216 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
the country by partitioning the taxing or borrowing powers. The field for taxation in India being considerably limited, an indiscriminate levy of taxes by a competing authority, it was feared, would have led either to discontent by additions [1] to the Imperial imposts or to a retrenchment of the field for Imperial taxation. The concentration of borrowing powers in its hands, the Government of India urged, was a natural corollary of the statutory hypothecation of all India revenues to all-India needs. The Government of India could not allow its revenues to be mortgaged by a Provincial Government for its own needs. Besides it was afraid [2] that if this freedom to borrow were granted
“the temptation to hypothecate revenues in advance might become inconveniently strong, and the future administration of a Province might be starved because a former Government had been in a hurry to proceed with some costly ambitions and non-productive project.”
Moreover, the loan market in India, it was said, was as limited as the taxable capacity of the country. Therefore
“if many buckets are dipping into one well and drought cuts short the supply of water, obviously the chief proprietor of the well must take it upon himself to regulate the drawings.” [3]
In the matter of specific restrictions on spending powers with respect to staff and establishments, the defence of the Government of India was that such restrictions were necessary in the interest of uniformity and economy. It was urged that if each province was allowed the freedom to regulate the remuneration of the Public Service which carried on the actual work of administration the result would probably have been unequal pay for equal work. Such a consequence would have engendered discontent in the servants of the State which it was desirable to prevent in the interest of good administration. Again, if the Provinces had been given full freedom to revise establishments it might have resulted in considerable additions to the recurring expenditure of the Provinces, thereby jeopardizing the stability of the Provincial as well as of the Imperial finance, for in the last resort the Government of India was responsible for maintaining the Provincial Governments.
1 Between 1870 and 18.79, when the Provinces had a freer hand h the matter of local taxation, all of them selected the already overburdened basis of taxation, viz. land for their levy.
2 R.C.D. Mit. of Evid., Vol. X, Q. 45310.
3 Report on Indian Constitutional Reforms, Cd. 9109 of 1918, p. 94, hereafter called Joint Report.