Civil Disobedience in Indian Tradition, with Some Early Nineteenth Century Documents c6.s3.45

c6.s3.45

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.