ABSTRACT OF EAST INDIA ANNUAL ACCOUNTS, 1829-continued. £. To Bills of Exchange unpaid, from India and St. Helena, drawn on Political and Territorial Account Unclaimed Prize-Money applicable to Lord Clive's Fund, bearing in- The Commercial Branch, for Territorial and Political Payments made in England, between 1st May 1814 and 1st May 1829...... H.M.'s Government, due per Estimate on account Pay Office and Amount owing for Commercial Exports, ...............po.. Amount due to Trustees of the Deccan Booty, on Consignments of Assets in favour ABSTRACT OF EAST INDIA ANNUAL ACCOUNTS, 1829-continued. CASH REMAINING IN THEIR TREASURY, AND OTHER EFFECTS APPERTAINING TO THE OUTWARDS, ONиTHE ›ÌŠT ~ MAY 1829.^ TERRITORIAL BRANCH. ASSETS. By Exports of Military Stores, &c. shipped in Season 1828-29, with 587,441 520,618 LES 15,811 Cargoes from England of Season 1827-28, not arrived in India, &c. 34,037 Value of College at Haileybury, and Military Seminary at Addiscombe. 177,220 Balances in hands of Officers of the House, , &c. ...... 3,670 £1,381,158 BRANCH. By what due from Public to Company, Aunuities engrafted on the 3 per Cargoes from England of 1827-28, not arrived at Close of Official 641,984 Exports shipped in Season 1828-29, with Amount unshipped 1st May 1829 1 754,021 Impress paid Owners of Ships not arrived in England ........ 92,957 178,199 1,294,768 Owing from sundry Persons for Advances... 6,333 Balances in hands of the Officers of House and Warehouse-keepers 1829.... Stock in Public Funds, standing in Company's name Due from H.M.'s Government, for Advances at the Cape * Memoranda: *10,640,172 760,942 18,203 £23,161,325 This Balance is subject to reduction, by the Amount of the Advances made in India from the Territorial Branch to the Commercial Branch, in the Indian Official Years 1827-28 and 1828-29; the Documents, whereby the Amount of these Advances is to be ascertained, have not as yet been received from India, but which, it is estimated, may amount to £5,908,942; which will leave a Balance due to the Commerce, of £4,731,230, including interest. In the period from 1st May 1814 to 1st May 1829, there has also been advanced or set apart from the Surplus Commercial Profits in England, the sum of £4,923,020 towards the liquidation of Indian Territorial Debt, which being a payment under the 4th head of Appropriation of the 57th Section of the 53d Geo. 3d, is not held to constitute a claim upon the Territorial Department for re-payment, upon the principle ob. served in respect to other Territorial Advances. The Home Bond Debt is stated without specific application to either branch of the Company's Affairs, it not being determined to what extent the Debt had its origin from political causes. OBSERVATIONS ON THE AFOREGOING ACCOUNTS. From these official accounts, the attentive reader will be enabled to collect a tolerable idea of the state of the Company's affairs, political and commerIcial, which will qualify him to judge of the honesty of those writers and declaimers who represent them as insolvent. The Bengal accounts for 1827 (the last founded on actual returns) shew a net revenue (exclusive of interest on debt) in that presidency of £2,865,533, which is an increase of nearly two millions and a half beyond the net revenue of the preceding year. It must be candidly admitted, that of this increase somewhat more than half a million results from the payments by the Burmese under the treaty of peace of 1826. The estimate for the succeeding year (1828) calculates upon a still further increase in the net revenues of Bengal ; for the Burmese payments amounted in that year to but £173,795. It will be perceived that the augmentation in 1827 took place in almost all the items of revenue, shewing a universal tendency to improvement. The falling off in the customs was in the Oude ceded provinces, where there was a defalcation to the amount of two lacs of rupees. The charges, it will be seen, have been reduced, in 1827, £742,980 since the preceding year. In Madras, the revenues are now exceeding the charges, which has not been the case for several years prior to 1826, when the surplus of net revenue was £10,086, which increased in 1827 to £423,734, caused by a considerable sum received as net profits of the bank at Madras, of which the Government are sole proprietors, from 1805, the date of its institution, to 1827; a sum of five lacs of rupees being still reserved to meet contingent losses. But for a falling off in the revenues from the Carnatic, Tanjore, and the ceded and conquered provinces, of about £300,000 (the special causes of which we are not aware of, and which was recovered, according to estimate, in the following year), the finances of Madras in 1827 would have exhibited an almost unexampled picture of prosperity. In Bombay, which is still, of necessity, a charge upon the Company's territorial finances, the increase in the gross revenue in 1827, amounts to £326,590, and the diminution of the charge to £31,609, making an improvement in the finances of £358,199, as compared with the accounts of the preceding year. A further improvement in the gross revenue and further diminution of the charge are calculated to take place the succeeding year. The items augmented are the customs and land revenues, the sources most connected with internal prosperity. Notwithstanding the diminution of the aggregate charges, there is an increase in the judicial charges in the Mahratta provinces of £47,925, which, though it diminishes, pro tanto, the revenue of the presidency, is an expenditure for the benefit of the natives of these particular provinces. Even the revenues of the incorporated settlements to the eastward, and those of St. Helena (which are necessarily charges upon the Company's finances, for specific objects), shew a tendency to improvement. The general result is, that whereas in 1825-26, the net revenue of our Indian empire* (exclusive of debt), owing to the heavy expenses of the war in Ava, was £1,353,271 less than the charge; in the succeeding year, the last for which accurate returns can be furnished from India, the net revenue. exceeded the charge by £1,809,386; in other words, the Company's political finances improved in one year upwards of three millions sterling. *Exclusive of Saint Helena. From From this favourable view of the financial condition of our eastern empire, one small drawback is the increase in the debts, to the extent of about a million; notwithstanding which, after paying the interest upon the whole debt, the augmentation of which was the necessary consequence of the great outlay for objects connected with the political interests of this country, there is still a surplus revenue (exclusive of St. Helena), applicable to the reduction of the debt. Before we proceed to give an analysis of the home account, for the purpose of shewing, as far as practicable, the state of the Company's commercial concerns, connected as they unavoidably are with those of their Indian territories, we shall lay before our readers a few of the items which constitute the charges upon the revenues of India in 1826-1827, in order that they may see the extraordinary expenditure which the Company are forced to incur.* Under Bengal, the embassies to the native courts, including Persia, cost £252,403; the mission to Siam, £7,965; amounting together to £260,368. The subsidy paid to the King of Persia is £83,316. For the College of Fort William and contributions to public instruction was expended £75,887. Loans for improvements, and advances to merchants, writers, and others, amounted to £191,355, which is hardly to be considered as a charge upon the revenues, since the sum is repayable. For the improvement of cities, towns, &c. £23,425. Stipends and allowances to native princes £399,004. Again: at Madras, we find £31,187 expended for charitable institutions; £369,886 for native princes, &c. At Bombay, the charitable allowances amount to £123,878; repairs to roads and bridges £24,015; native princes, £33,243. Here, then, is an aggregate of expenditure, amounting to a million and a half, without touching the ordinary expenses of government.. We come now to the home account. It is obvious, upon an examination of the nature of those accounts, that they cannot afford per se a definite idea of the Company's commercial concerns (which they are not required to disclose), mixed and blended as they unavoidably are with receipts and payments of a political character. The balance in favour on the 1st May 1828 was £312,638; that on the 1st May 1829 was £1,081,563. The great difference arises from a receipt of £629,697 remitted in bullion from India on the territorial and political account. This sum is therefore of the nature of an additional surplus of territorial revenue, though part of it may, perhaps, be hereafter, remitted back to India in the shape of bills of exchange drawn from thence and paid at home. We observe that the balance in favour for the current year, ending 1st May 1830, is estimated at £569,691. It appears that there has been a slight fluctuation in the respective amounts of home debts and assets in the year ending 1st May 1829, as compared with the year preceding. Both debts and assets have decreased, but not in the same proportion: the assets in favour in 1828 were £7,900,088; and in 1829, £7,451,213. The state of the East-India Company's commercial concerns may, however, be shewn with an approximation to accuracy, in the following manner, for the year 1826-1827, the last for which we are provided with exact returns from India; combining these accounts with those presented in 1827. 