LETTER I. GENERAL VIEW OF THE EAST INDIA QUESTION.
Tuesday, January 12, 1813.
The crisis, at which the affairs of the East India Company are now arrived, is one which involves the most important interests of the British Empire. It would be unnecessary to prove a proposition which is so universally acknowledged and felt. It has happened however, that, in our approaches towards this crisis, the Public understanding has been but little addressed upon the subject; so that the appeal which is now suddenly made to their passions and imaginations, finds them unprepared with that knowledge of the true circumstances of the case, which can alone enable them to govern those passions, and control those imaginations. Let us then endeavour to recover the time which has been lost, by taking a deliberate view of the circumstances which produce this crisis.
The crisis, is the proximity of the term which may conclude the East India Company's rights, to the exclusive trade with India and China, and to the powers of government now exercised by them over the Indian Empire.
The rights of the East India Company are two-fold; and have long been distinguished as, their permanent rights, and their temporary rights. Those rights are derived to them from distinct Charters, granted to them at different times by Parliament. By the former, they were created a perpetual Corporate Society of Merchants, trading to India. By the latter, they obtained, for a limited period of time, the exclusive right of trading with India and China, and of executing the powers of government over those parts of the Indian territory, which were acquired either by conquest or by negotiation. The Charter conveying the latter limited rights, is that which will expire in the course of the ensuing year 1814; on the expiration of which, the exclusive trade to the East will be again open to the British population at large, and the powers of the India Government will lapse in course to the Supreme Government of the British Empire, to be provided for as Parliament in its wisdom may judge it advisable to determine.
The renewal of an expired privilege cannot be pursued upon a ground of right. The exclusive Charter of the Company is a patent, and their patent, like every other patent, is limited as to its duration. But though the patentee cannot allege a ground of right for the renewal of his patent, he may show such strong pretensions, such good claims in equity, such weighty reasons of expediency for its renewal, as may ensure its attainment. Such are the claims and the pretensions of the East India Company to a renewal of their Charter; and as such they have been promptly and cheerfully received, both by the Government and the country at large.
But the progress of society, during a long course of years, is of a nature to produce a considerable alteration in the general state of things; the state of things must, therefore, naturally be called into consideration, upon the expiration of the term of years which determines the exclusive Charter of the East India Company; in order to inquire, whether that Charter should be renewed precisely in the same terms, and with the same conditions, as before; or whether the actual state of public affairs demands, that some alteration, some modification, of terms and conditions, should be introduced into the Charter or System which is to succeed.
The arduous task of this investigation must necessarily fall upon those persons, who chance to be in the Administration of the Country, at the latest period to which the arrangements for the renewal of the Charter can be protracted; and it is hardly possible to imagine a more difficult and perplexing position, for any Administration. Those persons, if they have any regard for the duties which they owe to the Public, will consider themselves as standing between two interests; the interest of those who are about to lose an exclusive right, and the interest of those who are about to acquire an open and a common one. They will be disposed to listen, patiently and impartially, to the pretensions of both parties; of those who pray for the renewal of an exclusive privilege, and of those who pray that they may not be again wholly excluded from the right which has reverted. And although they may amply allow the preference which is due to the former petitioners, yet they will endeavour to ascertain, whether the latter may not, with safety to the public interest, receive some enlargement of the benefits, which the opportunity opens to them, and from which they have been so long excluded.
While they thus look alternately to each of these interests, and are engaged in striving to establish a reconciliation between the two, it will be neither equitable nor liberal for one of the interested parties to throw out a doubt to the Public, whether they do this "from a consciousness of strength, and a desire of increasing their own power and influence, or from a sense of weakness and a wish to strengthen themselves by the adoption of popular measures."
It is thus that the Ministers of the Crown have conducted themselves, in the embarrassing crisis into which they have fallen. Fully sensible of the just and honourable pretensions which the East India Company have established in the course of their long, important, and distinguished career, they have consented to recommend to Parliament, to leave the whole system of Indian Government and Revenue to the Company, under the provisions of the Act of 1793; together with the exclusive trade to China, as they have hitherto possessed them; but, at the same time, considering the present state of the world, and its calamitous effects upon the commercial interest in general, they are of opinion, that some participation in the Indian trade, thus reverting, might possibly be conceded, under due regulations, to British merchants not belonging to the East India Company; which would not impair the interests either of the Public or of the Company.
In this moderate opinion, they are fully justified, by the consent of the Company, to admit the Merchants of the out-ports to a share in the Indian trade. And thus far, all is amicable. But the out-port Merchants having represented to Government, that the condition, hitherto annexed to a Licensed Import Trade,of bringing back their Indian Cargoes to the port of London, and of disposing of them solely in the Company's sales, in Leadenhall Street,would defeat the object of the concession; and that the delay, embarrassment, and perplexity, which such an arrangement would create, would destroy the simple plan of their venture; and having therefore desired, that they might be empowered to return with their cargoes to the ports from whence they originally sailed, and to which all their interests are confined; Government, being convinced of the justice of the representation, have proposed that the Import Trade may be yielded to the Out-ports,
