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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) by Edmund Burke

E >> Edmund Burke >> The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12)




Even since the beginning of this session, the same act of audacity was
repeated, with the same circumstances of contempt of all the decorum of
inquiry on their part, and of all the proceedings of this House. They
again made it a request to their favorite, and your culprit, to keep his
post,--and thanked and applauded him, without calling for a paper which
could afford light into the merit or demerit of the transaction, and
without giving themselves a moment's time to consider, or even to
understand, the articles of the Mahratta peace. The fact is, that for a
long time there was a struggle, a faint one indeed, between the Company
and their servants. But it is a struggle no longer. For some time the
superiority has been decided. The interests abroad are become the
settled preponderating weight both in the Court of Proprietors and the
Court of Directors. Even the attempt you have made to inquire into their
practices and to reform abuses has raised and piqued them to a far more
regular and steady support. The Company has made a common cause and
identified themselves with the destroyers of India. They have taken on
themselves all that mass of enormity; they are supporting what you have
reprobated; those you condemn they applaud, those you order home to
answer for their conduct they request to stay, and thereby encourage to
proceed in their practices. Thus the servants of the East India Company
triumph, and the representatives of the people of Great Britain are
defeated.

I therefore conclude, what you all conclude, that this body, being
totally perverted from the purposes of its institution, is utterly
incorrigible; and because they are incorrigible, both in conduct and
constitution, power ought to be taken out of their hands,--just on the
same principles on which have been made all the just changes and
revolutions of government that have taken place since the beginning of
the world.

I will now say a few words to the general principle of the plan which is
set up against that of my right honorable friend. It is to recommit the
government of India to the Court of Directors. Those who would commit
the reformation of India to the destroyers of it are the enemies to
that reformation. They would make a distinction between Directors and
Proprietors, which, in the present state of things, does not, cannot
exist. But a right honorable gentleman says, he would keep the present
government of India in the Court of Directors, and would, to curb them,
provide salutary regulations. Wonderful! That is, he would appoint the
old offenders to correct the old offences; and he would render the
vicious and the foolish wise and virtuous by salutary regulations. He
would appoint the wolf as guardian of the sheep; but he has invented a
curious muzzle, by which this protecting wolf shall not be able to open
his jaws above an inch or two at the utmost. Thus his work is finished.
But I tell the right honorable gentleman, that controlled depravity is
not innocence, and that it is not the labor of delinquency in chains
that will correct abuses. Will these gentlemen of the direction
animadvert on the partners of their own guilt? Never did a serious plan
of amending of any old tyrannical establishment propose the authors and
abettors of the abuses as the reformers of them. If the undone people of
India see their old oppressors in confirmed power, even by the
reformation, they will expect nothing but what they will certainly
feel,--continuance, or rather an aggravation, of all their former
sufferings. They look to the seat of power, and to the persons who fill
it; and they despise those gentlemen's regulations as much as the
gentlemen do who talk of them.

But there is a cure for everything. Take away, say they, the Court of
Proprietors, and the Court of Directors will do their duty. Yes,--as
they have done it hitherto. That the evils in India have solely arisen
from the Court of Proprietors is grossly false. In many of them the
Directors were heartily concurring; in most of them they were
encouraging, and sometimes commanding; in all they were conniving.

But who are to choose this well-regulated and reforming Court of
Directors?--Why, the very Proprietors who are excluded from all
management, for the abuse of their power. They will choose, undoubtedly,
out of themselves, men like themselves; and those who are most forward
in resisting your authority, those who are most engaged in faction or
interest with the delinquents abroad, will be the objects of their
selection. But gentlemen say, that, when this choice is made, the
Proprietors are not to interfere in the measures of the Directors,
whilst those Directors are busy in the control of their common patrons
and masters in India. No, indeed, I believe they will not desire to
interfere. They will choose those whom they know may be trusted, safely
trusted, to act in strict conformity to their common principles,
manners, measures, interests, and connections. They will want neither
monitor nor control. It is not easy to choose men to act in conformity
to a public interest against their private; but a sure dependence may be
had on those who are chosen to forward their private interest at the
expense of the public. But if the Directors should slip, and deviate
into rectitude, the punishment is in the hands of the General Court, and
it will surely be remembered to them at their next election.

