The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-16 00:00:00

.-------......---•—•—___
asked if there were not ample grounds for censure ?
Undoubtedly there were. He hoped for the future that
the chairman would evince more courtesy to him when
he felt it his duty to remonstrate. He (Mr. Ridgway),
in his position of life, was as respectable as any one in
his (Mr. Baring's) father's house.
The CHAIRMAN acknowledged the right of Mr. Ridg-
way to express his censure and as perseveringly as he
had done. Ile was not aware of having offended the
Ron. Proprietor in anything he had said.
The motion was then carried, and the meeting se-
parated.

THE MANCHESTER CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE AND THE EAST INDIA SALT
MONOPOLY.
(From the Manchester Coarier.)
The subject of the salt monopoly of the East India
Company begins to attract very general attention. There
have been meetings on the subject in most of the large
towns, and last week the movement commenced in Li-
verpool, where, on Friday, meetings were held at the
Shipowners' Association, and the East India Associa-
tion, when in each case memorials were determined on
to the President of the Board of Control, and the Court
of Directors of the East India Company. The follow-
ing is the copy of a memorial agreed to by the Man-
chester Chamber of Commerce, which has been for-
warded to the Court of Directors of the East India Com-
pany. It will be remembered that we have previously
given a copy of a memorial from the Commercial Asso-
ciation on the subject :--
TO THE CHAIRMAN, DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN,, AND
phiDrRECTORS
110Peniniorlaal oosfouittheAsgrEectSTralND
The ofllthCeo3lcab.
er of
Commerce and Manufacture at Manchester, respect-
fully showeth—
That your memorialists consider the system under
which salt is distributed in India to be so fraught with
evil as to demand from your Honourable Court imme-
diate attention and correction.
, That in placing their opinions before your Honourable
I Court, your memorialists wish, at the same time, to ex-
press their perfect respect ; but believing that the salt
monopoly, as exercised by your Honourable Company,
is evasive of, if not repugnant to law, is indefensible in
principle, and injurious to the trade between Great Bri-
tain and India, they feel themselves bound in duty to
make such a representation to your Honourable Court
as they think the circumstances warrant.
That your memorialists consider the circumstances
under which salt is distributed in India to constitute a
monopoly, because although by law foreign salt may be
imported, yet have the regulations and duties attached
to the impost been so framed by your Honourable pre-
decessors, as to foster unduly your own manufacture of
that article, as is evinced in the letter from the secret
Committee of the Honourable Court of Directors, to the
Governor-General in Council, dated the 10th of May,
1816, and the answer thereto, from Bengal, dated the
11th of October, 1816.
That your memorialists consider such manufacture of
salt (or any other commodity, to be evasive, if not re-
pugnant, to law, because the Legislature, in constituting,
by the Act 3d and 4th Wm. IV., cap. 85, your Honour-
able Company trustees for the Crown of England until
April 30, 1854, distinctly enacts that your Honour-
able Company- shall discontinue and abstain from all
commercial business that shall not be incident to the
closing of your actual concerns, and into conversion
into money of the property thereinbefore directed
to be sold, or which shall not be carried on
for the purpose of the said Government. Your memo-
rialists recognise in this extract no power in your Ho-
nourable Company to commence or continue any ma-
nufacture ; but they find a positive prohibition against
continuing commercial business longer than may be ne-
cessary to close your then actual concerns. Your Ho-
nourable Company can have no more right to an exclu-
sive manufacture of salt, than it has to the manufacture
~f sugar or indigo, or to the sole growth of cotton or
silk ; and your memorialists cannot look upon your con-
tinuance of any monopoly but as a contravention of that
condition under which your last charter was conceded,
namely, " your consent to suspend all right to trade for
your own profit in common with other his Majesty's
subjects "
That the salt monopoly in India appears to your me-
morialists to be indefensible in principle, because it mi-
litates against the first duty of a paternal government,
and is otherwise chargeable with many evils which can
and ought to be avoided. Your memorialists hold it to be
the first duty, as it is assuredly the wisest course of Go-
vernment, not to place obstructions in the way of a suffi-
cieut and cheap supply of food for its subj,^c:s. The food
of the people of India is so little nutritive, and of so insipid
a character, that the u:e of salt in abundance cannot be
tispensed with without injury to the strength and health of
the people ; and is, in fact, of such necessity, that your
memorialists would hold it to be more humane to forbid
by law the sale of rice, without an adequate qat ntity of
,alt, than to deprive the poor of that necessary condi-
ment through dearness. Your memorialists are con-
vinced that the retention of the sole manufacture of salt
by your Honourable Company adds greatly to the dear-
ness of it, irrespective of duty, because nothing ever has
been, or can be, produced so cheaply under a system of
monopoly as when left open to competition. The manu-
facture of salt by your Honourable Company is not only
not an exception to this infallible axiom, but has, at the
same time, been the cause of much oppression and cruelty.
