FURTHER PAPERS RESPECTING THE RENEWAL OF THE EAST-INDIA COMPANY'S CHARTER.*

Petition from the EAST-INDIA COMPANY to the Hon. HOUSE OF COMMONS To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled.

The humble Petition of the United Company of Merchants of England

trading to the East-Indies,

Sheweth :-That a Bill is now before your Honourable House for continuing the government of the British territories in the East-Indies in your Petitioners, they consenting for the period of their holding that government to discontinue the carrying on of any trade for their own profit, and that with a view to this arrangement your Petitioners have acquiesced in a plan embodied in the said Bill for adjusting all the pecuniary claims of your Petitioners upon the principle of compromise.

That your Petitioners, being impressed with a deep sense of the importance of the trust proposed to be committed to them for a further term, are most anxious to be placed in such a situation as to be enabled to administer the territorial government of India with advantage to the people of that country.

That, by the said Bill, every act of the Court of Directors, excepting what relates to certain matters of patronage and to the details of their home establishment, is made subject to the control of the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India; and although your Petitioners presume not to offer any objection to this, admitting that where two distinct bodies have a concurrent jurisdiction there must rest somewhere power to decide absolutely in cases of difference between them, yet your Petitioners feel it to be their duty to suggest the importance of providing that such cases should be reported to both Houses of Parliament, in order that the Court of Directors in originating political measures, and the Board of Commissioners in controlling them, should both act under a decided sense of responsibility to the Legislature; and in order to obviate an objection that might be taken to this suggestion, as involving the disclosure of matters which ought to be kept secret, your Petitioners beg leave to point out to your Honourable House, that the Bill makes provision for entrusting such subjects as Parliament has thought it fit should be kept secret, to a Secret Committee, acting ministerially under the direction of the said Board.

Your Petitioners further humbly represent, that the said Bill proposes to effect a serious change in the constitution of the local governments in India, which in the judgment of your Petitioners will, if adopted, place an excessive power in the hands of the Governor General, and prejudicially diminish the power and influence of the governments of Madras and Bombay.

Your Petitioners admit that it is necessary to provide an efficient government for the western provinces of Bengal; but they think that this object would be as satisfactorily, and much more economically attained, by the appointment of a Lieutenant Governor subject to the Bengal Government, than by the institution of a fourth presidency.

The proposal to vest the Executive Governments of Madras and Bombay in Governors without Councils, appears to your Petitioners to be liable to very serious objections, which are not removed by that clause in the bill which allows the Court of Directors, with the approbation of the said Board, to appoint a council in any Presidency, because, as there are councils at present, the effect of the bill, if passed into a law, will be to declare the opinion of the Legislature against councils, and to place the Court of Directors and the Board in the position, should they think councils essential, of at once exercising their judgment in opposition to that opinion.

If it be intended to continue the councils but with a power to the Court and the Board to dispense with them, your Petitioners humbly submit that that intention should be distinctly expressed in the said Bill.

* See vol. x. r. 399; and vol. xi. pp. 167 and 288.

Your Petitioners would further represent, that they cannot but contemplate with anxiety the increase of expense which will be caused by the number of new offices proposed by the said Bill to be created; a governor of Agra, at 1,20,000 rupees per annum; and, as a consequence of the formation of a Presidency there, many expensive establishments; three additional councillors in Bengal, at 96,000 rupees a-year each; and five law commissioners, at 60,000 rupees a-year each.

Your Petitioners must also regard with some apprehension, the augmentation of charge in the ecclesiastical department by means of the arrangements provided for in the said Bill; for at present, independently of the military chaplains of the church of England, seventy-five in number, the establishment comprises one bishop, three archdeacons, and six chaplains of the church of Scotland, at an aggregate expense of 1,66,333 rupees per annum; whilst under the proposals contained in the said Bill, the establishment will comprise, independently of seventy-five military chaplains of the church of England, three bishops, three chaplains to discharge the duties which the archdeacons now perform, and eight chaplains of the church of Scotland, at an aggregate expense of 2,29,858 rupees annually, besides which there is the contingent expense of episcopal visitations, pensions, and passage-money.