If the government of India wants no reformation, but gentlemen are
amusing themselves with a theory, conceiving a more democratic or
aristocratic mode of government for these dependencies, or if they are
in a dispute only about patronage, the dispute is with me of so little
concern that I should not take the pains to utter an affirmative or
negative to any proposition in it. If it be only for a theoretical
amusement that they are to propose a bill, the thing is at best
frivolous and unnecessary. But if the Company's government is not only
full of abuse, but is one of the most corrupt and destructive tyrannies
that probably ever existed in the world, (as I am sure it is,) what a
cruel mockery would it be in me, and in those who think like me, to
propose this kind of remedy for this kind of evil!

I now come to the third objection,--that this bill will increase the
influence of the crown. An honorable gentleman has demanded of me,
whether I was in earnest when I proposed to this House a plan for the
reduction of that influence. Indeed, Sir, I was much, very much, in
earnest My heart was deeply concerned in it; and I hope the public has
not lost the effect of it. How far my judgment was right, for what
concerned personal favor and consequence to myself, I shall not presume
to determine; nor is its effect upon _me_, of any moment. But as to this
bill, whether it increases the influence of the crown, or not, is a
question I should be ashamed to ask. If I am not able to correct a
system of oppression and tyranny, that goes to the utter ruin of thirty
millions of my fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects, but by some
increase to the influence of the crown, I am ready here to declare that
I, who have been active to reduce it, shall be at least as active and
strenuous to restore it again. I am no lover of names; I contend for the
substance of good and protecting government, let it come from what
quarter it will.

But I am not obliged to have recourse to this expedient. Much, very
much, the contrary. I am sure that the influence of the crown will by no
means aid a reformation of this kind, which can neither be originated
nor supported but by the uncorrupt public virtue of the representatives
of the people of England. Let it once got into the ordinary course of
administration, and to me all hopes of reformation are gone. I am far
from knowing or believing that this bill will increase the influence of
the crown. We all know that the crown has ever had some influence in the
Court of Directors, and that it has been extremely increased by the acts
of 1773 and 1780. The gentlemen who, as part of their reformation,
propose "a more active control on the part of the crown," which is to
put the Directors under a Secretary of State specially named for that
purpose, must know that their project will increase it further. But that
old influence has had, and the new will have, incurable inconveniences,
which cannot happen under the Parliamentary establishment proposed in
this bill. An honorable gentleman,[58] not now in his place, but who is
well acquainted with the India Company, and by no means a friend to this
bill, has told you that a ministerial influence has always been
predominant in that body,--and that to make the Directors pliant to
their purposes, ministers generally caused persons meanly qualified to
be chosen Directors. According to his idea, to secure subserviency, they
submitted the Company's affairs to the direction of incapacity. This was
to ruin the Company in order to govern it. This was certainly influence
in the very worst form in which it could appear. At best it was
clandestine and irresponsible. Whether this was done so much upon system
as that gentleman supposes, I greatly doubt. But such in effect the
operation of government on that court unquestionably was; and such,
under a similar constitution, it will be forever. Ministers must be
wholly removed from the management of the affairs of India, or they will
have an influence in its patronage. The thing is inevitable. Their
scheme of a new Secretary of State, "with a more vigorous control," is
not much better than a repetition of the measure which we know by
experience will not do. Since the year 1773 and the year 1780, the
Company has been under the control of the Secretary of State's office,
and we had then three Secretaries of State. If more than this is done,
then they annihilate the direction which they pretend to support; and
they augment the influence of the crown, of whose growth they affect so
great an horror. But in truth this scheme of reconciling a direction
really and truly deliberative with an office really and substantially
controlling is a sort of machinery that can be kept in order but a very
short time. Either the Directors will dwindle into clerks, or the
Secretary of State, as hitherto has been the course, will leave
everything to them, often through design, often through neglect. If both
should affect activity, collision, procrastination, delay, and, in the
end, utter confusion, must ensue.

