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countries paid 6 per cent. Metals, the produce of foreign 

 countries, if brought in British ships, paid 6 per cent., and if 

 brought in ships of other countries paid 12 per cent. On 

 cotton goods manufactured in the United Kingdom or any 

 British possession the duty was 3-|- per cent, if brought in 

 British ships and double that rate if brought in foreign ships. 

 Similar discriminating duties were imposed on articles of 

 export merchandise also. Cotton shipped to Europe, the 

 United States of America and any British possession in 

 America paid no duty, if the article was taken in British 

 ships, and 9 annas a maund if taken in foreign ships. The 

 export duty on cotton taken to other countries in foreign 

 ships was Rs. 1-2-0 a maund. These injurious restrictions, 

 the relics of the old Colonial system, which must have pre- 

 vented the development of a trade between India and foreign 

 countries, were done away with in 1858-59, but as the neces- 

 sities of Government on account of the Indian mutiny and 

 the consequent increase of public expenditure were very 

 great, the Customs duties were generally raised from 5 to 

 20 per cent. Since 1860, the reforms of the tariff, with some 

 notable exceptions, have consisted in the reduction and sub- 

 sequent abolition of the duties on most articles of merchan- 

 dize. The only articles on which an import duty is now 

 levied are: (1) arms and ammunition and military stores, 

 (2) liquors, (3) salt, and (4) petroleum; and the export list 

 of dutiable articles consists of (1) paddy and rice, and (2) 

 opium. The import duty on arms and ammunition is 

 necessitated by political, and that on liquors by moral, consi- 

 derations, the object in both cases being to prevent and not 

 to promote their unrestricted use. The import duty on salt 

 is necessitated by the excise duty on the same commodity, 

 and I have already given my reasons for considering this tax 

 to be in the highest degree objectionable. The import duty 

 on petroleum, which is "the light of the poor," is also open 

 to objection, but the tax is a light one, and its collection does 

 not involve any special hardship, or additional machinery, as 

 owing to the explosive nature of the article, its import and 

 storage can, under any circumstances, be allowed only subject 

 to special restrictions imposed for ensuring public safety. 

 Among the dutiable articles of export tariff the duty on opium 

 is, of course, unobjectionable, at all events from the point of 

 view of the anti-opium society whose object is to restrict the 

 consumption of Indian opium in China. Sir Evelyn Baring in 

 his financial statement for 1882-83 made the following remarks 

 in connection with the economic objections to the Government 

 monopoly of the drug and the moral aspects of the traffic in it, 



