Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am ar 14 Mai 1924.
Mr John Mills
, Dartford
If it be so, I will withdraw, but I have in mind what was supposed to be a Debate in this House of Commons, initiated at a quarter past eight a few weeks ago, when two hours and five minutes of the two hours and three-quarters was taken up by a very one-sided diatribe from the other side of the House, and, when the Speaker from the front bench, with three minutes to go, rose to reply, he was not even allowed to put in a personal explanation, and the business closed in uproar. The echoes of that Debate created a very painful impression throughout the whole of our Indian Empire, and for that reason, and because of the facts which are coming through, I think the House is indebted to my hon. Friend for a very reasoned and very human speech, and I hope those who are going to reply will not reply in terms of denunciation of a quotation from someone's speech in 1852 or someone else who ought to be somewhere else at some other time, but will make some effort to reply, because we do not ask merely the opposite side to reply. We want the Government to reply, and we want to know what they intend to do. The advent of a Labour Government raised the highest possible hopes among 320,000,000 people, who for over 70 years have been promised that some day in the dim and distant future they would be given the right of self government. Now, in 1924, we have the spectacle that the textile workers of Madras have sent a delegate to Britain to ask not for any revolutionary proposal, but merely that if a man earns a magnificent wage, the equivalent of £1 13s. 4d. per month, he might be allowed to vote. I suppose when the speakers attempt to make a case in Britain they will be denounced as some more of the sedition mongers who are coming over to upset the benefits of British rule. It is time a little plain speaking was undertaken.
We ask the first Labour Government that they realise immediately at least some of the economic disabilities of the Indian workers. I refer specifically to the incidence of the Salt Tax. We listened to the Chancellor of the exchequer a few days ago outlining a Budget which increased the spending values of the workers of Britain, and which reduced the amount of contribution they have been making weekly for years to taxes where in hundreds of cases they were too poor to pay direct Income Tax. We know that the Secretary of State for India, representing a Labour Government, held out some measure of hope that the British Labour Government had some idea of ameliorating the burden of the helpless section of India in reference to the Salt Tax. The Salt Tax has been with us from the days of John Company, from the days of the East India Company's exploitation of the peoples of India as the result of contracts with various Indian princes, and so on. This vicious principle has been carried on, and if one turns to the pages of history he will find as far back as 80 years ago the merchants of Northwich and of various parts of Great Britain protesting to the British Parliament that the British consumer could buy salt at 30s. a ton, whilst the poor devil of an Indian peasant has to pay at the rate of £21 a ton. If we take in for a moment the standard of living in other countries, where salt to them represents a real luxury and enables them to digest some of the most appalling forms of food which they are forced to eat as the result of their economic conditions, one will understand the amount of resentment which has been generated throughout India as the result of the forcing upon the Indian people, in spite of the Indian Parliament's own wishes, not only the imposition of the salt tax, but the doubling of the salt tax last year in spite of the Opposition of the duly elected people of India in the Indian Government. The late Under-Secretary for India had to defend that last year, and he defended it very courteously and ably from the point of view of the Conservative Government, but, after all, he had to admit to various Members who were questioning him, who are now Members of the first British Labour Administration, that this doubling of the salt tax was necessary because of expenditure incurred largely due to military equipment in India, while in the same month another of his colleagues was glibly telling the House that part of the British reserves are borne by the Indian people, and that if this burden were taken off the Indian people, it would have to be borne by the British taxpayer.
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