§ Mr. T. Jonesasked, if there had been an adjustment of the sum of 2,672,440l. thus described, and in a paper moved for by him in 1801: "By what due from government for stores and supplies for his maesty's troops, &c. &c."
Lord Morpethreplied, that this account, blended with another, amounting to nearly 4 millions, was in a way of settlement, and some part of it had been allowed.
§ Mr. T. Jonesthen asked, how much of the 500,000l. per annum, as settled by the charter bill of 1793, had been paid by the Company to the public.
§ Dr. Laurencespoke to order. He thought it contrary to the rules of the house, that, when the question for their determination was only respecting a single year, any member should think himself at liberty to ask all manner of questions. When the debate was disposed of, he certainly might find opportunities enough of asking the noble lord any questions he might think proper.
§ Mr. Hobhouse(the chairman of the committee) considered that it was the custom upon India budgets, for the member who brought them forward, to take a very wide range into the general situation of the affairs of India, preparatory to moving his first resolution; and that, therefore, it was allowed to other members, to take a considerable latitude in speaking upon that question. As to the right of asking questions, he believed the rule was this: every member had a right to put questions; but the person to whom they were put, might answer them, or not, as he thought proper.
§ Mr. T. Jonessaid that, if the learned 1195 doctor wished to make a speech upon the subject himself, he should sit down with pleasure. He was prepared to meet him on every point which he had stated; and, the learned doctor was so famous for brevity, the house would, no doubt, be very much delighted with hearing him. If this was not the proper time to put his question, he should take another opportunity.
§ Dr. Laurencesaid, he might take whatever opportunity he pleased; and he need not expect that he would meet him on any of his points.
§ Mr. Paullsaid, that having, last February, found himself under the necessity, from a paramount sense of duty, of calling the attention of the house and the public, to the state of the Finances of India; and, as sentiments, on that important topic, were now before the house, in the form of a specific charge, he would forbear, on the present occasion, from entering fully into the subject; though the hon. general (sir A. Wellesley), and the noble lord (Castlereagh), had given ample room for discussion, by statements the most fallacious eve produced to any reasoning assembly; but, said the hon. gent., to refute such statements is the less necessary, as the noble lord, who brought forward the business had done ample justice to his (Mr. Paull's) sentiments, and had confirmed every assertion he had ever made on the melancholy state of India, rendered still more melancholy and desperate, by the immense sums shortly to be provided for in that unhappy country.—The hon. gent. paid the noble lord (Morpeth) some well-merited compliments, for the honest, honourable, and fair manner, in which he had brought forward the Budget: he had scorned deception; and his candour was as conspicuous as his talents were acknowledged. The noble lord had given the only fair statement that had been exhibited of the Finances of India for upwards of 20 years; and, for the whole of his conduct, he merited the thanks of every man in the kingdom. The noble lord had looked the prospect, dark and gloomy as it was, boldly and fairly in the face; and had scorned to delude the house with promises that were never to be fulfilled, and prospects of prosperity that never were to be realized. But, said Mr. Paull, the noble lord has still, Most unintentionally, omitted some most important items. On his own shewing, including the defalcations in the ceded provinces, the actual deficit, even on san- 1196 guine estimates, exceeds 3 millions sterl., the deficit, in the course of the next year, 1807, cannot be less; and, added to these two sums, making 6 millions, the decennial loan, amounting to 3½ millions; and two other loans, contracted for two years, at 10 and 12 per cent., and amounting to nearly a million, all become payable in 1808; so that, in that year, even taking the most favourable circumstances into account, the debt will be increased nearly 9 millions, and that in the 16th year of the Company's charter; and where is the man sanguine enough to say, that we shall then be on the peace establishment? But the fact is, we can have no peace establishment; from Cape Comorin, to beyond the walls of Delhi, our troops must be kept up, and scattered, to keep our subjests in awe, even if we have no enemy to contend with. An hon. gent. (Mr. Johnstone) has indulged himself, lately, in making frequent attacks on his majesty's ministers, for the removal of sir G. Barlow. Would that, instead, he had turned his attention to the state of the Finances of India, which no man knew better than he did; and had fairly and candidly admitted, that to measures acquiesced in by sir G. Barlow, for 8 years criminally acquiesced in, was to be attributed the present deplorable state of the East-India Company! As to the removal of sir G. Barlow, the hon. gent. can hardly be serious in his loud complaints on that subject; no man, either in India or in Europe, ever looked to sir G. Barlow's being permanent governor-general. The hon. gent. himself never could have imagined it even probable, that sir George would be allowed to continue; for he must know, that sir George, though an excellent revenue officer, had none of the qualities to fit him for governor-general; and that, to insure the respect of the foreign courts, a nobleman from England was in-dispensible for the good government of India. The hon. gent. had indulged in these attacks, from his hostility to ministers; and had neglected ever looking into the accounts which, perhaps wisely, he had not even touched upon, although the only subject regularly before, the house.—This, Mr. Paull said, he the more deplored, as no man in England understood the real situation of the Company better than the hon. gent. Mr. Paull concluded with again sincerely thanking the noble lord (Morpeth) for his clear, able, honest, and candid statement; and was sure, his lordship 1197 would feel that, by the line he had adopted, he had justly raised himself in the opinion of every honest man in the kingdom.
§ Mr. T. Joneshoped, that he should not be thought pertinacious; but he trusted, he should be allowed to make a few observations, as he stood pledged, in some degree, to the house, on this subject. He had, in 1801, stated, that the debt of the Company was 20 millions. This had now clearly turned out to be the fact. He had then met with a great deal of opprobrium, and was asked to have patience. He had had patience; and the result was, that the Company, as had been stated by an hon. Alderman (Prinsep), was on the eve of bankruptcy; and that their debt was nearer 40 millions than 30. He was, therefore, fully justified in what he had said; and the persons at the India board, whether they were called comptrollers or any thing else, would soon, it appeared, be only the assignees of bankrupts.
