ADMINISTRATION AND FINANCE OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 43
Was it unselfish regard for the natives that dictated the policy of obtaining, upholding and extending British dominion in the East, by means of taxes raised in India, in opposition to the rule obtaining in all other British dependencies, of providing for the costs of their military defence from the British Exchequer ? And lastly, were the arrangements for defraying what is styled “the home charges,” out of the Indian revenues, under which nearly one hundred millions sterling of taxes collected in India, have been transferred to Great Britain in the course of the present century, devised for the purpose of benefiting the people of India alone ? Let the candid reader thoughtfully and conscientiously answer these questions for himself, and then say whether British interest as well as Indian interests have not had a share in determining the course of our Indian policy.”
All the arguments legal and humanitarian failed to win the day. The English Parliament flatly refused to share in the Indian Debt which created the acquisition of the Empire. The entire heavy load of the debt of the East India Company amounting to £ 69,473,484—mostly unproductive—was placed on the shoulders of the poverty-stricken natives who had no voice in the doings of the Company. This was not all : the unfortunate mutiny had cost £ 40,000,000, and as a legitimate expenditure for the acquisition of an empire, England in justice ought to have paid the cost of the mutiny. John Bright who often expoused the cause of the Indian tax-payers appealed to the Parliament saying “that the forty millions which the revolt will cost is a grievous burden to place upon the people of India. It has come from the mismanagement of the Parliament and the people of England. If every man had what was just, no doubt that forty millions would have to be paid out of the taxes levied upon the people of this country (England).”
The practical outcome of these unjust arrangements was that the people of India purchased the empire at many millions for the debt was only a part of the cost, and made an offering of it to the British Crown : in other words, the Empire was either a gift or a trust.