and where one cannot be well considered, independently of several others.

attempt

mentfor

matier

Your committee observe, that this is the second at- Second tempt made by parliament for the reformation of abuses madeby in the company's government. It appears, therefore, to parlia them a necessary preliminary to this second undertaking, a refor to consider the causes which, in their opinion, have produced the failure of the first; that the defects of the original plan may be supplied, its errors corrected, and such useful regulations, as were then adopted, may be further explained, enlarged, and enforced.

ceed

session

The first design of this kind was formed in the session Proof the year 1773. In that year, parliament, taking up ings of the consideration of the affairs of India, through two of 1773 its committees, collected a very great body of details concerning the interior economy of the company's possessions; and concerning many particulars of abuse which prevailed at the time when those committees made their ample and instructive reports. But it does not appear that the body of regulations enacted in that year, that is, in the East India act of the thirteenth of his majesty's reign, were altogether grounded on that information; but were adopted rather on probable speculations, and general ideas of good policy and good government. New establishments, civil and judicial, were therefore formed at a very great expense, and with much complexity of constitution. Checks and counterchecks of all kinds were contrived in the execution, as well as in the formation of this system, in which all the existing authorities of this kingdom had a share for parliament appointed the members of the presiding part of the new establishment; the crown appointed the judicial; and the company preserved the nomination of the other officers. So that if the act has not fully answered its purposes, the failure cannot be attributed to any want of officers of every description, or to the deficiency of any mode of patronage in their appointment. The cause must be sought elsewhere.

The act had in its view (independently of several detached regulations) five fundamental objects: 1st. The reformation of the court of proprietors of the

East India Company :

Powers

and objects of act of

1773.

and the effects

of.

2dly. A new model of the court of directors, and an thereenforcement of their authority over the servants abroad:

Court

of pro prietors.

3dly. The establishment of a court of justice capable of protecting the natives from the oppression of British subjects:

4thly. The establishment of a general council to be seated in Bengal, whose authority should, in many particulars, extend over all the British settlements in India :

5thly. To furnish the ministers of the crown with constant information concerning the whole of the company's correspondence with India, in order that they might be enabled to inspect the conduct of the directors and servants, and to watch over the execution of all parts of the act; that they might be furnished with matter to lay before parliament from time to time, according as the state of things should render regulation or animadversion necessary.

The first object of the policy of this act was to improve the constitution of the court of proprietors. In this case, as in almost all the rest, the remedy was not applied directly to the disease. The complaint was, that factions in the court of proprietors had shown, in several instances, a disposition to support the servants of the company against the just coercion and legal prosecution of the directors. Instead of applying a corrective to the distemper, a change was proposed in the constitution. By this reform it was presumed, that an interest would arise in the general court, more independent in itself, and more connected with the commercial prosperity of the company. Under the new constitution, no proprietor not possessed of a thousand pounds capital stock was permitNew ted to vote in the general court: before the act, five qualifi- hundred pounds was a sufficient qualification for one vote; cation. and no value gave more. But as the lower classes were

The

ballot.

disabled, the power was increased in the higher: Proprietors of three thousand pounds were allowed two votes; those of six thousand were entitled to three; ten thousand pounds was made the qualification for four. The votes were thus regulated in the scale and gradation of property. On this scale, and on some provisions to prevent occasional qualifications and splitting of votes, the whole reformation rested.

Several essential points, however, seem to have been omitted or misunderstood. No regulation was made to abolish the pernicious custom of voting by ballot; by means of which, acts of the highest concern to the company, and to the state, might be done by individuals with

inte

rest.

perfect impunity; and even the body itself might be subjected to a forfeiture of all its privileges for defaults of persons, who, so far from being under control, could not be so much as known in any mode of legal cogni. zance. Nothing was done, or attempted, to prevent the operation of the interest of delinquent servants of the company in the general court, by which they might even Indian come to be their own judges; and in effect, under another description, to become the masters in that body, which ought to govern them. Nor was any thing provided to secure the independency of the proprietory body from the various exterior interests, by which it might be disturbed, and diverted from the conservation of that pecuniary concern, which the act laid down as the sole security for preventing a collusion between the general court and the powerful delinquent servants in India. The whole of the regulations concerning the court of proprietors relied upon two principles, which have often proved fallacious; namely, that small numbers were a security against faction and disorder; and, that integrity of conduct would follow the greater property. In no case could these principles be less depended upon than in the affairs of the East-India Company. However, by wholly cutting off the lower, and adding to the power of the higher classes, it was supposed that the higher would keep their money in that fund to make profit; that the vote would be a secondary consideration, and no more than a guard to the property; and that therefore any abuse, which tended to depreciate the value of their stock, would be warmly resented by such proprietors.

