Page 354 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

340.

trade should be encouraged to oppose protectionist measures.

Merchants in the China trade "alone are not to be the sufferers,

all those who are connected with Commerce, from the ship­

builder to the carman, are interested with us, & may be incited

to act with us. 11 11

Despite merchants' opposition to the high duties enu­

merated in the proposed tariff of 1824, Congress passed it.

Although William Sturgis of Bryant & Sturgis had gone to Wash­

ington in February to represent Boston merchants, they held

little hope that Sturgis' mission would have any affect. At

the time he departed, his own house noted that "it seems to

be the opinion from Washington, that mms'-uous as the act is,

12
it will pass--" After 1824 the merchants unrelentingly
opposed the high import duties, especially those laid on

silk. They argued that, while American markets for China

silks remained stable, the tariff prohibited American mer­

chants from supplying those markets without drastically

raising prices. Yet new competition from England limited pro­

fits. Noting the higher American tariff, the English East India

Company hoped to compete with Americans in American markets.

The British government lowered both import and export duties
.
on all forms of silk, "with the view of supplying this country

LAroeric�7 with manufactures, upon as cheap terms as silks could

11
Letter, Perkins & Co. to LeRoy, Bayard & Co., May 27,
1820, Massachusetts Historical Society, Letterbooks of J. & T.H.
Perkins.
12
Lett�r, Bryant & Sturgis to J.P. Sturgis & Co., Feb. 14,
1824, Harvard Business School, Baker Library, Bryant & Sturgis MSS.