The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume VIII Part 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.

[Sidenote: Increase of expenses.]

The fame of a great territorial revenue, exaggerated, as is usual in such cases, beyond even its value, and the abundant fortunes of the Company's officers, military and civil, which flowed into Europe with a full tide, raised in the proprietors of East India stock a premature desire of partaking with their servants in the fruits of that splendid adventure. Government also thought they could not be too early in their claims for a share of what they considered themselves as ent.i.tled to in every foreign acquisition made by the power of this kingdom, through whatever hands or by whatever means it was made. These two parties, after some struggle, came to an agreement to divide between them the profits which their speculation proposed to realize in England from the territorial revenue in Bengal. About two hundred thousand pounds was added to the annual dividends of the proprietors. Four hundred thousand was given to the state, which, added to the old dividend, brought a constant charge upon the mixed interest of Indian trade and revenue of eight hundred thousand pounds a year. This was to be provided for at all events.

By that vast demand on the territorial fund, the correctives and qualifications which might have been gradually applied to the abuses in Indian commerce and government were rendered extremely difficult.

[Sidenote: Progress of investments.]

The practice of an investment from the revenue began in the year 1766, before arrangements were made for securing and appropriating an a.s.sured fund for that purpose in the treasury, and for diffusing it from thence upon the manufactures of the country in a just proportion and in the proper season. There was, indeed, for a short time, a surplus of cash in the treasury. It was in some shape to be sent home to its owners. To send it out in silver was subject to two manifest inconveniences. First, the country would be exhausted of its circulating medium. A scarcity of coin was already felt in Bengal. Cossim Ali Khan, (the Nabob whom the Company's servants had lately set up, and newly expelled,) during the short period of his power, had exhausted the country by every mode of extortion; in his flight he carried off an immense treasure, which has been variously computed, but by none at less than three millions sterling. A country so exhausted of its coin, and hara.s.sed by three revolutions rapidly succeeding each other, was rather an object that stood in need of every kind of refreshment and recruit than one which could subsist under new evacuations. The next, and equally obvious inconvenience, was to the Company itself. To send silver into Europe would be to send it from the best to the worst market. When arrived, the most profitable use which could be made of it would be to send it back to Bengal for the purchase of Indian merchandise. It was necessary, therefore, to turn the Company's revenue into its commerce. The first investment was about five hundred thousand pounds, and care was taken afterwards to enlarge it. In the years 1767 and 1768 it arose to seven hundred thousand.

[Sidenote: Consequences of them.]

This new system of trade, carried on through the medium of power and public revenue, very soon produced its natural effects. The loudest complaints arose among the natives, and among all the foreigners who traded to Bengal. It must unquestionably have thrown the whole mercantile system of the country into the greatest confusion. With regard to the natives, no expedient was proposed for their relief. The case was serious with respect to European powers. The Presidency plainly represented to the Directors, that some agreement should be made with foreign nations for providing their investment to a certain amount, or that the deficiencies then subsisting must terminate in an open rupture with France. The Directors, pressed by the large payments in England, were not free to abandon their system; and all possible means of diverting the manufactures into the Company's investment were still anxiously sought and pursued, until the difficulties of the foreign companies were at length removed by the natural flow of the fortunes of the Company's servants into Europe, in the manner which will be stated hereafter.

But, with all these endeavors of the Presidency, the investment sunk in 1769, and they were even obliged to pay for a part of the goods to private merchants in the Company's bonds, bearing interest. It was plain that this course of business could not hold. The manufacturers of Bengal, far from being generally in a condition to give credit, have always required advances to be made to them; so have the merchants very generally,--at least, since the prevalence of the English power in India. It was necessary, therefore, and so the Presidency of Calcutta represented the matter, to provide beforehand a year's advance. This required great efforts; and they were made. Notwithstanding the famine in 1770, which wasted Bengal in a manner dreadful beyond all example, the investment, by a variety of successive expedients, many of them of the most dangerous nature and tendency, was forcibly kept up; and even in that forced and unnatural state it gathered strength almost every year. The debts contracted in the infancy of the system were gradually reduced, and the advances to contractors and manufacturers were regularly made; so that the goods from Bengal, purchased from the territorial revenues, from the sale of European goods, and from the produce of the monopolies, for the four years which ended with 1780, when the investment from the surplus revenues finally closed, were never less than a million sterling, and commonly nearer twelve hundred thousand pounds. This million is the lowest value of the goods sent to Europe for which no satisfaction is made.[4]

[Sidenote: Remittances from Bengal to China and the Presidencies.]

