Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T17:20:50.759Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Imperialism of Free Trade: Lancashire, India, and the Cotton Supply Question, 1861-1865*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

Peter Harnetty
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is now more than a decade since John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson first challenged the conventional interpretations of nineteenth-century imperial history and employed the term “The Imperialism of Free Trade” to describe the “ever-extending and intensifying development of overseas regions” — a term which characterizes British imperial policy in the middle decades of the last century. The general validity of this thesis has been illustrated by reference to British policies in India in this period. There was the extensive program of railway construction, financed by British capital at favorable rates of interest guaranteed by the Government of India. There was the manipulation of the Indian tariff in response to pressure from the Lancashire cotton manufacturers. There was the cotton improvement program, the object of which was to relieve Lancashire's dependence on the United States as the major source of its raw cotton. In this case, the desired object was not achieved, despite considerable effort and expenditure sustained over more than a decade. But the approach of civil war in America revived interest in India as an alternative source of supply, notwithstanding the many difficulties that stood in the way. Indian cotton was raised on small holdings as a secondary crop every third or fourth year; its quality was poor; climatic conditions were uncertain; demand was irregular; communications between the cotton-producing areas and the ports were bad; and trade was hampered by lack of a contract law and a bankruptcy act. The Lancashire cotton manufacturers demanded energetic action from the state in overcoming these difficulties.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , November 1966 , pp. 70 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I wish to express my thanks to the Canada Council for a grant which enabledme to carry out the research for this article in London and Manchester. P. H.

References

1. Gallagher, John and Robinson, Ronald, “The Imperialism of Free Trade,” Econ. Hist. Rev., second series, VI (1953), 5Google Scholar. For a contrary interpretation see Oliver MacDonagh, “The Anti-Imperialism of Free Trade,” ibid., second series, XIV (1961-62), 489-501.

2. Thorner, Daniel, Investment in Empire: British Railways and Steam Shipping Enterprise in India, 1825-1849 (Philadelphia, 1950)Google Scholar; Macpherson, W. J., “Investment in Indian Railways, 1845-1875,” Econ. Hist. Rev., second series, VIII (1955), 177–86Google Scholar.

3. Peter Harnetty, “The Imperialism of Free Trade: Lancashire and the Indian Cotton Duties, 1859-1862,” ibid., second series, XVIII (1965), 333-49.

4. Leacock, Seth and Mandelbaum, David G., “A Nineteenth Century Development Project in India: The Cotton Improvement Program,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, III (1955), 334–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. Henderson, W. O., The Lancashire Cotton Famine (Manchester, 1934), pp. 39–40Google Scholar.

6. Manchester Central Reference Library, Proceedings of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, 30 Jan. 1861.

7. India Office Library, Sir Charles Wood to Lord Canning, 26 Feb. 1861, Halifax Collection (MSS. Eur. F. 78), India Office, Letter Books, VI, 182.

8. I.O.Lib., Wood to Canning, 4 Mar. 1861, ibid., VI, 232.

9. Resolution of the Governor-General in Council in the Home Dept., 28 Feb. 1861, Supplement to the Calcutta Gazette, LXXI, 2 Mar. 1861.Google Scholar

10. Where there was no telegraph, horse expresses carried the information back and forth after the arrival of every English mail in Bombay. I.O.Lib., Sir Bartle Frere (governor of Bombay) to Wood, 26 Aug. 1862, No. 1 (encl.), Halifax Collection, India Office, Correspondence, India, 5A, No. 83.

11. I.O.Lib., Secretary of State to Government of India, Despatch No. 20 (Revenue), 25 July 1861.

12. I.O.Lib., Wood to Sir George Clerk, 18 July 1861, Halifax Collection, India Office, Letter Books, VIII, 124. G. R. Haywood went to India in a dual capacity: as the agent of the Manchester Cotton Company, formed as a commercial venture in 1861 to purchase cotton in India and elsewhere; and as the secretary of the Cotton Supply Association, founded in 1857 to increase Lancashire's sources of raw cotton through various political, propaganda, and other activities. See Henderson, , Lancashire Cotton Famine, pp. 36–38Google Scholar.

