Volume VIII Part 2 (1/2)
On the 5th December, as a mark of their approbation of Mr. Freeman, who had so plainly contradicted their opinion of Mr. Sulivan, the President and Council agree to appoint him to act as Secretary and Clerk of Appeals, till Mr. Sulivan's answer should arrive, with the emoluments, and to confirm him therein, if Mr. Sulivan should remain in Bengal.
On the 14th February, 1781, the President and Council received a letter from Bengal in reply, and stating their request that Mr. Sulivan might reserve the right of returning to his original situation on the Madras establishment, if the Court of Directors should disapprove of his being transferred to Bengal. To this request the board at Madras declare they have no objection: and here the matter rests; the Court of Directors not having given any tokens of approbation or disapprobation of the transaction.
Such is the history of Mr. Sulivan's service from the time of his appointment; such were the qualifications, and such the proofs of a.s.siduity and diligence given by him in holding so many incompatible offices, (as well as being engaged in other dealings, which will appear in their place,) when, after three years' desultory residence in India, he was thought worthy to be nominated to the succession to the Supreme Council. No proof whatsoever of distinguished capacity in any line preceded his original appointment to the service: so that the whole of his fitness for the Supreme Council rested upon his conduct and character since his appointment as Persian Translator.
Your Committee find that his Majesty has not yet given his approbation to the nomination, made by the Court of Directors on the 30th of August, 1781, of Messrs. Stuart and Sulivan to succeed to the Supreme Council on the first vacancies, though the Court applied for the royal approbation so long ago as the 19th of September, 1781; and in these instances the king's ministers performed their duty, in withholding their countenance from a proceeding so exceptionable and of so dangerous an example.
Your Committee, from a full view of the situation and duties of the Court of Directors, are of opinion that effectual means ought to be taken for regulating that court in such a manner as to prevent either rivals.h.i.+p with or subserviency to their servants. It might, therefore, be proper for the House to consider whether it is fit that those who are, or have been within some given time, Directors of the Company, should be capable of an appointment to any offices in India. Directors can never properly govern those for whose employments they are or may be themselves candidates; they can neither protect nor coerce them with due impartiality or due authority.
If such rules as are stated by your Committee under this head were observed in the regular service at home and abroad, the necessity of superseding the regular service by strangers would be more rare; and whenever the servants were so superseded, those who put forward other candidates would be obliged to produce a strong plea of merit and ability, which, in the judgment of mankind, ought to overpower pretensions so authentically established, and so rigorously guarded from abuse.
[Sidenote: Deficiency of powers to ministers of government.]
The second object, in this part of the plan, of the act of 1773, namely, that of inspection by the ministers of the crown, appears not to have been provided for, so as to draw the timely and productive attention of the state on the grievances of the people of India, and on the abuses of its government. By the Regulating Act, the ministers were enabled to inspect one part of the correspondence, that which was received in England, but not that which went outward. They might know something, but that very imperfectly and unsystematically, of the state of affairs; but they were neither authorized to advance nor to r.e.t.a.r.d any measure taken by the Directors in consequence of that state: they were not provided even with sufficient means of knowing what any of these measures were.
And this imperfect information, together with the want of a direct call to any specific duty, might have, in some degree, occasioned that remissness which rendered even the imperfect powers originally given by the act of 1773 the less efficient. This defect was in a great measure remedied by a subsequent act; but that act was not pa.s.sed until the year 1780.
[Sidenote: Disorders increased since 1773.]
Your Committee find that during the whole period which elapsed from 1773 to the commencement of 1782 disorders and abuses of every kind multiplied. Wars contrary to policy and contrary to public faith were carrying on in various parts of India. The allies, dependants, and subjects of the Company were everywhere oppressed;[2] dissensions in the Supreme Council prevailed, and continued for the greater part of that time; the contests between the civil and judicial powers threatened that issue to which they came at last, an armed resistance to the authority of the king's court of justice; the orders which by an act of Parliament the servants were bound to obey were avowedly and on principle contemned; until at length the fatal effects of acc.u.mulated misdemeanors abroad and neglects at home broke out in the alarming manner which your Committee have so fully reported to this House.[3]
[Sidenote: Proceedings in India not known to Parliament.]
In all this time the true state of the several Presidencies, and the real conduct of the British government towards the natives, was not at all known to Parliament: it seems to have been very imperfectly known even to ministers. Indeed, it required an unbroken attention, and much comparison of facts and reasonings, to form a true judgment on that difficult and complicated system of politics, revenue, and commerce, whilst affairs were only in their progress to that state which produced the present inquiries. Therefore, whilst the causes of their ruin were in the height of their operation, both the Company and the natives were understood by the public as in circ.u.mstances the most a.s.sured and most flouris.h.i.+ng; insomuch that, whenever the affairs of India were brought before Parliament, as they were two or three times during that period, the only subject-matter of discussion anywise important was concerning the sums which might be taken out of the Company's surplus profits for the advantage of the state. Little was thought of but the disengagement of the Company from their debts in _England_, and to prevent the servants abroad from drawing upon them, so as that body might be enabled, without exciting clamors here, to afford the contribution that was demanded. All descriptions of persons, either here or in India, looking solely to appearances at home, the reputation of the Directors depended on the keeping the Company's sales in a situation to support the dividend, that of the ministers depended on the most lucrative bargains for the Exchequer, and that of the servants abroad on the largest investments; until at length there is great reason to apprehend, that, unless some very substantial reform takes place in the management of the Company's affairs, nothing will be left for investment, for dividend, or for bargain, and India, instead of a resource to the public, may itself come, in no great length of time, to be reckoned amongst the public burdens.
