It has been said that in the Bengal Presidency the natives are in a
better condition than in the other Presidencies; and I recollect that
when I served on the Cotton Committee the evidence taken before it being
confined to the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, it was then said that if
evidence had been taken about the Bengal Presidency it would have
appeared that the condition of the natives was better. But I believe
that it is very much the same in all the Presidencies. I must say that
it is my belief that if a country be found possessing a most fertile
soil, and capable of bearing every variety of production, and that,
notwithstanding, the people are in a state of extreme destitution and
suffering, the chances are that there is some fundamental error in the
government of that country. The people of India have been subjected by
us, and how to govern them in an efficient and beneficial manner is one
of the most important points for the consideration of the House. From
the Report of the Indian Cotton Committee it appears that nearly every
witness--and the witnesses were nearly all servants of the Company--gave
evidence as to the state of destitution in which the cultivators of the
soil lived. They were in such an abject condition that they were obliged
to give 40 or 50 per cent, to borrow money to enable them to put seed
into the ground. I can, if it were necessary, bring any amount of
evidence to prove the miserable condition of the cultivators, and that
in many places they have been compelled to part with their personal
ornaments. Gentlemen who have written upon their condition have drawn a
frightful picture, and have represented the persons employed to collect
the revenue as coming upon the unhappy cultivators like locusts, and
devouring everything. With regard to the consumption of salt, looking at
the _Friend of India_, of April 14, 1853, it appears that it is on
the decline. In the year 1849-50, the consumption was 205,517 tons; in
1850-51, 186,410 tons; and in 1851-2, 146,069 tons. Thus, in the short