EAST-INDIA COMPANY'S CHARTER.

HC Deb 13 June 1833 vol 18 cc698-785

Mr. Charles Grant moved the Order of the Day for the House to resolve itself into a Committee on the East-India Company's Charter.

On the question that the Speaker leave the Chair,

Sir George Staunton

got up to move as an Amendment to that, certain Resolutions relative to India, which he had brought forward on last Tuesday se'nnight, but which he had not then an opportunity of having read to the House. He was anxious that those Resolutions should be entered upon the Journals; but considering the anxiety which the House must feel to hear the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, the President of the Board of Control, he would not detain them by entering then upon any discussion of the affairs of India, but simply content himself with moving the following Resolutions:— 1. That British intercourse with China is the source whence this country is exclusively supplied with tea—an article in such universal use as to be nearly equivalent to a necessary of life, and through the consumption of which a revenue of between three and four millions sterling is annually raised with greater facility and certainty, and with less pressure on the people, than in the case of any other tax of equal amount; and that this trade moreover employs a very considerable extent of British shipping, is the medium of the export of the manufactures and productions of Great Britain and the British possessions in India, to the amount in annual value of some millions sterling, besides affording a certain and convenient channel for the remittance to Europe of that portion of the Indian revenues required to meet the home charges in this country. 2. That this branch of British commerce being of such great importance to the interests of this country, even while it continues, as at present, confined to a single port, and that port one of the least advantageous in the Chinese dominions, either for the export of the staple commodities of China, or the dispersion among the Chinese population of the chief manufactures and productions of Europe, it is not easy to estimate the vast field which would be opened to the enterprise and the industry of the manufacturing and producing classes in this country, if such an improved understanding could be effected between the Governments of Great Britain and China as might lead to a free and unrestricted intercourse of British subjects with the ingenious and industrious population of an empire, exceeding in respect to numbers, extent, and natural resources, the aggregate amount of all the nations of civilized Europe. 3. That the peculiar jealousy of foreign intercourse which distinguishes the governments of all the nations beyond the Ganges having been fully exemplified by the exclusion of all foreigners, the Dutch only excepted, from the ports of Japan, and, without any exception, from several of the ports of China, to which formerly they were freely admitted, and by the obstructions which have been found insurmountable to any extensive beneficial intercourse with Cochin China, and the other minor states, and being partially mitigated in the single instance only of the port of Canton, it is of the utmost importance that all legislative measures, in any manner affecting a branch of British commerce at once so valuable and so capable of improvement, and yet so precarious, should be founded on the fullest and most impartial consideration of all the circumstances which have contributed to place it in its present position. 4. That, in the first place, instead of being regulated by international treaties, and placed under the recognized protection of a public Minister at the capital, and an acknowledged consul at the port of trade, as is customary in other civilised states, it is wholly abandoned to the arbitrary control of the Chinese local authorities, and is by those authorities subjected to many very severe and vexatious burthens, and to various personal restrictions and privations of the most galling and oppressive nature. 5. That these evils, in the second place, are wholly attributable to the nature and character of the Chinese government, and not to any want of proper spirit and firmness in the agents of the East-India government, who have, upon various occasions, opposed the arbitrary and oppressive Acts of the Local Government with considerable success, and in a manner which individuals, pursuing their separate interests, and unconnected by any bond of union, never could have attempted; and have thus repeatedly secured, for the general interests of the foreign trade, privileges of the most essential importance, and averted from it evils of the most serious description, solely through the influence derived from the magnitude of their commercial dealings. 6. That this influence, being the sole existing check now in operation for the control and counteraction of the corrupt local administrators of the peculiarly arbitrary and despotic government of China, it is indispensably necessary to the security of our valuable commerce with that country, that whenever any change shall be made in the British commercial system, having the effect of putting an end to this influence, an equal or greater instrument of protection be at the same time created and substituted for it, under the sanction of a national treaty between the two countries, without which previous sanction, any attempt to appoint national functionaries at Canton, for the protection of trade, would, in the present state of our relations with China, not only prove of little advantage to the subject, but also be liable, in a serious degree, to compromise the honour and dignity of the Crown. 7. That notwithstanding the failure, in this respect, of all complimentary embassies to the Court of Pekin, however otherwise beneficial they may have been in raising and producing the due recognition of the national character, the evidence of the treaties which have been repeatedly negociated by the Chinese government with that of Russia, through the medium of the Commissioners duly appointed on both sides, not only for the adjustment of boundaries, but for the regulation of trade, prove that there is no insurmountable obstacle to such an arrangement. 8. That in the event of these expectations not being realised, and it proving impracticable to replace the influence of the East-India Company's authorities by any system of national protection directly emanating from the Crown, it will then be expedient (though only in the last resort) to withdraw the British commerce altogether from the control of the Chinese authorities, and to establish it in some insular position on the Chinese coast where it may be satisfactorily carried on, beyond the reach of acts of oppression and molestation, to which an unresisting submission would be equally prejudicial to the national honour and the national interests of this country. 9. That, lastly, the state of the trade under the operation of the Chinese laws in respect to homicides committed by foreigners in that country, calls for the early interposition of the Legislature, those laws being practically so unjust and intolerable that they have in no instance for the last forty-nine years been submitted to by British subjects; great loss and injury to their commercial interests accruing from the suspension of the trade in consequence of such resistance, and the guilty as well as the innocent escape with impunity: and that it is, therefore, expedient to put an end to this anomalous state of the law, by the creation of a British naval tribunal upon the spot, with competent authority for the trial and punishment of such offences.

The Resolutions, which were put by way of Amendment, were negatived without a division.

The House resolved itself into a Committee on the East-India Company's Charter Acts.

