XXXIX. 1806. phantom of royalty, secured to themselves its substan- CHAP. tial advantages. To an empire so situated there can be no doubt that the conquest of the entire country by the English opened, in the first instance, immense advantages. It removed in a great degree, over the whole of its vast extent, the evils of internal war, stopped the devastation of one rajah's territories by another, closed the eternal pillage of the ryots by the intermediate officers of the government, and established the inappreciable advantages of internal peace and unrestricted interior communication. So great are these advantages, so real these blessings, that they have overcome, in a large part of the people, one of the strongest of human desires -that of national independence and caused their incorporation with the British dominions to be hailed, in the first instance at least, with joy by the greater part of the sable inhabitants of Hindostan. 5. English ment which peared. But all this notwithstanding, a considerable portion of the people would willingly exchange the deathlike stillness Evils of the of British protection for the stormy animation of their governnative governments. The former is a peaceful arena, in have subsewhich, by them, nothing but the humblest prizes are to be quently apgained; the latter a warlike theatre, in which principalities and power are the rewards of the victorious soldier. It is not in human nature that the last should not be preferred by those by whom its prizes may be drawn, whatever it may be by those by whom its burdens are to be borne. Although, accordingly, the inhabitants of the British dominions are in general in a state of tranquillity, and bow the neck to a foreign yoke, which they deem the decree of fate, yet they are in reality very far indeed from being contented with their lot. They will doubtless endeavour to achieve their independence as soon as a favourable opportunity occurs for doing so; and the first great defeat on the plains of Hindostan will be the signal for a general insurrection of the native powers against the British rule. CHAP. XXXIX. 1806. 6. Extent of the British empire in India. The progress of the British in India has been nothing but one series of conquests, interrupted, but not stopped, by a terrible defeat beyond its mountain barrier, which seemed to forebode that the lords of Hindostan were not destined to extend their dominion into Central Asia. The Mahratta states-Gwalior, parts of Burmah and Nepaul, Pegu, Scinde, Lahore, Oude-have been successively acquired; neither the mountain fastnesses of the Ghoorkhas, nor the death-bestrodden jungles of Arracan, nor the far-famed bastions of Bhurtpore, nor the swift horsemen of the Pindarrees, nor the disciplined battalions of the Sikhs, have been able to withstand its irresistible progress. The show even of resistance is at an end; independence is unknown over the vast extent of the Indian peninsula. The empire thus formed constitutes, with the tributary states, which in fact form part of it, the greatest compact dominion on the face of the earth. From the Himalaya snows to Cape Comorin, from the mouths of the Indus to the Straits of Penang, it forms a vast peninsula, estimated as containing 1,385,000 square miles, or nearly ten times the area of France, of which more than one half is subject to the direct dominion of Great Britain. The total boundary by sea and land of this immense region is 11,200 miles, of which 4500 are formed by the ocean, and the remainder by the vast range of mountains which, with its extended branches, stretches all round it on the north and east, from the frontiers of Gedrosia to the extreme southern point of Cochin China. The inhabitants of this empire, subject to the direct government of England, are now, since the incorporation of Oude, about 120,000,000; the protected or tributary states are 41,000,000 more. Great as these numbers are, they are inconsiderable in proportion to the extent of the country they inhabit. In the British provinces the inhabitants are 157 to the square mile, in the (Introduc- native states 74-numbers respectively not one half of the densely or thinly peopled countries of Europe.1 About 1 Mont gomery Martin's British India, 2, 3 tion). XXXIX. a third of the whole territories of the Company are still CHAP. in a state of nature, and they might maintain in ease and affluence double their present inhabitants. 1806. ments 7. India and spent in One material source of discontent and cause of impoverishment to India, so common with all conquered Great paystates, is, that a large proportion of its wealth is annually drawn from drawn away and spent in the ruling state. About £2,500,000 is every year paid away in England from England. Indian revenue to holders of East India stock, civil servants of the Company, or military charges paid at home. At least an equal sum is probably annually remitted to this country from the fortunes brought home by its civil and military officers, or the mercantile profits made by the numerous and enterprising traders who, since the throwing open of the trade, have succeeded to its lucrative traffic. Such a sum, annually drawn off and spent abroad, would be a severe drain upon the resources of any country, but it becomes doubly so when the value of the money thus abstracted is taken into consideration. The wages of labour are usually 24d. or 3d. a-day in Hindostan, so that £5,000,000 a-year is fully equal to £35,000,000 in this country. We know what a serious burden the interest of the national debt is to this country, which is nearly of the same amount, though it is for the most part spent at home, and of course not lost to its industry; but what would it be if it were annually drawn away and expended in ministering to the luxury of the l'Inde AnHindoo rajahs, or swelling the gorgeous establishments 5, . of Calcutta ?1 1 Warren, glaise, iii. 8. of the na of trust or Unfelt by the ryots, whose wants seldom extend beyond the cultivation of their humble allotments, the monopoly Exclusion of all situations of trust or importance by the British is a tives from most galling and disheartening circumstance to the native situations higher classes in India. It is felt as peculiarly so by emolument. the Mahommedans, because their fathers were the last conquerors of the country, and but for the subsequent disasters they have experienced, they would have been XXXIX. 