COMMON OR TABLE SALT 



North 

 India. 



Action of Sikhs. 



SALT 



SODIUM CHLORIDE 



Government Departments 



and the large amount of fresh water discharged into the Bay of Bengal 

 by the Ganges and the Brahmaputra tell against efficient salt-manufacture 

 on the Bengal coast, but the manufacture of salt was not finally abandoned 

 in Orissa until 1898. Nearly half the salt imported into Bengal comes 



Liverpool. from Liverpool, and the rest principally from Germany, Aden, Maskat, 



Jeddah, Bombay and Madras. Since the construction of the railway along 

 the east coast, Madras salt transported by land has begun to compete 

 successfully with the imported commodity." [Imp. Gaz., iv., 248 ; Geake, 

 Repts. Admin. Salt Dept. Beng., 1906 ; Keith, Repts. Admin. Salt in 

 Burma, etc.] 



2. North India. This embraces the United Provinces, the Central 

 Provinces, Rajputana, Central India, the Panjab, and the North-West 

 Frontier Province. Its sources of supply are Sambhar, Didwana, Pach- 

 badra and Sultanpur evaporation works, and in addition the salt-mines 

 of the Salt Range of Kohat and Mandi. 



Under the Sikh Government salt was one among forty- eight articles 

 liable to customs, excise, town or transit duties. But the Sikh Government 

 did not establish any system of management nor a fixed scale of duties. 

 Since taken over by the Government of India the manufacturing and 

 preventive operations have been directly controlled by the Northern India 

 Salt Departement. " Along with salt duties, the British administration 

 inherited an immense number of transit duties, levied at intervals along 

 the trade routes under a system'requiring elaborate customs arrangements 

 and involving an intolerable hindrance to trade and communication. In 

 1843 the transit duties, with the exception of those on cotton and sugar, 

 were abolished, and the loss of revenue was partly made up by enhancing 

 the Provincial salt duties. The cotton duties were abolished in 1855, 

 while the salt duties were gradually raised until in the period from 1869 

 to 1877 the salt tax in Lower Bengal was Rs. 3-4 a maund, in the Upper 

 Provinces Rs. 3, in the country beyond the Indus a few annas, and in 

 Madras and Bombay, Rs. 1-13 a maund. The salt sources of Rajputana 

 belonged to the Native States in which they were situated, and duty was 

 levied on their produce when it crossed the frontier. These arrangements 



Customs-line. could be maintained only by stringent preventive measures. To prevent 

 untaxed Rajputana salt, and the lightly taxed salt from the south and 

 west, from coming into Northern India, it was necessary to maintain a 

 customs-line extending for nearly 2,500 miles, from Torbela, near Attock 

 on the Indus, to the Sambalpur district of Bengal. The line was guarded 

 by an army of nearly 13,000 officers and men, and consisted, along a large 

 part of its course, of a huge cactus hedge supplemented by stone walls and 

 ditches. It must be remembered, however, that this line took the place 

 of a more annoying system of innumerable customs ports scattered 

 throughout the interior of the country." 



" In 1870 the Government of India acquired a lease of the Sambhar 

 Lake, with a view to increase and cheapen the supply in the United Pro- 

 vinces ; and in 1874 over 760 miles of the eastern portion of the line were 



Abandoned. abandoned, the trade in this direction having concentrated itself on the 

 railway route. The necessity of changing the whole system was at the 

 same time indicated by Lord Northbrook, and a few years later Lord 

 Lytton's Government was able to acquire the remaining salt sources of 

 Rajputana and to equalise the duties throughout the greater part of India. 

 Treaties were made by the Native States concerned, and in 1878 the Bengal 



968 



Transit Duties. 



Cotton and 

 Sugar Duties. 