Holding rice and salt combined to be one species of food,
vour memorialists think that the interests of your
Honourable Company, not less than humanity and jus-
ice, require that salt should be offered to the people
)f India freely—without duty on that which may be
imported, and without restraint on those who have it
at their doors. If the revenue hitherto raised
from salt be necessary to your Honourable Company,
it would be better and wiser to raise it from anything
rather than the daily food of the people. It cannot be
satisfactory to a Government to make the use of an
article so necessary as salt require the expenditure of so
large a portion of a year's labour as the Indian ryot must
now expend if he use salt, honestly acquired ; it cannot
add to the good order of society, or to the respect which
a Government demands from a people, if, through the
stringency of that Government a necessary article of
food be only attainable by many through fraud or theft,
or in a state of noxious adulteration, or perhaps not at-
tainable at all. Your memorialists believe all this, and
more, to be true of your salt monopoly in India, and
therefore say that it is not defensible in principle.
That your memorialists believe the salt monopoly to
be injurious to the trade between Great Britain and
India, because the excessive price at which this article is
retailed to the consumer, absorbs. in the mass of the
people, means which would otherwise be applied to the
purchase of clothing. Large as is the income which your
Honourable Company derives from this source, it forms no
indication of the amount of pressure which bears upon the
consume; nor would an approximation be obtained by
adding to that sum the cost of manufacture and collection;
a grievous aggravation which bathes all calculation
takes place in the hardness of price consequent upon
the existence of a submonopoly, and through adultera-
tion requiring the purchase of larger quantities in order
to obtain the necessary amount of antiseptic matter.
Your memorialists do not hazard an estimate of the
extra sum thus drawn from the consumer, nor do they
venture to guess to what extent the abolition of all duty,
and the introduction into universal use of better and
purer salt, would diminish the present expenditure; but
it is most certain that a very large sum would remain,
which, whether applied to the culture of land at home,
or to the purchase of manufactures, or other commodi-
ties which India receives from Great Britain, would add
greatly to the industry of both nations, and, acting re-
productively, bring increased comforts to the one, and
enlarged commerce to the other. Your memorialists do
not forget that if the tax should be removed from salt,
the necessities of your Honourable Company may render
it necessary to obtain a similar amount of revenue from
other sources, whereby the same proportion of their
earnings might: be abstracted from the natives as is now
done through salt. The reply, that they do not think
it possible that your Honourable Court could find any-
thing to which to transfer taxation that can so deplorably
depress the people as does the system now applied to
salt; nor do they for a moment suppose, that your Hon-
ourable Court would desire to perpetuate a system of
raising revenue, handed down to you, which is founded
on principles repudiated by the wisest statesmen, and
for which prescription is the sole, but most insufficient
excuse. Nor are your memoralists unmindful of the ob-
jection which has been started, that the sudden abolition
of your manufacture of salt might expose India to greater
distress than she now experiences, from an assumed im-
possibility of finding an amount of tonnage sufficient for
a due supply of salt. Your memorialists have no wish
to place the interests and comforts of India in jeopardy,
but they must be allowed to observe that they have as
yet known no instance in which, where competition was
open, supply had failed to meet all the requirements of
demand. Your memorialists ask not for such a sudden
change of system as would endanger the fullest supply
for India, nor for any exclusive privilege for
Great Britain ; the interests of India and the
voice of humanity alike demand that she should draw
her supply of this first necessary from whatever quarter
she can most profitably obtain it ; but they have that
confidence in the resources of Great Britain, that leads
them neither to fear competition, nor to feel apprehen-
sions about scarcity of tonnage. An inducement to carry
salt to India would not only furnish present outward
bound vessels with a freight, which they now seldom
obtain, but would call into existence any new means of
transport that might be required. Indian porta which
now, from the balance of trade, frequently experience a
want of vessels, would receive a large increase of them;
the rates of freight homeward could, with equal or
greater profit to the shipowner, be reduced, and the pro-
duce of India be thus relieved from considerable charge
in the markets of consumption.
That your memorialists hold it to be impossible that,
in the existing state of commercial intelligence and in-
quiry, your Honourable Court cin hope to retain much
longer & system so fraught with evils, and so irreconcil-
able with sound policy, as is your salt monopoly. They
will lament if your Honourable Court defer, under arty
plea, the immediate consideration of this important
question. Believing that, as trustees for the Crown of
England, you will be glad to apply to the government
of your trust, during the short remainder of your tenure,
those principles which are acceptable both to the Crown
and Parliament, your memorialists respectfully pray,
that your Honourable Court may forthwith take such
measures as will lead to a relinquishment of your salt
monopoly at as early a period as possible, consistent
with the interim full supply to the people of India ; and
that tho regulations regarding the import of salt be Lt
once so modified as to permit it to be stored in bond
i(notli
England), ln an s bondingnd),in any quantity,
ispractisedi
and forbutulndia,any length
as it is in use
of
time ; and they further pray, that the deliberations of
your Honourable Court may be so directed, that it may
be enabled soon to promulgate through India, that all
duty on this essential article of food has been fully and
finally abandoned, and that the sale thereof is allowed
without restraint or limit.
Manchester, Oct. 8, 1846.