nished by government this session; but, in addition, had pledged himself, as was fitting on one of the greatest questions ever submitted to the consideration of the

vised to direct that the question should be brought forward by his ministers early in the next session. It was clear, therefore, that his right hon. friend's intended motion for documentary evidence was merely to assist in enabling the House and the public to form a judgment upon the question which would next session be submitted to them. Under these circumstances, he would ask if the hon. member for Mon

hon. friend had evinced a disposition to slight the commercial interests of the country, or to withhold from them relief?

had nevertheless declared, that what he had said was not said in a spirit of hostility to his majesty's government. This he would certainly say of that hon. gentleman, that he had not shown greater hos-legislature, that his majesty would be adtility to government than he had shown to all the other parties interested. With that peculiar modesty which belonged to the hon. member for Montrose, he had arrogated to himself the right to censure all the measures of every government on this great subject, as well as all the parties to whose interests those measures were applicable. On one point the hon. member ran no risk of his predictions being falsified by the event. In pressing the hon. mem-trose was justified in saying, that his right ber for Bridge orth to carry the question to a division, the hon. member for Montrose said, that although he had formerly voted in a minority of six on a question for inquiry into the subject, he had no doubt he should now vote in a majority on the same question. As his right hon. friend had intimated, that he would next session propose an inquiry, it was certainly probable that the anticipation of the hon. member for Montrose would be realized. The hon. member for Bridgenorth had made his statements in a manner which did him great credit, and in a tone very different from that of the hon. member for Montrose. There was no part of his right hon. friend's speech which justified the hon. member for Montrose in saying, "You tell the commercial interest' we are indifferent to your sufferings"" [hear, hear! from Mr. Hume]. The only return he

would make to the hon. member's cheer was the strongest denial of the truth of his assertion. No liberal man could possibly have put such a construction on the statement of his right hon. friend. Nor was there any stronger ground for the supposition of the hon. member, that the documentary evidence for which his right hon. friend would move, in the present session, was to be prepared with certain views; or, that there was to be a report drawn up by an East-India director. What had already been done showed that such would not be the case. If the hon. gentleman thought that government would be influenced by a pre-conceived opinion upon this subject, was there no danger that there were persons who would be influenced by a pre-conceived opinion the other way? His right hon. friend had not restricted himself to the statement, that documentary evidence would be fur

Mr. Robinson said, that the pledge given by the chancellor of the Exchequer was so ample, as to be perfectly satisfactory to him. He believed that the great commercial interests of the country would also feel satisfied with the pledge given by the right hon. gentleman to bring it under the consideration of the House. He confessed he did not think the member for Montrose had argued the question with his usual acuteness; for he had represented the commercial interests of the country as anxiously waiting the decision of the House upon it; which, of course, could not be the case, as they were quite certain that no alteration could take place respecting it until after the expiration of the charter.

Mr. Wynn thought it would be more advisable that the appointment of this committee should emanate from, and be sanctioned by, government. It ought not certainly to be taken up as a party question or a party measure. There was no one, he believed, who was not anxious for the fullest information, so as to enable the legislature to decide with due discretion and sound policy on a subject so intimately connected with the highest interests of this commercial country. The paramount importance of this subject was to be found, not in the renewal, or refusal, of the charter five years hence-not in the EastIndia Company being continued in the government of our vast eastern empirebut in the higher object of protecting the interests and promoting the happiness of the many millions of the inhabitants of that extensive empire, who were entitled to look up to this country for the preser

vation of public peace, private property, and deference to their ancient religion. For his part he was not so desirous this committee should be appointed for the purpose of availing himself of the opinion it might pronounce on the subject. He wished rather to be possessed of the evidence which it might elicit in detail: on this he should form his own opinion, and be decided as to the vote he ought to give. It ought to be considered, that the East-India Company were no longer the conductors of the trade with China. Not a fifth part of that trade now passed through their hands. They might be designated as a body trading to China, and governing India. He regretted that the monopoly of the Company's trade to China had been extended for so long a time; and this he knew was the feeling of his late right hon. friend (Mr. Canning) who had immediately preceded him in the situation of president of the Board of Control.

