Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/124

 112 REVIEWS OF BOOKS Settlement, is light, remaining at Rs. 600,000, at which figure it was fixed 120. years ago. Had the Permanent Settlement not been effected the Central Government would have seoured Rs. 2,400,000, as the profits from land have increased six.fold. The amounts to 8s. 8d. per head. other eouatriss, is extremely total taution in Faridpur This, ompared with that in small and amounts to about 5 per oent of the annual ineome:-- Country. Italy ... ... Holland ... ... Jslxtn ... ... Fsridpur ... ... REVENUE PER HEAD Of oentmi authority 4 16 0  15 0 8 I 0 I 2 0 o s t Of local authority 1 1 0 1 I 0 Total 8 8 0 16 0 Ill 0 14 0 s st 9 11 0 o 15 o o o s! 1 o "It may be assumed that the revenue from all sources amounts in Faridpur to alut 8s. 6d. (Rs. 2-10) per head of the population. A ealeulstion on the same basis shows 'that the revenue demand in Bengal is only half what it is /n any other province in India, although in all probability the' income per head of population is greater than in any other provinoe." "It will be observed that Bengal : incontestably the most lightly taxed of civilized countries in the world. It is probable that there is no other in which the burden of taxation is not twios or three times as great as it is in Bengal." A feature of local taxation, which is exeeptionally light on the whole, is the extreme inequality of its incidence. "The substance of that information" (obtained from the examination of the amounts paid by eaeh individual family ) "is that the burden is not equally borne by all sections of the' oommunity, that alL-non.agricultural families and the rioher cultivators escape too lightly, sad that the local authorities receive less than half of what has been paid." Mr. Jack makes s oompan with Italian conditions and I give this further quotation "In writing an ofliei81