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A58726 The profit and loss of the East-India-trade stated, and humbly offer'd to the consideration of the present Parliament. T. S. (Thomas Smith) 1700 (1700) Wing S175; ESTC R32336 7,691 28

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from England by our Merchants 20000 Besides what Advantage we have by an Export of Thirty or Forty Thousand Pounds per Annum in Manufactures 40000 In all 560000 We will next consider what Loss comes to the Nation by this Trade to India and I will do it under these Heads as it hinders our Exportation and as it prevents the Emylopment of our own People and as it hinders the Improvement of our own Manufactures and the Consumption of our own Wool As to our Exportation it has been a great hindrance of our Exports to Holland and our West-India Colonies that we have enjoyed to the one for more than one Hundred Years and to the other for a long time it is known to many Merchants and others that we have had a very considerable Trade to these Places in Commodities made of Wool and Silk and Wool for Womens Ware and Use and that no European Merchants or Manufactures could ever get this Trade from us these being natural to England we have out-sold and under-sold all our Neighbours but since the Improvement and Increase of the Importation of Cotten and Silk and Cotten and Herba Commodities from India which Increase our Merchants almost alone have caused We have wholly lost our Trades to these Places for our Manufactures that are proper for Women's Consumption that are fine and above the value of Twelve Pence per Yard our West-Indies that us'd formerly and still might be cloathed with our own Manufactures for the Female Sex will now touch none unless such as are very Cheap at eight Pence ten Pence or twelve Pence per Yard and to that Degree is this Trade lost that of all those several Species of fine Goods that use to be made in and Exported out of England upon the best Inquiry I can make there is not now one Hundred Looms at Work in the whole Nation upon Stuffs for Women to the value of Eighteen Pence per Yard made of Wool or Silk and Wooll and Grogram Yarn and those that be occasion'd by an Accident of the present Mourning whereas formerly this Nation us'd to abound with different kinds of these Manufactures from twelve Pence per Yard to five or six Shillings and that this Dammage may be the surer fastened upon us a Draw-back is allowed to our own Collonies that they may be Cloathed Cheaper than the Inhabiants of England with India Manufactures and that our own Commodities may be shut out tho' the Inhabitants of those Collonies are obliged to use only what they have from us which must be a great loss to this Nation both in the Materials and Workmanship which both to Holland and to these Plantations cannot amount to less than Two hundred Thousand Pound per An. and this Loss must come by the India Trade no Manufactures standing in opposition to these of our own but India We will now consider our Turky and Italian Trades and tho' I acknowledge the present Traders to these Places are more competent Judges of what Dammage come to them in their Exports yet I cannot but take notice they are much less then formerly the Reasons may be various I shall only hint what is obvious from the East-India-Trade This Account I have had of Matter of Fact from known Persons with respect to their Aleppo Trade that before our Cloth was carried directly by Sea to Persia great Numbers of Carravans use to come through a long Tract of Land many hundreds of Miles with Silk and other Commodities to Aleppo and buy our Cloth of our Factors that resided there and in their Return in the great Towns and Villages as they passed us'd to sell our Cloth to the Inhabitants of those Countries in very large quantities and that since the India Merchants have supplyed the Persians these Carravans have ceased to come and though we may have kept part of our Persia Trade we have lost the Trade of those large Countries through which these Carriers have formerly passed which have not only been if true a loss to our Export of Cloth but a further Loss to this Nation by keeping our Poor unemploy'd in the Silk that us'd to be brought in exchange for this Cloth and here I think it convenient to mention how profitable to this Nation our Turky Traders have been who us'd not only to Export our Product but this Product Employed great numbers of People and the Returns of these Commodities being Materials Unmanufactured afford an Employment in England for more than one hundred thousand People and the great difference between these and the India Merchant who bring his Returns fully Manufactured As to our Italian Merchants it is apparent their little Trade for their Returns have hinder'd their Exports and I think it highly reasonable to conclude the loss of the Use