Your Petitioners, whilst they are sincerely desirous that adequate means should be provided for the spiritual instruction and consolation of all classes of the public servants stationed in India, must be permitted to remark, that no evidence has been brought before them which satisfies them of the necessity of adding to the establishment two suffragan bishops, and two chaplains of the church of Scotland, and that without such evidence they could not consider it just to employ the revenues of India in maintaining these officers.

Your Petitioners beg leave respectfully to call the particular attention of your Honourable House to those parts of the said Bill which relate to the college at Haileybury.

Throughout the correspondence which has passed with his Majesty's Ministers, your Petitioners have declared upon this point, that the arrangement "which shall most effectually provide the means of giving good servants to the Indian empire is that which will assuredly meet the views of the Court, whatever its effect may be on their patronage ;" and it is because your Petitioners are deliberately convinced that efficiency will be more likely to be obtained in a general system of education, brought to the standard of a high test of examination, than in any exclusive system, that the Court confidently ask your Honourable House to abolish the college; a measure which is further strongly recommended by considerations of expense, as the maintenance of that institution has in the last term caused a charge upon India at the rate of upwards £10,000 per annum, when there were less than thirty students within its walls; and your Petitioners would also submit the important fact, that in the course of the last ten years the college has at one time been unequal to supply the requisite number of writers, and at another, as at present, is much more than adequate to the supply.

Your Petitioners therefore most humbly pray that your Honourable House will be pleased to take the foregoing representations into consideration, and so to modify and alter the said Bill, as to meet the objections which your Petitioners have presumed to lay before you; and if it should be the pleasure of your Honourable House to hear counsel in support and explanation of those objections, counsel are prepared to appear accordingly at such time as you may be please to appoint.

(L.S.)

DISSENT by JAMES RIVETT CARNAC, Esq, a Member of the COURT OF DIRECTORS, from the COURT's Resolution of the 24th July, approving and recommending for the Adoption of the GENERAL COURT the aforegoing Draft of a Petition.

I have hitherto confined the remarks which I have felt it necessary to make on the points that have arisen in the course of the negotiations with his Majesty's Government on the subject of the Company's charter, to discussions in the Court of Directors; but I now feel the period has arrived, when it is my

duty to endeavour to put beyond misconception the sentiments which I entertain on this important question, by placing them upon record, and I do this in the shape of a Dissent to the resolution of Wednesday last, approving of a petition to the House of Commons, which it is proposed to submit for the adoption of the Court of Proprietors this day. I do not object to the act of petitioning, but to the stress which I conceive to have been unnecessarily laid on some of the points which it is proposed to urge on the attention of Parliament against the Bill appointed for a third reading this evening.

Differences of opinion have naturally arisen in a matter which involves so great a departure from the system under which the Company have hitherto honourably and advantageously discharged their part in the government of India, and those differences are more or less strong, according to the views which individual members may have taken of the principles upon which the compromise was originally based, and is now in its progress to completion. I should have been glad had it been thought fit to have continued the Company in the same position towards India and China as that in which they stood under the Act of 1813. I think their commercial and political functions were united beneficially for the interests both of India and of England, and I have never contemplated the entire abandonment of all trade by the Company without considering it to involve the sacrifice of a positive advantage to the pecuniary interests of India.