13. Haywood to Messrs. Thomas Mosley and Henry Alexander Hurst, 15 May 1861, Supplement to the Calcutta Gazette, LXXI, 3 July 1861Google Scholar. See also Redford, A., Manchester Merchants and Foreign Trade (Manchester, 1934–1956), esp. II, 12–20Google Scholar.

14. Government of India to Messrs. Mosley and Hurst, 2 July 1861, Supplement to the Calcutta Gazette, LXXI, 3 July 1861Google Scholar. This rebuff received full support from the India Office; see I.O.Lib., Secretary of State to Government of India, Despatch No. 25 (Revenue), 8 Oct. 1861.

15. Messrs. Mosley and Hurst to Government of India, 27 July 1861, Supplement to the Calcutta Gazette, LXXI, 11 Dec. 1861.Google Scholar

16. I.O.Lib., Canning to Wood, 2 Sep. 1861, Halifax Collection, India Office, Correspondence, India, 2B, No. 55.

17. I.O.Lib., Wood to Canning, 6 Aug. 1861, ibid., India Office, Letter Books, VIII, 176.

18. I.O.Lib., Wood to Canning, 26 Nov. 1861, ibid., IX, 125.

19. Harewood House, Yorks., Canning Papers, 114 (Papers on Miscellaneous Subjects), No. 805, Daily News, 10 May 1861.

20. Harewood House, Yorks., ibid., 114, No. 777, The Englishman, 17 Oct. 1861.

21. Edinburgh Review, CXV (1862), 248.Google Scholar

22. I.O.Lib., Wood to Canning, 18 Oct. 1861, Halifax Collection, India Office, Letter Books, IX, 28.

23. I.O.Lib., Wood to Sir William Denison (governor of Madras), 25 Oct. 1861, ibid., IX, 58.

24. Cotton Supply Reporter, 16 Dec. 1861.

25. Haywood was accompanied on his journey by Dr. G. F. Forbes, the superintendent of the government gin factory at Dharwar. His services were placed at Haywood's disposal by the Secretary of State.

26. I.O.Lib., Haywood to John Platt, 30 Nov. 1861, India Office, Revenue Dept., Home Correspondence, Letters Received, IV, No. 264.

27. Cassels, Walter R., Cotton: An Account of Its Culture in Bombay Presidency (Bombay, 1862), pp. 346–47Google Scholar. This work was commissioned by the Government of India. See p. 79 below.

28. I.O.Lib., Bombay Times, 12 Apr. 1863Google Scholar, encl. in Sir Charles Trevelyan to Wood, 2 May 1863, Halifax Collection, India Office, Correspondence, India, 6D. Smith's articles were later published as a pamphlet: Smith, Samuel, The Cotton Trade of India (London, 1863)Google Scholar.

29. Harewood House, Yorks., Canning Papers, 114, No. 805, Daily News, 10 May 1861.

30. I.O.Lib., Resolution of the Governor-General in Council, No. 1806, 26 July 1861, India, Revenue Proceedings, XLVI, 26 July 1861, No. 19.

31. I.O.Lib., excerpt from a circular issued in Oct. 1861 by the Public Works Dept. of the Government of India and cited in “Public Works for the Purpose of Facilitating the Transit of Cotton to Ports of Shipment: A Memorandum by the Public Works Dept., Fort William, 5 June 1863,” encl. in Trevelyan to Wood, 7 June 1863, No. 1, Halifax Collection, India Office, Correspondence, India, 3B, No. 59. (Twelve lakhs, or Rs. 1,200,000, was worth about £120,000.)

32. I.O.Lib., Resolution of the Governor-General in Council, 9 Aug. 1861, encl. in Government of India to Secretary of State, Letter No. 13 (Revenue), 13 Aug. 1861.

33. I.O.Lib., Secretary of State to Government of India, Despatch No. 30 (Revenue), 3 Dec. 1861.

34. I.O.Lib., Madras Chamber of Commerce to Government of Madras, 31 July 1862, India, Rev. Procs., XLVII, 15 Sep. 1862, No. 2.

