290 REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. [CH. XIV.

final arrangements with the Native States, which, even if ultimately practicable,
would take an indefinite time to elaborate, and would probably be regarded by them
with disfavour. All, therefore, that the Commission are prepared to say in favour
of a Government monopoly is that after full consideration they are unable to dis-
cover any well founded objection to it on the ground of public morality, and that in
their opinion the Government need not be deterred from adopting it on this ground
if the practical objections which have been mentioned above are in regard to
any part of British India either at the present or at any future time deemed to
be of less weight than the Commission have attached to them.

Supervision by Government of
India necessary.

590. But while opposed to this amount of interference, the Commission feel
strongly that a regulating influence is necessary, and
should in future be exercised by the Government of
India over the various systems of administration of the excise on hemp drugs
which prevail in the different provinces and in the Native States. A standard
of administration and taxation is essential to the proper treatment of the whole
subject. Existing differences are so great that it will take time to bring about
any measure of uniformity, but the Commission, as will be shown hereafter, have
found no reason for maintaining the present inequalities, and no serious obstacle
to the gradual harmonizing of the different systems.