THE INFLUENCE OF MODERN EUROPE ON INDIAN ART. 69

-found possible to manufacture goods of the same charac-
ter in England,

"endeavours were made, which were fatally successful, to
repress Indian manufactures and to extend British manufactures.
"The import of Indian goods to Europe was repressed by prohibi-
tive duties ; the export of British goods to India was encouraged

by almost nominal duties............In 1816-17 * India not only

clothed the whole of that vast population, but exported £1,659,438
worth of goods.5 Thirty years later the whole of this export had
•disappeared, and India imported four millions sterling of cotton

goods............When Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837.

the evil had been done. But nevertheless there was no relaxation
•in the policy pursued before. Indian silk handkerchiefs had still
a sale in Europe; and a high duty on manufactured silk was
'maintained, Parliament enquired ' how cotton could be grown in
India for British looms,' not how Indian looms could be improved.
'Select committees tried to find out how British manufactures
could find a sale in India, not how Indian manufactures could be

revived............During a century and a half the commercial

policy of the British rulers of India has been determined, not by
the interests of Indian manufacturers, but by those of British
manufacturers. The vast quantities of manufactured goods which
were exported from India by the Portuguese and Dutch, by Arab
>and British merchants, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
nave disappeared."—(Romesh Dutt).

The same policy has been maintained until a later
period. As late as 1905, Mr. Pennington reviewing the
book from which I have just quoted, could say :—

" One cannot read such an indictment of England by one of
ner most capable Indian officials without a feeling of humiliation

........... The quite recent story of the imposition of an excise

duty on Indian goods which did not compete at all with any Lan-
cashire goods and yet affected seriously the rival mills of India, is
A disgrace to Lancashire as well as to the English Government.
It is quite certain that if India had as many votes as even the
single county of Lancashire, that scandalous duty would never
•have been imposed. When shall \ve get to govern us, * men of
truth, hating unjust gain.' ? "

Mr. J. Nisbet, writing in the ' Nineteenth Century '
for November, 1908, repeats the same well-known facts :—
" As regards Swadeshi, certainly so far as fiscal matters are
-concerned, the history of the Indian tariff under Crown Govern-
ment has been one long and almost continuous betrayal of
Indian interests in order to win the Lancashire vote for party
purposes."