516 THE EAST INDIA EXCRESCENCE. 



content upon the countless millions of the East. Since then the prin- 

 ciples of benevolent and equal government, which mark the pre- 

 sent age, concur with the commercial interests of our merchants 

 and manufacturers, to link the welfare of the Hindoo population with 

 the welfare of the operatives of Birmingham and Leeds, we trust 

 that the people of England will now, by the power of public 

 opinion, demolish for ever the system that for a century has sup- 

 ported the corrupt patronage of a feAv Directors, by the slavery of half 

 the world. 



In addition to the land-tax of sixty-two per cent upon the produce 

 of the soil, as in the settled provinces, and an unlimited power of tax- 

 ation, as in the Presidency of Madras, in addition to numberless vex- 

 atious restraints upon peculiar modes of agriculture, we find that a 

 monopoly of the trade in salt, opium, and other extensive branches of 

 commerce, is retained by the East India Company. The salt mono- 

 poly is more cruel and oppressive than the land-tax ; for the price of 

 salt, throughout India, is thus raised to a value, which convertsinto a 

 precious luxury this commonest of the gifts of nature, so indispensi- 

 ble to the healthful operations of the animal system of man in all 

 countries and climates. To establish a monopoly of the sale of water 

 would be little more cruel than the monopoly of the trade in salt, by 

 which a profit of 2,000,000/. per annum is cleared from the forced 

 prices of this commodity, sold to the impoverished and naked popula- 

 tion of the East. The peasant, whose wages do not amount to threes- 

 pence per day, or about three pounds per annum, is compelled to 

 expend an average sum of six shillings yearly, or a tenth part of his 

 scanty income, in the purchase of salt alone. And yet does the minis- 

 terial proposition for the future government of India contain no no- 

 tice whatever of these outrages upon all justice, charity, and natural 

 liberty ; and the Directors of a Company, supported in splendour by 

 means so diabolical, can avow their sole motive for continuing the 

 sovereigns of India to be the benefit of the people who are subject 

 to their sway ! 



The entire revenue of India from the land-tribute, the monopolies 

 of salt and opium, the post-office, transit dues, and other miscellane- 

 ous sources, we find to be about twenty-two millions ; and yet this 

 magnificent sum, derived as we have seen from the very marrow of 

 the bones of the Indian population, is asserted by the Directors of 

 the East India Company, to be inadequate to the expense of the 

 government of the country, without the additional profits of the trade 

 to China. We hope, however to satisfy our readers, that, by the intro- 

 duction of a just system of government, and the downfall of the 

 system of plundering patronage established by the Company, not only 

 might this amount of revenue be rendered sufficient for the expenses 

 of the government, but even be reduced one half, to the end that 

 more salt may be consumed, more British manufactures worn, and a 

 habitation and a rice-field become the lot of every peasant in Hindos- 

 stan. The cost of the army is the first great source of expenditure. 

 Allowing, however, that for a brief season longer, two hundred thou- 

 sand troops are required for the suppression of the outbreaking spirit 