In expressing these opinions, I would desire, however, to guard myself against being understood as maintaining that the existence of the Company's commercial character is essential to the beneficial exercise of their political functions. Had I thought so, I should not have concurred in recommending the Proprietors to cease from trade, and to consent to place their property on the security of Indian territory. I consider India to have benefited very largely by the application of the surplus commercial profits of the Company's trade, and I think England has derived a large and steady revenue, whilst the public have been supplied uninterruptedly in an almost indispensable article of consumption, of a quality and at a price which may not be secured to them under the proposed change. I likewise most fully admit that the members of the Court, in their individual capacity, may have derived considerable weight from the influence inseparable from the management of a commercial concern of vast magnitude; but viewing the Court of Directors in their collective capacity, and in reference to the political relation in which they are placed towards India, I do not believe that their commercial character has operated in the least degree beneficially, whilst it is my conviction that it has not induced any change of opinion where a difference may have arisen between the Board of Control and themselves on matters of government. Nothing, I apprehend, can better illustrate the correctness of this view than the following remark of the Court of Directors, in their Minute of the 15th July 1813, when they recommended the last charter to the acceptance of the Proprietors : "The general powers of superintendence and control given (to the Board) by former charters are in reality so large, that if they had been exercised illiberally or vexatiously, it might have been difficult for the Court of Directors to perform their functions; and, in respect to the present powers, much will depend on the spirit in which they are administered."

Such was the declaration when the Company possessed the greatest commercial powers: those powers had no weight politically, but calm and deliberate remonstrance had its influence, and frequently produced (as I have no doubt, should occasion arise, will in future produce) a modification or accordance on points of difference between the two home authorities.

After one of the most minute and protracted investigations in the affairs of the East-India Company, which has ever taken place, and which was instituted for the avowed purpose of enabling Parliament to decide on the terms of a future agreement between the public and the Company, his Majesty's Ministers submitted their scheme to the consideration of the Company; at the same time they expressed their readiness to weigh the merits of any other plan which might be suggested as an alternative. The Court of Directors did not see fit to propose any other plan, but they communicated unreservedly their

opinions and objections to the plan of the Government. To these objections his Majesty's Ministers replied, and the negotiation has throughout been conducted in the spirit of a compromise, by which term I understand to mean a compact, in which concessions are to be made on each side-important concessions have been made. One principal feature in the scheme was, the abandonment of all commercial dealings by the Company: this has been acceded to; it has been approved by Parliament as far as the measure has hitherto travelled, and the question now appears to me to be whether, under the scheme as developed in the Bill now before the Court, we shall, in our situation of Directors, recommend to our constituents to ratify the compromise, and place their charter of trade in abeyance. The question divides itself into two parts: first, the pecuniary interests of the Proprietors; and, secondly, the Government of India. With regard to the first consideration, the Court of Directors, in their resolution of the 7th of June last, recommend to the General Court to defer to the arrangement regarding the Guarantee Fund, and the security of their dividend on Indian revenue; this recommendation was accepted and agreed to by the Court of Proprietors on the 10th of that month.

The value of the stock in the market is a good criterion of the opinion which is entertained of it by the public; and as it is at the option of the holder to retain it or not, as he may judge most for his advantage, I might content myself with that remark; but I cannot hesitate from giving it as my opinion, that I look to the ultimate security which the Indian territory affords, if well administered, as good and ample, certainly for the term during which the East-India Company is to possess the government of that country; beyond that period it is unnecessary for me to express any opinion. There is one point, however, which has been dwelt upon in the course of the discussions, namely, the immediate pecuniary effect which the proposed arrangement is to have on the finances of India, and an account has been called for by the House of Lords, which shews an excess of additional charge of £455,924. But it is to be borne in mind, that, unless the Company had retained the monopoly of trade to China, India would equally have lost the advantage of the exchange, which forms £346,026 of the above sum, to which may be added the interest of the Home Bond Debt, viz. £88,000, making a reduction of £434,026 in the sum of £455,924. I think no one will contend, after reading the Minute of Conference between the Duke of Wellington and Lord Ellenborough, and the Chairs of that day, that the monopoly could have been continued.

I now proceed to the consideration of the second point, the relation in which it is proposed the Company shall in future stand towards India.

