British East India Company shareholders. British East India Company. A spawn of military capitalism

Plan
Introduction
1 Operations in India
2 Operations in China
3 Army
4 Company in the feudal system of India
5 Trade
6 Monopoly
7 Sunset of the company

List of references

Introduction

British East India Company (eng. East India Company), until 1707 - English East India Company - joint-stock company, created on December 31, 1600 by decree of Elizabeth I and received extensive privileges for trading operations in India. In fact, the royal decree gave the company a monopoly on trade in India. The company originally had 125 shareholders and a capital of £ 72,000. The company was governed by a governor and a board of directors who was responsible before the shareholders' meeting. The commercial company soon acquired government and military functions, which it did not lose until 1858.

Following the Dutch East India Company, the British also began to list their shares on the stock exchange.

Various names have been used: The Venerable East India Company (eng. Honorable East India Company), "East India Company", "Bahadur Company".

The company also had interests outside India, seeking to provide safe routes to the British Isles. In 1620, she tried to seize Table Mountain in the territory of modern South Africa, and later occupied the island of St. Helena. Piracy was a major concern for the Company, which peaked in 1695 when the pirate Henry Avery captured the Mughal treasure fleet. Company troops kept Napoleon on Saint Helena; its products were attacked by American colonists during the Boston Tea Party, and the Company's shipyards served as a model for St. Petersburg.

The aggressive policy of the Company was expressed in provoking famine in Bengal, the destruction of monasteries in Tibet and the waging of the Opium Wars in China.

1. Operations in India

see also Dutch East India Company, French East India Company, Danish East India Company, Swedish East India Company, Portuguese East India Company

The company was founded in 1600 as the Company of London merchants trading in the East Indies. Its activity in India began in 1612, when the Great Mogul Jahangir allowed the establishment of a trading post in Surat.

In 1612, the company forces inflict a serious defeat on the Portuguese at the Battle of Suvali. In 1640 the local ruler of Vijayanagara authorized the establishment of a second trading post in Madras. In 1647, the company already has 23 trading posts in India. Indian fabrics (cotton and silk) are in incredible demand in Europe. Tea, grain, dyes, cotton, and later Bengal opium are also exported. In 1668 the Company leased the island of Bombay, a former Portuguese colony that had been given to England as a dowry to Catherine of Bragan, who married Charles II. In 1687, the headquarters of the Company in Western Asia was moved from Surat to Bombay. In 1687 the settlement of the Company was founded in Calcutta, after the corresponding permission of the Great Mogul. The expansion of the Company to the subcontinent began; at the same time, the same expansion took place by a number of other European East India Companies - the Dutch, French and Danish.

In 1757, at the Battle of Plessis, the troops of the British East India Company, led by Robert Clive, defeat the troops of the Bengali ruler Siraj-ud-Dole - just a few volleys of British artillery put the Indians to flight. After the victory at Buksar (1764), the company receives divans - the right to rule Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, full control over the Bengal navabacy and confiscates the Bengali treasury (valuables in the amount of 5 million 260 thousand pounds sterling are seized) Robert Clive becomes the first British governor of Bengal. Meanwhile, expansion continued around the bases in Bombay and Madras. The Anglo-Mysore Wars of 1766-1799 and the Anglo-Maratha Wars of 1772-1818 made the Company the dominant power south of the Sutlej River.

The British have monopolized foreign trade Bengal, as well as the most important branches of Bengal intra-Bengal trade. Hundreds of thousands of Bengali artisans were forcibly attached to the company's trading posts, where they had to deliver their products at minimal prices. Taxes have risen sharply. The result was the terrible famine of 1769-1770, which killed between 7 and 10 million Bengalis. In the 1780s and 1790s, famine in Bengal was repeated: several million people died.

For almost a century, the company pursued a ruinous policy in its Indian domains (eng. The great calamity period), which resulted in the destruction of traditional crafts and the degradation of agriculture, which led to the death of up to 40 million Indians from hunger. According to the calculations of the famous American historian Brooks Adams (eng. Brooks adams), in the first 15 years after the annexation of India, the British exported £ 1 billion worth of valuables from Bengal. By 1840, the British ruled most of India. The rampant exploitation of the Indian colonies was the most important source of British capital accumulation and the Industrial Revolution in England.

The expansion took two main forms. The first was the use of so-called subsidiary contracts, essentially feudal - local rulers transferred foreign affairs to the Company and were obliged to pay a “subsidy” for the maintenance of the Company's army. In the event of non-payment, the territory was annexed by the British. In addition, the local ruler undertook to maintain a British official ("resident") at his court. Thus, the company recognized "native states" led by Hindu Maharajas and Muslim Nawabs. The second form was direct rule.

