entertained the same maxim, of confining the import trade from India to
the Port of London. They were afterwards led, by a full exposition of
all the various interests which remonstrated against that close
restriction, to deem it just and expedient to propose (and wise and
politic for the East India Company to consent), that _such of the
principal out-ports as possessed the means whereby smuggling could best
be guarded against_, should participate with London in the import trade
from India; reserving exclusively to London, the whole of the trade
from China. This alteration of their original plan was suggested by
them to the Court of Directors, not as a relaxation of the _existing
privileges_ of the Company (which was the nature of Mr. Dundas's
proposition in 1800), but as a qualification to take place under _a new
Charter_.
When Mr. Dundas suggested to the Directors the new principle, of
admitting Indian-built ships as the vehicle for carrying on the private
trade, he was not treating with them concerning _the renewal_ of their
Charter; for they had then an _unexpired term of fourteen years_, in the
privileges conferred upon them by the Act of 1793. His proposition, as
has been just observed, went to _a relaxation_ of an important part of
those _subsisting privileges_; for which he sought to gain their
acquiescence; and as his opinion was decided and avowed, "that the
ostensible form of Government for India, with all its consequent detail
of patronage, must remain as it now is, and that the monopoly of that
trade ought properly to continue in the hands of the East India
Company;" it was prudent and seasonable in him to dwell upon that point.
Have not the Ministers of the present day evinced the same opinion? Have
they not proposed, to leave the patronage of India, and the exclusive
profits of the China Trade, with the Company? Does not the China Trade
ensure the employment of all the large ships in the service of the
Company; together with the continued engagement, in that line of
service, of the Commanders and Officers of those ships; and also, of
every other description of person now connected with that (_the
largest_) branch of the Company's concerns? Have not Ministers proposed
to confine the private trade with India to ships of four hundred tons
and upwards; thereby leaving to the owners of such of the smaller ships
now in the service of the Company, as by possibility may not be required
for their commerce, the advantage (which establishment in any line of
business must always give) of finding employment from those who, under
the proposed extension, may engage in that trade? Have not Ministers, in
proposing that the _Government_ of India should continue to be
administered through the organ of the Company, proposed to them the
continuance of the peculiar and great benefit, of carrying on their
_commerce_ by means of _the revenue_ of that Government? Whereas, the
private adventurers must trade upon their own capitals, or at an heavy
charge of interest.
How is it, then, that we hear so much of the loss which our Navy must
sustain, from the large ships of the Company being withdrawn from the
Eastern Trade; of the distress to which the Commanders and Officers, and
the numerous classes of artificers and others connected with those
ships, are to be exposed? Why are we told, that the East India Docks
will be left empty, and the Proprietors be reduced to apply to
Parliament for an indemnification? Can it possibly happen, that all
these calamities, so heavily denounced, should arise out of a permission
to be granted to private ships, returning from India, to proceed to
_certain ports to be designated_; more advantageously situated for their
trade than the Port of London? A permission, which the Directors
themselves are of opinion will not long be made use of to any great
extent; for they have told us, that the adventurers in those private
ships will be disappointed in their speculations; and they have adverted
to the mass of individual loss, which must ensue from the delusion, as
furnishing a strong argument, why Government ought not to yield to the
importunity of the Merchants of the out-ports.
From all that has been stated, it would appear, that instead of the
exaggerated picture of distress, which the advocates for a close
monopoly to the Port of London have represented as the necessary
consequence of relieving commerce from its present restrictions, we
ought to entertain a well-founded expectation; that _every class and
description of persons_, who now find employment in the Indian Trade,
will continue to have their industry called into action in the same line
of employment, and even to a greater extent, in some instances, than is
now experienced. For, unless the _union of interests_, which has so
recently taken place between the City of London and the East India
Company, should have the effect of preventing all competition between
the Merchants of London (formerly so eager to participate in the trade
with India), and the Merchants of the out-ports; it cannot fail to
happen, from the spirit of enterprise which has uniformly distinguished
the Metropolis, that the Port of London, _to which the whole India Trade
would be generally open_, will furnish its full proportion of the new
adventurers; and thus amply fill up that void, which the East India
Company affirm would be created in the Port of London, by diverting so
much of the Indian Trade to the out-ports: more especially, as all the
houses of Indian agency, which have been formed since the Act of 1793,
are established within the Metropolis.