§ Mr. Johnstonesaid, that there was no danger of a bankruptcy. He would not enter upon the particulars of the accounts, however, as it was painful to him to look at the situation of the Company. But that situation was still not so gloomy as had been represented by the hon. gent. As to the loans, he hoped the persons who held them would renew their engagements. But he deprecated the transferring them to this country; and warned the directors, not to ask such a thing of parliament, for the minister of the day would be strongly tempted to grasp at a share of the patronage, which would be dangerous to the liberties of this country. He begged the house to consider, what would be the consequence of a patronage over 3,000,000l. sterling, in addition to what was already possessed by the government. Any inconvenience of trade was better than that the minister should acquire such an extraordinary power. He meant this as no particular reflection, but mentioned it as applying to any minister. As to the case of sir G. Barlow, his opinion was unaltered. Even though what the hon. gent. (Mr. Paull) had said should be correct, still his observations were proper. Ministers had gratuitously appointed him, on the 26th of February, and removed him 14 days after. Now, why was he appointed at all, if it was in contemplation to remove him so soon? All the powers of governor-general would have remained with him, by devolution, till the appointment of a suc- 1198 cessor, except the power of exercising the highest functions of the office without the consent of the council—a power so extraordinary, that it had never been exercised. The charge, therefore, remained in full force.
§ Sir A. Wellesleyconsidered the bon. member (Mr. Paull) was completely wrong, in supposing, that so large a sum as 10 millions was to be due in 1807. He shewed, from a variety of calculations, that the greater part of this sum would not be due until the years 1809 and 1810. If there was a large floating debt at the end of the war, there were, also, floating securities in the hands of the Company, which balanced it. He denied, that the loans in India had been contracted for on such unfavourable terms as the hon. gent. had represented.
§ Mr. Paullsaid, that the reason that the loan appeared to be contracted on better terms in India than it really was, was, because above two-thirds of it was contracted at Lucknow and Benares, where the value of the rupee was considerably less than the Calcutta rupee. The interest of the debt being paid in Calcutta rupees, and the principal contracted in the rupees of Lucknow and Benares, it made the real interest from 12 to 14 per cent., instead of 8. He contended, that the Company actually owed 6 millions to the country, on account of the 12 years arrears of the half million annually; for which consideration their charter was renewed. India had, ever since, been a drain to this country, both in men and money; and not a single advantage had been derived from the possession. He was sure that, at the time the charter was last renewed, no one had the most distant idea, that it would ever be renewed again, except on terms much more advantageous; but, if they could not pay half a million, they could not pay more, and Great Britain would be the only country prohibited from trading to India, and this without any sort of consideration.
Mr. Grant ,in general, vindicated the accounts which he had brought forward on the second night, see p. 1153. With respect to the amount of the Indian Debt, he continued of opinion, that considerable arrears of the expences of the two wars, in which we had recently been engaged, remained still to be brought to account. The experience of former wars, carried on upon a less extensive scale, justified this opinion; and he was, upon the whole, persuaded, that it was reasonable to estimate the Debt, on 1199 the 30th of April, 1806, at 30 millions sterling, after allowing for the purchases made by the Sinking Fund. As to the Sinking Fund, he had admitted it to have aided in improving the credit of the Company's paper; but maintained, still, that the establishment of that scheme, constituted as the fund was, circumstanced as were the affairs of the Company, and pledged as the Company were, to apply every valuable surplus of their revenues to the discharge of Debt, was liable to objections which outweighed any incidental benefit resulting from it. That no considerable part of the Indian Debt was to be charged to the commerce of the Company, he contended to be satisfactorily proved by the documents he bad adduced on a former night; documents framed with great care, by the able officers of the India-house, and founded on fuller and more accurate materials, than those statements could well be, with which the hon. general had been furnished, and which had, by him, been quoted to the house. How to account for the great difference between the hon. general's statements and his, he was at a loss, unless the hon, general had omitted to give credit for bills drawn on England on account of Debt, on a supposition, that the payment of debt not contracted by lord Wellesley, ought not to be charged in the accounts of his administration; but the omission would not be warranted on this ground, because, in the question of accounts between India and England, the only fair way was, to charge all that was paid, and credit all that was received. The hon. general said, the bills drawn for the payment of Debt had been credited for; but admitted, that his statements did not give credit for the political charges defrayed by the Company in England; which, with the other payments made there on account of the territorial possessions, would, in a great degree, account for the balance which the hon. general thought chargeable to the commerce. At the same times, Mr. Grant expressed his willingness, that a very strict scrutiny should be made into the state of account between the revenue and the commerce, as far as it was possible to separate them, in order that this question might be determined and set at rest—As to the prospect of future revenue and savings, which the hon. general bad stated, and which another hon. gent. (Mr. Keene) carried much higher, Mr. Grant observed, that taking credit for future expectations was not the most satis- 1200 factory way of compensating for the past. Hitherto, the recently-conquered provinces were not even estimated to produce beyond trifle more than the disbursements incurred on account of them;—provinces which had cost so much blood and treasure in the acquisition. Calculations founded on future receipts of revenue must be liable to uncertainty; and the surest dependence was, that of retrenching expence.
§ Mr. T. Jonessaid, that his object, in interrogating the noble lord (Morpeth) was, to save his trouble, and that of the house; but, more particularly that of the noble lord, who had given a fair and accurate, however to be lamented, Budget, and was now sitting to hear the third discussion on it, left quite alone, both. by his majesty's ministers, and such directors of the East-India Company as were members of parliament: that, by getting answers to his questions, he should see what alteration, for the better or worse, had taken place since his speech and statement, delivered in that house, June 25, 1802, thereon. But, however, as he did not wish to be pertinacious, as to putting questions, he should state facts: Now, in 1800, up to the 30th of April, the India Debt was 20 millions. Out of the 6,000,000l. due on the charter; only 500,000l. had been paid; so that 5,500,000l. remained due to the public. In 1801, the hon. gent. said, he had stated the East-India Company to be on the eve of bankruptcy. In 1806, he was borne out by the uncontradicted assertion of a worthy alderman (Prinsep), that it was in a state of insolvency. The difference between insolvency and bankruptcy was a distinction without a difference, and not to be argued; and, therefore, he said, instead of the eve of bankruptcy, he considered the Company in a positive state of bankruptcy; and soon, very soon, the noble lord and his colleagues, instead of being "comptrollers," would be "assignees," under a commission of bankruptcy.