“Subsidies” paid to the Company by local rulers were spent on recruiting troops, which consisted mainly of the local population, so the expansion was carried out by the hands of Indians and with money from Indians. The spread of the system of "subsidiary contracts" was facilitated by the disintegration of the Mughal Empire, which occurred towards the end of the 18th century. De facto, the territory of modern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh consisted of several hundred independent principalities, which were at war with each other.

The first ruler to accept the “subsidiary agreement” was the Nizam of Hyderabad. In some cases, such treaties were imposed by force; so, the ruler of Mysore refused to accept the treaty, but was forced to do so as a result of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War. In 1802, the Maratha Union of Principalities was forced to sign a subsidiary agreement on the following conditions:

1. With the peshwa (first minister), there remains a permanent Anglo-Sipai army of 6 thousand people.

2. A number of territorial districts are annexed by the Company.

3. Peshwa does not sign any contracts without consulting the Company.

4. Peshwa will not declare war without consulting the Company.

5. Any territorial claims of the Peshwa against local principalities must be arbitrated by the Company.

6. Peshwa withdraws claims against Surat and Baroda.

7. Peshwa recalls all Europeans from his service.

8. International affairs are conducted in consultation with the Company.

The strongest opponents of the Company were two states that had formed on the ruins of the Mughal empire - the Maratha Union and the Sikh state. The chaos that followed the death of its founder, Ranjit Singh in 1839, contributed to the defeat of the Sikh empire. Civil strife broke out both between individual Sardars (generals of the Sikh army and de facto large feudal lords) and between the Khalsa (Sikh community) and darbar (court). In addition, the Sikh population experienced tensions with local Muslims, who were often willing to fight under British banners against the Sikhs.

At the end of the 18th century, an active expansion began under Governor General Richard Wellesley; The company captured Cochin (1791), Jaipur (1794), Travancourt (1795), Hyderabad (1798), Mysore (1799), principalities along the Sutlej River (1815), Central Indian principalities (1819), Kach and Gujarat (1819), Rajputan ( 1818), Bahawalpur (1833). The annexed provinces included Delhi (1803) and Sindh (1843). The Punjab, the Northwest Border and Kashmir were captured in 1849 during the Anglo-Sikh Wars. Kashmir was immediately sold to the Dogra dynasty, which ruled in the Jammu principality, and became a "native state". In 1854 Berard was annexed, in 1856 - Aud.

Britain saw the Russian Empire as its competitor in colonial expansion. Fearing the influence of the Russians on Persia, the Company began to increase pressure on Afghanistan, in 1839-1842 the First Anglo-Afghan War took place. Russia established a protectorate over the Bukhara Khanate and annexed Samarkand in 1868, a rivalry for influence in Central Asia began between the two empires, which in the Anglo-Saxon tradition is called the "Great Game".

In 1857 there was a revolt against the British East India campaign, which is known in India as the First War of Independence or the Sepoy Revolt. However, the rebellion was suppressed, and the British Empire established direct administrative control over almost all of South Asia.

2. Operations in China

In 1711, the Company established a sales office in the Chinese city of Canton (Ch. 广州 - Guangzhou) for the purchase of tea. First, tea is bought with silver, then it is exchanged for opium, which is grown on Indian (located mainly in Bengal) plantations owned by the Company.

Despite the Chinese government's 1799 ban on the import of opium, the company continued to smuggle opium at around 900 tons per year. The volume of the Company's Chinese trade was second only to the volume of trade with India. For example, the total cost of a convoy sent to England in 1804, in prices at that time, reached £ 8,000,000. His successful defense was the cause of national celebration.

Most of the money earmarked for the purchase of Chinese tea comes from the opium trade. By 1838, the illegal import of opium had already reached 1,400 tons per year, and the Chinese government introduced the death penalty for smuggling opium.