But, Sir, there is one kind of influence far greater than that of the
nomination to office. This gentlemen in opposition have totally
overlooked, although it now exists in its full vigor; and it will do so,
upon their scheme, in at least as much force as it does now. That
influence this bill cuts up by the roots. I mean the _influence of
protection_. I shall explain myself.--The office given to a young man
going to India is of trifling consequence. But he that goes out an
insignificant boy in a few years returns a great nabob. Mr. Hastings
says he has two hundred and fifty of that kind of raw materials, who
expect to be speedily manufactured into the merchantable quality I
mention. One of these gentlemen, suppose, returns hither laden with
odium and with riches. When he comes to England, he comes as to a
prison, or as to a sanctuary; and either is ready for him, according to
his demeanor. What is the influence in the grant of any place in India,
to that which is acquired by the protection or compromise with such
guilt, and with the command of such riches, under the dominion of the
hopes and fears which power is able to hold out to every man in that
condition? That man's whole fortune, half a million perhaps, becomes an
instrument of influence, without a shilling of charge to the civil list:
and the influx of fortunes which stand in need of this protection is
continual. It works both ways: it influences the delinquent, and it may
corrupt the minister. Compare the influence acquired by appointing, for
instance, even a Governor-General, and that obtained by protecting him.
I shall push this no further. But I wish gentlemen to roll it a little
in their own minds.

The bill before you cuts off this source of influence. Its design and
main scope is, to regulate the administration of India upon the
principles of a court of judicature,--and to exclude, as far as human
prudence can exclude, all possibility of a corrupt partiality, in
appointing to office, or supporting in office, or covering from inquiry
and punishment, any person who has abused or shall abuse his authority.
At the board, as appointed and regulated by this bill, reward and
punishment cannot be shifted and reversed by a whisper. That commission
becomes fatal to cabal, to intrigue, and to secret representation, those
instruments of the ruin of India. He that cuts off the means of
premature fortune, and the power of protecting it when acquired, strikes
a deadly blow at the great fund, the bank, the capital stock of Indian
influence, which cannot be vested anywhere, or in any hands, without
most dangerous consequences to the public.

The third and contradictory objection is, that this bill does not
increase the influence of the crown; on the contrary, that the just
power of the crown will be lessened, and transferred to the use of a
party, by giving the patronage of India to a commission nominated by
Parliament and independent of the crown. The contradiction is glaring,
and it has been too well exposed to make it necessary for me to insist
upon it. But passing the contradiction, and taking it without any
relation, of all objections that is the most extraordinary. Do not
gentlemen know that the crown has not at present the grant of a single
office under the Company, civil or military, at home or abroad? So far
as the crown is concerned, it is certainly rather a gainer; for the
vacant offices in the new commission are to be filled up by the king.

It is argued, as a part of the bill derogatory to the prerogatives of
the crown, that the commissioners named in the bill are to continue for
a short term of years, too short in my opinion,--and because, during
that time, they are not at the mercy of every predominant faction of the
court. Does not this objection lie against the present Directors,--none
of whom are named by the crown, and a proportion of whom hold for this
very term of four years? Did it not lie against the Governor-General and
Council named in the act of 1773,--who were invested by name, as the
present commissioners are to be appointed in the body of the act of
Parliament, who were to hold their places for a term of years, and were
not removable at the discretion of the crown? Did it not lie against the
reappointment, in the year 1780, upon the very same terms? Yet at none
of these times, whatever other objections the scheme might be liable to,
was it supposed to be a derogation to the just prerogative of the crown,
that a commission created by act of Parliament should have its members
named by the authority which called it into existence. This is not the
disposal by Parliament of any office derived from the authority of the
crown, or now disposable by that authority. It is so far from being
anything new, violent, or alarming, that I do not recollect, in any
Parliamentary commission, down to the commissioners of the land-tax,
that it has ever been otherwise.