§ Mr. H. Martincommented on the construction of the act by which the Company held their charter; and said, that it clearly appeared from it, that when the Company were in straitened circumstances, the payment was only suspended, and they now were debtors to the public for 6 millions. The only excuse must be, their inability to pay; and he hardly thought that this excuse would be resorted to, as it would amount to a confession, that they had been insolvent ever since the year 1793.
Mr. Hudlestortrose and said:—Sir, the strictures which an hon. member opposite (Mr. T. Jones) has been pleased to address to me on the conduct of some of my colleagues for their absence from the house on this occasion, it is not difficult to answer. My colleagues, sir, have been occupied to day for 7 or 8 hours by very important public duties in another place. They know also that the statements before the house contain full and accurate information relative to the finances of the East India Company; and they were aware that whatever further explanation might be required, no one is more able to give than my hon. friend, the late chairman, who would, in all probability, he present in his place at this discussion. For my own part, sir, I confess I came down to the house for the purpose of offering some observations on the speech of au hon. alderman (Prinsep) who the other evening entered so largely into the subject of the Company's commerce, and with views so obvious respecting it; and on part of the speech of the noble lord who so ably followed him, and I shall now endeavour to submit those observations to the house. With respect to the facts assumed by the worthy alderman, it is not necessary to dispute them. Without stopping to enquire into their validity, it may be sufficient to examine the structure he would build upon them in a fair comparison with that which he would overthrow. Such an examination, I am confident the hon. alderman can never have made, for, if he had, it would have enabled him to take a more enlarged view of the subject, and convinced him that the view he had before taken of it was narrow and fallacious. Hitherto the hon. alderman seems to have looked at the commerce of the East India Company through a peculiar sort of glass, which has possessed the property of hiding all its great and leading features, and all the benefits which it diffuses. The loss which he supposes the Company to sustain by their trade forms the grand foundation of his argument, to that point therefore I shall immediately direct my attention, by claiming of him what I am sure his candour will readily admit, namely, that the loss is principally, if not entirely, confined to the exports. I shall then remind the worthy alderman, and solicit the attention of the committee, to the momentous fact, that from the provision of those exports many thousands of the community derive their subsistence, and 1202 are enabled by it to contribute their proportion of the public burthens, instead of being themselves burthens on the state. To illustrate this, I will take that article of the Company's exports on which the ascertained loss comprises a very great part of the guilt which the alderman charges to the whole of their commerce—I mean the article of woollens; and to what is it owing that the Company sustain that loss? Why, literally, sir, to their consulting the public interests in preference to their own—to their exporting annually woollens to the enormous amount of 1,300,000l. by which the Company sustain very great loss, but the public gain in a still greater proportion; for the provision of those woollens gives employment to more than 40,000 persons: And until lately this was not all, for the Company virtually paid a penalty for rendering this benefit to the state, in the shape of a duty of 4l. per cent. which was afterwards increased to 5l per cent. and amounted annually to upwards of 50,000l. Even before that duty was imposed, it was a losing trade. We know, that in the last 4 years, the loss on the woollens sent to China alone exceeded 100,000l. in each year; and from the progressive advance in the price of labour, and of the raw material, both native and foreign, this loss is increasing; for time China trade differs from all others in this essential respect, that the China merchants themselves fix the prices, and the same that were fixed many Nears ago still continue, notwithstanding the advance in the cost of the woollens here. Two points, then, are clear; 1st, that nothing but a disposition to promote the manufacturing interests of this country in preference to their own, could induce the East India Company to export woollens to such an extent; for in respect to China they could obtain a more favourable remittance in silver; and 2d1y, that were the Company to seek other modes of remittance, the consequences would be dreadful to the manufacturing and the labouring poor in the counties of Gloncester, Devon, Somerset, and Cornwall, and in the city of Norwich; it would also operate the ruin of several extensive establishments in this metropolis, and deprive more than 700 persons of a respectable subsistence which they now derive from the East India Company. Now, sir, I think I have a right to ask the hon. alderman whether his trade, or that to which he is partial, could bear this loss, or afford to the public this 1203 benefit. Perhaps he will the goodness to inform the committee of the quantity of woollens annually exported to India by trader, or the aggregate of the quantity exported by all of them. I have stated only the benefit which the public derive from one article in one branch, of the Company's commerce; but, if the worthy alderman would take that view of the commerce of the East India Company, which I have been accustomed to take of it, it would appear to him as a vast edifice, erected on a solid foundation, which for ages withstood the fury of the elements, and given shelter to millions of people, which through every vicissitude has been the firm and constant friend, as well as child, of the state, and made an ample return for the uniform protection it received. In the provision of a single article, as I have just stated, it gives employment to 40,000 persons. The exchequer derives from it annually three millions sterling duties and customs. It employs about. 10,000 British seamen, and thus nourishes for the state a great portion of that force on which its safety essentially depends. It assisted in acquiring, and has assisted in preserving, our dominion in India. At a memorable and Critical era, the enemy's squadron was totally defeated in the Ganges by the ships of the East Company—an event that materially contributed to lay the foundation of all our subsequent greatness. On various occasions since, they have assisted in fighting the battles of the state, and particularly off Pondichery, in October, 1778, two of our Indiamen shared in the glory of forcing the French squadron to leave that fortress to its fate. I am sure the committee must anticipate my alluding to a more recent event in the China seas, in which the ships of the East India Company under the brave and able conduct of their commanders, furnished an argument in favor of the Company's commerce that will not soon be forgotten, and at this moment it will not be denied that the commerce of the East India Company supplies no inconsiderable portion of the force destined for the defence of this Capital in case of invasion.