§ MR. REESTo ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the tax payable by natives in Protectorates should not be paid in kind in order to the development of local crops and products, rather than in money, to earn which they have to some extent to emigrate to more or less distant territories.
(Answered by Colonel Seely.) In West African Protectorates there is but little direct taxation, and payment is accepted in kind wherever coin does not circulate freely. In Nyasaland and the other Protectorates north of the Zambesi, and also in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, the hut tax is payable in coin, but power is given, under varying conditions, to the collector to accept stock or produce in lieu. In South Africa the hut tax, which is the usual form of direct taxation, is collected in money, but it is a form of taxation which has been in force for many years and is well understood by the natives. The natives in the East Africa Protectorate and Uganda can pay their hut tax in kind or money, but now that the natives are getting more money payment in the latter is becoming more general.