First Report from the Select Committee on the Affairs of the East India Company.

The beginning of the end for the East India Company.

This was the final large-scale inquiry into the East India Company in China before their monopoly was revoked in 1833. Since the revocation of their monopoly in India twenty years prior, the Company's trading power had been more and more heavily relying on tea exports through which they were able to control prices. The six sessions of the parliamentary Select Committee between February 15th and June 3rd clearly laid out the inadequacies of the Company supplying the potential trade on offer with China and, more importantly, the additional costs upon the British consumer through the inefficiencies associated with the Company. After 1833 the East India Company was a purely administrative body whose army was used as part of the British force in the First Opium War.

Opium was one of the issues raised early on in the sessions, in particular in regards to its legality and whether it therefore laid under the jurisdiction of the Company: 'is not the opium trade in China... entirely an illicit trade?'. Part of the reason for revoking the Company's monopoly was that the stance they had to take in regards to opium, that it was a prohibited product, precluded both themselves and any other private merchants from profiting from a 'trade which is open to the rest of the world'.

The rest of the report is largely concerned with the primary export from China: tea. The charts in the appendices helpfully lay clear the extent of the trade, showing that on average the Company exported nearly 130,000 tonnes of tea to England and America every year, and the duties paid by the Company on tea to the Crown alone exceeded £3,000,000 a year. In large part the inquiry concerned itself with the high prices for the end English consumer resulting from the inefficiencies and protectionist practices inherent in a monopoly. The difference between the cost of tea in America versus England is highlighted, with some teas being double the price in England compared to America, as well as costs of ship production when compared with both America and the Crown. One of the witnesses states that 'the Company has been always anxious to promote the consumption of tea' knowing they would struggle to provide 'an adequate supply for any increased demand'.

Rare in commerce, with none at auction in the last 30 years.

First edition; 4to (34 x 22 cm); numerous tables in text, some very light occasional spotting; later half-calf to style, marbled boards, gilt spine in six compartments with gilt black lettering piece, all edges marbled, a very good copy; xxiii, 500, 173 pp.