stanee*). These letters contain such a complete exposition of the "salt monopoly," that at the present moment, when the attention of the Select Committee of Parliament is specially directed to the subject, it would be unjust towards the East-India Company, and unfair towards the talented author, to clothe their substance in my own language.† The letters were republished in the different Indian journals, English and native, challenging investigation into the facts therein contained. The gauntlet was at last taken up by the editor of the India Gazette, the Rev. Mr. Adam, who candidly avowed "the familiar knowledge of details and the long experience which the salt darogah possessed, while no one had appeared in the field against him." The reverend gentleman finding it was not possible to refute admitted facts, attacked the Hindoo on the principles of political economy, and was thus replied to:

* This journal was undertaken with a view to assist in elevating the native character; the projector of it was assisted by the most learned and liberal natives in Bengal; the native departments were conducted by men of high talent, and though its establishment has been a source of much misfortune to the author, he rejoices that he was by it not only enabled to aid the Indian Government in their efforts to suppress the suttees, but that he has also been the means of causing the abolition of corporal punishment in the Bengal European army; of effectually checking the practice of duelling; and the example which he set the natives of having one journal in two or more languages has been followed at Bengal, Bombay, and Madras. Individual suffering may well therefore be forgotten, when it is rewarded by the dissemination of general good.

I have no hesitation in mentioning the name of the author, because he is a man who I believe never did an act which he would desire to disown, and whose munificent disposition is only equalled by his attachment to the British nation. Of his ability to state the facts in these letters, I refer to the evidence before the House of Lords, in which are published some of his letters as furnished by Mr. Rickards, illustrating the progress of the Hindoos in English literature; but I may also state, that I myself witnessed a great part of them dictated to the author's amanuensis; if any Hindoo be deserving of being raised to the highest rank in the state for integrity, talent, and fidelity, it is Dwarkanaut Tagore, whose services I trust the Honourable Company will amply remunerate.

"SIR,-I am glad to see that the Editor of the India Gazette has at length taken up my gauntlet ;-I am proud of my antagonist;—I am entirely satisfied with the tone of his remarks, and I shall be still more satisfied when he comes forward with facts against the salt monopoly, which I shall do my little possible to defend. Any man can declaim against any thing; but I want facts to shew, where, why, how, and to what extent the salt monopoly is deserving of censure more than any other tax. Even my being an indifferent political economist does not make it so, if it is not so in itself. I care not a fig, Mr. Editor, for the "other monopolies" of the East-India Company. I repeat, that the salt monopoly has been more abused than it deserves, and more abused than any other Indian monopoly whatever; and I will prove my assertion, that it has been more abused than it deserves, whenever its adversaries bring forward any tangible charge against it. As far as I can understand a science, the high priests of which disagree on so many important points, and only agree in one, viz. their own infallibility-all the maxims of political economy are not applicable, it appears to me, in this country, as society now exists. Let us try:

"Competition,' says the Editor of the India Gazette, ' would increase the quantity manufactured, lessen the price, extend the consumption, and and to the comforts of the people.' This maxim is not, I suppose, confined to salt. Let, therefore, any liberal set of political economists exert their energies to encourage the manufacture of beef-soup for the poor Hindoos of Nepaul or Rajpootanah. Let them try to promote the sale of pork sausages for Mussulmans at Hydrabad. I would ask them, after a reasonable time, whether any competition on the part of the beef-soup makers, or creators of sausages, could, after the few European residents had been supplied, either lessen the price or extend the consumption of the above savoury and

admirable condiments?

"Here are cases in which the maxims of political economy are inapplicable, owing to a particular state of society. In England both the beef-soup and the sausages would be materially reduced in price by competition, and the reduced price, and the large supply, would induce many to become consumers, who before only smelt those luxuries afar off, or devoured them in dreams: But will any man in his senses believe that any competition, any increase in the quantity produced, would extend the consumption in the cases I have supposed, or add to the comfort of the people of Hydrabad and Nepaul! Prythee, Mr. Editor, what is the grand dispute at this moment in England, touching free trade, low duties, &c.? Do you think that all the opponents of those principles, which I admire excessively, are idiots?

Of course their antagonists will call them so, and moreover add that they are rascals, traitors, scoundrels, and so forth. This is doubtless the more approved mode of conducting argument; but 'fine words, Mr. Editor, to use a simile of the divine Krishna, butter no parsnips.' I would ask if there are not men of great talent, sound sense, and long experience opposed to Mr. Huskisson's views? and is it not a doubt at this moment, whether, like the Frenchman's horse who was to live upon a straw a day, half the manufacturing classes will not be starved under the present experiments ?-But in what does all this originate? Why, to any unprejudiced man it will appear plainly to originate in the state of society in England: for if that happy community who, without the aid of a governing Company, or a salt monopoly, are the most betaxed generation on earth, were free from those imposts which are the happy results of glory and the national debt, there would not-I'll wager the bone of the little finger of Krishna, which is positively at Juggurnauth-be one individual in the islands of Great Britain, found hardy enough to oppose either free trade or light duties.

