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of Bengal refused all voluntary aid to the Govern- 

 ment for the amelioration of the police administra- 

 tion, and denied its legal right to tax them on that 

 account ; and it is worthy of remark that they were 

 supported in their views by the opinion of the highest 

 legal authority in the land, the present Chief Justice 

 of Bengal. Sir Barnes Peacock held, that " the 

 same principle which prevents an augmentation of 

 the assessment, equally precludes the taxation of the 

 owners in respect of the rent or produce of their 

 estates," as a such taxation must necessarily prevent 

 them from enjoying exclusively the fruits of their 

 own good management and industry." Yet a 

 similar principle is now enunciated, and it is dwelt 

 on with force, that the benefit of all improvements is 

 to go into the pockets of the landlords, and that the 

 State is to be precluded from ever obtaining any 

 future augmentations of income from this source (the 

 land). 



How the Zemindars of Bengal responded to the 

 call of Government in the day of its trouble, and 

 how, on the ground of their assessments being fixed, 

 they objected to a tax on their incomes, are matters 

 of too recent date, and are too well known, to need 

 notice here. 



It is true that it is now declared to be the inten- 

 tion of Government to look to taxation as the source 

 from whence all future increase of revenue must come; 

 and as regards the intention of the law on this point, 

 no future doubt could possibly arise. But it must 



