The Hawera Star. FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1930. INDIA’S SALT TAX.

Hawera Star, Volume L, 20 June 1930, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1930. INDIA’S SALT TAX.

Delivered every evening by 6 o'olook in Hawera, llanaia, Kaupokonui, Otakeho. Oeo, Pihama, Opunake, Normanby. Okaiawa Eltham, Ngaere, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Te Kdri, Maho6 ( Low* garth, Manutahi ; Kakaramea, Alton, Hurleyville Patea, Whenuakura, Waverley, Mokoia, Whakamara, Ohangai, Meremere, Fraser Eoad, and Ararata-

Observers of the Gandhi movement in India may wonder why that leader has made salt the point of his formal attack. There is a certain picturesqueness attaching to the wading of his followers into the sea, dipping up water and, boiling it for the purpose of extracting the salt, which is somehow reminiscent of the. Bostonians who threw King George’s tea into the harbour. But the reasons why salt was the point of attack can be made very clear. The problem of the British Indian Government, confronted with thf necessity of raising revenue, is not an oasv one. The monetary incomes oi the Indian peoples as a whole are ex tremclv small. Consumption of articles upon which taxes could be. levied .is limited. Although there are 325,000, 000 people in India, the Governmeni finds it difficult to raise £160,000,000 bj taxation. Most of the people of Indif are agriculturists, purchasing little and not easily reached by taxation The Hindus, who form the majority look with contempt upon this life, re garding themselves as mere links in ai endless chain of reincarnation, an< therefore save little which could b taxed. As there must be revenue fo police, educational and sanitary pur poses, the Government turns to lam taxation, which is light, amounting b an average of fifty-seven cents a head and the tax on salt, which, accordinj to British statistics, amounts to abou seven and seven-tenth cents a head o the population. But as the sale tax i practically universal, and as in orde to collect it the Government must ol viously maintain a monopoly of it manufacture, Gandhi shrewdly detei mined to make it the point of his a 1 tack. Taxation of salt is not a nov< fiscal device. It has been employed i all ages, particularly among back-war nations in which economic condition made other systems of taxation difi cult. But as the standard of livin rises, countries which have usuall borne the salt tax abandon it, findin revenue from other commodities whic enter into the budget of even the poo: cst citizens. The great injustice of tax upon salt rests in the fact that : bears with almost equal heaviness upo the poor and the rich, the eonsumptio of families being nearly equal wha ever their economic conditions. Yet i India it is so light a tax that it ca

bear heavily upon only the poorest among a people whose poverty is almost inconceivable. Nevertheless, the British Government is not satisfied with the existing position as regards the salt production and the salt tax. The Indian Tariff Board has for some time been considering methods of increasing production, lessening cost, and thereby lessening the burden ot taxation. But it is a question whether Gandhi’s attack upon the whole system will aid in expediting this desired reform.