Civil Disobedience in Indian Tradition, with Some Early Nineteenth Century Documents c6.s3: III. Correspondence with Directing Authorities in England
Civil Disobedience in Indian Tradition, with Some Early Nineteenth Century Documents c6.s3
- Language
- English
III. Correspondence with Directing Authorities in England
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III.1. Revenue Letter from Bengal in the Department of the Ceded and Conquered Provinces
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(Extract)
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39. With the dispatch, from the Judicial Department dated the 24th November last, your Hon'ble Court was furnished with copies of Regulation XV, 1810, entitled ‘a regulation for levying a tax on houses in certain cities and towns in the provinces of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Benares’.
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40. It is with much concern that we acquaint your Hon'ble Court, that the promulgation of that Regulation and the measures taken in consequence by the revenue officer, to carry its provisions into effect, have excited great discontent and resistance to public authority in the city of Benares.
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41. We have the honour to transmit to you, a separate number in the packet, a copy of our correspondence on that subject, with the public officers. These papers are recorded for the most part in the Judicial Department; but we prefer noticing them in this place on account of their immediate connection with an arrangement adopted solely with a view to the improvement of the public revenue.
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42. The first communication from the Acting Magistrate on this subject is dated the 25th December last, in which he observes as follows: ‘The people are extremely clamorous, they have shut up their shops, abandoned their usual occupations, and assembled in multitudes with a view to extort from me an immediate compliance with their demands, and to prevail with me to direct the Collector to withdraw the assessors until I receive the orders of Government.’ The subsequent communications from the Acting Magistrate are of the same tenor. It is not however to be inferred, that the people proceeded to any acts of open violence. Their design appears to have been to oblige the local officers in the first instance and ultimately the Government to abandon the tax, by a pertinacious adherence to the resolution they had formed of abstaining from labour and by the embarrassments which would naturally arise among a very large population from such conduct. It was evident however that while the people continued collected together in multitudes, with minds bent on effecting the object for which they had assembled, little security existed for the tranquility of the city. It was consequently indispensably necessary to adopt the earliest measures practicable for dispersing the mob, if possible by gentle and conciliatory means, but if not by the employment of the military force of the country.
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43. With respect to the Regulation itself (as observed in our orders of the 5th ultimo to the Acting Magistrate) ‘we did not discern any substantial reasons for the abolition of the tax on houses in the cities and principal towns established by Regulation XV, 1810, and that with those sentiments we further thought that it would be extremely unwise to sacrifice to riot and clamour a tax, the abolition of which was not dictated by any considerations of general policy.’
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44. On mature consideration however of the case, it appeared to us that the tax was susceptible of some modifications as calculated to obviate any just grounds of complaint on the part of those classes of the people, who from their situation in life, were most liable to be affected by its operation. We in consequence directed that the people at Benares should be relieved from a contribution to which they were already subject, on account of the pay of chokeydars (watchmen) and the repair of the gateways, which was not paid by the inhabitants of other cities; that not only religious edifices, in the strict sense of that term, but all houses, occupied by religious mendicants, and persons belonging to the orders of devotion should be exempted from the payment of the tax. And lastly that the same exemption should extend to the houses of the most indigent classes of the people. It is scarcely necessary to add that, we hoped that on the promulgation of the foregoing orders, the inhabitants of Benares would show themselves deserving of the indulgence proposed to be extended to them by the relinquishment of their seditious designs and by a just submission to public authority.
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45. After the foregoing review of the origin and progress of the illegal combination at Benares, it is with the highest satisfaction that we draw the attention of your Hon’ble Court to the letter from the Acting Magistrate dated the 28th January last, from which it appears that the populace had dispersed and had yielded an unqualified submission to the authority of Government and its officers. This happy effect is ascribed in a considerable degree to the influence of the Rajah of Benares, and of some other individuals of wealth and character at that city, on whom as will appear more particularly from the orders passed by us on that subject, we have accordingly conferred suitable marks of distinction and approbation.
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46. The illegal combination formed at Benares being thus terminated, the trial of the delinquents will proceed in the ordinary course, and the modifications of the tax which it may be proper to adopt, will be discussed through the proper and regular channel of the Board of Commissioners and Board of Revenue. But we cannot close our report on this subject, without noticing the extreme circumspection necessary to be observed in establishing new taxes among the people, whose civil and domestic usages are so closely interwoven with their religious rites, and who are so particularly sensible to any innovation or departure from established custom.
