The SALT MANUFACTURE of Droitwich is one of the most ancient businesses in the kingdom, having been carried on for upwards of 1,000 years, and the salt made here has always been celebrated for its strength and purity. From the year 1805 until 1823 salt was subject to a duty of 15s. a bushel or £30 a ton, and this impost was collected by the excise every six weeks. A large capital was therefore required to carry on the trade, and the price of fine salt was at least £32 per ton. In that year, however, the duty was reduced to 2s. a bushel, and in 1825 it was removed altogether; and the highest price of fine salt, since its repeal, has been £1. 2s. 6d. per ton. That such a reduction in price must have led to a greatly increased consumption is self-evident, but there was no very immediate or considerable increase in the make. The proprietors of the original salt works in this borough sought to protect themselves against competition, by buying up most of the land that would be available for the erection of new works, and for a time they kept up their profits. Rival companies, however, did at length find means of establishing themselves, and about twelve or fourteen years ago a large increase of production took place, but the price of the article has been so reduced by this competition that the business has become very unremunerative. Repeated failures have taken place amongst the more recent firms; and half a million of capital, invested in the manufacture within the last twenty-five years, has been entirely lost. Within the last fifty years the primitive method of simply boring for the brine has been improved upon by casing the pit with wood, and more recently shafts have been sunk quite through the fresh water springs, the bottom and sides of which are secured with iron cylinders before boring down to the brine springs. By this means the brine (which lies 173 feet from the surface) is obtained at its full saturation of 42 parts of salt to 100, while formerly it varied between 28 and 37 percent. The present annual make at Droitwich of all kinds of salt is about 80,000 tons, and at the works at Stoke, from 25,000 to 30,000 tons; the average price per ton is scarcely more than 10s. The Droitwich trade labours under considerable disadvantage in the heavy tonnage which the manufacturers have to pay for the carriage of the article to the outports, and the iniquitous tax imposed upon the article in the East Indies, where it is almost a necessary of life, is a great hindrance to an extension of sale.