Page 352 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

338.

participation in the China trade. Although established mer­

chants complained loudly concerning their new competition,

they did not protest to the government. Its commercial policy,
though contributing to increasing instability in the China

trade, still assisted all American merchants in any branch of

foreign commerce. The major merchants in the China trade, in

fact, began to fear in the 1820's that the government was no

longer interested in American trade. Burgeoning manufacturing

interests in the United States threatened merchants' efforts

to maintain government support.

To merchants in the China trade after the War, the

growth of American manufacturing interests rivaled two major

imports from Canton, nankins and silk piece goods. Besides

teas, Chinese-produced cloths were the major article in which

American merchants speculated in the China trade. Merchants

realized that New England textiles would quickly replace im­

ported nankins in American markets. This prospect was not

necessarily fatal, if the American-manufactured product could

be made even cheaper, but with a higher quality, than the nan­

kins. Long before American "domestics" outsold nankins at

Canton, American merchants discussed such an enterprise. But

1
what really disturbed merchants in the 1820 s was a growing
protectionist sentiment in the American government to assist

developing factories in the United States. To stimulate the
manufacture of teYtiles, Congress imposed high duties on impor­

ted silk in the Tariff of 1824. Although support for manufac­

turing interests had appeared soon after the War, Congress