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47. With this sentiment we were strongly impressed, when we proceeded to the consideration of the best means of improving the public resources in consequence of some late instructions from your Hon’ble Court. To tax without exciting in some degree complaint or discontent can seldom be the lot of any government, but a tax on houses appeared to us as little liable to create any particular or well founded dissatisfaction as any impost which could be devised, 1st, because it had long been established in the city of Calcutta and 2ndly, because this particular species of tax was by no means unknown under the late native Government.
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48. It is scarcely credible that the amount of the tax should have been considered a serious burden by any description of people, excepting perhaps the most indigent, some of the religious orders, and individuals who with very scanty means had come from religious motives, to pass the remnant of their days at the city of Benares.
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49. Still however we perceive a dangerous and almost universal combination formed against the tax, and consequently against the authority of Government; the influence of the Brahmins, Faqueers and other employed to excite the people to resistance; the authority of the local officers openly contemned; and no means left to Government, but the employment of the military force of the country to enforce its orders and regulations.
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50. The timely submission of the people has happily rendered it unnecessary actually to resort to the last mentioned measure; but when we reflect on the spirit which appears to have actuated the people and to the very serious consequences which might have arisen had the troops been actually employed on this occasion, we are irresistibly led to the conclusion, that no branch of the administration requires more prudence and circumspection, and above all, a more accurate knowledge of the real temper and character of the people of this country than the imposition of new taxes. It is scarcely necessary to add that we shall uniformly keep these principles in view in deciding on any arrangements of this nature, which may in future fall under our consideration, and we can not suppress the expression of our hopes that they may be equally attended to by succeeding governments, or any other authority on whom the delicate duty of imposing new taxes may devolve.
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III.2. *Judicial Letter from Bengal*
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(Extract)
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62. We are concerned to inform your Hon'ble Court that some disturbances have occurred at Bhaugulpore, originating in the resistance of the people to the collection of the house tax established by Regulation XV, 1810.
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63. The assessment having been conducted the Collector was directed by the Board of Revenue to proceed to the collection of the tax accordingly.
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64. Some indication of resistance to the authority of the Collector in the performance of that duty having been manifested by the community, the Judge and Magistrate most injudiciously directed the Collector to suspend the collection of the tax, chiefly on the ground, as we understood the order, that the collection of it had not been commenced at the cities of Patna and Moorshedabad.
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65. The Magistrate having been directed to withdraw that order, and the Collector having again proceeded to the discharge of the duty reposed in him with respect to the collection of the tax, he was assaulted and wounded by the populace. It appearing to us on receipt of that intelligence that the outrage thus offered to the Collector and in his person to the Government, was to be traced to the injudicious order above noticed; we for that and the other considerations noticed in our proceedings, deemed it necessary to suspend the Judge and Magistrate from the discharge of his public duties, and to depute an officer of greater firmness and activity to take charge of that appointment. In the meantime however we received information as will appear from the letters, transmitted to you a separate number in the packet, that the authority of Government had been fully re-established in Bhaugulpore, and that the collection of the house tax had been effectually enforced. Under that change of circumstances, we deemed it sufficient to direct the Register to take charge temporarily of the office of the Magistrate. It only remaining at present for us to pass final orders on the conduct of the Magistrate, which we shall consider with the indulgence which we should always be disposed to extend to mere errors of judgement or even want of firmness, when not originating in any improper motive.
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III.3 *Revenue Letter from Bengal*
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*(Extract)*
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¹⁰¹ On the same date we took into consideration the expediency of abolishing the tax on houses established by Regulation XV, 1810, your Hon’ble Court was fully informed in our Despatch from the Revenue Department (Revenue Consultations 17th September 1811) of the 12th February last, of the disturbances which had occurred on account of the tax in the city of Benares. Since that period, the Board of Revenue had submitted a statement showing the amount of the assessment in those towns, where the assessment had been completed. From that statement it appeared quite clear, that the tax could not be an object to Government except at the city and the suburbs of Calcutta. Indeed the whole produce of the tax was only estimated at about
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Rs.3,00,000 and subsequently experience has not shown that its produce was materially underrated. Considered therefore as a source of revenue, the pecuniary advantages arising from it to Government was trivial compared with the general dissatisfaction which it has occasioned, the actual opposition which it had excited at Benares and Bhaugulpore, and the apprehensions that the same disposition might manifest itself in similar excesses at other stations. Arguments indeed were not wanting for the continuance of the tax, founded on the necessity of supporting the authority of Government and repressing the spirit of resistance which had been manifested to the exercise of its legitimate powers. The inhabitants of Benares however had long ago yielded an unconditional submission to public authority: and exclusively of that consideration it will be observed, that we neither intended to proceed to the immediate abolition of the tax, nor to extend the benefits of that measure to any places at which (to use the terms of our instructions to the Board of Revenue) ‘commotions originating in a resistance to the operation of the tax might exist at the period of the receipt of those orders’.
