Fox India
Bill of 1783
 |
Fox India
Bill (1783)
|
In
November 1783, Fox introduced his famous bill in India. The bill proposed to
abolish the Court of Directors and the Court of Proprietors and abolish the
Court of Directors and the Court of proprietors and set up two bodies. Seven
commissioners or Directors were to administer the revenues and territories of
India. They were to appoint or dismiss ll persons in the service of the
Company. They were to be named in the Act and were to be irremovable except on
an address from either House of Parliament. Vacancies were to be filled by the
Crown. The commissioners were to sit in London and Parliament was to have
opportunity to inspect the minutes of their proceedings. Nine Assistant
Directors were to be nominated in the Act from the proprietors with the largest
holding in the Company. They were to be appointed for five years and vacancies
were to be filled by the court of Proprietors.
According
to Fox, his bill “was the only possible means of averting and preventing the
final and complete destruction of the Company’s interests.” According to
Malcolm, the seven Commissioners were “to act like trustees to a bankrupt house
of commerce.” For maintained that his
Bill “was a child not of choice, but of necessity.” The mixed system of Government was suited to
the mixed complexion of British interests in India. He contended that “the
Indian people in spite of every exertion both of the legislature and Court of
Directors, groan under the scourge, the extortion and the massacre, of a cruel
and desperate man whom, in my conscience and from my heart, I detest and
execrate."
Burke
gave a brilliant speech in support of the bill. He maintained that “Our Indian
Government is in its best state a grievance.”
He described the Government of the Company as “one of the most corrupt
and destructive tyrannies that probably ever existed in the world.” There is not a single prince, state or
potentate, great or small in India, with whom they have not come into contact,
whom they have not sold. There is not a single treaty they have ever made which
has not been broken. There is not a single prince or state, who ever put any
trust in the company who is not utterly ruined. According to him, the servants
of the Company were “animated with all the avarice of age, and all the
impetuosity of youth, they roll in one after another, wave after wave, and
there is nothing before the eyes of the natives but endless, hopeless prospect
of new flights of birds of prey and passage with appetites continually renewing
for a food that is continually wasting. Their prey is lodged in England, and
the cries of India are given to seas and winds to be blown about in every
breaking up of the monsoon, over a remote and unhearing ocean.”
It is to
be noted that the Bill was passed by the House of Commons by 208 votes to 108
votes. However, it was defeated in the House of Lords on account of the
interference of George III. George III made it clear in a letter that whoever
voted for the Bill was “not only not his friend, but his enemy.” Another cause
of the defeat of the Bill was the tremendous unpopularity of Fox and North. Instead
of discussing the merits of the bill, the opponents stressed the coalition of
Fox and north. According to Pitt, the Bill was “one of the boldest, most
unprecedented, most desperate and alarming attempts at the exercise of tyranny
that ever disgraced the annals of this or any other country.” According to
Grenville, the object of the Bill was “no less than to erect a despotic system
which might crush the free Constitution of England.” According to Jenkinson,
the bill was “setting up withing the realm a species of executive Government,
independent of the check or control of the Crown.” Wilberforce compared the
seven Directors and eight Assistant Directors to seven Physicians and eight apothecaries
who had come to put the patient to death. Fox answered his critics in these
worlds: “I risk my all upon the excellence of this Bill, I risk upon it
whatever is most dear tome, whatever men most value, the character, integrity,
talents, honour, present reputation and future fame, and that ever else is
precious to me. I strike upon the constitutional safety, the enlarged policy,
the equality and the wisdom of this measure.” Fox made a mistake in not
consulting the English East India Company which was vitally interested in the measure
and it is no wonder that the company also opposed the Bill tooth and nail.
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