A Conflict of Interest

Such a council can command obedience only by the military force with which they are accompanied, and their government is therefore necessarily military and despotical. Their proper business, however, is that of merchants. It is to sell, upon their masters account, the European goods consigned to them, and to buy in return Indian goods for the European market. It is to sell the one as dear and to buy the other as cheap as possible, and consequently to exclude as much as possible all rivals from the particular market where they keep their shop.

The genius of the administration therefore, so far as concerns the trade of the company, is the same as that of the direction. It tends to make government subservient to the interest of monopoly, and consequently to stunt the natural growth of some parts at least of the surplus produce of the country to what is barely sufficient for answering the demand of the company.*

* That is, the Company ran India in such a way as to gratify their own wishes, but made sure that her commerce and industry were not lively enough to support the ambitions of rivals whether in India or in Europe.

Précis
As European merchants, the Company’s duty was to make profits for European clients; but as governors of India, it was to secure India’s economic and social well-being. The Company chose European profits over India’s welfare, leading them to subdue India by military force, and limit India’s economic growth so that European rivals would not be tempted to challenge their monopoly.
Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

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