University of Oxford, must acknowledge that the Jewish religion is
of all erroneous religions the least mischievous. There is not the
slightest chance that the Jewish religion will spread. The Jew does not
wish to make proselytes. He may be said to reject them. He thinks it
almost culpable in one who does not belong to his race to presume to
belong to his religion. It is therefore not strange that a conversion
from Christianity to Judaism should be a rarer occurrence than a total
eclipse of the sun. There was one distinguished convert in the last
century, Lord George Gordon; and the history of his conversion
deserves to be remembered. For if ever there was a proselyte of whom a
proselytising sect would have been proud, it was Lord George; not only
because he was a man of high birth and rank; not only because he
had been a member of the legislature; but also because he had been
distinguished by the intolerance, nay, the ferocity, of his zeal for his
own form of Christianity. But was he allured into the Synagogue? Was he
even welcomed to it? No, sir; he was coldly and reluctantly permitted
to share the reproach and suffering of the chosen people; but he was
sternly shut out from their privileges. He underwent the painful rite
which their law enjoins. But when, on his deathbed, he begged hard to
be buried among them according to their ceremonial, he was told that
his request could not be granted. I understand that cry of "Hear." It
reminds me that one of the arguments against this motion is that the
Jews are an unsocial people, that they draw close to each other, and
stand aloof from strangers. Really, Sir, it is amusing to compare
the manner in which the question of Catholic emancipation was argued
formerly by some gentlemen with the manner in which the question of Jew
emancipation is argued by the same gentlemen now. When the question
was about Catholic emancipation, the cry was, "See how restless, how
versatile, how encroaching, how insinuating, is the spirit of the
Church of Rome. See how her priests compass earth and sea to make one
proselyte, how indefatigably they toil, how attentively they study the
weak and strong parts of every character, how skilfully they employ
literature, arts, sciences, as engines for the propagation of their
faith. You find them in every region and under every disguise, collating
manuscripts in the Bodleian, fixing telescopes in the observatory of
Pekin, teaching the use of the plough and the spinning-wheel to the
savages of Paraguay. Will you give power to the members of a Church so
busy, so aggressive, so insatiable?" Well, now the question is about
people who never try to seduce any stranger to join them, and who do not
wish anybody to be of their faith who is not also of their blood. And
now you exclaim, "Will you give power to the members of a sect which
remains sullenly apart from other sects, which does not invite, nay,
which hardly ever admits neophytes?" The truth is, that bigotry will
never want a pretence. Whatever the sect be which it is proposed
to tolerate, the peculiarities of that sect will, for the time, be
pronounced by intolerant men to be the most odious and dangerous that
can be conceived. As to the Jews, that they are unsocial as respects
religion is true; and so much the better: for, surely, as Christians,
we cannot wish that they should bestir themselves to pervert us from
our own faith. But that the Jews would be unsocial members of the civil
community, if the civil community did its duty by them, has never been
proved. My right honourable friend who made the motion which we are
discussing has produced a great body of evidence to show that they have
been grossly misrepresented; and that evidence has not been refuted by
my honourable friend the Member for the University of Oxford. But what
if it were true that the Jews are unsocial? What if it were true that
they do not regard England as their country? Would not the treatment
which they have undergone explain and excuse their antipathy to the
society in which they live? Has not similar antipathy often been felt
by persecuted Christians to the society which persecuted them? While
the bloody code of Elizabeth was enforced against the English Roman
Catholics, what was the patriotism of Roman Catholics? Oliver Cromwell
said that in his time they were Espaniolised. At a later period it
might have been said that they were Gallicised. It was the same with the
Calvinists. What more deadly enemies had France in the days of Louis
the Fourteenth than the persecuted Huguenots? But would any rational man
infer from these facts that either the Roman Catholic as such, or the
Calvinist as such, is incapable of loving the land of his birth? If
England were now invaded by Roman Catholics, how many English Roman
Catholics would go over to the invader? If France were now attacked by
a Protestant enemy, how many French Protestants would lend him help?