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102. The house tax being established within the city of Calcutta, we did not discern any substantial reasons for exempting the suburbs of the city from its operation. The former is separate from the latter in some parts only by a street and in others only by an imaginary line.
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III. 4. *Revenue Letter from Bengal*
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(Extract)
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111. The proceedings of the annexed date contain a report from the Board of Revenue respecting the receipts and disbursements on account of the house tax beyond the limits of the town of Calcutta, which tax for the reasons stated in the 101 and 102 paragraphs (9th May 1812 Paras 40-5 n 114) of our Despatch from the Revenue Department of the 14th December last we had directed to be abolished. The collections are stated at Rs.5,308.5. The disbursements at Rs.16,040.6, leaving a net charge to Government of Rs.10,732.1.10.1 112. We have ordered some arrears to be written off as irrecoverable for the particulars of which we beg leave to refer you to the proceedings of the dates specified in the margin. (Revenue Consultations dated 28th March 1812, 4th April 1812, 9th May 1812, 15th June 1812, 29th August 1812)
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III.5. *Secret Revenue Despatch to Bengal*
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Our Governor General in Council at Fort William in Bengal
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1. We have taken into our consideration the tax on houses in certain cities and towns in the provinces of Bengal, Behar, Orissa and Benares (Disturbances in Benares occasioned by the introduction of the house tax into that city. Regulation XV 1810) levied by you in virtue of a Regulation passed on 6th October 1810, together with the whole of your communication on the subject to the 11th February 1811.
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2. This tax appears to have originated with the Committee of Finance (Letter Committee of Finance 27.10.1810 in Revenue Consultations of 1st April 1809) who stated that among ‘the various modes of taxation which had been under their consideration the only new impost which appeared proper to be recommended to the attention of Government was a tax upon houses’, that it was not unknown to the natives, a tax of the same description having been levied at different times and in diverse places under various names, that it was not necessarily obnoxious to the prejudices of the natives and that rules for its collection similar to those established for realising the assessment, of the town of Calcutta were not likely to give offence or be attended with peculiar hardship.
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3. The Committee estimated that the tax on property levied in Benares, Patna, Moorshedabad, Dacca, Mirzapoor, Burdwan, Gya and other large towns in Bengal, Behar and Benares as well as the suburbs of Calcutta might be expected to produce a sum exceeding three lacs of rupees and they stated their opinion that at a future period the tax might be extended to Furruckabad, Agra, Allahabad and other cities of the Upper Provinces though for the reasons assigned in their letter they did not advise its immediate extension to those places.
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4. The promulgation of this tax appears to have excited considerable agitation and we find that it soon assumed an alarming aspect. People of all descriptions assembled in vast multitudes consisting of the inhabitants not only of the town but of neighbouring country. All the shops were shut and business was for many days so much at a stand that nothing except grain was procurable in the city. Numbers intimated a design of proceeding to Calcutta. The endeavours of the Acting Magistrate to allay the irritation and persuade the people to return to their ordinary pursuits and wait the determination of Government proving ineffectual and the public tranquility being endangered, the Acting Magistrate deemed it necessary to call on General Macdonald, the officer commanding the district to prepare for any probable emergency.
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5. We deem it most fortunate that the people though clamorous and pertinacious did not proceed to any acts of outrage or open violence and that military coercion was not resorted to, to disperse the assemblage; for we agree with the opinion expressed by Major General Macdonald that if any blood of Brahmins or of religious orders had been spilt, the consequences might have been most serious.
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6. On the modifications which you found it necessary to make it is unnecessary for us now to enter in as much as we find from advices recently received that you had determined to abolish the tax in question not only at Benares but also in the other cities and towns in which it had been established.
