Page:The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India.djvu/17

Rh was cast by the constitutional changes of 1919. In Part I a somewhat thorny, untrodden and yet necessary ground has been covered in order to give a complete idea of the origin of Provincial Finance. While due homage is paid to the adage which requires students of the present to study the past, nothing more than the past of the present has been dealt with. In Chapter I, Part I, an attempt is made to present a picture of the system of Finance as it existed before the inauguration of the Provincial finance and to state the causes that called for a change in its organization. In Chapter II a rival system of Finance proposed during the period of reconstruction is brought to light and shown why it tailed of general acceptance. Chapter III is devoted to the discussion of a plan which was a compromise between the existing system and its rival, and the circumstances which forced its reception.

Having explained the Origin in Part I, the Development of Provincial Finance is made the subject of Part II. How far the arrangement followed in Part I is helpful must in the absence of anything to compare with it be left to the opinion of the reader. In regard to Part II, however, it is to be noted that the arrangement is different from what is adopted in the only fragmentary sketch published on the subject of Provincial Finance in 1887 by the late Justice Ranade. As will be seen from a perusal of Part II, one of the features of Provincial Finance was that the revenues and charges incorporated into the Provincial Budgets were revised every fifth year Justice Ranade in his pamphlet, which simply covers the ground traversed in Part II of this study, and hat too up to 1882 only, has taken this feature as