Page:A General Biography of Bengal Celebrities Vol 1.djvu/17

 LIFE OF RAJA DEGUMBER MITTER,

hand information seemed to embarass Government sometimes. In order to utilize him, the Government appointed him a member of the Executive committee of the Orissa famine, to which he rendered invaluable services.

In other public matters his services were also conspicuous. In 1862 or thereabout, the Government of India invited the co-operation of the British Indian Association in the amendment of the Income Tax Act of 1860; Sir Henry Harrington was the representative of the Government, and the Association was asked to nominate two members for conference, and it returned Maharajah Romanath Tagore and Raja Degumber Mitter. The subsequent amendment of the Act was materially based upon the suggestions made by the delegates of the British Indian Association. Rajah Degumber was the defacto author of the road-cess scheme. He was a nominee of the British Indian Association to the road-cess Committee, appointed by Government, and although he was strongly opposed to the principle of the road-cess, he considered it his duty, as a loyal subject, to render every assistance in his power to the easy collection of the cess.

If the road-cess scheme is a self-acting one, the merit and credit of devising it belonged to the late Raja Degumber Mitter. It was somewhat modified in details by Mr. Schalch, but the main design was his. In the Legislative Council his practical common sense and intimate knowledge of the country were conspicuous in the many suggestions he offered. He took an active part in shaping the Embankment Act. The great bone of contention in connection with the Embankment Bill was the distinction made between public and private embankments; this distinction was recognized in theory, but not infrequently disregarded in practice. The steady opposition, which he and his colleague Maharajah Jotindra Mohun Tagore offered, extorted from Mr. Schalch, the member in charge of the bill, the schedule of public embankments