§ MR. EMMOTT (Oldham)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the fact that the Indian Budget for 1903–4 shows a surplus of £948,700, after the reduction of the Salt Tax and the change in the incidence of the Income Tax, and that the amount estimated to be received from the Import Duty and the Excise Duty on cotton goods in the Estimates of 1903–3 was £767,000, and seeing that the final accounts for the four years 1898–9 to 1901–2, and the revised Estimates for 1902–3 show an actual surplus for the five years of £14,700,000, and of £ 9,800,000 over the Budget Estimates of the same period, and that he stated to a deputation on 11th December, 1895, that if an equilibrium could be established between Indian expenditure and revenue so that these taxes on cotton goods could be dispensed with, they were the first taxes that should be dealt with, he will now consider the advisability of dispensing with these taxes.
§ * THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,) Middlesex, EalingAs I stated in answer to a similar Question on 12th March,† I cannot hold out any hope at present of reducing the Customs duties now in force in India. The Government of India have gone as far as they consider prudent at present in remitting taxation. Since 1895 the duty on woven cotton goods has been reduced from 5 per cent. to 3½ per cent., the duty on yarns entirely taken off, and the countervailing excise duty on cotton goods woven in Indian power mills has been re-adjusted so as to prevent the import duty from having a protective effect. These changes materially modify the character, incidence and scope of the duties existing in 1895.
† See (4) Debates, cxix., 562.