who had been instrumental in the party's previous successes. The party was seen as collaborators, supporting the British colonial government's measures to counter the independence movement. Its economic policies were also very unpopular. Its refusal to decrease land taxation in non-Zamindari areas by 12.5% provoked peasant protests led by Congress. Rao, a Zamindar, cracked down on protests, fueling popular rage. The party lost the 1934 elections, but managed to retain power as a minority government because Swaraj (the political arm of the Congress) refused to participate. In its last years in power, the party's decline continued. The Justice ministers drew a large monthly salary (Rs. 4,333.60, compared to the Rs. 2,250 in the Central Provinces) at the height of the Great Depression which was sharply criticised by the Madras press including Madras Mail, a traditional backer of the party, attacked its ineptitude and patronage. The extent of the discontent against the Justice government is reflected in an article of Zamin Ryot: The Justice Party has disgusted the people of this presidency like plague and engendered permanent hatred in their hearts. Everybody, therefore, is anxiously awaiting the fall of the Justice regime which they consider tyrannical and inauguration of the Congress administration...Even old women in villages ask as to how long the ministry of the Raja of Bobbili would continue. Lord Erskine, the governor of Madras, reported in February 1937 to then Secretary of State Zetland that among the peasants, "every sin of omission or commission of the past fifteen years is put down to them [Bobbili's administration]". Faced with a resurgent Congress, the party was trounced in the 1937 council and assembly elections. After 1937 it ceased to be a political power. Justice's final defeat has been ascribed variously to its collaboration with the British colonial government; the elitist nature of the Justice party members, loss of scheduled caste and Muslim support and flight of the social radicals to the Self-Respect Movement or in sum, "...internal dissension, ineffective organisation, inertia and lack of proper leadership". In opposition Justice was in opposition from 1926 to 1930 and again from 1937 until it transformed itself to Dravidar Kazhagam in 1944. 1926–30 In the 1926 elections, Swaraj emerged as the largest party, but refused to form the government because of its opposition to dyarchy. Justice declined power because it did not have enough seats and due to clashes with governor Viscount Goschen over