And the witness added that forty years before (about 1800) the East India Company brought raw silk from India, and sold it in England to be manufactured in England. Now the Company were "indifferent to British industry," and let the silk be manufactured in India to get rid of it better.1 Mr. Brocklehurst even tried to get out of the witness that Indian manufacturers were comfortable, growing raw material and earning 1d. a day. Mr. Brocklehurst.-You do not suppose that they are uncomfortable; they live according to what they have been accustomed to all their lives? Mr. Francis.-Certainly not. Mr. Brocklehurst.-It may be comfort if they have no better? Mr. Francis.-Yes, it may be comfort to be starving, but I cannot think so.2 JOHN POYTON. The last witness examined by the Select Committee was John Poyton, a silk weaver of Spitalfields. Silk Manufactures.-Very few Bandannas were manufactured at Spitalfields, and India did not compete with that place at all. But, nevertheless, the witness objected to the lowering of the duty on Indian silk manufactures, because "if the duty is lowered, there will be less made in the country, and those that are now employed in making Bandannas will turn their hands to something else, and of course they will become competitors with us upon the goods that we now make." 3 . We have not been able to find out if any specific recommendations were submitted by the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the evidence re 1 Questions 6814, 6815, 6836, 6852, 6853, 6854. 2 Questions 6889 and 6890. [The italics are ours.] corded by them. But we have before us the Report submitted by the Select Committee of the House of Lords. For the East India Company's petition was presented to both Houses, and the Select Committee of the Lords had examined Melville and Larpent and Trevelyan, and some other witnesses whose evidence before the Commons' Committee has been referred to in this chapter. Lord Ellenborough, afterwards GovernorGeneral of India, was the Chairman of the Lords' Committee, and his Report, professing the utmost concern for the people of India, nevertheless denied them the relief and justice which they sought. His lordship pointed out the peculiar claims of India upon the justice and the generosity of Parliament in his usual florid style. Possessed of a population four times greater than that of the United Kingdom, and of all the rest of the British Empire in all parts of the world, defraying from its own resources the whole charge of its civil government and of its military defence, subjected to the rule of British-born subjects in all the higher and more lucrative and honourable offices of the State, India is further required to transmit annually to this country, without any return except in the small value of military stores, a sum amounting to between two and three millions sterling."1 After these eloquent observations Lord Ellenborough recommended the equalising of duties on the import of West Indian and East Indian tobacco, but declined to make a similar recommendation with regard to rum. The cotton manufactures of India had already died out, and his lordship recommended that the inequality in duties between Great Britain and India should be removed. But the silk manufactures of India were still competing with those of England, and Lord Ellenborough would not recommend equalising the duties on this article-" the last of the expiring manufactures of India." 1 Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords, p. xviii. CHAPTER VIII COFFEE, SUGAR, AND COTTON THE year 1848 was a year of political revolutions among the nations of Europe. France expelled her king and established her Second Republic. Germany showed her impatience of the despotism of petty princes by insurrectionary movements, and secured important constitutions. Italy declared a premature war against Austria, established a republic at Rome in pursuance of the ideas of Mazzini, and made her first great but unsuccessful effort effort to secure national independence Austria witnessed an insurrection at Vienna, and Hungary rose under the valiant and patriotic Kossuth. In Ireland the continuous agitation for the repeal of the Union led to a rebellion. Everywhere there were indications of the passing away of the old order of things, and the rise of popular institutions and popular power. Side by side with these political movements there was much commercial and agricultural distress in Europe. In England the contest between the landed classes who wished to keep up the price of corn, and the manufacturing and working classes who wanted cheap bread, was decided by the repeal of the corn laws in 1846. A great impetus was thus given to British manufactures; and the vague dream of a self-contained empire dawned on the minds of the people. Was it possible to make England independent of foreign nations? Was it possible to obtain her supplies from her own dependencies? Indian tea was slowly replacing China tea; was it possible for India to produce the necessary supply of coffee? Sugar plantations in the West Indies had declined after the emancipation of slaves; was it possible for India to supply sugar for the consumption of Great Britain ? American cotton fed the looms of Lancashire; was it possible for India to supply that raw material to the extent required? Parliamentary inquiries were made. SUGAR AND COFFEE COMMITTEE. A Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1848, with Lord George Bentinck as the Chairman, to inquire into the condition and prospects of Sugar and Coffee Planting in Her Majesty's East and West Indian Possessions and the Mauritius." The Committee examined many witnesses, and submitted their evidence with eight reports, covering over two thousand printed folio pages. Lord Palmerston was the first witness examined, but had little to say directly about the trade of India. John Bagshaw, a Member of Parliament, was examined on the same day, and dwelt at length on the many disadvantages under which India suffered in competing with other British Possessions. "First: Three millions sterling and upward annually taken from the revenue of India towards the payment of the Home Charges of the East India Company, without any return whatever; "Second: Fortunes accumulated in India by the Civil and Military Services, seldom if any remaining in that! country annually increase the capital of Great Britain from the resources of India; "Third: The well-known fact that of the revenue raised in British India, the largest portion of it is from the land, by which its produce is necessarily burdened; this amounts to nearly thirteen and a half millions sterling; "Fourth: The difficulties which importers are subject K to from the way in which duties are levied at the Custom Houses of England." " 1 John Bagshaw deplored the extinction of the cotton manufactures of India within the preceding thirty years. In 1816-17 “India not only clothed the whole of that vast population, but exported £1,659,438 worth of goods." Thirty years later the whole of this export had disappeared, and India imported four millions sterling of cotton goods. "The people of India might buy British manufactures which were imported into India at a duty of 2 per cent., but the manufacturers of India were entirely precluded from getting their goods into consumption here by the prohibitory duty which was exacted." Sugar was not produced in England, and some healthy change in the tariffs with regard to this article had therefore been permitted. The result was marked and instantaneous. There has been no instance of such growth," said Bagshaw, quoting from an Indian newspaper, "in any article of commerce at any preceding period. There has been no development of the resources of India to be compared with this sudden increase. Last year we [India] supplied England with one-fourth the sugar she consumed; and there can be no doubt that India would in time be able to supply the whole of the home demand." It is needless to add that this hope was never realised; and sugar manufacture declined during the last half of the nineteenth century with almost every other manufacture. Colonel Sykes, a distinguished Director of the East India Company, had carefully studied Indian facts and figures. He spoke of the Economic Drain from India of £3,300,000 to £3,700,000 a year, and remarked truly: It is only by the excess of exports over imports that India can bear this tribute." Henry St. John Tucker, then Chairman of the East India Company, said that this Economic Drain was an increasing quantity, "because our 1 First Report. |