COMMERCE IN INDIGO.
Before proceeding to a consideration of the practical applications of indigo in manufacturing, we must pause to make some general observations upon the commerce in indigo.
The first European impulse given to this commerce was made by the Spanish and Portuguese. They not only imported indigo from the Indies, but established its fabrication in their colonies. To them we owe its production in Guatemala, Caraccas, and Brazil. The French exported from the Island of San Domingo, only, in 1774, 2,350,000 pounds weight of this commodity. British influence was exerted in favor of the development of this article in the American colonies, and, in 1773, in the space of twelve months, over a million pounds of indigo were exported from South Carolina. The production in India was at that time of little importance. It was not until 1783 that the attention of the English was directed to the culture of indigo in India for European consumption, that produced by the natives being all consumed in their own manufactures. In the hands of the English this product rapidly rose to be the most important of India, in a commercial view, except that of rice. The small cost of a factory, and the comparatively small capital required for this production, caused the indigo culture to be preferred to sugar planting. The importation and sale of this commodity at the East India House, in 1792, amounted to 581,827 lbs., while the importation into Great Britain from other parts of the world amounted to 1,285,927 lbs. In 1806 the importation from the East Indies, and sales at the East India House, amounted to 4,811,700 lbs., and produced in sterling money £1,685,275. In the year 1862–63, the export from India, and the destination of supplies, were as follows:—
| Destination. | Quantity. | Value. | |
| United Kingdom | 8,537,133 | lbs. | $1,627,035 |
| America | 134,064 | 26,949 | |
| Arabian and Persian Gulfs | 343,037 | 33,385 | |
| France | 1,922,120 | 371,396 | |
| Germany | 85,680 | 15,504 | |
| Suez | 295,269 | 51,730 | |
| Other places | 9,577 | 815 | |
| Total | 11,326,880 | lbs. | $2,126,814 |
The value of exports in 1866 was £1,861,501. In the same year the imports of indigo from the whole of Central America, including Honduras, was 672,480 lbs. The consumption of indigo in Great Britain did not increase during the ten years ending with 1867. This stationary demand, notwithstanding the fall in the price of the drug and increase of population, is attributed by McCulloch principally to the decreasing use of blue cloth. It is more probably due to the substitution of cheaper dyes. The average home consumption in Great Britain for seven years ending in 1867, was 1,675,072 lbs. per year.
The importation into this country for the twenty years last past is shown by the following table, kindly prepared at our request by the chief of the Bureau of Statistics:—
Statement of Imports of Indigo into the United States during the Fiscal Years ended June 30, 1853–1872.
| Fiscal Years ended June 30. | INDIGO. | |||
| FREE OF DUTY. | DUTIABLE | |||
| Pounds. | Dollars. | Pounds. | Dollars. | |
| 1853 | 1,387,847 | 947,367 | ||
| 1854 | 1,965,789 | 1,282,367 | ||
| 1855 | 2,097,397 | 1,151,516 | ||
| 1856 | 1,732,290 | 1,063,743 | ||
| 1857 | 1,533,037 | 1,010,509 | ||
| 1858 | 1,647,767 | 945,083 | ||
| 1859 | 1,773,868 | 1,441,429 | ||
| 1860 | 1,707,116 | 1,413,790 | ||
| 1861 | 185,039 | 160,138 | 719,563 | 505,766 |
| 1862 | 2,501,052 | 3,281,441 | ||
| 1863 | 885,834 | 1,008,187 | 178,364 | 219,169 |
| 1864 | 684,813 | 623,406 | 897,821 | 671,899 |
| 1865 | 741,438 | 601,283 | 415,575 | 324,207 |
| 1866 | 798,855 | 609,160 | 44,660 | 41,268 |
| 1867 | 1,069,506 | 816,974 | ||
| 1868 | 870,164 | 775,751 | ||
| 1869 | 1,574,449 | 1,649,550 | ||
| 1870 | 1,270,579 | 1,203,664 | ||
| 1871 | 1,994,172 | 2,052,222 | ||
| 1872 | 1,526,869 | 1,484,744 | ||
| 1854 | ||||
EDWARD YOUNG, Chief of Bureau.
