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CONSIDERATIONS ON THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S MONOPOLY.*

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THE first duty of a Government, the sole end and object for which it exists, is the promotion of the happiness of its people: and this sacred duty is not less imperative towards the inhabitants of its distant colonies, than toward those at home. It is true, that mere distance, as well as many other circumstances incidental to their dependent situation, will render it difficult, if not impossible, to exercise an equally efficient superintendence over these distant regions but this difficulty ought to make a government more vigilant, and more earnestly bent to neglect no means of contributing to the welfare of these its comparatively helpless subjects. Have we applied this principle to the government of British India? When we reflect on what Englishmen have effected in almost every country under their dominion or their influence ;-when we consider our own unequalled progress in science, arts, arms,-in everything comprised in the term European Civilization;'-when we look to North America, and there behold the most splendid instance of rapid advancement in national prosperity that perhaps the world ever saw, all of it derived from English Institutions, carried into practice by the descendants of Englishmen, we may justly congratulate ourselves on belonging to the most energetic race of men upon the face of the earth; and we might be tempted to conclude, that the same happy consequences would result from the beneficent enterprise of Britons, wheresoever they might plant the national standard.

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If, full of these sanguine anticipations, we turn our eyes to British India, how will our hopes be answered? We have had a great Chartered Company trading to that Country for two hundred and thirty years. During that time, our territorial acquisitions have been almost continually increasing, until we at present hold an immense extent of fertile territory, with a population estimated at above a hundred millions. What have we imparted to them? The arts, the institutions, the condition of the people remain, with a few trifling exceptions, in the same state of inferiority, compared with the European standard, in which we found them. We have done so little to improve the country, or to change the aspect of society, that, except in the immediate vicinity of the Presidencies, there is scarcely a road or a bridge in the whole Peninsula; and it is very nearly as true at this day, as when it was said forty-five years ago by Mr. Burke,-that, if we were now to be expelled, there would, in the course of a few years, be scarcely a vestige remaining by which it might be known that the country had been possessed during so long a period by a European Power.* To

* From a Correspondent of the Bristol Mercury.

It is painful to me to think how few relics, if the English were now

what, is a result like this-so different, so opposite to the usual effects of English enterprise, to be attributed? To the East India Company's exclusive privileges :-in one word, to MONOPOLY ! The Honourable Company, in their absurd jealousy of their own power and privileges, have not only carefully excluded the competition of other Europeans from the external and internal commerce of India; but they have so fettered both these branches of trade with their monopolies and mischievous restrictions, as to have kept the productive, and consequently the consuming powers of the country for many years in a stationary, if not a declining condition. They have thus chosen to forego an immense amount of trade, lest others should share it with them. They would not enter into the field of open commerce themselves, and those that would, they hindered. The religious and social systems of our Eastern fellowsubjects, place considerable impediments in the way of their intercourse with us; and this circumstance, instead of being regarded as an inducement for affording the utmost possible facilities of communication, has been perversely urged as a reason for our imitating that unsocial policy, and thus depriving ourselves of the means of removing their prejudices, and of promoting an improvement in their character and condition, not less beneficial to them than advantageous to ourselves.

British India contains about fifteen millions of Mahomedans. The bigoted contempt and abhorrence which the professors of this faith entertain towards Christians, is too well known to need to be insisted on. Their civilization however, (deplorably low as it is, when compared with the standard of Europe) is yet very much superior to that of the Hindoos, whom they also greatly surpass in energy of character. The difference of the two races, in these respects, is strongly exemplified by the fact, that this extensive Country was over-run, conquered, and kept in subjection by a comparatively insignificant number of Mahomedans; and that during the seven hundred years that the dominion lasted, the Hindoos have scarcely ever rebelled, or successfully resisted. The latter, however, are a civilized race. Their civilization may be of the lowest, and least beneficial type; but so far as the word means the reclaiming of men from the wild independence of savage life, and subjecting them to the conventional restraints of artificial society, they are civilized. The religious System of the Hindoos, the horrors and abominations of which will be recalled to the recollection of all who have ever heard of Juggernaut, is burthened with an incredible number of frivolous, absurd, and even disgusting observances, which intrude into almost every action of life. Imaginary offences against a capricious code, like this, must be

expelled from India, would be left behind of their religion, their power, or their civil and military magnificence.'-Bishop Heber, vol. iii. p. 91. (8vo edition).

almost continual; and, as such offences can be expiated only under the direction of their corrupt Priesthood, the necessary consequence is, the most utter and slavish prostration of the understanding. A system thus mischievously overloaded with ceremonies, never fails to become a substitute, instead of a support, to morality; and when such a state of things has subsisted (as among the Hindoos) for thousands of years, the most deplorably degraded condition of the national understanding and morals is the inevitable result. The well known institution of caste, which divides the population into the four great classes of priests, soldiers, merchants, and husbandmen, with their almost endless divisions and subdivisions, not only weakens their mutual sympathy, and power of co-operation, but implants instead, the most irrational and insuperable antipathies. A people thus superlatively superstitious, immoral, and disunited, must needs be in the lowest state of civil and political weakness; and, accordingly, from the earliest notices of this race, the despotism of their rulers has been the most unbounded; the submissiveness of the people, the most abject: and the nation more easily conquered and kept in subjection, than perhaps any other within the records of history.