Why not try what effect would be produced on the Jews by that tolerant
policy which has made the English Roman Catholic a good Englishman, and
the French Calvinist a good Frenchman?
Another charge has been brought against the Jews, not by my honourable
friend the Member for the University of Oxford--he has too much learning
and too much good feeling to make such a charge--but by the honourable
Member for Oldham, who has, I am sorry to see, quitted his place. The
honourable Member for Oldham tells us that the Jews are naturally a mean
race, a sordid race, a money-getting race; that they are averse to all
honourable callings; that they neither sow nor reap; that they have
neither flocks nor herds; that usury is the only pursuit for which they
are fit; that they are destitute of all elevated and amiable sentiments.
Such, Sir, has in every age been the reasoning of bigots. They
never fail to plead in justification of persecution the vices which
persecution has engendered. England has been to the Jews less than half
a country; and we revile them because they do not feel for England more
than a half patriotism. We treat them as slaves, and wonder that they do
not regard us as brethren. We drive them to mean occupations, and then
reproach them for not embracing honourable professions. We long
forbade them to possess land; and we complain that they chiefly occupy
themselves in trade. We shut them out from all the paths of ambition;
and then we despise them for taking refuge in avarice. During many ages
we have, in all our dealings with them, abused our immense superiority
of force; and then we are disgusted because they have recourse to that
cunning which is the natural and universal defence of the weak against
the violence of the strong. But were they always a mere money-changing,
money-getting, money-hoarding race? Nobody knows better than my
honourable friend the Member for the University of Oxford that there is
nothing in their national character which unfits them for the highest
duties of citizens. He knows that, in the infancy of civilisation, when
our island was as savage as New Guinea, when letters and arts were
still unknown to Athens, when scarcely a thatched hut stood on what
was afterwards the site of Rome, this contemned people had their
fenced cities and cedar palaces, their splendid Temple, their fleets of
merchant ships, their schools of sacred learning, their great statesmen
and soldiers, their natural philosophers, their historians and their
poets. What nation ever contended more manfully against overwhelming
odds for its independence and religion? What nation ever, in its last
agonies, gave such signal proofs of what may be accomplished by a
brave despair? And if, in the course of many centuries, the oppressed
descendants of warriors and sages have degenerated from the qualities of
their fathers, if, while excluded from the blessings of law, and bowed
down under the yoke of slavery, they have contracted some of the vices
of outlaws and of slaves, shall we consider this as matter of reproach
to them? Shall we not rather consider it as matter of shame and remorse
to ourselves? Let us do justice to them. Let us open to them the door of
the House of Commons. Let us open to them every career in which ability
and energy can be displayed. Till we have done this, let us not presume
to say that there is no genius among the countrymen of Isaiah, no
heroism among the descendants of the Maccabees.
Sir, in supporting the motion of my honourable friend, I am, I firmly
believe, supporting the honour and the interests of the Christian
religion. I should think that I insulted that religion if I said that
it cannot stand unaided by intolerant laws. Without such laws it was
established, and without such laws it may be maintained. It triumphed
over the superstitions of the most refined and of the most savage
nations, over the graceful mythology of Greece and the bloody idolatry
of the Northern forests. It prevailed over the power and policy of
the Roman empire. It tamed the barbarians by whom that empire was
overthrown. But all these victories were gained not by the help of
intolerance, but in spite of the opposition of intolerance. The whole
history of Christianity proves that she has little indeed to fear from
persecution as a foe, but much to fear from persecution as an ally. May
she long continue to bless our country with her benignant influence,
strong in her sublime philosophy, strong in her spotless morality,
strong in those internal and external evidences to which the most
powerful and comprehensive of human intellects have yielded assent,
the last solace of those who have outlived every earthly hope, the last
restraint of those who are raised above every earthly fear! But let not
us, mistaking her character and her interests, fight the battle of truth
with the weapons of error, and endeavour to support by oppression that
religion which first taught the human race the great lesson of universal
charity.
