Administrative System of the Marathas c18.s15.43

c18.s15.43

The revenue policy of the Peshwas was based on the principle of securing the prosperity of the tax-payer. The Maratha financier never forgot that the government can after all only share the wealth of the country with the governed, and although the income of the government can be temporarily raised by exacting a large share, its permanent increase can only be secured by encouraging the people to produce more wealth. True to this principle they often preferred to postpone present enjoyment for future gain. They would watch and help the growth of a new suburb or a new market town without exacting a single pie for *hashil* or customs duties for six or seven years, and then draw a tariff list (with utmost attention to minute details of which the Maratha officer was a master) on the *istawa* principle (that of annual increment). Thus the maximum taxation would again be postponed for another five or seven years. They would pursue the same policy for bringing fallow and waste lands into cultivation, for encouraging profitable industries, and they tried to counteract the evil influences of perpetual disorder and insecurity by making the assessment flexible. As a result of this policy Wellington found the Maratha country highly cultivated and Fitzclarence writing in 1819 described the Peshwa's territory as "one of the finest in India returning richly to his treasury."¹ Captain William Gordon, who was deputed to the Poona court in 1739, was favourably impressed with the revenue policy of the Peshwa. He wrote,—"Bajirao has a great extent of country, to appearance more fertile and valuable than any other I had passed through. *** His territories are well peopled, and the poorer sort, in the farming way, are rendered easy in their rents, which causes his extent of dominion to be in a very flourishing condition, more so than any other in the possession of the Marathas."¹* Even the Jagirdars or feudal Barons, who exercised sovereign authority within their fiefs were not always indifferent to the welfare of their subjects. On the 28th August, 1818, General Munro wrote to Mountstuart Elphinstone,—"All the branches of the Putwurdhu family are popular in the country. They treat the inhabitants with great kindness, and their lands are well cultivated."[16]