290 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
attained to a greater advance in prosperity than any others, the land revenue yields practically no increase; the land-owners, with enormously increased incomes, contribute nothing to the increase in the financial burdens of the State. Permanent Settlement has ever since the days of Lord Canning been suggested as a panacea for improving the financial condition of the people. After the severe famine of 1860, Lord Canning, then Viceroy and Governor-General of India, recommended the extension of the Permanent Settlement to all parts of india. Sir John (afterwards Lord) Lawrence supported the recommendation, and the two Secretaries of State for india, Sir Charles Wood and Sir Stafford Northcote, approved of the proposal. Fortunately for the country the proposal for making the Permanent Settlement universal was finally rejected in
- Some no doubt regarded the decision as unfortunate, and continued the agitation in favour of the permanent Settlement long after. But the real force, if there was any in the agitation, was derived from the motive of putting a limit on the financial resources of an alien and an irresponsible bureaucracy. Those who then agitated in favour of the Permanent Settlement probably did not realize that some day this irresponsible bureaucracy would give place to a responsible government of the people and the Permanent Settlement which it was desired to be instituted as a curb on the unchartered licence of a bureaucracy would result in placing a fetter on the freedom of a popular government to enter upon the path of orderly progress. A bad government may abuse its financial powers, but a government cannot be a good government if there is a serious limitation on its financial powers. It was therefore a good thing that this evil of a permanent settlement was not allowed to spread to the whole of India. But it would have been better if the new financial arrangements had contrived to replace the permanent settlement system of land revenue by a periodical settlement system. That was one important way of augmenting the general resources of the country and thereby giving adequacy to all the governments concerned. Instead of this the financial arrangements were so conceived as not to
“subject the permanently settled provinces to financial pressure which would have the practical result of forcing them to reconsider the permanent settlement.” [1]
If this had been done it would have augmented the general resources to the benefit of all. As it was, not only provision was
1 Joint Report, p. 171.