Editing Cotton (section)

====East India Company====
{{Main|Calico Acts|Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution}}

[[File:Cotton bales at the port in Bombay in the 1860s.JPG|thumb|[[Cotton bale]]s at the port in [[Bombay]], India, 1860s]]

The [[English East India Company]] (EIC) introduced the British to cheap [[Calico (textile)|calico]] and [[chintz]] cloth on the restoration of the monarchy in the 1660s. Initially imported as a novelty side line, from its spice trading posts in Asia, the cheap colourful cloth proved popular and overtook the EIC's spice trade by value in the late 17th century. The EIC embraced the demand, particularly for [[Calico (textile)|calico]], by expanding its factories in Asia and producing and importing cloth in bulk, creating competition for domestic woollen and linen textile producers. The impacted weavers, spinners, dyers, shepherds and farmers objected and the calico question became one of the major issues of National politics between the 1680s and the 1730s. Parliament began to see a decline in domestic textile sales, and an increase in imported textiles from places like [[China]] and [[India]]. Seeing the East India Company and their textile importation as a threat to domestic textile businesses, Parliament passed the 1700 Calico Act, blocking the importation of cotton cloth. As there was no punishment for continuing to sell cotton cloth, smuggling of the popular material became commonplace. In 1721, dissatisfied with the results of the first act, Parliament passed a stricter addition, this time prohibiting the sale of most cottons, imported and domestic (exempting only thread [[Fustian]] and raw cotton). The exemption of raw cotton from the prohibition initially saw 2 thousand bales of cotton imported annually, to become the basis of a new indigenous industry, initially producing [[Fustian]] for the domestic market, though more importantly triggering the development of a series of mechanised spinning and weaving technologies, to process the material. This mechanised production was concentrated in new [[cotton mill]]s, which slowly expanded until by the beginning of the 1770s seven thousand bales of cotton were imported annually, and pressure was put on Parliament, by the new mill owners, to remove the prohibition on the production and sale of pure cotton cloth, as they could easily compete with anything the EIC could import.

The acts were repealed in 1774, triggering a wave of investment in mill-based cotton spinning and production, doubling the demand for raw cotton within a couple of years, and doubling it again every decade, into the 1840s.<ref name="Broadberry & Gupta 2005"/>

Indian cotton textiles, particularly those from [[Bengal Subah|Bengal]], continued to maintain a competitive advantage up until the 19th century. In order to compete with India, Britain invested in labour-saving technical progress, while implementing [[protectionist]] policies such as bans and [[tariff]]s to restrict Indian imports.<ref name="Broadberry & Gupta 2005">{{cite web |last1=Broadberry |first1=Stephen N. |last2=Gupta |first2=Bishnupriya |title=Cotton Textiles and the Great Divergence: Lancashire, India and Shifting Competitive Advantage, 1600-1850 |website=Centre for Economic Policy Research |date=August 2005 |series=CEPR Press Discussion Paper No. 5183 |ssrn=790866 |url=https://cepr.org/publications/dp5183 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> At the same time, the East India Company's [[Company rule in India|rule in India]] contributed to its [[deindustrialization]], opening up a new market for British goods,<ref name="Broadberry & Gupta 2005"/> while the capital amassed from Bengal after its [[Battle of Plassey|1757 conquest]] was used to invest in British industries such as textile manufacturing and greatly increase British wealth.<ref name="tong">Junie T. Tong (2016), [https://books.google.com/books?id=_UQGDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA151 ''Finance and Society in 21st Century China: Chinese Culture Versus Western Markets'', page 151], [[CRC Press]]</ref><ref name="esposito">[[John L. Esposito]] (2004), [https://books.google.com/books?id=KZcohRpc4OsC&pg=PT190 ''The Islamic World: Past and Present 3-Volume Set'', page 190] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171220230104/https://books.google.com/books?id=KZcohRpc4OsC&pg=PT190 |date=20 December 2017 }}, [[Oxford University Press]]</ref> British colonization also forced open the large Indian market to British goods, which could be sold in India without tariffs or [[Duty (economics)|duties]], compared to local Indian producers who were heavily [[tax]]ed, while raw cotton was imported from India without tariffs to British factories which manufactured textiles from Indian cotton, giving Britain a monopoly over India's large market and cotton resources.<ref name="Cypher">{{cite book|title=The Process of Economic Development|author=James Cypher|year=2014|publisher=[[Routledge]]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TxFxAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA97|isbn=978-1-136-16828-4}}</ref><ref name="Broadberry & Gupta 2005"/><ref name="Bairoch">{{cite book |last1=Bairoch |first1=Paul |author-link=Paul Bairoch |title=Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes |date=1995 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-03463-8 |page=89 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LaF_cCknJScC&pg=PA89 }}</ref> India served as both a significant supplier of raw goods to British manufacturers and a large [[captive market]] for British manufactured goods.<ref>{{cite book|title=Hobson-Jobson: The Definitive Glossary of British India|first1=Henry |last1=Yule |author-link1=Henry Yule |first2=A. C. |last2=Burnell |author-link2=A. C. Burnell |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=2013|page=20|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8NXOCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA20|isbn=978-1-317-25293-1}}</ref> Britain eventually surpassed India as the world's leading cotton textile manufacturer in the 19th century.<ref name="Broadberry & Gupta 2005"/>

India's cotton-processing sector changed during EIC expansion in India in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. From focusing on supplying the British market to supplying East Asia with raw cotton.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1163/9789047429975_006 |chapter=British Exports of Raw Cotton from India to China during the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries |title=How India Clothed the World |year=2013 |pages=115–137 |isbn=978-90-474-2997-5 |first1=H. V. |last1=Bowen |publisher=Brill |editor1-first=Giorgio |editor1-last=Riello |editor2-first=Tirthankar |editor2-last=Roy |jstor=10.1163/j.ctv2gjwskd.12 |jstor-access=free |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv2gjwskd.12 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240120040905/https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1163/j.ctv2gjwskd.12.pdf |archive-date= Jan 20, 2024 }}</ref> As the Artisan produced textiles were no longer competitive with those produced Industrially, and Europe preferring the cheaper slave produced, long staple American, and Egyptian cottons, for its own materials.{{Citation needed|date=September 2013}}