Mr. Charles Grant

said, that he rose in pursuance of the notice which he had given a few days ago of his intention to bring before the House on that night certain Resolutions respecting the East-India Company's charter. He felt persuaded that the House would agree with him in thinking that the subject was second in importance to none of those weighty questions which had lately occupied the attention of the Legislature. He might even go further and say, in reference to the vast extent of territory concerned, and the multitude of human beings whose fate turned on the decision of the question, that this subject claimed priority over all those which had already so anxiously absorbed their attention. At the same time, he was perfectly aware that the subject was one which failed in exciting that strong interest which belonged to some other topics recently discussed, and he, therefore, felt that he was peculiarly entitled to bespeak the indulgence of the Committee for whatever observations he should have to offer. The details into which he should be obliged to enter must, of course, from the nature of the subject, be in some respects tedious and uninteresting; but he trusted that the House would do him the favour (he recalled the word)—he doubted not that hon. Members would do their duty, by seriously attending to the subject now brought under their consideration. He called them away from other topics, which might awaken more intense interest from the circumstance of party and political feeling being involved in them—he called their attention away from such exciting topics, to one, in which, neither party nor political feeling, was, or ought to be, mixed up, for he hoped, that no one would approach the subject, without bearing in mind, that the principle on which the Legislature should act, was with a view to benefit the native inhabitants of India, and through them, ultimately to benefit this country. This was the first and paramount duty of the House in dealing with the question now before it. He was happy to think, that the subject, great and momentous as it was, and uninteresting as it might appear at first sight, was yet not entirely new nor strange to many of those whom he had the honour to address. The various Committees which had of late years examined the subject had rendered it more familiar to the House, and especially to individuals who took an interest in Indian affairs, than it was at any former period. The Resolutions which he intended to submit to the House, would be brief and simple, and would relate chiefly, if not entirely, to the discussions which had taken place between the Government and the East-India Company, and embody the result of those discussions; they would show the bases of the arrangement which the Government recommended the House to form with the East-India Company. The papers, and all the correspondence which passed between his Majesty's Government, and the directors of the East-India Company, had been before the House for several weeks, and the documents had been before the public for some months; and the subject had been so amply canvassed and discussed by all classes, that gentlemen could be at no loss to form an opinion on the question. In stating his Resolutions to the House, it would be his duty to refer to some other measures, which, though not embodied in those Resolutions, he thought it essential to introduce into any Bill or Act of Parliament, which might be passed in pursuance of them. These were measures of a general character, the principle of which had been amply developed in the documents before the House. He proceeded then to approach the consideration of the subject, not only with reference to the future government of India, to the points immediately at issue, but with reference to those general measures on which the interests of our Indian empire must depend; and he approached the consideration of them, with a deep—he had almost said overwhelming—sense of their importance. But in stating the general measures contemplated by his Majesty's Ministers, which were the most important, it was necessary, in the first instance, to advert to the existing relations between the present Administration and the East-India Company. He should, therefore, first offer some observations on the discussions to which he had referred, and he would then state some particulars, to which he hoped to obtain the attention of the House. The question first in importance respected the agency by which the political administration of India was to be conducted; then came the question respecting the trade of this country with the East Indies, and the eastern world generally; and finally, the proposed agreement, and the terms of the proposition made to the East-India Company, upon which he was to submit a plan to the House. With respect to the political administration of India, now in the hands of the Company, the first question naturally was, "why any change should lake place?" To that question, the answer was, that Parliament having fixed a period for the revision of the existing system of government in India, it was right that Parliament and Government should look into the merits of the whole case, and take into account the change of circumstances and progress of events, which might have affected the question; but the reasons which had induced him to propose such measures as he now brought forward, he should more particularly explain and develop as he proceeded. In looking at the condition of India, as to its political administration, he was disposed to consider the practical operation of the system, without reference to mere theoretical symmetry of design. He cared not what seeming anomalies might exist; the only question was, whether the working of the system produced practically beneficial effects? He knew as well as any one that there were evils in the practice and working of the present system of government—that there was a too great weight of taxation—that justice was delayed, not fairly dealt out to all. He readily admitted the existence of those evils, but when he was questioned upon the practical bearings of the system, he would say, look to the whole of that country, both under the present government and under former governments, and look to the colonial dependencies of other empires, and compare them with India now. When the present government was compared with former governments, it was found, that the natives of India were in a better situation now than ever they were, with the exception of a single period, under the sway of one Mogul Emperor, whose happy reign was yet a theme of grateful praise. In comparing the condition of our Indian population, with that of the colonies of Spain, of Portugal, of Holland, and even of some of our own colonies in the West Indies, he must claim for the inhabitants of our Indian possessions much greater advantages than were enjoyed by the colonies of any other nation; and let them remember, that it was on the influence of that government over the welfare of 100,000,000 of people, they were about to decide. If they went back to the administration of the government of India for the last forty years, it would be seen, that it had effected a great improvement in the condition of the people of India. He did not wish to go further back, for there were some acts done under the government of Lord Cornwallis, and of the government which immediately preceded his, which he did not and could not approve of. But the government of India, for the last forty years had, with all its faults and imperfections, proved of the greatest benefit to the people of that country. A government which should distinguish itself by a brilliant career, was not that which was required by the people of India. Such had not been the character of government within the period to which he had referred. It was, he would say, sluggish, and not calculated to make any great or rapid strides; but it was such a government as the people required—it gave ample security to person and property; it exerted vigilance against any encroachment of violence and rapacity; it gave to the people repose, security, and tranquillity. The very jealousy excited by the nature of the Company's monopoly, had been security to the natives against the encroachments of others. And when it was asked what the Company had done for the people of India, the Company had a victorious answer in the fact, that the native population, if they had not been greatly advanced, had been amply protected. Within the last twenty years, the native population had acquired a political existence, which was fully recognized by our Government—a circumstance which would have been treated as quite chimerical if it had been talked of some years before. The consequence of this improvement was, that the people were now beginning to feel and to acknowledge the value of the laws. Public opinion and public feeling in this country, were now acting on the government of the people of India—not producing any violent effects, but operating to the amelioration of their condition, by the slow but certain process of kindness. These, then, were reasons which would justify the continuance of the political government of India in the hands of the Company for a time longer; but there were, besides, other reasons for the continuance of the Company's administration. To these he would not now advert in detail; but there was one point which he could not omit to notice—it was, that by the interposition of the Company between this country and the people of India, India had been preserved from being agitated by those constant fluctuations of party and political feelings, which were so strong in this country, and than which, nothing would have opposed a more formidable barrier to the improvement of the people of India. He had now briefly stated some of the reasons which had induced the Government to believe that, on the whole, it would be the wisest plan to continue the Company in the political administration of the country. He thought it was clear, that any other form of government might be liable to the same inconveniences with which the East-India Company's government was formed. Any other form of government would be likely to produce very considerable evils. What were the circumstances that marred the efficiency of the East-India Company's government? One circumstance was the union of its trade with its government. This had been a generally admitted principle, he thought, until he heard to-night two hon. Members arguing for the government to continue in the East-India Company both the administration of the laws and the exclusive trade with China. It was felt, however, to be a great inconvenience that the Company should be permitted to carry on trade. He objected to it, not on the ground of theory merely, but of practical inconvenience. He said more than this—that the union of the sovereign and the trader in that country was calculated to give a false impression of the character of the government. The object of the trader was mercantile profit. That was once the object of the East-India Company; but although that was now no longer its object, the people could not help thinking that their rulers were still governed by that ancient principle. Nothing, therefore, more marred the perfect efficiency of the present government in India than the union of trader and sovereign. Another circumstance which tended considerably to detract from the efficiency of the Company's government in India was the want of a proper check in the expenditure of the subordinate presidencies. This control was deficient not only in the government at home, but in the supreme government in India, and the result was, that some of the presidencies involved themselves in many expenses which were not necessary. The cause of this was, that the Company, relying on its commerce for the payment of its dividends, paid less attention than it might otherwise do to the expenditure of its territorial revenue. He did not mean to say, that the members of the East-India Company were more indifferent to the prosperity of their territorial revenue than others would have been in their situation, but simply that they had no peculiar interest in attending to that revenue, and that, consequently, it could not be expected that they should watch its expenditure so narrowly as it ought to be watched. Another circumstance which had interfered with the efficiency of the government in India was the interference which too often took place from home. It was essential to the well-being of India that confidence should be placed in its administration, and that, as far as possible, the interposition of the home authorities should be confined to cases of a strong and extraordinary nature, or rather to cases of a general nature. All that depended on the administration of the government in India ought to be left to the administration there. Having once resolved to place confidence in those to whom they delegated the government of India, that confidence must be very large indeed, or otherwise the government there could not be efficient. He thought for the reasons he had mentioned, as well as for other reasons, the nature of which was well known to the House, that it was on the whole most expedient to maintain the political administration of the East Indies in the hands of the East-India Company. He would now say a few words regarding the trade of that Company. The House was aware that the Company had now the monopoly of an extensive trade to China, and the question was, in what manner the House should deal with that part of the subject. He scarcely knew whether it was necessary for him to enter at any length into that question, because it was one on which the people—he meant the nation—had made up their mind. If he, however, felt as a Minister of the Crown, that the decision of the nation was not founded in justice, it would not be proper in him to come forward and propose the alteration. Therefore he would confess, it was not merely because it had been decided by the people, but it was also on other grounds that he proposed to open that trade. As far as regarded the voice of the nation, he must say, that it was not the clamour of the moment, but it was the voice of an enlightened community, formed during a succession of years, and particularly during the period since the last renewal of the Company's charter. But he would refer to the course of events, and the progress of commercial enterprise. It was impossible for any person to look at the progress of our commercial system for the last ten, fifteen, or twenty years, and not to know, that it was impossible any longer to continue restrictions on commerce. Our commercial policy fifteen years ago was restrictive, and although many restrictions had already been removed, he was ready to admit, that there were others which it would be better to remove. The result had proved that commerce had been struggling under the trammels which confined it until at last it had broke through them, and it became necessary to do away with the restrictive system; and at this moment, when there was a new field for commercial enterprise, and when America had emancipated herself from the thraldom which cramped her energies and limited her commercial spirit, when all those things were taken into consideration, he thought it high time that this country should proceed in the same career of liberality and justice. All the nations of Europe were now rushing into the contest. If this country meant to maintain her position as a great mercantile nation, she must pursue that course of liberal policy, without which, however in former times she had obtained the wealth of her nations, she could not maintain those great sources of wealth which he trusted Divine Providence had still preserved for her. The exclusive privilege of the trade with China upon every ground must now be considered to have arrived at its natural termination. But there were circumstances which, even if the House and the country were prepared to continue the monopoly, would require its termination. There were circumstances connected with the trade itself which called for its termination. In consequence of the diminution of the profits of the India-trade, the East-India Company felt themselves some time ago, obliged to abandon that trade. The China trade was a trade decreasing rather than increasing in profits. The profits of that trade diminished in the following ratio:—He would take the period of the last fifteen years. The profits of the trade, in the first five years of that period, were 1,300,000l.; for the second five years, 830,000l.; and for the last five years, 565,000l. There was, however, a further necessity for putting an end to that trade—it was the particular relation of this country with the Chinese. That, in his opinion, constituted a main difficulty against continuing the monopoly. The Chinese were a sensible, jealous, and capricious people. They were despotic and arbitrary, and circumstances might occur that would excite a collision between them and this country. That, among others, was with him a most material ground why the exclusive privileges of carrying on trade with that empire ought not to be confined to one body of men. He spoke of the servants of the Company employed at China as men of great ability, who did their duty well, but their position was ambiguous and embarrassing, and occasionally, very invidious. They had, nominally, no power, but still they were, at times, obliged to interpose with all the weight of their national character, and, at other times, to profess their utter inability to control individuals belonging to the community they were thought to represent. Their position was, therefore, ambiguous and embarrassing, and could not fail of exciting suspicion. But it had been said that the monopoly of the Hong merchants was such, that it required a monopoly, in order to meet it. He thought, on the contrary, that the abolition of the exclusive privilege of the East-India Company would tend much of itself to do away with the monopoly of the Hong merchants. This monopoly had not always existed in China; it was not even coeval with the existence of the East-India Company. The first attempt to establish that system of monopoly occurred in the year 1715, when some of the principal merchants of Canton determined to establish a monoply of the English trade. They were prudent and sensible men, and they saw the great pecuniary advantage which monopolizing the intercourse with England would be to themselves personally, and they very naturally, therefore, endeavoured to secure it. They were, however, strenuously opposed by the East-India Company, and in consequence of this opposition, the plan was soon afterwards abandoned, and it was not again attempted for a considerable period. Subsequently, however, about the year 1760 (he believed), the project was renewed, and that time it proved successful. It was clear, then, that the monopoly of the Hong merchants had not always been considered essential to the existence of the intercourse of this country with China, and he thought it probable the abolition of the East-India Company's exclusive privilege would tend to do away with the Hong merchants' monopoly likewise. With re- gard to the arguments which had been brought against an extension of the China trade—namely, that the Chinese were a suspicious race, and would not readily be brought to trade with the nation generally, he would ask if it was to be wondered at that they were suspicious of the British nation? and if it were not likely that their suspicion was much augmented by their dread of the power of the Company? They had heard of the Company's victories in many parts of India, and to a people so sensitive as they were as to the approach of any foreign power to their territory, such matters were great cause of jealousy. As a proof of this, he need only mention, that during our war in the Nepaul territory, in 1818, the Nepaulese sent an embassy to China to beg the interference of that government with the Company. With the caution which usually marked the proceedings of the Celestial Empire in its intercourse with foreign states, the answer to the application was delayed; but after some time an application was made to the Company on the subject. An embassy was sent to Nepaul to request that we would withdraw from it. Then came the Burmese war; and how astonished the China caravan must have been to find, in one of their annual visits to the capital of that country for the purposes of trade, to find, instead of their usual customers, that the place was occupied by the forces of the East-India Company. These were events well calculated to excite the jealousy of the Chinese, but if, instead of an intercourse with the Company, which they must regard more in the light of the sovereigns of a powerful dominion, in their immediate neighbourhood, rather than as a body of merchants, they had to deal with a viceroy, or other public functionary directly representing this country, and having the management of its interests at Canton, there would be less chance of any such jealousy arising. There was another subject which called for some remarks. He meant the origin and creation of that large body of Englishmen at present carrying on trade at Canton, which had arisen within the last twenty years. Those traders, although originally few in number, and unimportant in a commercial point of view, had gradually increased, and extended their commerce both in amount and value. That two parties should at the same lime exist—the one enjoying a monopoly, and the other carrying on business on the principles of free trade—could not fail of being productive of embarrassment and inconvenience. Those merchants had sprung up into importance in a very short time. In 1816 their shipping amounted to 1,000 tons only; but since then it had increased to an extraordinary degree. The value of their exports and imports had increased immensely, while the value of the exports and imports of the East-India Company had decreased. It appeared that the total value of the exports and imports of the Company to and from China in the year 1813–14 was 13,500,000l., while the total value in 1829–30 had fallen to 11,600,000l. while the total value of the exports and imports of the Canton merchants in 1813–14 amounted to 9,000,000l., and in 1829–30, it had increased to 31,000,000l. The system under which this trade was carried on was regular and complete, and although contrary to the laws of China, was still patronized by the authorities in that country. It was carried on in five or six floating ships, or a sort of floating colony, which were guarded by the same navy which guarded the ships belonging to the Chinese themselves. For though the trade was contrary to the law, it was so profitable that the local authorities not only connived at it, but by every means in their power endeavoured to extend it. A complete and perfect system had been established under which the private trader was enabled to evade the jealous laws of the country, and to carry on his traffic with security. So much was the whole a matter of system, that the money paid for the connivance of the commanders of the guard-ships, so far from being transmitted in small parcels, and at different times, to avoid detection, was paid at once in one round sum. It was obvious that this state of things could not continue; the competition of such a body as that he had described acting upon the principles of free-trade, must eventually become too powerful for the Company, even if its monopoly were allowed to continue. But it was objected that if the trade be withdrawn from the Company, there would be a risk of its being lost to the country altogether. He had no apprehension of any such danger. He admitted, that great prudence and caution ought to be observed in nil our dealings with a people of such peculiar notions as the Chinese; but using that caution and that delicacy he had no fear of creating a shock prejudicial to our interests in China by the withdrawal of the Company's monopoly. His hon. friends, the member for Hampshire, and the member for Berwickshire, recommended that we should take possession of an island somewhere in the neighbourhood of Canton, with the view of more effectually advancing the commercial interests of this country in China. But such a project would be likely to fail; because it would in the jealous minds of the Chinese, excite distrust and dislike, and instead of advancing, would inevitably retard and prejudice our interests. At present the state of society in Canton was essentially amicable; but the parties to whom he had alluded, were disseminators of the principles of free-trade—they rallied round them all those, whether foreigners or not, who were opposed to the exclusive privilege of the Company; and, therefore, though their relations at present be amicable, there could be little prospect of their continuing so for any considerable length of time. He certainly should very much regret that circumstances had so turned out, if he entertained the same apprehensions as some Gentlemen with respect to the results; but he did not see any ground for those violent alarms, by which they were agitated. He admitted, that the Chinese were a peculiar people, and that great delicacy of conduct ought to be observed in our dealings with them. It would be unpardonable, therefore, in the Government and the House not to take the strongest precautions with a view to allay apprehensions, and ward off the great evils which might arise if those apprehensions were well founded. But he did not think, from all that appeared in the evidence, that there was any likelihood of such a sudden revulsion of feeling among the Chinese as some hon. Gentlemen anticipated. His hon. friend, the member for Hampshire, in one of his Resolutions then before the House, and in the course of his observations in support of those Resolutions, had said, that bethought the trade with China should be opened gradually. Now, in point of fact, such was already the case, and considerable progress had already been made in so opening the trade as not violently to offend the prejudices of the natives. If, ten or fifteen years ago, that hon. Member had been asked what steps he would recommend to be taken for the gradual opening of the trade, he would have no doubt answered "You have a peculiar people to deal with, and have to take into account the high influence possessed by your traders, from their wealth and character. You must, therefore, be careful how you deal with the subject. You must make it your business to admit foreigners who will deal with the natives on the most just and equitable principles of trade. Your next step must be to admit English traders independent of the Company, whose transactions with the natives should be so regulated as to advance the confidence of the Chinese. You must then proceed by discontinuing gradually the system of contracts, and of making advances upon them, in order that the natives may begin to be habituated to general trading, so that at length they may begin to know more fully the feelings and circumstances under which commercial transactions are carried on. You must go still further, and bring first ten vessels to trade with them, then fourteen vessels, and then twenty, and so on." That he would call a gradual extension of the trade. Now it so happened, that these were the very steps which had been proceeded with during the last fifteen years. The trade had been gradually increased, the number of vessels had been gradually increased, the contracts had been gradually narrowed from 160,000 chests of tea in one year to 100,000 the next. The ships of other nations had been sent in, large numbers of Englishmen were allowed to trade as private traders, and by their intercourse with those, the merchants of Canton had become well acquainted with the fluctuations of trade. Thus the very course which the hon. Member would have recommended had been followed. He (Mr. Grant) thought, therefore, that he was justified in saying that the Chinese had been gradually prepared for an extension of the trade. The Chinese, as a nation, were not so void of commercial enterprise as was generally supposed. Their seas were already swarming with vessels and they carried on trade subject to the laws and chances of commerce. They knew, that they had to expect that their trade would one year yield them gain, and another year loss, and that in driving a great trade, great fluctuations must necessarily take place. He thought that the evidence on the subject went to show, that the Chinese were prepared for a change in the system under which they had hitherto traded with strangers, and they even showed a disposition to effect a change. About three years ago a memorial was presented to the Viceroy of Canton by the Hong merchants which was instructive and as it was not very long he would venture to read it to the House. The right hon. Gentleman accordingly read the following extract from a Memorial presented to the Viceroy of Canton, by the Hong merchants, in January, 1831. At present, the last division of the said nation's Company's ships is about to leave the port and return home. We, prostrate, beg that you will condescend to confer an edict, enjoining the said nation's Chief, Marjoribanks, to send a letter home, to communicate it to the said nation's King, that if hereafter the said nation's Company be dissolved, will there, as heretofore, be appointed a Chief to come to Canton, to have the general management of the affairs of the said nation's foreign merchants and ships, which come to Canton. If no such Chief come to Canton, there will be no concentrated responsibility; and since, if the said nation's country ships and merchants come to Canton to trade, the ships being many, and the men not few, in the event of any silly, foolish, ignorant opposition to, and violation of, the commands of Government, after all, who will be responsible? The Celestial Empire's laws and regulations are awfully strict, and will not admit of the least infraction. The said nation must be ordered to make previous and safe arrangements; then, hereafter, public affairs will have a head to revert to, and responsibility will not fall upon by-standers. Thus, it may be hoped, the commerce of the foreign merchants may go on tranquilly, and when the time comes to act, excuses be prevented. Whether our simple obscure views be right or not, we, prostrate, submit and wait till they be examined, the request granted, and orders given to be obeyed. This is really both just and expedient. Should we have to give thanks for the favour of compliance, we, the merchants, will wait till we receive the important commands, and forthwith respectfully transcribe them, and communicate the orders.' That would show, said the right hon. Gentleman, that the merchants were not unprepared for the change now about to take place. The Viceroy, in his answer said, 'This coming before me, the Governor, according to the proof it affords, I have examined, and thus decide:—The English nation has heretofore appointed a Chief to come to Canton, for the