The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume II Part 26

The enemies of the late House of Commons resolved, if possible, to bring on that event. They therefore endeavored to misrepresent the provident means adopted by the House of Commons for keeping off this invidious necessity, as an attack on the rights of the East India Company: for they well knew, that, on the one hand, if, for want of proper regulation and relief, the Company should become insolvent, or even stop payment, the national credit and commerce would sustain a heavy blow; and that calamity would be justly imputed to Parliament, which, after such long inquiries, and such frequent admonitions from his Majesty, had neglected so essential and so urgent an article of their duty: on the other hand, they knew, that, wholly corrupted as the Company is, nothing effectual could be done to preserve that interest from ruin, without taking for a time the national objects of their trust out of their hands; and then a cry would be industriously raised against the House of Commons, as depriving British subjects of their legal privileges. The restraint, being plain and simple, must be easily understood by those who would be brought with great difficulty to comprehend the intricate detail of matters of fact which rendered this suspension of the administration of India absolutely necessary on motives of justice, of policy, of public honor, and public safety.

The House of Commons had not been able to devise a method by which the redress of grievances could be effected through the authors of those grievances; nor could they imagine how corruptions could be purified by the corrupters and the corrupted; nor do we now conceive how any reformation can proceed from the known abettors and supporters of the persons who have been guilty of the misdemeanors which Parliament has reprobated, and who for their own ill purposes have given countenance to a false and delusive state of the Company's affairs, fabricated to mislead Parliament and to impose upon the nation.[67]

Your Commons feel, with a just resentment, the inadequate estimate which your ministers have formed of the importance of this great concern.

They call on us to act upon the principles of those who have not inquired into the subject, and to condemn those who with the most laudable diligence have examined and scrutinized every part of it. The deliberations of Parliament have been broken; the season of the year is unfavorable; many of us are new members, who must be wholly unacquainted with the subject, which lies remote from the ordinary course of general information.

We are cautioned against an infringement of the Const.i.tution; and it is impossible to know what the secret advisers of the crown, who have driven out the late ministers for their conduct in Parliament, and have dissolved the late Parliament for a pretended attack upon prerogative, will consider as such an infringement. We are not furnished with a rule, the observance of which can make us safe from the resentment of the crown, even by an implicit obedience to the dictates of the ministers who have advised that speech; we know not how soon those ministers may be disavowed, and how soon the members of this House, for our very agreement with them, may be considered as objects of his Majesty's displeasure. Until by his Majesty's goodness and wisdom the late example is completely done away, we are not free.

We are well aware, in providing for the affairs of the East, with what an adult strength of abuse, and of wealth and influence growing out of that abuse, his Majesty's Commons had, in the last Parliament, and still have, to struggle. We are sensible that the influence of that wealth, in a much larger degree and measure than at any former period, may have penetrated into the very quarter from whence alone any real reformation can be expected.[68]

If, therefore, in the arduous affairs recommended to us, our proceedings should be ill adapted, feeble, and ineffectual,--if no delinquency should be prevented, and no delinquent should be called to account,--if every person should be caressed, promoted, and raised in power, in proportion to the enormity of his offences,--if no relief should be given to any of the natives unjustly dispossessed of their rights, jurisdictions, and properties,--if no cruel and unjust exactions should be forborne,--if the source of no peculation or oppressive gain should be cut off,--if, by the omission of the opportunities that were in our hands, our Indian empire should fall into ruin irretrievable, and in its fall crush the credit and overwhelm the revenues of this country,--we stand acquitted to our honor and to our conscience, who have reluctantly seen the weightiest interests of our country, at times the most critical to its dignity and safety, rendered the sport of the inconsiderate and unmeasured ambition of individuals, and by that means the wisdom of his Majesty's government degraded in the public estimation, and the policy and character of this renowned nation rendered contemptible in the eyes of all Europe.

It pa.s.sed in the negative.

FOOTNOTES:

[59] See King's Speech, Dec. 5, 1782, and May 19, 1784.

[60] "I shall never submit to the doctrines I have heard this day from the woolsack, that the other House [House of Commons] are the only representatives and guardians of the people's rights. I boldly maintain the contrary. I say this House [House of Lords] _is equally the representatives of the people_."--Lord Shelburne's Speech, April 8, 1778. _Vide_ Parliamentary Register, Vol. X. p. 892.

