June 25, 1833.
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Depressing the West India Colonies will lead to the Introduction of Foreign Slave Grown Sugar.
Supposing that the growth of the sugar should, from the causes I have mentioned, fail in the West Indies, where are we to get sugar? We must get it no doubt from the colonies of other countries, where it is produced by the labour of slaves. What then, will those who are so anxious for the abolition of slavery say, if, in consequence of this measure, the slave trade should be revived, with all the added horrors of its being carried on in a contraband manner; and if, instead of decreasing the amount of slavery in the world, we should increase it, in Cuba, and in the other foreign West India possessions, over which we have no control, and into which it would be impossible for us to introduce any measure, regulating or ameliorating the condition of the slave.
At this moment we consume more of sugar, even excluding Ireland, than all the rest of Europe put together; and I leave it to your Lordships to consider whether it would be possible, under any circumstances whatever, that this country could go on without a supply of that article. How can that supply be furnished, supposing that the production in our colonies should fail, except by the produce of slave labour from the colonies of other countries?
June 25, 1833.
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East India Company; Eulogium on its Administration.
Having been so long a servant of the East India Company, whose interests you are discussing, having served for so many years of my life in that country, having had such opportunities of personally watching the operation of the government of that country, and having had reason to believe, both from what I saw at that time, and from what I have seen since, that the Government of India was at that time, one of the best and most purely administered governments that ever existed, and one which has provided most effectually for the happiness of the people over which it is placed, it is impossible that I should be present when a question of this description is discussed, without asking your Lordships' attention for a very short time whilst I deliver my opinion upon the plan which his Majesty's ministers have brought forward. I will not follow the noble Marquis who opened the debate, into the consideration of whether a chartered company be the best, or not, calculated to carry on the government or the trade of an empire like India, that is not the question to which I wish now to apply myself. But whenever I hear of such discussions as this, I recall to my memory what I have seen in that country—I recall to my memory the history of that country for the last fifty or sixty years. I remember its days of misfortune, and its days of glory, and call to mind the situation in which it now stands. I remember that the government have conducted the affairs of—I will not pretend to say how many millions of people,—they have been calculated at 70,000,000, 80,000,000, 90,000,000, and 100,000,000—but certainly of an immense population, a population returning an annual revenue of 20,000,000 l. sterling, and that notwithstanding all the wars in which the empire has been engaged its debt at this moment amounts only to 40,000,000 l., being no more than the amount of two years revenue. I do not say that such a debt is desirable; but at the same time I contend that it is a delusion on the people of this country to tell them that that is a body unfit for government, and unfit for trade, which has administered the affairs of India with so much success for so many years, and which is at length to be put down,—for I can use no other term,—upon the ground that it is an institution calculated for the purposes neither of government nor trade.
My Lords, there is a great difference between the East India Company governing India, and carrying on their trade with China as a joint-stock company, and carrying on the same trade as monopolists. It was my opinion, and the opinion of those who acted with me, that we ought, in the first instance, at all events, to have endeavoured to have prevailed upon them to continue trading with China as a joint-stock company. If at this moment, they had chosen to have continued to trade as a joint stock company, I would have allowed them; I would have adopted measures for the purpose of inducing them to do so, and to carry on the government of India. It is perfectly true, my Lords, that the people of this country were, and are, desirous of participating in the trade to China; but I am not aware that they ever expressed a desire to see the company deprived of any branch of that trade. But then, my Lords, the noble Lord asks, "how would you secure to them their dividends?" Why, my Lords, their dividends, supposing the trade had turned out so ill as the noble Lord expects it would have done, would have been secured to them, as they must be at present, by saving all unnecessary expense in India—those dividends would have been secured to them, as they still will be, and as under all circumstances they must be, by bringing down the whole expences of the Government of the country. But we had another resource—we might have relieved the East India Company, trading to China no longer as a monopolist, but as a joint stock company, from a part of the burden of the provisions of the Commutation Act. I cannot help thinking, if that course had been adopted—or even supposing, according to the calculations of my noble Friend behind me, we had been obliged to abandon that course, by desiring the East India Company to withdraw from trading with China—that they still would have been in possession of their capital, which might have been disposed of for their advantage, and they might have been continued in the Government of India. I entreat your Lordships to observe, that such an arrangement would have been attended with this advantage, that they would not have had to draw their dividends from India. One of the greatest inconveniences attending this arrangement is, in my opinion, the increased sum which must be annually brought home by remittance to this country from India, to such an amount that the inconvenience is very great, so great, that I very much doubt whether the process can be carried on; and it must be most prejudicial to the commerce of the country.