The Salt Acts were chosen by Gandhi for contravention in a general Civil Disobedience Movement because they not only appeared to be basically unjust in themselves, but also because they symbolised an 'unpopular, unrepresentative and alien government.'

Walter Hely-Hutchinson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, of Anglo-Irish origin, supported Gandhi, calling the imposition of the Salt Tax a 'great shame' for the British Government, of which he was a high level servant.


Civil Disobedience : Complete Information Of Dandi March

Revenue realised from the Salt Tax amounted at this time to £ 25,000,000 out of total revenue of about £800,000,000. These laws were held to work a hardship on the people, especially the poor and to constitute the taxation of a necessity.

Gandhi wrote his first article on Salt as early as 14 February 1891, when he was a young man of twenty-two years of age, in The Vegetarian. He described the utter poverty of his fellow country-men who lived on bread and salt, a 'heavily taxed article'. While he was in South Africa, he paid a tribute in the Indian Opinion to Walter Francis Hely - Hutchinson -Governor of the colony of Natal who had expressed his views against the salt tax and regarded its continuance as a 'great shame' for the British government. Hutchinson considered the salt tax a 'barbarous practice' which 'ill-becomes the British Government' and pleaded' for its abolition.