possible it was that a body of such magnitude could, under the former system, be seriously swayed even by the British Government. But when their enormous cash transactions of four hundred and seventy-eight millions in eighteen years are reduced to the mere receipt of L.630,000 per annum; when, instead of paying nearly four millions of duties into the Treasury yearly, at the charge of L.10,000 ayear, they merely receive their halfyearly dividend of L.315,000; when, instead of selling teas to the amount of eighty-three millions in eighteen years, they sell nothing; when, instead of conducting a trade in opium of fifty millions in that time, they do not freight a single ship; it is evident that their political independence is utterly destroyed, and that they must become a mere Treasury Board for the administration of the Indian provinces of the Empire.

But, in addition to this instant cessation of all its money transac

tions, which of itself is amply suffi cient utterly to prostrate and annihilate the independence and utility of the Court of Directors, even as a Government Board, for the management of India, the new and important restraints under which they are to be placed are of themselves sufficient to take from it even the shadow of independence. The Court are to be compelled "to send the despatch which the Board of Control have fixed on by the first ship that goes after such determination; and in the event of the Court refusing to prepare a despatch or send a despatch as altered by the Board, the Board are to have the power of sending it themselves." The Home expenditure and establishment is to be under the Board of Control; and they are to control all salaries and gratuities, even of the smallest amount in India. With such contracted powers, and such a total termination to all their vast concerns, it

L.117,606,336 137,253,467 24,051,666

1,362,256

L.280,273,725 sterling.

L.12.920,937

11,417,113

L.24,338,050

L. 18,000,000 sterling.

is evident that the independence of the Company will prove a mere name; and that the influence of Government,-in other words, of the democratic electors in the dominant island,-will speedily become paramount in the Indian Peninsula.

This is the view which the Directors themselves entertain on this subject. It is observed, in a letter from the Chairman and Deputy Chairman to Mr Charles Grant, on 27th February, 1833, "The Court look upon the system of Indian government established by the act of 1784, as one in which the different authorities employed in carrying it on are eminently qualified to exert a check upon each other; and to this circumstance the Court are disposed to attribute much of the purity with which, since the passing of that act, the government has been administered. The nature of the local government of India, composed of three separate Presidencies; the Governors of each of which act under the advice, and for some extent the control of their respective Councils, and the subjection of all the proceedings of this local government to the Court, this body again subject to the control of the Board of Commissioners instituted for that special purpose, make up a system of various powers, diverse in origin, and acting under mutual influence, the effects of which the Court are disposed to think of incalculable value in a Government, the power of which over its subjects is almost absolute, and upon which public opinion can exert but a feeble and uncertain operation. If these remarks are well founded, any measure, the tendency of which would be to remove from its position any one of the powers concerned in the government of India, or materially to weaken it in the exercise of its functions, is greatly to be deprecated. Now, to apply this argument to the case immediately in view, if the East India Company (acting through the Court as their organ) were to lose any of their present power and influence; if, further, they were deprived of all effectual voice in the disposal of the funds which are now at their command; they might, indeed, be suffered to retain the nominal character of Governors of the British Territories in

the East, but it is evident that all but the shadow of their former authority would be gone: they might, indeed, be charged with the same degree of responsibility as is now exacted from them in that capacity; but the grounds upon which much of this responsibility rests, and which render it just and proper that they should be held responsible, would no longer exist; and they would, probably, often have to incur the odium of resisting measures which they might consider objectionable, without having the weight and independence which would suffice to obtain for their objections a proper consideration. The Court are also firmly of opinion, that a considerable degree of independence should attach to the body in whom the patronage of British India is vested; and that, without the possession of such a character, the right of making appointments to office might prove rather a dangerous privilege.

"Divested of their commerce, from which the Company derive so large a portion of their influence and character in England as a body independent of the Government of the country, the Court greatly fear lest they should become merely an instrument for giving effect to the views of the Indian Minister, whose sway over India would, under the plan of his Majesty's Government, be almost absolute, and little exposed to the vigilance of Parliament, in consequence of the appearance of a check in the Company, which, if the apprehension of the Court be well founded, would be perfectly illusory. The proba bility of such a result is greatly enhanced by that part of the plan which proposes to increase the powers of the Board, and to restrict those of the Company. You say, indeed, that the scheme allots important powers to the proprietors. The only powers which it gives to them are those which they already possess; and whilst the Directors are to continue subject to all the present limitations, the Board are to be invested with authority themselves to send despatches, without allowing of any appeal, although their contents may be opposed to the judgment of every member of the Court."

