The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-12-01 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD

IN FRANCE, SPAIN, AND
INDIA.
(From the Mining Journal.)
trhrelnnopoly over the manufacture of salt, maintained
by the Government in FRANCE, which increases the price
to the consumer 200 per cent., has for several years caused
a general outcry among all classes of the community, who

SALT 4/10NOPOLY

consider it one-of th

ost prejudicial that an industrious

people can be oppressed with. Numerous petitions, ses-
sion after session, have been presented to the Chamber,
by free-trade Peers and Deputies, emanating from the
• _ .

the klugclom ; notsvanstanaing which,
; made by Government, that a wo-
es should take place, no reduction

and the many promis

is yet E

it would appear thit they cannot bear

us to every branch of industry. The greatest
s, the curers of fish. The Newfound-
_
as, of late years, been a source of profitable
e to French industry, but is sadly cramped by

are, pert

d fishery

_
dressed a memorial to the Ministers of Commerce and
Finance, with the object of obtaining permission to use
the season of 1847 ; the object being
3nrttionl_ which ran hp

during

obtained for 10s. sd. per ton ; while, in France, it costs

40s. At present no notice has been taken of this memo
rial ; but the Minister of Marine has announced, as usual
that he should be ready to receive contracts for 200,00(

tons of sa

t, to De aenverea at tne port of Brest. bait is
annually getting more and more scarce in France, and the
greatest exertions are required to keep up a supply equal
to the demand, even at the present exorbitant prices.
Some rumours are afloat, of the probability that the tax
will be greatly reduced in the next session, and the itn-

port duty on British and Belgic salt repealed—the Minis-
ter of Commerce wishing to show some signs of attention
to petitions so_respectably and numerously signed.

SPAIN also has severely suffered and still suffers from
the royal monopoly of the manufacture of salt ; through
it a ennsiderAhle nnrtinn of the fi.h nf the A

try such as Spain, would add amazingly to the national
food ; and, surrounded as she is with prolific fishing
grounds, she is actually obliged to resort to England and
Newfoundland for salted codfish, an indispensible article
for the fast days of the people. The following extract
w II convey a clear idea of the effect of this impolitic tax :
—" The salt works (says Townsend, who wrote about 80
years ago) yield a considerable revenue. These were

formerly considered as private property ; but in the year
1348 they were taken by Alonzo 11., and in 1564 Phillip
11. seized them as part of his domesne. The chief of
them are in Andalucia, Valencia, Catalona, and Majorca.
The salt works of Matra, in the kingdom of Valencia,
would easily furnish 1,500,000 of fanegas, of about 100 lhs
weight, which, could they find a market, would. at 22
reas the fanega, make £330,000 per annum ; but, by rais-
ing the price, they have lessened the demand, so that the
whole amount of the kingdom is only about two-thirds of

The effects of the tax on this necessary of life and
health in INDIA w•e have on numerous occasions adverted
to—it is totally indefensible even as revenue, because we

have before shown that it brings to the company no re-
venue at all—all they gain is a positive loss; while the
population of 40,000,000 of people are taxed 12C0 per