—sir, the list of his majesty's navy bears testimony in favour of the commerce of the East India Company. And need I ask if the utility of this commerce is to be judged of by the balance of the head of profit and loss in the ledger? or if it be any reproach to tins commerce that all which I have stated has not been 1204 accomplished without the aid of the Indian revenue? certainly I am not prepared to say that the Company's commerce could go on without that aid, on tie contrary I believe the commerce and the revenue to be necessary to each other, and their continued union to be essential to the vital interests of the state. Some years ago the worthy alderman and his friends brought forward another, and very captivating argument, against the Company's commerce, and in favour of their own, but I know not if he has recurred to it on this occasion, not having been able to get down to the house the other evening until he had made considerable progress in his speech, viz. the idea of bringing all the trade of India to the river Thames, and making London the grand emporium of Asiatic commerce. This was certainly a magnificent project, and only two objections weigh with me against it. First, that it is impracticable; and secondly, that if practicable, it would be unwise to effect it. Most of the maritime powers of Europe possess, or on the return of peace will probably again possess, ports and commercial factories in India. On the coast of Malabar, and from Cape Comorin to the Ganges, are those of the French, Dutch, Danes, and Portuguese, who are all as sensible of the Value of a trade with India as we are, and their merchants as eager in the pursuit of gain, only less enterprizing than ours. Is there then any rational hope that we can exclude foreigners from tins trade, or prevail on them to relinquish it, and consent to receive the produce of India only through the port of London? But I have said that, if practicable, it would not be wise to effect it, mid here I would entreat of the worthy alderman to forget for moment his commercial character, and to consider this point only as a member of the state, and when in that capacity he shall have weighed it maturely, combining with it our present situation, and acquisitions in India, I would ask him, if no considerations occur to his mind as adverse to our obtaining for ourselves so invidious a preference? I would beg of him to state how much he thinks we can afford to lose of the reputation we possess with foreign powers for moderation and liberality in what relates to our commercial, and naval interests, and preeminence. — Sir, there is one other consideration which I shall merely glance at: some persons I know are not sufficiently aware of its importance, but no reflecting mind not warped by views of private or pecuniary interest, will over- 1205 look it, or deem it visionary: it applies equally to the system of Indian commerce favoured by the worthy alderman, and to the late system of conquest and extension of territory in India. At present I shall confine myself to the former. The system desired by the worthy alderman, would substitute in the Indian trade, ships built in India for ships built in England; Teak ships for Oak; the Lascar, or Indian sailor for the British tar; mid the Ganges for the Thames. The home of his trade is India and it would sot m make India the home of thousands of artificers, agents, and adventurers of all descriptions. At every out-port and subordinate factory, there would be a European public, and in the space of 60 or 70 years the number of Europeans in India, would exceed the number of British Americans in north America when that country declared its independence. Can there be any doubt then of the direct tendency of such a system, if established in regions so munch more distant from the mother country? The opinion entertained on this subject by a late truly illustrious person—illustrious for his virtues even more than for his services, may be collected from the following short passage in one of his letters dated in November 1794; "I am strongly impressed with a conviction that it will be of essential importance to the interests of Britain that Europeans should be discouraged, and prevented as much as possible, from colonizing, and settling in our possessions in India." Whether the utmost human wisdom can do more than delay the event against which the noble marquis meant to guard, is a question beyond our reach; but it requires no gift of prophecy to be able to pronounce with conscious certainty, that the laying open the trade to the public would accelerate it by at least half a century, and under that conviction, I should have felt it my duty to submit to the committee these observations on the speech of the hon. alderman, even if there had been no other objection to the system which it is his object to recommend, and without alluding to au argument that I am sure would of itself be sufficient to secure its rejection, viz. the injustice it would operate on the East India Company; but if I differ from the worthy alderman in almost all his deductions, and inferences, from the facts he laid down, I am as little able to concur with the noble lord who followed him in the debate, I mean in his limited view of the existing evils, and his mode of accounting for 1206 the vast increase of our Indian debt, and the sole remedy which he has suggested for the consideration of the committee. The noble lord seems consider our present financial difficulties as the only evil we have to overcome, and war as the only cause, and the remedies he proposes are of course equally confined; whereas, in my view of our present situation in India, were our debt to be this moment extinguished, very serous evils would still remain; but, even adopting the-noble lord's view of the subject, and supposing it only necessary at present to advert to the immediate cause, or causes of the deranged state of our finances in India, it would still be impossible for me to acquiesce in the noble lord's statement of 13 years of war as the cause of that derangement. Two years ago I heard a similar argument from the right hon. gent. whose loss is so justly deplored, and I heard it then with equal surprize; because I well knew that during 5 or 6 of the 10 years which he spoke of, the continent of India had not been in a state of war, and that correctly speaking the war in India commenced in 1798, after the arrival of marquis Wellesley. The noble lord I am sure had too much candour to contend, that the march of a detachment to take possession of Pondicherry, where there was not a shot fired, nor an enemy capable of making the least resistance constituted war in the only sense in which the argument could apply. Several other expeditions were projected, in which the East India Company had no more interest than any other corporate body: such expenditions indeed, by withdrawing their troops from the continent of India, and carrying them to unhealthy climes, are worse then useless to the Company; they occasioned however a large expenditure, for the whole amount of which the Company have a just claim on government, as I shall at all times be prepared to prove, but amount, large as it is, forms but a small part of the enormous increase in our Indian expenditure and debt.