l 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 pe