1 ... English (1600-1858) - private company English. merchants for trade with the East Indies (as in the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe they called India, Southeast Asia and China), which gradually turned into a state. org-tion for managing English. possessions in India. In the 1st floor. 17th century O.-I. k. was an amorphous organization of London merchants who periodically combined capital for bargaining. expeditions to the East Indies. Since 1657 (Cromwell's charter) it became an ac. company with permanent capital. How bargaining. org-tion O.-I. to. sold in Asian countries and exported to Europe ind. goods - hl.-boom. and silk fabrics, raw silk, indigo, opium, sugar, saltpeter, etc. After the duration. fight against competitors - Portugal, Goll. and French. East India Companies, eng. private traders - and after a series of clashes with the Indus. rulers (expulsion of the British from Bengal - 1687-1690, the siege of Bombay by Mongol troops - 1690, etc.) to. succeeded in the 17th century. create a network of trading posts in India and several. fortified strongholds (Madras, Bombay, Calcutta, etc.). In the 2nd floor. 17th century O.-I. K. received from the English. pr-va a number of prerogatives of the state. authorities: the right to declare war and conclude peace in Oet-India, to rule over their army and navy, to mint coins, to establish courts-martial. In 1708, she received a monopoly on trade with the East Indies. In 1717 O.-I. K. obtained from the Great Mogul Farrukhsiyar a firman for duty-free trade and tax collection in part of Bengal. As a result, it lasts. wars eng. O.-I. K. defeated the French. O.-I. to. and to ser. 18th century became the only contender for the columns. domination in India. After the Battle of Plessis (1757), Bengal actually became the possession of O.-I. j. After the Battle of Buksar (1764), Bihar and Orissa were also captured. In the end. 18th century as a result of the Anglo-Mysore wars O.-I. to. captured Yuzh. India, made Mysore and Hyderabad their tributaries. By 1818 the North were subordinated. India and Maharashtra (see Anglo-Maratha Wars). The last independent ind. state - the state of the Sikhs in the Punjab - was annexed in 1849 (see Anglo-Sikh Wars). After the capture of the Indus. territories of ch. means of enrichment O.-I. since it was no longer trade, but the direct exploitation of ind. peasants by collecting land. tax. To enhance the exploitation of O.-I. K. carried out the restructuring of the agr. relations in India (see Zamindari, Rayyatvari). Urban craft began to go bankrupt as a result of English competition. goods. Indian merchants fell into the position of dependent junior partners. The looted O.-I. because in India, the capital played a large role in the successful completion of the industrial. revolution in England. O.-I. K. prepared the transformation of India into a sales market and a source of raw materials for the English. prom-sti. From ser. 18th century English began to claim to participate in the profits from the exploitation of India. prom. bourgeoisie; she opposed the uncontrolled management of O.-I. because in India. Acts on the Administration of India, adopted by the English. Parliament (see North Bill and Pitt Act 1784), the leadership of O.-I. because it was brought under the control of the English. pr-va, the general-governor of the company's holdings began to be appointed by the prime minister, dividends were limited to 10%; in 1813 the monopoly of the company's trade with India was abolished. An Act of Parliament 1833 O.-I. k. was abolished as a bargain. organization. Finally, in 1858, in conditions of exacerbation of internal political. the situation in India, which resulted in the Indian popular uprising of 1857-59, O.-I. k. was liquidated, and India was directly subordinate to the Secretary of State (Minister) for India and the English. Viceroy (1858-1947). Lit .: K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., Vol. 9, p. 109-10, 130-36, 142-44, 151-60, 203-07, 224-30; Antonova K.A., Eng. the conquest of India in the 18th century, M., 1958; Chicherov A.I., Economic development India before the English. conquest (Craft and trade in the XVI-XVIII centuries), M., 1965; Mukherjee Ft., The rise and fall of the East Indian Company, B., 1958. L.B. Alaev. Moscow. 2 ... (Oost Indische Compagnie) Dutch (Dutch), United O.-I. K., - monopoly bargaining. a company that existed in 1602-1798; ch. tool, with the help of to-rogo niderl. the bourgeoisie, through violence, extortion and conquest, created the Dutch colonial empire. The first companies to trade with overseas countries were established in Holland in the 90s. 16th century By the decision of Gen. states of March 20, 1602, they were merged into O.-I. j. in order to suppress their mutual competition and develop a common policy in overseas trade. The former are independent. the company became its branches (chambers) - 4 in Amsterdam, 2 each in Zeeland and Rotterdam, 1 for Delft and 1 for Horn and Enkhuizen (jointly). Accordingly, the quotas of these chambers were 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 (Delft and Rotterdam together) and 1/8 main. capital O.-I. K., which originally consisted of 6.5 million florins. The cameras were controlled by the collegiums of Ch. shareholders with shares of at least 1000 flams. pounds. A general directorate was established, consisting of 17 directors (including 8 from Amsterdam, 4 from Zeeland). Zone O.-I. k. stretched from the Cape of Good Hope to the Strait of Magellan. Throughout this space, she had a monopoly on trade and navigation, duty-free transportation of goods to the metropolis, the creation of trading posts, fortresses, the recruitment and maintenance of troops, the fleet, the conduct of legal proceedings, the conclusion of the international. contracts, etc., that is, all the rights of state. sovereignty exercised by O.-I. K. on behalf of Gen. states of the republic. Own administration of O.-I. k. was created in 1609 (from 1619, during the governorship of Jan Peterszon Kuhn, with a permanent residence in Batavia). Based on their bargaining. and military. power, O.-I. It expelled the Portuguese, Spaniards and English from the Moluccas, and established trading posts on the coast of India, Ceylon and other places. At the same time O.-I. k. exterminated the local population of entire islands, suppressed the uprisings of the natives, in order to maintain high monopoly prices for the columns. the goods were rapaciously destroyed by thickets of spices. In these ways, O.-I. k. ensured the payment of huge dividends to its shareholders - an average of 18% for the entire period 1602-1798, and in several. times higher in the heyday (mid-17th century). O.-I. because there were the richest merchants from the regency families (its organization was facilitated by Jan Oldenbarnevelt himself), which allowed her not only to arbitrarily rule in the colonies, but also to influence politics and state in the direction she needed. apparatus of the republic. Wars with England and the competition of the English O.-I. K., abuse, predation and corruption of the administration led O. -AND. to. to the decline, which affected especially strongly in the 18th century. As a result, the 4th Anglo-Gaulle. war (1780-84) O.-I. because it lost many trading posts and fortresses. In 1796 her debts amounted to 120 million florins. In 1798 O.-I. k. was liquidated, and all its property and assets passed into the ownership of the Batavian Republic. (The expiration date of the privileges of O.-I. to. Expired on December 31, 1799). Source or T. see at Art. Dutch colonial empire, Indonesia. A. N. Chistozvonov. Moscow. 3 ... French (1664-1719) - bargaining. a company set up at the initiative of Colbert to monopolize trade with India. Received from the French. pr-va monopoly right of navigation and trade in Tikhiy and Indus. oceans. On ind. coast O.-I. to. had several. trading posts (Masulipatam, Mahe, Chandernagor, Calicut, etc.). The center of O.-I. because there was Pondicherry in India. O.-I. k. led by queens. pr-in. Wore a feud. character. Its development was hampered by the petty tutelage of court circles, the regulation of its bargaining. activities of governments. commissioners; in 1700 her privileges were limited by the king. It was later absorbed by the created Low Indus. a company that monopolized almost all of France's overseas trade.