—The peace of Seringapatam concluded with Tippoo Saultaun by lord Cornwallis, was signed the beginning of March 1792, and from the period till the year 1798, the peninsula of India was undisturbed by war; but when the noble lord spoke of 13 years if war, as if Indian debt had been progressively encreasing each of those years, he must have, forgotten the decisive fact, that, in 2 of the first 6 years, the Indian debt, instead of encreasing, diminished; viz. that in 1794, it 1207 was less by upwards 700,000l. than in 1793; and in 1795, upwards of 500,000l. less than in 1794, and that in 1796, tho' a little more than in 1795 the debt was still nearly 900,000l. less than in 1793, when, as is well known to the noble lord, its amount was 8 millions; from that year (1793) to 1798, the increase was only 3 millions; it then we suppose with the noble lord, that the 5 intervening years were years of war, what does that fact express with regard to the expenditure of the succeeding 7 years; viz. from 1798 to 1805; during which, according to the estimate on the table, the Indian debt has accumulated from 11 millions to 26½ millions? for although the noble lord spoke of 13 years, which must include the present year,I imagine his meaning went to no later period than to April 1805, which is the latest to which the usual estimate of the Indian debt is brought up but if the noble lord wishes to bring it up to the present time, I fear several millions must be added to that estimate. The committee will judge therefore whether the present embarrassed state of the Company's finances can with accuracy be ascribed to 13 years of war, and it is at least highly important and just that the committee should be aware, that of the 18½ millions added to the Indian debt since the year 1793, three millions only, were contracted before the year 1798.—That this enormous increase in the Indian debt has been principally occasioned by the late war in India, there can he no doubt, but it war alone could produce so great a change in the state of our finances, what would have been our situation after the war which began in 1779, and ended in 1784, in which we had to contend in India with the French and the Dutch, the Marattas and Hyder Ally? between which too and the late war there was this striking difference, viz. that our own districts were the seat of war, and by far the greater part of the Carnatic for a considerable time in the possession of the enemy; yet, at the conclusion of that war, the Company's debt in India, I believe, amounted only to 6 or 7 millions. Whereas the late war in India was carried on in the territories of the enemy, and our own felt none of its calamities, except that during a few weeks an adventurer, named Dundeah, committed depredations in shore of the Mysore districts. This is well known to the hon. general opposite (sir Arthur Wellesley) who himself so ably conducted the war in the Deckan, and to whose military prowess is most 1208 essentially to he attributed its successful issue, and its not having been carried into our own districts. Doubtless there are expences incident to a state of war, although the troops may not be actually in the field; and the war in Europe by giving birth to the maritime expeditions I have alluded to, contributed essentially to the reduction of the surplus revenue; but it made no other very considerable addition to our Indian expenditure, for, owing to the vigilance of government, and the vast superiority of our navy, not a French soldier landed in India. If then I were to he asked, to what causes the present state of our finances in India were to be attributed, I should answer, that they might be traced to a system of policy which sought the aggrandisement and extention of the British empire and influence in India, through the medium of what is called the system of subsidiary alliances, or the bringing all the native states into subjection to, or dependence on the British power, by means of large bodies of troops stationed in their respective capitals, with agents or ministers, on the part of the Company, to watch and direct their political conduct. This system became the fruitful parent of an extended war, on an extended scale of expence, and a corresponding system of finance and general expenditure; in both of which economy was overlooked, or perhaps did not seem necessary; for one of the effects of this system was a vast nominal increase of revenue by the necessity of exacting from each native prince a subsidy for defraying the expence of the troops stationed in his capital. These subsidies, whether in money, or commuted for an equivalent in territory, occasioned a great apparent increase of revenue, and every extention of our territory or revenue being supposed to bring with it a proportionate extention of our means of paying, produced a real alteration in the scale of ideas and expectations, and unfortunately the increased expenditure by new establishments, and new or augmented salaries and allowances, not being made conditional, or dependent on the continuance of a surplus revenue, remained after the surplus had ceased to exist. Such I believe to have been, in abstract, the combined causes of the present embarrassed state of our finances in India; hut, do I therefore concur in the position which the hon. alderman has so industriously laboured to impress upon the committee, namely, that the East India Company is insolvent? No, sir, I deny that the Company is insolvent, or that our present pecu- 1209 niary difficulties will make us so, unless we continue in the course which has brought them upon us. How then are our finances to be retrieved, and what is to be done? Why, sir, if there is a determined disposition to retrieve them on both sides the Atlantic, they may and will be retrieved by measuring back our steps to those systems, both political and financial, from which we ought never to have departed; in a word, the system and principles of Cornwallis; by disavowing all views of extending our dominion and influence in India, and in proof of the sincerity of the disavowal, relinquishing the acquisitions both in territory and alliances, which have been made under them; and lastly, by contracting the number of our vast and expensive establishments, and the scale of those which it may be necessary to continue. The work, both in respect to policy and finance, we have reason to believe is already begun, and if persevered in with firmness and decision, will effect the re establishment of a surplus revenue, and the gradual reduction of the Indian debt; but it will be in vain to hope for such effects from any other means than those which I have stated: other measures may be resorted to in aid of those means, but if attempted without them, will only aggravate the existing evils, and perhaps render them insurmountable; but least of all can those effects be produced by the adoption of the advice Of the hon. alderman, for which, however, I do not presume to censure him, as it is the result of opinions which he has long habitually cherished; with the view which he takes of the subject I am not surprized that the annihilation of the Company's commerce, and the substitution of the private trade in the place of it, which to my mind present the most ruinous consequences to the East India Company, the public, and even the traders themselves, should to him seem fraught with benefits to all of them; but, differing so widely as I do from the worthy alderman, I have felt anxious to submit to the committee my impressions on the whole subject, and I have now to assure them that nothing but my sense of its extreme importance could make me venture on so long an intrusion on their time.
