§ GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURasked the Under Secretary of State for India, If he will lay upon the 1762 Table the further Papers about levelling down the Bengal Salt Tax, and those, if any, about levelling up the Madras Salt Tax; and, if he will produce Papers to show the details of taxation in Madras, and other parts of India, by which it will be seen, as mentioned in the Financial Statement of 1877 (vide Hansard), that "Bengal is more lightly taxed and richer than any of the other Provinces;" and,
under the permanent settlement she (Bengal) paid eight millions less land revenue than she would pay if the land revenues were liable to revision?
§ MR. E. STANHOPEThe House has already ordered, upon the Motion of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell), a Return of any Papers relating to the changes in the salt duty made in December last. As regards the recent reduction in Northern India, we have at present no Papers; but I hope to have an opportunity of giving an explanation to-morrow. With respect to the first statement made by my noble Friend the Vice President of the Council in his Financial Statement last year, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to a speech of the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, Sir Ashley Eden, in the Legislative Council, on the 27th of December, 1877, in which he described Bengal as advancing rapidly in wealth, and its people as "the most lightly taxed in all India." As to the second quotation made by the hon. and gallant Member, I can only say that it is a point which it is impossible to prove absolutely, and which must be more or less a matter of opinion. But if the statement should be challenged, I am very confident that my noble Friend would give to the House very good reasons for it.