*****
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA. (JULY 10, 1833) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS ON THE 10TH OF JULY 1833.
On Wednesday, the tenth of July 1833, Mr Charles Grant, President of the
Board of Control, moved that the Bill for effecting an arrangement with
the India Company, and for the better government of His Majesty's
Indian territories, should be read a second time. The motion was carried
without a division, but not without a long debate, in the course of
which the following Speech was made.
Having, while this bill was in preparation, enjoyed the fullest and
kindest confidence of my right honourable friend, the President of the
Board of Control, agreeing with him completely in all those views which
on a former occasion he so luminously and eloquently developed, having
shared his anxieties, and feeling that in some degree I share his
responsibility, I am naturally desirous to obtain the attention of
the House while I attempt to defend the principles of the proposed
arrangement. I wish that I could promise to be very brief; but the
subject is so extensive that I will only promise to condense what I have
to say as much as I can.
I rejoice, Sir, that I am completely dispensed, by the turn which our
debates have taken, from the necessity of saying anything in favour
of one part of our plan, the opening of the China trade. No voice, I
believe, has yet been raised here in support of the monopoly. On that
subject all public men of all parties seem to be agreed. The resolution
proposed by the Ministers has received the unanimous assent of both
Houses, and the approbation of the whole kingdom. I will not, therefore,
Sir, detain you by vindicating what no gentleman has yet ventured to
attack, but will proceed to call your attention to those effects which
this great commercial revolution necessarily produced on the system of
Indian government and finance.
The China trade is to be opened. Reason requires this. Public opinion
requires it. The Government of the Duke of Wellington felt the necessity
as strongly as the Government of Lord Grey. No Minister, Whig or
Tory, could have been found to propose a renewal of the monopoly.
No parliament, reformed or unreformed, would have listened to such a
proposition. But though the opening of the trade was a matter concerning
which the public had long made up its mind, the political consequences
which must necessarily follow from the opening of the trade seem to me
to be even now little understood. The language which I have heard in
almost every circle where the subject was discussed was this: "Take away
the monopoly, and leave the government of India to the Company:" a
very short and convenient way of settling one of the most complicated
questions that ever a legislature had to consider. The honourable
Member for Sheffield (Mr Buckingham.), though not disposed to retain the
Company as an organ of government, has repeatedly used language which
proves that he shares in the general misconception. The fact is that
the abolition of the monopoly rendered it absolutely necessary to make a
fundamental change in the constitution of that great Corporation.
The Company had united in itself two characters, the character of trader
and the character of sovereign. Between the trader and the sovereign
there was a long and complicated account, almost every item of which
furnished matter for litigation. While the monopoly continued, indeed,
litigation was averted. The effect of the monopoly was, to satisfy the
claims both of commerce and of territory, at the expense of a third
party, the English people: to secure at once funds for the dividend of
the stockholder and funds for the government of the Indian Empire, by
means of a heavy tax on the tea consumed in this country. But, when the
third party would no longer bear this charge, all the great financial
questions which had, at the cost of that third party, been kept in
abeyance, were opened in an instant. The connection between the Company
in its mercantile capacity, and the same Company in its political
capacity, was dissolved. Even if the Company were permitted, as has been
suggested, to govern India, and at the same time to trade with China,
no advances would be made from the profits of its Chinese trade for
the support of its Indian government. It was in consideration of the
exclusive privilege that the Company had hitherto been required to make
those advances; it was by the exclusive privilege that the Company had
been enabled to make them. When that privilege was taken away, it would
be unreasonable in the legislature to impose such an obligation, and
impossible for the Company to fulfil it. The whole system of loans from
commerce to territory, and repayments from territory to commerce, must
cease. Each party must rest altogether on its own resources. It was
therefore absolutely necessary to ascertain what resources each party
possessed, to bring the long and intricate account between them to a
close, and to assign to each a fair portion of assets and liabilities.
