The present plan for unifying the salt and iron monopoly is not alone that profit may accrue to the state, but that in the future the fundamental of agriculture may be established and the non-essential repressed, cliques dispersed, extravagance prohibited, and plurality of offices stopped. In ancient times the famous mountains and great marshes were not given as fiefs to be the monopolized profit of inferiors, because the profit of the mountains and the sea and the produce of the broad marshes are the stored up wealth of the Empire and by rights ought to belong to the privy coffers of the Crown; but Your Majesty has unselfishly assigned them to the State Treasurer to assist and succor the people. Ne’er-do-wells and upstarts desiring to appropriate the produce of the mountains and the seas as their own rich inheritance, exploit the common people. Therefore many are those who advise to put a stop to these practices.
Esson M. Gale, Discourses on Salt and Iron : A Debate on State Control of Commerce and Industry in Ancient China, Chapters I-XIX: Translated from the Chinese of Huan K’uan with Introduction and Notes 34-35 (1931).
Iron implements and soldiers’ weapons are important in the service of the Empire and should not be made the gainful business of everybody. Formerly the great families, aggressive and powerful, obtained control of the profit of the mountains and sea, mined iron at Shih-ku and smelted it, and manufactured salt. One family would collect a host of over a thousand men, mostly exiles who had gone far from their native hamlets, abandoning the tombs of their ancestors. Attaching themselves to a great house and collecting in the midst of mountain fastnesses and barren marshes, they made wickedness and counterfeiting their business, seeking to build up the power of their clique. Their readiness to do evil was also great. Now since the road of recommending capable men has been opened wide, by careful selection of the supervising officers, restoring peace to the people does not wait on the abolition of the salt and iron monopoly.
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