be inclined to free themselves and the country they govern from this mischievous monopoly, your committee think a subject worthy of further inquiry.

With regard to the disposal of the opium, the directors very properly condemn the direct contraband, but they approve the trading voyage. The directors have observed nothing concerning the loans: they probably reserved that matter for future consideration.

In no affair has the connexion between servants abroad and persons in power among the proprietors of the India Company been more discernible than in this. But if such confederacies, cemented by such means, are suffered to pass without due animadversion, the authority of parliament must become as inefficacious as all other authorities have proved to restrain the growth of disorders either in India or in Europe.

SALT.

THE reports made by the two committees of the House, which sat in the years 1772 and 1773, of the state and conduct of the inland trade of Bengal up to that period, have assisted the inquiries of your committee with respect to the third and last article of monopoly, viz. that of salt; and made it unnecessary for them to enter into so minute a detail on that subject as they have done on some others.

Your committee find, that the late Lord Clive constantly asserted, that the salt trade in Bengal had been a monopoly time immemorial; that it ever was and ever must be a monopoly; and that Coja Wazid, and other merchants long before him, had given to the Nabob and his ministers two hundred thousand pounds per annum for the exclusive privilege. The directors, in their letter of the 24th December, 1776, paragraph 76, say, "that it has ever been in a great

measure an exclusive trade."

4th Report,

page 106.

The secret committee report, that under the government of the Nabobs, the duty on salt made in Bengal was 2 per cent. paid by Mussulmen, and 5 per cent. paid by Gentoos. On the accession of Mir Cassim in 1760, the claim of the Company's servants to trade in salt, duty free, was first avowed. Mr. Vansittart made an agreement with him, by which the duties should be

fixed at 9 per cent. The council annulled the agreement, and reduced the duty to 2 per cent. On this, Mir Cassim ordered, that no customs or duties whatsoever should be collected for the future. But a majority of the council (22nd March, 1763) resolved, that the making the exemption general was a breach of the Company's privileges; and that the Nabob should be positively required to recall it, and collect duties as before from the country merchants, and all other persons, who had not the protection of the Company's dustuck. The directors, as the evident reason of the thing and as their duty required, disapproved highly of these transactions, and ordered (8th February, 1764) a final and effectual stop to be put to the inland trade in salt, and several other articles of commerce. But other politics and other interests prevailed; so that in the May following a general court resolved, that it should be recommended to the court of directors to reconsider the preceding orders. In consequence of which the directors ordered the government and council to form a plan, in concert with the Nabob, for regulating the inland trade.

Par. 36. Vide 4th Report from Com. of Secrecy in 1773, Appendix, No. 45.

In

On these last orders Lord Clive's plan was formed in 1765, for engrossing the sole purchase of salt, and dividing the profits among the Company's senior servants. The directors, who had hitherto reluctantly given way to a monopoly under any ideas, or for any purposes, disapproved of this plan, and on the 17th May, 1766, ordered it to be abolished; but they substituted no other in its room. this manner things continued until November, 1767, when the directors repeated their orders for excluding all persons whatsoever, excepting the natives only, from being concerned in the inland trade in salt; and they declared, that (vide par. 90) "such trade is hereby abolished and put a final end to."-In the same letter (par. 92) they ordered, that the salt trade should be laid open to the natives in general, subject to such a duty as might produce one hundred and twenty thousand pounds a year. This policy was adopted by the legislature. In the act of 1773, it was expressly provided, that it should not be lawful for any of his Majesty's subjects to engage, intermeddle, or be any way concerned, directly or indirectly, in the inland trade in salt, except on the India Company's ac

count.

Under the positive orders of the Company, the salt trade appears to have continued open from 1768 to 1772. The act indeed contained an exception in favour of the Company, and left them a liberty of dealing in salt upon their own account. But still this policy remained unchanged, and their orders unrevoked. But in the year 1772, without any instruction from the court of directors indicating a change of opinion or system, the whole produce was again monopolized, professedly for the use of the Company, by Mr. Hastings. Speaking of this plan, he says (letter to the directors, 22nd February, 1775): "No new hardship has been imposed upon the salt manufacturers by taking the management of that article into the hands of government; the only difference is, that the profit, which was before reaped by English gentlemen, and by Banians, is now acquired by the Company."-In May, 1766, the directors had condemned the monopoly on any conditions whatsoever. "At that time, they thought it neither consistent with their honour nor their dignity to promote such an exclusive trade.” They considered it too as disgraceful, and below the dignity of their present situation, to allow of such a monopoly; and that, were they to allow it under any restrictions, they should consider themselves as assenting and subscribing to all the mischiefs which Bengal had presented to Par. 37. them for four years past."