§ Mr. Alderman Prinseprose to reply. He began with observing, that after the long indulgence with which he had been honoured in a former part of the debate, he felt it his duty to abridge as much as possible, what he had to say further on the subject; and here he must acknowledge his obligation to two hon. members (Mr. Paull and 1210 Mr. Robson), and also to another hon. member (Mr. Francis) who had volunteered in his support. For himself, he had long fought this battle single handed, and had thrown himself alone into "the imminent and deadly breach," with truth for his standard, facts for his buckler, and the powerful and never failing auxiliaries of cause and effect: What but a reliance on such auxiliaries, could have sustained him against the influence and resentment of the most powerful public body upon earth, or induced him to sacrifice personal ease, and perhaps the interests of a large family, to the prosecution of a great public object, the assertion of national right to a natural share of the British trade with its Indian dependencies.—The causes of the Company's situation, which he had so long and so often exposed, had now produced the fatal consequences he had predicted, and dire distress and necessity were irresistibly forcing a change of system and a call for relief.—It had given him much satisfaction to hear the hon. director, who had just sat down, admitting without reserve, all the facts he had stated on a former night, although the hon. gentleman had differed as much with regard to the conclusions drawn from them, as he had misunderstood the views and objects of their exposure. The hon. director had represented him to have contrasted the present system, with the probable consequences of separating trade and revenue with no other view than that of obtaining the abolition of the Company's charter from selfish and personal motives, when in fact he had merely stated the four active capitals requisite for conducting, even on its present scale, the Company's trade, and the total want of any such commercial resource; in order fiat to prove that Indian interest attached to every operation, and if it did attach, the hon. director well knew, that all alledged profit on the trade was done away. —The next object was to show the necessity of allowing British subjects to carry on that trade, which the Company had no faculty of embracing, not to confine it to a few old commercial houses tilt each side the water, but to enable all the merchants, manufacturers and ship owners at home and in India, to compete with foreigners in carrying it on, not in the wild and extravagant idea of rendering Great Britain the emporium of all the products even of British Asia, but in the sober contemplation, of securing to the mother country that natural proportion of the traffic, of which 1211 she was deprived by the impolitic restriction under which the private trader to and from India had laboured and continued to labour —The hon. alderman next observed, that he had been charged with expatiating widely on the little value of an item of 10 millions, stated by the company themselves, a. composed of bad debts, old buildings, old furniture, and other article, which sum their own accountant had struck out of the balance sheet, and estimated at 400,000l.; was it unjust, as he had observed on a former night, to scrutinize such an asset, when adduced as a probable future claim upon government, and as part those resources, on the security of which a noble lord had proposed that the house should advance 17 millions of money? Was it invidious to suppose a case possible, in which government might he obliged to resume its lease of the territories, and dissolve a partnership ruinously unprofitable to both parties of the firm? Would his majesty's ministers, or would they not, be justified in opposing to such claims, the 5 minions and a half they had awl were to pay for defending India since 1804:—the expenses of the Cape and Ceylon, the charge of two squadrons in the eastern seas, and the pay of 25 regiments employed in acquiring and protecting the dominions in question?—But the Company, it was asserted, had estates abroad of great value, of which they could not be deprived; how far it would be politic to retain them, would appear by looking at the expence of these estates; at that of time island of Bombay, for instance, where 764,994l. had been expended beyond the product of farm, licences, and quit rents; at that of St. Helena, which exceeded in the sum of 47,628l. as appeared by the accounts of 1802–3; at the value of the villages round Madras and Masulipaturn; at their factory charges of Bencoolen, and above all, at their more recently purchased island Penang where halt a million was likely to be squandered on time wild project of making an arsenal, that could never he defended; of keeping a garrison where there were no provisions, and erecting docks where there was neither tide to float the vessels, nor workmen or materials for their construction or repair. As well might the Company resume their possessions at Balem, Bangam, and the Andamans, and call them profitable estates, as retain any thing of landed property, after they should lose the revenues at large. The Dutch and French retained indeed their factories in our terri- 1212 tories, the one for the sake of patronage, for a few favoured families of the Aristocracy, the other from a political motive of disturbing our influence: neither were profitable, on the contrary, the Dutch Company had become bankrupts, from the expences they had thus incurred, and the French would never resume theirs, but from a determined enmity to our prosperity in India. These estates therefore, were addition to the amount of their assets, in the stock by computation.— But this Imperial Company, it was said, exported from patriotic motives, vast quantities of woollens, at an enormous loss. The hon. director, who as well as the hon. ex-chairman, always carefully blended the India aural China trade together, had vauntingly boasted of this immense export of woollens, and stated the heavy loss thereon as a sacrifice to the manufacturers of this country; the former had asked, what would become of time 40,000 British hands now employed, were the Company to throw up that trade. In the first place, the Alderman observed, that no idea had ever been entertained by him, of invading the exclusive trade to China; it was, if any national trade could be, the properest of all subjects for monopoly. In fact, no great quantity of woollens were, or ever would be, consumed in British India, none were exported thither, except for Sepoy's cloathing, and the limited wear of Europeans. The argument therefore in this point of view fell to the ground. The fact was, that China was super-saturated with the Company's woollens, and that this circumstance had kept down the price. A reference to the director's own report on this branch of the trade, would set right the noble lord and his colleagues respecting the cause and extent of loss on this item.