support Mr. Pitt allowed Benfield to set up some imaginary and exaggerated pecuniary claims against the Nabob of Arcot.* The great mass of influence arises from appointments in India, but the political influence of the Company is very considerable from the vast number of individuals employed in their different warehouses and establishments in London. All the influence they possess is employed in support of their parliamentary interest. Whenever a labourer comes into the service of the Company he is required to state for what place he has a vote for a member of parliament: his name is then registered with this specification; and on an election he is told that he will be spared from his situation to give his suffrage, if he will vote according to orders: disobedience being supposed to be punished by dismissal from his office. The number of individuals thus kept in political subjection to the Company is about four thousand. This fact needs no comment. It sufficiently identifies the East-India Company with Government, and we may consider the revenue of Hindustan, as well as the revenue of England, as forming a part of that immense expenditure by which the Borough-System is supported. TERRITORIAL REVENUES AND COMMERCE OF INDIA. The fiscal system of India is distinguished by a peculiarity which is without parallel in Europe. The rental of the soil, in lieu of being monopolized by an oppressive aristocracy, is applied to defray the charges of government, the support of a military force, and the expense of the judicial administration. The Hindoos are, happily, unacquainted with the custom-duties, the excise-duties, and assessed taxes, which weigh down industry and abridge enjoyments in England. In the East, the state takes about one-fifth of the gross produce of the land, and that satisfies nearly all its wants. Other taxes are inconsiderable; as the transit-duties, stamps, licenses, and judicial fees. The monopoly of salt and opium is also a source of income. But the principal source of revenue is the land-tax, which constituted the only rent payable by the cultivators of the soil, under the Hindoo and Mahomedan sovereigns. The gross revenues of India, in the year 1827, amounted to £23,383,497; the expenditure, inclusive of the interest of the debt, to £23,323,179. The chief items of expenditure are the military, civil, and revenue establishments; salaries, pensions, superannuationallowances, and stipends payable to deposed princes. The total amount of territorial debts in India, in the same year, was £42,870,876; the interest of the debt £1,749,068. By some writers The commissioners appointed to investigate the debts of this Nabob finished their labours in the course of the present year. They have occupied in this notable job exactly a quarter of a century. The claims set up against the Nabob amounted to £30,404,919; the commissioners have allowed £2,686,146.—— Parl. Rep. No. 114, Sess. 1830. the debt of India is considered to operate in the same way as the borough-debt in England; by rendering a large class of persons interested in the permanency of the British power. This is a one-sided view of the question, which it is hardly worth while stopping to answer. Creditors may feel an interest in their debtors, of the same kind as that which subsists between a lord and his vassal; but this sort of relation does not tend to increase mutual attachment. A government, by incurring debt, may create a partial interest in its stability, but this advantage must be far more than counterbalanced by alienating the vast majority, in consequence of the additional burthens which the debt renders necessary; and, in the foreign transactions of such a government, its power and influence are weakened by a knowledge of its financial encumbrances. Leaving, however, this matter, as irrelevant to our immediate purpose, let us continue the inquiry into the finances of India. The Company have never been able to realize a surplus revenue from their territorial possessions. All the income they have derived from Indian taxation has been expended in defraying the salaries of their servants, in the maintenance of a numerous army, and other establishments necessary to the preservation of their power. The only source of surplus income for the payment of the interest of their capital stock, and cher outgoings, has been the commercial profits arising from their exclusive privileges. The nature of these profits it will be proper to explain, in order to prepare the way for a few observations on the renewal of the Company's charter. The commercial profits of the Company are chiefly derived from their monopoly of the trade in tea. The following statement shows the difference between the prime cost of tea at Canton and its price at the East-India sales in London, from which an estimate may be formed of the profit on this article: Years. Tea purchased at Canton. lbs. Prime cost. Average price per 1824-25.... 28,697,088....1,900,866.... 1s. 4d. nearly. 1825-26.. .... 1826-27....40,182,241 .... .... .... 2,368,461. 1s. 2d. .... 1827-28.33,269,333...2,086,971.... 1s. 3d. Years. lbs. Sales in England. 1825-26....27,803,668....3,872,685...2s. 10d. nearly. 2s. 5d. 99 1828-29.28,230,383....3,286,272....2s. 44d. It thus appears the Company charge considerably more than 100 per cent. additional to the prime cost on all the teas consumed in the king dom. It is almost the only article of traffic in which they realize a profit. Their exports to China consist almost entirely of woollens, and this branch of trade is wholly unproductive. The Company has lately sent little merchandize to India, except military stores, which, being charged to the territorial account, do not enter into a statement of commercial profits. It imports, however, to a considerable amount, from that country, raw silk, indigo, and other articles. Whether there is any profit or loss in the trade it is difficult to determine from the accounts submitted to parliament. 