The Colas c30.12

c30.12

A recent writer has pointed out the differences between mercantile organisations in Europe and in the East.³¹ Speaking of European trade with China, he contrasts the radical weakness of the Chinese commercial class as compared with the European. 'The great chartered companies of Europe had monopoly rights and state backing; they sinned against the light of free trade no less than the Chinese guilds, but they stood for the self-organisation and autonomy of the merchant class, not the mere rapacity of government officials. In China the merchant was powerless against officialdom; politically he was nothing; there was no tradition of city-state commercialism to teach him his potential strength. In Europe the bourgeois was rising to be master of the state; in China he was but the servile agent of the mandarins.’ In South India, the merchants had certainly more freedom and scope for initiative, and a better capacity for voluntary organisation than in China; they were less at the mercy of government officials, and exercised a great deal of autonomy in the regulation of their own affairs. The state was not eager to interfere in their transactions, and would not do so except on invitation. On the other hand, the state did not, it could not, give the strong backing to its merchants engaged in foreign trade that the European state provided. Neither the merchants nor the state in South India had any idea of the possibilities of economic imperialism. Trade to them was an end in itself; they were willing to carry on trade if conditions were favourable; it never occurred to them that foreign lands may be compelled to buy and sell at the point of the bayonet.