THE NATURE OF PROVINCIAL FINANCE 203
if reference be made to that Act of Parliament it will be seen that the revenues of India are the revenues of the Government of India and of that Government alone. Every action that the Local Government takes in respect of them must be justified by a specific order of the Government of India; the Local Governments derive their powers entirely from the Government of India, and apart from that Government they exercise no financial powers whatsoever.” [1]
Again, if the financial relationship between the Central and Provincial Governments in India were based upon the principle of separation of sources and contributions from the yield, what ought to have been shown was the existence of legal responsibility of the Provinces for the services they administered. It is true there was a certain division of functions between the Central and Provincial Governments in India analogous to what existed between the Central and State Governments in most of the federal countries. But it must, however, be remembered that this division of functions had no sanction in law and no legal responsibility attached to the provinces for any of the services, not even for those provincialized. The entire responsibility by law rested on the shoulders of the Imperial Government and it could not absolve itself of that responsibility by transferring it on to any of the Provinces. That the Provinces accepted the financial responsibility for some of the Imperial services was their choice. That they could not be compelled to undertake them was proved in a singular manner by Madras refusing to accept such responsibility in 1877. By law it was thus the Government of India which was responsible for peace, order and good government in the country. All services were therefore necessarily Imperial in status undertaken by the Government of India in discharge of its constitutional obligations.
It is therefore obvious that the view which posited that the relationship between the Central and Provincial Governments in British India was one of separation of sources and contributions from the yield was an untenable view. The Government of almost every country in these days is carried on by an inter-related group of polities operating in specific areas and discharging specific public functions ; and it may well be that in any two given countries the number of polities engaged in carrying on the work of government is the same. But it is quite erroneous to argue from that fact that the nature of their inter-relationship must have been alike. It is therefore as well to invite attention to the point that the ordered
1 Financial Statement, 1897-8, p. 110, etc.