rom
_productive_, public works, such as roads, railways; a reimposition of
abandoned taxes like the customs duties, the salt tax (lately partially
remitted), the tobacco tax, and the income tax--but there are grave
objections to all these; or the land tax could be augmented, as the
periods for new settlements came round, and these, perhaps, afford the
best prospect of an increase of revenue.

Such are the principal heads under which an increase of revenue might on
an emergency be secured. But the increase would not in any case be large;
and it must not be forgotten that Sir Evelyn Baring, in his Budget
statement for 1882, has given it as his opinion (and who is more able to
give an opinion on the subject?) that an _aggregate_ increase of taxation
is not possible, even reduction in some branches absolutely necessary;
_while any essential decrease of expenditure is quite out of the
question_. So far from the expenditure showing a tendency to decrease, or
even to remain stationary, it has increased last year by a million and a
half, this year[131] by three millions and more--under a Liberal
Government.

Apart from these direct means for making good the loss of the opium
revenue, there is the prospective one of a general increase from
reproductive public works, and from a prosperous condition of the country;
but it must be borne in mind that this would be greatly lessened and
impeded by any increase of taxation.

"_It cannot be too clearly understood_," says Sir Evelyn Baring (sect.
59), "_that neither by any measure tending to develop the resources of the
country, nor by any increase of taxation which is practically within the
range of possibility, nor by any reduction of expenditure, could the
Government of India in any adequate way at present hope to recoup the loss
which would accrue from the suppression of the poppy cultivation in
India._"

On the whole, then, we may conclude with Sir Evelyn Baring that without
the revenue which she derives from opium India would be insolvent; that
is, her expenditure would be permanently in excess of her income. India is
by no means a rich country except in the language of poetry, and her
inhabitants are perhaps the poorest in the world, the average income of
the ryot being twenty-seven rupees a year! On the other hand, the
financial prospects of India are not at present so gloomy as Mr. Fawcett
and others would have us believe, but under a succession of able
financiers, like Sir