Page:The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India.djvu/35

 up of transit and town duties. For the purposes of transit duties the country was artificially divided into a number of small customs areas. Goods may be manufactured and consumed ad libitum within each customs area, but the moment they left their own division they became liable to duty. The injurious effects of this regulation, though concealed, were none the less real. The transit duties held up trade, which in its turn reacted adversely on the manufacturers of the country. Adam Smith has told us ow the growth of industry depends upon the extent of the market. Here for the purposes of the transit duties the whole country was cut up into small bits after the manner of squares on a chess board. What wonder is there if trade, and its handmaid, industry, both languished to a seuous extent. The adverse effect on the transit duties was also felt in another way. In every country somewhat industrially advanced there is not only a social division of labour, but there is also a territorial division of labour, reiwise called localization of industry. Evidence is not wanting to show that the localization of industry formed a prominent feature of Indian economy. Under it each locality in India specialized in a particular art or industry; for instance, cotton was grown in one locality, woven in another, and bleached in a third place. But it often happened that these localities were situated in different customs areas, and a raw good might have had to pay the transit duty many a time before it reached its finished stage. To avoid this each locality was obliged to waste its energies along unprofitable lines in order to escape the transit duties.

The town duties, which formed a part of the internal customs, also worked in their effects towards de-urbanization. Commercial entrepôts are admittedly vast instruments of the trade of a country. The opportunity of ready purchase and sale of almost every kind of commodity in any quantity, accumulated capital, extended credit, general information all meet here as in a centre. They support, encourage and give life to commerce and to the trade of a country. Bu the direct effect of the town duty was to distract and