212 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
measure of stability derived from it be fully realized unless it is borne in mind how before 1870 the Government of India was left between the devil and the deep sea by having to refuse or to accept the bewildering demands ranging from dustbins for a Department to education for the people made by the Provinces on its not too large resources. The Provincial Governments had been saved the delay and the indignity in having to depend upon the Government of India for sanction of the meanest of their wants. The Imperial Government on the other hand was saved the fumbling task of scrutinizing the most trivial of demands and grant or reject it, but always under the apprehension of having done wrong by acting either way. The system not only gave freedom to the Provinces and stability to the Government of India, but had replaced the irresponsibility and extravagance which had proved the bane of the Imperial System by economy and responsibility, for by setting bounds to the funds of the Provincial Governments the Government of India had ended in setting bounds to itself. These results, it is true, did not satisfy the critics of Provincial Finance. More in other directions was expected of it, but that could have been possible only if Provincial Finance was a system independent in its organization. So long as Provincial Finance was a part of Imperial Finance, inseparably linked to it, it could have yielded no greater results than have followed from it, and those that have followed are by no means slight.
There, however, remains the question that, although it was not possible to alter the nature of Provincial Finance, whether it would not have been feasible to enlarge its scope by relaxing the limitations imposed upon it by the Government of India without in any way interfering with the due discharge by it of its own responsibilities. That aspect of the question will be examined in the next chapter.
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