1 It is an easy assumption that this export trade from India was killed by the development of machinery
in England. We can hardly doubt that this cause would have killed it in time. But it was not left to any
such lingering and natural death. Much time would be required to trace the whole of this episode of
“ancient history.” But it is certain that this Indian trade was not killed by natural causes: it was killed by
prohibitory duties. These duties were so high in 1783 that they were declared to operate as a premium
on smuggling, and they were reduced to 18 per cent. ad valorem. In the year 1796–97 the value of
piece-goods from India imported into England was £2,776,682, or one-third of the whole value of the
imports from India, which was £8,252,309. And in the sixteen years between 1793–4 and 1809–10 (inclusive)
the imports of Indian piece-goods amounted in value to £26,171,125.
In 1799 the duties were
raised. I need not give details, but will come down to 1814, just before the close of the war, when they
were, I believe, at a maximum. The duties then, on “plain white calicoes,” were:—
| £ | s. | d. | | Warehouse
duty . . | 4 | 0 | 0 per cent. | | War enhancement . . | 1 | 0 | 0 „ | | Customs duty . . | 50 | 0 | 0 „ | | War enhancement . . | 12 | 10 | 0 „ | | Total | 67 | 10 | 0 per cent.
on value. |
There was an Excise duty upon British manufactured and
printed goods of 3½d. per square yard, and of twice that amount on foreign (Indian) calico and muslin
printed in Great Britain, and the whole of both duty and excise upon such goods was recoverable as
drawback upon re-exportation. But on the exportation of Indian white goods there was no drawback
recoverable; and stuffs printed in India were at this time, so far as we can discern, not admitted through
the English Custom-house at all until 1826, when they were admitted on a duty of 3½d. per square yard.
(See
in the Statutes, 43 Geo. III. capp. 68, 69, 70; 54 Geo. III. cap. 36; 6 Geo. IV. cap. 3; also Macpherson’s
Annals of Commerce, iv. 426).
In Sir A. Arbuthnot’s publication of Sir T. Munro’s Minutes (Memoir, p.
cxxix.) he quotes a letter of Munro’s to a friend in Scotland, written about 1825, which shows him surprisingly
before his age in the matter of Free Trade, speaking with reference to certain measures of Mr. Huskisson’s.
The passage ends thus: “India is the country that has been worst used in the new arrangements. All
her products ought undoubtedly to be imported freely into England, upon paying the same duties, and
no more, which English duties [? manufactures] pay in India. When I see what is done in Parliament
against India, I think that I am reading about Edward III. and the Flemings.”
Sir A. Arbuthnot adds very
appropriately a passage from a note by the late Prof. H. H. Wilson in his continuation of James Mill’s
History of India (1845, vol. i. pp. 538–539), a passage which we also gladly insert here:
“It was stated in
evidence (in 1813) that the cotton and silk goods of India, up to this period, could be sold for a profit in
the British market at a price from 50 to 60 per cent. lower than those fabricated in England. It consequently
became necessary to protect the latter by duties of 70 or 80 per cent. on their value, or by positive
prohibition. Had this not been the case, had not such prohibitory duties and decrees existed, the mills of
Paisley and of Manchester would have been stopped in their outset, and could hardly have been again
set in motion, even by the powers of steam. They were created by the sacrifice of the Indian manufactures.
Had India been independent, she would have retaliated; would have imposed preventive duties upon
British goods, and would thus have preserved her own productive industry from annihilation. This act
of self-defence was not permitted her; she was at the mercy of the stranger. British goods were forced
upon her without paying any duty; and the foreign manufacturer employed the arm of political injustice to
keep down and ultimately strangle a competitor with whom he could not contend on equal terms.”
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