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7. From the manner in which the Committee of Finance have stated that their observation of the house tax in Calcutta had suggested their recommendation for the establishment of a tax upon the houses of all the cities and great towns in Bengal, Behar, Orissa and Benares and at some future time in the Upper Provinces and from your reasonings in consequence it might be inferred that the tax in Calcutta had never occasioned any dissatisfaction among the natives.
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8. But on reference to the records of 1789, we find on the contrary that a great dissatisfaction existed among the native inhabitants of Calcutta on account of this tax and that they petitioned Government on the subject. This petition not being entered on the records, as it ought to have been, we do not know the allegations it contained. But we perceive by a letter from the clerk of the Commissioners to the Government that a number of the native inhabitants of Calcutta having assembled at the Commissioners house several of them were called in on which occasion they observed that they object to ‘paying any tax whatever’. (Dated 22.4.1789 General Consultations 24.4.1789) The enforcement of the tax we understand, left a considerable degree of discontent among the natives and that many of them in consequence fixed their habitations without the limits of the town in those places you call the suburbs of Calcutta which you have subjected to the new tax of 1810.
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9. Neither the Committee nor yourselves have adverted to two material distinctions between the old and the new tax. *1st* that the tax on Calcutta is levied not for the increase of the revenues of Government but solely for a municipal purpose. That the sum raised by it is disbursed upon the town and the inhabitants derive a benefit in the improvement, of the streets and general healthiness of the place. As an endeavour to conciliate the natives to that tax the Government ordered the monthly accounts of the Commissioners to be published thereby not only showing the people that the money was wholly expended on the purposes for which it was raised but also giving them the means of knowing that it was faithfully and judiciously expended, a point in which it is probable some question had been started. *2nd* that Calcutta is a town governed by British laws and in many respects differing from any other place in Bengal or the contiguous provinces. It is the seat of our chief Government; the inhabitants of the greatest authority and consequence are Europeans: most of the principal houses belong to or are rented by Europeans, all the natives of consideration and property are either immediately or relatively connected with our Government or with Europeans or are descended from persons who at no very distant period have been so connected. With the exception of the persons of the above descriptions the natives of consequence and property are from physical and moral consideration averse to reside in Calcutta. That under European example and influence a tax like the one in question was certainly more likely to be submitted to, in Calcutta, than in any other place.
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10. The Moothurfa (or professional licence) one of the sayer collections which were abolished by Earl Cornwallis’ Government we conceive can never have been mistaken for a house tax and in regard to the tax termed Khanashumaree (i.e. enumeration of houses) to which both the Committee of Finance and yourselves refer to show that the natives in that part of India have been accustomed to a tax upon houses, we do not know any trace upon our records. Nor have our enquiries been attended with any distinct information on the subject. There may have existed some trifling or partial tax of this nature for some particular purpose but that there was a general one which might be considered as a precedent for the house tax you levied we cannot admit without more particular information.
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11. We deem it extremely unwise to do any thing which by creating irritation and disgust in the minds of a large part of the natives may weaken their confidence in our justice and without dilating on this topic we must observe that your own reflections as expressed in your letter of the 11th February 1811 are most judicious. You say ‘you can not close your report on the subject without noticing the extreme circumspection necessary to be observed in establishing new taxes among a people whose civil and domestic usages are so closely interwoven with religious rites and who are so particularly sensible to any innovation or departure from established custom’ and you justly observe in another passage that ‘no branch of the administration requires more prudence and circumspection and above all a more accurate knowledge of the temper and character of the people of India than the imposition of new taxes’.
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12. There is a tax now in existence in the Deccan and the Carnatic which though it may have some affinity with that which you have established is also materially different from it. The tax to which we allude is not regulated by the rent, for their houses and shops are hardly ever rented. It is in some cases called the ground rent of the house, in others the equivalent of a certain number of days labour; in fact it is of the nature of an income tax.
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13. Our sentiments on the subject of a house tax at Madras were communicated in paragraphs 63-66 of our letter of 23rd July 1806, copy of which was transmitted to you according to the usual course of correspondence.
