AHC: Delay the Industrial Revolution

Yes it did, there was a mini IR in the Netherlands in the 1600s where wind powered machinery was used to mass produce boats and other stuff. Maybe if something ruins the Dutch golden age it won`t fertilise the British.

Maybe a more splendid isolation? No Glorious Revolution maybe, or a continued Cromwellian government? So they are not interested what is happening outside the UK.
 
Maybe a more splendid isolation? No Glorious Revolution maybe, or a continued Cromwellian government? So they are not interested what is happening outside the UK.

Why would that discourage British interest in stuff abroad? Britain has a lot more to worry about keeping up with the Joneses than Japan.
 
I'm not sure why the EIC would decide to set up factories in India since that totally undermines the whole double profit basis of the colonial system
At first glance I'd say making the cloth in India means they could treat the Indian workers worse/pay them less than British ones, but at the start of the Industrial Revolution it wouldn't matter that much considering early British working conditions.

It would at least save the expense of shipping finished cloth back to India to sell, and that space could be used for other goods.

They could still corner the cloth market in India and sell what they don't send to Britain locally without needed a boat trip.
 
At first glance I'd say making the cloth in India means they could treat the Indian workers worse/pay them less than British ones, but at the start of the Industrial Revolution it wouldn't matter that much considering early British working conditions.

Yup- it's important not to back project modern ideas about sweatshop labour. Back then *everything* was sweatshop labour.

It would at least save the expense of shipping finished cloth back to India to sell, and that space could be used for other goods.

They could still corner the cloth market in India and sell what they don't send to Britain locally without needed a boat trip.

The whole point is that it allows you to make a profit both ways- you haul raw materials out and haul in manufactured goods. There's no expense in shipping finished cloth to India because that actually nets you a profit.

The whole point of squashing industry in India by flooding the market with cheap British goods is to retard the development of a local industrial base. Once you start setting up factories the locals are going to be able to take a look at that and do the same thing which will lead to your factories being undercut by local entrepreneurs who know the people and can manipulate the social system far more effectively than you and can then produce the same manufactured goods locally. Of course you could use force to squash them but that's not good for business- the EIC couldn't afford to rule with an iron fist. It had to use economics to dominate India. The whole point was to keep modern large scale industry out of India- the lead this gave England lasted for the rest of the 19th century. By the end of the 19th century some local industrial enterprises had begun to be set up.

Part of the EICs mandate was to extract raw materials for the benefit of Britain. It makes no sense from their perspective to have some cloth manufactured in India and some back home. Simply shipping raw material back keeps prices down in Britain while enabling a bigger profit to be made selling back to India.
 
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