The site reviewer examined the history of the British East India Trading Company, which practically seized control of India, became famous for robbery and abuse, and also made the British Empire one of the most powerful countries in the world.

The British East India Company, like its Dutch company, was actually a state within a state. Having its own army and actively influencing the development of the British Empire, it became one of the most important factors in the brilliant financial position of the state. The company allowed the British to create a colonial empire, which included the pearl of the British crown - India.

Founding of the British East India Company

The British East India Company was founded by Queen Elizabeth I. After winning the war with Spain and defeating the Invincible Armada, she decided to seize control of the trade in spices and other goods brought from the East. The official date of foundation of the British East India Company is December 31, 1600.

For a long time it was called the English East India Company, and became British in the early 18th century. Queen Elizabeth I was among its 125 shareholders. The total capital was 72 thousand pounds. The Queen issued a charter granting the company monopoly trade with the East for 15 years, and Jacob I made the charter indefinite.

The British company was founded earlier than its Dutch counterpart, but its shares went public later. Until 1657, after each successful expedition, income or goods were divided between shareholders, after which it was necessary to invest again in a new journey. The firm was supervised by a council of 24 people and a governor-general. The British at that time had perhaps the best sailors in the world. Relying on her captains, Elizabeth could hope for success.

In 1601, the first expedition headed by James Lancaster went to the Spice Islands. The navigator achieved his goals: he made several trade transactions and opened a trading post in Bantam, and after his return he received the title of knight. From the trip he brought mostly pepper, which was not uncommon, so the first expedition is considered not very profitable.

Thanks to Lancaster, the British East India Company established a rule to prevent scurvy. According to legend, Ser James made the sailors on his ship drink three tablespoons of lemon juice every day. Soon other ships noticed that the crew of the Lancaster Sea Dragon was less sick, and began to do the same. The custom spread to the entire fleet and became another business card of the sailors who served in the company. There is a version that Lancaster forced the crew of his ship to use lemon juice with ants.

There were several more expeditions, and information about them is contradictory. Some sources talk about failures, while others, on the contrary, report about successes. We can say for sure that until 1613, the British were mainly engaged in piracy: the profit was almost 300%, but the local population chose the Dutch from two evils, who tried to colonize the region.

Most of the English goods were of no interest to the local population: thick fabric and sheep's wool were not needed in a hot climate. In 1608, the British first came to India, but mostly robbed merchant ships there and sold the goods received.

This could not go on for long, so in 1609 the company's management sent Sir William Hawkins to India, who was supposed to enlist the support of Padishah Jahangir. Hawkins knew Turkish well and liked the padishah very much. Thanks to his efforts, as well as the arrival of ships under the command of Best, the company was able to create a trading post in Surat.

At the insistence of Jahangir, Hawkins remained in India and soon received the title and wife. There is an interesting legend about this: Hawkins allegedly agreed to marry only a Christian woman, secretly hoping that a suitable girl would not be found. Jahangir, to the general surprise, found a Christian princess in his bride, and even with a dowry - the Englishman had nowhere to go.