general management of commercial dealings. If, indeed, after the 13th year, the time of the Company be fulfilled, and it be dispersed, the said nation no doubt ought, as before, to appoint a Chief to come to Canton to manage. But what is said in the present statement, about separation or dissolution of the Company, is merely report heard by the said merchants. Whether it be really true or not, still remains uncertain. However, that which is stated arises from public motives concerning the future, and it is incumbent to make previous arrangements. As the above-named statement has been presented, I unite the circumstances, and hereby issue an order to the said Hong merchants, that they may forthwith enjoin my commands on the said nation's Chief early to send a letter home, that if, indeed, after the 13th year of Taou-kwang, the Company be dissolved, it will, as heretofore, be incumbent to deliberate, and appoint a Chief, who understands the business, to come to Canton, for the general management of the commercial dealings, by which means affairs may be prevented from going to confusion, and benefits remain to commerce.' From that he thought it would appear, that the Chinese authorities were fully prepared for a change. But it was also a fact which should not be lost sight of, that the people of China, as far as our intercourse with them enabled us to judge, were themselves anxious for the continuance, and, indeed, the extension, of that intercourse, though it was prohibited by the laws of the empire. He would mention, as an illustration of this, the fact that a ship was some time ago fitted out by the English at Canton, for the purpose of ascertaining how far it would be practicable to establish a commercial intercourse with some of those who dwelt on the coasts. There was, at first, some difficulty opposed on the part of the local authorities, as the orders of the Government are very strict in that respect, but by a little perseverance, and the advantage of having a gentleman on board who was perfectly conversant in the Chinese language and customs; indeed, so well acquainted that the Chinese would not believe that he was not a deserter from amongst them,—by that gentleman's aid, they soon overcame this difficulty. Wherever their vessel touched, the people came around them in great numbers, and in some instances they were visited by the local authorities; but in every case the people showed the strongest disposition to open an intercourse with them. He (Mr. Grant) thought that much of the suspicion felt by the Chinese was owing to our not being acquainted with the language, and that the more their language became known, the easier the intercourse would become. He laid no stress on this as a proof that we should expect to open an immediate intercourse with other parts of China than those to which we were at present allowed to trade; but the fact was not undeserving of notice, as showing the disposition of the Chinese people in this respect. He was aware that the Government of China was a severe despotism, and that the laws of the country strictly prohibited an intercourse with foreigners; but the House should recollect, that though the laws of China were positive against the introduction of opium into the empire, it had been found impossible to exclude it. The decrees of the emperor against it were not less strong than those of James 1st against the Virginia weed. But the circumstance of its being carried on to a great extent being well known, its progress aroused the attention of the Imperial Authorities. The emperor sent in a very grave and just remonstrance—for he must say, there was much sound sense and shrewd observation in the character of the Chinese—desiring the Viceroy of Canton, to call an assembly of the public authorities to devise some means by which this trade might be abolished. The Viceroy did call the assembly, and as the result of their deliberations, reported to the emperor that it was impossible to prevent the introduction of opium—that the dealings in it were so extensively carried on, that the only way in which they could be prevented was, by thee xtermination of all the foreigners, which he submitted would not be consistent with the tenderness of the Celestial Empire; and he advised the emperor that the best thing he could do would be, to legalize the trade by laying a duty on the article. He (Mr. Grant) mentioned this, to show that a more constant intercourse with the Chinese might at last tend to remove many of the restrictions to commercial dealings with foreigners which were at present imposed by the laws of that country. Now, as it would be quite impossible to prevent that trade, and as there would always be a vast number of English residents there, it would be necessary that the functionary or functionaries that should represent this country there, should be armed with great and extensive powers. Indeed, taking into account the various and difficult and delicate duties which our representative there would have to discharge, he confessed that he thought he ought to be armed with almost unlimited powers. In fact, he was of opinion, that it would be next to madness to make the change that was proposed there, without giving the powers that he stated, to the person that should represent the nation in China. He would, therefore, propose, in the Bill which he should have to submit to the House on this subject, that his Majesty should be empowered to issue a Commission to such persons as be should think fit, arming them with such powers as he might deem proper, for the purpose of managing the concerns and taking care of the British interests in Canton. He thought that if those Commissioners were men of discretion (and they certainly ought to be such men) if they were well chosen, and if they acted with prudence and with delicacy, that in the course of time it would not be impossible to conciliate the Chinese authorities at Canton, and perhaps to remove that barrier which at present stood in the way of our general commercial intercourse with that country. He was very much disposed to think that it might be possible, by the adoption of prudent measures on the part of those Commissioners, and by their clearly separating our commercial dealings there from the duties imposed on them, to a certain degree to conciliate the Chinese authorities so as to open a channel for general intercourse and communication with that great and extensive empire. He thought that they were fully justified in entertaining such an expectation from what had been the consequence of the prudent conduct of many of the supercargoes of the Company resident at Canton, which had had a considerable effect towards leading to such a desirable result. He would now for a few moments advert to the Resolutions which his hon. friend, the member for Hampshire, had proposed on this subject. His hon. friend stated in one of those Resolutions, that before any change, such as that which was now proposed, should be carried into effect, it would be necessary to enter into a negotiation with the government of the Chinese empire; and his hon. friend was of opinion, that unless we did so we should find such a change to be attended with much hazard and considerable danger. Adverting also to the former embassies which had been sent from this country to China, and arguing from the result of them, his hon. friend contended, that we should be justified in sending out a similar embassy now, before we completed this arrangement. He (Mr. Grant) must say, that he altogether differed on that point from his hon. friend. He did so with the most unfeigned diffidence upon a subject with regard to which he was well aware that his hon. friend was an authority that was entitled to the greatest respect. Considering the extent to which his hon. friend had curried his acquaintance with the language, the manners, the feelings, and the habits of thinking, of the Chinese, he would repeat that it was with the most unfeigned diffidence, and with no small difficulty, that he ventured to differ from his hon. friend upon a point much connected with the character of that people. He would confess, that this subject of negotiation was one with regard to which he did not clearly see his way. Of this, at least, he was certain, that the result of our former embassies to China was far from encouraging. He did not see in what manner they had tended to produce a respect for our national character amongst the Chinese, and undoubtedly he thought, that to be dismissed with disgrace from "the presence" was not a circumstance that could be looked upon as productive of any particular advantage to this country. His hon. friend, in arguing for our endeavouring to open a negotiation with the Chinese, had referred, as an argument in support of his proposition, to what had been done by the Russians. Now with respect to the Russians the case was an extremely different one. With Russia, China was so connected, that it was absolutely necessary that there should be to a certain extent a commercial intercourse between the two countries. The connexion of the respective boundaries of the two countries rendered such an intercourse inevitable; but the trade carried on between them was not to a great extent, and it was only two years ago that on two Russian ships going by sea to China the intercourse between Russia and China by sea was positively and peremptorily prohibited by the authorities of the Celestial Empire. He thought, moreover, that, even were it possible to enter into such a negotiation on the part of this country with China, there would be, at the present time, and with the peculiar circumstances under which it was proposed, great danger in our attempting to do so. To enter into such a negotiation as preparatory to the change of system which it was proposed to effect, would, he thought, have a tendency to create considerable embarrassment and difficulty in the way of carrying that change into operation. If they should commence a negotiation as preparatory to the introduction of this change of system, it would have an ominous appearance to the Chinese. It would be calculated to awaken all the jealous and sensitive feelings which that people entertained with regard to strangers, and the result might be most disadvantageous to the interests of this country. He had not lightly, nor without much consideration, formed the opinion respecting the propriety of any attempt on our part to open a negotiation with the Chinese government. About two years ago, on the occasion of the interruption that took place in the intercourse with the Chinese at Canton, the subject of entering into such a negotiation had been under the consideration of his Majesty's Ministers, and upon the grounds which he had just stated they had come to the conclusion that it was liable to considerable objections. He did not think it would be necessary for him on this occasion to enlarge at any length on the question of the China trade; put as it was a subject which was regarded with great interest in this country, there were one or two points connected with it, to which he thought it right to advert. The trade of the East-India. Company to China, with the exclusive privileges appertaining to it, would cease in April, 1834. It would, therefore, then be open to all the merchants of this country to enter into it; and the question now was, whether the Company should send out any ships this season, seeing that the whole of the trade would be open next year. The ships that would go out now, could not return from China until the latter end of next year, or early in the commencement of the year after; and, therefore having been asked for his opinion on the subject by the Directors, he had recommended them not to send out any more ships than those that were at present under orders for China. When the trade should become open, he had no doubt that there would be an abundant supply from the Chinese market, to answer the demand of this country, and at present there was a very large stock of tea in the warehouses of the East-India Company. The amount of tea in the warehouses of the East-India Company at present, was sufficient to supply the consumption of this country for two years after the cessation of their exclusive trade in April, 1834; and, therefore, if there should be any interruption to the supply of tea, owing to the cessation of the trading of the Company, which was not at all likely to occur, there was a sufficient supply here at present to meet the consumption of the country for two years from April, or even June, 1834. The proposition had been made, that sufficient time should be allowed to the East-India Company, to dispose of their tea after 1834, before the private trader came into competition with them in the market; but on the whole, he thought that it would be better not to interfere by law with their private concerns. With regard to the duty under which tea should be admitted, when the trade was opened, he was ready to admit, that an ad valorem duty had some advantages, but he thought, that one disadvantageous effect of it was, to augment, to an undue extent, the price of the article on which it was laid, and that another disadvantageous effect of it, in a commercial point of view, would be, that it not only would be injurious to the trade, but that it would very much narrow the extension of the consumption of the article on which it was laid. On the other hand, a rated duty, which was in every other respect preferable to an ad valorem duty, had this peculiar disadvantage attending it—that unless proper precautions were taken, it would press unequally and unjustly upon the lowest class of the consumers of tea. The difficulty, then, which they had to avoid, was the alternative of resorting to a rated duty, that would be the same upon all classes of teas. Now, on looking at the evidence of gentlemen, who were peculiarly qualified to offer suggestions on the subject—at the evidence as well of gentlemen connected with the Customs, as of those concerned in the tea-trade—it would be found that they concurred in recommending, not the imposition of a rated duty upon the whole amount of tea consumed, but that teas should be separated into four or five different classes, and that rated duty should be fixed on each separate class, and" in that way, relief not only would be given to the lower class of consumers, but that tea would be rendered cheaper to all classes of consumers. As the subject was surrounded with difficulties on all sides, it seemed to his Majesty's Ministers, that to propose a classification of teas, and to impose on each separate class a different rate of duty, was the best mode of proceeding to adopt. Such had been the course adopted in the United States, before the duty on tea had been taken off there, and the concurrent testimony of all who had been examined as to its effects, showed, that it operated in no way to diminish the revenue, while it had not an injurious effect upon the consumption of the article in question. He did not think that the private trader should be confined, in the warehousing of his teas, to the warehouses of the East-India Company. He was sure, that the number of warehouses would be such, as to be sufficient to supply any demand for them. There was another point, to which he would briefly advert—namely, as to whether the traders to China should be restricted as to the size of the vessels which they should be empowered to send thither. He was aware, that this was a point involved in much difficulty, and that the opinion of experienced individuals had been given, as to the necessity of fixing those vessels at a certain rate. He would not say what opinion his Majesty's Government had formed on that point, but as an individual, he would say, that he could not conceive any necessity for the imposition of such a restriction. There was another question, which related to the basis on which the trade to China should be established. That question was, whether tea should be allowed to be brought from other parts of the world, as well as from those from which it was at present imported by the East-India Company. He thought that the present limits, to which the trade of the East-India Company was confined, were extremely wide, embracing as they did, the whole of the coast, from the Cape of Good Hope to China, and out of those limits tea was not at present to be procured, except at second hand. There was another point connected with the commerce of the East-India Company, upon which he was anxious to say a few words, because it was very important, in a manufacturing point of view, to this country. It was to be borne in mind, that the East-India Company had, for some time, been in the habit of importing considerable quantities of raw silk into this country. The Company kept up a large establishment of finishers of silk in India—they had taken great pains to improve the quality of the silk—and the importation of it into this country had become of very great importance to our manufacturers. The House would, he hoped, agree with him, that when the trading of the Company was to be put an end to, it would be most unwise that this supply of silk should be suddenly stopped; and that it would be most unjust to the natives employed in those establishments, that they should be thus, at once, thrown out of employment. For their sakes, therefore, it was intended, that the Company should be still allowed to employ them, while it would be the duty of the government of India to seek out capitalists into whose hands the trade might be thrown, so that the workmen might continue in employment, and our manufacturers be always supplied with silk. By this arrangement, the supply of silk would continue in the Company till proper persons were found to take it from the Company. He had to apologize for being obliged to trespass at such length on the attention of the House. But he had yet another and an important part of the question, to discuss: namely, the species of compromise, which had been proposed by the Government, and which had been acceded to by the East-India Company. It would not be necessary for him to enter into a specification of all the details of it, seeing that they were already before the public, but he would simply and shortly state to the House, that the plan was this—that the East-India Company should surrender all its rights and privileges, and property—the territory of India; and it was proposed by his Majesty's Government, that the authority of the government of India, should be continued in the hands of the Company, for the period of twenty years, but their commercial privileges as a trading Company should cease, and that, in consideration of their giving up those privileges, an annuity should be granted to them, the amount of such annuity to be charged on the territory of India. It was calculated, that the resources of India would be sufficient to supply this annuity, which it was proposed should be 630,000l. a-year, being the amount of the dividends which the proprietors at present received; and it was to be redeemable at the end of forty years, at the rate of 100l. for every 5l. 5s. of annuity. It was proposed, that the guarantee fund should amount to 12,000,000l., for securing the payment of the annuity, as well as for paying off finally the capital stock of the Company; and it was proposed, that the annuity in question, should be paid for a term of forty years, at the close of which period, it should be at the option of Parliament, giving three years' notice, to redeem it at the rate of 100l. for every 5l. 5s. of annuity. He had already stated, that it was proposed that the East-India Company should retain the political administration of India for a period of twenty years, at the end of which period, they might, if deprived of the government of India, demand the payment of their capital; but that if, at that period they did not demand it, then, that the payment of the annuity he had already stated, was to be continued for a term of forty years. He had thus stated to the House, a general view of that arrangement which had been proposed by his Majesty's ministers, and to the basis of which, the East-India Company had agreed. [Sir Robert Peel: Is the country to be answerable for the payment?] No part of the security for the payment of the proposed annuity was to be dependent upon the revenue of this country; it was to be totally independent of the finances of this country, and to be altogether secured upon the territorial revenue of India. The House would perceive, that the arrangement was, as he had stated at the outset, a compromise between the East-India Company and the Government of this country. He did not anticipate, that loss would accrue to any party from the arrangement. The Company professed to be possessed of considerable property. They stated their commercial assets at 19,000,000l. If that was the amount of their property in possession, and it was liable to no question or deduction in any of the items, there was no reason to apprehend any deficiency. The accounts of the Company, however, were of a most complicated and difficult nature, involved in considerable embarrassment, and any attempt to examine which would only lead to a protracted and unsatisfactory discus- sion. Under these circumstances a compromise had been thought to be the best and most satisfactory mode of arranging the matter; and to the basis of the compromise the East-India Company had agreed. Indeed he did not see that the Proprietors could have much reason to complain; for they would continue to receive the same amount of dividends that they now did, which was the amount they had received for the last forty years, and which it was proposed they should receive for forty years to come; and these dividends were secured on India itself, not upon the commerce of that country. On the other hand, it could not be said, that the territorial interests of India would suffer by the arrangement. He had a word or two to say respecting a distressed class of persons, the national creditors of India, who held the territorial debt of that country. They would be under no disadvantage from the arrangement. At present their title was liable to be questioned, but it was now proposed to recognise the validity of their security upon the territory of India. The proposed continuance of the political government of India in the hands of the Company would, he thought, be productive of good. It would be beneficial to all parties. He hoped the House would be of opinion that the arrangement which had been effected was such as that House could countenance as one advantageous to the country. It had been his opinion that it was of great importance to settle the question without exciting any angry feelings in the minds of the parties interested. The wishes and feelings of the East-India Company had been consulted as far as they could be, consistently with the paramount interests of the country, and he had found them prepared to make a sacrifice to the country. He thought it would be a wise proceeding on the part of that House to make concession the basis of their dealings with the parties interested, and he counselled the House to adopt that course. He hoped no measures would be taken which would excite irritation or just disappointment on either side. The only loss that India could suffer was trifling in amount; and that was no more than ought to be given for the advantages secured to her. He knew it had been said, that the Indian territory would not be sufficient to pay the proposed amount, and that the period might arrive when it would be found a severe burthen. The quarter from whence that observation had come had certainly surprised him. Nothing could be more unfounded than to anticipate that the great and rich territory of India would not be able to pay the interest of its national debt. What ground could there be for alarm? He was one who believed, that the commerce of India would receive a considerable extension. He believed that that country would be better able than it was now to sustain its burthens. He knew, that there had been a deficiency of the revenues of late years; but there was reason to believe, that such a deficiency would not occur again, but that before many years there would be a considerable surplus revenue. Was it in reason, he asked, to anticipate failure of the kind proposed to be apprehended from such a country as India? With a population of countless numbers, a sea-coast boundless in extent, rivers navigable to a greater height than almost any others in the world, a soil of unparalleled richness, and possessing resources not yet even discovered—with a fertility beyond compare, and a population, however varying in habits and manners, yet all capable of productive and profitable labour—was it a rational apprehension that a country such as this, which had been a magazine of wealth to every country and people to which it had belonged, would sink so low in power as to be unable to pay the just charges of its government? He would next refer to the evidence taken before the Finance Committee, on India, of which the Chairman was his late lamented friend, Mr. Hyde Villiers, who had been too early taken away, the loss of whom he seriously felt in the important work in which he had been engaged; and he believed, afflicting as that loss was to his friends, it might be still more deeply regretted by the country. From that Gentleman he had derived the greatest assistance, and the country much valuable service. From the evidence taken before that Committee, it appeared, that in 1828–29, the revenue of India amounted to about 22,000,000l. sterling. It also appeared that the debt of India was 40,000,000l., which was only double the amount of one year's revenue of the country. There was surely nothing discouraging on the face of that statement as regarded the revenue and resources of India. He was aware that the Burmese war, which occurred in 1824, had been productive of considerable charges upon India. It had made an increase of 10,000,000l. to the military charges, and the civil charges were increased at the same time. In 1827, the Directors sent out orders, to India that measures of reduction should be taken so as to reduce the expenditure to the standard of 1823–1824; and Lord William Bentinck had, in the course of two years, acted with such vigour in pursuance of those instructions, that in 1828–29 he had reduced the annual expenditure from 18,000,000l. to 16,000,000l. Thus in two years 2,000,000l. had been reduced in the expenditure. The same principle of reduction had been ever since in progress, and there was no doubt that in two or three years the expenditure of India would be reduced to the standard of 1823–24. It appeared from the evidence given before the Committee, that even during the period of the Burmese war in 1824, there was an increase of revenue, so much so, that there was 1,000,000l. surplus over and above the expenditure. How, then, could it be said, that that war rendered an increase in the revenue of India impossible? But it was contended that the expenses of that war had exhausted the country. When they spoke of an exhausted country, they meant, in common parlance, a country on which taxes had been imposed to a great amount to meet a heavy debt, and that no further resources for present exigences were available. In point of fact, however, though the debt of India had been increased, the taxes had not been increased. They were the same in amount as they were prior to that war, and the debt had been met in another way. He had, no doubt, that in a short time the revenue of India would rapidly increase. The right hon. Gentleman entered into some calculations to show, that such would be the case, and he especially contended, that it was likely to follow as one of the consequences of the plan now proposed by his Majesty's Government. He would take the revenues upon the average of the last three years of which the accounts were come to hand, 1827, 1828, and 1829; he would take the expenses of the same period, and comparing the revenue of those three years with all the charges upon it, as the elements of his calculation, without going into detail, he came to the conclusion that the surplus would be, in the year 1834, very nearly 198,000l. Allowing for any deficiency which might occur, he would take that surplus at 150,000l., and say, that he believed, upon very good grounds, that such a result might be expected. Looking at that as the result of the first year's revenue after the change, he might certainly assume, that it would be at least as great in subsequent years. If he added to that the consideration that the prosperity of our Indian empire was likely to increase, augmenting the revenue while it was certain that a diminution of the charges must take place—if he added the effects which must ensue from the employment of steam facilitating communication, and from all the improvements which would undoubtedly take place in society, he felt quite confident in saying, that our Indian empire would be more than solvent, and more than able to meet all the demands upon it. These topics all entered into the Resolutions which he meant to propose to the Committee; and he had confined himself to the cessation of the exclusive trade to China, to the conditions under which it was proposed to place the Government in the bands of the East-India Company, and to the species of compromise he had described. It remained for him to describe some other points, which, though not in the Resolutions before the Committee, he proposed to introduce into the Bill he should have the honour to submit to the House. These were, indeed, measures which seemed essential to the good government of India; those measures embraced principles of great importance—principles not new to the House and the country—principles which had long attracted attention both in this country and India—principles too, which had been ably developed both here and there, and which were supported by the highest authorities both of India and of this country. There were some of these topics, such as the revenue and the military state of India, to which he would not advert, particularly the military state of India, because that was at present undergoing an investigation by the Governor General, and the report of the Governor General on that subject had not yet been received. First, with respect to the constitutional government of India—he was aware that he was trespassing for a long time on the House, but he would not further enlarge than was necessary to explain those points not embraced in the Resolutions he proposed. He wished, however, particularly to state the reasons for those changes which he meant to propose in the government. One alteration with respect to the frame of the government which he meant to bring forward was, that, instead of three presidencies, there should be four. At present the government of India was placed under three presidencies—Bengal, Madras, and Bombay. It was now felt that it was necessary to strengthen the hands of authority in India, and to do that they must consider the vast extent of our Indian