ABSTRACT
An equally important aspect of the economic policy of the Company was the attempt to reorganise the Indian banking system. As regards its effects on national production, the whole amount might as well be thrown into the sea.’ This economic proposition cannot be gainsaid—a ‘drain’ is the inevitable result of foreign rule. The Company lost heavily on the transactions, but Bengal became a leading exporter of indigo, and in 1810 five-sixths of the indigo imported into Britain came from Bengal. The Company more frequently purchased through European agents than by direct contract with Indian merchants. The conflict between the Company and the manufacturers of piece goods in England again became important. The decline in quality of Indian manufactures had begun in the anarchy of the eighteenth century and was accelerated, first by the economic monetary disorders before Plassey and then by the oppression of the Company’s servants in the early days.