the question. Although he was not in the habit of reposing unlimited confidence in his majesty's government, he could not see what interest they could possibly have, except to do justice as far as they could between the East-India Company and the country. Even the cautious silence on the present occasion of the hon. Chairman of the Court of Directors induced him to believe that that hon. gentleman was not so very willing to trust the cause of the Company in the hands of his majesty's government, as his hon. friend seemed to suppose. He had great confidence that no political or party feeling was at all likely to disturb the deliberations of parliament on this great question. They might determine it erroneously; but he was persuaded that they would determine it with impartiality. When the inquiry came to be instituted, it would perhaps be desirable to institute more than one committee. The inquiry might, in his opinion, be advantageously divided into three comMr. Baring said, that the subject was mittees. The first might be a committee undoubtedly one of the greatest importance, to ascertain the financial position of the and the sooner an inquiry could be insti- Company. This was indispensable; for tuted into it the better; provided that inquiry when the opening of the trade to China were of an effectual character. When, had been talked of, it was said, that if the however, it was considered, that a fort- Company were deprived of that trade they night or three weeks would, in all proba- would not have the means of meeting their bility, terminate the present session, he debts, and carrying on the government of thought that it would be more convenient India. It therefore became necessary to to all parties to begin the inquiry at the know the amount of the debts of the commencement of a new session. If the Company, and of their assets, their profits, House were now to appoint a committee, and their probable future situation. Withthe consequence would be, that deputies out all this knowledge, it would be imwould flock to town from all the com- possible to ascertain the financial state of mercial parts of the country, and that the Company. Another committee would expectations would be created which it be advantageously employed in considering would be utterly impossible to realise. the commercial part of the question. The The only objects which such a committee third committee might have assigned to could have in view would be to digest a them to examine with great care the plan for obtaining information in the condition of the people of India, and the ensuing year, to determine what parts of effects likely to result from the unrestrained the Reports which had already been made intercourse between this country and India. ought to be printed, to receive the docu- This was the greatest question of the mentary evidence which government in- whole. When the Charter was last retended to communicate, and to see whe-newed he had voted in favour of the ther any more would be necessary. It ought, in fact, to be a committee of preparation for next year. He could see no reason why any committee appointed on the subject should give their opinion upon it. If they collected and reported the evidence upon it, that would be sufficient. He really could not concur in the apprehension of the hon. member for Montrose, that any partial view would be taken of

company, because he thought that great danger was involved in the extension of the trade then proposed. Happily, those apprehensions had been negatived by the result. But if the doors were to be opened still more widely, he must say, that he thought the question would be approached with great and serious risk. He hoped, therefore, that next year three committees would be appointed to collect facts and

evidence. Considering the great import- I he so highly respected, he should say that ance of the question, and the natural the Company were like the dog in the anxiety of the mercantile interest respecting manger--they prevented any participation it, he hoped ministers would see the ad-in a trade which they did not themselves vantage of assembling parliament again as enjoy. He should recommend this view early as possible. He begged also to sug- of the subject both to the company and to gest, that although the Charter of the Com- the government. If what he recommended pany would not expire until 1834, that of was followed, instead of the country rushing the Bank of England would expire in 1833. all at once into the trade to India and The latter, if not so important a question China, they would make a beginning in as the former, would, nevertheless, require an indirect trade, and would break from grave consideration. It would be exceed- one system into another, without any ingly inconvenient to have both questions chance of exaggeration in their adventures. under the consideration of parliament at When this question came to be examined the same time. He had only one more by the committee, the House and the observation to make, with a view of country would do justice to the India Comobviating the injury which might arise pany for their disinterested, liberal, and enfrom the exaggerated statements that had lightened conduct in India. That conduct been made of the benefits that would result might be exposed to much criticism in from opening the trade with India. part; but the administration of the Indian Whoever had heard the able speech of the government would bear a comparison with hon. member for Bridgenorth, must never- that of any colony under the Crown. theless allow that he had greatly exagge Sir C. Forbes expressed his satisfaction rated the benefits which the opening of at hearing of the intention of ministers tó the trade was calculated to produce. take up this vast question, and had no Great benefits might arise from that doubt that the report of the committee opening; but when it was stated, that it would be as fair and impartial as that of would lead the way to commerce with 1813. He agreed in the observation, that two or three hundred millions of people, the trade with India formed the least the danger was, that there would be no important part of this great question: end to the preparations for taking advan- its principal object was the welfare of the tage of so great a good; and that every natives of India. He was still of opinion, body would be anxious to have a share in that the union of the two characters of so rich a mine. Let it be recollected, sovereign and merchant in the East-India however, that the trade was at present, Company was disadvantageous to the carried on by all the world; by the United governed and the governors: some alteraStates of America, and by almost every tion must be made in this respect, for it was country in Europe, All that was wanted impossible that a private trade with India was, that the commercial interest of Eng- could be carried on in competition with land generally should participate in the the Company, who, even after the expiraadvantage. If any notion should go tion of their Charter, might carry on a trade abroad of immense benefits to this country thither as a corporation. Objectionable from the proposed measure, he would and faulty as the Company's government venture to say, that that notion would might be, he considered it to be preferable be followed by a greater disappointment to that of our colonial governments; and than had ever before attended a similar he congratulated the natives of India in expectation. One reason for his wishing being placed under the government of the to go into an early consideration of the Company instead of the Crown. With question was, to ascertain whether the regard to the China trade, it was his East-India Company might not be induced opinion that the expectations formed of to permit the participation by the general the advantages to be derived from opening merchants of this country, not of that that branch of the trade would be disapmonopoly of the Company from which pointed. That empire was hermetically they derived their principal profit-sealed against foreign commerce: the the importation of tea into this country-consequence of opening that trade to but of the indirect trade in that article from China to France, and Hamburgh, and all other parts of Europe. If it were not speaking irreverently of persons whom