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14. We must observe however there is this striking difference in the case viz. that the Government of Fort St. George conceiving the town duties to be vexatious had proposed to abolish them and substitute a house tax in place of them. But you in the month of April 1810 impose a heavy string of town duties on the most necessary articles of life and within six months also lay on a house tax. We desire your particular attention may be given to our opinions as communicated to the Government of Fort St. George in our before-mentioned letter. This letter we presume could never have been seen by the Committee of Finance who suggested the tax or by the Board of Revenue who in obedience to your directions framed the Regulation. And we are concerned to observe that the instructions it contained that the project of the house tax should not be carried into execution without our express sanction must have escaped your recollection when you resolved upon adopting and enforcing the tax in question. To these observations we have to add that the introduction of a new tax should always be preceded by a careful investigation whether or not it was levied under the former governments, whether it was abolished and for what cause or whether it fell gradually into disuse and how long it has been discontinued: for we hold it to be a principle highly important to be kept in view that when the state of the public resources calls for an increase of revenue in India that it is decidedly preferable to seek that increase in the renewal of old than in the establishment of new taxes.
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15. There are two points connected with the details of the measures now under consideration which we shall here particularly notice to you and this we do for the purpose of engaging your future circumspection in any cases which may be analogous. The one is the levying of 10 per cent upon shops instead of 5 the general rate upon houses. This appears to be oppressive and vexatious; supposing even that the general rate of tax were judicious, because if the business of the shop were considerable, Government would obtain at 5 per cent its fair ratio of advantage by the increased value of the premises and if the business were trifling the whole profit on the wares which might be vended might not equal the increased rate of the tax. The other point is our observing in the letter from the Collector of Benares dated 26th November 1810 that he expressed his hope that if a faithful account of rents received and paid were furnished ‘it would not be necessary for his officers to make any entry in order to ascertain the rate of taxes to be levied by personal surveying of the premises’.
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16. We must signify our expectation that the necessity here contemplated as possible may not occur because besides the unpopularity occasioned by the visits of the revenue officers in private houses the peculiar delicacy of approaching to the secluded part of the Indian dwellings must ever be carefully remembered.
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17. It remains for us now to express our satisfaction in the judicious, temperate, cautious and firm conduct of our servants at Benares, viz:
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Mr Bird the Acting Magistrate whom we mention first as having taken the most conspicuous part,
Major General Macdonald with whose prudence and judgement we are particularly gratified,
Mr Brooke, the chief judge of circuit,
Mr Glyn, Assistant to Mr. Bird,
Mr Salmon, the Collector.
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18. We have also to express our approbation of the conduct of the Raja and of the other natives of consequence and influence mentioned to you and are glad to perceive you have distinguished their meritorious services by marks of your favour.
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19. We think it necessary upon an occasion on which we have to recommend so particular an attention to the opinions and even to the prejudices of the natives to desire that you will at the same time take every proper opportunity to assert the principle laid down by Lord Cornwallis in his instructions to the Board of Revenue, 11th June 1790, namely 'that the imposition and collection of internal duties has from time immemorial been admitted to be the exclusive privilege of Government', a principle which he fully established and expressly reserved as a right upon the promulgation of the permanent settlement and the abolition of the sayer duties when he emphatically announced in section 8 clause 8 of Regulation I in the year 1793 that 'a full compensation having been granted to the proprietors of land for the loss of revenue sustained by them in consequence of the abolition of them (the sayer duties) he declared that if he should hereafter think it proper to establish the sayer collections or any other internal duties and to appoint officers on the part of Government to collect them no proprietor of land would be admitted to any participation thereof or be entitled to make any claim for remissions of assessment on that account'.
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20. In our Revenue letter of 20th May 1799 we observed as follows:
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We are naturally led by the consideration of this subject to reflect on the propriety of directing you to turn your thoughts to the present state of the Company's resources and expenses in India particularly those under your more
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immediate superintendence. That grand source of Revenue in Bengal namely the land is unalterably placed at a certain amount not to be increased in consequence of any permanent augmentation of establishments how necessary so ever or of any other contingency. Since the completion of this important arrangement so highly beneficial to the proprietors of landed property the adoption of certain military arrangements has considerably increased the amount of the permanent charges and various circumstances rendering an augmentation of the native troops and the introduction of several additional regiments of his Majesty’s, necessary to the preservation of our dominions have swelled our military disbursements to an enormous amount; the means of defraying the additional expenses without adding to the Company’s debts deserve your attention. From the before mentioned arrangement for fixing the tribute from the land and from the several judicial institutions which followed for the security of private rights and property and individual protection which latter were effected at an expense to the Company of upwards of 34 lacs of rupees per annum, we have every reason to believe that the inhabitants of our provinces are in general experiencing, an unexampled and increasing degree of prosperity and happiness. When such blessings to a country are derived from the wise and salutary measures adopted by the protecting power it is natural to expect that those in the enjoyment of them should contribute to its preservation on which their own is so intimately involved. The increase of wealth, commerce and population evidently flowing from the above arrangement must naturally suggest to you who are on the spot, the modes in which the public might be brought to contribute towards the exigencies of the state. The customs, the stamp duties and the tax on spirituous liquors we understand may admit of considerable improvement either in the mode of collection or by the variation of the rates, and other resources of revenue may probably be devised without injury to the state, oppression to the people or violations of the principles on which the permanent settlement of the lands was made. We therefore recommend this very important subject to your most serious attention.
