According to these estimates there is an expected surplus of revenue over expenditure of 224,000l. for the financial year 1882-3, and of 1,956,000l. for the year 1883-4. In addition to the above expenditure there was for 1882-83 a capital expenditure on productive public works of 4,875,000l., and for 1883-84 of 3,820,000Z.

The following table exhibits the growth of the three most important sources of the public revenue of India, namely, land, opium, and salt, in the ten financial years from 1873 to

The most important source of public income to which rulers in India have, in all ages, looked is the land, the revenue from which, in the year before the Mutiny, furnished more than one-half of the total receipts of the East India Company. At present, when the necessities of the Indian exchequer require that Government should resort more largely to the aid of indirect taxation, the revenue from land produces not quite so much in proportion, but it still forms about one-third of the total receipts of the empire.

The land revenue of India, as of all Eastern countries, may be regarded less as a tax on the landowners than as the result of a joint proprietorship in the soil, under which the produce is divided between the ostensible proprietors and the State. From time immemorial the people of India have been accustomed to yield a portion of their crops to their immediate ruler. The Mogul emperors founded a system of land administration, under which this share of the crops became a fixed tribute, payable to the central authority; in Muhammedan times governors were practically identical with taxcollectors, and the whole machinery of administration was organised with this sole object. Under English rule this machinery has been modified in various ways in the different provinces.

In Bengal, a permanent settlement was made by Lord Cornwallis (1793), which converted revenue-collectors into zemindars (landlords), who were responsible for the tribute or tax. The actual cultivators have thus become mere tenants. In Madras, what is known as the ryotwari system prevails, according to which the State recognises no one but the occupier of cultivated land, and assesses him, or rather his fields, upon certain recognised principles. Such an assessment is called a 'settlement,' and involves first a survey of the entire area of cultivated land, then an estimate of the produce, and of the value of that produce with reference to all the circumstances, and finally an apportionment of the share which should equitably belong to the State. Bombay enjoys a settlement tenure

similar to that of Madras, though not so universally spread. The settlement holds good for thirty years only, at the end of which term it is liable to be revised. In the North-West Provinces, the Punjab, and the Central Provinces, the village is the unit, and not the holding or field. The assessment is levied upon the owners of the village, who may be either landlords in the English sense, or peasant proprietors with separate rights, or a village community. The settlement here records the most minute details of all rights over the village lands. This settlement is also good for thirty years. In Oudh, after the Mutiny, the talukdars, or local potentates, were for the most part guaranteed in the possession of large estates, with even greater power than the zemindars of Bengal. In Assam a system akin to the ryotwari, but simpler, prevails. In British Burma also, where, as in Assam, cultivation is still backward, the system is simple and the taxation light.

In the thirty years' revision, only public improvements and a general change of prices, but not improvements effected by the ryots themselves, are considered as grounds for enhancing the assessment. The ryot's tenure is permanent, provided he pays the

assessment.

The important questions of the expediency of settling in perpetuity the amount of revenue to be paid to the Government by landholders, of permitting this revenue to be redeemed for ever by the payment of a capital sum of money, and of selling the fee simple of waste lands not under assessment, have been within the last few years considered by the Government of India. The expediency of allowing owners of land to redeem the revenue has long been advocated as likely to promote the settlement of European colonists; but experience seems to show that advantage is very rarely taken of the power which already exists in certain cases to redeem the rent by a quit payment; and it appears unlikely that such a permission would be acted upon to any great extent while the rate of interest afforded by an investment in the purchase of the land assessment is as low as at present in India.

Next in importance to the land-revenue, as a great source of Indian receipts, is the income derived from the opium monopoly. The cultivation of the poppy is generally prohibited, except for the purpose of selling the juice to the officers of the Government at a certain fixed price. It is manufactured into opium at the Government factories at Patna and Ghazipore, and then sent to Calcutta, and sold by auction to merchants who export it to China. In the Bombay Presidency, the revenue is derived from the opium which is manufactured in the native states of Malwa and Guzerat, on which passes are given, at the price of 60l. per chest, weighing 140 lbs. net, to merchants who wish to send opium to the port of Bombay. The

poppy is not cultivated in the Presidency of Madras. The gross revenue derived from opium averaged during the ten years 1872 to 1881 the sum of nine millions sterling.

The largest branch of expenditure is that for the army, equal to the aggregate annual revenue from salt and opium. The maintenance of the armed force to uphold British rule in India cost 12,000,0007. in the year before the great mutiny, and subsequently rose to above 25,000,000l.; but after the year 1861 sank, for a short period, to less than 15,000,000. It was 15,228,4291. in 1873-74; 15,308,4607. in 1875-76; 16,639,7617. in 1877-78; 17,092,4887. in 1878-79; 21,712,8621. in 1879-80; 28,086,4957. (including 11,368,000l. for military operations in Afghanistan) in 1880-81; 18,861,000 in 1881-2; 17,434,000l. in 1882-3.

The amount of the public debt of India, including that incurred in Great Britain, was 59,943,8147. on April 30, 1857. In the course of the next five years the debt was largely increased, and on April 30, 1862, it had risen to 99,652,0531. From 1862 to 1868, the Government were enabled to pay off some portion, and at the end of the financial year 1868 the total had been reduced to 95,054,8581. The subjoined table shows the amount of the public debt of British India, both that interest and not interest bearing, and distinguishing the debt in India and in Great Britain, in each of the ten financial years from 1873 to 1882 :

The total debt in India and Great Britain amounted to 96,194,6427. on the 31st March, 1869, and had increased to 156,820,6147. on the 31st March, 1882. The total interest on debt and deposits, including that charged to productive public works, amounted to 4,558,000l. in the financial year 1881-82.

The currency of India is chiefly silver, and the amount of money

coined annually is large.

In the ten financial years from 1873 to

1882, the value of the new coinage was as follows:

On July 16, 1861, an Act was passed by the Government of India, providing for the issue of a paper currency through a Government department of Public Issue, by means of promissory notes. Circles of issue were established from time to time, as found necessary, and the notes were made legal tender within the circle in which they were issued, and rendered payable at the place of issue, and also at the capital city of the Presidency within which that place was situated. Under the provisions of further laws, consolidated by a statute known as Act III. of 1871, the issue was regulated in seven descriptions of notes, namely, for 10,000 rupees, or 1,000l.; for 1,000 rupees, or 100l.; for 500 rupees, or 507.; for 100 rupees, or 101.; for 50 rupees, or 5l.; for 20 rupees, or 21.; for 10 rupees, or 17., and for five rupees, or 10s. There are ten currency circles, the head-quarters of which are at Calcutta, Allahabad, Lahore, Nagpore, Madras, Calicut, Cocanada, Bombay, Kurrachee, and Akolah.

In the year ending March 31, 1863, the total amount of notes in circulation was 4,926,000l.

The following were the total amounts of notes in circulationcalculated at 28. the rupee-on March 31 in each year, from 1873

to 1882:

Nearly two-thirds of the total note circulation are in the currency circles of Calcutta and Bombay.