Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/690

 654 INDIA.

would be acted upon to any great extent, while the rate of interest afforded by an investment in the purchase of the land assessment is so far below that obtained in ordinary transactions, as is at present the case in India, Entertaining no doubt of the political advantages whioh would attend a permanent settlement, and considering it most desirable that facilities should be given for the gradual growth of a middle class connected with the land, without dispossessing the present proprietors and occupiers, the Government of India recently decided to sanction the redemption of the revenue only in oases where lands are required for dwelling-houses, factories, gardens, plantations, and similar purposes, but to authorise a permanent settlement being effected throughout the empire at the present or revised rates, in all districts or parts of districts in which no consider- able increase can be expected in the land revenue, and where its equitable apportionment has been, or may hereafter be, satisfactorily ascertained. In proceeding to carry this measure into effect, it was decided that, where agriculture is backward, population scanty, and rent not fully developed, permanency of settlement must be refused ; and that, on the other hand, where the estates are so fairly cultivated, and their resources so fully developed, as to wan-ant the introduction of a settlement at the existing rates, it may be granted.

Next in importance to the land-tax, as a great source of Indian rerenue, is the income derived from the opium monopoly, The cultivation of the poppy is prohibited in Bengal, except for the purpose of selling the juice to the officers of the Government at a certain fixed price. It is manufactured into opium at the Govern- ment factories at Patna and Benares, and then sent to Calcutta, and sold by auction to merchants who export it to China. In the Bombay Presidency, the revenue is derived from the opium which is manufactured in the native states of Malwa and Guzerat, on which passes are given, at a certain price per chest, to merchants who wish to send opium to the port of Bombay. The poppy is not cultivated in the Presidency of Madras. The gross revenue derived from opium averaged during the ten years 1860-69 about 6,500,000/. sterling, having risen from 5,887,778/. in 1859-60 tp 8,453,365/. in the year ending March 31, 1869.

The land tax, largest source of Indian revenue, has discharged for years past, with ample margin left, the largest branch of public expenditure, that for the army. The maintenance of the armed force, which must be maintained to uphold British rule in India, cost 13,874,956/. the year before the great mutiny, and subsequently rose to above 16,000,000/.; but after the year 1861 sank, for a short period, to less than 13,000,000/. It was 13,909,412/. in the financial year 1865-66; 13,181,210/. in 1866-67; 16,476,892/. in 1869-70; and 15,745,341/. in the budget estimates of 1870-71.