Results of free trade with India,
Events thoroughly demonstrated the force and truth of these impressions. In the face of many difficulties, private traders, whenever they obtained a footing in the trade of the East, were certain immediately afterwards to secure an ascendancy over the Company in its trading operations, and in a very short time trebled the trade of England with the East. Such in this case, as in numerous other instances, are the effects of individual energy, even when curtailed and contracted as in the present instance, over monopoly, however influential and powerful. How indelibly marked are now the footprints of free-trade in the pages of the commercial history of the East Indies! In 1814, when the close monopoly of the Company was brought to an end, the value of exports from the United Kingdom to British India amounted to 1,870,690l.; in 1820, after the trade had been partially opened to individual energy, it reached 3,037,911l.; in 1830, when still somewhat fettered, it was 4,087,311l. In 1840 the exports amounted to 5,212,839l.; and in 1850 to 7,242,194l. In 1854 the value of the exports and imports was 20,293,572l.; in 1860 it had reached 32,791,195l.; and in 1870 it amounted to no less than 45,183,912l.[397]
and of the Company’s trading operations.
It is very questionable if the East India Company, even at the period of its closest monopoly, or, indeed, during any portion of its career, ever realised much profit by its commercial operations. Many of their employés were enabled to amass very considerable fortunes, but the shareholders were paid their dividends from other sources of gain than commerce: sources it is not our province to explore; and perhaps, for the credit of England, it would be better if a veil could be drawn over many of the acts of the Company and its servants. Nor were the Directors, whatever they may have been as individuals, competent, as a body, to conduct a lucrative commerce at distances so remote. “It was not in the nature of things,” remarks Mr. McCulloch,[398] “that the Company’s purchases could be fairly made; the natives could not deal with their servants as they would have dealt with private individuals, and it would be absurd to suppose that agents authorized to buy on account of government, and to draw on the public treasury for the means of payment, should generally evince the prudence and discretion of individuals directly responsible in their own private fortunes for their transactions. The interference of such persons would, under any circumstances, have rendered the East Indian trade peculiarly hazardous. But their influence in this respect was materially aggravated by the irregularity of their appearances. No individual not belonging to the Court of Directors could foresee whether the Company’s agents would be in the market at all, or, if there, to what extent they would either purchase or sell. So capricious were their proceedings, that in some years they laid out 700,000l. on indigo, while in others they did not lay out a single shilling, and so with other things. A fluctuating demand of this sort necessarily occasioned great and sudden variations of price, and was injurious alike to the producers and the private merchants.”
China trade thrown open, 1832-1834.
Indeed when, in 1832, the renewal of the Company’s charter came to be again discussed in Parliament, the Directors had no valid reasons to offer against the entire opening of their trade, and had evidently no longer any desire, especially in face of the increased power of the free-traders, to resist the demands which were made to allow private shipowners to trade to all parts of the East, including China, on the same conditions, in all respects, as the vessels belonging to or chartered by the Company: the owners, therefore, finding it impossible to compete, with any prospect of success, against individual energy, unless protected, sold their ships, and from that time the Company ceased to be traders.
Company abolished, 1858.
In the [Appendix][399] will be found an account of how the vessels belonging to the Company were disposed of, the names of their purchasers, and the prices realised, which are small indeed compared with what they must have cost.[400] From April 1834, when the Company’s trade with China ceased, its functions have been wholly political, and the Directors, though retaining their patronage in the civil and military services, became little more than a council to advise and assist the president of the Board of Control. In 1858 they were deprived by Parliament of all their power and privileges, and ceased to exist as a governing body, the whole of the British dominion in India being then placed under a Secretary of State in Council for India, and its military and civil services merged with those of the United Kingdom.
Retiring allowance to commanders and officers.
When the Company’s commercial operations were brought to a close the commanders and officers of their “maritime service”[401] memorialised the Court for compensation for loss of employment, and requested to be placed on a footing somewhat equivalent to what the officers and servants on their own ships would have been entitled to claim by law or usage, had they been discharged or otherwise deprived of employment. This memorial, which will be found in the [Appendix], contains a good deal of information connected with the service worthy of perusal. Though drawn up in the form of a petition, it reads more like a demand, the memorialists resting their claims upon certain words in their agreements for servitude, and upon one of the sections of an Act of Parliament.[402]