6

stance, who formerly made salt in Bengal ?) Why they would have said naturally and pathetically, ' Blow us tight, blow us tight my hearties, but this will never do, the more salt we sell, the less money we make, let us return incontinent to the old forty-seven lacs of maunds a year; those were the days for feathering our nests.' The goddess of salt, whom I look upon to be Lot's wife, would have smiled on their determination, and all nature have worn a universal grin.' But what did the rulers of the land do? 'why,' says they,' by Jingo! we had better risk our revenue than the comfort of our subjects; some say they get no salt to their porridge; let us try once more.' In 1825-26 then, fifty lacs of maunds were again sold-what was the result? why the revenue was still less by eleven lacs of rupees than from forty-seven lacs of maunds.*

"I have many more curious and important facts on this subject, but enough for the present. I deploy not my masses, neither do I offer my heavy guns until the columns of the enemy with loud cries of 'Vive l'économie politique,' are advancing to the charge. In the meantime, however, I will shew him fairly the position which I intend to maintain in a most heroic manner, that he may reconnoitre it at his leisure.

"I uphold no monopolies as such; I do not think that the salt monopoly is more full of blessed conditions' than any other tax; blessed conditions! blessed fig's end!! Why the very name of any tax is ipecacuanha to the soul of a freeman; and I do assure you, Mr. Editor, that I heartily wish customs, income tax, corn laws, salt tax, tax upon little dogs, hair powder, and landed property, all most especially at the devil, wherever such abomination may happen to exist! But while we must have presidents and members of congress, and judges and kings, and chokeydars and generals, and light-houses and sailors, and soldiers, we must holus bolus,' as Homer says, raise money to pay them; for none of those creatures, strange as it may appear, will work without pay, any more than an agent or a lawyer.

"I am very sorry that such a base love of filthy lucre should influence mankind, but I really cannot help it; and so as I said, as the cobbs, the dibbs, the cole, the chelli boards, the aurum, or, in short, the needful, must be spelled in before it can be spelled out, I hold a poor opinion, that it is as well, if not better, collected through the medium of the salt monopoly, than any other mode that could be devised for the production of an equal revenue.

*These letters were, I am given to understand, perused by Lord William Bentinck, whose intense anxiety for the welfare of India is above all praise. Were it possible to make a change in the system with advantage to the public and to the state, I am convinced it would be adopted.

"I believe that I have ever maintained, that the opinions entertained of the forced manufacture of salt were erroneous, and that the ideas concerning the extreme misery of that class of people called Molunghees, as compared with any other peasantry in India, were equally so.

"That the salt monopoly and the native salt officers had been more abused and misrepresented than was consistent with truth or justice, and that the monopoly itself was, as a tax, one of the best that could be devised; easy of collection, as little burthensome to the people as a tax can ever be, very productive, cheaply gathered, and gathered without the direct intervention of a taxing man. In short, that it possessed every possible good quality, capable of being possessed by an instrument for obtaining revenue, without which, I presume, no man will assert that any government, better, good, or bad, can progress slick, as Jonathan hath it.

"Those are the positions I have adopted, and those, with the aid of my worthy ally, ' A Covenanted Salt Officer,' I will maintain : we will charge abreast, as did the native and European cavalry at Assye; and although we may, as our prototypes did on that memorable occasion, suddenly eschew the bayonets and bullets of the Mahratta infantry (to wit, the India Gazette and the Bengal Hurkaru), every body crying out halt' at the same time; though I say we should even receive a routing on the field of political economy, yet in defence of our main post, our key, our Hougemont, our Corry Gaur, viz. the excellencies of the salt monopoly, as a' good, easy' tax, we will combat to death.

"But before I conclude, Mr. Editor, let me, for I have compassionate bowels, bestow a little comfort to all those who sit down and weep over the miseries of the said monopoly. I will wager the little finger I before mentioned that the whole monopoly might be done away with as easily as you wipe the figures from a slate. Let any meritorious gentleman put his hands in his breeches pocket, like a crocodile, and walk to the India-House; let him get vis-à-vis with the Supreme Government, and say, 'Madam, may it please your Worship, I know your honour and your honour's James Millt don't like the salt monopoly. Now here is something in my hand for the benefit of the poor people of India, being a scheme by which your ladyship's honour can easily raise as much revenue as you do by the salt monopoly, without resorting to that bloody, barbarous, atheistical, and entirely and altogether destructive tax both to the body and soul; my only condition is,

This letter was written subsequent to the letters which will be hereafter quoted.

†The writer will find, by Mr. Mill's evidence in October last, that he rightly views the question as one of revenue, not of a trading monopoly.

that if you find you can raise the said revenue, you will abandon for ever that abomination which is a stink in the nostrils of humanity.'

"Then should the meritorious gentleman, with his hands in his breeches' pocket, see her honour's ladyship stretch out her hind foot, and kick the whole salt monopoly, with all its imps, from Bengal to the Coppermine river, before you could say, 'Peas.'

