166 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
amends for this the Government of India re-distributed the shares in the Land Revenue to the advantage of the NorthWestern Provinces. In addition to this the Government of India gave to that Province a grant of 4 lakhs for the year 1897-8, to enable it to establish district funds on a financially independent footing, a result accomplished long ago in every other Province in British India. To give an equitable treatment to the backward as well as to the advanced Provinces, it realized that an unequal treatment was the only properway. It therefore adopted a less liberal attitude in revising the terms of the settlements with the more advanced Provinces of Bengal, Madras and Bombay. It allowed them a proportionately smaller increase of expenditure than the backward Provinces, as may be seen from the figures given above, and reduced slightly their shares in the revenues.
On the occasion of this revision the gain to the Imperial exchequer was practically negligible. In 1877 its total gain by retrenchment amounted to 40 lakhs a year; in 1882 the Imperial Government was so very prosperous that instead of contriving for a gain it surrendered to the Provinces 26 lakhs of the annual imperial revenue. But in 1887 it resumed
63 lakhs and in 1892,46 lakhs. On this occasion however its gain was nil, for what it got from the advanced Provinces it gave to the backward ones.
Just and liberal as the terms of the settlement were, the abnormal circumstances which disturbed the entire period of the settlement made such heavy demands on the Provincial resources that, ample though they were, they fell far short of the requirements of the Provinces. The famine of 1896 and
1897 affected all the Provinces, although in unequal degree. In the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, the Central provinces, and Burma the effect was most severely felt. In Madras, Bengal and the Punjab it was serious, and in Burma it was slight. On the other hand, the famine of 1899 and 1900 affected Bombay and the Central Provinces most severely, the Punjab very seriously and the rest of the Provinces slightly. And Assam, though unaffected by either of the two famines, suffered very severely from the great earthquake of June, 1897. Besides famine the plague was also making its ravages and taking its toll. As a result of these unforeseen calamities all the Provinces were forced to incur extraordinary expenditure on preventive measures, for which no provision was made in the standard of revenue fixed for the period of settlement. The expenditure on these unforeseen calamities being of an extraordinary nature was treated as imperial and