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Unexpected connections have always intrigued me – older readers may recall a wonderful series by the great James Burke simply called ‘Connections’ – and I encountered a very interesting one last week.
I was having lunch at an Indian restaurant near King’s Cross station which has been modelled on an old-style Indian railway station. On the wall was a sign with various prohibitions – ‘no sticking of bills’, ‘no cutting of nails’ – but my eye was drawn to two next to each other in the middle. ‘No Rowlatt Act’, ‘No Simon Commission’.
Those names will be familiar to readers of course. Sir Sidney Rowlatt was a high court judge famous for his short and punchy judgments in tax cases. It was he who famously said ‘there is no equity in tax’. Sir John Simon was one of only three people to hold the office of chancellor of the exchequer, home secretary and foreign secretary: he was the author of Simon on Income Tax (1948), which has expanded into the multi volume tax encyclopedia which still bears his name.
I had a vague idea that there was an Indian connection but I didn’t know the details until this sign prompted me to look it up. Sidney Rowlatt chaired an enquiry into sedition in India which led to strict controls over press freedom and detention without trial. John Simon chaired a commission into constitutional reform in India – the Act of Parliament which was described by Nehru as a ‘charter of slavery’. One can see why both those names were linked on the sign with other undesirable practices – such as ‘no salt tax’ and ‘no making mischief in cabins’. Perhaps the two of them should have stuck to taxation.
If you do one thing...
Read HMRC’s new guidance ‘Get your overlap relief figure’ launching the new online form (tinyurl.com/hmrcoverlapfigure).