empire, and particularly the extent of the government of Bengal, which possessed a jurisdiction over all the western provinces. Those provinces had been recently acquired, and being situated in the neighbourhood of a warlike people, and the inhabitants not yet being habituated to our rule, required a vigilant and a strong authority. It was therefore felt that there should be a separation of the government of Bengal, and a separate governor appointed for the western provinces. That point had been urged in several of the papers which had already been laid on the Table of the House; and it was distinctly stated, that it was impossible to do justice to the public service, unless a separate presidency were established for the western provinces, and a separate government. On those general grounds he meant to propose to establish four presidencies in India. It was also felt by many persons that the Governor General should not be called upon to exercise the functions of a particular government; he did not decide that question; he only stated it as a matter for consideration, whether the Governor General should also be governor of Bengal, or, consistently with his name, should be only Governor General, while another governor was appointed for Bengal. Looking to the present state of the government, and to what was wanted to give the Governor General a sufficient authority, it appeared that the government was not duly organised, and it was evidently necessary that the Governor General should have more control than at present over all the subordinate officers. He ought to have a stronger control over all the law and civil officers than he now had. In his opinion, the Governor General, legally, had that power now, and no regulations whatever could be issued without his authority; but, practically, that power was not exercised; and, in the case of the government of Madras, out of respect to the great talents of Sir Thomas Monroe, it was expressly given up. In consequence, such a power not being practically possessed by the Governor General, there was a want of unity in the proceedings, and there frequently arose differences between the Governor General and the subordinate governors. The power of the Governor General ought also to be increased in respect to controlling the expenditure. It was remarked that there was a great carelessness about the expenditure in the subordinate officers, because they were not controlled by the Governor General, who was not informed of any expenditure till after it had been incurred, and when it was too late to prevent it. He meant therefore to propose, that none of the subordinate officers should incur any expense, till after it had been sanctioned by the Governor General. It was generally felt, that in this, as in many other respects, the subordinate governments were more independent of the Governor General than was consistent with the recognised principles of good government. It was therefore further proposed to reduce the establishment at each of the presidencies, either by reducing the number of the council, or by depriving the president altogether of the assistance of the council. Those were the alterations he proposed in the frame of the government. He would not enter into minute details of these matters; but the defects which arose from the present imperfections in the frame of the government might be stated as particularly three. The first was in the nature of the laws and regulations by which India was governed; the second was in the ill-defined authority and power from which these various laws and regulations emanated; and the third was the anomalous, and sometimes conflicting, judicatures by which the laws were administered, or in other words the defects were in the laws themselves, in the authority for making them, and in the manner of executing them. First, with respect to the nature of the laws, it was the opinion of individuals the most respectable for their talents, and who were the best qualified to judge, that they were very imperfect, indeed so imperfect, that in many cases it was quite impossible to ascertain what the law was. But he begged to say, that he should on this point rather refer to the authority of distinguished men, as better adapted to satisfy the House, than confine himself to his own assertions. One of the most respectable authorities on the nature of these laws, the Judges of the Supreme Court, expressed themselves thus: 'In this state of circumstances, no one can pronounce an opinion or form a judgment, however sound, upon any disputed right of persons, respecting which doubt and confusion may not be raised by those who may choose to call it in question; for very few of the public, or persons in office at home, not even the law officers, can be expected to have so comprehensive and clear a view of the present Indian system, as to know readily and familiarly the bearings of each part of it on the rest. There are English Acts of Parliament specially provided for India, and others of which it is doubtful whether they apply to India wholly, or in part, or not at all. There is the English common law and constitution, of which the application, in many respects, is still more obscure and perplexed; Mahomedan law and usage; Hindoo law, usage, and Scripture; charters and letters patent of the Crown; regulations of the Governments, some made declaredly under Acts of Parliament particularly authorising them, and others, which are founded, as some say, on the general powers of Government intrusted to the Company by Parliament, and, as others assert, on their rights as successors of the old native government; some regulations require registry in a Supreme Court; others do not; some have effect generally throughout India; others are peculiar to one presidency, or one town. There are Commissions of the Governments, and circular orders from the Nizamut Adawlut, and from the Dewanny Adawlut; treaties of the Crown; treaties of the Indian governments; besides inference drawn at pleasure from the application of the droit public and the law of nations of Europe, to a state of circumstances which will justify almost any construction of it, or qualification of its force.' That extract must satisfy the House, that the state of the law in India called loudly for a remedy. To come to the question of the judicature—it was one of the anomalies of this system, that the Supreme Court, which was established expressly for the protection of the natives, was only called into activity where there were few natives—namely, at the presidencies. He would first advert to the state of the Supreme Court in relation to the whole judicial system; and first he would say, that the evils arising from the undefined extent of the jurisdiction of this Court were such as required attention from Parliament on this occasion. The jurisdiction of this Court, as it was at present constituted, embraced persons 800 or 1,000 miles distant from it, who might hear of the court for the first time on being summoned to Calcutta, and might then learn for the first time that they were within its jurisdiction. The natives who were thus exposed to its jurisdiction suffered great inconveniences. It actually spread consternation amongst them by exposing them to most expensive litigation far from their resources. He would on this point read to the House the opinion of Sir Charles Metcalfe, which was contained in the valuable documents already on the Table of the House. He was one of the most distinguished servants of the Government, and a man of the greatest authority—a most enlightened and liberal man, and peculiarly well acquainted with that subject, on which he gave a most just and honest opinion. The right hon. Gentleman read the following extract from a Minute by Sir Charles Metcalfe, dated February 19, 1829:—'The only objection that strikes me to the spread of a British Christian population in India is the existing discordance of the laws by which our English and our native subjects are respectively governed. This objection will, no doubt, in time be removed, and the sooner the better, by framing laws equally binding on both parties in all concerns common to both, and leaving to all their own suitable laws in whatever peculiarly concerns themselves alone. The present system of judicature in India, by which the King's Court is rendered entirely separate from the local administration and institutions, and often practically subversive of their power and influence, is fraught with mischief; and that part of the system which makes our native subjects, under some circumstances, liable to the jurisdiction of the King's Court; under some to that of the Company's Court; and under some to that of both, without regard to residence, or any clearly defined limitations by which our native subjects can know to what laws or courts they are or are not amenable, is replete with gross injustice and oppression, and is an evil loudly demanding a remedy, which can only be found in a strict local limitation of the powers of his Majesty's Court with regard to the persons and property of native subjects, or in an amalgamation of the King's Courts with the local judicial institutions, under a code of laws fitted for local purposes, and calculated to bestow real and equal justice on all classes of subjects under British dominion in India.' If the House would allow him he would also state the opinion of a very high legal authority—the opinion of a gentleman who had been Advocate General—the opinion of Sir Edward Ryan—who was at present Chief Justice at Calcutta. That Judge said distinctly, in a minute, dated October 2, 1829: 'The great extension of the British territories since the Charter of 1774, has given to the court a range of jurisdiction which at places remote from Calcutta, can only be considered a mockery of justice, if it be not the means of fraud and oppression. There can be no doubt, therefore, that difficulties and inconveniences are constantly arising from the undefined and uncertain state of the court's jurisdiction, which are alike perplexing and harassing to the suitors, the Judges, and all who are concerned in the administration of justice.' He would also quote to the House the opinion of Sir Charles Grey, who had filled the office of Chief Justice, and had recently returned from India, expressed in a Minute, dated October 2, 1820, and whose sentiments on another point were of peculiar importance. Sir Charles Grey said: It may be doubted whether the present state of things, which I believe to be unexampled in the history of the world, can last much longer. Throughout the greater pan of India there are to be found some individuals at least of four distinct classes, each of which is supposed to live under a distinct system of law, and to have different rights and different duties, but none of them accurately defined. There are persons born in the British islands, Hindoos, Mabometans, Asiatic Christians; and, besides all these, there are in many parts foreigners and subjects of Great Britain, who have been born neither in the British islands nor in India, as to whom, I believe, there is no one who, consistently with usage, can say, with any just confidence, what law it is which applies to them. Hitherto it has been possible to make shift; but as the native Christians, British and Colonial persons, and foreigners, shall in crease in numbers and pervade India—a result which must gradually take place—matters may be brought to such a pass as would scarcely be tolerable.' He considered this authority of great importance as to the last point mentioned—that of the admission of Europeans into India, to which it led him then to speak. Under the influence of severe regulations, slowly and tardily relaxed, the number of Europeans in India had increased; and he proposed to increase the facilities for Europeans to settle in India. If he were asked whence arose the necessity for this change in the system under which British supremacy had grown up and been supported, he must advert to the singular change which had of late years taken place in the character of Indian society. There was nothing so remarkable in the history of India as the change which had of late years taken place in the dispositions and feelings of the natives, more particularly within the last fifteen years. The natives had become attached to European sciences and arts—they had learnt our language—they used our luxuries—and were making great strides towards adopting many of our habits. He would quote some admirable remarks made by Lord William Bentinck in a Minute drawn up on May 30, 1829. The right hon. Gentleman read the following extract:—' Recent events, and the occurrences now passing under our eyes, still more clearly justify the persuasion, that whatever change would be beneficial for our native subjects we may hope to see adopted, in part at least, at no distant period, if adequate means and motives be presented. I need scarcely mention the increasing demand which almost all who possess the means, evince for various articles of convenience and luxury purely European. It is in many cases very remarkable. Even in the celebration of their most sacred festivals, a great change is said to be perceptible in Calcutta. Much of what used, in old times, to be distributed among beggars and Brahmins, is now, in many instances, devoted to the ostentatious entertainment of Europeans; and generally the amount expended in useless alms is stated to have been greatly curtailed. The complete and cordial co-operation of the native gentry in pro- moting education and in furthering other objects of public utility; the astonishing progress which a large body of Hindoo youth has made in the acquisition of the English language, literature, and science; the degree in which they have conquered prejudices that might otherwise have been deemed the most inveterate (the students in the medical class of the Hindoo College under Dr. Tytler, as well as in the medical native school under Dr. Breton, in which there are pupils of the highest castes, are said to dissect animals, and freely to handle the bones of a human skeleton); the freedom and the talent with which, in many of the essays we lately had exhibited to us, old customs are discussed; the anxiety evinced at Delhi, and at Agra, and elsewhere, for the means of instruction in the English language; the readiness everywhere shown to profit by such means of instruction as we have afforded; the facility with which the natives have adapted themselves to new rules and institutions; the extent to which they have entered into new speculations after the example of our countrymen; the spirit with which many are said to be now prosecuting that branch of manufacture (indigo) which has alone as yet been fully opened to British enterprise; the mutual confidence which Europeans and natives evince in their transactions as merchants and bankers; these, and other circumstances, leave in my mind no doubt that our native subjects would profit largely by a more general intercourse with intelligent and respectable Europeans, and would promptly recognise the advantage of it.' Such were the words of Lord William Bentinck. Another circumstance that was worthy of notice was the change which had taken place in the sentiments of the servants of the company in respect to admitting Europeans to settle in India. Some few years ago it was impossible to find one of them who was not averse from admitting Europeans into India. Now there was scarcely one of the civil servants of the Company who did not desire to see Europeans go to India. If there were some exceptions, those gentlemen did not object to it altogether, but they required that it should not be allowed except under certain restrictions. Thus Mr. Elphinstone said, that, if the Government were strong, they could not give too much facility to Europeans to settle in India. This was a remarkable opinion, because Mr. Elphinstone was a man who was sensibly alive to the dangers arising from unrestricted intercourse. He would, with the permission of the House, read another passage from a letter of the Governor General in council, dated January 1st: Satisfied as we are that the best interests of England and India will be promoted by the free admission to the latter of European industry and enterprise, our persuasion is scarcely less strong, that with every possible encouragement the settlement of our countrymen in this country will be far short of the number which is to be desired, whether regard be had to the extension of commerce and agriculture, to the good order of the country, to the prompt, cheap, and equal administration of good law, to the improvement of the people in knowledge and morals, or to the strength and security of our power. He would on this topic again recur to the authority of Sir Charles Metcalfe, who said, in a Minute dated February 19, 1829:—'I have long lamented that our countrymen in India are excluded from the possession of land and other ordinary rights of peaceable subjects. I believe that the existence of these restrictions impedes the prosperity of our Indian Empire, and, of course, that their removal would tend to promote it. I am also of opinion, that their abolition is necessary for that progressive increase of revenue, without which our income cannot keep pace with the continually increasing expense of our establishment. I am further convinced that our possession of India must always be precarious, unless we take root by having an influential portion of the population attached to our Government by common interests and sympathies. Every measure, therefore, which is calculated to facilitate the settlement of our country men in India, and to remove the obstructions by which it is impeded, must, I conceive, conduce to the stability of our rule, and to the welfare of the people subject to our dominion.' Another authority of considerable weight on this point was that of Mr. Bailey, who had been long in India, and had now returned to this country, and whose opinion on this point, was entitled to great respect, because he was one of those gentlemen who saw the necessity of placing some restrictions on the admission of Europeans into India. Mr. Bailey thought that before Europeans could be freely admitted into India, it would be necessary that the present state of the laws should be altered, and that Europeans should be placed under the control of proper laws. Mr. Bailey said: 'Whenever the British Legislature shall see fit to declare that all persons, Europeans or natives, residing in the interior of our provinces in India shall be subjected to the same regulations, and to the same local tribunals, civil and criminal, and shall, by the delegation of sufficient powers for that purpose, enable the British Government in India to modify and improve our judicial institutions to the extent which may from time to time be found necessary, from that moment the unrestricted admission of European British subjects, and the free permission to acquire and hold landed property on an equal footing with the natives of India, may be conceded, not only without inconvenience, but with most important benefits to India, as well as to Great Britain.' He would also refer to the authority of a gentleman who had been a Member of the House, and whose name was of great weight in Indian affairs; he meant Mr. Holt Mackenzie, for whose talents and liberal sentiments he entertained the highest respect. That Gentleman had also delivered opinions similar to those of Mr. Bailey, and stated, that he thought that a judicial system should be adopted which would be equally applicable to the Europeans and the natives. Till there was an identity of the judicial systems, it would be scarcely practical to give full facility to the admission of Europeans into the country. It was only by an identification of the system of judicature, which should place both Europeans and natives under the same laws and institutions, that an unrestricted influx of Europeans could be allowed. On this subject he would further quote another authority. Sir Edward Ryan said, on October 2d, 1829: 'To leave the European owner or occupier of lands, or the manufacturer, at great distances from Calcutta, amenable only to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, or subject only to the Mofussil Courts, with the limited powers which they at present possess, would tend to such a system of fraud and injustice, and leave the natives so entirely at the mercy of the settlers, that I think it would be an insuperable obstacle to the allowing of Europeans to settle in the interior. I am, therefore, satisfied that all persons in the interior of the country must be subject to the Courts of the district which they inhabit.' All authorities, then, were in favour of admitting Europeans, provided they were subject to the same laws and institutions and were placed on the same footing as the natives. With authorities to overlook Europeans, they might freely enter the country. It was equally just in principle, and warranted by practice, that the system of judicature should place the natives and Europeans on the same footing; and unless they were placed on the same footing, it would not be possible to allow Europeans free access to India. In the mean time, he trusted that the Legislature would arm the Government in India with power to make such regulations for the control of the natives and Europeans as would have the effect of gradually approximating the two people, and the laws of the two countries, and pave the way for ultimate assimilation; and having done this, he proposed immediately to relax the restrictions upon the intercourse of British subjects with India. The principle which he thought indispensable to lay down was, that no European should enter India but upon the express condition of being subject to the local laws and regulations. That was the only means by which a perfect intercourse could be obtained; and though that desirable object could not be accomplished at present, yet he thought a much freer intercourse might be admitted with the natives than hitherto, when the evils of the present system were checked by wholesome regulations. For this purpose he proposed to strengthen the legislative power of the Governor General and Council. At present the Council consisted of three Councillors, besides the Commander-in-chief; to these he proposed to add two others; and it was also contemplated, but not decided, to add to the Council one or two persons—either Barristers of high standing, or Judges who had retired from office, and who would bring the light of their knowledge to assist in carrying into effect these important alterations in the law. Of course no Judge holding office would be made a Councillor. The great object to which reference had been made, of amalgamating the King's Courts and the Company's Courts, could not, of course, be immediately carried into effect; but he thought it most essential to provide without delay against the deep mischief which had been described in the papers he read as springing from the excessive jurisdiction of the Supreme Courts. He proposed, therefore, to give to the Governor General in Council, considerable power, and to enable him by his regulations in some measure to restrict the powers of the Supreme Courts. This was certainly intrusting great power in the hands of the Governor General, but the urgency of the case demanded such a proposition, and on this ground he submitted it. With regard to the admission of Europeans into India, he proposed that all Europeans should be at liberty to go to that country on the condition of recording their names with the municipal authorities of the port or presidency where they should land, and submitting themselves to the same regulations with native subjects; and on so doing, they should be permitted to proceed from that port or presidency, into any of the old settled provinces, without a licence from the Company; but where the provinces were newly settled, and where the character of the English was less known, then it would be prudent, for the present, to restrict the right of settlement to those persons who should obtain the Company's licence. Whatever might be the immediate regulations of the Governor-General, he thought the House would agree with him, that ultimately it should be laid down as an inflexible rule, that no European should enter into that country, unless on the condition of being placed under the same laws and tribunals as the natives. Without such a rule, he insisted it was impossible to obtain that complete identification of interest and feeling which was of paramount importance. With regard to the power of the British to hold land, and the restrictions which formerly existed, these were practically nearly all removed; and, in point of fact, the principle was fully admitted. Mr. Edmonstone stated in his evidence, in 1832: 'In fact, the question with regard to the admission of Europeans as landlords seems to be already decided, the local government having, without previous reference to the authorities at home, come to a resolution to allow Europeans to hold leases of 60 years' duration; that arrangement has been confirmed by the authorities at home, with the limitation of the leases to 21 years instead of 60. In fact, it seems to me that the subject is no longer open to decision; the momentous question of admitting Europeans to establish themselves as landlords in the interior of the country is disposed of by that Resolution, and the limited confirmation of it, to which I was entirely adverse.' In Bengal, indeed, there were some restrictions which, no doubt, were most benevolently intended, but which, on the whole, he thought, tended to defeat their object. Such restrictions, of course, it would be prudent to remove. It was right to state, that all capital cases were to be considered as exceptions to the general rule he had before stated; and that Europeans charged with capital crimes would be tried by the Supreme Court. Trivial as some of these circumstances might appear, he considered the change very important. India was no longer shut to the Englishman who could not procure a licence—he might proceed there without application to the Company; nor need he fear being compelled to leave the country because his licence was withdrawn. He was under a government arbitrary if they pleased—despotic if they pleased; but still it was a government of laws—laws which he knew, and which, if he obeyed, he had nothing to fear. But this he had adopted for a maxim, that no persons should go to India but in connexion with the interests of the natives, nay, in subserviency to their interests, for he looked upon a regard to the interests of the natives as their first duty, and as of the first importance. In this opinion he was confirmed by the opinion of Sir Charles Grey, who said: If the provinces are to be opened to British settlers, let it be universally understood so, that no doubt may remain, nor any ground for subsequent reproach that they go to live under a despotic and imperfect, but strong government; that they carry with them no rights but such as are possessed there by the natives themselves; and that it is impossible at present to give them either that security and easy enjoyment of landed property, or those ready remedies for private wrongs, which more regularly constituted governments afford. A tolerable system of criminal judicature, we believe, might even at present be established throughout the greater part of India.' With respect to the natives of India, he proposed to introduce in the Bills to be brought before Parliament a clause to put an end to all disabilities on the part of the natives of our Indian dominions to hold office or employment on account of their birth or religion. With respect to slavery in India, there was a wide difference between slavery which existed in that country and in the West Indies. Slavery in India was not very oppressive, with the exception of Malabar, where much cruelty was practised. In India it formed a part of the general institution of castes—it was connected with the religion of the natives, and, consequently, required very cautious treatment. He should propose, however, to form a Commission for the purpose of considering the best mode of disposing of the whole system. Although the approximation of the laws in India, to which he eventually looked forward, could not be immediately carried into execution, yet he thought they ought not to lose any time in instituting the inquiries necessary to prepare the way to this desirable consummation. He proposed to issue a commission to inquire how far it was possible to approach to a more uniform system—how far it was possible to blend the King's Courts and those of the Company, and to amalgamate all systems for if this were not possible, the sooner the idea was given up the better. The Commission he proposed should be issued by the Governor General, and be composed of persons well skilled in the administration of Indian justice, and of one or two persons from this country, but who should receive their appointment from the local Government. He also proposed to call the attention of the House to the state of the ecclesiastical Establishment in India. His propositions would, he believed, be essential to the improvement of that establishment; they would not, however, embrace any expensive or extravagant improvements; but they merely sought to remedy existing evils, and to correct the actual mischiefs of the system. Amongst other things, he proposed to rescue the Bishop of Calcutta from the whole ecclesiastical burthen of India, and to appoint, as Suffragan Bishops, the Archdeacons of Madras and Bombay. He should not dwell further on this plan, but, trusting the general result would be advantageous to this country as well as to India, he would conclude by an extract from a letter of that eminent and excellent Divine, Bishop Heber, who, addressing a letter, dated 5th April, 1825, to the Governor-General, expressed himself in the following manner:—I, lastly, beg leave to offer my congratulations to your Lordship in Council on the internal peace, and the appearance of general prosperity and content; which, not withstanding a protracted drought and other unfavourable circumstances, have attracted my attention in every part of the hon. Company's territories which I have visited, it is my earnest prayer to that good Providence who has already made the mild, and just, and stable government of British functionaries productive of so much advantage to Hindoostan, that he would preserve and prosper an influence which has been hitherto so well employed; that he would eventually make our nation the dispenser of still greater blessings to our Asiatic brethren; and in his own good time, and by such gentle and peaceable means as only are well-pleasing in his sight, unite to us in a community of faith, of morals, of science, and political institutions, the brave, the mild, the civilised, and highly intelligent race, who only in the above respects can be said to fall short of Britons.—The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the following Resolutions:—