Independently of the commercial, financial, and political advantages, which would necessarily accompany the improvement of their condition, one would think that no nation, calling itself either civilized or Christian, would have endured that any obstacle should be thrown in the way of the benevolent endeavours of individuals, to raise so large a number of their fellow-subjects, from such a dreadful depth of moral and religious degradation. How stands the fact? The Company, notwithstanding its own daring and wanton disregard of the most powerful and deeply rooted of all the superstitions of the Hindoos, (that respecting the sacredness of the life of a Bramin,) affected to feel so much alarm, lest the imprudence of the Missionaries should offend the prejudices of the Natives, that they not only forced the Baptist Missionaries to quit their territories, but applied to the Governor of the Danish Settlement at Serampore, in which they had taken refuge, to give them up; and it is to the virtuous firmness of that gentleman, in declaring that he would surrender them only to force, that their continuance in India is to be ascribed.

India is in many parts an extremely fertile country, and, in many, is densely peopled; but it is very deficient in capital. There are many wealthy individuals even among the Natives; but their number is small, compared with the population, the bulk of of which is in the lowest state of poverty known to exist in any country bearing a claim to the title of civilized. Englishmen are not allowed to settle, and exert their means and skill in the improvement of the agriculture and manufactures of the country; and there are many circumstances tending to produce so general a feeling of insecurity, as to prevent the investment of any con

siderable amount of Native capital in extensive or durable undertakings. Most of these circumstances lie at the door of the Honourable Company. One of them (and it is only one out of a long and frightful catalogue) is this:-the Company claim to be the universal landlords of the territories under their dominion, and exercise, what must appear, according to European notions, the monstrous extortion of squeezing out of their wretched subjects the whole annual rental of the land, as one branch of their revenue. In Bengal, Bahar, and Oressa, this land-revenue was fixed by Lord Cornwallis at nine-tenths of the actual rent, the remaining tenth being left to the Zemindar (or nominal landlord) as his recompense for the trouble of collecting, for superintendence, and some other services. The security afforded by even this settlement, has proved on the whole so far beneficial that the provinces, to which it applies, are less badly cultivated and less unprosperous than the other parts of the Company's territories. But the Company look with such jealous and greedy eyes on the comparative prosperity which their inordinate taxation has permitted to these provinces, that pretexts have been found, in many instances, for disputing the settlement; and accordingly, both zemindars, and ryots, or cultivators, have been reduced, in great numbers, to distress and utter ruin. If a similar arrangement were extended to their other provinces, the annual produce would, without doubt, be greatly increased. But this would not satisfy the cupidity of the Company; the object of any such settlement being to fix the total amount of the land-revenue, they would necessarily be precluded, by the terms of such an arrangement, from claiming the increase. On this account, although they have repeatedly and solemnly promised to grant a settlement to their other provinces, they have never been able to prevail upon themselves to do so; * and, in these provinces, they have a number of Europeans, and a swarm of Native agents, constantly employed in annually estimating the produce of the different districts, and taxing them accordingly.` Under a system like this, where every improvement would subject the miserable cultivator to an exaction, little or nothing short of the whole annual value of that improvement, it is obviously impossible that any considerable progress can be made; yet the Honourable Company choose to keep their fertile provinces in a comparatively unproductive state, and their subjects in hopeless poverty and depression, as well as to break their own solemnly pledged word, rather than suffer any advancement in prosperity, the whole annual value of which should not find its way into their coffers. It should be observed, too, that their duties on the transit of goods are very heavy; and that the refusal of the settlement, by preventing the increase of produce, prevents also the increase of the revenue from transit dues.

With all this cruel and enormous taxation, their revenue falls far

* It has totally and irremediably failed.-ED.

short of their expenditure; and hence the alarmingly rapid increase of the Company's debt, from seven millions in the year 1793, to forty-two millions in 1826. Such is Monopoly! It is impossible to go into any detail respecting the various oppressions and grinding monopolies, exercised under the sanction of the Company's authority, on the people of this devoted country: I will therefore only name the monopolies of silk, of opium, and, above all, of salt; the irregularities, frauds, and oppressions, in the collection of the different branches of the revenues; and the extreme difficulty of obtaining redress, from the state of the administration of justice, which, chiefly from the irreconcileable unfitness of English law, especially of the system of procedure to the circumstances of the Hindoos, is frequently a source of oppression and misery, equal to all the foregoing causes united.

When all these things are considered, no one who reflects for a moment will be surprised that all improvement is nearly at a stand; and that the processes of agriculture, and of the preparation of the produce of the soil for market, are in the same rude state in which they existed hundreds of years ago. He will be rather disposed to wonder at the power of endurance, at the vitality, which enable human society, under such circumstances, to exist at all. A full account of the sufferings of the people of British India, arising from the sources which we have barely indicated, would literally require volumes. But lest we should be suspected of having spoken of them in terms stronger than the facts of the case require or warrant, we must beg leave to refer the reader to Mr. Mill's History of British India. In the composition of this work, the author has availed himself of the Records of the Councils in India; of their correspondence with one another, with their servants, and with the constituted authorities in England; all which have been brought forth by the fortunate publicity of parliamentry proceedings; so that his statements have the strongest possible claims to confidence. Considering the fearless impartiality with which he has executed this most masterly work, it is an extraordinary circumstance, that he holds an important situation in the India House. We cannot forbear to recommend this book to the attentive perusal of every one, who wishes either to make himself acquainted with the subject under discussion, or who feels an interest in the promotion of good government, as one of the most important of the means toward the improvement and well-being of the human race.

As one of the first steps toward raising the condition of the people of India, it is necessary to wrest from the Company, the power of exercising such hideous oppression. But to excite their emulation and their industry; to raise them from the state of torpor into which they have been plunged, by centuries of moral and political debasement: nothing seems to offer itself, as SO

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