Page:The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India.djvu/31

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THE IMPERIAL SYSTEM
9

"no province had any separate power of legislation, any Separate financial resources, or practically any power of creating or modifying any appointments in the public Service; and the references to the Government of India which this last restriction involved gave that Government the opportunity of interference with all the details of provincial administration."[1]

Whatever may have been the merits of the Imperial System of Government from the military, political, legislative, or administrative points of view, it is a melancholy fact that as a system of finance it proved unequal to the strain imposed upon it. From its very start it suffered from the fatall disease of financial inadequacy, and it was only occasionally that the efforts of the Finance Ministers were successful in restoring an equilibrium and staving off the hour of crisis. How chronic the deficits were may be seen from the following figures:—[2]

Insuffciency of Imperial Finances
Year. Surplus. Deficit. Year. Surplus. Deficit.
£ £ £ £
1834–35 194,477 1846–47 971,322
35–36 1,441,513 47–48 1,911,986
36–37 1,248 994 48–49 1,473,225
37–38 780,318 49–50 354,187
38–39 381,787 50–51 415,443
39–40 2,138,713 51–52 531,265
40–41 1,754,852 52–53 424,957
41–2 1,771,603 53–54 2,044,117
42–43 1,346,011 54–55 1,707,364
43–44 1,440,259 55—56 972,791
44–45 743,893 56–57 143,597
45–46 1,496,865 57–58 7,864,222

Anyone who ponders upon this pitiable story of India Finance as revealed by these deficits can hardly fail to

  1. Report of the Royal Commission on Decentralization in British India, p. 24.
  2. From the Financial Statement of British India for 1860–1 by Mr. Wilson. H. of C. Return 33 of 1860, p. 100.