504 British India, and the Renewal of MAY, 



of our merchants and manufacturers without wrong to the other parties, 

 incalculably more numerous, and to whom the upshot of our delibera- 

 tions is of far more vital moment, let every thing in reason be conceded. 

 But, at the point where they cease to be compatible, we would make 

 our stand resolutely, and ground our opposition to any farther conces- 

 sion upon the broadest and most permanent basis. Distressed as we 

 confessedly are, and most earnestly as we desire to give a fresh stimulus 

 to exertion, by enlarging the inlets through which our commerce has 

 hitherto forced its way into the markets of the East, as well as by the 

 discovery of new openings, it would be national folly in the extreme to 

 seek for the cure or palliation of existing evils by any measures involving 

 the loss of our national character for equity and humanity. Provision 

 being made to protect this from impeachment or suspicion, we hold up 

 both our hands for the removal of every restriction upon industry and 

 enterprise : but, with regard to the security of the natives of India from 

 encroachment or oppression, we shall be satisfied with nothing short of 

 the most unquestionable safeguards. 



We must pause here to offer a few observations upon the subject of 

 the free commercial intercourse between this country and India, which 

 has subsisted since 1814, because the opinions held by one party, pre- 

 viously to the last renewal of the charter, have been most industriously 

 misrepresented; and because their opponents, w r ho never fail to avail 

 themselves of every opportunity of protruding their merits upon public 

 notice, have exerted themselves as manfully to trumpet forth the praises 

 of their own sagacity as to twist and torture into absurdity the language 

 of those who differed from them. This process, when it can be com- 

 pleted without detection, affords the greatest possible assistance to ratio- 

 cination, for nothing can be easier than to cover an adversary with con- 

 fusion, and hold him up to never-ending ridicule, if you can but persuade 

 the public to believe that his arguments are founded on an assumption 

 that two and two make five, or any moral postulate of equal folly. 



f ' We were told," says the great advocate of free trade and coloniza- 

 tion, " in a tone of oracular authority, and on the alleged experience 

 of two centuries, that the trade between Great Britain and India was 

 wholly incapable of extension; that we could furnish nothing new 

 which the Hindoos wanted, nor the Hindoos produce any thing new 

 which we required." This is absurd enough, but as we never doubted 

 Mr. Crawfurd s talent for caricature, let us see what Sir Thomas Munro, 

 the principal oracle consulted, did really say upon the subject. 



" It has been sometimes said that the natives have a prejudice against 

 the manufactures of Europe: the Hindoos have no prejudices against 

 the use of any thing that they can convert to an useful purpose ; whe- 

 ther European or native manufacture, it is pure as it comes from the 

 hand of the workman to all Hindoos; but they have one prejudice, 

 which I believe is a very common one in this country, against the pay- 

 ing a higher price for a worse commodity ; and until we can undersell 

 them in such articles as they now require for their own use, we have no 

 hope of extending the use of our own manufactures in India; it is en- 

 tirely a question of price : whenever we can undersell the Hindoos in any 

 article which they require, it will find its way into the interior of the 

 country without much help from the British merchants; it will Jind its 

 way into the interior in spite of all regulations to prevent it *." 



* t>e^ the Evidence before Committees, Oth and 12th April, 1815. 



