The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

1 We 0 18 re ne) [1= i= 8, THE NEW ATTACK ON THE EAST INDIAN TRADE 469 European agent was five removes distant from the workman. AD 2s Each of the intermediaries obtained his commission; the complicated machinery of trade gave rise on the one hand to great oppression of the labourer, while on the other if afforded frequent opportunities for malversation and fraud. The officials of the Company were organised in four different classes. They entered as writers; after five years’ service they became factors; three years later, junior merchants, and after three years senior merchants. The high official positions were given to senior merchants!, and promotion was almost entirely by seniority, The patronage which the Directors were able to exercise was a very valuable power, and was of more importance to many of them than the wealth which accrued from their ownership of shares in the Company. Under these circumstances there can be little and oo wonder that Clive, at the beginning of his second adminis- rampant. tration, should have reported that the whole administra- tion was corrupt? or that the Directors complained of the “deplorable state to which our affairs were on the point of being reduced, from the corruption and rapacity of our servants, and the universal depravity of manners through- out the settlement. The general relaxation of all discipline Te mal- and obedience, both military and civil, was tending to a aid dissolution of all government... We must add that we think the vast fortunes, acquired in the inland trade, had been obtained by a series of the most tyrannic and op- pressive conduct that ever was known in any age or country?” These disclosures aroused wide-spread indignation, which was fomented by retired servants, and by proprietors who were discontented with their position. As a result a Parliamentary enquiry was undertaken, and an Act a8 Ag ae ers arl. Mill, op. est. 1m. 16. : Both the Portuguese and the Dutch had to contend with similar difficulties in regard to their officials. The utter demoralisation of the Portuguese who settled in India was perhaps the chief reason of the destruction of their power. Raynal, History (1777), 1. 141. On the Dutch, see Raynal, 1. 266. 8 Mill, rr. 279. It was one of the great achievements of Lord Cornwallis that he raised the tone of the Indian service in such a remarkable manner, Chesney, Indian Polity (1868), 23.

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