COMMITTEE. ADJOURNED DEBATE. (Hansard, 6 March 1871)

§ COLONEL SYKES

Mr. Speaker—Sir, this is the third time I have been before the House in the small hours of the morning to my grief. I have a good deal to say in support of my Motion to re-commit the India Revenue Accounts; but, at this hour of the morning (12.30 a.m), and after the exhaustion consequent upon the seven and a half hours debate on the Army Organization Bill, I must confine myself to a recital of facts, which I beg the House to bear in 1478 mind are derived from Returns from the India Office, or from Parliamentary Returns, and I am not in any way responsible for them. I have various reasons for moving that the Report upon India Accounts be re-committed; and the first is the utter untrustworthiness of the figured statements laid before the House. This I shall prove from the Budgets of Sir Richard Temple, the Finance Minister in India; from a despatch of the Secretary of State for India; from a despatch of the Governor General of India, dated 20th September, 1869, and a despatch dated Calcutta, 4th January, 1870; and from the Papers my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for India himself put into our hands the other night. In 1868–9, Sir Richard Temple made a surplus of £52,000; but the Government of India made a deficit of £1,500,000, which might possibly be reduced to £600,000, and now, probably, in August, 1870, there may be a surplus of £100,000 to £200,000. The Secretary of State for India, in reply to these statements, said— But it should be remembered that during the last 10 or 12 years there were very few instances in which the actual out-come of the accounts was not wholly different from the figures presented in the Budget. The third authority is the Governor General of India, who, in a despatch to the Secretary of State for India, dated Simla, 20th September, 1869, in Paragraph 3, says— Your Grace will remember that the Budget Estimate of 1868–9, after re-arrangements, in accordance with the principle now finally adopted in respect to the charge for Public Works Extraordinary, showed an expected surplus of £243,550, and that the Regular Estimate showed an expected deficit of £970,471. But the actual result is the enormous deficit of £2,273,362, being worse than the Budget Estimate by £2,516,912, and than the Regular Estimate by £1,302,891; But in the Governor General's despatch of 4th January, 1870, all these figures are changed. My fourth authority is my hon. Friend's own figures, which he has put into the hands of Members. The Budget Estimate for 1870–1 shows a deficit of £3,188,173, and the Regular Estimate of only £485,182—what the Actuals will turn out remains to be shown. In the article of salt, the Budget gives £6,177,370, and the Regular Estimate £6,069,500. The Accounts themselves, therefore, show that they are utterly untrustworthy. So much for my first objection to the ac 1479 ceptance by the House of the India Accounts. My second is the want of any report of the progress of taxation annually since the government of India has been assumed by the Crown, and particularly the absence of a comparison between the pressure of taxation upon the people in the last year of the government of India by the East India Company, 1856–7, and the present year, 1870–1 under the Crown. I have listened annually to the exposition of the annual Budgets by the India Minister of State; but have listened in vain for any such comparison. I did hope, however, with my hon. Friend's characteristics of generalization, comparison, and deduction, that he would have supplied the omission; but, as he has refrained from doing so, I will make the comparison for him, by stating the gross Revenue; the deficiencies; the revenue from salt; the debt in India and England; the cost of the Army, in 1856–7, the last year of the government of the Company, and the years 1867–8, 1868–9, 1869–70, and 1870–1, under the Crown, noticing also the recent imposition of the income tax and its effects. Comparative Statement of the pressure of Taxation on India in 1856–7, the last year of the East India Company's Government, and the years 1867–8, 1868–9, 1869–70, 1870–71, under the Crown:— Gross Income—1846–7, £26,084,681; 1856–7, £33,303,391; 1867–8, £48,534,412; 1868–9, £49,262,691; 1869–70 Actual, £50,901,281; 1870–71, £51,098,600. Deficit, including ordinary Public Works—1856–7, £972,791; 1867–8, £1,007,695; 1868–9, £2,774,030. Deficit, including extraordinary Public Works—1867–8, £1,610,157; 1868–9, £4,144,643; 1869–70 Actual, £2,480,093; 1870–71, £485,181. Gross amount taxation, including deficits—1856–7, £34,276,182; 1867–8, £50,144,569; 1868–9, £53,407,334; 1869–70 Actual, £53,382,026; 1870–71, £51,583,781. Debt in India—1846–7, £44,684,066; 1856–7, £55,546,650; 1870–71, £85,663,694. Debt in England—1846–7, £2,299,600; 1856–7, £3,894,400; 1870–71, £40,106,083. Total Debt in India and England—1846–7, £46,883,666; 1866–7, £59,441,050; 1870–71, £125,669,777. Salt tax, increase 80.2 per cent — 1856–7, £3,368,684; 1870–71, £6,069,500. Cost of Army, European and Native—1846–7, £9,054,098; 1856–7, £10,641,465; 1870–71, £16,403,206, Income tax now 7½d. in the pound, none under the East India Company. Amount collected not mentioned. An inspection of the statement shows that in 1846–7 the revenue of the Company 1480 was only £26,084,681; but in 1856–7, in consequence of the annexations of territory by Lord Dalhousie, the gross Revenue had risen to £33,303,391, and with the deficit of £972,791, the amount expended was swollen to £34,276,182. Under the Crown, in 1869–70, the actual receipts were £50,901,281, and the deficit £2,480,095, making a total expenditure of £53,382,026. The Regular Estimate for 1870–1—not the Budget—gives the income at £51,098,600, and the deficit at £485,182—total £51,583,781. Comparing the pressure of taxation per head on an estimated number of 148,000,000 of taxpayers under the Company in 1856–7, and deducting from the income the tribute money from feudatory Princes of £504,030, the result is 4s. 5½d. per head. In 1870–1, deducting the tribute money, which had risen to £737,400, from the income of £51,583,781, the result is 6s. 10d. per head, or an increased pressure of taxation upon the people of 53.4 per cent—certainly not contributing to the satisfaction or comfort of the people. The estimated population of 148,000,000 is derived from Parliamentary Paper 308, July 8, 1869. The most important tax affecting the health, the comfort, and satisfaction of the people, is the salt tax—the vegetable diet of the masses making it a necessity of life; and its increase of price necessarily diminishing consumption, inflicts a grievous evil. Nevertheless, the revenue derived from salt, which was £3,368,684 in 1856–7 under the Company, has risen to £6,069,500, an increase of 80.2 per cent under the Crown; but if the sum of £2,685,574, from an India Office Return of February, 1867, be taken as the basis for comparison between 1856–7 and 1870–1, the increased taxation upon salt would be 124 per cent. The income tax is a recent invention of the Indian Government, hitherto unknown to the people of India, and revolting to their social habits of reticence from its inquisitorial character. It is now 7½d. in the pound, nearly double the English income tax, and is levied from classes of the community—particularly in Bengal, wholly incompetent to pay it, leading, in its exaction by processes of law, in some instances to great oppression and suffering. I have had sent to me from Calcutta a pamphlet, entitled Cries from the East, by Mr. James Wilson and John Alfred Parker, proprietors of 1481 the Indian Daily News, detailing instances of oppression in levying the income tax; many of which they have personally verified, and for the truth of which they hold themselves responsible. A miserable ryot (farmer) of Purneah, holding a bit of land, at 10 rupees rent (£1), and having only one plough, is assessed at an income of 500 rupees (£50), his whole worldly property not being worth £50! The principal investigator of the operations of the income tax is Mr. George Kerry, and the results of his investigations he published in the Indian Daily News. At this hour in the morning I cannot go into these cases, and shall limit myself to the detail of one instance, as a type of others— At the village of Nursy dar Chok, about 16 miles south of Calcutta, there lives a man, whom I have known for many years, named Bholanath Dass. He lives in a miserable hut, which is not worth more than 50 rupees (£5); he has not even one beegah of land; so that he is one of the poorest of the poor. He works as a day labourer, when he is so fortunate as to get employment, and I do not believe his monthly earnings average four rupees (8s.) throughout the year. He cannot read, is very ignorant, and of feeble intellect, and is, for a Bengali, an old man; and this poor wretch has been assessed to the income tax by what I must regard as a wicked blunder. Of course, he had no money to pay, and was summoned before the collector at Alipoor, some 16 miles distant. The letter then gives lengthened details, which I cannot quote at this hour; he was summoned to the collector's office, got frightened, and came away without seeing the collector. In the end he was taken in charge by a policeman for nonpayment of his income tax—and the writer of the letter applies unsuccessfully to the collector, explaining the poor man's case. The letter is signed George Kerry. The case is said to have been a blunder. Now, Sir, that any such wicked blunder, as Mr. Kerry calls it, should occur is a disgrace to British administration in India.

