The cotton excise duty

THE reply given by the Viceroy to the Bombay mill owners’ deputation, which waited upon him on August 24 to seek the abolition of the cotton excise duty, was undoubtedly marked by that brevity which has been described as the soul of wit, but it was otherwise as disappointing and unsatisfactory a pronouncement as even the Government of India has ever made on this important subject. If ever there was a time when the cotton mill industry, undoubtedly the most important of India’s industries next to agriculture, stood in paramount and obvious need of the Government’s sympathy, that time is now, when the industry is passing through one of the gravest crises in its history. If ever there was a time when a little sympathy on the part of the Government would go a long way towards helping the industry out of the crisis, that time is now. It is a matter of common knowledge that crores of rupees worth of cotton goods are lying unsold in the godowns of the mill owners and that only a small reduction in price, such as the remission of the excise duty on cotton goods would very largely make possible, would enable them to speedily dispose of this unsold stock of goods. It is equally a matter of common knowledge that unless the mill owners are able to reduce their price and thus dispose of the unsold goods sooner or later — sooner, it is to be feared, rather than later — they will have no choice but to take steps, the result of which would be either to throw hundreds of thousands of operatives out of employment or to cause great misery and hardship to them by reducing their wages and earnings which are already inadequate.