1806. CHAP. in the possession of all the situations of dignity and emolument. They form a numerous body, amounting to 15,000,000 souls, but still more important from the elevated class in society to which many of them formerly belonged. With the exception of that part of them which is enrolled in the army, the great majority of this class is in a state of sullen discontent, and ready to take advantage of the first opportunity which may occur to dispossess the English, and place themselves in all the situations which they at present hold. None but Europeans can hold a higher situation than that of lieutenant in the army, or a very subordinate collector or other functionary in the civil service.* We have only to ask ourselves what would be our feelings if the whole situations of dignity and importance in the British Islands were monopolised by thirty or forty thousand intruders from Hindostan, who carried back the wealth made on the banks of the Thames to be spent on those of the Ganges, to be able to appreciate the feeling of the people of India in the corresponding circumstances in which they are actually placed. It is another circumstance of no small moment in considering the position of the British in India, and the * "Quels sont les plus hauts rangs offerts à l'ambition des hautes classes? Dans l'armée un grade de Soabadar-Major, qui équivant à peu-près à celui d'adjudant sous-officier en France; dans l'administration, quelques places d'huissiers et de courriers. Quand sous l'administration de Lord William Bentinck la Cour des Directeurs avait eu l'idée de donner un 'Writership,' c'est-àdire, une place dans le service civil, au fils du célèbre Ram-Mohun-Roy, qui avait reçu une éducation Européenne, et était certainement supérieur en intelligence à un grand nombre de ces employés, cette proposition souleva une telle tempête parmi les bénéficiaires qu'il fallut y renoncer. Toutes les carrières, tous les emplois honorables, leur étant ainsi fermés, il s'ensuit que les fortunes aisées et les classes moyennes disparaissent successivement sans se remplacer, jusqu'à ce que dans un temps donné il n'existera plus qu'une égalité de misère, qui nivellera cinquante millions d'individus. J'inclus cette fois les Etats vassaux, qui viendront se dissoudre dans le même creuset. L'Angleterre, comme le vampire fabuleux, aura tout absorbé; il ne restera aucune sommité pour s'élever au-dessus des masses, parmi lesquelles on ne comptera plus que l'artisan, le cultivateur, le manoeuvre, et le gendarme: rien qu'un peuple de serfs, jouissant d'une liberté nominale annulée par le besoin, et n'ayant d'autre alternative que de travailler pour le profit exclusif de ses maîtres."-WARREN, L'Inde Anglaise, iii. 252, 253. XXXIX. 1806. Indian in tion with Great chances they have of easily maintaining their ascendancy CHAP. in it, that hitherto at least few of the commercial advantages which might reasonably have been expected from 9. a union with Great Britain have been experienced by Injury to the inhabitants of Hindostan. The export trade of dustry from Great Britain to India, indeed, has been very consider- the connecable of late years, and now amounts to above £9,000,000 Britain. a-year; but this has by no means been attended by a corresponding increase of Indian exports to Great Britain. On the contrary, the exports of India to England had been either stationary or declining for a number of years back prior to the great change in the Tariff by Sir R. Peel in 1842. The reason is, that in our intercourse with India we have thought only of the interests of our own merchants and manufacturers, not of those of our distant and unrepresented Eastern possessions. We boasted of the extraordinary fact that the manufacturers of Manchester and Glasgow can undersell those of Hindostan in the manufacture of cotton goods from the raw material grown on the banks of the Ganges; but we forgot at what price to the artisans of India this advantage has been gained to those of this country. Every bale of cotton goods sent out from Great Britain to India deprives several manufacturers in Hindostan of bread. British manufactures are admitted into India at a merely nominal duty; but Indian manufactures coming to this country were, till very recently, for the most part burdened with the * "For many years great commercial injustice was done by England to British India. High, indeed prohibitory duties, were laid on its sugar, rum, coffee, &c., to favour similar products grown in the West Indies. Still worse, we compelled the Hindoos to receive cotton and other manufactures from England at merely nominal duties (24 per cent); while at the very same time 50 per cent was demanded here on any attempt to introduce the cotton goods of India."-Commons' Paper, No. 227, April 1846. The same principle was adopted with regard to silk and other articles. The result was the destruction of the finer class of cotton, silk, and other manufactures, without adopting the plea of Strafford in Ireland during the reign of Charles I.—namely, the founding of the linen trade as a substitute for that of woollen, which was to be extinguished in order to appease the English handloom weaver."-M. MARTIN'S British India, p. 543. |