I come now to the debt of India in 1856–7. The debt in India was £55,546,650, and in England £3,894,400—total £59,441,050; but in 1870–1 the debt has increased in India to £85,563,694, and in England to £40,106,083—total £125,669,777, an increase of £66,228,727 in 12 years, or 111.5 per cent; the interest of which the Indian taxpayer has to pay, and ultimately the principal! The distasteful subject of opium I will not enlarge upon; it will be sufficient to say that the profit derived from it has risen from 1482 £4,689,750 in 1856–7, under the Company, to £8,022,500 in 1870–1, under the Crown. The assessed taxes in the last three years, from 1868–9 to 1870–1, have risen from £508,700 to £1,989,600, or 291 per cent; but this, I presume, must include the recently imposed income tax. There are other items of taxation and receipt which would admit of comparison; but the above figures suffice to show the pressure of taxation under the Company and the Crown.

No doubt, owing to the increased demand for employment arising from public works, the formation of railways, and other demands, wages have risen, from 6s. or 7s. a month without food, to a considerably higher rate; but the proportionally increased cost of the necessaries of life neutralizes the advantage of increased wages, and the physical and social status of the people is not ameliorated. Sir, under the preceding detailed facts, it would be equally impolitic, unjust, and unsafe—I repeat, unsafe—with these facts before us, of increased pressure of taxation upon the 148,000,000 of taxpayers under the British Government, particularly with respect to the cruel salt tax and the hateful income tax, that the people of England should be permitted to live in a fool's paradise, believing that the Government of the Crown, in supersession of that of the East India Company, is one which has either ameliorated the condition of the people, or is promoting their contentment and loyalty.