East India Company. The story of the great oligarch

The English East India Company (1600 - 1858) is the same age as English capitalism and the English state as a nation state. Historically, it is not much younger than the Mughal Empire. In this company and through it, the histories of England and India, as well as much within these stories themselves, are connected: in English history, the Company seems to unite the reign of two great queens - Elizabeth and Victoria, and in India - two great empires: the Mughal and British. The company was "born" three years before the death of Elizabeth I and during Shakespeare's lifetime, and "died" under Victoria and Dickens, surviving three and a half dynasties (Tudors, Stuarts, Hanoverians and the Cromwell protectorate).

Two and a half centuries is the life of a dynasty or even a state. Actually, for a long time the East India Company was a state within a state, even in two - Great Britain and Mughal India.

The East India Company is a unique organization in human history. This conclusion seems to be an exaggeration only at first glance. History knows many different forms of trade and politics. This is both the "merchant state" (Venice) and "military trade associations" (as M.N. Pokrovsky called the principalities Kievan Rus), and the union of trading cities (Hansa). History knows many powerful states and companies (for example, today's transnational corporations). But in history there is only one case of existence trading company, which at the same time is a political organism, a state-company in a state, as if embodying the motto of Captain Nemo's "Nautilus" - mobile in mobile.

Of course, companies of this type existed not only in England, but also, for example, in Holland (1602 - 1798), France (with reorganizations and interruptions it existed from 1664 to 1794). However, their history does not compare with English. The Dutch East India Company - its heyday in the middle of the 17th century - never had the strength and power that its English "full namesake" possessed, never controlled such vast territories, just as Holland has never occupied such a place in the world economy. like England. As for the French East India Company, firstly, it existed half as long, and secondly, and this is the main thing, it was under the strict control of the state (which was reflected in its constant reorganizations and name changes) and in fact was not an independent agent of the socio-economic process. None of the East India Companies occupied in their colonial empires such a place as the English one, and did not play such a role as this last, in the penetration of the East, and then in the exploitation of the colonies. Apparently, the uniqueness of the English East India Company corresponds to the uniqueness of both English history and the phenomenon that experts in economic history call "Anglo-Saxon capitalism" (J. Gray).

First 150 years

So, on December 31, 1600, a group of London merchants, who received a charter from Queen Elizabeth I for monopoly trade with the East for a period of 15 years, founded the East India Company. For the first two decades, the Company traded with the island Southeast Asia, but then it was replaced by a stronger competitor at that time - the Dutch East India Company, and the British moved their activities to India.

The company consisted of two bodies: a meeting of shareholders and a board of directors headed by a manager. The first trips were funded by subscription: there was no permanent capital. In 1609, James I granted the Company a new charter, which declared the monopoly trade of the Company to be unlimited.

Driving out the weakening Portuguese from India, the British gradually expanded their trade in Asia. The company bought malay pepper and Indian cotton fabrics for silver and sold them in Europe (primarily continental), receiving more silver for them (which was poured into Europe from Spanish Mexico).

The relationship between the Company and the English monarchy was mutually beneficial. The company needed royal charters and diplomatic support in the East, and in return it provided large "loans" to the crown.

In 1657 a very important change took place in the history of the Company. Cromwell gave the Company a charter that turned it into a permanent capital organization. The change of power did not bring anything bad to the Company. On the contrary, after the restoration, she received from the crown the island of St. Helena and Bombay. In 1683, the state granted the Company the right of admiralty jurisdiction, and three years later allowed the minting of coins in India. The success of the Company could not but arouse envy and hostile actions on the part of its rivals in England - merchants who were exporting English textiles. The latter raised in parliament the question of abolishing the monopoly of the Company and regulating its activities by the state. Having achieved nothing in 1698, they formed an alternative East India Company, however, due to the weakness of the new company and the French threat in the East in 1702 - 1708, the Companies merged.

By the middle of the 18th century, after the victory of Great Britain over France in the Seven Years War, the United Company had become a powerful military-political force in India, or, as one English researcher called it, a "company-state" by analogy with a "nation -state "(nation-state). In 1765, the Company appropriated the right to collect taxes in Bengal. Thus, the trading company became essentially a political state. Taxes crowded out commercial profits, and management crowded out commerce.

Perhaps this was the apotheosis of the Company, crowning the first century and a half of its history, during which support from the British state was increasing. However, by the mid-1760s, the relationship between the Company and the state, or rather the state and the Company, had changed: the Company became too tidbit, besides, "good old England" was changing, and the state needed money. Although the Seven Years' War ended in victory for the British, it severely depleted the treasury. The search for funds made the crown pay attention to the Company. Perhaps no less important was the fact that the Company gradually began to turn into a kind of state in the East, into the state that the famous English historian Macaulay described as "a subject in one hemisphere and sovereign in the other."