In this view, the recent rise which has taken place in East India Stock,

upon the promulgation of the Ministerial plan, affords the most decisive evidence of the prejudicial effect which it is ultimately likely to produce upon the practical government of our Indian possessions. The holders of East India Stock, of course, look to little more than securing the regular receipt of their dividend of ten and a half per cent on their capital. Of course, the project of converting them from the chargeable and perilous condition of mercantile traders into fixed annuitants, secured on a vast territorial revenue for their payment, is eminently favourable at first sight to their pecuniary interests; it is like what it would be to take a body of proprie tors of Bank Stock, at a period of high prosperity, and convert their changeable dividend, dependent on the fickle gales of mercantile fortune, into that of fixed mortgagees, secured for their dividends on great landed estates. But while this project may be admitted to be, in the first instance at least, favourable to the pecuniary interests of the holders of India Stock, and as such conducive to a rise of its value in the opinion of the heedless multitude who compose the majority of its members; what prospect does it afford of ultimate good management to the immense territory from which alone their payment is to be derived? The holders of India Stock are henceforth to be no longer dependent for their income on the prudent and successful management of the Court of Directors; they are the holders of a fixed annuity payable out of the Indian territory, which cannot be injured unless our Indian Sovereignty itself is lost. This, indeed, though a remote, is a most serious and appalling danger under the new system of management; but dangers, however great, are never obvious to the masses of mankind if they are only remote-a proof of which was afforded in France, where the public funds rose 30 per cent in one day on the restoration of Neckar to power on the shoulders of the people in 1788, though the fundholders, five years afterwards, came to die of famine in the streets; and another in England, when, during the whole struggle on Reform, the public Funds uniformly rose upon every triumph of the Movement party, though their mea

sures, every man of sense now sees, are rapidly leading to a national bankruptcy. But as the immediate interests of the holders of India Stock are now to be secured by their conversion into territorial annuitants, they cease to have any direct or personal interest in the government of India, just as the holders of a mortgage cease to have any direct or immediate interest in the management of the estate over which their security extends, because they always think, that however much it may be mismanaged, it will at least yield enough to pay them. In this way the choice of the Directors falls to a body no longer actuated by any direct or immediate interest in the concerns of India; the management of the estate is taken out of the hands of the proprietors, and vested in the holders of a mortgage of little more than a fortieth part of its annual revenue. The rise of India Stock, therefore, is the clearest indication that the Ministerial plan has an immediate tendency to take the government of India out of the hands where it should be placed; because it vests it in a body possessing a fixed and unchangeable interest in a territorial mortgage, instead of one whose income was immediately affected by the wisdom or folly of its government.

It is as plain, therefore, as any proposition can be in so uncertain and intricate a science as politics, that the immediate effect of the proposed change in the government of India will be to take it out of the hands by whom it has been so admirably managed, and vest it in those from whom experience tells us no stable or systematic rule can be expected. The government of India will be divided between the Directors chosen by the holders of an annuity of L.630,000 a-year, but with no immediate interest in its prosperity, and the House of Commons. It is unnecessary to say which of these bodies is likely to acquire the preponderating influence. India, therefore, will inevitably fall under the direct control of a democratic Legislature; the Ten-pounders in the British isles will be the ruling power; and what they will do for India, Mr Hume has told us from the lessons of history, and the West Indies tell us from the experience of our own times.

But this is not all. The Ministe

rial plan also involves the immediate opening of the China trade; and this of itself, independent of every thing else, is amply sufficient ultimately to overthrow our Indian dominion.

It is impossible to do justice to this vast subject at the close of a long Article. If the chequer is not closed before our June number appears, we shall return to the subject, and expose the numberless frauds which have been imposed on the public on this subject; but in a few pages we think enough may be given to satisfy every reasonable mind on the subject.

In the first place, the China monopoly is indispensable to enable the Government of India to defray its engagements, or preserve its solvency in the Peninsula of Hindostan, From the papers laid before Parliament, it appears that no less than L.17,000,000 has been required from the profits of the China trade to make up the deficiency of the expenditure in India over its territorial revenue. Mr Grant, in his communication to the Directors on the proposed changes, admits the existence of this great deficit. He observes, "The seventeen millions, for example, admitting, for the sake of argument, the amount to be justly stated, by the supply of which, through the China monopoly, the public debt of India has been kept down, has been appropriated out of the resources of this country, as certainly as if they had been appropriated by a vote of Parliament in aid of the Indian finances. There certainly has been such a deficiency in the funds of India to meet the necessary expenses of Government, and it has been supplied by the means above stated, whether to the amount of seventeen millions or twelve millions, (the latter is the amount in the Appendix to the Report of 1830,) or any other sum, is no proof that there will always be a deficit in future."*

It being thus admitted that a large sum, amounting to at least twelve

millions, has been defrayed of the charges of the Indian territory out of the profits of the China trade, the point for consideration is, what ground is there for supposing that the territorial revenue of India can be brought to be so productive in future as to bear, not only the withdrawal of this assistance from commerce, but the additional burden of L.630,000, which is to be laid on the territorial revenue to meet the dividends to the proprietors, which are now paid from the profits of trade? If it cannot be shewn that this is practicable, it is evident that the Government of India is insolvent, and by the constant contraction of debt every year, will to a certainty, in a given time, be overwhelmed.

