292 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



30,000,000 in ten years — a greater increase than in almost any- 

 other country. No doubt the taxable capacity was low, but he 

 asserted that the people of India were, as to the poorer classes of 

 the population, the lightest-taxed people in the world. The actual 

 value of the produce of one man's land was difficult to test, but 

 the rate of wages was easily ascertained. The poorest laboring man 

 in India could, at the time when he was in India, earn Rs. 5 per 

 month, and he would not pay more than Rs. 2 per annum in taxes.* 

 A man here earning thirty-five pounds a year would not pay less 

 than two pounds in taxation. This meant that in England the poor 

 man paid one seventeenth, while in India the poor man paid only 

 one thirtieth in taxes. Therefore the taxation of India was rela- 

 tively much lower than in England. How could a people who 

 were exporting such quantities of foodstuffs and who were in- 

 creasing so greatly in population be said to be dying of star- 

 vation ? In face of those facts, which could be proved, what 

 weight was to be given by the House to amateur statisticians and 

 their calculations ? He had spent twenty-five years among the 

 poorest people in India, and he had also spent fifteen years 

 among the active life of the poorest people of this country. 

 With that experience he asserted that the people of India were 

 not so poor as the people of England." (London Times, August, 

 1894.) 



It was evident, therefore, from the outset that the natural 

 conditions of India were as antagonistic to the adoption of 

 what may be termed the civilized forms of taxation, as they 

 were to the adoption of the Christian religion or English 

 habits and language ; and the problem to the new rulers for 

 obtaining revenue for the support of their Government, with- 

 out resort to the old forms of arbitrary exactions or plunder, 

 has accordingly always been one of great difficulty and delicacy ; 

 and the record of their experience in attempting to solve it con- 

 stitutes an exceedingly novel and imjDortant chapter in economic 

 history. 



Practically the only guide to them for the determination and 

 collection of taxes has been that of expediency. The imperial 

 revenue of British India for 1893-'94, stated in tens of rupees, 

 was £00,193,000, making no allowance for the depreciation of sil- 

 ver. The value of ten rupees is very nearly equivalent to the 

 British pound sterling, or five dollars gold coin of the United 

 States. The ordinary revenue of India for the fiscal year 1893-'94 

 was, therefore, about $300,908,000. The expenditures exceeded 



* The value of the silver rupee — Rs. — in India at the time mentioned by Sir Richard 

 Temple, expressed in terms of the United States gold dollar, was about $0.48 cents. Its 

 present (189G) corresponding gold value is about $0.23.4 cents. 