Since this is the just prospect, which the adoption of the conditions
proposed by Government as the terms for the renewal of the Company's
Charter, opens to our view; since the share which the London Merchants
may take in the enlargement of the trade, would not fail to supply
employment for all that industry, which the Court of Directors assert
will be interrupted and suspended; while, at the same time, the
extension of that advantage will create new sources of industry in
various parts of the kingdom, without impairing or diminishing that of
London; whose will be the awful responsibility, if, by an obstinate
rejection of terms capable of yielding consequences so extensively
beneficial to the community, the Charter of the Company should not be
renewed; and if the disastrous effect should in consequence be produced,
in London and its vicinity, of "a suspended industry, interrupted
employment," and all the train of sufferings and calamities which has
been drawn out? Who will be chargeable, before the country, with "the
loss and waste of establishments which have cost upwards of a million
sterling--of shipping, to the amount of many millions--of a numerous and
respectable class of warehouse-keepers, clerks, and superior servants,
joined to three thousand labourers, and their families--of tradesmen of
various descriptions, who have incurred a very great expense for the
conduct of their business?" Who will be chargeable, in fact, with all
this destruction? Will it be the Government, who desire the East India
Company _to keep their Indian Empire, and their exclusive China trade_?
Or will it be the Conductors of the East India Company, who shall suffer
this great machine suddenly to stop its action, _because their limited
exclusive privileges are not made perpetual_?
GRACCHUS.
LETTER VI.
_Friday, January 22, 1813._
Gracchus is charged, by some of the champions of the East India Company,
with error and a want of candour, because he has represented the
Directors to have maintained, that opening the import trade from India
to the out-ports of the kingdom, involves a question of the last
importance to the British Empire in India, and to the British
Constitution at home; and those writers affirm, that the Directors do
not deduce the danger of those great interests from the question of the
out-port trade, but from the question of disturbing the present system
of administering the Government of India.
Yet he can discover, neither error nor want of candour in his statement.
If those advocates will take the pains to follow the whole argument of
the Directors, on the present occasion, throughout, they must be
sensible, that his statement cannot be controverted. The Directors,
indeed, avoid expressing their proposition in the fair and distinct form
in which it is here drawn out; yet such is the proposition in effect.
For, if the whole of it be reduced into a form of syllogism, it is no
other than this:--
"Whatever shall cause the subversion of the present system of
Indian Government, will cause danger to the Empire and
Constitution.
"But, pressing the extension of _an import trade from India to the
out-ports_, will cause the subversion of the present system of
Indian Government.
"Therefore, _pressing the extension of an import trade to the
out-ports, will cause danger to the Empire and Constitution_."
If we question the _minor_ proposition, and ask, Why, pressing an import
trade for the out-ports, should necessarily cause the subversion of the
existing system of Indian Government? the answer of the Directors is
already given:--Because they _will not_ continue to carry on that
Government, if an import trade from India should be granted to the
out-ports. Thus, the original statement is demonstrably established; and
all the logic of the City cannot overturn it.
The Directors must permit the words "_will not_;" for, with the record
of the East India Company's history before us, it is impossible to say
they _cannot_. In proof of this assertion, let us take a review of that
history, and let us examine, what evil resulted to the Company, _during
the period that the import trade from India_ WAS ACTUALLY _extended to
the out-ports of Great Britain_.
When the first, or London East India Company, had incurred the
forfeiture of their Charter in 1693, by the non-payment of a stipulated
sum of money, their privileges were immediately restored to them, and
confirmed by letters patent, granted by King William III. upon this
express ground:--"Considering how highly it imports the honour and
welfare of this our kingdom, and our subjects thereof, that a trade and
traffic to the East Indies should be continued; and being well satisfied
that the same may be of great and public advantage; and being also
desirous to render the same, as much as in us lies, _more national,
general, and extensive, than hitherto it hath been_," &c.
This principle, of promoting a more national, general, and extensive
trade to India than had subsisted under the then existing Company's
exclusive Charter, gave rise to _a new measure_ in the year 1698, in an
Act passed in the 9th and 10th year of the same king, entitled, _An Act
for raising a sum not exceeding two millions, &c. and for settling the
trade to the East Indies_. The parties subscribing towards that loan,
were formed into a Society, called _The General Society of Merchants,
&c._; and such of them as chose to unite their subscriptions, and to
form a joint-stock, were incorporated under the name of _The English
East India Company, &c._ The General Society possessed the privilege of
an export and import trade with India, with the power of _bringing their
import cargoes from India to the_ OUT-PORTS _of the kingdom_, in the
same manner as is proposed by Government at the present day; with this
only difference, that the General Society of Merchants were not
restricted as to the ports at which they should enter, whereas
Government have _now_ proposed, that merchants _should be restricted to
such ports as can best afford the means of guarding against the
depredations of smuggling_.
