PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION, 295 



cession. The receipts of the imperial (Indian) revenue from the 

 salt tax for 1894 were 8,228,000 Rx. (tens of rupees), or nominally 

 about $41,000,000. The present average annual consumption of 

 tax-paid salt by the people of India has been officially estimated 

 at about ten and three fourths pounds per head, and the average 

 annual burden of the tax on each Indian family of five persons at 

 one rupee and a quarter, or 5d. (ten cents) ; and in considering 

 this tax it is desirable to bear in mind that there is no direct 

 taxation in India either on tobacco or sugar, so that the salt tax 

 is the only direct tax that the Indian peasant need pay, unless he 

 indulges in alcohol or narcotics the land assessment being re- 

 garded as in the nature of rent. 



As the price of salt, by reason of the tax, is somewhat higher 

 in India than in most other countries, the question as to its 

 effect upon its population is one of high social and sanitary inter- 

 est, in respect to which authorities differ. By some * it is con- 

 tended that the consumption of this prime necessity is thereby 

 greatly restricted, and that much disease, both of men and ani- 

 mals, is thereby engendered; and the trade in salt fish, which 

 might supply a cheap and abundant article of food, is greatly 

 hampered. Others assert that " the poorer classes do not feel ag- 

 grieved or complain about it " ; that " as a rule the peasantry do 

 not stint themselves on account of it " ; and that " no one has ever 

 taken exception to the tax as it stands but the European griev- 

 ance-monger in the country/' But, be this as it may, all are agreed 

 that it would be very difficult to raise a revenue equivalent to 

 that derived from the taxation of salt by any other method. 



The third largest source of imperial revenue in India is from 

 the Government monopoly of the production and sale of opium ; 

 and the annual receipts from which, although at one time in 

 excess of $40,000,000, have of late years greatly diminished, and 

 were officially reported in 1894 as 6,627,571 Rx. ($33,137,855). As 

 the opium product of India is sold mainly to China and the 

 Straits Settlements, and as the export taxes embodied in its price 

 are collected from the people of these countries, they can not, 

 therefore, be regarded as a fiscal burden upon the people of India. 



The method of collecting the revenue from opium is substan- 

 tially as follows : No person in British India may cultivate the 

 poppy, from which the drug is derived, without a license from 

 the Government ; and every cultivator is bound to sell the crude 

 product of his crop to the Government at certain factories, where 

 it is manufactured into the opium of commerce. A portion of 

 the manufactured opium is retained for consumption in India, 

 and distributed through venders licensed by the excise depart- 



* Wilson's Resources of Modern Commerce. London, Longmans, 1878. 



