FREE-TRADE IN INDIA.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Your correspondent " Free-Trader " of December 7th says : "It was not Free-trade to impose an Excise-duty on Indian cotton manufactures in order to prevent their com- peting with Lancashire." This statement is most unfair. It is, in fact, untrue. What was, in truth, done ? Lord George Hamilton, Secretary of State for India, as a Free-trader, carried out his principles by taxing cotton goods entering our dependency to the extent of three and a half per cent., and by imposing a countervailing Excise-duty of a similar amount on cotton goods produced in India. That is Free-trade. Lord Cromer acted in precisely the same way in Egypt in connexion with the two new cotton mills in that country. India and Egypt cannot be protected at the expense of the County
[We agree. Lord George Hamilton and Lord Cromer acted as Free-traders were bound to act. When financial necessity obliges recourse to , taxation at the ports of goods which are also manufactured in the country, an Excise equiva- lent to the Custom-duty must be imposed in the interests of the revenue,—that is, of the taxpayers. If not, a portion of the increased price paid by the consumer will go into the purse, not of the State, but of the manufacturer. But for the Excise, Custom-dues imposed for revenue purposes, and justified by the needs of the Treasury, might cease to draw. —ED. Spectator.]
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