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21. The extent of the sacrifices of revenue and the heavy charges which were incurred upon the introduction of the permanent settlement of the land revenue and the judicial system, the accumulating expenses attending those arrangements and the long continuance of internal peace and prosperity in the provinces of Bengal and Behar arising in a general measure out of the burdensome wars in which we have been involved in other parts of India will warrant us fully in calling upon our native subjects to contribute to the relief of the state, now heavily expressed by a great load of debt, incurred by those wars, and which we had only contemplated as a contingency to be provided against in our letter of May 1799. The stamp duty established by you appears to be a measure well calculated to improve our revenues, and we have therefore read with great satisfaction in your Revenue Consultations of the 9th October 1806 that whatever has been received under this head in the Conquered Provinces (where the Regulation requiring the issue of stamp paper had not then been promulgated) 'is you suppose to be ascribed to individuals entertaining an opinion that the stamped paper gives great validity to documents of the above kind than if they were written upon plain paper'.
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22. With this opinion of your Board of Revenue before us, and without any observations from you upon the subject we are unable to conjecture what were the reasons which induced you to except from the stamp duties the receipts upon all payments to or from Government thereby restraining its operation where it might have been made considerably productive. If this should have proceeded from an opinion that it was advisable to introduce the measure gradually we have only to express our hope that you may soon consider yourselves at liberty to remove the restriction we have alluded to, and that when you shall have done so, you will make it the means, rather in the shape of regulation than of tax, of procuring for the ryots and undertenants the security of pottahs, which though required under the regulations that were established at the time the permanent settlement was promulgated, have not we apprehend been generally conveyed to them.
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23. As at no distant period it may be found necessary to look at some other source for augmenting the public revenue, we recommend that your attention may be particularly directed to the best mode for introducing a duty upon Betel Tobacco to operate throughout the provinces under your presidency, and to be calculated upon a principle as moderate as may be deemed consistent with the object of its imposition and at all events not to bear heavily on the consumer. These articles may properly be classed under the denomination of intoxicating drugs. They are of such general consumption that like salt they may be considered to be necessaries of life, and therefore it may be supposed that under proper regulations they might in time be brought to yield a considerable revenue.
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24. The realisation of an increased revenue from the above mentioned articles, either by a monopoly or the imposition of a duty, is a subject to which we particularly called the attention of the presidency of Fort St. George in our Revenue Despatches to that Government of the 28th August 1804 and 23rd July 1806. We have also more recently conveyed to the Madras Government in a letter in the same department of date the 24th April 1811 our sentiments on this subject on the occasion of taking into our consideration their proceedings since the year 1806 with reference to the object in question. We are desirous that you should apply to the Government of Fort St. George for a copy of the correspondence here referred to as well as for a copy of their proceedings connected therewith, as they may prove useful to you, more particularly the reports of the Collectors on any measures which you may deem it expedient to adopt for adding to the public resources by an extended system of taxation with respect to betel and tobacco. We are perfectly aware that difficulties may exist under your presidency, as well as in the territories on the coast as to the general application of any uniform measure with a view to that object throughout the possessions subject to your immediate authority. A modification of principle and in some cases a complete difference of system may be necessary in order to adapt and accommodate itself to local circumstances and peculiarities from a due attention to which we might hope that in the course of time you may be enabled to exempt from the town duties not only rice, wheat and barley upon which article you have very properly abstained from enforcing that duty but that in the event of the proposed duty on betel and tobacco being generally established you may be able to exempt those articles also from the operation of the town duties.
