LIMITATIONS OF PROVINCIAL FINANCE 195
(ii) To transmit the objection of the Imperial audit officer against its appropriation or sanction with regard to expenditure with the explanation of the Provincial Government concerned to the Government of India for final disposal. [1]
Such were the limitations on the Financial Powers of the Provincial Governments. Apart from these specific limitations the Provincial Governments were not altogether the free architects of their own destiny within the sphere allotted to them; for it was provided that the power of supervision and control in any Department still rested in the Governor-General in Council, and that the Provincial Governments should keep him fully informed of their executive and financial proceedings so as to enable the former to discharge its obligations for peace, order and good government. [2 ] Their general effect on the finaicial freedom of the Provinces could hardly have been concealed. It must therefore have been a most impervious mind which in face of these paralysing limitations had not lost its faith in the independence of the system of Provincial Finance and had not asked what was after all the nature and advantage of this illusive institution ?
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1 Rule 30 and 31 of 1912.
2 Rule 5 of 1877; Rule 15 of 1897 ; and Rule 6 and 7 of 1912.