There was vast property. How much of that property was applicable to
purposes of state? How much was applicable to a dividend? There were
debts to the amount of many millions. Which of these were the debts of
the government that ruled at Calcutta? Which of the great mercantile
house that bought tea at Canton? Were the creditors to look to the
land revenues of India for their money? Or, were they entitled to put
executions into the warehouses behind Bishopsgate Street?
There were two ways of settling these questions--adjudication and
compromise. The difficulties of adjudication were great; I think
insuperable. Whatever acuteness and diligence could do has been done.
One person in particular, whose talents and industry peculiarly fitted
him for such investigations, and of whom I can never think without
regret, Mr Hyde Villiers, devoted himself to the examination with an
ardour and a perseverance, which, I believe, shortened a life most
valuable to his country and to his friends. The assistance of the most
skilful accountants has been called in. But the difficulties are such as
no accountant, however skilful, could possibly remove. The difficulties
are not arithmetical, but political. They arise from the constitution
of the Company, from the long and intimate union of the commercial and
imperial characters in one body. Suppose that the treasurer of a charity
were to mix up the money which he receives on account of the charity
with his own private rents and dividends, to pay the whole into his bank
to his own private account, to draw it out again by cheques in exactly
the same form when he wanted it for his private expenses, and when he
wanted it for the purposes of his public trust. Suppose that he were
to continue to act thus till he was himself ignorant whether he were
in advance or in arrear; and suppose that many years after his death a
question were to arise whether his estate were in debt to the charity
or the charity in debt to his estate. Such is the question which is
now before us, with this important difference; that the accounts of an
individual could not be in such a state unless he had been guilty of
fraud, or of that gross negligence which is scarcely less culpable than
fraud, and that the accounts of the Company were brought into this state
by circumstances of a very peculiar kind, by circumstances unparalleled
in the history of the world.
It is a mistake to suppose that the Company was a merely commercial body
till the middle of the last century. Commerce was its chief object; but
in order to enable it to pursue that object, it had been, like the other
Companies which were its rivals, like the Dutch India Company, like the
French India Company, invested from a very early period with political
functions. More than a hundred and twenty years ago, the Company was
in miniature precisely what it now is. It was intrusted with the very
highest prerogatives of sovereignty. It had its forts, and its white
captains, and its black sepoys; it had its civil and criminal tribunals;
it was authorised to proclaim martial law; it sent ambassadors to the
native governments, and concluded treaties with them; it was Zemindar of
several districts, and within those districts, like other Zemindars of
the first class, it exercised the powers of a sovereign, even to the
infliction of capital punishment on the Hindoos within its jurisdiction.
It is incorrect, therefore, to say, that the Company was at first a mere
trader, and has since become a sovereign. It was at first a great trader
and a petty prince. The political functions at first attracted little
notice, because they were merely auxiliary to the commercial functions.
By degrees, however, the political functions became more and more
important. The Zemindar became a great nabob, became sovereign of all
India; the two hundred sepoys became two hundred thousand. This change
was gradually wrought, and was not immediately comprehended. It was
natural that, while the political functions of the Company were merely
auxiliary to its commerce, the political accounts should have been mixed
up with the commercial accounts. It was equally natural that this mode
of keeping accounts, having once been established, should have remained
unaltered; and the more so, as the change in the situation of the
Company, though rapid, was not sudden. It is impossible to name any one
day, or any one year, as the day or the year when the Company became a
great potentate. It has been the fashion indeed to fix on the year 1765,
the year in which the Mogul issued a commission authorising the Company
to administer the revenues of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, as the precise
date of the accession of this singular body to sovereignty. I am utterly
at a loss to understand why this epoch should be selected. Long before
1765 the Company had the reality of political power. Long before that
year, they made a Nabob of Arcot; they made and unmade Nabobs of Bengal;
they humbled the Vizier of Oude; they braved the Emperor of Hindostan
himself; more than half the revenues of Bengal were, under one pretence
or another, administered by them. And after the grant, the Company was
not, in form and name, an independent power. It was merely a minister
of the Court of Delhi. Its coinage bore the name of Shah Alam. The
inscription which, down to the time of the Marquess of Hastings,
appeared on the seal of the Governor-General, declared that great
functionary to be the slave of the Mogul. Even to this day we have never
formally deposed the King of Delhi. The Company contents itself with
being Mayor of the Palace, while the Roi Faineant is suffered to play at
being a sovereign. In fact, it was considered, both by Lord Clive and
by Warren Hastings, as a point of policy to leave the character of
the Company thus undefined, in order that the English might treat the
princes in whose names they governed as realities or nonentities, just
as might be most convenient.