"The Great Break"

In 1767 the state, as we said in the times of Ivan the Terrible and as they started talking again at the end of the 20th century, "ran into" the Company: the parliament ordered it to pay 400 thousand pounds a year to the Ministry of Finance annually. In the early 1770s, the Company was on the verge of bankruptcy due to the ruin of Bengal and was forced to ask the government for a loan. However, she had to pay dearly for financial assistance. In 1773, Parliament passed Prime Minister North's Bill, known as the Regulation Act. The state, among other measures aimed at establishing control over the Company, obliged its board of directors to regularly report on the affairs of the Company to the ministries of finance and foreign affairs. India's government was centralized. Government officials were appointed to the posts of three of the four advisers to the Calcutta Governor-General.

North's Act was a compromise between the government and the Company. This was vividly shown in the ensuing struggle between Governor General Hastings and Councilor Francis. Although Francis, who defended the interests of the state within the Company, was defeated in this struggle, the Company eventually found itself unable to resist the pressure of both parties in parliament and lost its political independence. In 1784, the Pitt Act was passed, establishing a government oversight council for Indian affairs and giving the governor-general - now a de facto protégé of the state - full power in India. The Pitt Act formalized the relationship between the British state and the East India Company as unequal partners in the government of India for more than 70 years. The company retained its independence only in the field of trade.

Conflict at the Calcutta Council

It often happens in history that a private conflict, in which personal ambitions play an important role, not only becomes an expression of opposing socio-political tendencies, but also determines certain impersonal tendencies, sometimes in a very bizarre way. Such was the case in the 1774 Calcutta council of the conflict between the Bengali governor-general Hastings and his adviser Francis, who was a government protege.

One of the most important points of their disagreement was the question of political governance India. Francis felt it necessary to cancel political power Companies and proclaim the sovereignty of the British crown over the English possessions in India (which was done in 1858). The restored Nawab of Bengal would now have to rule on behalf of the English king. Hastings, as a representative of the Company, advocated the preservation of the Company's power in India, and his position in the specific situation of the late 18th century was more realistic, since the annexation of Indian territories by Britain could lead it to an armed conflict with other European powers that had interests in the East.

History has shown that Hastings was right in terms of short-term consequences, although in the long-term, in a different era, at the peak of British hegemony in the world, the "Francis Agenda" was implemented. Another point of dispute between Hastings and Francis was the issue of land management and tax collection. According to the Governor-General's plan, the ransom system introduced by him was to be replaced by the old Mughal system. However, Francis's plan, carried out in 1793, historically won: the zamindars were endowed with the right of private property, depriving all the previous rights of the peasants and reducing them to the position of tenants.

Hastings and Francis also argued over the Company's foreign policy in India. If Hastings played for active participation Companies in the political events of Hindustan, concluding subsidiary agreements with the Indian princes, Francis called for non-intervention, and linked this with the plan to expand British power in India. In his opinion, Great Britain should only annex Bengal, and control the rest of India through the Delhi Mogul. However, at that time such a plan was unrealistic: the British were not yet clearly the dominant power in India.

And these conflicting views were reconciled further development... They formed the basis of complementary and alternating, depending on the circumstances, political strategies of the first half of the 19th century: conquest and the "policy of laissez-faire." Thus, in the disputes and struggles of individuals, on the one hand, and the state and the Company, on the other, the strategies of the future were forged and worked out. The decisive period of this development was a little over a decade between 1773 and 1784. This same time was the culmination of the confrontation between the Company and the state; a balance of power was achieved in it: North's act had already laid the foundation for the subordination of the Company to the state, but Francis was defeated in the fight against Hastings, and another act of parliament was needed to tilt the balance in favor of the state.

The last circle

UK development during and after industrial revolution led to a clash of interests between the Company and the emerging English industrial bourgeoisie, to a further offensive by the state. The milestones of this offensive were three Acts of Charter - 1793, 1813 and 1833. The East India Company Charter Act of 1793 was another compromise between the Company and its opponents, with the role of arbiter in the confrontation, naturally, played by the state. A "regulated monopoly" was established: the state obliged the Company to provide some of its ships at reasonable freight rates to private merchants for trade with India.

By the Charter Act of 1813, Parliament, under pressure from British industrialists and shipowners, abolished the Company's monopoly on trade with India altogether. This cancellation was demanded by both the logic of the industrial development of the "workshop of the world" and the need to resist the continental blockade organized by Napoleon. State interference in administrative sphere Companies: Parliament has clearly prescribed to the Company how it should manage the government revenues of the Asian country it controls. The Crown's approval of senior Company officials in India has dramatically expanded the government's area of \u200b\u200bpower at the expense of the Company’s area of \u200b\u200btheir joint management of India.

The Charter Act of 1833 abolished the Company's last monopoly on trade with China. The logic of the development of relations between the state and the Company led to the prohibition by the Parliament of the Company to engage in trade in India, that is, for what the Company was once established.