Under the proposed Bill, it will be found that the Company are still to be the originating intermediate body, in whom the Government of India is vested, under certain limitations. The Company henceforth, as at present, are to originate all orders and instructions to the several Governments of India, excepting such orders as may proceed through the Secret Committee relating to peace and war, and negotiations with foreign states. They are to appoint the Governor General, Governors and Commanders-in-chief, subject as at present to approval by the Crown. The counsellors are to be nominated by them (with the exception of one in Bengal) according to their own selection, and not subject to any other confirmation. They are to have the power of recall of any functionary high or low, free from any veto on the part of the Board. The appointment of writers, cadets, and assistant-surgeons, remain with them, subject, as at present proposed in the appointment of writers, to an objectionable mode of nomination, upon which I shall hereafter remark. The Board are still precluded from directing or desiring the payment of any extraordinary allowance or gratuity, or the increase of any established salary or emolument; neither can the Board originate any expense whatever. These are points which I consider of great moment as regards both India and this country.

The Bill, as originally laid before the Court, consisted of 113 clauses; upon forty-two of them the Court offered a paper of observations and suggestions; amendments have been made more or less in twenty-two of such clauses, concurring in the views of the Court; the others relate to publicity,

the appointment of councils, of law commissioners, of two additional bishops, the consequent increase of charges, and also to the future plan for appointing students to the college of Haileybury.

With regard to the question of publicity, it has been brought before Parliament in the Negotiation Papers; but the Legislature does not appear to take the same view of the importance of such a provision as is taken by the Court. I can readily conceive that circumstances might arise which might render it very undesirable to act upon such a provision; but if it passed into a law, it would be imperative on the Court to obey it. The Court of Proprietors possesses the means within itself of enacting a bye-law which would ensure publicity, and at the same time leave a discretion which, in my judgment, would be essential in such a provision, from whatever authority it may proceed. But in point of fact, I conceive that publicity can be obtained, and even more certainly effectual, by the whole matter of serious differences with the Board being opened to the Proprietors, than in any other way. With respect to the appointment of Councils (at least for the present) at the subordinate Presidencies, I concur in the views of the Court; but I differ as to the Government proposed to be established in the Western Provinces. I consider that the Government at Agra ought to be made an efficient substantive government, the additional expense of which will in some degree be provided for by the consequent reduction of the residency at Delhi. With respect to the appointment of law commissioners, I consider that some measure is absolutely called for, in order that the laws which are to apply to the altered state of the community should be clearly defined, and, as far as practicable and consistent with local usages, made applicable to all classes. Great caution and judgment will be necessary in the discharge of these important duties devolving on the commission; and if their labours should effect satisfactorily the object of their appointment I should consider the sum which it is proposed to allot to them well applied.

Upon the proposed addition to the ecclesiastical establishment, I do not entertain such strong objections as have been urged by the Court. When the introduction of the episcopal establishment was under consideration in 1813, the distinguished nobleman who had filled the office of Governor General stated his opinion, that the eccleasiatical establishment had not been placed on a respectable footing, and that one of a suitable form would tend to elevate the European character in India. Whether such an establishment should be formed by the appointment of a bishop or archdeacons, Lord Wellesley did not state, though he appears to have considered the introduction of a new establishment a matter of some delicacy. The experiment, however, has been tried; and the apprehension of any ill effects, with reference to the feelings of the natives, has been proved to be groundless. I can speak from experience to the highly beneficial results which have followed the increase of the episcopal establishment in India, among which its zealous and successful exertions for the encouragement of general education among the natives may be enumerated to its honour. I cannot therefore object to two additional bishops; one I deem indispensable, to avoid the recurrence of the inconvenience which has been experienced by the premature death of at least three of the five prelates who have been nominated to the see of Calcutta since its establishment in 1814. I do not regard the small additional expense as any reason for opposing the measure.

The last point upon which I have to observe is the proposed new system of nominating four candidates, from whom one student is to be selected for admission into Haileybury College. I entirely concur in the opinions expressed by the Court on this subject, as I conceive that no plan can be devised on the whole so well adapted as the present mode of appointment to the civil service, under a defined test, to diffuse this patronage amongst those classes whose position in society renders them best calculated to provide the description of servant who will be found the most desirable as well as efficient in India.

Having thus recorded the views which I entertain on the great question under our consideration, considering that the Court of Directors will be pos