and Consumption of our Turky and Italian Effects in the many Manufactures That they use to be wrought up in both London and Canterbury have been a very great cause that our Exports to Turkey and Italy have been so low and the great Loss that have come to the Nation by the want of Employment for so many Thousand People in London and Canterbury is very difficult to compute besides the Damage that this Nation sustains by so many of its Artists going to Ireland New-England and other Places the Effects we do not yet find and whatever Loss comes to us these Ways must be attributed to the Increase of India Manufactures that in such a degree have unhinged all these Trades and in all its Parts cannot amount to less than one hundred Thousand Pound per Ann. as it may have hindred the Export of Cloth and Serges and to as much as it hath hindred the Employment of our Poor in working up the Returns of those Commodities it being common to pay more for the working of Silk and Grogram-Yearn than the Material cost The next thing to be consider'd is what Loss there comes by the India Trade as it hinders the Employment of the Poor and the Employment of People being more advantagious to any Nation than any other Trade and Experience shewing that all Nations in the World are Rich or Poor according as their People are employed I conceive what Loss comes this way to be irreparable and no Equivalent to be found for it Many assert this India Trade to be very Advantagious as it makes Two of One in Three Years but though this be great yet not to be compared to the Profit that comes by the Labour of the People Take one Instance our fine Manufactures of Wool will in one Month's time bring ten thousand Pound worth of Wool by Labour and Art to be worth one hundred thousand Pound which is Ten of one in a Month and so go on throughout the Year And if the Trade to India hinder the Employment of our People to any degree it must necessarily be so far a great Loss to England now let any Man cast his Eye about the English Nation especially those Places
whofe Manufactures are opposite to India or let him reflect a little upon the total loss of many Species of Manufactures that no Nation in Europe could ever yet hinder us in either as to our Home-Consumptions or Foreign Exports and let us consider the direct opposition there is between their Stuffs made of Silk and Silk and Cotten or only Cotten and our Manufactures of Silks and Silk and Worsted and Woolen and how these take up the same Places with ours and let us inquire into the Poverty the want of Work the Cries of the Poor for Employment and Bread in these Places and certainly we must conclude these Commodities hinder greatly the Employment of our People and the Poor must be maintain'd with or without Work and no Man can at the Request of his Neighbours or Friends employ People in one Place but he must lessen his Employment in another it being very hard to conclude how far the Loss by India Commodities reach under this Head we will join it with the next which is how this Trade hinders the Improvement of our Manufactures Improvement is an Excellency which English-men generally have ascribed to them and it was a great Perfection that Wooll I mean the long fine English Wool was brought to in several kinds of Commodities ten fifteen twenty Shillings laid out in Labour and Art upon one Pound of English-Wool and many Thousand Pieces of our Stuffs that weigh'd not above six eight or ten Pounds have been Exported to Holland and Scotland and the West-Indies and Sold for six eight or ten Pounds per Piece and what a great Employment did one hundred thousand Pound worth of Wool thus wrought give to our People and by consequence these some of the most valuable Manufactures England had but since the Importation of such Quantities of India Commodities our Gentry of the Female Sex and those that follow them at Home and abroad in their Fashions Slighting our English Manufactures the Dealers in them could not give a Price for or incourage the making of them The Manufacturers have been forced to debase them there being the greatest Incouragement to him that could make the slightest Goods so that whereas we us'd to make 100000 l. worth of Wool by Labour to be worth one Million either at home or abroad If we allow this Wool be now wrought up it is in such slight cheap Commodities as amount not to more than three or four hundred thousand Pound in value which as it is a great Loss to the Nation so it is a true Reason why not more than one Third Part of those People are employed as might and would be had we none or fewer of these Indian Manufactures now I being fully satisfy'd that this is matter of Fact and true I hope I may have leave to make a modest guess I suppose that there us'd to be Annually two hundred thousand Pounds worth of our long Wool wrought up in those Commodities now either lost