35. I.O.Lib., Order No. 1767 of the Government of Madras, 25 Sep. 1863, ibid., XLVIII, 21 Oct. 1863, No. 31.

36. I.O.Lib., Resolution of the Governor-General in Council, 22 July 1861, India Office, Collections to Revenue Despatches to India, IX, No. 25.

37. I.O.Lib., “Report on the Cotton Gin Factory in the Dharwar Collectorate for the Half Year ending 31 May 1862,” Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government, new series, LXVII, 23Google Scholar; I.O.Lib., Haywood to Platt, 30 Nov. 1861, India Office, Rev. Dept., Home Corresp., Letters Rec., IV, No. 264; Cassels, , Cotton, pp. 151–56Google Scholar.

38. I.O.Lib., Under-Secretary of State to Forbes, 18 Jan. 1861; to J. M. Dunlop (manufacturer of cotton gins, Manchester), 24 Dec. 1861; and to secretary, Cotton Supply Association, 9 Jan. and 22 Mar. 1862, India Office, Rev. Dept., Home Corresp., Letters Sent, I, Nos. 66, 113, 114, 118, and 134.

39. I.O.Lib., “Report on the Cotton Gin Factory,” Selections from the Records of the Bombay Government, new series, LXVII, 21Google Scholar.

40. I.O.Lib., Dunlop to Lord Elgin, 24 Mar. 1862, Elgin Papers (MSS. Eur. F. 83), Letters from Miscellaneous, fols. 53-55.

41. I.O.Lib., Elgin to Dunlop, 21 May 1862, ibid., Letters to Miscellaneous, pp. 12-28.

42. Manchester Central Ref. Lib., Proceedings of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, 16 July 1862.

43. I.O.Lib., Elgin to Samuel Laing, 9 Sep. 1862, Elgin Papers, Letters to Miscellaneous, pp. 54-55.

44. I.O.Lib., Wood to Trevelyan, 22 Dec. 1862, Halifax Collection, India Office, Letter Books, XI, 352. In the previous year Wood had been asked to send a member of his Council to India to purchase cotton.

45. I.O.Lib., Wood to Frere, 29 Aug. 1862, ibid., XI, 104.

46. Henderson, , Lancashire Cotton Famine, p. 40Google Scholar.

47. I.O.Lib., Haywood to Platt, 30 Nov. 1861, India Office, Rev. Dept., Home Corresp., Letters Rec., IV, No. 264.

48. See Henderson, , Lancashire Cotton Famine, pp. 129–31Google Scholar, for statistics on the formation of limited liability companies between 1856 and 1865, their duration, and their mode of dropping out. See also my forthcoming article on the formation, activities, and dissolution of the Manchester Cotton Company to be published in Indian Economic and Social History Review.

49. Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom in Each of the Last Fifteen Years from 1855 to 1869, in Parliamentary Papers (1870), LXVIII (Cmd. 145), 59.Google Scholar

50. I.O.Lib., Wood to Frere, 4 May 1863, Halifax Collection, India Office, Letter Books, XIII, 34-35.

51. I.O.Lib., Frere to Wood, 6 June 1863, ibid., India Office, Correspondence, India, 5A, No. 83.

52. I.O.Lib., Wood to Elgin, 9 Oct. 1862, ibid., India Office, Letter Books, XI, 80.

53. I.O.Lib., Wood to Elgin, 10 Feb. 1863, ibid., XII, 72.

54. 3 Hansard 170: 1622, 1645–46 (12 May 1863)Google Scholar.

55. Ibid. 172: 178 (3 July 1863).

56. Ibid. 172: 199-201 (3 July 1863).

57. Ibid. 172: 209-22 (3 July 1863).

58. I.O.Lib., Wood to Trevelyan, 10 July 1863, Halifax Collection, India Office, Letter Books, XIII, 152.

59. I.O.Lib., Secretary of State to Government of Bombay, Despatch No. 26 (Revenue), 17 July 1863.

60. I.O.Lib., Government of Bombay to Secretary of State, Letter No. 17 (Revenue), 27 Aug. 1863, submitting copy of Bombay Government Resolution appointing Forbes as Cotton Commissioner subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. Forbes was appointed on 1 Oct. 1863.