—But granting that British subjects did interfere, would that interference lessen the exportation if there were any demand? would it not rather occasion a greater employ of the manufacturers of Devon, Yorkshire? and Gloucestershire? This thread-bare topic had long ceased to convince men of the policy of shutting out British subjects from India, and allowing neutrals to rival us in our own natural colonial trade; to load their Ships under Our noses at every port of the united kingdom; to range unmolested from pole to pole; and even buy and sell at our Indian factories, on the same terms as the Company's privileged captains and officers of the regular ships. Here the Alderman desired the committee to look at the total ex- 1213 port of the Company to India, for the 11 years past. He had moved for this important paper, separate front the China exports; it was presented on the 5th June, and would be seen in page 94 of the Budget accounts. During the 11 last years the total export of merchandize in the first column, instead of the immense sum the last Speaker had asserted it to be, the committee would be surprised to find amounted, as he had correctly stated on a former night, to no more than 5,044,960l. little above 450,000l. per annum. (In 1794–5 it was only 133,000l.) The Company's tonnage for their India trade was only 9,822 tons on 12 ships; and, including that for private trade last year, was only 25 ships, or 17,08l tons. He compared this with the tonnage of Barbadoes, and that of a single Dutch colony, Surinam, which loaded home last year 16,493 tons. Was this, he repeated, the natural share of India trade, which the mother country was entitled to? observe, he said, the striking contrast between imperial and individual energy; by the document on the table it appeared, that in 1799–1800 the whole of the Company's export to India was only 463,578l. and this exceeded the average of the 11 years to which he had before alluded. In the same year, by an authenticated paper, laid before Mr. Dundas and to be found in an able publication of a gentleman deceased (Mr. Henchman) it appeared, that 20 India built ships, wisely licenced by the noble lord (Wellesley), an act fully justified by him in a dispatch to the directors, actually carried back merchandize from London to the amount of 615,247l. 12s. 6d. and expended here in repairs and dis bursments 202,877l. although two of the number were laden back by government, and this besides wine taken in at Madeira train British merchants there. Who then, he emphatically exclaimed, are the enemies to the manufacturers, shipbuilders, and ship-owners, to the traders and merchants of these kingdoms? himself and those who thought with him, or the directors of the India company? Were the people of Sheffield and Birmingham more likely to starve, if a freer intercourse subsisted with the millions of people in our own Indian territories, and a trade were opened with the myriads who inhabited regions within the Company's limits ; regions which they never had it in contemplation to visit, much less to supply with their instant demands, and with the growing wants, which a knowledge 1214 of our manufactures would create. —The honourable director had re-echoed against him, the charges of personal motives and attachment to a favourite project of introducing India shipping to the injury of the British artisan; but, would opening the India trade, that trade which the company could not carry on, would giving facility to that trade be likely to confine it to half a dozen established English houses abroad, and himself and four or five India agency houses in London? certainly not, on the contrary it would open India to the British merchant, trader, and ship-owner, without distinction or preference, whether at Liverpool, Bristol, Leith or Glasgow, Dublin or Cork; it would injure, not the Company, as was dreaded, but only the privileged neutral rivals, whose operations he had already in part developed, and should farther expose in the next session.—So much with regard to any selfish object on his part; he should next proceed to notice the danger of removing our artizans, (ship-builders he presumed were meant,) out of this kingdom to our dominions in Asia. But did there, he would ask, exist any want of ship-builders abroad? At Penang (Prince of Wales Island) it was true, there were neither workmen, nor materials, neither revenues, nor provisions, but was that the case at Bombay, on the Malabar coast, or at Calcutta? were not ships built there by British subjects? were none built at Pegue or Demaur, by Burmaks and parsecs? was it not a notorious fact, that ship-building materials of every kind super-abounded in our own territories? that they no less abounded in artisans, and master-builders of the first eminence to put them together? was it not then sound policy for this government to encourge the extraction of these materials, and indeed of every other resource, Which dependencies dearly acquired, and of such precarious tenure, would furnish to the mother country? would it not he sound policy to build ships there for government, which might partly pay for their construction by a freight home, and to compel the Company to build there for their own commerce, and leave the oaklings of our home forests to acquire their natural growth? Would the ship-builders of Blackwall, or of any other yard, complain of such a necessary expedient? did they not candidly acknowledge, and every ship-owner feel, that the expence, and of course the profits, of refitting and repair, exceeded these of original construction; that materials were grown so scare and dear at 1215 home, that no merchant vessel could be built to sail against neutrals, nor any India-man be allowed to arrest the inefficient and scanty supply of our own timber for the royal navy? was not the contract price of building for the king's service more than doubled within these few years? Could the commissioners obtain contracts at all to the extent required?— These facts made most completely against the Director's assertions.—The honourable Director had next brought forward, the Company's trade, as a nursery for British seamen, and deprecated the employ of India shipping, as injurious to that object. In the first place, he would ask, by whom are the Company's ship's now manned, and likely to be both in peace and war, while our enemy was attempting to rival us on the seas: By foreigners mostly when outward bound, and back principally by Lascars, natives or subjects of British India. Which of these classes deserved most to be encouraged he need not ask; our commerce as now become too much the nursery for seamen of other countries, and unless care was taken hereafter, most of our British sailors would become Americans.— It was not interest, but necessity that ever induced the employ of black sailors on board the merchant ships, the greater number of them required, in proportion to the tonnage, made it always cheaper to navigate with European, and most of all with British seamen. But, if any preference was due, the British Lascar ought in policy to be preferred to Danish or American sailors.—The honourable Director had paid a just tribute to the skill and gallantry of the men who navigated the Company's ship, and of those who commanded them. No man, said the Alderman, had an higher opinion of them, than himself, they were the best seamen and the first navigators in the world; they had distinguished themselves against Suffrein under Watson in 1778, and the last glorious instance of gallantry in the China seas, under captain Dance, would for ever endear them to their country. But how that establishment was supported, or merit and seniority regarded, he would not stop to enquire. In nothing, he said, was there any design to deprive the Company of their shipping, nor of that trade they were able to carry on, which trade ought to maintain its own maritime establishment.—The noble lord had fairly stated the expansion of the double system of trade and dominion, to 1216 have called for a greater amount of fixed and floating assets, than had formerly been requisite, but where among them was to be found any capital applicable to trade? In all the Budget speeches, the surplus revenue and the product of exports were expressly mentioned as the amount applicable to investment, the rest at any rate was borrowed for the purpose, as the noble lord himself had confessed in his last Budget statement (page 35) " The question" says he "that will naturally be suggested on this occasion, is, as to the prudence or propriety of investing so large an amount in goods, when the surplus from the revenue is estimated so low; as the system of providing funds for this purpose by new loans has been often objected to."—Mr. Dundas in 1801 had made use of these words: "The question must naturally arise, from whence funds could be derived to meet demands to so considerable an amount, to which I shall merely now reply, that, in whatever amount the supplies from Europe in bullion and the cash received for bills on the court of directors were found deficient, money was raised on loans, as will appear in the increase of the Indian debt."—The Alderman here affirmed, that notwithstanding all assertions to the contrary, much the greater part, if not all that debt, had been created by the trade. The exclusive system, according to the honourable Director, embraced great political objects, it ought not therefore to be judged of on the narrow principles of a profit and loss trade; this the Alderman observed might possibly be rational doctrine, if the revenues were able to make good the deficiencies in trade; but, had that been the case? on the contrary, the Indian debt had encreased as the commerce extended, nor had the hon. ex-chairman, the noble lord, the hon. general (Wellesly) nor the Director himself been able to show any solid capital on which the trade had been supported; the fact was, a trade on money borrowed at Indian interest had ruined the Company; the Company, as he had repeatedly asserted, never had an active capital applicable to the purpose of commerce. He would state their capital: the united Company were incorporated in the year 1702, by an indenture between her majesty queen Anne and the two East India Companies, which had previously existed on separate establishments. In 1693 the the of king William, there had been raised for this purpose by subscription, in 1217 virtue of his letter patent, on a capital of