1. 1. "That it is expedient that all his Majesty's subjects shall be at liberty to repair to the ports of the empire of China, and to trade in tea and in all other productions of the said empire; subject to such regulations as Parliament shall enact for the protection of the commercial and political interests of this country.
2. 2. "That it is expedient that, in case the East-India Company shall transfer to the Crown, on behalf of the Indian territory, all assets and claims of every description belonging to the said Company, the Crown, on behalf of the Indian territory, shall take on itself all the obligations of the said Company, of whatever description, and that the said Company shall receive from the revenues of the said territory such a sum, and paid in such a manner, and under such regulations, as Parliament shall enact.
3. 3. "That it is expedient that the Government of the British possessions in India be intrusted to the said Company, under such conditions and regulations as Parliament shall enact, for the purpose 741 of extending the commerce of this country, and of securing the good government and promoting the moral and religious improvement of the people of India."

Mr. Wynn

said, the subject which the right hon. Gentleman had brought before the Committee was, in his opinion, of greater importance than any question, not even excepting that relating to the West Indies, which had been brought under the consideration of the House, during the present Session. Upon the manner in which it was treated would essentially depend the future condition of 90,000,000 of our fellow-creatures. It was with great pleasure that he had heard, towards the conclusion of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, a declaration which he wished had been made the subject of a distinct and substantive resolution, to occupy the first place in their proceedings—namely, "That all natives of India, without regard to their colour, descent, or religion, should be eligible to every office under the Government, which their education and acquirements might qualify them to fill." When he looked to the magnitude of the question, he could not help regretting, that it had been deferred to this late period of the Session. If the other measures which Government had brought before the House were to be proceeded with, this, he was sure, could not possibly receive that degree of attention which was necessary. He could not urge unnecessary delay, but even delay was preferable to a hurried and imperfect consideration, when the minds of all the Members must be distracted by the variety of other important subjects now before them. To the first Resolution he had not the slightest objection. For the time was come when the trade with China must be opened to the enterprise of the people of this country generally. Indeed, he had supported Mr. Canning in 1813, in objecting to tie up the China trade for so long a period as twenty years. It was thought, that it might be necessary to reconsider the question within a much shorter period, and events had justified that opinion, for there could be no doubt if Mr. Canning's motion for continuing the exclusive trade with China, for ten years only, instead of twenty, had been agreed to, the trade would have been thrown open long before this. The transactions of the last twenty years must have convinced every impartial observer, that it would have been desirable for Parliament to have had an opportunity of revising the terms of the charter at an earlier period. There were many like himself who remembered the chief points which were insisted upon at the time of granting the present charter by almost every man connected with Indian affairs. It was said, that the resort of Europeans to India, could not be permitted, except under the severest restrictions; yet now several years had elapsed since the policy of removing those restrictions had been established. A still stronger opinion prevailed as to the danger of allowing missionaries to proceed to India. There was scarcely an individual connected with India, who did not prophesy the most dismal consequences from that measure; but what had been the result? During twenty years, not a single instance of inconvenience, resulting from even the inconsiderate zeal of a missionary, had come to light. It was also asserted, that all those who might embark in the private trade would be ruined, and the idea of competing with the power of the Company was treated as the dream of a visionary. What had been the result? Before one-half of the period for which the Charter was granted had elapsed—before the expiration of ten years—the trade of the Company had almost wholly passed into the hands of private traders. It was likewise repeatedly asserted, that it was idle to expect any alteration in the habits of the natives—any increased demand for European articles; their wants and habits had, it was said, remained the same from the days of Alexander, and were likely so to continue to the end of time, fixed and immutable. The right hon. Gentleman had now communicated to the House the real result, and had, on the authority of Lord William Bentinck, drawn a glowing picture of the progress of civilization, refinement, and education, among the natives, in direct contradiction to all former expectation. What was the consequence to be deduced from the failure of all these predictions? It was this, that if upon these points the greatest misrepresentations prevailed twenty years ago, amongst men who had the best opportunity of forming a correct judgment, they ought to reserve to themselves an opportunity of revising the plan which they were called upon to adopt, at a much earlier period than the right hon. Gentleman proposed. Before proceeding, as the correspondence before the House referred to intended changes in the con- stitution of the Court of Directors, which had not been explained, he wished particularly to be informed what alteration the right hon. Gentleman proposed to make in the number of the Directors; and, in the next place, what qualification he proposed to demand? That was to say, whether he meant that the qualification should, as at present, merely consist in possessing a certain amount of East-India Stock, or whether it should require a residence for a certain period in India, by which a knowledge of the affairs of that empire, and of the Government of that country, might be obtained? [Mr. Charles Grant was at present not able to state.] That point appeared to him one of the most material parts of the plans. The power to be conferred upon the Court of Directors would depend upon the description of persons—whether their number were greater or less than now—to be appointed—that was to say, whether they should be required to possess as a requisite qualification, an intimate knowledge with the affairs of India or not. He meant not to make any reflections upon individuals; but he well remembered, that during the time he had the honour to be officially connected with the Board of Control, out of seven gentlemen with whom he had to communicate successively as Chairmen of the Court of Directors, four had never been in India, and only one had resided there. When trade formed the most material part of the functions of the Court of Directors, and when the China trade was in their exclusive management, to which they chiefly looked for the amount of their dividends, there might be reasons for choosing London merchants, though unconnected with India, for the care of the shipping, and other interests: then, it might not be so absolutely essential that an intimate knowledge of India should be possessed by them; but as they would henceforth have only political functions to perform, he considered such a qualification indispensable. His right hon. friend had tried to establish an analogy between our relations with the British colonies in the West-Indies, and our relations with the East-Indian empire, and to draw a comparison between the management of the two; but it appeared to him, that no analogy whatever existed. The East-Indian empire was not a colony. The nature of a colony was that of a population originating from the emigration and settlement of the natives of the mother country; but that was not the case with India. India was a mighty empire, the government of which had, by the course of events, devolved upon this country, and we sent out individuals as rulers, who had no other connexion with the people of that vast continent than what arose from the relation of governors and governed. It was, therefore, totally distinct from a colony. His right hon. friend had dwelt upon the great merits of the government of the Court of Directors, and upon the important share which that Court had had in the government of India. He admitted, that the Directors had, in many instances, been highly useful in bringing forward questions; but, at the same time, it should be borne in mind that the decision upon all those questions had been vested in the Board of Control. In that Board, for the last fifty years, the real and effective government of India had resided. The Court of Directors only acted as a council, which could, indeed, suggest measures, but in no instance, enforce the adoption of them. The question with him, therefore, was, whether the Court of Directors, chosen as at present, presented the probability of affording abler assistance, and giving better counsel in the government of India, than it would do, were its members appointed in a different manner? He should like the number of them to be reduced; the period for which they were appointed to be limited, as at present; their qualifications for such appointment altered, and the mode of appointing them altogether changed. Let the number be six or eight; let them hold the appointment as at present, four years; let their qualification be twelve years' residence in India; and let them be nominated by the Crown, with a capacity to be immediately re-appointed at the expiration of four years—two going out every year. By the present system, the appointment was practically for life; and whether a Director administered the duties of his office ably or not, he retained the appointment; there being hardly an instance of any individual having been removed, whatever his age or infirmities, which was a great inconvenience. At one time, it was stated by one of the members of the Committee of Correspondence, on which all the important political functions of the East-India Company rest, that he had cast up the different ages of the individuals then composing that Committee, and that the average age of the eleven members was between sixty-eight and sixty-nine years. He knew that some persons retained to a great age the clearest faculties, and a power to discharge their public duties with the greatest ability. His right hon. friend could easily quote the example of the late Mr. Charles Grant, his father, retaining, after the age of fourscore years, the clearness of his faculties to such a degree, that at that age, he was upon the point of being re-elected to the chair of the East-India Company. But such were exceptions—the rule was the other way. He felt strong objections to the present mode in which the Directors were elected by that numerous body called the East-India proprietors. The system of nomination by the Directors themselves was open to objection; for while it afforded opportunities to persons to obtain the favour of the Directors, and secure their election, without any regard to their fitness for the office, it did not give the slightest chance to any respectable individual, however qualified, to get elected, unless supported by particular interests. What might now be the case he knew not, but it used to be the case, that the union of the two principal houses of agency, if supported by the Chairman and Deputy-Chairman for the time being—could ensure the election of any candidate for the direction, without any reference to his abilities or knowledge. That had always been his chief objection to the present mode of nomination. But there was another ground of objection—namely, the necessity of a canvass. He had known several instances of individuals who might have been most useful members of the Court, whose general fitness was acknowledged, and who said, they should be glad to accept the office, but who shrunk from the labour and humiliation of an extensive personal canvass. He admitted, that some distinguished individuals had not been required to canvass; but these cases were exceptions. His belief, then, was, that, generally speaking, if the choice were limited to persons who had resided for twelve years in India, that it would be a better mode of nomination to rest it upon the responsibility of the Government, than upon so variable a body as the East-India proprietors. But his right hon. friend had urged as one reason for the continuance of the present system, that none could be devised for governing India, without vesting that patronage in the Ministers of the Crown. His right hon. friend must know, that there had been many plans suggested for the better application of that patronage. He would not pretend to enumerate all the various suggestions that had been at different times made, or which might be made, upon the subject; but, he trusted, at all events, Parliament would, in this Bill, insist upon a certain number of civil appointments being allotted to open competition at the different Universities, as proposed by Lord Grenville in 1813, and since successfully carried into execution. But as that would not be sufficient to provide for the disposal of the whole number of civil appointments, he would suggest, that a certain portion of patronage should also be allotted to the local authorities in India, to the Governor General, the subordinate governors, and the members of the different Councils there. He attached great importance to such an arrangement; because it was highly desirable to secure a succession of civil appointments in particular families, whose names were become familiar to the natives of India, by a number of those families having been long employed in local offices of trust and responsibility. From the information he had received, he was induced to believe that great benefit had been derived from the appointment of particular individuals to particular districts in that empire, in which their fathers were held in respect by the people; but, besides that benefit arising from such a practice, it was a natural and legitimate manner of rewarding those who had discharged important functions in that country. A certain portion of patronage might remain, as at present, with the Government; a certain other portion should be vested in those individuals whom he would substitute for the present Court of Directors; and he would also allot a number of military nominations, in rotation, to the commanding officer of each regiment in the service of the East-India Company; to be given to the sons of meritorious officers, either serving, or who had served, in India. That would obviate any danger which could be apprehended with respect to the application of patronage or influence in the army. In the years 1783 and 1784, at the time of the discussion of Mr. Fox's India Bill, a well-grounded jealousy was entertained of the increase of the influence of the Crown, by a transfer of the patronage of India; but at that time the patronage of the Court of Directors extended not only to the appointment of young men as writers and cadets, but persons mature in life, were sent out with directions that they should immediately fill important and lucrative situations in India. Rules had since been established by Parliament limiting the age of writers and cadets to twenty-two, and their selection for subsequent employment was left to the local authorities in India, under certain regulations for their succession by seniority; and there had scarcely been an instance during the last twenty years in which any interference had taken place on the part of the home authorities with the exercise of patronage in India. Some few commercial situations had been filled by the Court of Directors; but, generally speaking, at present the only patronage the Court possessed, was the appointment of cadets for the military, and writers for the civil service; and the higher appointments of the Members of the Councils; for, practically, though not formally, the choice of the Governor-General, and other Governors, rested with the Crown; but even this remaining portion of patronage should be taken from the hands of persons who were under no responsibility for the proper exercise of their functions. The absence of responsibility to public opinion, which was the surest incentive to a due exercise of power, was indeed the vice of the whole system. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the proprietors, instead of being influenced by solicitation, by the claims of private friendship, or of future patronage for their families, were disposed to elect only the fittest persons into the Direction, they had no opportunity of judging what the past conduct of individual Directors had been; they could only know what had been the conduct of the India Board, and of the Court of Directors acting together; and, even if they knew how to apportion the measures between these two distinct authorities, they could not learn how the majority of the Court of Directors had been constituted. If, on the other hand, they were, as I now propose, reduced in number, and nominated by the Crown, the responsibility, by being less subdivided, would become more real; nor could the Minister, who would be responsible for their proper selection, maintain in office any one who, from age or other causes, had become notoriously incompetent. The next reason which his right hon. friend Slated for continuing the present system of electing the Court of Directors was, that it prevented any inconvenience by the vicissitudes in the English Ministries. But he knew not why those vicissitudes should apply more forcibly as an objection to a Court of Directors holding offices for four years, renewable by the Crown, than to the present system. The same object would be attained by any proposed mode of appointment—that of securing a sufficient number of functionaries, who would not be likely to be influenced by any change of politics in this country. He agreed entirely with his right hon. friend respecting the difficulties arising from the union of the two distinct functions of trade and government in the same hands. But it appeared almost as absurd, that those who were to administer the government of that country should be elected by individuals qualified merely by the possession of a certain amount of East-India stock; and it was still more absurd, that the only qualification required in order to hold the office of a Director of the East-India Company should be of a similar nature. An individual, by expending a certain sum of money, might acquire the capability of being appointed to that office, whether he possessed any other qualification for the performance of its duties or not. He wished scarcely to touch upon many of the other important subjects connected with this question at the present moment, particularly the bargain which had been concluded between the Government and the Company, which there would be other opportunities for discussing. His right hon. friend was not mistaken in his view of the ultimate capability of our Indian empire to meet the claims which would be made upon it. But he could not be quite so sanguine as his right hon. friend appeared to be as to its immediate means, when there was an actual deficiency of revenue in time of peace, after the very extensive reductions which had been made—reductions which, though he felt the greatest possible confidence in the wisdom of Lord William Bentinck, he could not believe would be permanent; at least, they had been carried to the utmost extent. There was no use in shutting their eyes to the truth: so extensive an empire must ever be exposed to insurrections which might demand the employment of all our force. When the establishment was twenty-three European officers to each regiment, it frequently happened, that the actual strength upon service did not exceed seven or five; und he therefore feared, that now, when the establishment was reduced to twenty, that this deficiency would be still more inconveniently felt; and that, in the event of a war, an increase would be required, which would add considerably to the expense of the Government, beyond what would be incurred by the retention of a greater number during peace. In the same manner, he could not see, without apprehension, the extensive reduction of the irregular corps which always appeared to him to be highly valuable, not only as forming an addition to our military strength, and as relieving the regulars from many fatiguing duties, but also as affording a safe occupation to men of ability and rank, who, if not thus employed, might occupy themselves in disturbing the Government. If they had not military employment under the Government, they might seek it elsewhere. He could not, therefore, but feel an apprehension that in the event of any war—either an external war (which was always possible) or an internal insurrection (an event every way probable), it would be found, that these estimates by which the redemption of the charge to be incurred by the proposed arrangement was made, might prove erroneous. At the same time, he was convinced, that ultimately, the resources of India would be sufficient, and more than sufficient, to meet every demand that could be made upon them. There was another point in the scheme which he could not understand, and that was, the strict control which was proposed to be established, on the part of the supreme government, over the subordinate governments of India, so that no step was to be taken, no expense incurred by those subordinate governments, without the sanction of the Governor General. When they considered the distance at which some of these subordinate governments were situated from the scat of the supreme government, and when they recollected how greatly the business which the Governor General had already to transact would be augmented by this arrangement, he was apprehensive that the attention of that great officer would be diverted from the exercise of a vigilant superintendence of the comprehensive and high affairs of that great empire. If every expense, under whatever circumstances, to be incurred, must be previously referred to the Governor General, his time must be frequently unworthily occupied by points of minor detail, to the great detriment of more important questions. Nor was that all; for these subordinate governors would be also lowered in the estimation of those over whom they presided, and by whom it was so necessary they should be held in great respect, if they could not perform one act of authority, or incur any public expense, without the direct sanction of the supreme government, He, therefore, was of opinion, that much greater inconvenience would arise than advantage from the proposed alteration. He could easily conceive that, to a certain extent, the plan might be advantageous; but then it did not require an Act of Parliament to establish it. A single despatch from the Home Government to the several subordinate governments, stating that no expense above any certain amount, should be incurred by those governments, without the sanction of the Governor General. That might be a reasonable limitation of their authority; but the idea of making a law on the subject could not be entertained. To the proposal for establishing a new frame of government in India, by appointing a Governor General, with a counsellor for each presidency, distinct from the local government of Bengal, he must say, that, at the first blush, he should consider it an improvement; but it was to be considered, whether it would not interfere too much with the subordinate presidencies. If it was intended, that the governors of the subordinate presidencies were to be inferior in importance to the councillors of the supreme government, the consequence would be, that only persons of inferior qualifications would accept those appointments. Hitherto it had been considered essential not only to a due discharge of the duties of the office, but with a view to the effect produced on the minds of the natives, that the Governors of the subordinate presidencies should be officers of high rank, and men of eminence, to whom the natives would look up with confidence and respect. It had with this view, appeared desirable that there should be an occasional nomination to these presidencies of persons of superior English rank—such, for instance, as the appointments of Lord Clare to the government of Bombay—of Lord Buckinghamshire, Lord Clive, and Lord William Bentinck, to that of Madras. He wished to call the attention of his right hon. friend to this point, and to know whether there would not be a difficulty in prevailing on men of eminence in this country to go out to India to fill these subordinate presidencies. With respect to the new presidency in the western parts of Bengal, he was prepared to approve of that measure, if it were not attended with too great an additional expense for the present state of our finances. At the time when the nomination of Lord William Bentinck to the government of India took place, that subject was brought under his consideration at the India Board; and it became a question which of two plans should be adopted—one, that the Western States should be formed into a separate presidency; and the other, that they should be connected, to a great extent, with the Governorship of Bombay. He had left the matter undetermined until Lord William Bentinck should have had the opportunity of making inquiries upon the spot, and of reporting to this country his opinion respecting the merits of the two plans. That officer had now probably reported in favour of the system of establishing a separate presidency; and if that were the case, though there were strong reasons for a different conclusion, he was disposed to acquiesce in that decision, as an important improvement. On the whole, he must repeat, that he regretted that this question was not brought forward at an earlier period of the Session; for it would be impossible, with any degree of satisfaction to the parties immediately interested, or to the country at large, to pass such an important measure this Session. He disliked delay; but delay was better than that the matter should be settled without receiving that due degree of attention which its importance demanded. He would, therefore, suggest, that the subject be suffered to stand over till next Session. In the plan generally he acquiesced; but he doubted the expediency of continuing the Court of Directors, as at present elected and nominated, and as at present qualified for performing that part which they had hitherto enjoyed in the government of India. A mode of nomination might be adopted more analogous to the new situation in which they were to be placed—of political officers having no connexion with commerce.