61. I.O.Lib., Government of India to Government of Bombay, No. 6033, 17 Oct. 1863, India, Rev. Procs., XLVIII, 17 Oct. 1863, No. 15.

62. I.O.Lib., “Minute for the Secretary of State in reference to the appointment of Commissioners in India for the cultivation of a better quality of cotton, as suggested in an interview held lately between the Secretary of State and Messrs. Cheetham and Ashworth,” dated 19 Aug. 1863, India Office, Rev. Dept., Home Corresp., Letters Rec., V, No. 443.

63. I.O.Lib., Under-Secretary of State to John Cheetham and Edmund Ash-worth, 30 Oct. 1863, ibid., Letters Sent, II, No. 223.

64. I.O.Lib., Haywood to Platt, 30 Nov. 1861, ibid., Letters Rec., IV, No. 264.

65. I.O.Lib., Cotton Supply Association to Secretary of State, 23 Apr. 1862, ibid., Letters Rec., IV, No. 304. The circulars were sent to India in Secretary of State to Government of India, Despatch No. 12 (Revenue), 9 June 1862.

66. For example, I.O.Lib., Secretary of State to Government of Bombay, Despatch No. 5 (Revenue), 17 Feb. 1863. Forwarded with this despatch was a second instalment of cotton seed from the Peruvian coast valley of Piura, a first instalment having been sent on 8 Nov. 1862. Also forwarded were twenty copies of notes on cotton cultivation from an English resident of Peru containing information on the cultivation of perennial cotton in the interior of Peru, and additional information from the British Vice-Consul at Paita. The government of Bombay replied on 23 July asking for more Peruvian seed and a third instalment was sent on 16 Sep. Many other examples of this kind are to be found in the Revenue Despatches to India, Madras, and Bombay in this period.

67. I.O.Lib., Report on the Administration of the Central Provinces for 1864-65, p. iiGoogle Scholar.

68. I.O.Lib., Forbes to Under-Secretary of State, 8 Nov. 1865, India Office, Rev. Dept., Home Corresp., Letters Rec., VII, No. 655A. Forbes asked for the appointment of a practical gardener on a five-year contract at £550 p.a. to continue the experiments. Wood, ever the politician, was ready to approve the appointment even though he stated that he had little confidence in the results. But he also thought the India Office should not lay itself open to “charges of neglecting anything reasonable to improve so important an article as cotton.” The Council of India vetoed the project, although later several gardeners were appointed for both Bombay and the Central Provinces.

69. I.O.Lib., India, Rev. Procs., XXV, 15 Feb. 1868, Nos. 29-30; and 21 Mar. 1868, Nos. 27-28.

70. I.O.Lib., Government of Bombay to Government of India, No. 2717, 14 Aug. 1863, ibid., XLVIII, 17 Oct. 1863, No. 15.

71. I.O.Lib., ibid., XLIX, 21 Jan. 1864, Nos. 28-30.

72. I.O.Lib., Forbes to Under-Secretary of State, 8 Nov. 1865, India Office, Rev. Dept., Home Corresp., Letters Rec., VII, No. 655 A.

73. I.O.Lib., Trevelyan to Wood, 2 May 1863 (encl.), Halifax Collection, India Office, Correspondence, India, 6D.

74. Act IX (1863): “An Act for the Prevention of the Adulteration of Cotton, and for the Better Suppression of Frauds in the Cotton Trade.”

75. I.O.Lib., Proceedings of the Bombay Legislative Council, 31 Jan. 1863, encl. in Frere to Wood, 12 Feb. 1863, Halifax Collection, India Office, Correspondence, India, 5A, No. 83.

