harshness and rigidity in collection.1 As an instance of this may be cited the notorious unwillingness of Provincial Governments in the matter of remitting taxation. If humanizing the Provincial Governments was a desirable end, then the abolition of divided heads was a good means. The other objection which the Government of India was able to oppose was that such a change would have given the share of the Government of India from the revenues raised in the Provinces the character of a tribute, and the Government of India would have appeared to be the pensioner of the Provincial Governments, depending upon them rather than controlling them. This objection must be ruled out as being sentimental.

The fifth and the last suggestion for the enlargement of the scope of Provincial Finance was least obnoxious to the responsibility of the Government of India. There is no reason why there should have been a single-treasury system for both the Governments, Provincial and Central. It is true that a common treasury permits a high state of economy in the cash balances of the country, which it is the duty of every Government to effect, just as any business firm looks upon it as its duty to economize its till money or floating cash. But if a common treasury hindered the use of the balances the gain in freedom would have more than compensated the loss involved by the increase in the cash balances that would have followed the institution of separate treasuries and separate ways and means. But the demand of the Provincial Governments did not ask for a complete separation of Provincial balances from the balances of the Central Government involving separate treasury system and separate ways and means, probably because they anticipated that as such a proposal meant separate possession of provincial revenues the Government of India would raise a constitutional objection to such a demand. All they asked for was a power to spend part of their balances up to a defined amount without reference to the Government of

1 Cf. in this connection The Fee System, by Prof. Urdhal. 2 R.C.D., Mit of Evid., Vol. X, Q. 44866.

1

India. The suggestion was accepted as "reasonable," for its consequences, provided it was not a big amount, would have been not a deprivation of the Government of India's power of control over nor a disturbance in the ways and means, but only a slight increase in the cash balances of the country.

Thus it is clear that the scope of Provincial Finance was unduly restricted by a too narrow and too legalistic an interpretation of the constitutional obligations of the Government of India. From the above analysis of the suggestions made by the Provincial Governments it is clear that without making any breach in the constitutional position of the Government of India it would have been possible, with a more charitable view of their sense of responsibility, to effect the changes they desired. Such concessions would have made Provincial Finance as selfsufficient and as autonomous as it was capable of being made. The system would no doubt have rested on pure convention: none the less its benefits would have been as real as though it was based on law.

But the time had arrived when the financial arrangements could no longer be looked upon as a matter which concerned the Central and Provincial Governments. There arose a third party whose counsels were rejected in 1870, but which now insisted on having a voice in the disposition of the financial resources of the country. It was the Indian taxpayer, and his clamour had grown so strong that it compelled the powers that be to alter the system so as to permit him to take the part he claimed to play.

The changes that followed upon this event will form the subject-matter of Part IV.

1 R.C.D., Mit. of Evid., Vol. X, Q. 44900.

PART IV

PROVINCIAL FINANCE UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA ACT OF 1919

CHAPTER X

THE NECESSITY FOR A CHANGE

As two types of governmental systems, the Presidential and Parliamentary are often contrasted 1 to the advantage of the latter. For the Parliamentary type of government it has been claimed 2 that no other arrangement seems able quite so effectively to place the centre of authority under the control of those who are supposed to represent the popular will: that it means government by consent: that it ensures the exercise of the functions of government by a body of persons who are amenable to and whose views are in accord with those of the majority of the Legislature: that it is the only form of government which provides for a powerful Executive so very necessary for a stable government without rendering it so irresponsible as to endanger the essentials of a good government: that it throws upon the holders of high office the onus of vindicating their acts or, failing, suffer dismissal: it renders the Legislature supreme both in legislation and administration so that it forms a government not only to make life possible but also to make life good. No other form of government, it is urged, can so effectively prevent order degenerating into tyranny or progress blocked in the name of peace. So eminently has 1 Cf. James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, 1910, Vol. I, Chap. XX.

Cf. Sir Sidney Low, The Governance of England, 1914, Ch. III, passim.

Parliamentary Government demonstrated its supreme virtue in securing orderly progress that, though originally developed as an accident in the evolution of the British Constitution, it has been most eagerly adopted as the most fundamental institution by many countries whose political convulsions have required them to prepare anew or alter the existing framework of their governmental systems.

If the fact of the Executive being a part of the Legislature be a sufficient indication of the Parliamentary type of government, then the system of government in India since 1853 may be said to be analogous to the Parliamentary system. Indeed it would hardly be possible to deny this characteristic to the Indian constitution, for the provision of the constitutional law has since then been that the additional (i.e. the Legislative) members and the ordinary (i.e. the Executive) members shall together form the Legislature for the making of the laws and regulation for the peace, order and good government of British India.1 But judged in the light of its de facto consequences the Indian system falls lamentably below the de jure connotation of the class of governmental systems to which it belonged. If in other countries the record of Parliamentary government is one of submission of the Executive to the Legislature, in India it had been one of the Executive thwarting, often of flouting, the Legislature. In vain may one search the proceedings of the Legislature to find the Executive ever paying deference to the wishes of the people. Reforms have been inces1 Cf. the important note by that eminent lawyer Sir Bhashyam Iyengar on the Reform proposals of Lord Minto in 1908.

2 The following table from N. C. Kelkar's The Case for Indian Home Rule, p. 81, is illustrative of the fact :

:

it.

santly, asked for by the Legislature only to be denied with equal tenacity by the Executive.

The reason why the Indian Parliamentary system was but an empty form is to be found in the fact that it was a Parliamentary system without a Parliamentary Executive. In other words, the Executive under the system was not responsible to the Legislature and was not removable by The Indian Legislature could neither make nor unmake the Indian Executive. The Indian Executive made peace or war as it liked without being afraid of dismissal by the Legislature. It taxed as it pleased and spent as it liked, without the slightest compunction as to the wishes of the Legislature. It undertook acts or refused to undertake them according to its own sweet will, but had no fear of a vote of censure from the Legislature. The nearest approach to the Indian system of Parliamentary Government is to be found in the position of the Irish Parliament which existed from 1782 to 1800. The peculiarity of the case lay mainly in the fact that while this Irish Parliament, commonly known as Grattan's Parliament, was during the period it lasted admittedly a sovereign Legislature, the Irish Executive of the time was as regards the Irish Parliament in no sense a Parliamentary Executive. The Irish Executive, instead of being appointed and dismissed by the Irish Legislature, was in reality appointed and dismissed by the Crown on the advice of the English Ministry. In the same manner the Indian Executive was appointed and dismissed by the Crown on the advice of the Secretary of State for India who is a member of the English Ministry and was in no way responsible to the Indian Legislature.

It is true that the Executive in India was ultimately responsible to the Secretary of State for India and through him to the British Parliament. But it must not be forgotten, said Mr. Fisher, that

"the affairs of India are in the hands of the Government of India . Proposals may come from the Indian Govern

1 Fisher, H. A. L., on Imperial Administration in his The Empire and the Future, 1916, p. 58.