Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/616

 608 REVIEWS OF BOOKS October resources. Mr, Dodwell says that the English did not possess capital enough to monopolize the trade, and at the same time that the internal duties formed but a small part of the collections. It would be interesting to have further evidence on these somewhat incompatible statements, especially when the immense fortunes made in Indian trade at this time are remembered. As this question of the inland trade appears to be fundamental, perhaps certain considerations on it will not be out of place here. The difference between inland trade and all forms of external trade is vital, whether they be the Company's investment or the private trade of servants or free merchants. Inland trade was a provincial matter under the control of the Nawab Duan and could not be affected by imperial firmans which refer to external trade only, as is recognized by the citation on p. 215, which admits the trade to be ' contrary to the known established laws of the country '. In 1761 Warren Hastings, supporting Vansittart's policy, states that in the early practice of the Company the trade in such commodities as were bought and sold in the country (i. e. the Inland Trade) was entirely confined to the natives ;. . . The privileges therefore claimed by the Company and allowed by the Government, were originally designed by both for "oods brought into the country, or purchased in it for exportation, in effect it was ever limited to that: nor can any difference of power convey to us a right which we confessedly wanted before.' The opposition to this view and practice was led by William Ellis, of whom Mr. Dodwell writes : ' but recently sent to Bengal. Having arrived just after the revolution had been effected, he had &c. . . .' The records in th^ India Office show that William Ellis had arrived in Bengal in 1749 and passed through the usual grades, becoming chief at Kasimbazaar in 1759 and at Patna in 1762. He was thus an experienced senior servant in 1760, accustomed no doubt like the great majority to look to private and to inland trade for the sources of fortune. Hastings' correspondence with Hugh Watts, on the other hand, has to do with the export trade (p. 219). Inland trade was forbidden to the Company's servants as soon as their intervention in it was known in London ; orders being issued by the directors on 8 February and 3 May 1764. On the other hand, in India on 10 August 1765 Messrs. Verelst and Sumner, acting as the Select Committee, created an ' Exclusive Company ' to deal with this trade in salt, betel, and tobacco. Their action was confirmed by Clive on 5 Novem- ber 1765. On 24 December 1765 the directors again forbade it, since it was ' as much a monopoly as ever '. Finally by a reform of the Customs of 23 March 1773 the trade was made free, equal and open to every one subject to a fixed duty of 2J per cent., the Company's own goods not being exempt. The adjustment of such difficult economic problems underlay the political situation in Bengal in 1760. Clive was not then in a position to deal with them, but the absence of any system led to catastrophe, and by the irony of fate it was Clive himself who was sent back to deal with it in 1765. Again his statesmanship failed. He now accepted the grant of the Dewani, but still, and now deliberately, refused to shoulder the ' House of Commons Report III, p. 485.