Now, on this subject, it is to be recollected, that, though the Government of India has been frequently at war for the last twenty years, they have been uniformly successful; that they have conquered in that time almost the whole of the Indian peninsula; that the territorial revenue has been, by successive additious of territory, and improvements in the internal condition of the people, more than quadrupled; that till the year 1813 they had the monopoly both of the Indian and China trade, and to this hour the latter of these advantages; and yet they have been so far from realizing any surplus during that time from the combined resources of territory and commerce, that their debt is now L.47,700,000, and its annual charge L.2,116,971.† Farther, the Committee of the House of Commons, in their prospective estimate of the finances of India, under the direction of his Majesty's present Ministers, in May 1831, have given us the following probable prospective state of Indian finances, even after taking into account all pos sible reduction of expenditure Probable deficiency of Indian revenues in 1834, to meet charges in India, L.827,300 113,300

Bond debt in England,

Annual deficit, L. 940,6004

Now, this being the territorial deficit, on an accurate and minute estimate, of the revenue of India in 1834, founded on the documents laid before Parliament, it is obvious that, with the additional burden of L.630,000 laid on, and the resources of the China trade taken away, the finances of India must be speedily landed in a state of desperate and irretrievable insolvency.

The expectations held out by Government, that by prudent management the revenue of India may be greatly increased, and rendered adequate to discharge all its engage ments, is altogether chimerical. This fallacious hope has been annually held out to the British public for the last seventy years, and the glittering prospect has as uniformly been overcast. So far from having realized any surplus whatever during that time, the India Government has been compelled to contract a debt of L.47,000,000. The annual deficit is greater now than it was at any former period. And if this is the case, even after the most extraordinary and uninterrupted flow of prosperity recorded in history; after conquests unparalleled since the days of the Romans, and an augmentation of the revenue more than fourfold, by the revenue of the ceded provinces, what reasonable prospect is there that a more favourable result will be obtained in future times, when our Indian empire has undergone the vicissitudes of fortune incident to every sublunary thing, and which our past and unparalleled success only renders more likely to occur with accumulated force? There is no example in history of an empire of such magnitude as our Indian one not undergoing most serious reverses after it has attained its zenith. The fall of the Roman, in ancient, and of the French empire in our own times, were but instances and exemplifications of this moral law of nature.

Nor is it possible to make any reductions in the expenditure of our Indian empire without the most imminent hazard of destroying the whole fabric. Like the empire of

Napoleon in Europe, the empire of England in India is founded on opinion, on the prestige arising from the command of an immense expenditure, and an apparently irresistible force. Let either of these be undermined, and the charm is broken, and with it our Indian empire dissolved. With truth it may be said there, that from the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. The affections of the natives can only be maintained by a lavish expenditure; their respect only preserved by a gigantic force. Contract the one, or diminish the other, and in three months the splendid fabric may be swept from the face of the earth.

The

Farther, it is not generally known in Europe, but yet it is of vital importance in this question, how extremely burdensome the taxation of India is, and how large a proportion of it is derived from the monopoly of opium, which is entirely at the mercy of the Chinese Government, and salt, which is an impost of so vexatious a kind as to render its maintenance neither possible nor desirable for any considerable time. Of the total revenue of L.22,600,000, above L.6,000,000* a-year is derived from the monopoly of salt and opium; and if the Chinese Government were to choose to put a stop to the trade in opium, the greater part of this immense sum would be lost. territorial revenue is raised by a land-tax, amounting in general to from 30 to 45 per cent on the produce of the soil. Now, surely this taxation is most exorbitant; especially if it be recollected what an intolerable burden 10 per cent was felt to be in this country during the war. It may safely be affirmed, therefore, that the territorial revenue of India should, if we have any regard to the stability of our empire in the East, be diminished rather than the reverse; and it is obvious, that that portion of it which depends on the monopoly of opium and salt, cannot be calculated on as of very lasting endurance.

It is clear, therefore, that India, in every point of view, holds out no

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