private traders would be a vast glut of exports, and a rise in the prices of commodities in China. The trade at Canton was carried on by a monopoly; the whole

empire was managed by monopolies. the country should not be suffered to conThe Hong merchants fixed the prices of clude that, because benefit has been asthe commodities, and the markets of sumed to follow from the partial opening Canton had maintained such an uniformity of the trade, an unrestricted free trade of prices for the last twenty years, that the would have the same effect. An increased article of cotton had seldom varied beyond export to India is no proof of increased eight or ten taels the pecul. Then trade prosperity without a correspondent return was interdicted at every other port in from India. It is alleged, that the openChina; and it was within his own know-ing of the China trade and the colonizaledge, that an enterprising individual had fitted out a vessel for the purpose of forcing a trade in other parts of the empire, who had not only been unable to open a trade with the natives, but had been obliged to purchase provisions by stealth, and with hard dollars. With respect to the private trade with India, it was only in its infancy. How was it to be increased? Not by the East-India Company, but by that House. Let his majesty's government begin by reducing the duties upon the commodities of India. A small duty was imposed upon English manufactures, but a heavy duty upon Indian commodities. Was that reciprocity? Was that free trade? We took away the raw cotton from the Indians, and sent them our cotton goods, which superseded their manufactures. He hoped that the inquiry proposed would embrace not our own interests merely, but those of the people of India.

tion of India by Europeans would lead to the introduction of the manufactures of this country to an unlimited extent; and it is even affirmed, that it would afford to our manufacturers the markets of two or three hundred millions of people. The East-India Company have nearly ceased to be exporters of goods as merchants; and their importations, which consist chiefly of silk and indigo, are made principally as means of remittance to enable them to defray the territorial charges incurred in this country on account of India. In their political capacity they are quite alive to the necessity of encouraging the products of the East. The article of cotton, to which reference has been had, is anything but neglected by the Company; much has been done, with the sanction, or by the direction of the executive body in this country for the encouragement of the cultivators and the manufacturers; but the muslins of India, which had long been Mr. Astell said, although it had been so famous, have been supplanted by the my intention in the early part of the even-manufactures of Manchester and Glasgow. ing to have troubled the House with my remarks, and possibly at some length, in the attempt to refute the arguments and expose the errors of the hon. member for Bridgenorth, I then abstained, in the belief that the proposition of the chancellor of the Exchequer, would have made further discussion unnecessary. What has fallen from the hon. member for Callington makes it incumbent upon me to trouble the House with a few observations. I can assure the House, that there is no one who courts inquiry into this subject more cordially than I do, or who more deplores the ignorance which pervades this country with respect to India and the prejudices raised against the East-India Company and their affairs; and I am persuaded that a thorough investigation would tend to disperse those prejudices. The hon. member for Callington has pointed out the exaggerations of the hon. member for Bridgenorth, and I am not disposed at this late hour to enter into the particulars of the case; but I think that the House and

