PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 297 



ent places, and for the furtherance of special objects as for 

 paying the expenses of hospitals, schools, and police . service ; for 

 the maintenance and construction of roads and irrigating facili- 

 ties, the administration of wards' estates, and the like. The reve- 

 nue reported from this source in 1894 was 3,514,571 Rx. ($17,572,855). 



Seventh. Until within a very recent period (1894) the customs 

 system of India taxes on imports and exports was one of the 

 simplest in the world. No other country than the United King- 

 dom imposed duties on so few descriptions of merchandise main- 

 ly on alcoholic liquors, salt, mineral oils, arms, ammunition, and 

 a few special articles of food and drink. Export duties were also 

 levied on rice and some other forms of grain. The aggregate 

 receipts from customs fees, wharf rents, etc., in 1894* were 1,682,- 

 373 Rx. ($8,411,865). In March, 1894 the commencement of the 

 Indian fiscal year the Council of India, acting under the con- 

 straint of financial exigencies, imposed duties on almost all kinds 

 of imports, cotton yarns and piece goods constituting about one 

 third in value of the entire imports by sea excepted. Subse- 

 quently a uniform duty, equivalent to three and a half per cent 

 ad valorem, was imposed on all imported cotton goods, and a cor- 

 responding excise tax on all the competing products of Indian 

 mills yarns and other cotton fabrics, the product of Indian 

 hand labor, being exempted. " Except the weaving of fancy and 

 highly elaborated clothing, which is largely conducted in and 

 around Benares and in a few other districts, the handloom manu- 

 facture of cotton in India is mainly a spare-time industry, and is 

 not professional." 



Other important sources of internal revenue in India are the 

 receipts from the sale of the products of the forests owned or man- 

 aged by the Government in the form of timber, firewood and 

 charcoal, bamboos, sandalwood, grass, and other products the 

 total of which for 1894 was 1,723,022 Rx. ($8,615,110). 



An annual tribute or contribution from a large number of 

 native and mainly petty states of India toward the support of 

 the Imperial Government was reported for 1894 at 774,337 Rx. 

 ($3,871,685). On the other hand, the Imperial Government grants 

 annual allowances, or pensions, to the native hereditary rulers of 

 such states or their families, the aggregate of which for the fiscal 

 year 1894 was 508,443 Rx. ($2,542,215).* 



* The British Government has respected the possessions of the native chiefs of India, 

 and about one third of the country still nominally remains in the hands of its hereditary 

 rulers. These, in return for their maintenance and protection by the Imperial Government 

 of India, contribute annually from their resources a comparatively small sum for its support. 

 The independent gross annual revenue of these so-called " feudatory " states is reported to 

 amount to about 6,000,000 ($30,000,000), and their permanent military forces at " some- 

 thing like 300,0C0." 



