THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT IN INDIA 89 



thing that catches everybody in India. It is necessary 

 for the government to raise money in order to carry on 

 a government. If it does not do it in one way it must 

 do it in another. In 1914 salt could usually be bought 

 at retail in India in the villages for one cent a pound 

 or one dollar a hundred pounds. The government tax 

 works out about forty cents to the hundred pounds of 

 salt. A man would use about one-half ounce of salt a 

 day or about one pound a month, twelve pounds a year. 

 In eight and a half years he would use about one hun- 

 dred pounds of salt and in eight and a half years the 

 amount of salt he had used would pay the government 

 forty cents in tax. For the average life-time in India 

 the salt tax does not cause the individual to pay much 

 more than one dollar. The complaint of some of us in 

 India is not that the government taxes too much, but 

 that it does not tax enough. We feel that if it had taxed 

 more it would have had more money to spend on educa- 

 tion, sanitation, irrigation, roads and other things which 

 India sadly lacks, and that are in reality investments of 

 public funds for the benefit of private citizens, and that 

 are cumulative in their effect on public welfare. 



Much is said of the fearful drain of money on India to 

 support the army. Before the war about eighty-five thou- 

 sand British and three hundred thousand Indian troops 

 were maintained in India for protection of the Indian 

 people. The Indian civil service has about one thousand 

 British men in it and the other services four or five 

 thousand. These highly trained men give the best years 

 of their lives for what may be considered not excessive 

 pay and are retired on a pension. Large sums of money 

 also leave India to pay the interest charges on the rail- 