With regard to the giving greater facilities to the resort of Europeans to India, experience has shewn that the natives of that country will not, if I may so express myself, keep company with Europeans; and I would refer the House to a work lately published, the Journal of Bishop Heber, in proof that nothing could be more impolitic than the unrestricted admission of Europeans into India. That country is sufficiently open to England for all useful and practical purposes. European articles are to be had at either of the presidencies almost as cheap as in England. The shipping interest is in as pitiable a condition; many ships being laid up in Calcutta, others coming home dead freighted, or at 15s. per ton. I think that these facts speak volumes. I shall feel glad if, in the next session, an opportunity be given of examining the whole subject. The result will, I am convinced, shew, that the government of the Company has not only not been so defective as the advocates of free trade and colonization

would endeavour to make this nation believe, but that the Company have been humble instruments in the hands of Providence of conferring great benefits on the natives of India, who, from their peculiar connexion with this country have undoubt edly strong claims upon us. The moral happiness of the people has been much advanced by the government under which they are now placed; and as the knowledge of the institutions which we have introduced becomes more widely diffused, the more will they acquiesce in the benefit of our dominion, and the more will they profit by the protection it affords to them. It is our duty not to make experiments: we must proceed temperately, and with a view not merely to extend the commercial resources of this country, but to advance the happiness and prosperity of the millions in the East confided to our government.

state of India as their predecessors when they first became members of the board. This subject required the serious attention of the House.

Lord Ashley believed the hon. member had been misinformed. Only one case had come before him since he had become a member of the board. The applicant had been treated with the utmost attention by the board, permitted to proceed to India, and had even received from the governors of the presidencies all possible favour. Of baron Humboldt's case he had never heard; but he could assure the hon. member that persons had not only been allowed to travel over India, but had received pecuniary and other assistance from the Indian government.

Mr. Brougham said, he did not rise,at that late hour to express his opinion at length upon this very important question; nor did he at all come forward to declare in what way any new arrangement should be made; but that the present arrangement of the commercial part of this great question could not last after what had been stated, was perfectly evident: but, as had been well observed, the difference in the degree of monopoly, and the arrangement which must succeed the present system, must be regulated with a view to other and greater interests than were involved in the general question; for it should be observed, that this question was not commercial alone. They had in legislating on it three distinct subjects to consider the commercial branch-the political branch-and that which was the most difficult and the most important,-the connexion between both. The third question, though the most practical, was beyond doubt the most difficult; for the Company had grown up by degrees to be what no human being imagined it would become a great political body, trading in one respect at a loss, in another, at a profit; but a great ruler over a great people,-one of the largest military pow

Mr. Warburton observed, with reference to there commendation of an hon. member, that young senators would qualify themselves for this question by visiting India, that this plan, under the present system, was not so easy as he seemed to think. A distinguished foreigner, baron Humboldt, being desirous of prosecuting his researches in natural history in Nepaul, had applied for permission to go to India and was refused. Another individual, a distinguished merchant, had applied for permission to send an agent to India, to superintend the manufacture of silk, and his request was refused. He, however, sent him in defiance of the refusal, and the East-India Company had the cowardice not to send him back, for fear of the exposure of their nefarious proceedings. One thing was important if Europeans were permitted to go to India, they should be placed under vigilant observation, in order that the natives might be secure against injury. The system of law in that country was unfit for them it was dilatory and expensive. There was another part of the present sys-ers in the world, and, with two or three tem which was highly objectionable, he meant the Board' of Control. With respect to that board, no doubt, the persons who composed it had the interests of our Indian possessions sincerely at heart: but how was it possible that they could do any good when they held office only by the tenure of a day? The moment they had learned to do their duty they were removed

exceptions, the greatest maritime power in Europe; but, above all, somehow or other intrusted with the government of above seventy millions of people on the other side of the globe. Now, what the legislature were imperatively bound to consider was, whether they could preserve the rights and interests of those people, consistently with the abolition of the Company's monopoly; and that, he hoped, would be found perfectly possible. But whether