Upon this capital and the Surplus revenues, had the Company conducted dick complicated system of conquests and commerce, with what success, the committee were now the judges.—One source of loss, however, he ought to state, and that was the sale of three of the four millions which their necessities had compelled the Company to dispose of, at the market price, after the whole loan to government had been converted into Consols at 3 per cent. and the remainder, which was of no greater value than the Consols of the day, was still a resource, though at the decreased value he had before stated, in examining the stock by computation. Upon such slender means had the machine been conducted; how far they were adequate he would not 1218 detain the committee to enquire, but a reference to the annual balances of their stock account would, in a moment, shew the progress of their affairs.—The ex-chairman had broadly admitted the Company's present distress, and indeed to have denied the fact, would have been strangely inconsistent with his declarations in another place. The noble lord (Castlereagh) had also made a similar confession, but the prospect of a long peace in our provinces, afforded, in their opinion, ample confidence in the resources of the Company to surmount its present difficulties. The noble lord admitted that the India debt had afforded the capital for its commerce; he had also corroborated the elaborate statement of the hon. general (Wellesley) for a peace establishment, in which he was able only to exhibit the hope of a saving of 710,000l. per ann. and this without any allowance for the unliquidated arrears of the war, the encreasing interest on the bond debt, or the funds constantly required for investment on the present footing; both however had denied the insolvency of the Company, or that India was now more likely to become a burthen, than a relief to the mother country. The noble lord's illustration of the grounds of this confidence, was in unison with the declarations, so often officially made by him and his predecessors in the board of controul. It was only a stronger dose of that sweet nepenthe, annually distributed in their budget speeches. "Hope travels on, nor quits us till we die." The fate, however, of a certain other great monopoly, framed upon extravagant speculation, ought to be a warning to this country, as well as to the India Company. In a large building, between Leadenhall-street and the Royal Exchange, was there not at this day an evidence of the country's being compelled to pay a composition upon the capital, as well as the debts of a privileged corporation? The Mississipi bubble had ruined French credit, and so would the South Sea project have ruined that of England, had not government stepped forward with the public purse, to pay a part of the corporate deficiency. But, the Company, as was asserted by the noble lord and the ex-chairman, and after them by the Director, who had just sat down, possessed ample resources to prevent ultimate loss to the state. They had their claim of ten millions for buildings and fortifications; this, the alderman said, he had completely disposed of. The noble lord had indeed stated, that they were, it was true, 1,598,000l. deficient 1219 of their capital, assuming all the items it the stock by computation to be valid; admitting this fallacious statement, Were they not still without the capital for trade or the means of raising one? If, however the committee adopted his (the alderman's) deductions, this deficit would be found nearer 14,600,000l. But the relief which the noble lord himself had suggested, sufficiently proved what his own real opinion was of the Company's situation—"We are in no danger of becoming burthensome to the state, or of calling for any fresh trading capital;" only, says the noble lord, "allow us to raise four or five millions by the sale of fresh created stock, and lend us seventeen millions more, to be raised on parliamentary security, for our corporate use and benefit!" Sweet, indeed, and large must be the dose of nepenthe; copious the opiate draught that would any longer lull the house and the country into such dangerous security. Better far would it be, the alderman observed, to go first into the committee, which the noble lord now recommended; for himself, he was persuaded, that the extent of the disease was not yet discovered, and therefore no adequate remedy could be applied till a fresh report was made to the house, upon a full investigation of all the branches of the India system—a firm conviction in his mind of the magnitude of those embarrassments, and of the extreme difficulty of finding a remedy; and not any of the personal or party motives, which had been again ascribed to himself; not any resentment for disappointed ambition, nor envy at the Company's power and influence, but a just sense of his duty, as a representative of the commons of England, and as one of the magistrates of the first commercial city in the universe, the greatest that modern or ancient times beheld; these were the stimuli which had urged him to enter thus largely into the wide detail of the Company's affairs, and which would continue to support him, in the further prosecution of the subject, next session, of which he had given notice in the house.
3,200,000l. at 87½ per cent. £ 2,800,000 Of which there had been lent to government at 8 per cent. interest 2,000,000 They had also paid for dead stock under lord Godolphin's award 400,000 which made from the first capital a deduction of 2,400,000 So that the active capital amounted only to 400,000 To which a fresh subscription was made in 170l upon 800,000l. at 155 per cent. of 1,240,000 So that the capital was then 1,640,000 But of this sum, there was lent to government the same year 1,200,000 So that the capital then remaining for trade was but 440,000 (At this time interest was reduced to 5 per cent.) In 1729, a douceur was paid to government of 200,000 Unless therefore the trade had encreased their stock beyond their dividends, the capital was reduced to 240,000 In 1741, they lent however to government, at 3 per cent. without any call on the proprietors 1,000,000 which exceeded the funded subscription afloat 760,000 At this time their loan to government amounted to 4,200,000 In 1750, the interest on this loan was reduced to per cent. In 1789, a new subscription of one million stock at 174 per cent. added to the Company's resources the sum of 1,740,000 In 1793, the capital becoming more inefficient, 1,000,000l. of stock was added, though not ail subscribed till the year after, and this produced 2,027,295
Mr. Hudlestonein explanation said, it was impossible for him to imagine where the worthy alderman had gotten the statement which he had made to the committee of the amount or value of the Company's exports to India, or who had furnished it, but that fortunately he (Mr. Hudlestone), happened to have brought with him to the house a document on that head, for the ac- 1220 curacy of which he would pledge himself to the committee. Mr. Hudlestone accordingly read from that document, that the Company's exports to India from the season of 1797, to that of 1804, amounted to 12,368,402l. giving an average of 1,546,050l. in each year.