"Here we break off at this auspicious word.' Next week I will perhaps give you a few more remarks, in reply to the worthy Editor of the India Gazette's observations.

"Calcutta, 21st July 1829."

"In the meantime, I am your's, &c.

"A SALT DAROGAH.

There are many important questions developed in the foregoing letter: the writer, in the first place, shews that political economy is in reality a science of immeasurable extent that it embraces an investigation of the action and reaction of many natural, local, political, civil, and accidental causes; for the better ascertainment of which, particularly in Hindostan, it is necessary to bring into calculation the effects of manners and prejudices, of vices and virtues. The salt darogah justly observes, that all the competition in the world would not increase the sale of beefsoup among the Hindoos, nor of pork-sausages among the Mahomedans, and he might have added, nor of skates and leather breeches* among the Bengallees. To be sure, Mr. Crawfurd and Mr. Rickards assert-(they do not attempt to prove it)—that the infallible maxims of political economy are just as applicable to salt as to wine or sugar, and as well suited to the meridian of Bengal or Constantinople as to Paris or London. It is forgotten that salt can

• Vide Mr. Hume's speech in parliament, 3d August 1832, which describes the misplaced philanthropy of an Indian judge, when being carried on shore by the natives, who from custom and the heat of the climate wear nothing but a cloth round their loins, which so shocked the benevolent feelings of the judge, that he exclaimed, "Poor fellows, before one week I will cause a law to be passed by which they shall all be obliged to wear leather breeches!"

only be used in one way,* and in a small quantity; that a man at twenty years of age consumes no more salt than a man at sixty; but sugar for instance is of extensive use in drink as well as in food; it may be manufactured with other ingredients into wine, vinegar, ale, &c.; it will of itself support life, which salt will not, and by habit, individual consumption may be very much augmented. These principles are not sufficiently attended to by financiers in levying or augmenting duties; for instance, a reduction took place in England on pepper, but the revenue did not increase, for the supply was nearly if not fully equal to the demand, and pepper being an article which a person would consume no more of than he does at present if he obtained it for nothing, no extended consumption could be expected from lessening the duty; but coffee being an article which came not within the scope of the majority, or tobacco, or wine, or brandy being stimulants, which require from year to year a greater supply to meet the palled palates or vitiated appetites of those who use them extensively, an increased consumption and revenue has always ensued on diminished duty. It is probable that the Bengal Government were aware of these principles, but, yielding to popular clamour, resolved to try the effects of augmenting the quantity offered for sale, or in other words of lowering the duty; 47,00,000 maunds of salt having brought a revenue of rupees 1,45,48,000, an experiment was tried as to how much 50,00,000 maunds would produce, and the result was rupees 12,00,000 minus on the lesser quantity of salt. In the succeeding year 182425, the Bengal Government tried 48,00,000 maunds, but the revenue fell off still more, netting 27,00,000 less than when

I am referring to its use as an article of diet; in Bengal it is not required for agriculture, on account of the general saline qualities of the land, the surface of which in many places is covered with saltpetre; and the numerous plants impregnated with salt, which the country produces, yields abundance of that condiment for cattle.

47,00,000 maunds were sold; still the Government persevered, and in 1825-26 they sold 50,00,000 maunds, but still at a loss of rupees 11,00,000 on the 47,00,000 maunds!

At Madras the government revenue on salt, which is levied in the shape of an excise duty, rapidly diminished when the duty was lowered, both instances practically evincing that the supply was fully equal to the demand.* The salt in Bengal is offered for sale by public auction in Calcutta monthly, at the public exchange rooms; Europeans as well as Asiatics may purchase, and there is the freest and most extensive competition; the sales, indeed, much resemble those of tea at the India-House, in both of which places there is as much outcry and eagerness, as if the tea or the salt were to be given away for nothing.

The Government in offering a quantity of salt for sale, are guided by the quantity of stock remaining in store uncleared, and by the retail price in the different markets throughout the country, which is ascertained by means of local officers; three months' time is allowed for paying and clearing out the salt purchased at the auction, and if left after that time, warehouse rent is charged. It is said, that a sub-monopoly is the great evil of the present system; this was tried once by a man named Ram Rutton Mullick, but he was speedily ruined by the other natives, and a splendid bazar which he built on the strand road with all the faultlessness of Grecian columns, &c. is still a dreary waste, and warning to similar monopolists, for as the author of the "Further Enquiry" candidly says, in his attacks on the "other monopolies" of the East-India Company, "a

Mr. Mangles states in his evidence (Lords, 4th March 1830): "I have never heard complaints that the natives have not had enough of salt; no native ever told me he had not enough of salt." Mr. Swinton says he "does not think it would be possible to increase the salt revenue by increasing the quantity supplied to the people."(Lords, 26th February 1830.)