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 honorable 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 rigor, and not only defrauded of the due payment of their labor, 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 pretensions by an exertion of power, which tends of necessity to the ruin of the parties subjected to the farmer’s contract, and to the suppression of free trade,—­or, if such assistance be refused him, he complains that he is not supported, that private persons interfere with his contract, that the manufacturers desert their labor, and that proportionate deductions must be allowed him.

After the result of their examination into the general nature and effect of this monopoly, it remains only for your Committee to inquire whether there was any valid foundation for that declaration of Mr. Hastings which we conclude must have principally recommended the monopoly of salt to the favor of the Court of Directors, viz., “that the profit, which was before reaped by English gentlemen, and by banians, was now acquired by the Company.”  On the contrary, it was proved and acknowledged before the Governor-General and Council, when they inquired into this matter, in March, 1775, that the Chiefs and Councils of those districts in which there were salt mahls reserved particular salt farms for their own use, and divided the profits, in certain stated proportions, among themselves and their assistants.  But, unless a detail of these transactions, and of the persons concerned in them, should be called for by the House, it is our wish to avoid entering into it.  On one example only your Committee think it just and proper to insist, stating first to the House on what principles they have made this selection.