[Sidenote: Inspection of ministers has failed in effect.]
In this manner the inspection of the ministers of the crown, the great cementing regulation of the whole act of 1773, has, along with all the others, entirely failed in its effect.
[Sidenote: Failure in the act.]
Your Committee, in observing on the failure of this act, do not consider the intrinsic defects or mistakes in the law itself as the sole cause of its miscarriage. The general policy of the nation with regard to this object has been, they conceive, erroneous; and no remedy by laws, under the prevalence of that policy, can be effectual. Before any remedial law can have its just operation, the affairs of India must be restored to their natural order. The prosperity of the natives must be previously secured, before any profit from them whatsoever is attempted. For as long as a system prevails which regards the transmission of great wealth to this country, either for the Company or the state, as its princ.i.p.al end, so long will it be impossible that those who are the instruments of that scheme should not be actuated by the same spirit for their own private purposes. It will be worse: they will support the injuries done to the natives for their selfish ends by new injuries done in favor of those before whom they are to account. It is not reasonably to be expected that a public rapacious and improvident should be served by any of its subordinates with disinterestedness or foresight.
II.--CONNECTION OF GREAT BRITAIN WITH INDIA.
In order to open more fully the tendency of the policy which has. .h.i.therto prevailed, and that the House may be enabled, in any regulations which may be made, to follow the tracks of the abuse, and to apply an appropriated remedy to a particular distemper, your Committee think it expedient to consider in some detail the manner in which India is connected with this kingdom,--which is the second head of their plan.
The two great links by which this connection is maintained are, first, the East India Company's commerce, and, next, the government set over the natives by that company and by the crown. The first of these principles of connection, namely, the East India Company's trade, is to be first considered, not only as it operates by itself, but as having a powerful influence over the general policy and the particular measures of the Company's government. Your Committee apprehend that the present state, nature, and tendency of this trade are not generally understood.
[Sidenote: Trade to India formerly carried on chiefly in silver.]
Until the acquisition of great territorial revenues by the East India Company, the trade with India was carried on upon the common principles of commerce,--namely, by sending out such commodities as found a demand in the India market, and, where that demand was not adequate to the reciprocal call of the European market for Indian goods, by a large annual exportation of treasure, chiefly in silver. In some years that export has been as high as six hundred and eighty thousand pounds sterling. The other European companies trading to India traded thither on the same footing. Their export of bullion was probably larger in proportion to the total of their commerce, as their commerce itself bore a much larger proportion to the British than it does at this time or has done for many years past. But stating it to be equal to the British, the whole of the silver sent annually from Europe into Hindostan could not fall very short of twelve or thirteen hundred thousand pounds a year. This influx of money, poured into India by an emulation of all the commercial nations of Europe, encouraged industry and promoted cultivation in a high degree, notwithstanding the frequent wars with which that country was hara.s.sed, and the vices which existed in its internal government. On the other hand, the export of so much silver was sometimes a subject of grudging and uneasiness in Europe, and a commerce carried on through such a medium to many appeared in speculation of doubtful advantage. But the practical demands of commerce bore down those speculative objections. The East India commodities were so essential for animating all other branches of trade, and for completing the commercial circle, that all nations contended for it with the greatest avidity. The English company flourished under this exportation for a very long series of years. The nation was considerably benefited both in trade and in revenue; and the dividends of the proprietors were often high, and always sufficient to keep up the credit of the Company's stock in heart and vigor.
[Sidenote: How trade carried on since.]
But at or very soon after the acquisition of the territorial revenues to the English company, the period of which may be reckoned as completed about the year 1765, a very great revolution took place in commerce as well as in dominion; and it was a revolution which affected the trade of Hindostan with all other European nations, as well as with that in whose favor and by whose power it was accomplished. From that time bullion was no longer regularly exported by the English East India Company to Bengal, or any part of Hindostan; and it was soon exported in much smaller quant.i.ties by any other nation. A new way of supplying the market of Europe, by means of the British power and influence, was invented: a species of trade (if such it may be called) by which it is absolutely impossible that India should not be radically and irretrievably ruined, although our possessions there were to be ordered and governed upon principles diametrically opposite to those which now prevail in the system and practice of the British company's administration.
[Sidenote: Investments.]
A certain portion of the revenues of Bengal has been for many years set apart to be employed in the purchase of goods for exportation to England, and this is called the _Investment_. The greatness of this investment has been the standard by which the merit of the Company's princ.i.p.al servants has been too generally estimated; and this main cause of the impoverishment of India has been generally taken as a measure of its wealth and prosperity. Numerous fleets of large s.h.i.+ps, loaded with the most valuable commodities of the East, annually arriving in England, in a constant and increasing succession, imposed upon the public eye, and naturally gave rise to an opinion of the happy condition and growing opulence of a country whose surplus productions occupied so vast a s.p.a.ce in the commercial world. This export from India seemed to imply also a reciprocal supply, by which the trading capital employed in those productions was continually strengthened and enlarged. But the payment of a tribute, and not a beneficial commerce to that country, wore this specious and delusive appearance.