For evils of this nature there can be no perfect remedy as long as the monopoly continues.
Edmund Burke
The Public Record
Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century, Burke spent the majority of his career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. His writings played a significant role in influencing public views and opinions in both Great Britain and France following the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major figure in modern conservative circles.
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They are in the nature of the thing, and cannot be cured, or effectually counteracted, even by a just and vigilant administration on the spot.
Many objections occur to the farming of any branch of the public revenue in Bengal, particularly against farming the salt lands.
But the dilemma to which government by this system is constantly reduced, of authorizing great injustice or suffering great loss, is alone sufficient to condemn it.
Breach of duty abroad will always go hand in hand with neglect of it at home.
A total neglect of duty in this respect, however culpable, is not to be compared, either in its nature or in its consequences, with the destructive principles on which they have acted.
It is not fit that the servants of the Company should be dealers with their masters.
If they themselves turn farmers, what checks can be found for them?
What security will the Company have for their property, or where are the ryots to look for relief against oppressions?
To whatever cause these instances of neglect and delay may be attributed, they could not fail to create an opinion in Bengal that the Court of Directors were not heartily intent upon the execution of their own orders, and to discourage…
But your Committee are of opinion that to preserve the reputation and dignity of the government of Bengal was a much more important object, and ought to have been their first consideration.
Such a prosecution ought not to have been ordered by the Directors, but upon grounds that would have fully authorized the recall of the gentleman in question.
This prosecution, supposing it to have been seriously undertaken, and to have succeeded, must have tended to weaken the government, and to degrade it in the eyes of all India.
On the other hand, to intrust a man, armed as he was with all the powers of his station, and indeed of the government, with the conduct of a prosecution against himself, was altogether inconsistent and absurd.
It is possible that particular persons, in high judicial and political situations, may, by force of an unusual strain of virtue, be placed far above the influence of those circumstances which in ordinary cases are known to make an…
Their suspicions, though perhaps not rightly applied to every individual, will induce them to take indications from the situations and connections of the prosecuting parties, as well as of the judges.
In case of the death of the debtor, this rigorous demand falls upon the ruined houses of widows and orphans, and may be easily converted into a means either of cruel oppression or a mercenary indulgence, according to the temper of the…
People must be discouraged from entering into a business, when, the commodity being fixed to one invariable standard and confined to one market, the best success can be attended only with a limited advantage, whilst a defective produce can…
This system of government appears to your Committee to be at least as much disordered, and as much perverted from every good purpose for which lawful rule is established, as the trading system has been from every just principle of commerce.
The British government in India being a subordinate and delegated power, it ought to be considered as a fundamental principle in such a system, that it is to be preserved in the strictest obedience to the government at home.
A sanction was hereby given to all future defiance of every authority in this kingdom.
In these sentiments, I must decline an acquiescence in any order which has a tendency to bring the government into disrepute.
As the Company have the means and power of forming their own administration in India, they may at pleasure place whom they please at the head; but in my opinion they are not authorized to treat a person in that post with indignity.
The amplitude of this latter description, reserving to them the judgment of any orders which have so much as that tendency, puts them in possession of a complete independence, an independence including a despotic authority over the…
The very means taken by the Directors for enforcing their authority becomes, on this principle, a cause of further disobedience.
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