Mr. Marjoribanks

having returned not many months ago, from China—having—had twenty years' experience in the trade between India and China; and having, in some measure, come under an engagement with his fellow-countrymen in China, to use his humble endeavours to render their very peculiar situation better understood and appreciated in this country, felt himself called upon to address the House. It was very far from his wish to enter, at that moment, into a discussion of the general question; but he might be permitted to say, in reply to the right hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the House, that to his proposition for a new constitution of the Court of Directors he was entirely opposed. He also thought that the manner in which the patronage of the Company was managed, was conducive to the good Government of England. He had visited every presidency, and had seen the system in actual operation; and he could conscientiously declare that no class of men in the world, bore, and deservedly bore, a higher character than the civil servants of the Company in India. These persons had been appointed by the Court of Directors under the existing system; and as far as his observations of the manner in which the patronage had been bestowed by the Court of Directors, it had tended to uphold the high reputation of this country throughout India. But he would advert to the principle upon which it was proposed to regulate our future intercourse with China. It was hardly necessary for him to remind the House that the time had been, when the British residents in Canton had been required to submit to a degree of degradation and oppression which never would have been tolerated in any other country or under any other circumstances. It was, and is the object to obtain a better understanding, and a great era had now arrived, when a wide field was about to be opened to our commerce. His right hon. friend had very well described the painful situation of British residents in China, placed as they had been in the most trying situation. Not only their property, but their lives, and those of their fellow-subjects, were at stake. He agreed with his right hon. friend, that the period had arrived when a change in the system ought to take place. It had been said, that we should trade as American vessels do—but without any prejudice towards the Americans, and re- collecting that we were all one people, he did not see why we should cross the Atlantic to look for an example in this respect. Perhaps the House had very little idea of what class of people the Hong in Canton was composed. When he first went to that country some were small shopkeepers, a greater part had become bankrupts, at one time or other, and nearly all were men of broken-down and ruined fortunes. Of course they did not bear a very high character; and indeed such was the disrepute in which the office of Hong was held, that no man of respectable character would undertake to fill it. Now, his opinion was, although he differed in this respect from several friends who were well informed upon the subject—that the exclusive privilege which the East-India Company had hitherto enjoyed, had served to prop and bolster up this body which would otherwise have fallen to pieces. The right hon. Gentleman had alluded to the condition of British subjects in China, and to the dangerous situation in which, in the event of any ill-feeling arising on the part of the natives, they might be placed. The right hon. Gentleman was perfectly right; but he was happy to say, that the most perfect cordiality and good feeling had existed between the crews of British vessels and the natives; and he should be ungrateful if he did not acknowledge the cordiality and kindness he had always received; but he begged to state that this feeling might have been in some degree improved. He invariably gave every assistance in his power to every man, without inquiring whether he was in the service of the East-India Company, or not. Just before he left China, a ship belonging to a British merchant was seized with property to a very large amount on board. He advised the adoption of a conciliatory course towards the Chinese Government; a petition was presented to the Viceroy; the consequence was that the ship was immediately restored, and the property given up. Perhaps he might observe, with reference to the observations which had been made relative to a harsh course being adopted towards the Chinese government, that it had only been pursued when it had been rendered necessary by oppression. They frequently heard with reference to the Chinese character, that we had to contend against the most obstinate pride, and an exclusive idea of self-importance; but they should not forget that the Chinese had wonderful cities and splendid buildings and walked about in silks and satins, when Britons were nothing better than barbarians—who painted their bodies blue and yellow; and he could not help thinking that it was not consistent with sound policy to treat any nation with supercilious contempt, or to yield to it the most abject submission. He could mention to the House several facts connected with the establishment of the Jesuit missionaries in China, which would perhaps, tend to remove some erroneous ideas which were entertained respecting them. They certainly were much more useful in teaching the Chinese an improved method of manufacturing gunpowder, than in communicating the religious instruction which they affected to inculcate. From taking exaggerated statements referring to particular instances, and judging of the English character from men of the lowest grade, and of the most abandoned description, the Chinese people had formed a very inaccurate idea of the European character. Lord Macartney, perhaps, had more experience than any other man; he had been ambassador at Portugal, Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, Governor of Madras, and Governor-General of India; and in addition to his own extensive stock of diplomatic experience, he went to China accompanied by all the intelligence and all the science which the age would produce. Certainly, mixing with these illustrious persons, the Chinese formed a much more favourable, and at the same time a much more just idea of the European character, than they had previously entertained. To make the Europeans respected, a system of firmness, as well as of honesty and fair dealing, ought to be pursued. The more he thought on the subject the more he was convinced, that no concession they could make would have any effect on the Chinese beyond that of making them more overbearing—it would produce an effect exactly the opposite of what was intended. He believed, that, at this moment the preservation of our China trade was owing to the firmness of Lord William Bentinck, who, two years ago, asserted, in a becoming manner, the honour and dignity of the British nation. He was convinced, that we had much to expect from their apprehensions, but very little from their favour. When he said this, he referred principally to those in authority, and with whom the China trade was, at present, carried on. Among the mass of the people, he believed, there was a disposition in our favour. A proof of this was to be found in the expedition of Mr. Lindsay, who, possessing a consider able knowledge of the Chinese character, was ordered to proceed to the different ports on the coast of China, and then to go on to the Loo Choo Islands. In the course of that expedition, he ascertained, that the Chinese people, at all the ports which he visited, were peculiarly desirous of British intercourse, and that even the Mandarins themselves, in several instances, professed themselves favourable to that intercourse; but, as they said, their heads would sit loose upon their shoulders if they sanctioned it. At every place where Mr. Lindsay landed, he was received in the most friendly manner; and he would just trouble the House with one passage from a letter of that Gentleman, The hon. Member read the following paragraph:—'But I have not the slightest hesitation in saying, that, if your proposition were to be adopted, and if the northern ports of China were to be opened at once to our vessels, they might trade there without any contest, or sacrifice of money, or loss. Wherever we went, we found the people anxious, beyond our hopes, for intercourse with us; and, I declare, we met with more kindness and civility from the Chinese, during our voyage, than travellers could expect or experience from any civilized nation in the world.' That was no speculation, but a statement of fact; the gentleman speaking the Chinese language admirably, he took his gun upon his shoulder, and walked about the country, where he was well received by every one. After Mr. Lindsay's expedition, a short statement was published in the Chinese language, copies of which were sent into China, where they were publicly commented upon. At last they reached the king, who expressed his great surprise that any foreigner should dare to write upon such subjects; in the mean time, however, many thousand copies had been circulated, and received with the utmost avidity by the Chinese. It was Mr. Lindsay's opinion, that if a course of independent conduct were pursued, all the ports of China might be opened to British industry and enterprise. This was especially the wish of the people of the parts northward of Canton. They were jealous of the monopol possessed by Canton, and would do all in their power to get it put an end to. If, therefore, we had the jealousy of the government operating against us at Canton, we had the wishes of the people in our favour in the other ports of the empire. Now, the benefit of having the people with us, even if the government were against us, was sufficiently known at the present day, and the interests of the people, there could be no doubt, would be more powerful in our favour than the jealousy of the government would be injurious to us. He was glad to know, that the study of the Chinese language was now becoming general; for since that had been studied we had been more respected and less imposed on. He thought, that there were two great objects we ought to have in view: the first was, to give full and sufficient power to the British Representatives in China; the second was, if possible, to obtain a better understanding with the Chinese government. The changes now contemplated would, he thought, be productive of the greatest benefit, not only considered with reference to their extending and improving a great and most important branch of British commerce, but with regard to what was of still more importance, the future welfare of millions of men, who, at the present moment, were involved in a state of comparative ignorance and barbarism. He gave his most cordial support to the Resolutions of his right hon. friend.

Mr. Cutlar Fergusson

suggested, as there could be no great objection to the Resolutions before the Committee, that they should be allowed to pass, and that the discussions upon them should take place at a further stage of the proceedings. If that appeared the wish of the House, he should refrain from speaking then, and reserve himself for a future occasion.

Mr. Charles Grant

, in answer to a question from Mr. Clay, said, that voting for these Resolutions would not pledge hon. Members to any specific course. He wished them to be adopted that night, in order that he might be enabled to bring in, as soon as possible, a bill founded upon them.

