NINTH AND ELEVENTH REPORTS FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS APPOINTED TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION CERTAIN AFFAIRS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY. NINTH REPORT From the SELECT COMMITTEE (of the House of Commons) appointed to take into consideration the state of the administration of justice in the provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, and to report the same, as it shall appear to them, to the House; with their observations thereupon; and who were instructed to consider how the British possessions in the East Indies may be held and governed with the greatest security and advantage to this country; and by what means the happiness of the native inhabitants may be best promoted.-(25th June 1783.) I. OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATE OF THE In order to enable the House to adopt the most proper means for regulating the British government in India, and for promoting the happiness of the natives, who live under its authority or influence, your committee hold it expedient to collect, into distinct points of view, the circumstances by which that government appears to them to be most essentially disordered; and to explain fully the principles of policy, and the course of conduct by which the natives of all ranks and orders have been reduced to their present state of depression and misery. Your committee have endeavoured to perform this task in plain and popular language, knowing that nothing has alienated the House from inquiries, absolutely necessary for the performance of one of the most essential of all its duties, so much as the technical language of the company's records; as the Indian names of persons, of offices, of the tenure and qualities of estates, and of all the varied branches of their intricate revenue. This language is, indeed, of necessary use in the executive departments of the company's affairs; but it is not necessary to parliament. A language, so foreign from all the ideas and habits of the far greater part of the members of this House, has a tendency to disgust them with all sorts of inquiry concerning this subject. They are fatigued into such a despair of ever obtaining a competent knowledge of the transactions in India, that they are easily persuaded to remand them back to that obscurity, mystery, and intrigue out of which they have been forced upon public notice by the calamities arising from their extreme mismanagement. This mismanagement has itself (as your committee conceive) in a great measure arisen from dark cabals, and secret suggestions to persons in power, without a regular public inquiry into the good or evil tendency of any measure, or into the merit or demerit of any person intrusted with the company's concerns. Present laws relating to the East India Com internal and external The plan adopted by your committee is, first, to consider the law regulating the East India Company, as it now stands; and secondly, to inquire into the circumpany, and its stances of the two great links of connexion, by which the territorial possessions in India are united to this policy. kingdom; namely, the company's commerce; and the government exercised under the charter, and under acts of parliament. The last of these objects, the commerce, is taken in two points of view, the external, or the direct trade between India and Europe; and the internal, that is to say, the trade of Bengal, in all the articles of produce and manufacture which furnish the company's investment. The government is considered by your committee under the like descriptions of internal and external. The internal regards the communication between the court of directors and their servants in India; the management of the revenue; the expenditure of public money; the civil administration; the administration of justice; and the state of the army.-The external regards, first, the conduct and maxims of the company's government with respect to the native princes and people dependent on the British authority; and next, the proceedings with regard to those native powers, which are wholly independent of the company. But your committee's observations on the last division extend to those matters only, which are not comprehended in the report of the committee of secrecy. Under these heads, your committee refer to the most leading particulars of abuse, which prevail in the administration of India; deviating only from this order, where the abuses are of a complicated nature, and where one cannot be well considered independently of several others. Your committee observe, that this is the second Second atattempt made by parliament for the reformation of tempt made by parliaabuses in the company's government. It appears there- ment for a fore to them a necessary preliminary to this second reformation. undertaking, to consider the causes which, in their opinion, have produced the failure of the first; that the defects of the original plan may be supplied; its errors corrected; and such useful regulations as were then adopted, may be further explained, enlarged, and enforced. The first design of this kind was formed in the session Proceedings of the year 1773. In that year parliament taking up of session the consideration of the affairs of India, through two of 1773. its committees collected a very great body of details concerning the interior economy of the company's possessions; and concerning many particulars of abuse, which prevailed at the time when those committees made their ample and instructive reports. But it does not appear that the body of regulations enacted in that year, that is, in the East India act of the thirteenth of his majesty's reign, were altogether grounded on that information; but were adopted rather on probable speculations and general ideas of good policy and good government. New establishments, civil and judicial, were therefore formed at a very great expense, and with much complexity of constitution. Checks and counter-checks of all kinds were contrived in the execution, as well as in the formation, of this system, in which all the existing authorities of this kingdom had a share; for parliament appointed the members of the presiding part of the new establishment; the crown appointed the judicial, and the company preserved the nomination of the other officers. So that if the act has not fully answered its purposes, the failure cannot be attributed to any want of officers of every description, or to the deficiency of any mode of patronage in their appointment. The cause must be sought elsewhere. The act had in its view (independently of Powers and objects of act several detached regulations) five fundamental of 1773, and the effects objects: thereof. 1st. The reformation of the court of proprietors of the East India Company: 2ndly. A new model of the court of directors, and an enforcement of their authority over the servants abroad: 3rdly. The establishment of a court of justice capable of protecting the natives from the oppressions of British subjects: 4thly. The establishment of a general council, to be seated in Bengal, whose authority should, in many particulars, extend over all the British settlements in India : |