Restoration of the salt duty

UNLIKE some of our contemporaries, we cannot affect any surprise either at the action of the Council of State in restoring the salt duty to Re 1 and 4 annas or at the action of the Legislative Assembly itself in revising its previous decision and acquiescing in the restoration. So far as the Council of State is concerned, the time is long gone by when we can afford to be surprised at anything it does. There is scarcely a measure of any vital importance in which this glorified debating society, this appendage to the bureaucracy, has acted in conformity with the people’s wishes. Not yet five years old, it has already established for itself the reputation for obstructing every good and far-reaching measure which the British House of Lords has won for itself by centuries of strenuous labour. The position of the Assembly is undoubtedly different, but here again the explanation of the action lies on the surface. It is to be bound in the artifice devised by the Finance Member, by which the Assembly was confronted with two alternatives each almost as unacceptable as the other. “The question before the Assembly,” he said, “was a very simple one. The reduction of the salt duty to Re 1 would mean a loss in revenue of Rs 90 lakh and a recurrent loss of Rs 1.25 crore. The leader of the Swaraj party had stated that he regarded it as undesirable that there should be any reduction in the amount set aside for provincial contributions, but the effect of the reduction in the salt duty must unfortunately be to reduce that relief to the Provinces.”