About an hundred thousand pounds a year is also remitted from Bengal, on the Company's account, to China; and the whole of the product of that money flows into the direct trade from China to Europe. Besides this, Bengal sends a regular supply in time of peace to those Presidencies which are unequal to their own establishment. To Bombay the remittance in money, bills, or goods, for none of which there is a return, amounts to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds a year at a medium.

[Sidenote: Exports from England to India.]

The goods which are exported from Europe to India consist chiefly of military and naval stores, of clothing for troops, and of other objects for the consumption of the Europeans residing there; and, excepting some lead, copper utensils and sheet copper, woollen cloth, and other commodities of little comparative value, no sort of merchandise is sent from England that is in demand for the wants or desires of the native inhabitants.

[Sidenote: Bad effects of investment.]

When an account is taken of the intercourse (for it is not commerce) which is carried on between Bengal and England, the pernicious effects of the system of investment from revenue will appear in the strongest point of view. In that view, the whole exported produce of the country, so far as the Company is concerned, is not exchanged in the course of barter, but is taken away without any return or payment whatsoever. In a commercial light, therefore, England becomes annually bankrupt to Bengal to the amount nearly of its whole dealing; or rather, the country has suffered what is tantamount to an annual plunder of its manufactures and its produce to the value of twelve hundred thousand pounds.

[Sidenote: Foreign companies.]

[Sidenote: Consequences of their trade.]

In time of peace, three foreign companies appear at first sight to bring their contribution of trade to the supply of this continual drain. These are the companies of France, Holland, and Denmark. But when the object is considered more nearly, instead of relief, these companies, who from their want of authority in the country might seem to trade upon a principle merely commercial, will be found to add their full proportion to the calamity brought upon Bengal by the destructive system of the ruling power; because the greater part of the capital of all these companies, and perhaps the whole capital of some of them, is furnished exactly as the British is, out of the revenues of the country. The civil and military servants of the English East India Company being restricted in drawing bills upon Europe, and none of them ever making or proposing an establishment in India, a very great part of their fortunes, well or ill gotten, is in all probability thrown, as fast as required, into the cash of these companies.

In all other countries, the revenue, following the natural course and order of things, arises out of their commerce. Here, by a mischievous inversion of that order, the whole foreign maritime trade, whether English, French, Dutch, or Danish, arises from the revenues; and these are carried out of the country without producing anything to compensate so heavy a loss.

[Sidenote: Foreign companies' investments.]

Your Committee have not been able to discover the entire value of the investment made by foreign companies. But, as the investment which the English East India Company derived from its revenues, and even from its public credit, is for the year 1783 to be wholly stopped, it has been proposed to private persons to make a subscription for an investment on their own account. This investment is to be equal to the sum of 800,000_l._ Another loan has been also made for an investment on the Company's account to China of 200,000_l._ This makes a million; and there is no question that much more could be readily had for bills upon Europe. Now, as there is no doubt that the whole of the money remitted is the property of British subjects, (none else having any interest in remitting to Europe,) it is not unfair to suppose that a very great part, if not the whole, of what may find its way into this new channel is not newly created, but only diverted from those channels in which it formerly ran, that is, the cash of the foreign trading companies.

[Sidenote: Of the silver sent to China.]

Besides the investment made in goods by foreign companies from the funds of British subjects, these subjects have been for some time in the practice of sending very great sums in gold and silver directly to China on their own account. In a memorial presented to the Governor-General and Council, in March, 1782, it appears that the princ.i.p.al money lent by British subjects to one company of merchants in China then amounted to seven millions of dollars, about one million seven hundred thousand pounds sterling; and not the smallest particle of silver sent to China ever returns to India. It is not easy to determine in what proportions this enormous sum of money has been sent from Madras or from Bengal; but it equally exhausts a country belonging to this kingdom, whether it comes from the one or from the other.

[Sidenote: Revenue above the investment, how applied.]

[Sidenote: Allowance to Nabob of Bengal.]