Have not the Ministers of the present day evinced the same opinion? Have they not proposed, to leave the patronage of India, and the exclusive profits of the China Trade, with the Company? Does not the China Trade ensure the employment of all the large ships in the service of the Company; together with the continued engagement, in that line of service, of the Commanders and Officers of those ships; and also, of every other description of person now connected with that (the largest) branch of the Company's concerns? Have not Ministers proposed to confine the private trade with India to ships of four hundred tons and upwards; thereby leaving to the owners of such of the smaller ships now in the service of the Company, as by possibility may not be required for their commerce, the advantage (which establishment in any line of business must always give) of finding employment from those who, under the proposed extension, may engage in that trade? Have not Ministers, in proposing that the Government of India should continue to be administered through the organ of the Company, proposed to them the continuance of the peculiar and great benefit, of carrying on their commerce by means of the revenue of that Government? Whereas, the private adventurers must trade upon their own capitals, or at an heavy charge of interest.
How is it, then, that we hear so much of the loss which our Navy must sustain, from the large ships of the Company being withdrawn from the Eastern Trade; of the distress to which the Commanders and Officers, and the numerous classes of artificers and others connected with those ships, are to be exposed? Why are we told, that the East India Docks will be left empty, and the Proprietors be reduced to apply to Parliament for an indemnification? Can it possibly happen, that all these calamities, so heavily denounced, should arise out of a permission to be granted to private ships, returning from India, to proceed to certain ports to be designated; more advantageously situated for their trade than the Port of London? A permission, which the Directors themselves are of opinion will not long be made use of to any great extent; for they have told us, that the adventurers in those private ships will be disappointed in their speculations; and they have adverted to the mass of individual loss, which must ensue from the delusion, as furnishing a strong argument, why Government ought not to yield to the importunity of the Merchants of the out-ports.
From all that has been stated, it would appear, that instead of the exaggerated picture of distress, which the advocates for a close monopoly to the Port of London have represented as the necessary consequence of relieving commerce from its present restrictions, we ought to entertain a well-founded expectation; that every class and description of persons, who now find employment in the Indian Trade, will continue to have their industry called into action in the same line of employment, and even to a greater extent, in some instances, than is now experienced. For, unless the union of interests, which has so recently taken place between the City of London and the East India Company, should have the effect of preventing all competition between the Merchants of London (formerly so eager to participate in the trade with India), and the Merchants of the out-ports; it cannot fail to happen, from the spirit of enterprise which has uniformly distinguished the Metropolis, that the Port of London, to which the whole India Trade would be generally open, will furnish its full proportion of the new adventurers; and thus amply fill up that void, which the East India Company affirm would be created in the Port of London, by diverting so much of the Indian Trade to the out-ports: more especially, as all the houses of Indian agency, which have been formed since the Act of 1793, are established within the Metropolis.
Since this is the just prospect, which the adoption of the conditions proposed by Government as the terms for the renewal of the Company's Charter, opens to our view; since the share which the London Merchants may take in the enlargement of the trade, would not fail to supply employment for all that industry, which the Court of Directors assert will be interrupted and suspended; while, at the same time, the extension of that advantage will create new sources of industry in various parts of the kingdom, without impairing or diminishing that of London; whose will be the awful responsibility, if, by an obstinate rejection of terms capable of yielding consequences so extensively beneficial to the community, the Charter of the Company should not be renewed; and if the disastrous effect should in consequence be produced, in London and its vicinity, of "a suspended industry, interrupted employment," and all the train of sufferings and calamities which has been drawn out? Who will be chargeable, before the country, with "the loss and waste of establishments which have cost upwards of a million sterling—of shipping, to the amount of many millions—of a numerous and respectable class of warehouse-keepers, clerks, and superior servants, joined to three thousand labourers, and their families—of tradesmen of various descriptions, who have incurred a very great expense for the conduct of their business?" Who will be chargeable, in fact, with all this destruction? Will it be the Government, who desire the East India Company to keep their Indian Empire, and their exclusive China trade? Or will it be the Conductors of the East India Company, who shall suffer this great machine suddenly to stop its action, because their limited exclusive privileges are not made perpetual?
GRACCHUS.
LETTER VI.
Friday, January 22, 1813.
Gracchus is charged, by some of the champions of the East India Company, with error and a want of candour, because he has represented the Directors to have maintained, that opening the import trade from India to the out-ports of the kingdom, involves a question of the last importance to the British Empire in India, and to the British Constitution at home; and those writers affirm, that the Directors do not deduce the danger of those great interests from the question of the out-port trade, but from the question of disturbing the present system of administering the Government of India.