84 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
a year. [1] There is a principle well known to farmers that constant cropping without manuring ends in the exhaustion of the soil. It is, however, capable of wider application, and had it been observed in the State economy of India the taxing capacity of the country would have grown to the benefit of the treasury and the people. Unfortunately it was lost upon the financiers of India to the detriment of both.
But if the chance of augmenting the resources by judicious taxes and productive expenditure to cover the chronic deficits was forfeited, there was at least the way open for economy in expenditure. As might be supposed, a strong Central Government of the kind established in 1833 was capable of effecting economy wherever possible. As a matter of fact, the centralization was of the weakest kind. De jure there was an Imperial system of administration, but the de facto administration was conducted as though the primary units of executive government were the Provinces and that the Government of India was only a co-ordinating authority. This was obvious from a variety of circumstances. Legislation was, it is true, centred in the Government of India; none the less the laws that were passed by the Government of India were passed for the different provinces as though the initiative in legislation still lay in the Provinces and that the Government of India was only a sanctioning authority. Each Province had its own customs, internal as well as external, a survival of their sovereign status. Each Province continued to have its own Army. Notwithstanding centralization, the account system still remained provincial, sustaining the sense of their financial independence. The work of administration and collection of revenue being still conducted by them, the provinces behaved as though they were the lawful authorities charged with the responsibilities of Government. This spirit of independence bred insubordination, and some of the Provinces, particularly Bombay and Madras, endeavoured to resist the attempts of the Government of India to tax the people under their jurisdiction when the cost of the mutiny compelled it to levy fresh burdens. The point to be borne in mind is that the Act of 1833 made an unfortunate divorce between the legal and administrative responsibility. The Imperial Government were responsible in law but did not administer the country. The Provincial
1 Statistical paper relative to British India. Edited by Thornton, 1853.