The objection of the tenure for four years is an objection to all places
that are not held during pleasure; but in that objection I pronounce the
gentlemen, from my knowledge of their complexion and of their
principles, to be perfectly in earnest. The party (say these gentlemen)
of the minister who proposes this scheme will be rendered powerful by
it; for he will name his party friends to the commission. This objection
against party is a party objection; and in this, too, these gentlemen
are perfectly serious. They see, that, if, by any intrigue, they should
succeed to office, they will lose the _clandestine_ patronage, the true
instrument of clandestine influence, enjoyed in the name of subservient
Directors, and of wealthy, trembling Indian delinquents. But as often as
they are beaten off this ground, they return to it again. The minister
will name his friends, and persons of his own party. Whom should he
name? Should he name his adversaries? Should he name those whom he
cannot trust? Should he name those to execute his plans who are the
declared enemies to the principles of his reform? His character is here
at stake. If he proposes for his own ends (but he never will propose)
such names as, from their want of rank, fortune, character, ability, or
knowledge, are likely to betray or to fall short of their trust, he is
in an independent House of Commons,--in an House of Commons which has,
by its own virtue, destroyed the instruments of Parliamentary
subservience. This House of Commons would not endure the sound of such
names. He would perish by the means which he is supposed to pursue for
the security of his power. The first pledge he must give of his
sincerity in this great reform will be in the confidence which ought to
be reposed in those names.

For my part, Sir, in this business I put all indirect considerations
wholly out of my mind. My sole question, on each clause of the bill,
amounts to this:--Is the measure proposed required by the necessities of
India? I cannot consent totally to lose sight of the real wants of the
people who are the objects of it, and to hunt after every matter of
party squabble that may be started on the several provisions. On the
question of the duration of the commission I am clear and decided. Can
I, can any one who has taken the smallest trouble to be informed
concerning the affairs of India, amuse himself with so strange an
imagination as that the habitual despotism and oppression, that the
monopolies, the peculations, the universal destruction of all the legal
authority of this kingdom, which have been for twenty years maturing to
their present enormity, combined with the distance of the scene, the
boldness and artifice of delinquents, their combination, their excessive
wealth, and the faction they have made in England, can be fully
corrected in a shorter term than four years? None has hazarded such an
assertion; none who has a regard for his reputation will hazard it.

Sir, the gentlemen, whoever they are, who shall be appointed to this
commission, have an undertaking of magnitude on their hands, and their
stability must not only be, but it must be thought, real; and who is it
will believe that anything short of an establishment made, supported,
and fixed in its duration, with all the authority of Parliament, can be
thought secure of a reasonable stability? The plan of my honorable
friend is the reverse of that of reforming by the authors of the abuse.
The best we could expect from them is, that they should not continue
their ancient, pernicious activity. To those we could think of nothing
but applying _control_; as we are sure that even a regard to their
reputation (if any such thing exists in them) would oblige them to
cover, to conceal, to suppress, and consequently to prevent all cure of
the grievances of India. For what can be discovered which is not to
their disgrace? Every attempt to correct an abuse would be a satire on
their former administration. Every man they should pretend to call to
an account would be found their instrument, or their accomplice. They
can never see a beneficial regulation, but with a view to defeat it. The
shorter the tenure of such persons, the better would be the chance of
some amendment.

But the system of the bill is different. It calls in persons in no wise
concerned with any act censured by Parliament,--persons generated with,
and for, the reform, of which they are themselves the most essential
part. To these the chief regulations in the bill are helps, not fetters:
they are authorities to support, not regulations to restrain them. From
these we look for much more than innocence. From these we expect zeal,
firmness, and unremitted activity. Their duty, their character, binds
them to proceedings of vigor; and they ought to have a tenure in their
office which precludes all fear, whilst they are acting up to the
purposes of their trust,--a tenure without which none will undertake
plans that require a series and system of acts. When they know that they
cannot be whispered out of their duty, that their public conduct cannot
be censured without a public discussion, that the schemes which they
have begun will not be committed to those who will have an interest and
credit in defeating and disgracing them, then we may entertain hopes.
The tenure is for four years, or during their good behavior. That good
behavior is as long as they are true to the principles of the bill; and
the judgment is in either House of Parliament. This is the tenure of
your judges; and the valuable principle of the bill is to make a
judicial administration for India. It is to give confidence in the
execution of a duty which requires as much perseverance and fortitude
as can fall to the lot of any that is born of woman.

As to the gain by party from the right honorable gentleman's bill, let
it be shown that this supposed party advantage is pernicious to its
object, and the objection is of weight; but until this is done, (and
this has not been attempted,) I shall consider the sole objection from
its tendency to promote the interest of a party as altogether
contemptible. The kingdom is divided into parties, and it ever has been
so divided, and it ever will be so divided; and if no system for
relieving the subjects of this kingdom from oppression, and snatching
its affairs from ruin, can be adopted, until it is demonstrated that no
party can derive an advantage from it, no good can ever be done in this
country. If party is to derive an advantage from the reform of India,
(which is more than I know or believe,) it ought to be that party which
alone in this kingdom has its reputation, nay, its very being, pledged
to the protection and preservation of that part of the empire. Great
fear is expressed that the commissioners named in this bill will show
some regard to a minister out of place. To men made like the objectors
this must appear criminal. Let it, however, be remembered by others,
that, if the commissioners should be his friends, they cannot be his
slaves. But dependants are not in a condition to adhere to friends, nor
to principles, nor to any uniform line of conduct. They may begin
censors, and be obliged to end accomplices. They may be even put under
the direction of those whom they were appointed to punish.

The fourth and last objection is, that the bill will hurt public credit.
I do not know whether this requires an answer. But if it does, look to
your foundations. The sinking fund is the pillar of credit in this
country; and let it not be forgot, that the distresses, owing to the
mismanagement, of the East India Company, have already taken a million
from that fund by the non-payment of duties. The bills drawn upon the
Company, which are about four millions, cannot be accepted without the
consent of the Treasury. The Treasury, acting under a Parliamentary
trust and authority, pledges the public for these millions. If they
pledge the public, the public must have a security in its hands for the
management of this interest, or the national credit is gone. For
otherwise it is not only the East India Company, which is a great
interest, that is undone, but, clinging to the security of all your
funds, it drags down the rest, and the whole fabric perishes in one
ruin. If this bill does not provide a direction of integrity and of
ability competent to that trust, the objection is fatal; if it does,
public credit must depend on the support of the bill.

It has been said, If you violate this charter, what security has the
charter of the Bank, in which public credit is so deeply concerned, and
even the charter of London, in which the rights of so many subjects are
involved? I answer, In the like case they have no security at all,--no,
no security at all. If the Bank should, by every species of
mismanagement, fall into a state similar to that of the East India
Company,--if it should be oppressed with demands it could not answer,
engagements which it could not perform, and with bills for which it
could not procure payment,--no charter should protect the mismanagement
from correction, and such public grievances from redress. If the city
of London had the means and will of destroying an empire, and of cruelly
oppressing and tyrannizing over millions of men as good as themselves,
the charter of the city of London should prove no sanction to such
tyranny and such oppression. Charters are kept, when their purposes are
maintained: they are violated, when the privilege is supported against
its end and its object.

Now, Sir, I have finished all I proposed to say, as my reasons for
giving my vote to this bill. If I am wrong, it is not for want of pains
to know what is right. This pledge, at least, of my rectitude I have
given to my country.

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