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.

AD. 1689 -—1776. and the tm- poverished condition of the Uompany rendered public interven tion RECESSATY | 170 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM jefining the financial obligations of the Company to Govern- ment was passed in 1768. It was evidently drafted on the assumption that the Company had control of enormous riches, whereas the large dividends which had been recently paid had brought them to the verge of bankruptcy®. But almost immediately after this Act was passed, the public became aware of the real position of the Company, and there was the strongest excitement against the Directors for having, as it was supposed, frittered away the exaggerated resources at their command. There were two opposite suggestions for remedying a condition of affairs which all regarded as dis- creditable. The Directors made some endeavours to exercise more complete control themselves over their servants by sending out supervisors, who never arrived’, and by pro- moting a Bill for increasing their powers, which the House of Commons would not passt The opposing scheme was that of giving the English Government a firm hold upon the conduct of the Company, both at home and abroad”. The Ministry proposed a series of changes which aroused the alarm of Directors, and they protested that “not- withstanding the Company were thus deprived of their franchise in the choice of their servants, by an unparalleled strain of injustice and oppression, they were compelled to pay such salaries as Ministers might think fit to direct, to persons in whose appointment, approbation, or removal, the Company were to have no share®” The opposition was taken up by the City of London, but it had no results, and the new order was constituted in 1773". 1 By this Act (9 Geo. IIL. c. 24) it was determined that for five years the Company should pay annually into the Exchequer a sum of £400,000, that they should export £380,000 worth of British merchandise, and that their outstanding debts should not be allowed to exceed the amount of the sums due to them from the Government. On the one hand provision was made for reducing the pay- ment, if the dividend fell off, and on the other, for increase of their loans to Government if they had a surplus. A somewhat similar arrangement had been concluded for two years by 7 Geo. III. c. 57. 3 The French Company, organised by Colbert in 1664, was equally uuskilful in ita trade; in 1684 they lost half their capital, and they were still in an embarrassed condition in 1722. Malleson, History of the French in India, pp. 27, 57. 3 Mill, op. cit. mx. 340. + Ib. 343, 345. 6 The probable purity and value of direct Government control must not be judged by present standards. See the debate on Contractors in Parl. Hist. xx1. 423. 8 Mill, 111. 349 7 18 Geo. ITI. ce. 63, 64.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The Industrial Revolution

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation