Sir, there was a long series of questions put on this jute duty, but I do not want to weary the House with all those details, but it was established beyond any dispute that this was a peculiar tax in as much as it infringed even in those days the constitutional provisions of the limited reforms. Therefore, I am submitting to you that Dr. Ambedkar will not at all be right if he feels that it is only out of generosity that the Centre grants a portion of the proceeds of this tax to the provinces concerned. It was as a result of these discussions at the Third Round Table Conference and on incontrovertible proof given on behalf of the province of Bengal by men like Sir Edward Benthall that the Government of Great Britain made a substantive provision in the Government of India Act, 1935, in Section 142, that fifty per cent of the net proceeds of the jute duty should go to that province. Thereafter Sir Otto Niemeyer who was to fix the allocation of revenues between the provinces and the Centre, went into the whole question and raised this allocation of net proceeds of jute duties to Bengal to 621/2 per cent. This will appear on page 10 of Sri Otto Niemeyer’s Award. “Therefore I recommend that the percentage should be increased under section 140(2) of the Act to 621/2 per cent.“
