Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/313

Rh places, and for the furtherance of special objects—as for paying the expenses of hospitals, schools, and police service; for the maintenance and construction of roads and irrigating facilities, the administration of wards' estates, and the like. The revenue reported from this source in 1894 was 3,514,571 Rx. ($17,572,855).

Seventh. Until within a very recent period (1894) the customs system of India—taxes on imports and exports—was one of the simplest in the world. No other country than the United Kingdom imposed duties on so few descriptions of merchandise—mainly on alcoholic liquors, salt, mineral oils, arms, ammunition, and a few special articles of food and drink. Export duties were also levied on rice and some other forms of grain. The aggregate receipts from customs fees, wharf rents, etc., in 1894, were 1,682,373 Rx. (.$8,411,865). In March, 1894—the commencement of the Indian fiscal year—the Council of India, acting under the constraint of financial exigencies, imposed duties on almost all kinds of imports, cotton yarns and piece goods—constituting about one third in value of the entire imports by sea—excepted. Subsequently a uniform duty, equivalent to three and a half per cent ad valorem, was imposed on all imported cotton goods, and a corresponding excise tax on all the competing products of Indian mills—yarns and other cotton fabrics, the product of Indian hand labor, being exempted. "Except the weaving of fancy and highly elaborated clothing, which is largely conducted in and around Benares and in a few other districts, the handloom manufacture of cotton in India is mainly a spare-time industry, and is not professional."

Other important sources of internal revenue in India are the receipts from the sale of the products of the forests owned or managed by the Government—in the form of timber, firewood and charcoal, bamboos, sandalwood, grass, and other products—the total of which for 1894 was 1,723,022 Rx. ($8,615,110).

An annual tribute or contribution from a large number of native and mainly petty states of India toward the support of the Imperial Government was reported for 1894 at 774,337 Rx. ($3,871,685). On the other hand, the Imperial Government grants annual allowances, or pensions, to the native hereditary rulers of such states or their families, the aggregate of which for the fiscal year 1894 was 508,443 Rx. ($2,542,215).