"'But do you not think that when people see a man adequately paid by government, they will the more readily complain at any attempt at unauthorized exactions?'
"'Not a bit, sir, as long as they see the same difficulties in the way of prosecuting them to conviction. In the administration of civil justice (the old gentleman is a civil judge) you may occasionally see your way, and understand what is doing; but in revenue and police you have never seen it in India, and never will, I think. The officers you employ will all add to their incomes by unauthorized means; and the lower their incomes, the less their pretensions, and the less the populace have to pay.'"
In the "History of the Possessions of the Honourable East India Company," by R. Montgomery Martin, F. S. S., the following statements occur: —
"The following estimate has been made of the population of the allied and independent states:—Hydrabad, 10,000,000; Oude, 6,000,000; Nagpoor, 3,000,000; Mysore, 3,000,000; Sattara, 1,500,000; Gurckwar, 2,000,000; Travancore and Cochin, 1,000,000; Rajpootana, and various minor principalities, 16,500,000; Sciudias territories, 4,000,000; the Seiks, 3,000,000; Nepál, 2,000,000; Cashmere, etc., 1,000,000; Scinde, 1,000,000; total, 51,000,000. This, of course, is but a rough estimate by Hamilton, (Slavery in British India.) For the last forty years the East India Company's government have been gradually, but safely, abolishing slavery throughout their dominions; they began in 1789 with putting down the maritime traffic, by prosecuting any person caught in exporting or importing slaves by sea, long before the British government abolished that infernal commerce in the Western world, and they have ever since sedulously sought the final extinction of that domestic servitude which had long existed throughout the East, as recognised by the Hindoo and Mohammedan law. In their despatches of 1798, it was termed 'an inhuman commerce and cruel traffic.' French, Dutch, or Danish subjects captured within the limit of their dominions in the act of purchasing or conveying slaves were imprisoned and heavily fined, and every encouragement was given to their civil and military servants to aid in protecting the first rights of humanity.
"Mr. Robertson, [111] in reference to Cawnpore, observes:—'Domestic slavery exists; but of an agricultural slave I do not recollect a single instance. When I speak of domestic slavery, I mean that status which I must call slavery for want of any more accurate designation. It does not, however, resemble that which is understood in Europe to be slavery; it is the mildest species of servitude. The domestic slaves are certain persons purchased in times of scarcity; children purchased from their parents; they grow up in the family, and are almost entirely employed in domestic offices in the house; not liable to be resold.
"'There is a certain species of slavery in South Bahar, where a man mortgages his labour for a certain sum of money; and this species of slavery exists also in Arracan and Ava. It is for his life, or until he shall pay the sum, that he is obliged to labour for the person who lends him the money; and if he can repay the sum, he emancipates himself.
"'Masters have no power of punishment recognised by our laws. Whatever may be the provision of the Mohammedan or Hindoo codes to that effect, it is a dead letter, for we would not recognise it. The master doubtless may sometimes inflict domestic punishment; but if he does, the slave rarely thinks of complaining of it. Were he to do so his complaint would be received.' This, in fact, is the palladium of liberty in England.
"In Malabar, according to the evidence of Mr. Baber, slavery, as mentioned by Mr. Robertson, also exists, and perhaps the same is the case in Guzerat and to the north; but the wonder is, not that such is the case, but that it is so partial in extent, and fortunately so bad in character, approximating indeed so much toward the feudal state as to be almost beyond the reach as well as the necessity of laws which at present would be practically inoperative. The fact, that of 100,000,000 British inhabitants, [or allowing five to a family, 20,000,000 families,] upward of 16,000,000 are landed proprietors, shows to what a confined extent even domestic slavery exists. A commission has been appointed by the new charter to inquire into this important but delicate subject.'"
We have quoted this passage from a writer who is a determined advocate of every thing British, whether it be good or had, in order to show by his own admission that chattel slavery, that is the precise form of slavery of which the British express such a holy horror, exists in British India under the sanction of British laws. Nor does it exist to a small extent only, as he would have us believe. It has always existed there, and must necessarily be on the increase, from the very cause which he points out, viz. famine. No country in the world, thanks to British oppression, is so frequently and so extensively visited by famine as India; and as the natives can escape in many instances from starving to death by selling themselves, and can save their children by selling them into slavery, we can readily form an estimate of the great extent to which this takes place in cases of famine, where the people are perishing by thousands and tens of thousands. As to the statement that the government of the East India Company have been endeavouring to abolish this species of slavery, it proves any thing rather than a desire to benefit the natives of India. Chattel slaves are not desired by British subjects because the ownership of them involves the necessity of supporting them in sickness and old age. The kind of slavery which the British have imposed on the great mass of their East Indian subjects is infinitely more oppressive and inhuman than chattel slavery. Indeed it would not at all suit the views of the British aristocracy to have chattel slavery become so fashionable in India as to interfere with their own cherished system of political slavery, which is so extensively and successfully practised in England, Scotland, Ireland, and the West and East Indies. The money required for the support of chattel slaves could not be spared by the aristocratic governments in the colonies. The object is to take the fruits of the labourer's toil without providing for him at all. When labourers are part of a master's capital, the better he provides for them the more they are worth. When they are not property, the character of their subsistence is of no importance; but they must yield the greater part of the results of their toil.
The "salt laws" of India are outrageously oppressive. An account of their operation will give the reader a taste of the character of the legislation to which the British have subjected conquered Hindoos. Such an account we find in a recent number of "Household Words," which Lord Shaftesbury and his associates in luxury and philanthropy should read more frequently than we can suppose they do:—