Bureau of Statistics, Nov. 16, 1872.
The extraordinary quantity imported in 1862, we hardly need remark, was due to the demand for consumption in army cloths. Indigo imported directly, was made free of duty in 1861. The duty which appears by the above table to have been charged since that period, was upon indigo, the product of India, imported by way of England, which was subject to an extra duty of ten per cent.
The indigo consumed in the United States is generally supplied by the Boston and New York Calcutta houses, who have either an American partner resident in Calcutta, or who employ a resident American as agent. Indigo, like other Calcutta goods, is sold through the agency of brokers, who receive on this article a commission of one per cent. The value of the article is known almost daily in these cities by telegrams, giving exact information of the state of the trade, transmitted from Calcutta as often as every five days. Some of the brokers publish monthly circulars, showing the stock of indigo with other Calcutta goods on hand in our market. The regular trade reports issued by the India merchants show that The higher qualities of indigo do not come to our market. The following is an extract from a report of Whitney, Brother, & Co., of 1871:—
| Indigo for Continent | fine | 350 to 362 | rupees. |
| „ „ „ | good | 330 „ 345 | „ |
| „ „ „ | middling | 310 „ 325 | „ |
| American consuming | fine | 280 „ 300 | „ |
| „ „ | good | 250 „ 275 | „ |
| „ „ | middling | 200 „ 240 | „ |
| „ „ | low and ordinary | 150 „ 170 | „ |
At the present moment there is great depression in the trade in this article. The last telegrams show a decline of price in the Indian trade in this article of from fifty to seventy-five per cent from the prices of last year; and the apprehension is even entertained that indigo is going out of use, the dreaded competitors being the aniline dyes, and particularly the Nicholson blue. We maybe presumptuous in giving our opinion on the question, but we hazard the prediction that, notwithstanding the temporary popularity of the cheap substitutes, a reaction will take place in favor of that “wonderful and most valuable production,” whose importance as a dye has been held in India for thousands of years and Europe for two centuries, “greatly to exceed any other.” [2]
The “Dictionnaire Universel du Commerce,” &c., published in 1861, contains an exhaustive article on the commerce in indigo, by M. S. Beekrode. From the statements of this writer, it appears that the consumption of indigo was estimated, in 1835, as follows:—
| Great Britain | 1,214,380 | kilograms | (2,683,779) | lbs. |
| France | 912,915 | „ | (2,017,542) | „ |
| United States | 130,000 | „ | (277,300) | „ |
| Other countries | 2,435,473 | „ | (5,382,395) | „ |
| Total | 4,692,768 | kilograms | (10,362,016) | lbs. |
The approximate consumption in 1859 is stated as follows:—
| Great Britain | 800,000 | kilograms | (1,768,000) | lbs. |
| France | 800,000 | „ | (1,768,000) | „ |
| United States | 400,000 | „ | (884,000) | „ |
| Russia | 860,000 | „ | (1,900,600) | „ |
| The Zollverein | 1,250,000 | „ | (2,762,500) | „ |
| Switzerland | 150,000 | „ | (331,500) | „ |
| Austria | 400,000 | „ | (884,000) | „ |
| Other countries | 300,000 | „ | (663,000) | „ |
| Total | 4,960,000 | kilograms | (10,961,600) | lbs. |
The average production in 1859 is estimated as follows:—
| Bengal, Madras, &c. | 3,500,000 | kilograms | (7,735,000) | lbs. |
| Java | 550,000 | „ | (1,215,500) | „ |
| Central America | 300,000 | „ | (884,000) | „ |
| Other sources | 100,000 | „ | (221,000) | „ |
| Total | 4,450,000 | kilograms | (9,834,500) | lbs. |
As the maximum annual consumption in 1859 is set down at 5,000,000 kilograms, the author concludes that the average production at that time did not surpass the requirements of the dyers of the whole world.