"That they are not likely to effect that object; and if we do not supply them, some one else will; but the worst of it is, according to some people, that if the Chinese only legalized the cultivation in their own country, they could produce it much cheaper, and our market would be ruined. Both for their sakes and ours we must hope that it is not so, or that they will not find it out."[103]
Need we wonder, when gentlemen find pleasure in the idea of an increasing revenue from forcing this trade in despite of all the efforts of the more civilized Chinese government, that "intemperance increases" where the British "rule and system has been long established?" Assuredly not. Poor governments are, as we everywhere see, driven to encourage gambling, drunkenness, and other immoralities, as a means of extracting revenue from their unfortunate taxpayers; and the greater the revenue thus obtained, the poorer become the people and the weaker the government. Need we be surprised that that of India should be reduced to become manufacturer and smuggler of opium, when the people are forced to exhaust the land by sending away its raw products, and when the restraints upon the mere collection of domestic salt are so great that English salt now finds a market in India? The following passage on this subject is worthy of the perusal of those who desire fully to understand how it is that the people of that country are restrained in the application of their labour, and why it is that labour is so badly paid:—
"But those who cry out in England against the monopoly, and their unjust exclusion from the salt trade, are egregiously mistaken. As concerns them there is positively no monopoly, but the most absolute free trade. And, more than this, the only effect of the present mode of manufacture in Bengal is to give them a market which they would never otherwise have. A government manufacture of salt is doubtless more expensive than a private manufacture; but the result of this, and of the equality of duty on bad and good salt, is, that fine English salt now more or less finds a market in India; whereas, were the salt duty and all government interference discontinued to-morrow, the cheap Bengal salt would be sold at such a rate that not a pound of English or any other foreign salt could be brought into the market."[104]
Nevertheless, the system is regarded as one of perfect free trade!
Notwithstanding all these efforts at maintaining the revenue, the debt has increased the last twelve years no less than £15,000,000, or seventy-two millions of dollars; and yet the government is absolute proprietor of all the land of India, and enjoys so large a portion of the beneficial interest in it, that private property therein is reduced to a sum absolutely insignificant, as will now be shown.
The gross land revenue obtained from a country with an area of 491,448 square miles, or above three hundred millions of acres, is 151,786,743 rupees, equal to fifteen millions of pounds sterling, or seventy-two millions of dollars.[105] What is the value of private rights of property, subject to the payment of this tax, or rent, may be judged from the following facts:—In 1848-9 there were sold for taxes, in that portion of the country subject to the permanent settlement, 1169 estates, at something less than four years' purchase of the tax. Further south, in the Madras government, where the ryotwar settlement is in full operation, the land "would be sold" for balances of rent, but "generally it is not," as we are told, "and for a very good reason, viz. that nobody will buy it." Private rights in land being there of no value whatsoever, "the collector of Salem," as Mr. Campbell informs us—
"Naïvely mentions 'various unauthorized modes of stimulating the tardy,' rarely resorted to by heads of villages; such as 'placing him in the sun, obliging him to stand on one leg, or to sit with his head confined between his knees.'"[106]
In the north-west provinces, "the settlement," as our author states, "has certainly been successful in giving a good market value to landed property;" that is, it sells at about "four years' purchase on the revenue."[107] Still further north, in the newly acquired provinces, we find great industry, "every thing turned to account," the assessment, to which the Company succeeded on the deposition of the successors of Runjeet Singh, more easy, and land more valuable.[108] The value of land, like that of labour, therefore increases as we pass from the old to the new settlements, being precisely the reverse of what would be the case if the system tended to the enfranchisement and elevation of the people, and precisely what should be looked for in a country whose inhabitants were passing from freedom toward slavery.
With the data thus obtained we may now ascertain, with perhaps some approach to accuracy, the value of all the private rights in the land of India. In no case does that subject to tax appear to be worth more than four years' purchase, while in a very large portion of the country it would seem to be worth absolutely nothing. There are, however, some tax-free lands that may be set off against those held under the ryotwar settlement; and it is therefore possible that the whole are worth four years' purchase, which would give 288 millions of dollars, or 60 millions of pounds sterling, as the value of all the rights in land acquired by the people of India by all the labour of their predecessors and themselves in the many thousands of years it has been cultivated. The few people that have occupied the little and sandy State of New Jersey, with its area of 6900 square miles, have acquired rights in and on the land that are valued, subject to the claims of government, at 150 millions of dollars; and the few that have occupied the little island on which stands the city of New York have acquired rights that would sell in the market for at least one-half more than could be obtained for all the proprietary rights to land in India, with 300 millions of acres and 96 millions of inhabitants!
"Under the native princes," says Mr. Campbell, "India was a paying country." Under British rule, it has ceased to be so, because under that rule all power of combined action has been annihilated, or is in train to be, and will be so, by aid of the system that looks to compelling the whole people, men, women, and children, to work in the field, producing commodities to be exported in their raw state. Every act of association is an act of trade, and whatever tends to destroy association must destroy trade. The internal commerce of India declines steadily, and the external amounts to but about half a dollar per head, and no effort can make it grow to any extent. The returns of last year, of English trade, show a diminution as compared with those of the previous one, whereas with almost all other countries there is a large increase. Cuba exports to the large amount of twenty-five dollars per head, or almost fifty times as much as India; and she takes of cotton goods from England four times as much per head; and this she does because it is a part of the policy of Spain to bring about combination of action, and to enable the planter and the artisan to work together, whereas the policy of England is to destroy everywhere the power of association, and thus to destroy the domestic trade, upon which the foreign one must be built. Centralization is adverse to trade, and to the freedom of man. Spain does not seek to establish centralization. Provided she receives a given amount of revenue, she is content to permit her subjects to employ themselves at raising sugar or making cloth, as they please, and thus to advance in civilization; and by this very course it is that she is enabled to obtain revenue. How centralization operates on the people and the revenue, and how far it tends to promote the civilization or the freedom of man, may be seen, on a perusal of the following extract from a recent speech of Mr. Anstey, in the British House of Commons:—