Territorial Revenues of India.

The fiscal system of India is distinguished by a peculiarity which is without parallel in Europe. The rental of the soil, in lieu of being monopolized by an oppressive aristocracy, is applied to defray the charges of government, the support of a military force, and the expense of the judicial administration. The Hindoos are, happily, unacquainted with the custom-duties, the excise-duties, and assessed taxes, which weigh down industry and abridge enjoyments in England. In the East, the state takes about one-fifth of the gross produce of the land, and that satisfies nearly all its wants. Other taxes are inconsiderable; as the transit-duties, stamps, licenses, and judicial fees. The monopoly of salt and opium is also a source of income. But the principal source of revenues is the land-tax, which constituted the only rent payable by the cultivators of the soil, under the Hindoo and Mohummudan sovereigns.

The gross revenues of India, in the year 1827, amounted to £23,383,497; the expenditure, inclusive of the interest of the debt, to £23,323,179. The chief items of expenditure are the military, civil, and revenue establishments; salaries, pensions, superannuation-allowances, and stipends payable to deposed princes.

The total amount of territorial debts in India, in the same year, was £42,870,876; the interest of the debt £1,749,068. By some writers the debt of India is considered to operate in the same way as the debt in England; by rendering a large class of persons interested in the permanency of the British power. This is a one-sided view of the question, which it is hardly worth while stopping to answer. Creditors may feel an interest in their debtors, of the same kind as that which subsists between a lord and his vassal; but this sort of relation does not tend to increase mutual attachment. A government, by incurring debt, may create a partial interest in its stability, but this advantage must be far more than counterbalanced by alienating the vast majority, in consequence of the additional burthens which the debt renders necessary; and, in the foreign transactions of such a government, its power and influence are weakened by a knowledge of its financial encumbrances.

Leaving, however, this matter, as irrelevant to our immediate purpose, let us continue the inquiry into the finances of India. The Company have never been able to realize a surplus revenue from their territorial possessions. All the income they have derived from Indian taxation has been expended in defraying the salaries of their servants, in the maintenance of a numerous army, and other establishments necessary to the preservation of their power. The only source of surplus income for the payment of the interest of their capital stock, and other outgoings, has been the commercial profits arising from their exclusive privileges. The nature of these profits it will be proper to explain, as well as the mode in which the China trade is conducted, in order to prepare the way for a few observations on the renewal of the Company’s charter.