TO mid XIX century East India Company was doomed. She was a political-economic centaur, and the time of these "organizational beings" had passed - they had no place in the world of industry and nation states.

In the three quarters of a century (less one year), which separates 1784 and 1858, England has turned from a pre-industrial country into a "workshop of the world." As a form of organization of commercial, pre-industrial capitalism, the Company was inadequate to industrial capitalism, its era, and its political and economic structures. It is only natural that the institutions and organizations of the pre-industrial era should have gone with it, as happened with the East India Company. The fact that in the XVII-XVIII centuries was a force and was the main victory of the East India Company, namely: a rather organic (for that time) unity, a combination of political and trade-economic functions in its activity, became the reason for its weakening and death.

In a sense, the degree of freedom and privilege of the East India Company can be considered a measure of the underdevelopment of English capital as, in Marxist language, a formational, English state as a bourgeois and English society as a class society in the capitalist sense of the word. The development of the bourgeois state and society in England, the growing isolation of society and the state, the divergence of administrative management and business management ("Lane's law") - all this reduced the "living space" of the Company.

Why a company-state if there is a nation-state? Being the bearer of administrative functions, which in a mature capitalist society are the monopoly of the state as the personifier of the functions of capital, the East India Company turned out to be something like an alternative or parallel state structurethat in the middle of the 19th century, of course, was an anachronism to be destroyed.

In 1853, wide circles of the British bourgeoisie demanded the liquidation of the Company as a political institution - the British instrument of government in India - and the annexation of India. However, the parliament limited itself only to further reforming the Company. The Charter Act of 1853 was an example of government intervention in the internal structure of the Company: the number of directors was reduced. Moreover, the Company (board of directors) has partially - by a third - ceased to be itself. It became a ministry by one third, since now 6 of 18 directors were appointed by the crown.

It is difficult to say how long the veteran Company would have lasted if not for the circumstances - the Sipai uprising of 1857-1859, one of the reasons for which was the activities of the Company's officials.

In 1858, the Indian Government Act was passed, which completed the history of the East India Company as a political institution. This act proclaimed the sovereignty of the British crown over India. After that, the Company existed until 1873, but only as a purely commercial organization. Together with the Company (now a company), a whole era passed, but contemporaries hardly noticed this: the Franco-Prussian war, the Communards in Paris, Russia's refusal to comply with the terms of the Paris Peace of 1856, the abdication of the Spanish king Amadeus and the declaration of the first republic in Spain, the collapse on the Vienna Stock Exchange and the onset of the US economic crisis, which opened the Great Depression of 1873 - 1896 - the global economic crisis that undermined the hegemony of Great Britain.

In short, in the early 1870s, the world had no time for the East India Company, this relic of the past. The world, unknowingly, entered an era that would end in 1914 and become a watershed between two "short" centuries - XIX (1815 - 1873) and XX (1914 - 1991). This era began as the era of imperialism, the era of the final formation of colonial empires by nation states. In this era, the nation states were the main actor, the main monopolist, who, on the whole, successfully fought against private monopolies.

Is the East India Company a memory of the future?

However, this was until the 1950s, when transnational corporations (TNCs) began to gain strength, which gradually began to squeeze the state, including the British. Only a century has passed since his victory over his "transnational" rival subject, and new transnational competitors have emerged, perhaps more serious than the Venerable Company.

With all the surface of the analogies, it can be said that between the East India Company and modern transnational corporations there is a certain similarity: in one way or another, they are all associated with a monopoly, represent a challenge to the national state and national sovereignty, combine political and economic forms of activity. In a sense, we can say that TNCs are taking revenge from the state as an institution for the East India Company. TNK is not the only competitor of the state in the current "postmodern" world. There are others. These are supranational associations such as the European Union and ASEAN, this is the "region-economy" (K. Omae), that is, zones that arise within one state (São Paulo region in Brazil, Lombardy in Italy), at the junction of two (Languedoc region - Catalonia) or even three (Penang - Medan - Phuket region) states and representing completely integrated units of production and consumption with a population of 20-30 million. Finally, these are the so-called "gray zones", that is, areas not controlled by the legal authorities (various "drug triangles", zones of self-reproducing inter-tribal conflicts, etc.).

In a world in which the state is increasingly becoming only a cartographic reality, an increasing role is played by political and economic "centaurs", more precisely - neo-centaurs, structures of the type that more or less successfully competed with the nation state in the 16th - 18th centuries, at the dawn of Modernity , and lost to him in the first half of the 19th century. Now they appear like shadows from the past, but the shadows are quite material. From this point of view, the phenomenon and history of the English East India Company get a completely modern sound and become relevant. Venerable Company as a memory of the future? Why not. Its four hundredth anniversary, which fell on the last day of the century and the millennium, is a good occasion to reflect on this.

