from the Company the government of India it was found that
