────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Sources 1882–83. 1892–93. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Rs. Rs. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Salt 5,67,50,000 8,14,90,000 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Excise 3,47,50,000 4,97,90,000 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Customs 1,08,90,000 1,41,80,000 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Assessed Taxes 48,40,000 1,63,60,000 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── All this additional burden was due to the enhanced cost of meeting the gold payments, and “would not have been necessary but for the fall in the exchange.”¹⁶⁵ ¹⁶⁵ J. E. O’Conor, _Report of the Indian Currency Committee_, 1898, App. II, p. 182. Along with this increase of resources the Government of India also exercised the virtue of economy in the cost of administration. For the first time in its history the Government turned to the alternative of employing the comparatively cheaper agency of the natives of the country in place of the imported Englishmen. Prior to 1870 the scope of effecting economy along this line was very limited. By the Civil Service Reforms of 1853¹⁶⁶ the way was cleared for the appointment of Indians to the posts reserved for the members of the covenanted Civil Service by the statute of [pg 91] 1793.¹⁶⁷ But this reform did not conduce to any economy in the cost of the administration, because the Indian members carried the same high scale of salaries as did the English members of the Civil Service. It was when the statute of 1870 (33 Vic. c. 3) was passed permitting the appointment by nomination of non-covenanted Indians to places reserved for the covenanted Civil Service on a lower scale of salary, that a real scope for economy presented itself to the Government of India. Hard pressed, the Government of India availed itself of the possibilities for economy held out by this statute. So great was the need for economy and so powerful was the interest of the Government in reducing its expenditure that it proceeded, notwithstanding increased demands for efficient administration, to substitute the less expensive agency of non-covenanted civilians in place of the more expensive agency of the covenanted civilians. The scale on which this substitution was effected was by no means small, for we find that between 1874 and 1889 the strength of the covenanted service recruited in England was reduced by more than 22 per cent., and was further expected to be reduced by about 12 per cent., by the employment of uncovenanted Indians to the posts