[61] In that Parliament the House of Commons by two several resolutions put an end to the American war. Immediately on the change of ministry which ensued, in order to secure their own independence, and to prevent the acc.u.mulation of new burdens on the people by the growth of a civil list debt, they pa.s.sed the Establishment Bill. By that bill thirty-six offices tenable by members of Parliament were suppressed, and an order of payment was framed by which the growth of any fresh debt was rendered impracticable. The debt on the civil list from the beginning of the present reign had amounted to one million three hundred thousand pounds and upwards. Another act was pa.s.sed for regulating the office of the Paymaster-General and the offices subordinate to it. A million of public money had sometimes been in the hands of the paymasters: this act prevented the possibility of any money whatsoever being acc.u.mulated in that office in future. The offices of the Exchequer, whose emoluments in time of war were excessive, and grew in exact proportion to the public burdens, were regulated,--some of them suppressed, and the rest reduced to fixed salaries. To secure the freedom of election against the crown, a bill was pa.s.sed to disqualify all officers concerned in the collection of the revenue in any of its branches from voting in elections: a most important act, not only with regard to its primary object, the freedom of election, but as materially forwarding the due collection of revenue.

For the same end, (the preserving the freedom of election,) the House rescinded the famous judgment relative to the Middles.e.x election, and expunged it from the journals. On the principle of reformation of their own House, connected with a principle of public economy, an act pa.s.sed for rendering contractors with government incapable of a seat in Parliament. The India Bill (unfortunately lost in the House of Lords) pursued the same idea to its completion, and disabled all servants of the East India Company from a seat in that House for a certain time, and until their conduct was examined into and cleared. The remedy of infinite corruptions and of infinite disorders and oppressions, as well as the security of the most important objects of public economy, perished with that bill and that Parliament. That Parliament also inst.i.tuted a committee to inquire into the collection of the revenue in all its branches, which prosecuted its duty with great vigor, and suggested several material improvements.

[62] If these speculations are let loose, the House of Lords may quarrel with their share of the legislature, as being limited with regard to the origination of grants to the crown and the origination of money bills.

The advisers of the crown may think proper to bring its negative into ordinary use,--and even to dispute, whether a mere negative, compared with the deliberative power exercised in the other Houses, be such a share in the legislature as to produce a due balance in favor of that branch, and thus justify the previous interference of the crown in the manner lately used. The following will serve to show how much foundation there is for great caution concerning these novel speculations. Lord Shelburne, in his celebrated speech, April 8th, 1778, expresses himself as follows. (_Vide_ Parliamentary Register, Vol. X.)

"The n.o.ble and learned lord on the woolsack, in the debate which opened the business of this day, a.s.serted that your Lords.h.i.+ps were incompetent to make any alteration in a money bill or a bill of supply, I should be glad to see the matter fairly and fully discussed, and the subject brought forward and argued upon precedent, as well as all its collateral relations. I should be pleased to see the question fairly committed, were it for no other reason but to hear the sleek, smooth contractors from the other House come to this bar and declare, that they, and they only, _could frame a money bill_, and they, and they _only_, could dispose of the _property of the peers of Great Britain_. Perhaps some arguments more plausible than those I heard this day from the woolsack, to show that the Commons have an uncontrollable, unqualified right to bind your Lords.h.i.+ps' property, may be urged by them. At present, I beg leave to differ from the n.o.ble and learned lord; for, until the claim, after a solemn discussion of this House, is openly and directly relinquished, I shall continue to be of opinion that your Lords.h.i.+ps have a right to after, _amend_, or reject a money bill."

The Duke of Richmond also, in his letter to the volunteers of Ireland, speaks of several of the powers exercised by the House of Commons in the light of usurpations; and his Grace is of opinion, that, when the people are restored to what he conceives to be their rights, in electing the House of Commons, the other branches of the legislature ought to be restored to theirs.--_Vide_ Remembrancer, Vol. XVI.

[63] By an act of Parliament, the Directors of the East India Company are restrained from acceptance of bills drawn, from India, beyond a certain amount, without the consent of the Commissioners of the Treasury. The late House of Commons, finding bills to an immense amount drawn upon that body by their servants abroad, and knowing their circ.u.mstances to be exceedingly doubtful, came to a resolution providently, cautioning the Lords of the Treasury against the acceptance of these bills, until the House should otherwise direct. The Court Lords then took occasion to declare against the resolution as illegal, by the Commons undertaking to direct in the execution of a trust created by act of Parliament. The House, justly alarmed at this resolution, which went to the destruction of the whole of its superintending capacity, and particularly in matters relative to its own province of money, directed a committee to search the journals, and they found a regular series of precedents, commencing from the remotest of those records, and carried on to that day, by which it appeared that the House interfered, by an authoritative advice and admonition, upon every act of executive government without exception, and in many much stronger cases than that which the Lords thought proper to quarrel with.