串 In addition to the profits on its trade, the Company is entitled to a certain duty upon goods imported by the private and privileged trade, warehoused and sold through its medium. From the gross profits arising from this trade, a large deduction is to be made for the expense of freight and demurrage, amounting, in 1829, to £662,964. After paying all the other expenses of the commercial establishment, interest on the bond-debt, &c. the dividend remains to be provided. The capital stock of the Company is £6,000,000; so that, at 10 per cent., it requires a net profit of £620,000 per annum to pay the dividend. The Now these preliminaries bring us to the consideration of a very important issue between the public and the East-India Company. Company, we have seen, has not realized a surplus revenue from their territorial acquisitions; that has been all expended in the charges of war and government. Commercial profits, then, are the only source from which the Company has a surplus-revenue to pay the dividends and support their home-establishments. But, it appears, the profits of the Company on the several branches of trade, are either none at all, or very unimportant, except in the single article of tea. So that, in fact, it is the people of England who pay the dividends of the proprietors, and other outgoings, in the monopoly price of their teas. Let us inquire whether this is conformable to the agreement between the Company and the public. The act of the 24th Geo. III. c. 38, provides that there shall be at least four sales in every year, at which there shall be put up such quantities of tea as shall be judged equal to the demand; that the tea so put up shall be sold, without reserve, to the highest bidder, provided an advance of one penny per pound shall be bid upon the prices at which the same shall be put up; and that it shall not be lawful for the Company "to put up their tea for sale at any prices which shall, upon the whole of the teas so put up, at any one sale, exceed the prime cost thereof, with the freight and charges of importation, together with lawful interest from the time of the arrival of such tea in Great Britain and the common premium of insurance, as a compensation for the searisk incurred therein." Here are the terms of the contract between the community and the merchants of Leadenhall: the latter are to supply the former with a Considerations Relative to the Renewal of the Company's Charter, p. 41. quantity of tea adequate to their demand, and, to prevent extortion in the price, all the items of charge which the Company, in addition to the prime cost, are allowed to include in the put-up price, are distinctly specified; but there is no item for the Company's dividends, and it was certainly never intended they should be paid out of the profits of the tea-trade. All the legislature contemplated was to reimburse the Company the prime cost of their teas and reasonable charges, but never that they should be enabled to realize an exorbitant profit applicable to their general expenditure. That this profit has been realized is proved from a statement submitted to the Committee of the House of Commons last session, which shows that the profits on the China trade for the last fifteen years amounted to £16,971,316. Had the trade with China been open, the Company must have been satisfied with the ordinary mercantile profit; they could not have taxed the public to the amount of upwards of one million per annum, to provide a fund not only for the payment of the dividend upon India Stock and the interest of their bond debt, but also materially to aid their wasteful Indian expenditure. Next let us inquire in what relation the Company and the public stand in respect to the trade to India, exclusive of China. In 1813 the trade to India was thrown open to private merchants, but was still, in some measure, impeded by enactments which required that all ships passing to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope should exceed 350 tons of burthen, and which rendered it necessary to procure a license to trade from the Court of Directors, or, upon their refusal, from the Board of Control. This act also provided that certain articles of Indian produce should be brought to the port of London alone. British ships were still prevented from trading between ports without the kingdom, and places within the limits of the East-India Company's charter. These restrictions were much relaxed in 1823. The export of military stores to India is reserved to the Company, but ships, without limitation to burthen, may clear out, unlicensed, for any place eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, except for minor ports between the Indus and Malacca. A license is still necessary to proceed to any other except the four principal settlements-Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, and Prince of Wales's Island, within these limits. Vessels returning from India may now be admitted to entry in any of the warehousing ports of Great Britain, and trade is permitted between foreign ports and places within the limits of the Company's charter. The effect of opening the trade to India has been greatly to increase its amount. The highest value of goods exported to India in any year between 1792 and 1811 did not exceed £2,475,987 (the exports of 1808). It will be seen, hereafter, that this amount is less than one half of the value of the present exports. The increase has chiefly taken place in the export of cotton-manufactured goods. Previous to 1813 the amount of cotton goods exported to India was very trifling. They now fall very little short of £2,000,000 in value annually. This augmentation may partly be attributed to the extraordinary improvement which has taken place in our manufactures, attended by a great reduction of price, and to the extension and consolidation of the British power in India. The following statements show at once the comparative exports and imports of the Company and the free and privileged trade in their transactions with India and China. These statements show clearly the benefits which have resulted to the community from the opening of the trade to India and the outlet it has afforded to British industry and manufactures. From the first, it appears, the exports by the private trade to the east nearly doubled in four years; while from the second it appears the exports of the Company, during the same period, and under similar favourable circumstances, have declined rather than augmented. What more can be required to establish the advantages of free trade, and the greater results which may be anticipated from the frugality, activity, and enterprise of individuals than from the expensive, negligent, and drowsy proceedings of chartered monopolies? It is worthy of observation that the most enlightened servants of the Company doubted whether the natives of India would ever be brought to consume largely European manufactures. Experience has falsified their representations. Similar results may be confidently expected from the opening of the trade to China. |