If the ill effects of every misdemeanour in the company's servants were to be immediate, and had a tendency to lower the value of the stock, something might justly be expected from the pecuniary security taken by the act. But from the then state of things, it was more than probable, that proceedings, ruinous to the permanent interest of the company, might commence in great lucrative advantages. Against this evil, large pecuniary interests were rather the reverse of a remedy. Accordingly, the company's servants have ever since covered over the worst oppressions of the people under their government, and the most cruel and wanton ravages of all the neighbouring countries, by holding out, and for a time actually realizing, additions of revenue to the territorial funds of

Pro.

prietors.

the company, and great quantities of valuable goods to their investment.

But this consideration of mere income (whatever weight it might have) could not be the first object of a proprietor in a body so circumstanced. The East-India Company is not, like the Bank of England, a mere monied society for the sole purpose of the preservation or improvement of their capital; and, therefore, every attempt to regulate it upon the same principles must inevitably fail. When it is considered that a certain share in the stock gives a share in the government of so vast an empire, with such a boundless patronage, civil, military, marine, commercial, and financial, in every department of which such fortunes have been made as could be made no where else, it is impossible not to perceive that capitals, far superior to any qualifications appointed to proprietors, or even to directors, would readily be laid out for a participation in that power. The Indian proprietor, therefore, will always be in the first instance a politician; and the bolder his enterprise, and the more corrupt his views, the less will be his consideration of the price to be paid for compassing them. The new regulations did not reduce the number so low as not to leave the assembly still liable to all the disorder, which might be supposed to arise from multitude. But, if the principle had been well established and well executed, a much greater inconveniency grew out of the reform than that which had attended the old abuse; for if tumult and disorder be lessened by reducing the number of proprietors, private cabal and intrigue are facilitated at least in an equal degree; and it is cabal and corruption, rather than disorder and confusion, that was most to be dreaded in transacting the affairs of India. Whilst the votes of the smaller proprietors continued, a door was left open for the public sense to enter into that society: since that door has been closed, the proprietory has become (even more than formerly) an aggregate of private interests, which subsist at the expense of the collective body. At the moment of this revolution in the proprietory, as it might naturally be expected, those who had either no very particular interest in their vote, or but a petty object to pursue, immediately disqualified; but, those who were deeply interested in the company's patronage; those who were concerned in the supply of ships, and of the other innumerable objects required for their im

mense establishments; those who were engaged in contracts with the treasury, admiralty, and ordnance, together with the clerks in public offices, found means of securing qualifications at the enlarged standard. All these composed a much greater proportion than formerly they had done of the proprietory body.

Against the great, predominant, radical corruption of the court of proprietors, the raising the qualification proved no sort of remedy. The return of the company's servants into Europe, poured in a constant supply of proprietors, whose ability to purchase the highest qualifications for themselves, their agents and dependants, could not be dubious. And this latter description form a very considerable, and by far the most active and efficient part of that body. To add to the votes, which is adding to the power, in proportion to the wealth of men, whose very offences were supposed to consist in acts which lead to the acquisition of enormous riches, appears by no means a well considered method of checking rapacity and oppression. In proportion as these interests prevailed, the means of cabal, of concealment, and of corrupt confederacy, became far more easy than before. Accordingly, there was no fault with respect to the company's government over its servants, charged or chargeable on the general court as it originally stood, of which, since the reform, it has not been notoriously guilty. It was not therefore a matter of surprise to your committee, that the general court, so composed, has at length grown to such a degree of contempt, both of its duty and of the permanent interest of the whole corporation, as to put itself into open defiance of the salutary admonitions of this house, given for the purpose of asserting and enforcing the legal authority of their own body over their own servants.

The failure in this part of the reform of 1773, is not stated by your committee as recommending a return to the ancient constitution of the company, which was nearly as far as the new from containing any principle tending to the prevention or remedy of abuses; but to point out the probable failure of any future regulations, which do not apply directly to the grievance, but which may be taken up as experiments to ascertain theories of the operations of councils formed of greater or lesser numbers, or such as shall be composed of men of more or less opulence, or of interests of newer or longer stand