THE EAST INDIA EXCRESCENCE. 515 



collectors are 640,000 strong, being in the proportion of one tax-man 

 to every twenty inhabitants. 



On the other hand, in the government of Bengal, since the settle- 

 ment of the permanent land-tax in 1793, the expense of collecting 

 the revenue has not exceeded three per cent ; and though the amount 

 be full sixty-two per cent upon the produce of the soil, or three times 

 the amount of taxation paid by the tax-laden people of England, yet 

 from the slight remnant still left as a stimulus to the toils of an inge- 

 nious and industrious people, we have seen the value of land raised 

 to about sixteen years' purchase, and the revenue increased from 

 4,500,000/. in 1794, to 9,000,000/., or double the amount, in 1828. 

 Under the influence of the fluctuating tax in Madras and the other 

 dependencies of the company, the revenue is universally declining, 

 with an increasing expense in the inverse ratio for armies for the sup- 

 pression of the ceaseless insurrections of a plundered and despairing 

 people. The Directors of the East India Company have ever resented 

 the diminution of their unlimited power of taxation, by the enlight- 

 ened experiment of Lord Cornwallis, and their utmost efforts have 

 been directed in recent years, to frustrate and annul in Bengal, the 

 only humane act of legislation ever received from his Christian con- 

 querors by the miserable Hindoo. 



Seeing the devastating consequences of an unlimited power of tax- 

 ation, we trust in the forthcoming Parliamentary measure for the 

 future government of India, that a permanent assessment of the land 

 tribute will become the first portion of constitutional liberty to be 

 awarded to our fellow-men in that enslaved and benighted region. 



A power of unlimited and plundering taxation, founded only upon 

 the ancient rights of the Mogul tyrants of our Indian empire, ought 

 hot to weigh a feather in the consideration of the natural rights of 

 the natives of the soil. To mitigate the severity of the fate of the 

 impoverished and abject population of our eastern dominions is 

 required, not by motives of humanity and justice alone, but by an 

 enlightened policy, and the self-interest of the merchants and manu- 

 facturers of England ; for our export trade must be regulated by the 

 ability of foreign nations to purchase and enjoy, and assuredly no 

 extension of the market for our manufactures can be expected whilst 

 a devastating system of taxation lays waste the fields, drains away the 

 capital, and leaves without remuneration the labour of the mass of our 

 Indian population. When labour is not of the value of threepence 

 per day, and dwellings are sold for a rupee, the people cannot become 

 the purchasers of the luxurious productions of our looms, or even of 

 the cheapest utensils of domestic life. But, with the introduction of 

 a just and defined system of taxation, so fertile is the soil, so favour- 

 able the climate, and so ingenious, industrious and temperate, the 

 population of our Asiatic dominions, that in a few years an improved 

 and extended cultivation would double the productions of the soil, 

 increase the amount of the land-tribute, decrease the expense of its 

 collection, enlarge the market for the manufactured exports of Great 

 Britain, and confer the blessings of liberty, comfort, prosperity, and 



