PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 301 



the money metals, may be anticipated in the perhaps not-distant 

 future. 



In the year 1893 the burden of taxation on the people of India, 

 inclusive of the revenue derived from the rent of land, was offi- 

 cially estimated at two rupees and four annas, or nominally less 

 than fifty cents per head; or, exclusive of the revenue from land, 

 at about twenty-three cents per head a rate relatively much lower 

 than the taxation of England ; so that, if the taxable ability of the 

 people of India is low, the poorer classes of that country, it is 

 claimed, are more lightly taxed than the poorer classes of Europe, 

 or even of the United States. Before England assumed dominion in 

 India the system of exaction of her native rulers was so perfected 

 that they were assured of the very last penny that could be taken 

 from the ryots, or peasantry, without stripping them of every- 

 thing ; leaving to the tenant class little more than the privilege of 

 living. To-day the existing system of taxation in India is con- 

 ceded to be at least eminently just. To-day it is generally admit- 

 ted that there is no government in the world whose administra- 

 tion is more honestly conducted, and which is now doing more for 

 the material good of the governed, than the present British Gov- 

 ernment of India. And herein is to be found the secret of Eng- 

 land's success in ruling the vast congeries of people of different 

 races, languages, and religions, known to us as India. 



The consideration of another matter of recent occurrence and 

 of the highest economic and social interest and importance, 

 appropriately finds place in any discussion of the tax system of 

 British India ; more especially because it sets forth an attempt, 

 founded on an unwarranted sentiment, indirectly to impose a 

 large additional burden of taxation on the people of that country. 

 As already pointed out, a present annual receipt of some $33,000,- 

 000 of revenue from the monopoly of the production and sale of 

 opium, the incidence of which does not fall upon the Indian 

 people, constitutes an important factor in this system. Acting 

 on the assumption that the continued use of this drug, as a nar- 

 cotic and stimulant, is in the highest degree injurious to the 

 consumer worse even than the continued use of alcohol and 

 especially demoralizing and destructive to the people of China, 

 who are the purchasers and consumers of the major part of the 

 opium product of India, a body of public opinion has in recent 

 years grown up in Great Britain whose representatives hold that 

 it was disgraceful and positively wicked for a people professing 

 to be moral and enlightened to engage in or sanction the business 

 of producing and supplying opium; and that it is the duty of 

 their Government to at once interfere and put an end to it. And 

 in recognition of this public opinion, and in deference to a numer- 

 ously signed address to the Crown, the British Government, in 