English merchants, who formed the East India Company in 1600, sought to gain access to Eastern goods that were in demand in Europe. These were Indian fabrics, malay pepper, dyes, tea, grain. If Elizabeth I granted the company the right to a trade monopoly in the East for 15 years, then Jacob I made this privilege indefinite.

The 18th century opened up a new way of getting rich quick for Europeans - opium. The opium poppy, from which the drug was obtained, was grown in India. The finished potion was sold in neighboring China. In 1799, the authorities of the Celestial Empire imposed a ban on the opium trade, and later completely introduced the death penalty.

Chinese opium smokers. (Pinterest)

The draconian laws did not stop the company - it took up smuggling. The British government tacitly supported this illegal activity. Expanding trade led to two Opium Wars in 1839-1842 and 1856-1860. Qing China lost every time, made economic concessions, set preferential customs tariffs and paid gigantic indemnities.

Other important items of export from India to Europe for the company were satin, taffeta, silk, saltpeter, coffee, rice, indigo, etc. Due to frequent famines, plantations were established in the colonies. In great demand tea was used in the metropolis and its American dominions. In 1773, a cargo of tea belonging to the East India Company was destroyed during a protest against the actions of the British government in Boston Harbor. This episode ("Boston Tea") was the impetus for the start of the American Revolution and the US War of Independence.

How things were with European competitors

The British East India Company was not the only one of its kind. There were similar organizations in Holland and France. However, it was the English experience that proved to be the most successful. The French company was completely dependent on the state, the Dutch expansion stopped in the middle of the 17th century, and later it ceded the Indian market to British competitors.

The irony is that the British were originally interested in the islands of Southeast Asia. But it was precisely because of the Dutch that they failed to gain a foothold in the disputed region. The ousted British company reoriented to India. There she earned her fabulous capital.

How India became British

East India trading post in Bengal, 1795. (Pinterest)

The first possession of the Venerable Company (as it was sometimes called) was a trading post at Surat in western India. The trading settlement took hold of the British in 1612 after the victory over the Portuguese at the Battle of Suvali. The Portuguese colonial empire was never able to stop the onslaught of its opponents in India. In 1668, she also leased Bombay to the company, where the headquarters of the organization was soon moved.

The largest Indian state proper at that time was the Mughal Empire. In the Child's War (1686-1690), the British were defeated. However, already in the first half of the 18th century, due to internal contradictions, the previously monolithic empire began to disintegrate by itself. The map of India began to look like a patchwork quilt. The disunited feudal princes could no longer stop the expansion of the trading company, which looked more and more like a military-political force.

The Seven Years' War (1756 - 1763) was fought not only in continental Europe, but also in the colonies. In India, the interests of the British clashed with those of the French. The victory here again remained with the British company. Having finally got rid of European competitors, it established control over Bengal, an area in eastern India and in modern Bangladesh.

The end of the East India Company was not caused by indigenous rebellions or losses. She could not stand the pressure of her own state. For many years, the crown and the joint stock company coexisted on the principle of mutual benefit. The company received a monopoly and support at the diplomatic level from the state, and the government had a convenient buffer in the east, which brought in revenues and made it possible to avoid direct annexation of native principalities.

Everything changed after the Seven Years War. The large-scale conflict was not in vain: the British treasury was depleted. Meanwhile, the company continued to grow rich. In 1765, in addition to exclusive trade privileges, she received the right to collect Bengali taxes and began to fulfill the role of a colonial administration.

London headquarters of the East India Company in the TV series Taboo. (Pinterest)

The organization has reached the pinnacle of its power and influence. But by its very nature it was the product of the capitalism of the pre-industrial economy. Meanwhile, the industrial revolution began in the metropolis. Moreover, the number of opponents of the East India monopoly increased in London.

In 1773, the Regulation Act was passed by Parliament. Now the company was required to report to the ministries of foreign affairs and finance. 20 years later, part of its fleet went to independent merchants. Finally, on July 1, 1813 (when the war with Napoleon was still going on, and the country survived the continental blockade), the company's trade monopoly was abolished. At the same time, the authorities were taking away more and more levers of internal government in India, depriving the "state within the state" of administrative functions.

The British East India Company is unique in that it was an alternative to the state in India. Independent management of the colonies, the replacement of trade profits with tax revenues - all this ran counter to the interests of the authorities who were building the largest power of their time.

1858 is the year of the adoption of the Indian Government Act. The document declared that the country was now under the sovereignty of the crown. The inhabitants of the subcontinent became subjects of Victoria. The act came about at the height of the Sepoy revolt. Although it was suppressed by the colonial administration, the discontent of local residents with extortions and other adversities showed an obvious failure of the company's policy. It has completely outlived its usefulness as an administrative institution. And her economic solutions (for example, the massive introduction of in-line production of fabrics) led to the decline of entire industries. In the future, the organization existed exclusively as a commercial one. It was liquidated in 1874.