in strict subordination to the
Government of India, which alone can borrow, and which requires the
submission for its sanction of the annual provincial budgets. To ensure
a reasonable amount of decentralization the Supreme Government has made
financial contracts with the provinces under which they receive definite
shares of the receipts, and are responsible for definite shares of the
expenditure, under particular heads. The existing contract dates only
from 1911-12 (see Table V).

~Income and Expenditure.~--Excluding income from railways, post offices,
telegraphs, salt, and sales of excise opium, which are wholly imperial,
the revenue of the Panjab in 1911-12 was L5,057,000 (Rs. 758,56,000), of
which the provincial share was L2,662,200 (Rs. 399,33,000), to which
have to be added L251,800 (Rs. 37,77,000) on account of assignments made
by the Government of India to the province. This brought up the total to
L2,914,000 (Rs. 437,10,000). The expenditure was L2,691,933 (Rs.
403,79,000). This does not include L983,000 spent from loan funds on
irrigation works, chiefly the great Triple Project. The large
expenditure on railways is imperial. Of the gross income more than
three-fourths is derived from the land (Land Revenue, 46 p.c.,
Irrigation, chiefly canal water rates, 29 p.c., and Forests, 1-3/4
p.c.). The balance consists of Excise 8-1/2 p.c., Stamps, 7 p.c., Income
Tax over 2 p.c., and other heads 5-3/4 p.c.

~Land Revenue.~--Certain items are included under the Land Revenue head
which are no part of the assessment of the land. The real land revenue
of the Panjab is about L2,000,000 and falls roughly at the rate of
eighteen pence per cultivated acre (Table II). It is not a land tax, but
an extremely moderate quit rent. In India the ruler has always taken a
share of the produce of the land from the persons in whom he recognised
a permanent right to occupy it or arrange for its tillage. The title of
the Raja to his share and the right of the occupier to hold the land he
tilled and pass it on to his children both formed part of the customary
law of the country. Under Indian rule the Raja's share was often
collected in kind, and the proportion of the crop taken left the tiller
of the soil little or nothing beyond what was needed for the bare
support of himself and his family. What the British Government did was
to commute the share in kind into a cash demand and gradually to limit
its amount to a reasonable figure. The need