The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign: Why It Exists, and How It May Be ExtinguishedCarey, Henry Charles
History
The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign: Why It Exists, and How It May Be Extinguished
Carey, Henry Charles
Labor; Slave trade; Slavery; Slavery -- United States; Tariff -- United States; Working class
The Hindoo, like the negro, is shut out from the workshop. If he
attempts to convert his cotton into yarn, his spindle is taxed in
nearly all of the profit it can yield him. If he attempts to make
cloth, his loom is subjected to a heavy tax, from which that of his
wealthy English competitor is exempt. His iron ore and his coal must
remain in the ground, and if he dares to apply his labour even to the
collection of the salt which crystallizes before his door, he is
punished by fine and imprisonment. He must raise sugar to be
transported to England, there to be exchanged, perhaps, for English
salt. For the sugar, arrived in that country, the workman pays at the
rate perhaps of forty shillings a hundred, of which the government
claims one-third, the ship owner, the merchant, and others, another
third, and the remaining third is to be fought for by the agents of
the Company, anxious for revenue, and the poor ryot, anxious to obtain
a little salt to eat with his rice, and as much of his neighbour's
cotton, in the form of English cloth, as will suffice to cover his
loins.
Under the Spanish system capital increases, and labour is so valuable
that slaves still continue to be imported. Under the English one,
labour is valueless, and men sell themselves for long years of slavery
at the sugar culture in the Mauritius, in Jamaica, and in Guiana. In
all countries _to which_ men are attracted, civilization tends upward;
but in all those _from which_ men fly, it tends downward.
At the moment this despatch was being written by Lord Palmerston, Mr.
Campbell was writing his book, in which it is everywhere shown that
the tendency of India toward centralization and absenteeism, and
therefore toward exhaustion and slavery, is rapidly on the increase.
"The communication with India," as he says--
"Is every day so much increased and facilitated that we become more
and more entirely free from native influence, and the disposition to
Hindooize, which at first certainly showed itself, has altogether
disappeared. The English in India have now become as English as in
England.
"While this state of things has great advantages, it has also some
disadvantage in the want of local knowledge, and of permanency in the
tenure of appointments which results. As there has been a constant
succession of total strangers in every appointment, it follows that
the government must be entirely carried on upon general principles,
with little aid from local knowledge and experience."--P. 202.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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