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London, the 16th September 1812
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We are Your affectionate friends, Hugh Inglis [and others]
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III.5 (1-5) *Correspondence between Court of Directors of the East India Company and Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India regarding the Secret Revenue Despatch to Bengal dated 16.9.1812 pertaining to the House Tax.*
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III.5 (1) *Board to Court*
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India Office, Whitehall, 15th June 1812
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(Extract)
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I am directed by the Commissioners for the Affairs of India to return the Bengal Secret Revenue draft, No. 218 with alterations and additions.
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Many of the alterations which the Board have made therein are verbal: but there are several which require some explanatory observations. The first of these is in the omission of paragraphs 18 to 20 and part of 21: and the substitutions of four others, which leave out altogether the instructions contained in the 18th cancelled paragraph of the Court, directing the Bengal Government to consider ‘whether the whole or a part of the sayer duties might not be restored’. These duties, though abolished previously to the permanent settlement of the lands, have been since re-established on modified principles. The Board here particularly refers to the Government customs inland, the town duties and the abkarry revenue, as at present existing, which they consider to constitute material branches of the old sayer collections.
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III.5 (2) *Board to Court*
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Whitehall, 14th August 1812
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Sir,
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I am directed by the Commissioners for the Affairs of India to request you will return to me Draft No. 218 which was forwarded to you from this office on the 15th June last together with the letter that accompanied the same, it being the wish of the Board to make some alterations therein.
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I have the honour to be & c John Bruce
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To: W. Ramsey Esq.
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III.5 (3) *Letter from Mr. Ramsey*
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Mr. Ramsey presents his compliments to Mr. Bruce and, in consequence of his letter of the 14th instant, returns him Draft No. 218.
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III.5 (4) *Board to Court*
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Whitehall, 20th August 1812
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Sir,
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I am directed by the Commissioners for the Affairs of India to acknowledge the receipt of the returned Draft No. 218 of the last season, and to remind you that the letter which accompanied it on the 15th of June last has not been returned.
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I am, Sir & c Thos Per Courtenay
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William Ramsey Esq.
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III.5 (5). *Commissioners for the Affairs of India to the East India Company regarding changes in the draft of the Secret Revenue Despatch to Bengal of 16.9.1812.*
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India Office Whitehall, 9th September 1812
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Sir,
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I am directed by the Commissioners for the Affairs of India to return you the Bengal Secret Revenue Draft No. 218, with alterations and additions, as finally approved by the Board, several of which are verbal only; but there are others, which require some explanatory observations.
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The first material alteration is the omission of paragraphs 4-6, the latter part of para 7, paras 8-10, paras 12-24. The Board have omitted the paras in question, in consequence of the information contained in the Bengal Revenue Despatch of the 14th December last, and which has reached England since the Draft was prepared, and has noticed the intention of the Supreme Government to abolish altogether the house tax, except in the city and suburbs of Calcutta. This has, in the opinion of the Board superseded the necessity of entering so much into detail with respect to the proceedings which occurred at Benares on the establishment of the tax in that city, as might otherwise have been requisite, and it also renders several of the paras, here referred to, now inapplicable written as they were under the impression that the impost was still levied.
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The Board have also omitted the latter part of the paragraph 16, as being rendered unnecessary by the passage immediately preceding that cancelled; in lieu of which they have substituted a passage, which is little more than a transposition of what has been expunged in para 19 and 20 on the importance of duly attending to the habits and prejudices of the natives in the introduction of new taxes.
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The addition to paragraph 17, referring to the Court's sentiments, as signified to the Government of Fort St. George, with respect to a house tax, within the territories subject to its authority, is also in great measure a transposition of the first part of the paragraph 21, which has been expunged.
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The Board's reason for having omitted the part of paragraph 18, directing the Bengal Government to consider 'whether the whole or a part of the sayer duties might not be restored' is, that these duties, though abolished previously to the permanent settlement of the lands, have since, in some instances, been re-established on modified principles. The Board particularly refer to the Government Customs Inland, the Town Duties, and the Abkarry Revenue. The remaining part of the paragraph in question, relative to the imposition of new taxes, has been inserted at the end of paragraph 21.
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It has further been thought proper by the Board to cancel the 28th paragraph, so as to leave it to the free discretion of the Government abroad, to restore or not the Phatuckbundee, as they may see fit.