Mr. Buckingham

said, that as a suggestion had been made to defer the discussion on the subject to some future period, he felt it due to the House and to himself to explain the grounds on which he deemed it his duty, notwithstanding this sugges- tion, to proceed with the debate. Had the right hon. Gentleman contented himself with placing the Resolutions on the Table of the House, unaccompanied by any explanation, he should readily have waived his privilege of addressing them, and postponed the discussion to a future day; but as the Resolutions had been accompanied with an able and elaborate speech, defending the ground on which they were based, he felt himself bound to the country to give his approbation of some portions, and his disapprobation of others; and to assign the reasons of his dissent from those portions of them to which he objected. And as the hon. Members who preceded him had each enjoyed their due share of the attention of the House, he trusted this indulgence would not be denied to him, who had devoted the best portion of his life to the study of the subject under debate. He should not abuse that indulgence by trespassing at any unnecessary length upon that time to which others had an equal claim with himself. He had formed no outline of a speech—he had brought with him no books to quote—he had provided no documents to read—but he had merely noted down, as he went along, the observations that fell from the right hon. the President of the Board of Control; and to these, and these alone, he would strictly confine himself—his object being not display, not delusion, not retaliation, but a plain, practical, and business-like view of the great question before them, in order to determine by what mode the greatest amount of good to all parties could be promoted in the change they were about to effect. For this purpose he would waive every thing preliminary—he would discard all ornament—he would appeal only to their reason and their judgment; as, all he desired, was a sound and just conclusion as to the best course to be pursued. The subjects proposed to the consideration of the House, by the right hon. Gentleman, were three; first, the civil and political administration of India; secondly, the commerce with China; and, thirdly, the compromise with the East-India Company, by which their assent to the proposed new arrangement had been purchased. He would examine each in the order in which they had been introduced to their notice. The right hon. Gentleman began by stating his conviction, that, on the whole, the political administration of the Company in India had been beneficial, and had advanced that country to a higher state of prosperity than it enjoyed under its native princes, and improved the condition of the people. To this he (Mr. Buckingham) felt compelled to offer a direct negative; as no fact was better established on evidence than this—that when the English first obtained settlements on the coasts of India, at Surat, Goga, and Bombay, the country, according to the testimony of Mr. Mill, the able and the only accurate historian of India, the seat of one of the most splendid was and flourishing monarchies on the face of the globe; while, at present, according to the testimony of Mr. Rickards, one of the ablest of the civil servants, and of Sir Thomas Monroe, one of the ablest of the military servants of the Company, the proofs of decline and decay were every where to be seen. According to the former, the system of English rule had reduced the natives to a state, not merely of poverty, but of misery the most abject, in which they were doomed to sow in wretchedness and reap in despair; and to continue in worse than Egyptian bondage, without a hope of any other deliverance than the grave. According to the latter, whole districts, which he had been appointed to survey, had so fallen off from their original state of prosperity, that for an extent of 200 miles in length, in the Soondah, he saw only forest and jungle growing up on land formerly well cultivated, and which, according to ancient revenue accounts, yielded a large annual tribute to the state; while, at present, there was nothing to be seen but once cultivated fields turned into barren wastes—and villages, formerly thickly peopled, ultimately uninhabited and abandoned to silent desolation. These were the melancholy proofs of the nature of the Company's rule in India, drawn from the ablest of their own servants. But he would cite a nearer and a much more recent authority—one only a few days old—and falling from the lips of the Secretary to the India Board (Mr. Macaulay), whom he had now the pleasure to see before him. About a fortnight ago, in the discussion, at a morning sitting of the House, on the claims of Mr. Hutchinson against the India Company, the principal argument used by the hon. Secretary was, that if these claims were admitted, they would have to be paid, not by the East-India Company, but by their native subjects, whom he characterized as "already the most oppressed and heavily taxed race under the sun." It was rather unfortunate that this admission should have been so recently made, as it afforded a striking contrast to the view assumed by the President of the India Board. But its truth was undeniable; and he would leave the House to judge how it was possible to reconcile the pretended good government of the East-India Company with this abject condition of those under their rule. To him it appeared irreconcileable, and, therefore, he contended, that as the weight of evidence was wholly in support of the former, and as this corresponded entirely with the result of his own experience in the country, India itself, he felt justified in denying altogether the assumption on which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Grant) had founded his eulogies of the Company's rule. As if, indeed, there had been some lurking apprehension of a denial of this assumption, the right hon. Gentleman apologized by anticipation for the inertness of the Company's government, and allowed, that it was in its nature sluggish and apathetic; its nature was to love repose, to give a sort of passive resistance to innovation, and not to risk too much by change. But it was unfortunate, that this sluggishness was only observed when improvement or benefit was to be conferred. If war, or conquest, or spoliation, or plunder, was to be the pursuit, their dormant energies were soon quickened into life—they were not apathetic then; their love of repose and their hostility to change, each disappeared, and they were among the foremost in the activity of their career. It was thus, that the reigns of several of the Governors General had been called "brilliant administrations" from the vast accessions of territory which they had made by plundering the native princes of their lawful dominions. It was thus, that having landed on the coasts of India as humble traders, sueing as a matter of grace and favour, for a small spot of land whereon to erect a factory, and dispose of their wares, they sought out grounds of quarrel with their unsuspecting and generous benefactors, and, marching from province to province, and from kingdom to kingdom, they passed from merchants to sovereigns, and either usurped or overturned every throne, and deposed or exiled every lawful sovereign in the country! In all these aggressions, there was none of the sluggishness of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke; their indolence was only manifested in matters of improvement; and their great hostility to change, and dread of innovation, were reserved for opposition to the progress of Christian missionaries, to Colonization by British settlers, and to the freedom of the Press. It was in the same spirit that they refused to recognize the political existence of the natives, as stated by the right hon. Gentleman; and he would simply ask the House whether that could possibly be a good government, which refused to make the slightest recognition of any political right, or even political existence, in a people, whom they used for no other purpose than as instruments of production; for which, it was the chief, if not the sole business of their government, to plunder all their substance, save only the scanty stock which was left in their possession to subsist them for further production, and further plunder still. He rejoiced to hear, that the political existence of the Indian people was at length to be clearly recognized; as this first step would lead to others, and their advancement in comfort, intelligence, and happiness, would then go on, he hoped, with accelerating speed. In addition to the pretended excellence of the Company's government, which was assigned as a reason for our still leaving the political administration of India in their hands; it was said, that it would be dangerous to transfer from them to the Crown the extensive patronage which they now dispensed. It was something new, no doubt, to hear a Minister of the Crown enlarging upon the danger of patronage, and disclaiming, or rather refusing to have it placed at its disposal: but as the noble Lord, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had said, on a former occasion, in that House, that the day for governing by patronage had gone by, it might be thought becoming in his associates to repudiate all claims to its exercise. He would not venture to decide whether it was the excess of disinterestedness, or the love of ease, and the aversion to be troubled with its dispensation (for to dispense patronage satisfactorily was undoubtedly a very troublesome affair) that had led to this determination. But he must say, that this pretended alarm about the danger of India patronage being transferred to the Crown, was altogether destitute of foundation. What was the actual state of the case? Why, that at the present moment, all the most important patronage was directly exercised by the Ministers, and that of the inferior patronage they might have indirectly as large a share as they desired. By whom was the appointment of the Governor General made? Nominally, no doubt, by the Company: but, as the Crown had a veto, and might refuse to confirm any such appointment, it was an obviously shorter course for the Ministers to indicate before-hand, who they wished to be chosen: and to say, in effect,—this is the man whom the king delights to honour: and it is useless for you to think of appointing any other, for no other will we, as the Ministers of the Crown, confirm. The appointment of the Governor General was then already actually in the hands of the Government: as well as that of the Commander-in-Chief, of the Judges of the Supreme Courts, and of the Bishops; so that while all the heads of the Civil, the Military, the Judicial, and the Ecclesiastical branches of the service were already in the hands of the Ministers, they deprecated the idea of intrusting them with the dangerous power of exercising the patronage of India, as adding too largely to the influence they already possessed! The subordinate appointments might not generally be worth their trouble or their care; but whenever they desired to dispose of any of these, nothing was more easy than for them to obtain any number of them that they wished. That a tolerably extensive traffic in this branch of patronage once existed, was proved by the fact of the late Lord Castlereagh having been once accused of bartering a seat in the House of Commons for a writer-ship in India, as a fair marketable and business-like exchange;—when the noble Lord, with that coolness by which he was characterized, turned round upon his accusers, and exclaimed, "What! is it then come to this? Are we all at once become so pure and immaculate, that a fair exchange like this is to be called corruption, when the practice is as general as it is constant, and is as notorious as the sun at noon-day?"—defending the crime by its very notoriety, and expressing astonishment at its being deemed worthy of notice. Such practices he hoped and believed did not prevail now; but if the occasion should arise, on which a Minister might desire to make any use of such patronage, it was as much at his disposal as ever, by the mere asking for it, and reserving other favours in return; with the great disadvantage to the public, of his not being openly responsible to this House for its exercise, which he would be, if it were intrusted to his avowed direction, when the fear of exposure in Parliament might operate as a wholesome check upon its distribution; whereas, while the patronage continued in the hands of the Directors, they might accommodate the Minister with any portion of it that he desired, and shield him from all responsibility for its misappropriation. It had been said, indeed, that no plan had been proposed for the regulation of this patronage, which would remove the difficulties of the case. But the right hon. Gentleman was too well read in Indian history and affairs, and too well acquainted with the history of past discussions, not to be well aware that Lord Grenville, in his celebrated speech of 1813, had proposed a plan, which would have obviated all difficulty, and which was capable of being reduced to immediate practice. It was this: to let the selection for the first appointments to the India service, in the civil, military', and all other departments, be made from the youths educated at the principal seminaries in England, who should be most distinguished for their attainments and character, out of which all vacancies, as they occurred, should be filled: and if their progress in the service, subsequent to their first appointment, were made by gradation of time alone, unless disqualification should be proved, as is the case with the military branch of the service in India now, the influence of patronage would be altogether destroyed; as attainments and character would be the only patrons in the first instance, and length of service, and faithful discharge of duty, the only claim afterwards. If to this were added, the plan suggested by the right hon. the late President of the Board of Control (who had himself disposed of a portion of his India patronage in civil appointments, according to the rule adverted to above;) and sons of military officers serving in India had a preference of eligibility for cadetships in the Indian army, the largest amount of supply would be always available to meet the demand; and neither the Ministers nor the Directors need be in- trusted with the temptation which each so loudly professed their desire to avoid. The next topic touched on was, the intended separation of the trading and political character of the Company; and at this he sincerely and heartily rejoiced. No union could be more fatal to the virtue of any rulers, or the happiness of any people, than this incongruous alliance between things which never could be blended well together; as each was, in reality, fatal to the other. It was a profound remark of Lord Grenville, that the union of the merchant with the sovereign was fatal to the due discharge of the duties of both. No sovereign that was also a trader, ever ruled his subjects well: no merchant, that was also a sovereign, ever traded but at a loss. And Mr. Vansittart, himself a President of the Council of Bengal, describes in his evidence, before the Parliamentary Committee, the manner in which these merchant-kings exercised their power. Their rule of buying, he said, was to make the natives take whatever price the buyers chose to offer; and their rule of selling was, to make the natives give whatever price the sellers chose to ask. It would have been a miracle, indeed, if a country so placed between the tyranny of the sovereign and the avarice of the trader, should not have been plundered to the last dregs, and impoverished almost to exhaustion. This fatal union had lasted far too long, and it was high time that it should be dissolved. He could not help thinking, however, that though the dissolution was desirable, that which was left to the India Company ought to have been taken from them—namely, their political administration: and then, that which had been taken from them—namely, their mercantile transactions, might safely have been left. The idea of committing the government of an empire, containing a hundred millions of souls, to the management of a Joint Stock Company, whose only interest was in the dividends they derived on their stock, was so preposterous, that if it were now to be proposed for the first time in this House, no language would be adequate to describe the astonishment which its bare announcement would excite. The right hon. Gentleman had himself spoken of the evils of having a mercantile body to govern a great country, whose only object of care was the dividends they were to receive. But this argument was a two-edged sword; it cut both ways, and it proved also, that to have a joint stock political body to govern a country, whose only anxiety was to keep up the dividends on their stock, was equally bad. No matter from what sources the dividends were to come; whether from the commerce with the country, or its revenue: in either case, the utmost exertions would be made to secure the requisite amount; and that being obtained, all thoughts of remission of taxation, or of future improvement, would be discarded. In their mercantile character, the Company derived their dividends from a monopoly of trade; in their political character, they were to derive their dividends from the surplus revenue of the country: and as they would have more power as rulers, to levy their exactions, than they could have, as merchants, to extort their profits, the former would be by far the most fatal to the prosperity of the country. India, in short, was but one vast and enlarged edition of Ireland, where the people who tilled the earth were forbidden to feed on its produce, which was exported and sold for the benefit of idle and unproductive absentees; and the wretchedness of the peasantry, both in the one and in the other of these unhappy and misgoverned countries, was occasioned by, and existed in proportion to, the exactions wrung from them to remit to others, and to be spent in other lands. In happier countries, England, for example, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer had obtained the revenue necessary for the payment of the public establishments, and the interest of the debt,—if there were a surplus, however small, he came down to the House, and stated the mode in which he meant to dispose of it, by a remission of such of the taxes as pressed most heavily on the people. But in India, remission of taxes was a thing unknown. The only limitation to the amount wrung from the natives was their capacity to pay. They were taxed to the uttermost farthing, and had only a bare subsistence left. Out of the first proceeds of the revenue thus raised, the public establishments and the interest of the debt were paid: but the surplus, instead of being remitted to lighten the public burthens, had to be sent to England, there to be divided as profits, among the proprietors of India Stock; and if, after this, a surplus should still remain, it was disposed of, by making new appointments, and giving places and pensions that absorbed it all. In other countries, a reduction of expenditure was often made, because there was a public voice to demand relief. But, in India, nothing but the incapacity to pay, ever occasioned the reduction of a single charge—and why? For the simplest of all reasons—because the Directors in England were naturally averse to retrench the places filled, or the emoluments enjoyed by their sons, their nephews, and their other relatives and dependents. The more extensive the establishments as to numbers, the more of the family could be provided for; and the larger their pay, the sooner would they return with ample fortunes. This was, therefore, a matter that came home to the business and the bosoms of men; and as long as the Joint Stock Company should exercise the powers of the Government, and dispense the patronage, there was no hope of a change in this particular; so that the country was doomed, while this system lasted, to all the evils of which it was the parent and prolific source. He said the system, because it was to that, and not to the individuals to whom its direction was intrusted, that his objections lay. Among the Directors of the India Company, there were many for whom he had personally the highest respect and esteem: among the proprietors of India Stock, there were many for whom he had a high regard; and as to the individuals composing the civil and military service of the Company in India, there was not, he believed, in the world, a more intelligent, high-minded, and generous set of men. But this could not blind him to the defects of a system, the most incongruous in all its parts that could be well imagined. For instance, the proprietors of India Stock were a body fluctuating between 3,000 and 5,000 individuals, including men, women, and children; the two latter predominating in number over the former, and each and all having no other interest whatever in the prospects of the country, than just to secure their fixed dividend, and nothing more. Their Directors were men who, as was well observed by the late President of the India board (Mr. Wynn), were, upon the average, from sixty to seventy years of age, and to a few only of these, the senior members, nine in number, was committed the task of governing an empire with a hundred millions of souls, and by orders sent from a country many thousand miles distant from the scene. What was the inevitable consequence?—Declining trade, declining population, declining revenue, and nothing increasing but their embarrassment and their debt! And yet to such a body was still to be confided the future government of India—a body so changeable, that it was never composed of the same materials for any two days following, some selling out their stock, and some buying in, every day in the week, and no other qualification than being a stockholder, being required to form a part of this governing body. If a gentleman in the country came for the first time to London, and chose to buy in 500l. worth of India stock, he became an Indian legislator at once; he could go down to the India House in Leadenhall-street, take a part in the debates, move a resolution for the recall of the Governor General, a vote of censure on the Court of Directors, or a re-modelling of the army or civil service; and as a proprietor of India stock, was as much entitled to take part in the proceedings of the Court, as the oldest member in it. When he had held his stock twelve months, he might also vote upon the most delicate and important questions that could be submitted to that body for decision; and when he had given his vote, and passed his resolutions, he could sell out his stock the next day, and leave the responsibility of his conduct to those who might remain, or who might buy in after him; and these were changing every day. The cameleon, in short, did not more frequently change its hues, than did the Court of Proprietors its members. It was not a triennial, nor an annual, but a daily Parliament, to deliberate upon the affairs of a distant and little known country, and to such a body we were now recommended to confide the government of India again for another forty years! Against this part of the right hon. Gentleman's plan he tendered his most earnest and solemn protest; and when the proper time arrived, he should be prepared to show that this was utterly incompatible with good government, or the happiness of the people. Let the Company trade if it will, and compete with the private merchant if it likes. Let it have no monopoly, but do not deprive it of its fair share of competition with the rest. Take from it its political character, and leave it to deal with its mercantile affairs, divested of its monopoly, as it should see fit. That would be the separation he should have recommended, and that, he believed, would have satisfied the people of England, as well as the people of India, better than this Joint-Stock-Governing-Company, with its quarterly dividends, and marketable stock. He would pass on, however, with as much rapidity as possible, to the other portions of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, which related to the trade with China. He had heard, with unmixed satisfaction, the announcement, that from henceforward, the commerce of that country was to be equally open to all his Majesty's subjects. He believed there was no one measure of the Government which would give more general satisfaction to all classes than this—as to all it could not fail to be productive either of direct or collateral benefit. The fact mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, of the Company's trade gradually declining, while that of the private merchant was as gradually increasing, was proof sufficient of the incapacity of monopolies to compete with open trade, wherever the two could be brought into competition or comparison: and it was only matter of astonishment that this had not long ago determined the Government to put an end to so ruinous a system as this of exclusive privileges. An hon. Member (Mr. Clay) had presented a petition from some of his constituents of the Tower Hamlets, praying that the Company might be still allowed to trade to China, as well as private merchants. The answer to that prayer, he conceived, ought wholly to depend on whether the political administration was to continue in their hands or not. If they were to retain the government of India, then he considered that they should not be allowed to trade in any way whatever. But if the political administration were to be in the hands of the Crown, then, undoubtedly, it would be unjust not to permit the East-India Company, or any other joint stock association, to trade as they might think proper, merely depriving them of their exclusive monopoly, but allowing them to trade in open competition with others to any part of the world. One of the topics touched on by the right hon. Gentleman was, the alleged jealousy of the Chinese, which had been a favourite objection urged by the Company against the admission of the private trader into their ports. But he would ask whether that jealousy was not rather directed against the Company than the private merchants? Towards the former, the Chinese had abundant reason for looking with apprehension at all points. Their land frontier now pressed close upon the borders of China itself: and when the Chinese saw the progress of the Company in India, landing first upon the coast as humble traders, and soliciting, as a matter of grace and favour, the grant of a small spot of land whereon to erect factories for the sale of goods, and afterwards, under various pretences, possessing themselves of the whole country as sovereigns, was it to be wondered at that they should regard the Company as a set of designing adventurers, who would insinuate themselves, first, into the ports of China, then into the interior, and afterwards assume the dominion of the whole country? Another circumstance which tended greatly to keep alive this apprehension of danger from the Company was this—that while all other vessels entered the port of Canton with pacific appearances, as well as for pacific purposes, the Americans, for instance, with varnished sides and mercantile apparel, armed only with a few guns to defend themselves from the Malay pirates, the East-India Company's ships came in all the outward appearance of frigates and line-of-battle ships, with a tier of sixteen or eighteen guns on either side, ready for immediate action, with double the number of men carried by other ships employed in the same trade; and with officers dressed in uniforms, like the officers of the navy, with gold embroidered coats, cocked hats, and swords by their sides, presenting altogether so strong a resemblance to the ships of war and naval officers of his Majesty, that no Chinese could perceive the difference: and their very natural conclusion was, that the Company meditated some covert attack, and were only waiting their opportunity to carry it into execution: for they concluded, that if their object had been trade alone, they would have had only trading ships and trading crews; but that their warlike equipment was intended for a warlike purpose; and therefore it behoved the Chinese authorities to keep a jealous and a vigilant eye upon their proceedings. It was said, however, that the state of things had recently been altered in China, and that there was now a body of" indepen- dent Englishmen" established in Canton, which showed the safety of admitting the private trader into that port at least. There were various acceptations of the word "independent," but he would describe to the House the footing on which the English gentlemen alluded to remained at Canton, and he would have the House to judge whether they were what an English Assembly of Legislators would call "independent." Not one of all the number could even visit Canton without a special license or permission from the East-India Company: even if so permitted, there was not one who might not be expelled from Canton, merely for being an Englishman, and for no other reason, by the authority of the Company's factory, who were empowered so to do by virtue of the Company's Charter. And what was the result?—why, that Englishmen desirous of settling at Canton, as members of this "independent body," were obliged to deny their name and country, to get metamorphosed into Russians, Prussians, Swedes, or Danes—to desert the English standard, and hoist a foreign flag, as their only protection from the arbitrary banishment of the Company's supercargoes! This was the "independence" which British subjects enjoyed at Canton. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, however, the trade of these private merchants, who were tolerated as foreigners, though well known to be of English name and birth, had progressively increased, while that of the Company had as progressively declined; and this fact alone, he thought, was quite sufficient to show that the true policy of the British Government was to grant exclusive privileges to none, but to extend equal rights, religious, political, and commercial, to all the subjects of the realm, where so ever they might be found. One of the branches of this trade that had most rapidly increased, was that carried on in opium, which had been accurately described to a certain extent, by the right hon. Gentleman, the President of the India Board, as well as by the hon. member for Berwickshire (Mr. C. Marjoribanks); but they had each omitted one portion of its history, which he would venture to supply. It was this, that the cultivation and manufacture of this opium, was one of the large monopolies still existing in the hands of the Company in India; and was so productive, that in consequence of this monopoly, the article was often sold at the Company's sales at Calcutta, at an advance of 1,000 per cent above the actual price at which it might be produced. So much importance, indeed, was attached to this traffic, that the superintendent of the cultivation of opium, residing at Patna, was paid by the Company a larger salary than that given to the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, the Representative of his Majesty, and the head of the judicial establishment in India. And yet, while the Company claimed to itself the high prerogative of being the guardian of the laws, and the preservers of the morals of the people over whom they ruled, and punished with extreme severity any infraction of their own regulations—they cultivated this opium for no other purpose than for smuggling it into China, against the laws and edicts of the empire; and as had been truly said, of poisoning the health, and destroying the morals of the people of that country. It was painful to think what a vast amount of evil had been already created by this trade; but if the traders of China could be supplied with British manufactures in payment for their goods, instead of this deleterious drug, a wholesome and reciprocally beneficial commerce would be created, instead of the mischievous and demoralizing traffic which now did injury to both; the whole guilt of which rested with the Company, as it was they who furnished the opium from India, and their supercargoes at Canton who licensed the smugglers in China, so that the beginning and the end of this illicit and contraband trade was theirs. It was pretended, however, that though our intercourse with China might be safely retained on its present footing, yet that a more extended intercourse would endanger the whole, by leading to such ruptures as would induce the Chinese to break off all connexion with us, and shut us out from the other ports altogether. The best answer to this was the fact, that the Chinese receive the ships of all nations with equal readiness, and never ask whether they are free-traders, or ships of an exclusive Company. Their object was like that of all other mercantile people, to buy cheap and sell dear; and with whomsoever they could effect these objects, they were ready and willing to enter into negotiation. It was indeed pretended that the bare proposition of throwing open the trade to the people of England, would be calculated to give such a shock to public feeling in China, as to make them protest against it altogether; as it was inferred from their admitting us only to one port now, that they were an anti-commercial people, and averse to any extensive foreign connexion. He (Mr. Buckingham) thought he had given sufficient reason for the existence of that jealousy which led to this limitation of the European trade to one port only, namely, the fear that the East-India Company, or the Europeans generally, were a deceitful race, who would enter their ports on the coast under pretence of trade, but, subsequently pass into the interior, and ultimately take their country from them, as they had done in India, Java, and elsewhere. But what would be said of the absurdity of the conduct pursued by the British Government, who, pretending to take the lead among the nations for superiority in intelligence, civilization, and above all, commercial enterprise, were guilty of the monstrous blunder, as well as injustice, of confining the whole of the trade from China to one port only, namely, the port of London, not from any jealousy of Chinese encroachments on our territory, not from any apprehended danger of admitting armed Chinese ships (for no vessel of that nation had ever yet passed round the Cape of Good Hope), but from mere deference to the monopoly of an English Hong, the East-India Company, for whose exclusive profits every other port in England was to be closed against the admission of Chinese produce! This reproach upon our Legislature, he was happy to learn, was at length to be wiped away, by all his Majesty's subjects being allowed freely to trade with China, and by all ports in his Majesty's dominions being equally accessible to vessels trading from thence: a change in our commercial policy, which he believed would effect more good than any that had yet taken place during the present century, and for which the peculiar circumstances of the moment were most auspicious. For what was the condition of this country? There were, he well knew, some differences of opinion as to the actual extent of existing distress, as well as to the causes from which it sprung, and the remedies most fit to be applied. But he believed there was no difference of opinion whatever on this point: that the progress of invention, the improvements in machinery, the discoveries in the arts, and the increase of population, had brought the nation into a state of plethora, or fulness of excess. We had abundant capital, yet poverty increased; we had immense powers of production, yet there was a large want of employment; we had an increasing population, yet thousands wanted relief. For such a state of things there were but two remedies—either to arrest the progress of production, and thin the population of the country, both of which were in excess as compared with the means of consumption or employment; or to open new outlets, to explore new markets, to supply new nations with our wares, to carry off our gradually accumulated excess. For this purpose there was no measure more likely to accomplish its end than the opening of the trade with China, and the immensely populous regions seated near its coasts. It had been well observed by the right hon. President of the Board of Control (Mr. Grant) that the limits of the East-India Company's Charter were not very narrow, as they extended from the Cape of Good Hope on the one side, to the Straits of Magellan on the other, and included nearly half the globe. This was undoubtedly true, and the greater must be our astonishment that any government could be so ignorant or so unjust, so blind or so profligate, as to lock up, as it were, these immense regions, in the hollow of the hands of twenty-four Indian Directors—a majority of whom were incapacitated by age and infirmity, and the remainder disqualified, by having no other than a pecuniary interest, for the direction of even a very limited concern of government and commerce combined; but who had, by their exclusive monopoly, been intrusted with the dominion and the trade of more than half the globe. The Baron Humboldt had estimated the entire population of the earth as considerably less than 1,000 millions: and in the several countries of India, Persia, Arabia, China, Japan, Borneo, lava, and the Eastern Isles, all lying within the limits described, more than 500 millions of people existed, with whom the English nation (excepting only the insignificantly few proprietors of India stock) had been hitherto debarred, by their own Legislature, from holding any intercourse, though they were accessible for all the purposes of profitable commerce by the ships and merchants of every other country in the globe, except our own. He would not enlarge upon the immense resources of these teeming countries, and the vast expansion which the opening of them would give to British trade; but he would content himself with repeating his earnest belief, that in the present circumstances of the country, suffering as we did from extremes of wealth and poverty, of strength and weakness, of population and misery, there was no measure within the power of the British Legislature to effect, that would afford a more extensive and permanent relief than this unlocking of the portals of the East, and rendering its almost illimitable commerce and resources accessible to all. There were many other points of the right hon. Gentleman's speech that he had taken notes of, and was strongly desirous of commenting upon. But at this late hour of the night (then twelve o'clock), and after the patient and indulgent hearing which had already been extended to him, he would pass them over till some future opportunity, and would now briefly advert to the third great division of the subject before them; namely, the plan proposed by the right hon. Gentleman, for the future government of India. The first announcement was, that the Company was to surrender all their property, political, military, and commercial, into the hands of the Government—in return for which the Government was to undertake to pay all its debts, amounting to upwards of 40,000,000l.: and besides this, to secure to the proprietors of India stock, the usual dividend of 10½ per cent on every 100l. of stock held by them, payable from the revenues of India, with a guarantee fund of 2,000,000l., to accumulate at interest, as a source from whence to draw, in case of any deficiency; and that this arrangement was to continue for forty years, with power on the part of the Government to put an end to it in twenty years, on condition of the country redeeming the stock of the India proprietors, by paying them 200l. for every 100l. originally invested; or 100l. in principal for every, 5l. 5s. of interest redeemed; which would be 200l. for every 10½ percent, of interest redeemed. He knew not what other hon. Members might think of this, hut for himself, after having given it all due consideration, he thought it a most impolitic arrangement. He did not wish to injure the Court of Directors, or to diminish the real capital and fair mercantile interest of the proprietors: he had no objection to their being paid every farthing that was their due; but he must say, that he thought by far the best arrangement would have been for the Government to have charged itself with the political administration of the country—to have taken the forts, buildings, and all other establishments, which more strictly territorial, and have become responsible for the territorial debts, the principal and interest of which might be fairly charged upon the revenues of the country; and then to let the Company do what it pleased with its commercial assets. If they were worth, as the proprietors contended, 19,000,000l. sterling—let them sell them, and divide the produce among themselves; and if it amounted to twenty, he should rejoice in their good fortune. Let them trade as a Company, in common with all others of his Majesty's subjects, if so they thought proper—or let them wind up their commercial affairs, and retire from business, if they pleased. But that should be left to them. The government of India should have been assumed by the Ministers of the Crown; and the revenues of the country be charged only with the territorial debt, which was sufficient indulgence to the Company, as the term of their lease was known to themselves; and if they had run an extravagant career, they alone ought, in strict justice, to be the sufferers; more especially as they or their predecessors, had, for so long a period (now more than two centuries) enjoyed enormous profits and emoluments at the public cost. In saying this, let him not be supposed to be speaking ill of the Directors or Proprietors, as men; his observations applied only to the system; he had no personal hostility to any single individual among the whole body. It was true that he had received at their hands no very great reasons to inspire him with gratitude; but he did not hesitate to say, that he entertained a high respect for several of the Directors, while among the Proprietors there were many for whom he felt esteem and regard: and as to the civil and military services in India, he had always asserted, what he would here repeat, his firm belief that no country contained a more intelligent and honorable class of officers than these, among whom he had lived for many years with friendship and pleasure; and no man, he believed, had ever been removed from the country, who carried with him more of their good wishes and regrets. In addition, however, to the improvidence of the terms of this arrangement, the time for which it was to endure was altogether too long. He had already stated his reasons why the political administration of India should not remain in the hands of the East-India Company for a single day beyond the period at which its transfer to the Crown could be made: but to lock up the country for forty years in their further possession was altogether unjustifiable. He was not one of those who generally fell into the error of having too high a veneration for the "wisdom of our ancestors;" but he could, in this instance at least, show, he thought, that we were not getting wiser as we advanced in the progress of settling our Indian affairs. The right hon. Gentleman, so well read as he was in Indian history, and so intimately acquainted with all its details, must remember, no doubt, that the first Charter granted to the Company by Elizabeth, about the year 1600, was for a period of fifteen years only; with a further provision, inserted by way of clause, "that if not found to be advantageous to the country, it might be annulled at any time under a notice of three years." He stated this on the authority of Mr. Mill, whose History of India was a work of the highest accuracy and research. And even more recently, indeed, in our own day, the proposition of the late Mr. Canning, in the discussions on the last charter, was to renew the exclusive privilege of the Company for ten years only; as he contended, and contended truly, that twenty years was much too long a period for which to tie up the hands of any government, or prevent their abrogating any delegated trust, if they found it advantageous to the nation so to do. But let us see how much more powerful were the reasons for a shorter term of Charter now than they ever were before. All the former Charters of the East-India Company were commercial, and they granted privileges to carry on a certain exclusive trade. There might, therefore, be some reason assigned for giving them a period long enough to realize remunerating profits if they entered into the trade at all. But now they were no longer to be traders. Their exclusive business would be to govern—and the Charter was to be granted to them for that purpose only. Upon what possible grounds could any claim so preposterous as this be made? To govern was the business of the Legislature, not of a Joint-Stock Company; and if the Ministers were incompetent to govern India, or unwilling to incur the trouble, let the possession be given back to its rightful owners. A country had no right to dominions over which it was incompetent to exercise its rule; and it was both unjust and unwise to extend the limits of our possessions beyond the power of the Legislature, through the Ministers of the Crown, to govern advantageously for the nation and for the possession itself. How much more important was it, therefore, now, than at any future period, to reserve to the Legislature the power, at a short but reasonable notice of time, to resume the trust it was about to delegate, and not to consign over 100,000,000 of our fellow beings, bound hand and foot, to the tender mercies of these Joint-Stock rulers, for a period of forty or of twenty years, during which the only care or anxiety of the proprietors would be to get the dividends on their stock punctually paid; and, when that was effected, their solicitude would be at an end. The right hon. Gentleman, in pursuing this subject, had passed over the various topics, of the mode of raising the revenue, of the judicial and military services, and many others, which could only be named at present, but must be discussed at some future time; and he (Mr. Buckingham) would follow the same course, in order that he might fulfil his pledge of confining himself strictly to the points touched on in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, to which he would rigidly confine his reply. He approved, then, entirely, of the creation of a fourth presidency in the western provinces; and he thought the proposition of exempting the Governor General from all local cares, and giving him a supreme control, under a uniform system of jurisdiction throughout the whole of the presidencies, a most important improvement. As the right hon. Gentleman had quoted some high authorities in proof of the difficulties occasioned by the conflicting powers at present existing, he (Mr. Buckingham) would add three striking instances, which were in some degree connected with his own history in that country. The first was this:—Lord Hastings, soon after his arrival in India, perceiving that the discussion of public affairs, and the dissemination of facts and opinions, through the medium of the Press, was likely to be of as much benefit to India as to any other country in which it had been tried, removed the censorship of the Press in Bengal. The governor of Madras, Mr. Elliott, wholly disapproved of this step, and not only did he refuse to follow the example in his presidency, but, when a public meeting was held at Madras, to vote an address of thanks to Lord Hastings for this act, the government of Madras threw every possible obstacle in the way of its accomplishment, and visited with its displeasure the distinguished individuals who ventured thus to express their approbation of what the highest authority of the country had performed as his own act. Not long after this, the circulation of the Calcutta Journal, then under his (Mr. Buckingham's) direction, having greatly increased, he entered into a contract with the Post-master General of India, to facilitate its despatch. In that country the newspapers paid no stamp-duty—a fact which he hoped the noble Lord opposite to him (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) would soon have to announce of the newspapers of this country—but in lieu of this, they paid a postage according to weight. For the sake of despatch, he (Mr. Buckingham) contracted to pay the Post-master General 3,000 rupees per month (then about 4,000l. sterling, per annum), for the free transmission of his Journal through the Company's territories; and that sum was punctually paid: but after its payment in Bengal, the governor of Madras, who hated free discussion, was determined that no Journal should pass free in his presidency, though the full postage on it had been paid; and he accordingly had them stopped at Ganjam, the frontier town between Bengal and Madras, and charged with postage all the way to their destination; and, on an appeal to the Governor General, under whose authority the contract had been made for all India, no redress could be had, and no refund was made. Another instance of these conflicting authorities was just as striking. Subsequently to his (Mr. Buckingham's) departure from India, a rule or regulation was passed by the Bengal government, and registered in the supreme court, by which alone it could obtain the force of law, and which empowered the local authorities to suppress any newspaper that gave them any displeasure. This law was carried into effect for the purpose of suppressing the Calcutta Journal, and destroying all the valuable property invested in its establishment, as well as the income derived from its extensive circulation; yet when the same regulation was brought before the judges of the supreme court at Bombay, it was rejected by them as wholly unconstitutional and illegal—and they refused to give it their assent: so that there were three different states of law at the three presidencies of India, respecting that most important subject, the freedom of the Press;—the one having certain rules, of no legal authority, but enforced by the terror of arbitrary banishment, without trial, if they were infringed; the other having a previous censorship, exercised by an officer of government, who read all the proof sheets before they were committed to the Press, and struck out whatever he pleased; and the third having a power by law to suppress any journal that was disagreeable to them, without even the form of a trial, but at their mere will, pleasure, or caprice. The learned Judge was, therefore, perfectly correct in the opinion noted by the right hon. Gentleman, as to the extreme uncertainty of the state of the law; and no one but those who had lived under this state of uncertainty could fully appreciate its evils. As it regarded the Press, for instance, they had been told that at Calcutta the Press was perfectly free, save and except some very harmless restrictions; but these exceptions were somewhat remarkable. They prohibited all discussions on the conduct of the government, for that would be dangerous; they forbad all mention of the name of the bishop, for that would be disrespectful; they interdicted all criticism on the opinions of the judges, for that would be offensive; and they prohibited entirely all discussions that could have a tendency to excite dissensions in society, for that would give dissatisfaction. In short, the regulations for the free press (as it was called) of India, were a perfect epitome of the caricature of Figaro, in the Comedy of Beaumarchais, who describes his having obtained per mission to establish a Journal at Madrid, under a perfect freedom of the Press, save and except some trifling restraints, which were necessary for the public peace and safety; and accordingly he says, that finding he must not speak of affairs of government, nor of justice, nor of religion, that he must not censure any books, nor criticise the performances of the theatres, that he must say nothing which should offend public functionaries, or excite the least difference of opinion in private society, be had determined to establish a paper which should avoid all these; and, to give it an appropriate title, he should call it "The Useless Journal." He would now pass on to the most important of all the subjects yet touched on with respect to India. It appeared, from the plan of the right hon. Gentleman, that increased facilities were to be given to the settlement of Englishmen in India, by allowing them to reside at the presidencies, and to go into the old provinces, without a license; and to be restricted only from visiting the new or unsettled provinces without an express permission from the local governments on the spot. The reason assigned for this relaxation, was the improved state of information among the natives, and the consequent greater safety of allowing the European settlers to go among them. Now, what was it that caused this improved state? Why, that very colonization, all partial and restricted as it was, and the Press, by which it was so constantly recommended; and it was not too much to say, that if the colonization had been still greater, and the Press more free, the improvement of the natives would have been, at the present moment, ten times as great as it is. It was worthy of remark, too, that all the civil and military servants of the East-India Company were now converts to the opinion that colonization might be allowed with safety and advantage; though the right hon. Gentleman bad said, and said truly, that twenty years ago there was scarcely an advocate for colonization to be found among their ranks. The question, then, again occurred—What was it that effected this mighty change? Why, that very Press, which the Indian government oppressed and persecuted—and for which oppressions and persecutions the Home Government would afford no redress. The benefits that would arise from the admission of colonization, were the daily theme of the Calcutta Journal, from its first establishment, in 1818. Mr. Elphinstone, Mr. Bayley, Sir Charles Metcalfe, and Mr. Holt Mackenzie, were among its daily readers; and all were now agreed upon the advantages of colonization. Truth indeed was mighty, and would prevail. The only condition, it appeared, was, that there should be fixed laws, equally binding on all natives and Europeans. Now this was all that he (Mr. Buckingham) when in India, asked. At the period of his removal from the country, the edict was one of arbitrary power, without even the form of law—no trial, no defence, no appeal. The much-dreaded court-martial, which had been so much condemned for Ireland, would to him have been a blessing: a Hindoo tribunal, a Mahommedan divan, any thing which decided by known laws and fixed principles, he would have hailed as a relief; but all were denied. So much more highly did he value fixed laws than arbitrary power, that he would rather live under a government, where to breathe the name of the sovereign was punishable with decapitation and the exhibition of the head on a pike, than under a government where you were hypocritically told that you were free to say what you pleased, but who, on the moment of your saying anything that displeased them, and of which it was impossible to judge, you were liable to be exiled without trial, and punished with the ruin of all your past fortune and your future hopes. However severe the law, if it were known and well defined, an offence against it might be avoided; but against the arbitrary, despotic, and capricious exercise of power, there was no safeguard; and therefore it was so objectionable. It had been said, indeed, that it was not proper, in a country like India, to give unrestricted and unregulated liberty. Neither was it in any other country, for true liberty was the dominion of the law: and as to the necessity of establishing a strong government, to repress the evils of such liberty, of which the right hon. Gentleman had spoken, his answer was, that nothing was so strong as justice; and that a government which enjoyed the approbation of public opinion was stronger than one armed with all the civil and military power of the world. On this subject he was strongly tempted to enlarge, as it was indeed a fertile theme; but he would reserve to a future period, his observations on the advantages of colonization, on the absurdity of all pretended alarms as to collision with the natives, and the folly of pretending to grant leases of lands to individuals for sixty years, with a power hanging over their heads, that could banish them from the country without trial, within sixty days after the lease was signed—or, indeed, before the ink by which the signature was written on it, was dry. He rejoiced to find, that slavery was to be abolished in the East as well as in the West; and, he hoped, on easier terms. He was glad to find a Commission of Inquiry was to be appointed; as evidence and fact were the only safe grounds of legislation; and he hailed with pleasure the declaration, that the great interests of justice, knowledge, morality, and religion, were to be provided for. In conclusion, he would say a word or two on the capacity and resources of India, to discharge its present incumbrances; and the case with which this might be accomplished. The debt of the India Company beyond its present capacity to pay had been slated by the right hon. the President of the Board to be about 40,000,000l.; and with this the revenues of India were to be charged. The debt was, undoubtedly, a very large one to be contracted by a trailing company, and such as could have only grown up under a system of the greatest wastefulness and mismanagement, more particularly under the immense advantages which they, as a trading company, had enjoyed. But, great as it was, it was literally nothing, when compared to the splendid resources of the country—and not much when compared with its revenue, which was about 20,000,000l. annually. This was, however, but a miserable pittance for such a country to afford—a country of immense extent in surface—of enormous population—of abundant natural wealth in every form—of navigable rivers, accessible harbours, boundless coasts—and varied climates, capable of producing whatever the teeming earth could supply—from the rudest metal to the purest gems, from the palm and the plantain of the tropic, to the cedar and the pine of the snowy mountains; and all in perfection of their kind. He had no more doubt, indeed, than he had of his own existence, that India might be made to produce an annual revenue of five-times its present amount. Of what was the wealth of countries, and their consequent capacity to pay tribute to the state, composed? The elements were simple and few: the minerals beneath the earth—the vegetables above the earth—and the animals that grazed upon its surface. These were all the natural elements. The rest was wholly the production of population and skill. In all these, except the last, India abounded. Her precious metals and her gems, her rich savannahs and her fertile plains, her millions of frugal, patient, and industrious people, made her, in all these particulars, far superior to England itself. All that was wanted was to introduce into India, (which Colonization would do) the arts, and sciences, and useful knowledge of Europe; with that first requisite as a stimulant to production, complete protection of person and property, and the assurance that he who produced wealth should be certain of its unmolested enjoyment. Let this be done (and by free colonization alone could this be effected), and he saw no reason to doubt, but that in a few years hence. India might be made to produce a revenue of 100 millions sterling as readily as Great Britain now produced fifty. It had produced more, from the three provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, in the lime of the Emperor Baher, than it did now from three times the same extent of country: and in the time of Aurungzebe also, the revenue was much greater than at present. But if in Britain a population of 25,000,000 could produce a revenue of 50,000,000l.(besides having a large surplus for enjoyments), or 2l. per head, man, woman, and child, what was there unreasonable in the supposition that India, when blessed with the knowledge and freedom which England enjoyed, should, with four times the population, and with richer mines, more fertile plains, double and triple harvests, and a climate the most congenial to production of every kind—what was there to prevent her producing half the proportion of revenue yielded by England, or 1l. per head, for every individual in the stale? The surface of India had been estimated at about 800,000,000 of acres, which was nearly equal to the whole of Europe, excluding only the barren and un productive parts of Russia and Siberia: and from this extent of surface, only 20,000,000l. of revenue were raised, while, from the same extent of laud in Europe (and no one would pretend to say that this was under the best possible management), no less a sum than 300,000,000l. was paid in revenues to the different Governments of all the European States, or thirty times more than was drawn from India, where the people were wretched and impoverished in the midst of inexhaustible wealth. He trusted, therefore, that the Ministers would pause, and the country reflect, before they consigned over again for another twenty years, the most valuable possession of the Crown to the hands of those who, during two centuries of misrule, had produced to themselves only embarrassment and debt, and to the natives poverty and wretchedness. It was not thus that we should deal with the countries that we conquered, or the territories we acquired. As the happiness of the people ought to be the sole aim of every government, he hoped this would be provided for by every means within our power, that we should make this our first consideration, and regard all other objects as subservient to it. Then indeed, our boast might be—not like that of the haughty Spaniard, who proudly said that his dominions were so extensive that the sun never set upon them; but, that wheresoever the sun did shine on British ground, and wheresoever the British rule was known, there freedom, justice, knowledge, and happiness, were fostered and encouraged by every effort that the ruling power could bestow.

