88 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
suffered from being nobody’s business, so that funds were distributed not according to the genuine needs of the services, but according to the relative claims and persistency of the clamour made for them.
Sufficient evidence has been given to show that the collapse of the Imperial system was due to a faulty fiscal system marked by injurious taxes and unproductive and extravagant expenditure. It must not, however, be supposed that this faulty fiscal policy commenced with the inauguration of the Imperial system. On the other hand, it was a heritage which descended to the Imperial system from the past. None the less it is obvious that a timely revision of the fiscal policy and the strengthening of central control would have solidified the foundation of the Imperial system. But a much too long continuance thereof undermined its financial foundations, and as it could get no more money to meet its rising expenditure from a people whom it had beggared, the Imperial system succumbed to the shock of the Mutiny, never to rise again in its original garb.
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