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The heavy expenditure attendant upon the system of internal administration under the Bengal presidency which induced the Court of Directors to prepare the paragraph that has been expunged respecting the sayer duties has led the Board at the end of the draft to call the attention of the Governor General in Council to the policy of realising an additional revenue by an extension of the stamp regulations in the manner proposed in those paragraphs, and by the adoption of an extended system of taxation with respect to betel and tobacco. These are articles of luxury and of general consumption, and a small duty upon them, operating throughout the provinces, might, under proper regulations, be gradually improved into a very productive source of revenue. The Board express themselves with the more confidence upon this subject in consequence of the opinion recently conveyed by the Government of Fort St. George in their Revenue Letter of the 29th February 1812, wherein, adverting to the contingency of remissions becoming necessary under the system of village leases, they observe that ‘whatever may be the amount of those occasional remissions, the reinstitution of the licences for the sale of betel and tobacco’ which, as they state, ‘was in the opinion of Col. Munro relinquished without any adequate reasons, would certainly produce a revenue more than sufficient to cover these eventual remissions’; and they add that they had in view the immediate re-establishment of them.
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I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient, humble servant,
Thos. Per. Courtenay
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To W.Ramsey Esq.
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*III.6. Two of the original paragraphs of the Court of Directors expunged by the Board of Commissioners in Secret Revenue Draft No.218. (Original draft ends with paragraph 28 which suggests restoration of Phatuckbundee as existing previously. Original draft is dated 23 May 1812.- Editor)*
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Having most attentively and seriously deliberated upon the whole of the subject as you must be convinced from the present discussion we should have felt inclined to direct the abolition of the house tax. But from an apprehension we entertain that this measure might be mistakenly considered as originating in a disposition on the part of your Government to yield to the influence of popular clamour, and that of thus exciting in the minds of the natives an expectation of still further concessions, we might at length be called upon to relinquish entirely the very principle of taxation, by which we looked for an augmentation of our resources by the institution of duties upon such articles as might from time to time be thought to afford a fair prospect of revenue, without their being felt as oppressive by the native inhabitants. We are willing therefore to hope that under the modifications which you had it in contemplation to adopt, calculated in your opinion to obviate any just ground of complaint against the house tax, the same has, since the date of your letter of the 12th February 1811, been quietly collected: but if not withstanding these modifications, the house tax shall have continued to be obnoxious to the feelings and prejudices of the natives and productive of further dissatisfaction and clamour, we think you ought to adopt the most speedy measures for its repeal, and which you think it will be possible for you to carry into execution, without compromising in too conspicuous a manner the authority of Government.
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This consideration has alone restrained us from giving more positive orders upon this subject, since we think that this is one of those cases where the general opinion of the authorities at home being known, the execution of that opinion must be committed to the hands and to the discretion of the local administration of India.
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III.7. *Revenue letter from Bengal: Secret Revenue*
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(Extract)
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4. In the above mentioned Despatch, your Hon'ble Court appears to have had two distinct objects; first, to record your sentiments on the tax on houses which had been established in the year 1810, but which has been since abolished; and secondly, to state such suggestions as had occurred to you for the improvement of the public resources.
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5. With regard to the former point, it cannot be in any respect necessary for us to defend a measure of the preceding Government: still however the observations of your Hon'ble Court suggest some reflections which we would wish to offer for your consideration.
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6. A tax on houses is certainly nothing less than novel in the general history of taxation. In this country it did not violate any acknowledged right of the natives, or offend any of their religious or civil usages. Some dissatisfaction will always be experienced from the operation of new taxes; but it is impossible, judging a priori, to foresee in what mode such dissatisfaction will manifest itself, or to what extent it may be carried. Considering the question in this point of view, the consequences, which arose from the tax on houses, were such as in our apprehension no human prudence could foresee, and such as may be again experienced from any measures, the tendency of which is to convert part of the private wealth of individuals into a public resource for the state. But your Hon'ble Court are both too enlightened and too equitable to judge of any arrangement of that nature merely from the event. We do not mean by these remarks, to question the propriety of the abrogation of the tax in question. On the contrary we think that it was wisely repealed, not because it infringed any established principle of taxation or violated any of those local usages, to which it is so essential to attend to in this country; but because the produce of it was not actually worth contending for through so much heat and irritation: It had only been estimated by the Committee of Finance at Rs.3,00,000 per annum and there were grounds to believe, that the net revenue would have even fallen short of that sum.