INDIA.
SIR JOHN MALCOLM, one of the ablest and most determined de- fenders of the Indian monopoly, admits that were it now for the fir st time to be adopted, none but an insane person would recommend for the government of India such a system as the one in operation.* He goes on, indeed, to qualify this sweeping condemnation, by saying that the system has grown with the empire ; that it has been prosperously prosecuted ; and therefore that any rule derived from his admission of its inherent viciousness is now inapplicable. We take the admission, but deny the qualification. We think the man who in leei), or even when Sir JOHN'S Essay was first published (in 1811), proposed such a system of government, might be deemed insane ; but we cannot allow that that which at the one period or the other would be looked on as the dream of a madman, cannot and may not properly and justly be altered or modified according to the waking and considered plans of men in their senses. We must deny also that the trade to India under the Company has been prosperous. The trade with India has long been a losing one to the Company, as may easily be proved by their constantly accumulating debt. A monopoly is at all times, and under the most favourable circumstances, an indirect tax imposed on the many in order to swell the purses of the few. Where it is granted for the encouragement of trade, as it is strangely termed, it is no more than it diversion of the profits of such branches of commerce as do pay, in order to carry on a branch that does not pay. That it is in- jurious to the community, is quite obvious ; and it is equally obvious that it is not beneficial to the monopolist. The shares of a monopoly, were they to remain in the hands of the original holders, might in the progress of time prove extremely valuable ; but they do not so remain, and in point of fact the proprietor of India Stock at this moment receives no more interest for his investments than the proprietor of any other stock. But there are peculiarities in the Companie monopoly that distiuguish it from any that ever existed, and which amply justify Sir JOHN MALCOLM 'S admission. Did the trade with India pay its expenses, we should be taxed only to the amount of the profits that the capital necessary for carrying it on was reasonably entitled to claim. This is all that an ordinary monopoly asks or receives; but it is a feature in that of the Company, that we must submit to a tax on one branch which does pay, in *order to male: good the shortcomings of another that does not. While all that,other monopolists demand is that they shall have the whole trade to themselves, the Company ask and re- ceive an enormous sum annually as a consideration for accepting of such terms ! And to swell the catalogue of absurdities, while
* Political History of India.
we have from time to time modified the terms of commercial in- tercourse with India, the primary object of the monopoly of the Company, and where their power. is predominant, until every one may, under regulations that oppose no effectual bar to trade, carry his goods thither, and bring home goods in return, we have jdalouSly prohibited Englishmen from carrying on any traffic with China, where the Company are no better than strangers and sojourners, and where, were it not for the permission of the weakest state in Europe, they would not have ground whereon to rest the soles of their feet. The privileges of the Company are therefore not only open to all the objections that are applicable to other exclusive privileges, but they are not susceptible of the plausible defence that is generally made for exclusive privileges. They have an absolute monopoly of the Chinese trade ; and if it can be shown that that trade cannot be carried on with a profit without exclusive privileges, then the case, however indefensible on principle, may be supported by the reasons that a monopolist usually urges : they have a modified monopoly of the trade with India, and if it can be shown that that trade can be carried on with a profit either under an absolute or a modified monopoly, then it may be de- fended in the same way. But if, as is notoriously the fact, the tea trade be a most beneficial one, and the India trade (to the Company) a most losing one, then the ordinary monopoly arguments are wholly inapplicable. We have been led to this subject again by the motion (postponed to the 1 lth) of Mr. W. WHITMORE to submit the laws regulating the commerce with India to a select committee of the House of Commons. We shall have repeated occasion to recur to it ; and in the mean time we may remark, that in the dispute which is likely to arise between the advocates of general principles and the Company, the proof—the onus probandi—will rest almost entirely with the latter. And the proof that they are called on to bring foward is of no light character. They are called on to prove that great and important patronage is most wisely and prudently exercised in the hands of private and irresponsible individuals: that colonies are most securely governed where the sole object of the governors is to draw from them as large an amount of taxes as possible : that the best way to perpetuate the connexion of the colony and the mother country, is to exclude as much as pos- ble the inhabitants of the latter from all permanent interest in the for- mer: that, in a word, the colony of India is an exception to all the colonies ever attempted or formed by this or by any other nation ; and that it is, in accordance with the eternal fitness of things, that tea, which costs eighteenpence in New York, should cost three shillings in Leadenhall Street.
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