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.
