The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (of 12). Edmund Burke

of property adequate to such undertaking, or of credit and responsibility sufficient to make it safe and prudent to trust them with such sums as might be necessary to enable them to fulfil their engagements with the Company."

      The effect which so long continued a monopoly, followed by a preëmption, and then by partial preferences supported by power, must necessarily have in weakening the mercantile capital, and disabling the merchants from all undertakings of magnitude, is but too visible. However, a witness of understanding and credit does not believe the capitals of the natives to be yet so reduced as to disable them from partaking in the trade, if they were otherwise able to put themselves on an equal footing with Europeans.

      The difficulties at the outset will, however, be considerable. For the long continuance of abuse has in some measure conformed the whole trade of the country to its false principle. To make a sudden change, therefore, might destroy the few advantages which attend any trade, without securing those which must flow from one established upon sound mercantile principles, whenever such a trade can be established. The fact is, that the forcible direction which the trade of India has had towards Europe, to the neglect, or rather to the total abandoning, of the Asiatic, has of itself tended to carry even the internal business from the native merchant. The revival of trade in the native hands is of absolute necessity; but your Committee is of opinion that it will rather be the effect of a regular progressive course of endeavors for that purpose than of any one regulation, however wisely conceived.

      After this examination into the condition of the trade and traders in the principal articles provided for the investment to Europe, your Committee proceeded to take into consideration those articles the produce of which, after sale in Bengal, is to form a part of the fund for the purchase of other articles of investment, or to make a part of it in kind. These are, 1st, Opium,—2ndly, Saltpetre,—and, 3rdly, Salt. These are all monopolized.

      OPIUM

      The first of the internal authorized monopolies is that of opium. This drug, extracted from a species of the poppy, is of extensive consumption in most of the Eastern markets. The best is produced in the province of Bahar: in Bengal it is of an inferior sort, though of late it has been improved. This monopoly is to be traced to the very origin of our influence in Bengal. It is stated to have begun at Patna so early as the year 1761, but it received no considerable degree of strength or consistence until the year 1765, when the acquisition of the Duanné opened a wide field for all projects of this nature. It was then adopted and owned as a resource for persons in office,—was managed chiefly by the civil servants of the Patna factory, and for their own benefit. The policy was justified on the usual principles on which monopolies are supported, and on some peculiar to the commodity, to the nature of the trade, and to the state of the country: the security against adulteration; the prevention of the excessive home consumption of a pernicious drug; the stopping an excessive competition, which by an over-proportioned supply would at length destroy the market abroad; the inability of the cultivator to proceed in an expensive and precarious culture without a large advance of capital; and, lastly, the incapacity of private merchants to supply that capital on the feeble security of wretched farmers.

      1

      See the Secret Committee's Reports on the Mahratta War.

      2

      Vide Secret Committee Reports.

      3

      Vide Select Committee Reports, 1781

      4

      The sale, to the amount of about one hundred thousand pounds annually, of the

1

See the Secret Committee's Reports on the Mahratta War.

2

Vide Secret Committee Reports.

3

Vide Select Committee Reports, 1781

4

The sale, to the amount of about one hundred thousand pounds annually, of the export from Great Britain ought to be deducted from this million.

5

Estimate of the Sale Amount and Net Proceeds in England of the Cargoes to be sent from Bengal, agreeable to the Plan received by Letter dated the 8th April, 1782.

This calculation supposes the eighty lac investments will be equal to the tonnage of five ships.

[A] 1. The sale amount is computed on an average of the sales of the two last years' imports.

[B] 2. The custom is computed on an average of what was paid on piece-goods and raw silk of said imports, adding additional imposts.

[C] 3. The ships going out of this season, (1782,) by which the above investment is expected to be sent home, are taken up at 47l. 5s. per ton, for the homeward cargo; this charge amounts to 35,815l. each ship; the additional wages to the men, which the Company pay, and a very small charge for demurrage, will increase the freight, &c., to 40,000l. per ship, agreeable to above estimate.

[D] 4. The duty of five per cent is charged by the Company on the gross sale amount of all private trade licensed to be brought from India: the amount of this duty is the only benefit the Company are likely to receive from the subscription investment.

[E] 5. This charge is likewise made on private trade goods, and is little, if anything, more than the real expense the Company are at on account of the same; therefore no benefit will probably arise to the Company from it on the sale of the said investment.

[F] 6. This is the sum which will probably be realized in England, and is only equal to 1s. 6d. per rupee, on the eighty lacs subscribed.