much heavier than now. Mughal poll tax. Summary. Taxation Sentence continued from page 352.] 25 millions sterling from 1593 to 1761; or 32 millions during the last century of that Empire, from 1655 to 1761. The annual net land revenue raised from the much larger area of British India, during the ten years ending 1879, has been 18 millions sterling (gross, 21 millions). But besides the land revenue there were under our predecessors not less than forty imposts of a personal character. These included taxes upon religious assemblies, upon trees, upon marriage, upon the peasant's hearth, and upon his cattle. How severe some of them were, may be judged from the poll tax. For the purposes of this tax, the non-Muhammadan population was divided into three classes, paying respectively £4, £2, and £1 annually to the Exchequer for each adult male. The lowest of these rates, if now levied from each non-Musalmán male adult, would alone yield an amount exceeding our whole taxation. Yet, under the Mughals, the poll tax was only one of forty burdens. We may briefly sum up the results. Under the Mughal Empire, 1593 to 1761, the existing returns of the Imperial demand averaged about 60 millions sterling a year. During the ten years ending 1879, the Imperial taxation of British India, with its far larger population, averaged 35 millions. Under the Mughal Empire, the land tax between 1655 and 1761 averaged 32 millions. Under the British Empire, the net land tax has, during the past ten years, averaged 18 millions. Not only is the taxation of British India much less than of Japan. that raised by the Mughal Emperors, but it compares favourably with the taxation of other Asiatic countries in our own days. The only other Empire in Asia which pretends to a civilised government is Japan. I have no special acquaintance with the Japanese revenues; but I find from German statists that over II millions sterling are there raised from a population of 34 million people, or deducting certain items, a taxation of about 6s. a head. In India, where we try to govern on a higher standard of efficiency, the rate of actual gross taxation averages 3s. 8d. a head. Taxation If, instead of dealing with the Imperial revenues as a whole, of a we concentrate our survey on any one Province, we find these Province under the facts brought out in a still stronger light. To take a single Mughals, instance. After a patient scrutiny of the records, I found that, allowing for the change in the value of money, the ancient revenue of Orissa represented eight times the quantity of the staple food which our own revenue now represents.1 The native 1 The evidence on which these statements are based, was published in my Orissa, vol. i. pp. 323-329 (Smith, Elder, & Co., 1872). the tax. revenue of Orissa supported a magnificent court with a crowded and under seraglio, swarms of priests, a large army, and a costly public British. worship. Under our rule, Orissa does little more than defray the local cost of protecting person and property, and of its irrigation works. In Orissa, the Rájá's share of the crops amounted, with dues, to 60 per cent., and the mildest Native Governments demanded 33 per cent. The Famine Commissioners estimate the land tax throughout British India1at The land from 3 per cent. to 7 per cent. of the gross out-turn.' Ample deductions are allowed for the cost of cultivation, the risks of the season, the maintenance of the husbandman and his family. Of the balance, Government nominally takes onethird or a half; but how small a proportion this bears to the crop may be seen from the returns collected by the Famine Commissioners. Their figures deal with 176 out of the 191 millions of people in British India. These 176 millions cultivate 188 millions of acres, grow 331 millions sterling worth of produce, and now pay 183 millions of land revenue. While, therefore, they raise over £1, 15s. worth of produce per acre, they pay to Government under 2s. of land tax per acre. Instead of thus paying 51 per cent. as they do now, they would under the Mughal rule have been called upon to pay from 33 to 50 per cent. of the crop. The two systems, indeed, proceed upon entirely different principles. The Native Governments, write the Famine Commissioners, often taxed the land' to the extent of taking from the occupier the whole of the surplus after defraying the expenses of cultivation.' 2 The British Government objects to thus 'sweeping off the whole margin of profit.' tion. What becomes of the surplus which our Government declines Increase of to take? It goes to feed an enormously increased population. populaThe tax-gatherer now leaves so large a margin to the husbandman, that the Province of Bengal, for example, feeds three times as many mouths as it did in 1780, and has a vast surplus of produce, over and above its own wants, for exportation. 'In the majority of Native Governments,' writes the highest living authority on the question, the revenue officer takes all he can get; and would take treble the revenue we should 1 Report of the Indian Famine Commission, part ii. p. 90, as presented to Parliament 1880. 