Mr. Cutlar Fergusson

said, that though he had an extreme anxiety to put an end to the debate, yet he felt that as a Director he was called upon to make a few observations in answer to what had fallen from the hon. member for Sheffield. That hon. Gentleman had taken great pains, and had advanced every topic to show, that the government of India was a government by which India was ill governed, and which ought no longer to exist. The hon. Gentleman had opposed the Resolution for continuing the government of India in the hands of the Company, and the whole of his argument seemed to be derived from the assertion of Mr. Mill, who stated that in 1590 India was more flourishing than subsequently. To make a fair comparison he ought to have made the contrast when the Government of the country was in the hands of the Company. The hon. Gentleman had brought under review the state of India under Aurungzebe, and wished to make the Company answerable for the oppression of Nadir Shah, and then said, that because the country was not so prosperous as it was in 1590, the fault lay with the government of the Company. He (Mr. Fergusson) would venture to say that any person passing the frontiers of Bengal, and comparing the condition of that presidency, and the districts governed by the native princes, would see at once that in the one there was protection to person and property, and the other was given over to tyranny. He had no hesitation in asserting, that the government of the Company was a blessing not sufficiently appreciated, and his motive as a Director in wishing the government of India to be continued in the Board of Directors without any trade, was the opinion that they would have more time to attend to the interests of the people. His motive for giving up the commercial assets of the Company to the Government was the hoped continuance of this blessing to the natives of India. As to the question of patronage, if it could be better disposed of, he, for one, would be willing to give it up; but he must say, that there never had been patronage of such value, which had been distributed with more good faith, more honour, or more integrity, than the patronage of the Company. He recollected an instance of a Director who was brought to trial, upon suspicion of having improperly disposed of patronage, and was delivered over to the judgment of the Court. He could at least say, that the Company had acted honestly in the disposal of its patronage. The bad effects of Acts of Parliament, which the Company could not resist, were fixed on the Company. With regard to the charge of illiberality which the hon. member for Sheffield had brought against the government of India, he (Mr. Fergusson) could say, that so far from being illiberal, the Indian government permitted many hundreds of persons to reside in India without any licence. The hon. Member had alluded to his own case, and he had no hesitation in saying, as he had frequently said on former occasions, that he did not approve of the conduct of the Indian government towards the hon. member for Sheffield. It was an objection to the Company that though sluggish in improvement, they had been active in destructive and wasteful wars—but it should be recollected that the Company never brought this country into a war in India; on the contrary, the Company were constantly protesting against every war. In fact the Board of Control, and Governors General were the parties to be charged, if charges could be justly made, for the Court of Directors were indisposed to war, even where their interest sometimes called upon them to assume a hostile attitude. Another point was the state of the law, and certainly the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Charles Grant), had not overstated the great, inconvenience arising from the confused state of' the law. The discrepancies and anomalies more great and revolting; improvement was most, desirable; but this was a subject which must be touched with a tender hand.

Mr. Hume

rose to inquire of the right hon. Gentleman how much time was to intervene before he would take any further step with this measure? He protested against granting the Charter for a period of twenty years, and he thought that the very longest period to which it should be extended was ten years. He did not intend to make any further observations on the subject for the present, and his only purpose in rising was to ask when the right hon. Gentleman expected to bring in a Bill founded on these Resolutions, or what the next stage was to which he meant to proceed?

Mr. Charles Grant

I shall bring in a bill as soon as the Resolutions have passed the House—at least a day or two afterwards.

Resolutions agreed to. House resumed.