or debased and that the like quantity of this Wool is wrought up into Commodities which make but four of one then upon this Head there must be 1200000 l. lost in Labour and Art per Ann. and this loss of Employment must come from India Manufactures being consumed by the Chief of our Gentry at Home and our Plantations abroad that follow our Fashions no other Manufactures standing in opposition to them and besides the loss this tends greatly to the Nation 's dishonour The last Thing I shall mention is to shew how this Trade hinder the Consumption of and keeps down the Price of our Wool as to the Consumption of Wool if as before it hinders our Export to Turkey and Italy to the value of one hundred thousand Pound per Ann. The Wool that those Commodities would take up must be to the value of sixteen thousand l. and if we shall allow our West-India Exports and home Consumption to be but one hundred thousand Pound in value yet this is a great loss and I cannot reckon all the Wool that is Exported Annually by our India Traders to amount to more than 6 or 7000 l. for which I have accounted in my Head for Profit and as to the Price of this Wool the India Trade so far as it lessens the Consumption it must bring down the Price these things being matter of Fact I leave it to better Judgments to consider of them but if true as I think and believe upon the best Inquiry and Observation I can make Then the state of England's loss by India Manufactures that are opposite to our own stands thus   Pounds Damage as it hinders our Exports to Holland Germany Portugal and our West-India Colonies 200000 As it hinders our Export to Turkey and Italy 100000 As it hinders the working up of Turkey and Italian Effects and employment of our Poor in them 100000 As it hinders the Employing of our Poor and procures the debasing our own fine Manufactures 1200000 As it hinders the Consumption of our Wool and as it tends to bring down the vallue thereof 116000 Total 1716000● And I hope no Man will wonder at this Account when they consider the great part of the dammage lies in the tendency of this India Trade to the debasing of our own Manufactures and so hinders the Employment of our People in them and bringing them out of Reputation wherever they come for this Trade would have the same effect upon Cloth should there be brought great quantities of Commodities from India or any other Place in opposition to it that should have the same esteem with the People and here we may see that there comes more Loss to England than Profit by this Trade per An. 1156000 l. And if these things be plain and evident can this Trade as managed be accounted profitable when part of it does much more hurt than the whole does good And is it not natural to the Nobility and Gentry of England to infer we see what part is fit to be incouraged and what a necessity there is to restrain that which does so much damage And certainly every English-man concern'd in this Trade will no longer desi●e to carry on a Trade so much to the damage of his Country And the Whole-Sale and Retail Dealers in these Commodities should infer since we can live as well and save as much Money in buying and felling English as Indian Manufactures why should we desire to hinder the Labour of our Neighbour who if he had Employment would lay out part of his Gettings in our Shops And the Consumer should conclude it most elegable to wear such Garments as will most advance his own Estate and support his poor Neighbour and cause Mony to Circulate through every part of his Country and thereby make the Inhabitants Pleasant Easy Chearful Useful Industrious and Pious And the Owners of Land may consider the Natural Effects of this Trade so far as it hinders the Labour of the Poor the Employment of People being the only means to give a value to Land then so far as any Trade hinders Employment so far it must lessen the value of the Product and Rents of Land I hope the Gentlemen concerned in this Trade did not apprehend what a Loss this part of it is to the Nation and that they thought that tho' it damaged the Manufactures a little it was of Advantage to the whole and were deceived by the false Colours that some put upon it and by others representing only the light side of it and may it not be expected that others will either shew the mistake of this Account or act like English-men and not any longer hinder the Publick Good by such weak Pretences that if the Co●modities come not from India they will be brought from our European Neighbours when they see the great Loss comes by such Manufactures as our Neighbours cannot pretend to Import upon us but we have constantly Exported to them Or that other Excuse that we must consume those Goods or the Dutch will have the Trade whereas our Kings Dominions Consume at least three parts in four of what is brought to Europe of these Commodities By T. S. FINIS