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India's Prospects According to Jean-Baptiste Say, 1824

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Joseph J. Spengler
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In 1824 Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832), the Adam Smith of France, undertook to forecast the future of the British Dominion in India. He did this in an essay entitled Essai historique sur I'origine, les progrès et les résultats probables de la souveraineté des Anglais aux Indes (Paris, 1824), subsequently included as a chapter in his definitive Cours complet d'economie politique pratique, first published in 1828–29. This essay thus appeared eleven years after the East India Company was given a new charter in 1813, but one stripped of its former trade monopoly, and six years before the transformation of the Company's dominion into what subsequently became the British Indian Empire. The officers of this new dominion would “have been much surprised to see the Indian flag hoisted in Delhi only a hundred and twenty-nine years later.” But would Say have been surprised?

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , May 1969 , pp. 595 - 600
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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1969

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References

1 I have used the 2nd edition, edited by Say's son, Horace (Paris, 1840). Say's essay appears as Chap. 26 of Book IV, in Vol.I, 650–66. I have followed the translation in the English version of the initial essay, Historical Essay on the Rise, Progress, and Probable results of the British Dominion (London, 1824)Google Scholar. On Say's work and career see Teilhac, E., L'oeuvre économique de Jean-Baptiste Say, Paris, 1927Google Scholar.

2 Spear, Percival, A History of India, Vol. 2 (Harmondsworth, 1963), 106Google Scholar.

3 See my France Faces Depopulation (Durham, 1938), chap. 8, esp. pp. 176–81.

4 A Treatise on Political Economy, Translated from the fourth French edition, by Prinsep, C. R. (Philadelphia, 1841)Google Scholar, Bk. I, chap. 20; also Cours, Part 4, on Say's overall views on obstacles to the freedom of trade.

5 Treatise, p. 305.

6 Treatise, Bk. I, chap. 17; also Cours, Part 4, chap. 25.

7 Cours, Part 4, chaps. 22–23; Treatise, Bk. I, chap. 19.

8 Treatise, p. 143.

9 Historical Essay, pp. 11–21; Cours, I, pp. 653–59.

10 Historical Essay, p. 21; Cours, I, pp. 658–59.

11 Historical Essay, p. 22; Cours, I, p. 659.

12 Historical Essay, pp. 22–27; Cours, I, pp. 659–61.

13 Historical Essay, p. 23; Cours, I, p. 660.

14 Historical Essay, pp. 26–27; Cours, I, p. 661.

15 Historical Essay, pp. 28–29; Cours, I, pp. 661–63. See also Say's, “De l'Angleterre et des Anglais” 1815), in his Oeuvres diverses (Paris, 1848), pp. 229–31Google Scholar.

16 Historical Essay, pp. 30–31; Cours, I, pp. 663–64.

17 Historical Essay, p. 32. Cours, I, p. 664. Say modified this quotation in the Cours, on the basis of Malcolm, John, Mémoires stir l'lnde centrals (London, 1832)Google Scholar. The British and the Indians were incompatible. Indians detested foreign intervention in their internal affairs. Yet, while unable to imagine life without masters, they had not sought for guarantees assuring good masters. Moreover, although influential Indian leaders, denied access to lucrative posts by their English rulers, were enemies of the English “yoke,” no resistance to it was forthcoming. Cours, I, p. 664.

18 Historical Essay, pp. 32–34; Cours, 1, pp. 664–65.

19 Historical Essay, pp. 35–36; Cours, I, p. 666. In 1799, Say published an essay, Olbie on essai sur les moyens d'améliorer les moeurs, but he does not refer therein to India nor does he refer to Olbie in his discussion of India. Olbie is included in Say's, Oeuvres diverses (Paris, 1848), pp. 580–615Google Scholar.

20 Thomas, R. P., “The Sugar Colonies of the Old Empire: Profit or Loss for Great Britain,” Economic History Review, XXI (April 1968), 30–45Google Scholar.

21 Myrdal, G. writes 115 years after Marx: “It is doubtful whether the village, that stronghold of stagnation, should be preserved as the basic unit.” Asian Drama (New York, 1968), p. 880Google Scholar. Neither ideational leaven nor transportational solvents had proved sufficient.

22 “The British Rule in India,” (June 10, 1853), in Marx, K. and Engels, F., The First Indian War of Independence 1857–59 (Moscow, 1959), p. 19Google Scholar. This book is a longer collection of Marx's writings on India than Dutt's, R. P.Karl Marx: Articles on India (Bombay, 1943)Google Scholar.

23 Ibid., pp. 61–77 on the growing bourgeois impact and the “great social revolution” following in its wake. Ibid., p. 68; also Marx and Engels, op. cit., passim.

24 Oeuvres completes (Mayer, J. P., ed.), Tome 3, Vol. I (Paris, 1962), 36–40Google Scholar; also Baudet's, Henry essay in Tocqueville, livre du centenaire (Paris, 1960)Google Scholar.

25 Tocqueville, interested in India in 1840–43, drew also on the works of James Mill, R. M. Martin, and Barchou de Penhoēn. Oeuvres, he. cit., pp. 443–553, esp. pp. 444–55, 463–67, 474–82, 495, 507–09, 536–52.

26 Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies (Beauchamp, H. K., translator), 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1897, 1928), pp. 5–8Google Scholar, also 44–97, 376–79. Tocqueville, used Moeurs, institutions et cérémonies des peuples de l'lnde (Paris, 1825)Google Scholar.

27 See O'Brien, D. P., “McCulloch and India,” The Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, XXXIII (Sept., 1965), 313–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This is a reply to S. Ambirajan's “McCulloch on India,” ibid. (May, 1965), pp. 125–40. Professor W. L. Miller called my attention to O'Brien's paper.