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wanted is that the salt duty should be either removed or 

 reduced. The export duty on rice violates every principle, 

 and is most injurious in practice. It used to be defended on 

 the ground that India enjoyed a monopoly of the production 

 of rice, but this argument, as has been repeatedly pointed out 

 by Mr. 0' Conor in his trade reviews, is not, and was never, 

 fairly sustainable. Indian rice is used (1) for distillation, (2) 

 for starch, and (3) for food, and in these various uses rice has 

 to compete with several other products, and India with several 

 other countries. The countries that enter into competition 

 with India are Siam, Cochin-China, Japan, Java, Northern 

 Italy, and the productions which enter into competition with 

 rice are maize, barley, rye, potatoes, Mohwa flower, and even 

 wheat and sugar, many kinds of which are being sold in the 

 English market as cheaply as rice, and even more cheaply. 

 The rice used for food has to compete with European rice 

 (that of Lombardy in particular) and with the rice of the 

 Asiatic countries as well as with Madagascar rice and the rice 

 produced in the Southern States of the Union. Mr. 0' Conor 

 points out that whereas 20 years ago we did a large business 

 with China, that trade has almost ceased to exist, Cochin- 

 China as well as Siam having driven our rice out of the 

 market. The export duty on rice, 3 annas a maund, which 

 amounts to 7 per cent, on the value, is a heavy one, and 

 its retention in the tariff, while duties far less injurious in 

 their effects have been abolished, gives occasion for valid 

 complaint.^^ 



*^ The objections to the export duty on rioe were very forcibly stated by the 

 Honorable Mr. Steel ia the Legislative Council of India in 1885. He said : " I must 

 protest in the strongest terms against any budget which does not redress this crying 

 evil of our financial system. I refer to the export duty on rice. To my mind it seems 

 inconceivable that such an objectionable impost should be preserved in any civilized 

 country. An export duty on raw produce and that produce the food of the people ! 

 With all our study of economics, can we do no better than this ? It is as hurtful in prac- 

 tice as vicious in principle. Who would dream of an export duty on wheat ? In 

 principle there is no diiference. Let us consider its effect. An export duty of 10s. per 

 ton is equal to a tax of 5 to 10 per cent, upon its value. It absolutely shuts out the 

 grain from important consumption for distilling and sizing purposes. It reduces the 

 foreign consumption of rice for food when it comes into competition with other articles 

 of food. It thus limits the production of the principal agricultural product of Bengal 

 and Burma at the cost of the agricultural and labouring classes. By checking the 

 production of rice, it diminishes the reserves to which we must look in case of scarcity 

 and famine. I look upon this rice-tax as the very worst possible source of revenue 

 which could be devised, and cannot approve of any budget which does not get rid of it 

 even at the risk of fresh taxation. I have been informed that of the abundant harvest 

 of 1882, much rice was actually allowed to rot on the ground, because not worth the cost 

 of saving, which but for this duty might have been saved and shipped." Sir Evelyn 

 Baring, when examined before the Royal Commission on the value of the precious metals, 

 admitted that it was a fair criticism that the export duty on rice should have gone first, 

 that is, before the cotton duties, because the abolition of the export duties would have 

 been extremelv beneficial to India, more especially in view of the difiiculty rec;arding the 

 rate of exchange. He added : " I look upon this as the most important fiscal reform 

 in India, and I always immensely regret that while I was in India, I was not able to 

 crown the free trade edifice by abolishing the export duties," 