Thus the transformation of the Company from a trading body, which
possessed some sovereign prerogatives for the purposes of trade, into a
sovereign body, the trade of which was auxiliary to its sovereignty, was
effected by degrees and under disguise. It is not strange, therefore,
that the mercantile and political transactions of this great corporation
should be entangled together in inextricable complication. The
commercial investments have been purchased out of the revenues of the
empire. The expenses of war and government have been defrayed out of
the profits of the trade. Commerce and territory have contributed to
the improvement of the same spot of land, to the repairs of the same
building. Securities have been given in precisely the same form for
money which has been borrowed for purposes of State, and for money which
has been borrowed for purposes of traffic. It is easy, indeed,--and this
is a circumstance which has, I think, misled some gentlemen,--it is easy
to see what part of the assets of the Company appears in a commercial
form, and what part appears in a political or territorial form. But
this is not the question. Assets which are commercial in form may
be territorial as respects the right of property; assets which are
territorial in form may be commercial as respects the right of property.
A chest of tea is not necessarily commercial property; it may have
been bought out of the territorial revenue. A fort is not necessarily
territorial property; it may stand on ground which the Company bought a
hundred years ago out of their commercial profits. Adjudication, if by
adjudication be meant decision according to some known rule of law, was
out of the question. To leave matters like these to be determined by the
ordinary maxims of our civil jurisprudence would have been the height of
absurdity and injustice. For example, the home bond debt of the Company,
it is believed, was incurred partly for political and partly for
commercial purposes. But there is no evidence which would enable us to
assign to each branch its proper share. The bonds all run in the same
form; and a court of justice would, therefore, of course, either lay the
whole burthen on the proprietors, or lay the whole on the territory.
We have legal opinions, very respectable legal opinions, to the effect,
that in strictness of law the territory is not responsible, and that the
commercial assets are responsible for every farthing of the debts which
were incurred for the government and defence of India. But though this
may be, and I believe is, law, it is, I am sure, neither reason nor
justice. On the other hand, it is urged by the advocates of the Company,
that some valuable portions of the territory are the property of that
body in its commercial capacity; that Calcutta, for example, is the
private estate of the Company; that the Company holds the island of
Bombay, in free and common socage, as of the Manor of East Greenwich. I
will not pronounce any opinion on these points. I have considered them
enough to see that there is quite difficulty enough in them to exercise
all the ingenuity of all the lawyers in the kingdom for twenty
years. But the fact is, Sir, that the municipal law was not made for
controversies of this description. The existence of such a body as this
gigantic corporation, this political monster of two natures, subject in
one hemisphere, sovereign in another, had never been contemplated by the
legislators or judges of former ages. Nothing but grotesque absurdity
and atrocious injustice could have been the effect, if the claims and
liabilities of such a body had been settled according to the rules of
Westminster Hall, if the maxims of conveyancers had been applied to the
titles by which flourishing cities and provinces are held, or the maxims
of the law merchant to those promissory notes which are the securities
for a great National Debt, raised for the purpose of exterminating the
Pindarrees and humbling the Burmese.