Capitalism and Slavery, Third Edition by Eric Williams;

Author:Eric Williams;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

A. PROTECTION OR LAISSEZ-FAIRE?

Queen Victoria once sent a famous message to two African chiefs: “England has become great and happy by the knowledge of the true God and Jesus Christ.”7 To the Manchester capitalist, “Jesus Christ was Free Trade, and Free Trade was Jesus Christ.”8

If Corn was the king of monopolies, Sugar was his queen. The attack on the preferential sugar duties of the West Indies was a part of that general philosophy which in 1812 destroyed the East India Company’s monopoly and in 1846 the Corn Laws of England. The Anti–Corn Law League, said its treasurer, was “established on the same righteous principle as the Anti-Slavery Society. The object of that society was to obtain the free right for the Negroes to possess their own flesh and blood—the object of this was to obtain the free right of the people to exchange their labor for as much food as could be got for it.”9 In the delirium of free trade sentiments the brunt of the advance on the anti-monopolistic front had to be borne by the West Indian monopoly which was not only iniquitous but expensive.

The advocates of East India sugar persistently attacked the West Indian monopoly. They called the islands “sterile rocks,” whose insatiable calls for money represented “an eternal sponge on the capitals of this country, both national and commercial.” Even before the end of the eighteenth century Britain was “ripe for an abolition of monopolies.” A general hardship could not be inflicted on the community at large for the sake of affording a partial and unreasonable benefit to a small number of its members.10

The East Indian opposition was more virulent in the eighteen twenties. They wanted, at least so they alleged, no exclusive favor, preference or protection. All they asked for was equality with the West lndies.11 Were the West Indians entitled to the enjoyment of the monopoly merely because they had enjoyed it for a length of time? “It would be to contend, that because a great many people who used to be employed in the manufacture of cotton, or other articles, by hand, are thrown out of employment by the invention of machinery, a tax upon machinery should therefore be levied. … It would be to say that because the conveyance by canal has been found much more cheap and convenient than the old mode of conveyance by wagon, a tax should therefore be laid upon canal conveyance.”12 The claim of the West Indians that they were entitled to a continuance of protection because they had invested their capital in sugar cultivation was “a claim which might be urged with equal force in the case of every improvident speculation.”13 They could not depart from the ordinary principles of commerce in order to benefit the West Indians.14 Hume trusted that the good sense, the honest feeling and the patriotism of the British people would never allow the continuance of such a monopoly, for all restraints and monopolies were bad.15

As early as 1815 a protest was

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