76. I.O.Lib., India, Rev. Procs., XLIX, 17 Feb. 1864, No. 4.

77. I.O.Lib., Frere to Wood, 14 Apr. 1865, Halifax Collection, India Office, Correspondence, India, 5C, No. 83. See also E. W. Ravenscroft, Inspector-in-Chief, Cotton Dept., to Government of Bombay, No. 196, 1 June 1864, encl. in Frere to Wood, 7 June 1864, ibid., 5B, No. 83.

78. I.O.Lib., Memorial of the Cotton Supply Association, 28 Mar. 1865, India Office, Rev. Dept., Home Corresp., Letters Rec., VII, No. 588.

79. I.O.Lib., Assistant Under-Secretary of State to Cheetham, 11 Apr. 1865, ibid., Letters Sent, III, No. 315. Cf. Trevelyan's statement to the Supreme Legislative Council, p. 92 below.

80. India, Dept. of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, Index Numbers of Indian Prices, 1861-1926 (Calcutta, 1928), p. 7Google Scholar, for prices of Broach cotton in Bombay; and Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom from 1855 to 1869, in Parliamentary Papers, LXVIII, 42–43Google Scholar, for prices of Indian cotton imported into Great Britain.

81. Ellison, T., The Cotton Trade of Great Britain (London, 1886), p. 92Google Scholar; Smith, Cotton Trade of India; Rivett-Carnac, H., Report on the Cotton Department, Central Provinces, for 1868-69 (Bombay, 1869), pp. 153–60Google Scholar.

82. India, Dept. of Statistics, Index Numbers of Indian Prices, 1861-1926, p. 4Google Scholar.

83. Legislative Council Proceedings, new series, III (1864), 147Google Scholar. Trevelyan's statement provoked an indignant rejoinder from the governor of Bombay. See I.O.Lib., Frere to Wood, 28 Apr. 1864, Halifax Collection, India Office, Correspondence, India, 5B, No. 83. Sir Richard Temple, who was Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces for most of the period 1862-65, later wrote: “In some places, despite good harvests, food grains were sold so dear as to amount to famine prices, yet the people seemed to thrive, doubtless because of their prosperity in other ways. The peasant proprietors were foremost in the race of temporary prosperity. They engaged largely in the (cotton) carrying business, employing their carts and bullocks for that purpose. They gained good wages on the public works at every season when they were not busy in their fields.” SirTemple, Richard, Men and Events of My Time in India (London, 1882), p. 269Google Scholar.

84. Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom from 1855 to 1869, in Parliamentary Papers, LXVIII, 59Google Scholar.

85. I.O.Lib., Memorial of the Cotton Supply Association, 12 Mar. 1869, India Office, Rev. Dept, Home Corresp., Letters Rec., X, No. 1191.

86. I.O.Lib., Note by H. T. Prinsep and Memorandum by the Duke of Argyll, ibid., Letters Sent, V, No. 612.

87. I.O.Lib., Under-Secretary of State to Cotton Supply Association, 30 Apr. 1869, ibid.

88. I.O.Lib., Trevelyan's statement in the Supreme Legislative Council, encl. in Trevelyan to Elgin, 30 Apr. 1863, Elgin Papers, Letters from Members of Council, fols. 321-22. Trevelyan was referring to the policy during the Irish famines of 1845-49, when he was Assistant-Secretary to the Treasury and Wood was Chancellor of the Exchequer (1846-52). See Woodham-Smith, C., The Great Hunger (London, 1862)Google Scholar.

89. Watts, J., The Facts of the Cotton Famine (London, 1866), p. 421Google Scholar.

90. The use of such techniques is stressed by MacDonagh, , “Anti-Imperialism of Free Trade,” Econ. Hist. Rev., second series, XIV, 492Google Scholar.

91. Gallagher and Robinson, “Imperialism of Free Trade,” ibid., second series, VI, 8-9. See also R. J. Moore, “Imperialism and ‘Free Trade’ Policy in India, 1853-54,” ibid., second series, XVII (1964), 135-45.

92. The fact that the “cotton famine,” at least in the early years of the war, was more imagined than real has been argued by Brady, Eugene A., “A Reconsideration of the Lancashire “Cotton Famine,’” Agricultural History, XXXVII (1963). 156–62Google Scholar.