66

Vide Sel. Letter

to Bengal, 17th

May, 1776, Par.

36 in 4th Report from Com.

of Secrecy in dix, No. 45.

1773, Appen

Notwithstanding this solemn declaration, in their letter of 24th December, 1776, they approve the plan of Mr. Hastings, and say, "that the monopoly on its present footing can be no considerable grievance to the country," &c.

This however was a rigorous monopoly. The account given of it by General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, in their Minute of 11th January, 1775, in which the situation of the Molungees, or persons employed in the salt manufacture, is particularly described, is stated at length in the Appendix. Mr. Hastings himself says, "The power of obliging Molungees to work has been customary from time immemorial."

Nothing but great and clear advantage to government could account for, and nothing at all perhaps could justify, the revival of a monopoly thus circumstanced. The advan

tage proposed by its revival was the transferring the profit, which was before reaped by English gentlemen and Banians, to the Company. The profits of the former were not problematical. It was to be seen what the effect would be of a scheme to transfer them to the latter, even under the management of the projector himself. In the revenue consultations of September, 1766, Mr. Hastings said, "Many causes have since combined to reduce this article of revenue almost to nothing. The plan, which I am now inclined to recommend for the future management of the salt revenue, differs widely from that which I adopted under different circumstances.'

It appears, that the ill success of his former scheme did not deter him from recommending another. Accordingly, in July, 1777, Mr. Hastings proposed, and it was resolved that the salt mahls should be let, with the lands, to the farmers and Zemindars for a ready-money rent, including duties; the salt to be left to their disposal. After some trial of this method, Mr. Hastings thought fit to abandon it. In September, 1780, he changed his plan a third time, and proposed the institution of a salt office-the salt was to be again engrossed for the benefit of the Company, and the management conducted by a number of salt agents.

From the preceding facts it appears, that in this branch of the Company's government little regard has been paid to the ease and welfare of the natives; and that the directors have no where shown greater inconsistency than in their orders on this subject.-Yet salt, considering it as a necessary of life, was by no means a safe and proper subject for so many experiments and innovations. For ten years together the directors reprobated the idea of suffering this necessary of life to be engrossed on any condition whatsoever; and strictly prohibited all Europeans from trading in it. Yet, as soon as they were made to expect from Mr. Hastings, that the profits of the monopoly should be converted to their own use, they immediately declared, that it "could be no considerable grievance to the country," and authorized its continuance; until he himself, finding it produced little or nothing, renounced it of his own accord. Your committee are apprehensive, that this will at all times, whatever flattering appearance it may wear for a time, be the fate of any attempt to monopolize the salt for the profit of government.

In the first instance, it will raise the price on the consumer beyond its just level; but that evil will soon be corrected by means ruinous to the Company as monopolists, viz. by the embezzlement of their own salt, and by the importation of foreign salt, neither of which the government of Bengal may have power for any long time to prevent. In the end, government will probably be undersold, and beaten down to a losing price. Or, if they should attempt to force all the advantages from this article, of which by every exertion it may be made capable, it may distress some other part of their possessions in India, and destroy, or at least impair, the natural intercourse between them. Ultimately it may hurt Bengal itself, and the produce of its landed revenue, by destroying the vent of that grain, which it would otherwise barter for salt.

Your committee think it hardly necessary to observe that the many changes of plan which have taken place in the management of the salt trade, are far from honourable to the Company's government; and that, even if the monopoly of this article were a profitable concern, it should not be permitted. Exclusive of the general effect of this and of all monopolies, the oppressions which the manufacturers of salt, called Molungees, still suffer under it, though perhaps alleviated in some particulars, deserve particular attention. There is evidence enough on the Company's records to satisfy your committee, that these people have been treated with great rigour; and not only defrauded of the due payment of their labour, but delivered over, like cattle, in succession to different masters, who, under pretence of buying up the balances due to their preceding employers, find means of keeping them in perpetual slavery. For evils of this nature there can be no perfect remedy as long as the monopoly continues. They are in the nature of the thing, and cannot be cured, or effectually counteracted, even by a just and vigilant administration on the spot. Many objections occur to the farming of any branch of the public revenue in Bengal, particularly against farming the salt lands. But the dilemma to which government by this system is constantly reduced, of authorizing great injustice, or suffering great loss, is alone sufficient to condemn it. Either government is expected to support the farmer or contractor in all his pre