70 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
equally with Bengal, [1] the Governments of Madras and Bombay were vested each [2] with the civil and military government and also with the ordering and management of all territorial acquisitions and their revenues. Along with the Government of Bengal they possessed as stated before co-equal and independent powers of legislation within their respective jurisdictions. A truer view therefore seems to be that they forwarded the copies of their proceedings to the Government of Bengal for information rather than for orders. At any rate, such seems to have been the view taken by the Government of Bengal itself, for, though it had the power to issue orders and compel obedience to them it had in practice confined its supervision and control “to pointing out an irregularity and requesting that it be not repeated.” More than this was thought inadvisable [3] and it is doubtful [4] whether it would have been constitutional.
The Imperial system of Government was necessarily accompanied by the Imperial system of Finance. Before the inauguration of the Imperial system of Administration the several Presidencies were like separate clocks each with its own mainspring in itself. Each possessed the powers of sovereignty, such as the legislative, the penal, and the taxing powers. They were independent in their finance. Each was responsible for the maintenance of services essential for peace, order and good government within its jurisdiction and was free to find money by altering or levying taxation or borrowing on credit to meet its obligations. For their ways and means they often drew upon the resources of one another, not, however, because their exchequers were not distinct, but because they were parts of a common exchequer belonging to the East India Company. All this was changed by the Act of 1833, which vested the revenues and the government of the different territories in the Governor-General of India in Council. The revenues and the services became by law the revenues and the services of the Government of India. The provinces became the collecting and the spending agencies of the Government of India. They ceased to levy any new taxes or to collect the old ones
1 13 Geo. III, c. 63, s. 7.
2 33 Geo. III, c. 52, s. 24.
3 Of. Min. on the Constitution of the Indian Government by the GovernorGeneral, Lord William Bentinck, dated September 14, 1831. Also Memorandum re the same by the Secretary to the Government of Bengal accompanying the despatch of Lord Canning dated December 9, 1859, published in H. of C. Return
307 of 1861.
4 Cf. the despatch of the Court of Directors to the Government of Bengal No.
44 dated December 10, 1834, original draft in the India Office Records.