INDIAN REVENUE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.']
SIR,—The main items of Indian Revenue were thus detailed in the late debates thereon :—Land, £21,000,000; Opium, £8,000,000; Salt, £6,000,000; Stamps, £2,697,000; Assessed Taxes, £29,000; Customs, 2,624,000, which is little more than one per cent. on the £204,000,000 of imports ; and it is to this item I specially desire to draw attention, as none seems to have been paid to it in the debate.
Can it be a selfish fear lest some trifling proportion of the in- cidence of Customs duties on imports in India should fall on English exporters, which prevents India from raising her revenue in the way best suited to her ?
The rooted habits of her people in thought and action, and their feeble morality, have rendered every attempt to raise an income-tax from them such a curse as to provoke rebellion ; whereas, to Customs duties they make no objection, so that these seem to afford the only way in which the increasing wealth of the country can be made to bear its fair btuthen of the costa of Government. The opium revenue is paid by the Chinese, who could put an end to it at once, by growing opium themselves. The salt-tax is a grievous infliction on the poorest of the people, restricting the use of a condiment essential to health. The land revenue is, in the permanently-settled districts, said to be pro- tected by emit' act from increase (though the perpetuity of any fiscal arrangement is contrary to justice and common-sense), and the revenue of the remaining districts is stretched till it threatens to break down. Some method of taxing movable wealth, now almost untaxed, seems essential to the good government of India ; and but for her connection with England, her ready resource would be in Customs duties.
It is useless for a nation to grow rich, if no portion of its wealth can be made available for the purposes of government, protection, and improvement. The natives of India will accept new taxes in
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the shape of Customs duties, but they object to them in almost
every other form.—I am, Sir, &c., BENGALEE.
[Customs duties are simply heavy taxes levied in the most unequal manner, and ultimately from the poor.—En. Spectator.]
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