68 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Frederick List says, “Had they sanctioned the free importation into England of Indian Cotton and silk goods, the English cotton and silk manufacturers must, of necessity, soon come to a stand. India had not only the advantage of cheaper labour and raw material, but also the experience, the skill and the practice of centuries.”
The opinion of Mr. H. H. Wilson, the historian of India is still more emphatic. “It is also a melancholy instance” he admits,
“of the wrong done to India by the country on which she has become dependent. It was stated in evidence (in
- that the cotton and silk goods of India up to the period could be sold for a profit in the British market at a price from 50 and 60 per cent lower than those fabricated in England. It consequently became necessary to protect the latter by duties of 70 and 80 per cent on their value, or by positive prohibition. Had this not been the case, had not such prohibitory duties and decrees existed, the mills of Paisley and Manchester would have been stopped in their outset, and could scarcely have been again set in motion, even by the power of steam. They were created by the sacrifice of the Indian manufacture. Had India been independent, she would have retaliated, would have imposed prohibitive duties upon British goods, and would thus preserved her own productive industry from annihilation. This act of self defence was not permitted her. She was at the mercy of the stranger Brush goods were forced upon her without paying duty, and the foreign manufacturer employed the arm of political injustice to keep down and ultimately strangle a competitor with whom he could not contend on equal terms” : With the result, to quote the words of Mr. Chaplin, that “many manufacturers have been compelled to resort to agriculture for maintenance, a department already overstocked.”