[64] "I observe, at the same time, that there is _no charge or complaint_ suggested against my present ministers."--The King's Answer, 25th February, 1784, to the Address of the House of Common. _Vide_ Resolutions of the House of Commons, printed for Debrett, p. 31.

[65] The territorial possessions in the East Indies were acquired to the Company, in virtue of grants from the Great Mogul, in the nature of offices and jurisdictions, to be held under _him_, and dependent upon _his_ crown, with the express condition of being obedient to orders from _his_ court, and of paying an annual tribute to _his_ treasury. It is true that no obedience is yielded to these orders, and for some time past there has been no payment made of this tribute. But it is under a grant so conditioned that they still hold. To subject the King of Great Britain as tributary to a foreign power by the acts of his subjects; to suppose the grant valid, and yet the condition void; to suppose it good for the king, and insufficient for the Company; to suppose it an interest divisible between the parties: these are some few of the many legal difficulties to be surmounted, before the Common Law of England can acknowledge the East India Company's Asiatic affairs to be a subject matter of _prerogative_, so as to bring it within the verge of English jurisprudence. It is a very anomalous species of power and property which is held by the East India Company. Our English prerogative law does not furnish principles, much less precedents, by which it can be defined or adjusted. Nothing but the eminent dominion of Parliament over every British subject, in every concern, and in every circ.u.mstance in which he is placed, can adjust this new, intricate matter. Parliament may act wisely or unwisely, justly or unjustly; but Parliament alone is competent to it.

[66] The attempt upon charters and the privileges of the corporate bodies of the kingdom in the reigns of Charles the Second and James the Second was made by the _crown_. It was carried on by the ordinary course of law, in courts inst.i.tuted for the security of the property and franchises of the people. This attempt made by the _crown_ was attended with complete success. The corporate rights of the city of London, and of all the companies it contains, were by solemn judgment of law declared forfeited, and all their franchises, privileges, properties, and estates were of course seized into the hands of the _crown_. The injury was from the crown: the redress was by Parliament. A bill was brought into the _House of Commons_, by which the judgment against the city of London, and against the companies, was reversed: and this bill pa.s.sed the House of Lords without any complaint of trespa.s.s on their jurisdiction, although the bill was for a reversal of a judgment in law.

By this act, which is in the second of William and Mary, chap. 8, the question of forfeiture of that charter is forever taken out of the power of any court of law: no cognizance can be taken of it except in Parliament.

Although the act above mentioned has declared the judgment against the corporation of London to be _illegal_ yet Blackstone makes no scruple of a.s.serting, that, "perhaps, in strictness of law, the proceedings in most of them [the Quo Warranto causes] were sufficiently regular," leaving it in doubt, whether this regularity did not apply to the corporation of London, as well as to any of the rest; and he seems to blame the proceeding (as most blamable it was) not so much on account of illegality as for the crown's having employed a legal proceeding for political purposes. He calls it "an exertion of _an act of law_ for the purposes of the state."