2 Idem. 36 3 Report by Mr. Alfred Lyall, C.B., formerly Governor-General's Agent in Rájputána, now Foreign Secretary to the Government of India; quoted in the Despatch of the Governor-General-in-Council to the Secretary of State, 8th June 1880. 'Condition of India,' Blue Book, pp. 36, 37. Taxation in Native States. Incidence of taxation in British India. assess, if he were strong enough to exact it. In ill-managed States, the cultivators are relentlessly squeezed: the difference between the native system and ours being, mainly, that the cultivator in a Native State is seldom or never sold up, and that he is usually treated much as a good bullock is treated; ie. he is left with enough to feed and clothe him and his family, so that they may continue to work.' John Stuart Mill studied the condition of the Indian people more deeply than any other political economist, and he took an indulgent view of native institutions. His verdict upon the Mughal Government is that, except during the occasional accident of a humane and vigorous local administrator, the exactions had no practical limit but the inability of the peasant to pay more.' The Famine Commission, after careful inquiries, state1 that throughout British India the landed classes pay revenue at the rate of 5s. 6d. per head, including the land tax for their farms, or is. 9d. without it. The trading classes pay 3s. 3d. per head; the artisans, 25.-equal to four days' wages in the year; and the agricultural labourers, 1s. 8d. The whole taxation, including the Government rent for the land, averaged, as we have seen, 3s. 8d. per head during the ten years ending 1879. But the Famine Commissioners declare that any native of India who does not trade or own land, and who chooses to drink no spirituous liquor, and to use no English cloth or iron, need pay in taxation only about 7d. a year on account of the salt he consumes. On a family of three persons, the charge amounts to Is. 9d., or about four days' wages of a labouring man and his wife.'2 6 Gross balance sheet of British GROSS REVENUES.—But it should be ever borne in mind that the actual taxation of the Indian people is one thing, and the gross revenues of India are another. As explained at pages 351 and 358, the revenues include many items not of the nature of taxation. The two following tables, compiled from the Parliamentary Abstract for 1877-78, exhibit the gross imperial revenue and expenditure of India for that year, according to the system of accounts adopted at the time. For the reasons already given, it is practically impossible to analyze these statements in such a way as to show the actual amount raised by taxation, and the actual amount returned in protection to person and property. I have therefore done 1 Report of the Famine Commission, part ii. p. 93 (folio, 1880). this in a separate statement at p. 353. It is equally impossible to compare the gross totals with those for previous years.1 The only profitable plan is to take some of the items, and explain their real meaning. TABLE II.-GROSS IMPERIAL EXPENDITURE FOR 1877-78. 1 Nor will the land tax precisely tally with the return on p. 353 for 1877-78 (although it does so very nearly), as it represents a different stage in the final adjustment. The other items ought to be identical with those for the same year given on p. 353. Analysis of Indian revenues in 1878. nature of taxation. These tables show how large a portion of the gross revenue is not of the nature of taxation. Public works, including railways, alone yield over 7 millions sterling, or nearly 13 per cent. of the total. Adding the items of post office and telegraphs, which also represent payment for work done or services supplied, the proportion would rise to about 14 per cent. Then the sum of 9 millions gross, or 6 millions net, derived from opium, being somewhat more than an additional 15 per Not of the cent. of the gross revenue, is not a charge upon the native taxpayer, but a contribution to the Indian exchequer by the Chinese consumer of the drug. Add to these the tributes from non-British States, produce of the forests, etc., and onethird of the total gross revenue is accounted for. The land revenue, amounting to 20 millions in an exceptionally bad year (1877-78), cannot be passed over so lightly. Whether it should be properly regarded as a tax, or only as rent, is a problem for political economists to settle; but in any case, it is paid without question, as an immemorial right of the State. It yields 34 per cent., or more than one-third of the gross revenue. The whole revenue of British India of the nature of actual taxation, including Land Revenue, Excise, Assessed Taxes, Provincial Rates, Customs, Salt, and Stamps, amounted in 1878 to 34 millions, or 3s. 74d. per head. The rate of actual taxation was about 4s. per head in 1880. Items of taxation summar. ized. Turning to some of the items, excise and stamps are practically creations of British rule. The Excise is a tax upon intoxicating liquors and deleterious drugs, levied both on the manufacture and on the sale, according to different systems in different Provinces. Like the corresponding duty in England, it is voluntarily incurred, and presses hardest upon the lowest |