200 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
supported that view which argued that the system was based on the principle of separation of sources and contributions from the yield. Indeed the question of equity of contributions would hardly be worth discussion until it is settled that the Provinces had revenues which they could call their own and services for the efficient discharge of which they were primarily liable.
What is the criterion by which to judge whether the provinces had revenues and services which they could call their own? There is, of course, the administrative criterion by which it would be possible to say that anything which a Province administered was provincial. But that criterion cannot be a final criterion. For, whatever may be the view regarding the origin of administrative polities or regarding what their position should be in an ideal organization, yet all regional rights of an administrative polity are in modern times exercised in the main, not in virtue of any social compact or the mere discharge of certain functions, but in virtue of a general law. The question must therefore be decided with reference to the law which defined the status of the Provincial Governments in British India.
Did the Provinces have a legal title to the revenues? Although it is uncertain whether or not those who spoke of Provincial revenues invested the term provincial with a legal status there is no doubt that it had acquired such a connotation in ordinary parlance. Even the Provincial Governments, who ought to have known better, thought and argued that by the provincialization of revenue what the Government of India passed on to them was not the mere usufruct but a title to the revenue. But the Government of India had always been prompt in suppressing such pretences. The facts are patent that provincial settlements were revisable every five years, that the usufruct was not perpetual and that the Government of India could resume it at the end of five years if it wanted. This is made quite clear in answer to the pretensions advanced by the Government of Bengal in a letter No. 284 of January
14, 1882, from which the following is extracted :—
“For the sake of diminution of friction and other well known objects which need not be specified, the Imperial
Government delegated a share in its administration
to Local Governments. It makes a rough calculation
that a certain portion of the general income, together
with the increment thereon, will suffice to meet