INDIA AND SALT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20562, 13 May 1930, Page 9

INDIA AND SALT.

GANDHI'S EVIL PLOTTING.

TRUE MEANING EXPLAINED.

PATHWAY TO CATASTROPHE.

Salt is a Government, monopoly in India, and that is why Gandhi's scheme to institute civil disobedience in the salt manufacturing areas was a threat .of serious importance, according to a contributor to a London journal. The writer, iri an article published prior to Gandhi's arrest, said:— The total consumption of salt in India is 2!, million tons per annum. Of this 600,000 tons is imported; the remainder is equally produced in Bombay, Madras, and Northern India—that is to say, Rajputana and the Punjab. The retail price ranges about two rupees eight annas per maund; in fact, id per lb. The duty is one-half of this; the remainder of the price is accounted for by cost of production and distribution, As the average consumption per head is 101b. per annum the abolition of the duty would mean a saving of for every person who uses salt.

Now, the salt is worked in various ways, according to the district. In tho Punjab hills there arq rock salt mines worked by the Government. In Rajputana salt is obtained by evaporation from the brine lakes, which are leased by the Government from the Jaipur and Jodpur States; in tho Bombay and Madras Presidencies by evaporation from sea brine on tho coasts. Where brine is used it is introduced into flat pans running from a size of 80ft. by 30ft. to 200 ft. square or more. Vast' Saliferous Area. Evaporation is caused by the heat of the sun, and is allowed to continue until the brine has been reduced from a depth of 18in. to a depth of 3in. or 4in. At this stage crystals form on the bottom of the pan, and aro extracted by hand, washed and piled in small heaps, or sometimes in largo Government stores. Often this work is done by women; it is a curious sight to gee them scraping the crystals out with their hands and carrying them away in baskets balanced on their heads.

In the Bombay Presidency—with which Gandhi is immediately concerned—sea brine is subjected to evaporation in exactly the same way, in some cases worked by Government, elsewhere by private individuals 011 Government licence. But—now comes the point—all round this area is a vast tract of saliferous country, so permeated with salt that I have known a young deer caught in this region, when offered fresh water, refuse to drink the unaccustomed stuff. Salt "effloresces" on the surface of the ground: it is a continuous process, but particularly noticeable after rain. This salt, which is called earth or swamp salt, is of extremely poor quality; it is unfit for human consumption, and the offence of removing it is actually punishable by tho Government by imprisonment or a fine. Yqt this is tho salt which Gandhi wants the Indians to scrape up with their hands and use in preference to the Government salt, which is of the purest quality! The saltworks are to lie idle; tire desert is to return to its own ways; and India—who knows ? Disaster of a Salt Famine. Can the casual reader visualise the suffering, the disastrous consequence to health, and life itself, of a salt famine 1 In case he cannot, I will give the consequence in one word—catastrophe. Cattle cannot live without a regular dose of salt, and the peasant, apart from the fact that ho will have no way of maintaining his own health without salt, will not be able to farm. His beasts will be unfit for work. Moreover, Government salt is pure, and tho people could not secure ten pounds of pure salt a year for themselves. Ido not imagine that Gandhi thinks the animals could go out and find salt for themsolves.

Gandhi, in his march, preached to each village that the headmen Bhould resign from their posts and that village clerks or accountants should throw up their positions, so that tho Government would be paralysed and unable to collect land rovenue—tho biggest source of income. He was received more coolly than he had hoped, tho reason being, perhaps, that the people are slightly more enlightened than when ho last approached them. The establishment of co-operative societies has done something toward supplying them with at least the rudiments of knowledge. The ground over which Gandhi has lately been moving is full of natural salt and in the neighbourhood is a large Government plant. Here men work in difficult conditions. The country is dry and arid and in some of the saltworks the rainfall does' not exceed two inches in the course of a year. Tho Government transports water by railway to some of the manufacturing centres. It would be interesting to know how Gandhi proposes to accomplish a similar feat —absolutely vital to the country—without tho help of Western innovations, as for example, the railway, to say nothing of the money with which to run it. Gandhism Means Suffering. In practice, Gandhism would mean tho suffering of tho many that a few might have power and riches. Ido not say that Gandhi seos it in that light. I am convinced, as a matter of fact, that ho does not. But ho is a, dreamer, a visionary, unablo to appreciate tho fact that tho "independence" ho preaches is in reality tho worst kind of slavery—economic slavery—and tho India ho strives to establish is a far poorer India than that which can lean 011 tho British Government. Gandhi is an educated man and although ho has now fallen into tho habit of using tho somewhat peculiar English that is tho only language in which Indians from varying parts of the country can talk to one another (since their languages are incomprehensible to one another), it should not ho forgotten that he is a barrister and that Jie is shrewd, according to our own standards.

The Nationalist leader first took part in public life in South Africa, where, during the Boer War, ho organised- a stretcher-bearer corps. He was then distinctly pro-British. But later he objected to the Colonial Government's attitude toward tho Indians in South Africa and it was there that he devised his scheme of ''Civil Disobcdicpce."'