No question connected with this period of his service was, at the moment and subsequently, the subject of more comment and discussion, both on the part of the Government at home and of individuals, than the monopoly of the salt trade; the profits of which he divided among the Governor, the Counsellors, and the senior civil and military officers; deeming this indulgence, as he repeatedly states in his official and private letters, indispensable to the integrity and efficiency of the public service. Men in high station, he argued, unless some ample and open allowance was given them, could never be expected to be reconciled to a strict observance of the covenants that prohibited presents, nor to the loss of that internal trade which had been denounced as so ruinous and oppressive. The shares in the profits from salt were, by his plan, divided according to the rank and duties of the parties. The amount was known, and, though liberal, it was limited, and, certainly, would not appear, from the statements made of it, to be more than a fair remuneration to men employed as those were to whom it was allotted.
Whether this mode of remunerating service was the best at the period when it was adopted, and whether the monopoly of the salt produced in the lower parts of Bengal, which the East India Company found existing, and have ever since, under one shape or another, continued, was advantageous or hurtful, on sound financial principles, are questions which merit notice, both as connected with the biography of Clive, and with the source of our Indian revenues.
The habits of thinking, and constitution, of the Court of Directors, rendered them very adverse to granting adequate salaries to those employed in high stations. These had all (including the military) the privilege of trading; and to the exercise of this privilege many of the abuses of the earlier times of the service have been justly attributed. Clive appears to have made reiterated representations upon this subject, impressing the necessity of adequate allowances, in some shape, to the superior officers, in order to animate their zeal, and preserve their public integrity. The narrow allowance to military officers, and their being expected to gain by trade, he particularly condemned. Writing to Major Stibbert[66], he observes, "I have received your letter of the 17th inst., and am not a little surprised that you should so soon request leave to return to Calcutta, considering how short a time you have done duty in your brigade. Your attention, I suspect, is too much taken up with commercial affairs; a study very foreign from an officer, even of an inferior rank, as it must frequently interfere with the services of a military station, but particularly reprehensible in those to whom a share in the profits upon salt is allotted. However, I admit that the death of your attorney may make your presence in Calcutta necessary. You have, therefore, my permission to leave the cantonments immediately, if the service will permit, and Colonel Smith has no objection."