The regulations, which were adopted for ships importing from India to
the out-ports, are to be found in the Act 9 and 10 William III. c. 44.
s. 69. and were as follows:--
"Provided always, and it is here enacted, that no Company, or
_particular person or persons_, who shall have a right, in
pursuance of this Act, to trade to the East Indies, or other parts
within the limits aforesaid, shall be allowed to trade, until
_sufficient security_ shall be first given (which the Commissioners
of the Customs in England, or any three or more of them for the
time being, are hereby authorized and required to take, in the
name and to the use of His Majesty, his heirs and successors), that
such Company, or _particular persons_, shall cause all the goods,
wares, merchandise, and commodities, which shall at any time or
times hereafter, during the continuance of this Act, be laden by or
for them, or _any of them_, or for their, or any of their accounts,
in _any ship_ or ships whatsoever, bound from the said East Indies,
or parts within the limits aforesaid, to be brought (without
breaking bulk), to _some port of England or Wales_, and _there be
unladen and put to land_, &c. And that all goods and merchandises
belonging to the Company aforesaid, or _any other traders to the
East Indies_, and which shall be _imported into England or Wales_,
as aforesaid, pursuant to this Act, shall by them be sold openly
and publicly, by inch of candle, _upon their respective accounts_,
and not otherwise."
Upon this Act of the 9th and 10th of William III. was built, in the
following year, that famous Charter of the Company, upon which they rest
the weight of their pretensions; and that very Charter, as is here
rendered incontestable by the Act itself, comprehended the principle,
_of an Import Trade from India to the_ OUT-PORTS _of the kingdom_.
The form and condition of the security which was to be given by the
out-port merchants, will be found in the Act, 6th Anne, c. 3. entitled,
"_An Act for better securing the duties on East India goods_." By that
Act, the security to be given was fixed "at the rate of 2500l. sterling
for every hundred ton their ships or vessels shall be respectively let
for;" and the _only_ restriction imposed upon the import trade from
India was, that it should be brought "_to some port in Great Britain_."
Thus, then, any man who looks but a little beyond the objects which lie
accidentally before his eyes, may see, that the measure now suggested by
Government, instead of being a wild and airy speculation, a theoretical
innovation, a _new_, untried, and dangerous experiment, on which we have
no ground to reason from experience (as it has been ignorantly and
falsely asserted), is nothing more than reverting to an _ancient_
principle, involved in the Company's applauded Charter of the 10th of
William the Third, and to the practice of our forefathers in the
brightest period of our domestic history; a period, in which the British
Constitution received its last perfection, and from which the present
power and greatness of the British Empire, in the East and in the West,
dates its origin.
Having sufficiently proved and established this _great fact_, let us
next inquire, what history reveals to us, of _the consequences_ of that
import trade to the out-ports, that can tend, in any degree, to justify,
or give support to, the Company, in determining to resort to an
alternative which, they acknowledge, will subvert the system of Indian
Government (and thereby shake the Constitution at home), rather than
_renew the measure_ of a regulated trade to the out-ports.
We have not to deduce these consequences from _abstract hypothesis_, but
from _historical testimony_; let us, then, observe what that testimony
unfolds. No evil, of any kind whatever, resulted to the incorporated, or
Joint Stock Company, from the privilege enjoyed by the out ports. On the
contrary, that _Joint Stock Company_, issuing out of the General Society
of Merchants (which, as has been above stated, soon became the English
East India Company), rose above all their competitors, notwithstanding
the power of importing, without limitation, to _any of the ports of the
kingdom_; and such was the rapidity of their progress, that they
overcame the former, or London Company; they obtained a surrender of all
their rights to St. Helena, Bombay, and all their other islands and
settlements in India; they at length received that ancient Company into
their own body; and finally became the United East India Company of the
present day. And so little did the competition and free import of the
general merchants tend to obstruct the growth of the United Company,
even in the age of its _infancy_; and so "superior were the advantages
they derived from trading with a joint-stock (to use the words of one of
the Company's most strenuous champions), that at the time of the union
of the two Companies, out of the whole loan of two millions, only
7000l. then remained the property of the _separate traders of the
General Society_; and this sum also was soon absorbed in the United
Company[4]." If then the Company, starting originally with only a joint
stock, against a competition in the out-ports of the kingdom, with a
power to import to those out-ports, outstripped and overcame all their
competitors; what can they seriously apprehend from a renewal of the
same experiment, in the present momentum of their power, and when they
are able to unite with their joint-stock, the whole of the revenues of
their present empire in the East?
