Page:The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India.djvu/38

 When these resources failed the Government resorted to some very questionable means of raising revenue.

On an impartial survey of the revenue system as prevailed under the Imperial regime one is constrained to say that justice in taxation was conspicuous by its absence. It was a cruel satire, or at best an idle maxim, for the lancet was directed not where the blood was thickest but to that part of the body politic which on account of its weakness and poverty most meekly bore the pang. The landlords who passed their lives in conspicuous consumption and vicarious leisure on the earnings of the poor tenants, or the many European civil servants who fattened themselves on pay and pickings, were supremely exempted from any contribution towards the maintenance of the Government whose main activities were directed towards the maintenance of pomp and privilege. On the other hand, the salt tax