62 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Some of the direct and indirect advantages to England from India may be noted in the words of St. George Tucker who says:—
(1) “The East India Company have, at different periods, drawn, a surplus revenue from their territorial possessions to the extent of a million and a half sterling per annum after paying the interest of the territorial debt and this surplus was evidently a direct tribute from India to England.”
(2) “About four-fifths of the territorial debt being held by European British subjects, a large proportion of the annual interest, amounting to near two million sterling may be regarded as an indirect tribute paid by India to the mother country.” “This indirect or private tribute” including the savings, the profits of commerce, etc., Tucker estimates at “three million sterling per annum at the present period” (i.e., about 1821).
(3) “The Shipping of India (that is, the India built ships which are employed in carrying on the trade from port to port in the (eastern Seas) forms no inconsiderable portion of the whole tonnage of Great Britain.
(4) “The possession of India furnishes a most convenient outlet for the present overflowing in one class at least of the community, for whom it is found difficult in all countries, and in none more than our own, to make a suitable provision……. The service of India alone opens a field in which they can be employed largely with the prospect of benefit to themselves and to their country.”
These do not by any means exhaust the ways by which India contributed to the prosperity of England.
Besides these indirect ways, England adopted more direct and drastic measures to harm India. This was effected through the protective system. England was in no way able to compete with Indian goods and as a manufacturing country, India was England’s superior. To destroy the competition of Indian goods which in spite of the cost of transportation ousted the. English goods from their home markets, England adopted a strong protectionist policy.
The following figures will indicate how high the tariff against Indian goods was :—
Alocs duty p.c. .. 280 Oil of Cinnamon .. 400 Assafoefida .. 622 Mace .. 3,000 Benjamin .. 373 Nutmegs .. 250
Borax .. 102 Olibanum .. 400