But it may be asked, if no better success is likely to attend the
commercial speculations of the out-ports, why is so strong an effort
made, to admit them to a share in the India trade? The answer is
obvious. When Mr. Dundas, in the year 1800, so forcibly expressed his
opinion against any such admission, he did not ground that opinion upon
a question of _ports_, but of _commercial capital_. He considered the
capital of the Company as sufficient for all the advantage which the
Public, in the aggregate, could derive from the India Trade; and he
maintained, that the aggregate interest of the Public would suffer from
any measure, tending "to divert any larger proportion of the commercial
capital of the country from a more advantageous and more profitable
use." But the circumstances of the world are become materially altered,
since the period of 1800. The commercial capital, of which Mr. Dundas
then reasoned, is deprived of that advantageous and profitable
employment which his argument supposed, and is therefore without
application or direction; from whence it has resulted, that the
operation of commerce is interrupted, and its activity suspended. The
allowing that capital to be partially directed to the markets of India,
would therefore, under present circumstances, have the great national
advantage, of recovering the activity and spirit of commerce, and of
encouraging an extensive public interest which is at present
disappointed, if not dormant; and, whenever a more prosperous state of
things should return, the capital so engaged for a time, would, from the
nature of commerce, unquestionably recall itself, and seek again a more
profitable market, if any such should open. In the mean time, the East
India Company, adding to their joint-stock all the revenues of India,
need hardly know, because they could not _feel_, that they had any
competitors in the markets of India. And, as the Executive Government
was able to guard the out-ports against smuggling in the period of _the
infancy_ of the Company, they might and ought to feel a perfect
confidence, that the same authority can guard them equally now, in the
present period of _their maturity_.
Thus, since history renders it indisputable, that an import trade from
India to the out-ports of the kingdom has been heretofore exercised
under Acts of Parliament, and that it may be perfectly compatible with
the highest prosperity of the East India Company; since the Executive
Government can guard it against smuggling at the present day, as well as
in the reigns of King William and Queen Anne; and since a great and
urgent national interest reasonably demands it, both from Parliament and
the Company; the present moment furnishes a most fit occasion for the
Company to consider, Mr. Dundas's solemn call upon "their wisdom,
policy, and liberality," made by him to them in the year 1800; and also,
his weighty admonition, that "_if any thing can endanger their monopoly,
it is_ AN UNNECESSARY ADHERENCE TO POINTS NOT ESSENTIAL TO THEIR
EXISTENCE."
It has been called _illiberal_, to question the motives of the
Directors, in refusing their consent to an import trade to the
out-ports. But, with the facts of history, which have been here
produced, staring us and them in the face, it would be impossible not to
question those motives. No man can entertain a higher respect for the
East India Company, as a body politic and corporate, or contemplate with
higher admiration the distinguished career which it has run, than
Gracchus; but, at the same time, no one is better persuaded of the
operation of _policy_, in a body circumstanced as they are. And it is
more especially necessary to watch that policy, and to be free to
interpret _political motives_, at the present crisis, because, at the
eve of the expiration of the Company's _last_ Charter, in 1793, certain
rights were anxiously alleged on their behalf, in a work entitled, "_A
Short History of the East India Company_, &c." rights absolutely
unmaintainable, and utterly incompatible with the sovereignty of the
Empire, and the freedom of the Constitution; and the allegations then
made, appear now to assume the form of _a practical assertion_. To those
alleged rights, therefore, it will be advisable early to call the
attention of Parliament and of the nation.
GRACCHUS.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] A Short History of the East India Company.
LETTER VII.
_Wednesday, Jan. 27, 1813._
There is an irritability manifested at the present moment, by those who
are intimately united in interest with the East India Company, which
appears strongly indicative of an unhealthy case. It is well known, that
the revenues of the Company, far from being able to contribute to the
revenues of the State that augmentation which was made the condition of
the Company's present Charter, have, from causes which the Directors
could not control, been so deficient, that they have been obliged, at
different times, to apply to Parliament for pecuniary aid; that they are
burdened with a debt of not less than forty-two millions; and that they
are _now_ unable to discharge their engagements, without again coming to
Parliament to obtain the means. Yet, "AN OLD PROPRIETOR" feels no
uneasiness from this state of the Company's affairs; and this, we must
suppose, proceeds from an opinion, that the dividend he now receives is
_secured to him for the time to come_.
But Parliament has never, directly nor indirectly, made itself a
_collateral security_ to the Proprietors, for the payment of a dividend
of 10½ percent. The aids, at different times granted by Parliament,
have proceeded from a mixed principle, of _equity_ and of _liberal
support_. Of _equity_, in so far as the embarrassments of the Company
have been occasioned by political events; of _liberal support_, in so
far as those embarrassments may have been caused by disappointment in
trade. If the Proprietors should not discriminate between these two
principles which have actuated Parliament, but claim the whole of the
succours afforded, upon a ground of _positive right_, they might impose
upon Parliament the necessity of requiring the East India Company to
bring their affairs to a final settlement; in order that it may be
accurately determined, how far the Public are equitably pledged to the
Proprietors, and how far the Proprietors must be left to settle their
own accounts with the Company alone. And it is possible, that the result
might not afford that confidence of a well-secured dividend of ten and a
half per cent., which an OLD PROPRIETOR considers it an attack upon
private property even to question.