Northern Nigeria

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 863607721

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-45464

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Lugard, Frederick John Dealtry http://d-nb.info/gnd/117667412

Title:: Northern Nigeria

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Maj. Stat. Off.

Year of publication:: 1907

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (65 Seiten)

Collection:: Economics Books

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16 COLONIAL REPORTS—MISCELLANEOUS. debited against the expenditure votes on these accounts). A limit is, therefore, placed upon the amount of taxation which can be usefully imposed upon the people in aid of the revenue of the Protectorate, but were a light railway to be made to Kano from the Niger, it would become possible to profitably export produce from the districts served by the railway and its feeder roads, and it would then become possible to receive as taxes not merely the cash issued by Government as pay ment of troops and labour (or produce required for the food of Government employés), but also produce for export over-seas which, by the medium of merchants, could be converted into revenue. On the other hand, the cash put into circulation by the large local payments for labour on such railways, &c., would provide the wherewithal to pay the taxes, and would greatly stimulate the circulation of currency, while the immense cheapening of imported goods (cottons and hardware, &c.), would raise the standard of comfort and of wealth in the interior districts so that the people would (though paying a higher tax) still be able to increase their material comfort. At the present moment the tax is paid in British currency in provinces near the Niger, like Illorin, Nupe, and Kabba. In more remote provinces it is only partly paid in coin, to the extent to which coin is put into circulation by Government in the payment of troops and labourers. The remainder is paid partly in supplies required by Govern ment (grain for horses, &c.), and partly in kind (chiefly cowries), which it is found extremely difficult to realise in a form payable to revenue. It results from this view of the matter, that public works undertaken in the interior, where in sufficient cash currency exists for payment of taxes, really cost the Government but little, since the payment for the labour required comes back to Government in the shape of taxes which are otherwise unrealisable. In the meantime the incalculable advantage is gained of developing the country by means of these public works (roads, &c), on the one hand, and of habituating the people to a reasonable and fair taxation on the other hand. It would, in my view, be very unwise to allow the scheme of taxation to lapse in great part owing to the impossibility of realisation, for at a future period, when im proved communications rendered realisation easy, it would be very difficult to re-institute it. Questions of sound adminis tration are so intimately connected with each other, and inter act so much upon each other, that it is impossible to wholly exclude other matters in writing upon taxation. The question of the realisation is a vital one in the imposition of taxation, but it necessarily involves a brief glance at the question of transport, and of the development of the country by public works. The root of the matter, in a word, is, that by the judici ous expenditure of a certain amount of capital in the early stages of a country’s development, not only can that country be made self-supporting, and that capital expenditure become

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