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Rh A Government of personal discretion is, by its very nature, uncertain. This uncertainty reacted fatally on the administration. However well-planned the machinery and rules might be, the actual conduct of the administration was marred by inefficiency, sudden changes, and official corruption, because nobody felt secure of his post or of the due appreciation of his merit. This has been the bane of all autocratic States in the East and the West alike, except where the autocrat has been a "hero as king" or where a high level of education, civilisation and national spirit among the people has reduced the evil.

The Maratha rulers neglected the economic development of the State. Some of them did, no doubt, try to save the peasantry from illegal exactions, and to this extent they promoted agriculture. But commerce was subjected to frequent harassment by local officers, and the traders could never be certain of freedom of movement and security of their rights on mere payment of the legal rate of duty. The internal resources of a small province with no industry, little trade, a sterile soil, and an agriculture dependent upon scanty and precarious rainfall, — could not possibly support the large army that Shivaji kept or the imperial position and world- dominion to which the Peshwas aspired. The necessary expenses of the State could be