BUDGET BY ASSIGNMENTS 127
Government, it is of no immediate advantage to seek for results that would have interested them to know, if they had been allowed their say in the matter. In so far then the results of the past influenced the policy of the future we have only to lay ourselves out to seek for results in which the two remaining parties to the contract were primarily interested, namely, gain to the Imperial treasury and adequacy to the Provincial Governments. Applying ourselves first to the test of adequacy to the provinces the results of the period may be gauged from the annual surpluses and deficits in the finances of each of the different provinces brought within the pale of the system of Provincial Budgets.
P ROVINCIAL S URPLUSES A ND D EFICITS
| Province | 1871-2 | 1872-3 | 1873-4 | 1874-5 | 1875-6 | 1876-7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C.P. ... Bt. Burma ... Assam ... Bengal ... N.W.P. and Oudh Punjab ... Madras ... Bombay ... | £ 20,988 27,634 ... 180,622 31,595 109,828 40,787 65,553 | £ —8,423 33,832 ... 74,622 64,036 28,008 —19,264 128,805 | £ 2,268 —9,922 ... 393,955 36,358 —33,347 —56,381 —64,373 | £ 13,108 —21,889 5,159 271,044 11,693 —117,644 4,303 9,929 | £ 8,307 —5,471 590 27,397 20,945 —92,724 —14,210 —18,354 | £ 16,800 5,100 9,833 46,978 128,501 26,908 504 —140,718 |
Compiled from the annual Finance and Revenue Accounts of the Government of India for the respective years.
It is evident from these figures that the surpluses outnumber the deficits in frequency and magnitude to such an extent that the deficit could have been easily met from the accumulated balances without seriously exhausting them. Care, however, must be taken in explaining the cause of this apparent prosperity of Provincial Governments. Did the province succeed in building up their balances from the savings from the assignments and receipts made over by the Imperial Government is what we have to find out. The answer to this question cannot be given in a categorical form, for the total resources and changes to which the above figures refer include more than the receipts and assignments set apart for provincial management. Besides Imperial assignments and receipts of incorporated services they include a part of what hitherto were known as Local Funds. It must be recalled that long before the separation of provincial from