Page:The Earl of Mayo.djvu/161

Rh necessity for improvements, and their constant and justifiable desire was to obtain for their own Provinces and people as large a share as they could persuade the Government of India to give them out of the general revenues of the Empire. They found by experience, that the less economy they practised, and the more importunate their demands, the more likely they were to persuade the Government of India of the urgency of their requirements. In representing those requirements they felt that they did what was right; and they left to the Government of India, which had taken the task upon itself, the responsibility of refusing to provide the necessary means.

'The Government of India had totally failed to check the constant demands for increased expenditure. There was but one remedy: namely, to prevent the demands being made; and this could only be done by imposing on the Local Governments a real and an effectual responsibility for maintaining equilibrium in their local finances. There could be no standard of economy until apparent requirements were made absolutely dependent upon known available means. It was impossible for either the Supreme or Local Governments to say what portion of the provincial revenues was properly applicable to local wants. The revenues of the whole of India went into a common fund, and to determine how much of this fund ought fairly to be given to one Province and how much to another, was impracticable.'

'The distribution of the public income,'