1826 It is proper to state, that we have, for the sake of convenience, converted the money in the succeeding items into sterling at the rate of 2s. the rupee, though they are given in the accounts in the rupces of the respective presidencies, namely, the Calcutta sicca rupee, the Madras rupee, and the Bombay rupee. The difference is of little importance to the object in view. 1826-27...Commercial Assets in India and at Home Commercial Debt in India and at Home..KOITAUX2,413,883 £25,780,163 £23,366,280 £19,570,388 Lokanyard buni, paso Deduct amount of Bond Debt at Home...3,795,892 odw enczy (se n'owcasi Net Commercial Balance Compare the aforegoing statement with that for 1814-15, bize stu6') 1814-15...Commercial Assets in India and at Home !!!!..!!. €22,787,034TE moto Commercial Debt in India and at Home ..... mis? O prlf to erupig sit otai syrpä ot 2,484,270 Commercial Assets ................. 20,302,764 Deduct amount of Bond Debt at Home 4,487,170 Visomal to damont sit navidad De 1190 90702 38 35ITI ersltozs. I una în 181121,31 bomiNet Commercial Balance............ £15,815,594 Alo netaaxɔ sið Logh b-1909 300 smotuk urts de bos We cannot exhibit more fairly a state of the Company's commercial concerns than by! this comparison; whence it appears that they have improved nearly four millions in the above period, not merely by the accumulation of the assets, but also by the reduction of the debt: the bond debt cannot by law be reduced below £3,000,000. Thus, then, the commercial profits realised by the Company have, increased at the average rate of £312,899 per annum, for the twelve years; and if they do not even falls off fall off till the expiration of their charter in 1834, the commercial balance of the Company at that period, after discharging the bond-debt,, will amount to £21,760,676, to be divided (if the charter be refused) amongst the holders of the six millions of East-India stock, which would be sufficient to pay each proprietor £229, 10s. for his £100 stock (the present market price), and leave, besides a surplus of about eight millions! So much for the impudent assertions respecting the bankruptcy of the East-India Company 41 522 ali z bib, „æstega ka 한 The territorial revenues, which are not answerable for the payment of the dividends on Is on the stock, unless the commercial profits are deficient (an important consideration for those who seek to who seek to destroy the only branch of trade left to the Company), have been rendered, to a certain extent, unproductive, by 31 32 bus 2011gang bis zvejs korvact gi nid vi ood. ma the heavy debt consequent upon the wars in which h the Company have been 1: forced to engage, for national objects, especially the last. That, in other circumstances, the territorial account would have presented an equally favourable view cannot be doubted. The net surplus revenue, applicable to the reduction of the territorial debt, was, in 1820-21, £3,649,086; in 1821-22 it had increased to £4,087,592; and in 1822-23 it underwent a further augmentation, and advanced to £4,902,784. In the following year, the war with Ava commenced, which reduced the surplus revenue to £2,191,104, which continued to decrease till, instead of a balance of revenue, in 1825-26 there was a balance of charge, amounting to £1,353,271, exclusive of the interest on the debt. In 1826 the Burmese war ended, and that drain upon the Indian finances ceasing, there was a surplus revenue, in 1826-27, of £1,809,385. Had the war not occurred, and had the revenue merely remained stationary since the year 1822-23, when the territorial debt in India was £36,839,659, and the surplus then realized, £4,902,784, had been applied to the reduction of the territorial debt, that debt would have been now nearly extinguished.-- .. These statements are founded not upon private or unpublished data; they are deduced from the official accounts laid annually before Parliament, printed, and therefore accessible to all. It is not too much, therefore, to call upon the public to be upon their guard: impostors are abroad. |