The same security which was given to the city of London, would have been extended to all the corporations, if the House of Commons could have prevailed. But the bill for that purpose pa.s.sed but by a majority of one in the Lords; and it was entirely lost by a prorogation, which is the act of the crown. Small, indeed, was the security which the corporation of London enjoyed before the act of William and Mary, and which all the other corporations, secured by no statute, enjoy at this hour, if strict law was employed against them. The use of strict law has always been rendered very delicate by the same means by which the almost unmeasured legal powers residing (and in many instances dangerously residing) in the crown are kept within due bounds: I mean, that strong superintending power in the House of Commons which inconsiderate people have been prevailed on to condemn as trenching on prerogative. Strict law is by no means such a friend to the rights of the subject as they have been taught to believe. They who have been most conversant in this kind of learning will be most sensible of the danger of submitting corporate rights of high political importance to these subordinate tribunals. The general heads of law on that subject are vulgar and trivial. On them there is not much question. But it is far from easy to determine what special acts, or what special neglect of action, shall subject corporations to a forfeiture. There is so much laxity in this doctrine, that great room is left for favor or prejudice, which might give to the crown an entire dominion over those corporations. On the other hand, it is undoubtedly true that every subordinate corporate right ought to be subject to control, to superior direction, and even to forfeiture upon just cause. In this reason and law agree. In every judgment given on a corporate right of great political importance, the policy and prudence make no small part of the question. To these considerations a court of law is not competent; and, indeed, an attempt at the least intermixture of such ideas with the matter of law could have no other effect than wholly to corrupt the judicial character of the court in which such a cause should come to be tried. It is besides to be remarked, that, if, in virtue of a legal process, a forfeiture should be adjudged, the court of law has no power to modify or mitigate. The whole franchise is annihilated, and the corporate property goes into the hands of the crown. They who hold the new doctrines concerning the power of the House of Commons ought well to consider in such a case by what means the corporate rights could be revived, or the property could be recovered out of the hands of the crown. But Parliament can do what the courts neither can do nor ought to attempt. Parliament is competent to give due weight to all political considerations. It may modify, it may mitigate, and it may render perfectly secure, all that it does not think fit to take away. It is not likely that Parliament will ever draw to itself the cognizance of questions concerning ordinary corporations, farther than to protect them, in case attempts are made to induce a forfeiture of their franchises.

The case of the East India Company is different even from that of the greatest of these corporations. No monopoly of trade, beyond their own limits, is vested in the corporate body of any town or city in the kingdom. Even within these limits the monopoly is not general. The Company has the monopoly of the trade of half the world. The first corporation of the kingdom has for the object of its jurisdiction only a few matters of subordinate police. The East India Company governs an empire, through all its concerns and all its departments, from the lowest office of economy to the highest councils of state,--an empire to which Great Britain is in comparison but a respectable province. To leave these concerns without superior cognizance would be madness; to leave them to be judged in the courts below, on the principles of a confined jurisprudence, would be folly. It is well, if the whole legislative power is competent to the correction of abuses which are commensurate to the immensity of the object they affect. The idea of an absolute power has, indeed, its terrors; but that objection lies to every Parliamentary proceeding; and as no other can regulate the abuses of such a charter, it is fittest that sovereign authority should be exercised, where it is most likely to be attended with the most effectual correctives. These correctives are furnished by the nature and course of Parliamentary proceedings, and by the infinitely diversified characters who compose the two Houses. In effect and virtually, they form a vast number, variety, and succession of judges and jurors. The fulness, the freedom, and publicity of discussion leaves it easy to distinguish what are acts of power, and what the determinations of equity and reason. There prejudice corrects prejudice, and the different asperities of party zeal mitigate and neutralize each other. So far from violence being the general characteristic of the proceedings of Parliament, whatever the beginnings of any Parliamentary process may be, its general fault in the end is, that it is found incomplete and ineffectual.

[67] The purpose of the misrepresentation being now completely answered, there is no doubt but the committee in this Parliament, appointed by the ministers themselves, will justify the grounds upon which the last Parliament proceeded, and will lay open to the world the dreadful state of the Company's affairs, and the grossness of their own calumnies upon this head. By delay the new a.s.sembly is come into the disgraceful situation of allowing a dividend of eight per cent by act of Parliament, without the least matter before them to justify the granting of any dividend at all.

[68] This will be evident to those who consider the number and description of Directors and servants of the East India Company chosen into the present Parliament. The light in which the present ministers hold the labors of the House of Commons in searching into the disorders in the Indian administration, and all its endeavors for the reformation of the government there, without any distinction of times, or of the persons concerned, will appear from the following extract from a speech of the present Lord Chancellor. After making a high-flown panegyric on those whom the House of Commons had condemned by their resolutions, he said:--"Let us not be misled by reports from committees of _another_ House, to which, I again repeat, _I pay as much attention as I would do to the history of Robinson Crusoe,_ Let the conduct of the East India Company be fairly and fully inquired into. Let it be acquitted or condemned by evidence brought to the bar of the House. Without entering very deeply into the subject, let me reply in a few words to an observation which fell from a n.o.ble and learned lord, that the Company's finances are distressed, and that they owe at this moment a million sterling to the nation. When such a charge is brought, will Parliament in its justice forget that the Company is restricted from employing _that credit which its great and flouris.h.i.+ng situation_ gives to it?"

END OF VOL. II.