The
proportion of raw silk in the investment is to be augmented. The
proportion of the whole cargoes for the year 1783, divided into sixteen
parts, is ten of raw silk, and six only of manufactured goods. Such is
the proportion of this losing article in the scheme for the investment
of private fortunes.
In the reformed scheme of sending the investment on account of the
Company, to be paid in bills upon Europe, no mention is made of any
change of these proportions. Indeed, some limits are attempted on the
article of silk, with regard to its price; and it is not improbable that
the price to the master and the servant will be very different: but they
cannot make profitable purchases of this article without strongly
condemning all the former purchases of the Board of Trade.
CLOTHS, OR PIECE-GOODS.
The general system above stated, relative to the silk trade, must
materially have affected the manufactures of Bengal, merely as it was a
system of preference. It does by no means satisfactorily appear to your
Committee that the freedom held out by the Company's various orders has
been ever fully enjoyed, or that the grievances of the native merchants
and manufacturers have been redressed; for we find, on good authority,
that, at that very period at which it might be supposed that these
orders had their operation, the oppressions were in full vigor.
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