21. Marine 22. Education 23. Ecclesiastical 24. Medical Half. Nil. Do. and Currency Offices and allowances to Presidency Banks. Archæological and Meteorological Depts., Census, Gazetteers and Statistical Memoirs. Nil. Frontier Police and Police employed on Imperial State Railways on Salt preventive duties. Half. The whole. Do. The remainder. The remainder. The whole. The remainder. Whatever is now Imperial. Whatever is now Provincial. Do. The whole. Nil. Stationery purchased for Central Stores. The whole. The whole except as in the Items not provided for in the Provincial Column. Remittance of treasure, and discount on Supply Bills. Secondary liability. As at present. Do. Military Public Works, and, except in British Burma, Offices of the Supreme Government; Works in the Salt, Opium, Post Office, Imperial Telegraph and Ecclesiastical Depts. and Mint and Currency Offices; and Bengal Surveyor General's Offices. The whole. Do. Nil. The whole. The remainder, including cost of stationery obtained from Central Stores. Nil. In Bombay, items now Provincial. Nil. All pensions and gratuities, except pensions payable from the Military and Medical Funds brought to account in India; each Government being responsible for pensions and gratuities which it now pays, or hereafter grants or recommends, however earned and wherever paid. The remainder. Wholly Provincial. The remainder. Nil. On the transactions of 1881-82 the Government expected to gain £470,000 a year. Of this sum, however, it returned to the Central Provinces £77,900, for improving the position of the subordinate civil services and other general purposes; to Madras, £20,000, for provincial public works; and to the N.W.P. and Oudh, £326,000, of which £10,000 was for additional kanungoes in Oudh, and the remainder, £316,000, for a remission of local taxation. Besides these benefactions the Government of India gave for a favourable start to Bengal, £285,000; Burma, £20,000; N.W.P., £55,000, to be added to their balances before the close of the year 1881-2. These benefactions, which amounted to £496,000 a year, were expected to turn the annual gain of £470,000 into an annual loss of £26,000 to the Imperial exchequer.1 In this connection it must also be recalled that the Government of India reimbursed the Provincial Governments of the amount of the benevolences it had levied on them in the years 1879-80 and 1880-1. But not long after the revision of 1882 the financial position of the Government of India, which had permitted of such a liberal treatment, suffered a reverse, and the necessity for levying benevolences on the balances of the Provincial Governments reappeared in 1886-7. In presenting the Financial Statement for that year the Finance Member of the Government of India argued : 66 22. Since the estimates for 1885-6 were presented . Indian administration and finance have entered on a new phase. The brief period of rest which the country had enjoyed since 1882 had drawn to a close. ... By the events of the late years in Central Asia, India finds herself almost in contact with one of the great European Powers, and she cannot hope to escape the necessity which the position imposes on her of increasing her military strength. Events impending have occurred which have changed, as it was known they must change, the face of our estimates, and have thrust us violently out of the peaceful path of 1 Financial Statement for 1882-83, p. 15. internal progress in which we had hoped to have been left undisturbed." Among the other means employed to weather the storm the Government of India resorted a second time to nibbling at the provincial resources, and gathered a sum of £400,000 in the year 1886-7 by appropriating from their balances the above amount. The condition of Provincial Finance during this period may be summarized in the following table : † Equilibrium. Balance obtained by excess of current revenue over current expenditure of the year. Compiled from the annual Finance and Revenue Accounts of the Government of India. The settlements entered into with the Provincial Governments in the year 1882-3 not only differed from the preceding settlements in the replacement of fixed assignments by shares in the Imperial revenues, but they also differed in another important respect, namely, their duration. Though the results of the scheme of Provincial Finance have been presented in one Table covering the period 1871-7, it must not be supposed that the settlements with the various Provinces were made for the period of six years. On the other hand, the settlements were only annual and lasted up to 1877 by the process of constant renewals. The results have been presented together for a continuous period not because the settlements were made for that |