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improved means, though not the improved education, of tte 

 working classes, from which it is almost entirely drawn. It 

 seems to me, therefore, that it is right and proper that this 

 revenue should be entirely at the disposal of the local Govern- 

 ment in view to its being devoted to the amelioration 'of 

 the moral and intellectual condition of the classes to whose 

 Ignorance and improvidence it owes its existence. Under 

 present arrangements, three-fourths of the revenue is taken 

 by the Government of India for imperial purposes, and this, 

 I venture to submit, is not as it should be. 



53. The fluctuations in the Customs revenue of the Presi- 



The decline in the revenue of the later years as compared 

 with the revenue of the earlier years of the century is the 

 result of the policy of freeing trade and industries from all 

 obstacles calculated to impede their natural growth and of 

 leaving them to their unfettered development, which, under 

 the impulse of the free trade principles adopted in England, 

 has been maintained in this country during the last 40 years. 

 The abolition of the Sayer or inland transit duties which had 

 given rise to frightful abuses and had weighed upon the 

 springs of industry like a dead weight has already been 

 referred to. In 1844, the year in which the Sayer duties 

 were abolished, the trade between ports within British India 

 was declared free, the revenue relinquished on both accounts 

 being 36 lakhs of rupees. The tariff as regards foreign trade 

 was at the same time remodelled, but the old principle of 

 differential and discriminating duties in regard to articles 

 imported from and exported to British territories and similar 

 articles exported to and imported from other countries, as 

 well as in regard to merchandise carried in British and 

 foreign ships was still maintained. Thus the rate on metals, 

 wrought and un wrought, the produce of the United King- 

 dom, or any British possession, if brought in British ships, 

 paid a duty of 3 per cent., and if brought in ships of other 



