EARLY REMINISCENCES
away, to the door of the Residency at Gangtak, and firewood was being carted into the Bazaar from 5 miles off on two different roads, a very great contrast to the earlier days. This is all easy to relate now that it has been accomplished, but it was uphill work and carried out under many disadvantages, the principal one the want of money. As the country was opened out, more was required in every direction, more roads and bridges, buildings, education, police, the domestic expenses of His Highness and his son, the Kumar, increased, and it was most difficult to make both ends meet. There was also the imperative necessity of creating a reserve fund for unforeseen contingencies, and the question ever present was how was money to be found. In such a mountainous country anything but the smallest land tax is impossible to levy, and even that is difficult; the forests which might be a source of wealth are too remote and the difficulty of carriage of the timber to the markets is unsurmountable. Excise could increase to a certain extent, but that could not continue.
However, by the exercise of constant care and economy, something was accomplished, and each year’s budget showed an increase of revenue to meet the increased expenditure; but Sikhim distinctly is, and I fear always will be, a poor country, with the problem ever before her as to how the necessary expenditure is to be met; the upkeep and maintenance of the roads alone being a formidable item in a country averaging 140" rainfall and in some districts 240".
Nevertheless, there is another possible source of revenue in which, up to a year ago, I have in vain tried to interest the Government of India. That is the store of mineral wealth buried in the mountains. The difficulties of working this were too great for me to attempt. The State had no funds and Government refused to allow the introduction of foreign capital. I approached them time and again on the subject, always to be met with the same answer, “their reluctance to destroy the simplicity of an arcadian little State,” and it was only in 1906, the year before I left, that
29
