creasingly from Collectors and centralized in the Provincial
Governments; for at the head of every Province also there is a government
patterned somewhat after the Supreme Government in Calcutta.

[Illustration: Maharajah Of Travancore.]

[Illustration: Rajah Of Ramnad.]

No greater mistake can be made than to think that India is either crudely
or poorly governed. Owing to the great poverty of the land it is extremely
difficult to maintain so costly and elaborate a regime as the present one;
and many claim that for the support of so expensive a luxury the people
are taxed beyond their ability and resources. The taxation imposed by a
government on its people is rightly considered, both in its extent and
character, as a measure of the wisdom of the State. The critics of the
Indian government are prone to dwell upon the alleged injustice of its
taxes. It is, however, difficult to understand why this matter should be
pressed unless it be on the ground, apparently maintained, that the
poverty of the people should exempt them from _any_ of the burdens of
taxation--a theory beautifully generous to the people but fatal to the
maintenance of any government. The salt tax does certainly seem cruel in
its severe pressure upon the very poor; and yet it is the only one whereby
this very large part of the community can be reached at all, and made to
contribute its mite to the State which protects it.

Comparing present taxes with those of the past, we should certainly expect
heavier imposts now, because the government furnishes today, as an
equivalent of protection and blessing, infinitely more than former
dynasties did. And yet Sir W. Hunter has ably shown from a comparison of
taxes levied by the present government and by the Moghul government that
the modern Hindu is vastly better off than was his ancestor of two and
three centuries ago. Today, five and one half per cent. is collected in
land tax; under the Moghul rule they had to pay from thirty-three per
cent. to fifty per cent. Besides this, the Mohammedan imposed various
other taxes, many of them upon non-Mohammedans as a religious penalty. Nor
were the Hindu governments one whit better off; and even today the native
states are much harder upon the people than is the British Raj.

The famine commission is the highest authority on the subject. In its
exhaustive report of 1880 it writes:--"In the majority of native
governments the revenue o