The above is a very brief, but true history of the trade to India; now we will consider its present state as a supposed monopoly. As to the trade to China in tea, and to certain other articles, and also to ships there is monopoly, but if the trade to China were open to all the irregularities of common trading vessels, we should be excluded from it entirely in six months. The utmost circumspection and delicacy being necessary in trading with that country, besides which, the commerce demands such a large extent of capital and produces so little profit, that it would not answer the purpose of individual merchants.
It is however sufficient for this article to say, that the company carry out and bring home a great variety of articles, at a fixed, and indeed at a very low rate of freight, such as no individual would do, or ever attempted to do. That if any manufacturer or merchant can find out an article that will sell in India, the company so far from preventing his doing so, afford him facilities not otherwise attainable. No mistake can in fact be greater than to say, with the uninformed and misled public, that the East India Company is a monopoly, and injures trade by preventing our merchants and manufacturers from having a scope for their capital and industry. Thus then the clamour raised last year, in favour of what is called a free trade, is entirely founded in error, but even were it not so, we may fairly enquire.
III. Whether any great Change would not be attended with great Danger? If so we must not follow theory too readily, but pay great respect to practice and experience.
The trade to India, in its present state, produces a great influx of wealth to the country, though but a very moderate average profit to the Proprietors as a trading company. We must, therefore, risk this, if we consider that the French had an East India Company in 1789, and that by way of being liberal and free, they did what an inconsiderate public want us to do. They abolished the company, and let every one do as he pleased, when the trade vanished like a dream. L'Orient, the seat of French East India trade, fell, and no one rose in its place, neither towns nor individuals, and the trade with India became extinct in France. I will admit that such would not be precisely the case here, still we ought to keep such an example in our minds to warn us against the dangers of innovation; besides it is sufficient that our present state is good, for that is a sufficient reason to prevent our risking it by too sudden a change. If we follow experience slowly, we may perhaps make things better, and perhaps not; but at all events the error will be small and may be repaired, we can come back to the point we left. Whereas if we throw open the trade, or extend it even to a limited number of out-ports, we may find it impossible to retrieve the error, supposing it should turn out to be one. Softly and sure is a maxim which could never be better applied than in the present instance; and if a thousand sheets were to be written upon the expediency of the measure, after what has happened in France, it is quite evident that to the same conclusion we must come.
[16]IV. That the public at large have no reason to complain of the India Company, as the articles brought by it have not increased in price in proportion to either Rums or Sugars from the West Indies, where there is no monopoly.
A single instance must convince the most sceptical. The East India Company carry British manufactures out to India at about 40s. per ton—a distance of seven thousand miles—a rate cheaper than the carriage for five hundred miles in any other direction; therefore our manufacturers have a good chance of selling their goods, owing to their not being greatly enhanced by freight, and the servants of the Company are allowed to traffic, so that every article adapted for the India market can find its way there without difficulty, though the Company itself may not enter into such details.
Those who wish to send goods to India are therefore highly indebted to the Company; and as to the imports I will ask the public only one simple question: Have East India commodities risen in price, notwithstanding the heavy duties and increased expences of ship-building, and every article relating thereto, so much as West India produce?
It is not necessary to dwell on this point; it is an evident fact that the East India goods are far cheaper than they would be if brought over by individual merchants, and the supply is more regular. If sales are slow the Company keeps its goods at its own loss, with admirable good nature, or at least with admirable sang froid, and it never creates an artificial scarcity to enhance the price. The sales are by fair competition and without favour; what would the public wish or desire more? We come now to the next point.
V. That the merchants of Liverpool, Hull, &c. and the manufacturers, in their endeavour to share the trade with London, are asking what would be injurious to themselves.
Having already shewn the danger of any great change, let us consider the probability of advantage. When goods are shipped for such a remote market, it is essentially necessary, previously to ascertain, that they are wanted. Now when the exports are confined to one company, from its accurate knowledge of trade, it can proportion the quantities of the articles to the general demand for each; but if there are 500 merchants, entirely ignorant of what each other are doing; or what is worse, deceiving each other, in order to insure a better market for their own shipment, they will necessarily send too much of some articles and not enough of others; hence many will be ruined, for they cannot carry their cargoes from port to port as in Europe or America: if the market is over-stocked at the port they are bound to, there is no alternative, but sacrificing the cargo for what it will fetch, or leaving it on hand to await the chance of a future sale. On the return of the vessel, here the merchant awakes from his golden dream, and finds himself on the verge of bankruptcy, for the utmost limit of credit has expired—He is ruined!