Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/514

 1-98 COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTION OF mum was only iuj per cwt. By a more enlighten- ed system, the rent of the salt lands would be dis- posed of by the government, at lease, for a series of years at a fixed money rent. The farms should be sold separately, and at great detail to prevent monopoly, and this measure, with the competition of a public sale, would insure the just amount of the rents. This object once attained, the com- merce ought, like every other, to be left perfectly free, when the competition of the manufacturers and dealers would insure the lowest prices to the public. If the price, under the monopoly management, was, on the spot, 1400 per cent, above the natural price, reckoning very moderately, we may assume 50 per cent, on the natural price as the cost of the com- modity with freedom and competition, so that the consumer would thus obtain his salt for one-tenth of the former prices, or at the rate of one-third of a Spanish dollar per cwt., instead of 1 Spanish dollar. The result would be no less favourable to the public revenue, always a secondary object. The consump- tion of salt, like that of every other article consumed by man, Mith perhaps the exception of a few insigni- ficant articles, the demand for which rests upon the caprice of the higher orders in refined states of socie- ty, invariably rises as the cost falls, and falls as it rises. A very trifling alteration of price is often sufficient to effect a most material change in this respect. When the Gabelle was established in France, a re-