Page:The Evolution of Provincial Finance in British India.djvu/37

 foreign origin and shipped on foreign bottoms were charged with. But nothing can extenuate the sacrifice imposed upon the Indian industries by letting in British goods at lower rates than what the Indian goods had to pay under the internal customs; and this was done when, be it remembered, England was prohibiting by high tariff the entry of India-made goods and India-built ships! But while the import tariff made it easy for the foreigners to compete successfully with Indian manufactures burdened as they heavily were by the weight of the internal customs, Indian goods found it considerably difficult to compete in foreign markets under the incubus of export duties which formed one of the most lamentable features of the Indian tariff and which endured long into the nineteenth century. Thus the customs laws internal and external blockaded trade and smothered industry. The comparatively paltry revenues derived from them is the best proof of their ruinous effects.