The Management of Monopoly: A Study of the English East India Company's Conduct of Its Tea Trade, 1784-1833

Ian K. Steele was Professor in the Department of History, University of Western Ontario, London.

This well-researched little volume will interest students of the history of the East India Company, tea marketing, and business organization. The Company’s management of its exclusive privilege of importing tea into Britain is explained carefully and is judged most favourably. The price stability, long-term service by committed employees, and honourable relations between the Hong merchants, Canton supercargoes, London directors, and tea buyers, make one wonder whether Chinese attitudes affected this whole business bureaucracy.

The authors insist that the Company did not manipulate the market or take unreasonable profit. The opium traffic is ignored, although the Company that avoided this trade in China held an opium monopoly as the government of Bengal. It is also hard to match the Company’s average net profit of 25 percent with the claim that the tea buyers of London controlled the prices. Admittedly, the British government profited more, receiving £3,000,000 a year for an investment of less than £10,000.

A comprehensive study of the production, marketing, and consumption of tea is needed. This work and the authors’ promised study of English tea consumption contribute to that objective. Despite its narrow scope and contentious judgements, this monograph presents valuable research in a clear manner, while linking the findings to some continuing debates among business historians.