28 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
appears that an outlay of about one million and a half sterling has been the maximum for one year. If we take the most immediately productive works, viz.: of Canalization, Irrigation, it will be seen that not more than 738,015 in the year 1853-54, and 543,333 in the year 1854-55, was thus expended.
“The condition of the Revenue, as preventing a more rapid and extensive outlay, has hitherto been an answer to those who might have been disposed to urge that even these amounts are insignificant, when the British Indian territory of 837,000 square miles, and its 132,000,000 of souls are considered. This answer resolves itself purely into one of alleged difficulty. That this difficulty is only apparent, and might be remedied, is evident, not only from the practical testimony of the productive results of such expenditure in the instances before adverted to, but also from the history and policy of the other branches of the Colonial Empire of this country. And the history of the East India Company, or of the trading companies of other countries, has shown no exception to the general rule, that expenditure on carefully selected objects of enterprise may often appear lavish and purposeless when it is but showing the field whose harvest is the proof of the wise economy of that expenditure.”
The Pressure of the Revenue
This branch of our study is entirely out of question : not that it is beyond our scope but there are innumerable drawbacks in our way. First and foremost is, that we have no absolutely correct statistics regarding population. Census was never known at that period and any estimate of the population is at nest a guess too broad and vague to be made the basis of any scientific conclusion.
Another serious handicap in the way of such a study is the fact that every year the East India Company saw its territory extended by several units of miles and one often wonders whether the swell in the revenue is due to the high rate of taxation or the extension of territory.
Thirdly, the Revenue accounts of the East India Company are anything but perfect. As noticed before, they were mixed with the