History of British Indian Monopoly.
PAPAVER
somniferum.
23
the Economic Products of India.
HISTORY :
Indian.
Birth of the
British
Monopoly in
1773.
of the Companies continued to trade clandestinely on their own account in
the drug, with the result that a large quantity of adulterated opium was
brought into market. At length, in 1773, an end was put to all disputes
by the Governor of Bengal (Warren Hastings), who assumed, on behalf
of the English East India Company, a monopoly of all the opium produced
in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, promising to the Danes, the Dutch and
the French, a certain quantity of opium annually, to be received by them
from the English Company's agent." " The arrangement with the French
and the Dutch was terminated by the taking of all the possessions in
India and Ceylon, of those nations, in 1793 and 1795. That with the
Danes continued in force for some years later. But the arrangement
with the French was renewed in 1815 by Article 6 of a Convention executed
in London on the 7th of March of that year." By that article the French
were to receive upon requisition duly made opium to the maximum extent
of 300 chests. The right thus conveyed is still exercised by the French
Administration in India. Delivery of the opium is never taken for sale or
consumption in the French settlements ; but on the issue of the notification
of opium sales for the ensuing year, the privilege to receive the 300
chests is put up for sale to the highest bidder. The purchaser is by
means of it able to keep back from sale part of the whole of the reserved
chests, and thus raises the price (a form of opium gambling) at a given
sale. Delivery is rarely taken, and the loss on re-sale (often considerable)
falls upon the British Government. From the remarks below on the opium
Fiscal Administration it will be found that for some years past the right
to this claim, 300 chests, has been sold to the Indian Government for an
annual sum, so the difficulty indicated above has for the present been
overcome.
But to return to the historic facts which bear on the Indian Opium
monopoly, it may be said that from 1773 to 1797 the right to the exclusive
manufacture of opium on account of the Company was sold annually in
the first instance, but from the year 1781 by four-year contracts (see 9th
Report of a Select Committee of the House of Commons, 1783; also Cole-
brooke's Digest of the Regulations, &c. ( Calcutta, 1807 ) , pp. 396 to 423).
" The contracts were disposed of by private bargain and favour till the year
1785, when they were opened to public competition, and were assigned to
the highest bidder. Definite stipulations were thenceforward exacted for
protecting the cultivators from being compelled to grow the poppy, for
securing to them freedom from vexatious imposts, and a fair price for the
raw-juice delivered by them to the contractors, and for the payment by the
contractors of certain charitable allowances. The cultivators, on the other
hand, were made liable to penalties for keeping back the opium produced
by them, and to a deduction of batta (to be assessed by arbitrators) upon
opium with which water had been mixed. Opium delivered by the growers
adulterated otherwise than with water was made liable to confiscation ;
and, under certain conditions, became the property of the contractors, who
were allowed to dispose of it as they pleased, except as part of the Com-
pany's provision. Dealing in opium, contrary to the monopoly, was made
punishable, in the case of British subjects, by forfeiture of the Company's
protection and deportation to Europe; and in the case of other persons, by
fine recoverable ' by the mode of process laid down in the judicial regula-
tions for enforcement of decrees.' " ( Official papers in the Department of
Finance & Commerce. ) Colebrooke ( Remarks: on the Husbandry of
Bengal, Calcutta, 1804, and London, 1806 ) alludes to the system of enforced
cultivation of poppy that seems to have been engendered by the contract
system. The Provincial Council of Revenue also, in a notification on this
subject, expressed their strongest displeasure (1st August 1777) at a high-
Right to
manufacture
farmed.
Evils of the
Contract
system.