"The above is another instance in which the maxims of political economy are inapplicable, or considered by many eminent men inapplicable, owing to a particular state of society. Here are human wants,' 'human motives,'' human hopes and wishes' all crying out for a free trade, low duties, or no duties, for ever! Yet, on the one hand, some millions of silk throwsters and glove makers, and such raggamuffins, profess that they are about to be starved, which must be entirely a misapprehension on their parts, while on the other a vast body of able and upright gentlemen say that the principles of free trade, low duties, &c. are incompatible with the prosperity of Great Britain. As that country is now circumstanced, surely a Hindoo may be pardoned if misgivings of the same nature with regard to the inapplicability of many of the principles of political economy to society as it now exists in this country, do occasionally trouble his inwards. Mind, I pretend not to assert that the principles of political economy are false; I merely say, that in particular states of society they are not convertible from theory into practice; or, in other words, it is impossible to apply them in the real business of government or of life.

"But what do I see!-The Government Gazette for yesterday, the 20th inst. has just been put into my hand-pray Mr. Editor, have you a kind of Honourable United Company of Brewers who enjoy any share of the government of England, and who, as sovereigns, are enabled to enact laws against competition? If you have not, there is a most singular idea abroad. Lo! here it is.-The Select Commit

tee on the state of the London Police ascribe to the cheapness of gin, a portion of the destructive influence by which the criminal calendar is of late years so frightfully enlarged: the inference is most likely to be correct,' &c. There must, however, be a cause for this cause, a reason for the people taking so much to gin of late years, instead of malt liquors, and it is supposed that this reason is sufficiently obvious in the Monopoly of the brewers, and to the temptation to which it has led of adulterating a wholesome beverage to such an extent, that the people, sooner than drink it, have recourse to more poisonous potations.'

"What, Mr. Editor,-a monopoly ! a monopoly in a free country! and not a government in monopoly! a monopoly unprotected by legislative enactments! why the merest tyro in political economy will tell you that the thing is impossible, that is, impossible in theory. What the deuce has become of competition, is it prohibited to compete with brewers, or is the taste of mankind in England in favour of dear and bad beer, instead of good and cheap? Why in the name Nemesis, does not some good christian prevent all the evils attributed to 'adulterated' beer, and increase the quantity manufactured, lessen the price, extend the consumption, and add to the comforts of the people,' besides sparing them the disagreeable ceremony of being hanged occasionally? Surely there never could, according to political economy, be a fairer field for competition and all that sort of thing. Bad beer and a monopoly even of that—yet no competition comes, and all that can be done is to hang,' and bear it.

"But let us take a look at the other side of the water, and see if all ' is well at Natchichosets.' There are your pleasant Yankee friends establishing their confounded tariff in utter defiance, and, as it were, in pure spite of political economy. Now I knew Ram Dulall Dey very well, and he was wont to tell me that the estimable Jonathan was a lad as likely to look after his own interests as any youth in Christendom. The national character is shrewd, sagacious, and calculating. There is no lack either of practical or theoretical philosophers, still less of merchants, quite aware of their own interests, in the Union. The press is as free as air, and the government represents the wish and will of every man in the States, from the patroon of Albany to the blacksmith's apprentice. Yet what do all these people do? set political economy at defiance, and turn their backs upon its precepts with the most provoking indifference; of course they are all fools, madmen, asses, traitors, idiots, and such other soft terms as your veritable sage always applies to men who cannot enter into his views, if those are theoretical: for there is nothing about which philosophers are so intolerant as a theory; but perhaps on the bank of the Ohio and Hud

son, they imagine that the precepts of political economy are not applicable to the existing state of society. I don't say that they are right in this supposition, or that the maxims of political economy bearing on the subject are wrong;-I only say, that where so many wise men, in the thinking and enlightened land of Franklin and Washington, of Fulton, of Adam, and Munro, seem to doubt the applicability of the principles of political economy to the existing state of society in America, I may be permitted to doubt if all its maxims are applicable in this or in any other country.

"The Editor of the Indian Gazette says, 'The zemindar would manufacture just that quantity of salt, which appeared to him likely to afford the highest rate of profit.' Perhaps the United Company of Merchants, who carry on a trade in these parts which surpasseth all human understanding, would not neglect to do the same, but letting that pass we will suppose a case, viz. the salt manufacture to be in the hands of the zemindar:-in that case, woe be to the people, and woe to the theories of the political economists, as applicable to all mankind, in whatever state of society they may exist! For experience has proved that the largest revenue has not accrued to Government from the sale of the largest quantity of salt. One of two inferences must be drawn from this fact, either that the supply is too large, a singular complaint against a monopoly, or that the theories of the politicals are no more applicable to salt in this country now, than they would have been to corn in England in Queen Elizabeth's reign, when, as the supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica says, there was a glut in one country at the very period there was a famine in the next.

"But to return to the fact, though reluctant to let the foeman too far into the bowels of the land (which expression I take to mean the gut of Gibraltar), before we really join battle, with the thundering of the captain, and the shouting, I will tell him thus much: In 1821-22 forty seven lacs of maunds of salt were sold, and the net revenue was sa. rs. 1,34,72,000. In 1822-23 the same quantity of forty-seven lacs produced a net revenue of rs. 1,45,48,000 Now, a larger quantity -for remember the cry has always been, that the people are deprived by this monopoly (whose small tripes are of iron and whose milk of human kindness is vitriolic acid) of a sufficient supply of salt. Well, as I said, a large quantity ought, at least according to theory, to have produced the same revenue. In 1823-24, therefore, fifty lacs of maunds were sold—what was the result? why, the tax produced less, by twelve lacs of rupees, than when forty-seven lacs of maunds were sold. The next year 1824-25, forty-eight lacs of maunds were sold; and the tax still netted twenty-seven lacs of rupees less than when forty-seven lacs of maunds were sold; now what would have been the conduct of private individuals in such a case? (the zemindars for in