Quality and European Markets

The examples of the English and French Companies

Quality Control

What is Quality?

• Differentiations of quality

• Good and bad quality

Quality ControlThe Problems

• “Ginghams, Photaes, Peniascoes and many of the cotton Romalls are very course and nasty dead colours.”

• “And in the inferior sort some of them are so very thin and raw, that the Makers endeavour in vain to conceal the defects [...], which makes them feel and look s harsh & ruff as defeats the design for which it was intended, and the lowest goods of the common breath are so very course, uneven and frayey as get them very ill reputation.”

(EIC to the Council of Bengal, November 1729)

Quality ControlThe Problems

“The badness of the Goods sent us for two years past having not only raised a general Clamour among the buyers but also great uneasiness in the Proprietors of the Company’s stock and we being convinced that there has been a culpable neglect in the Management of our affairs by the unequal sortment of goods, Deficiency in their lengths & Breaths, and excessive high prices, together with the vast quantities of fine unvendable articles sent us contrary to our orders”

(EIC to Bengal 1731)

Quality Control

How to indicate Quality

1) Verballyex. EIC 1730 fabric orders to Bengal: fine, ordinary, middling, good, very fine, of an inferior sort, of low price.

© Musee de la Compagnie des Indes, Lorient

Quality Control

How to indicate Quality

2) By Price

ex: 1740 EIC order to Bengal Cossaes: Yard and three eights broad, from nine to seven rupeesof an inferior sort from 7 to 5 rupees, as low as can be got, not very ordinary or frayl, nor any to exceed seven rupeesYard and eight to yard and three sixteenths broad, from eight to four rupees or lower, but none very bad without gold headsYard broad, from six to four rupees or under, without gold heads

© Fitzwilliam, Cambridge

Quality ControlHow to indicate Quality

3) By weight

‘200 pieces Pékin de 6 fils 45 Coben 32 Taels de poids a 6 Taels la piece, deux cens pieces Damas unis de 8 fils 45 Coben 42 Taels de poids a 8 Taels […]. Cinquante pieces Damas de deux couleurs de 8 fils 45 Coben 42 T de poids a 8 T. Cinquante pieces Damas rayés de 8 fils 45 C. 42 T de poids a 8 T.’

Council of Canton (1742)

‘300 Pieces de Pekins de 6 fils 45 Co. Pezant 32 T a C.t 2m [mace] la piece’300 Pieces de Gourgourands de 8. Fils 45 Co pezant 42 T a 7.t 4.m la piece’

Council of Canton (1743)

Quality ControlHow to indicate Quality

4) By Sample

© BL

Quality Control

How to ensure quality

1) Create experts

Ex 1710 EIC order of Fans from China:Let all the Ivory Sticks be made of Ivory all the way through the Fann and not pieced with Cane within the Paper which never do well and may be discover'd by holding them up against a Candle.

© V&A

Ex 1730 EIC order of Silk from China:

“The method to know the best China Raw Silk, is by the fineness or smallness of the Thread, the Thread of the best sort is as fine as a fine hair, vide the sample, which is of a pretty good size, though is finer, the silk would be more valuable here, provided the Quality be good, of which a judgment may be made by observing the following Instructions.Cleanness & Evenness First by the Evenness and Cleanness, by which is meant when the Thread is free from gouty thick places, knots, Knobs or nitts, even all alike, of one and the same fineness in All Places, [...]Colour & Complex wide Sample ASecondly the best silk is generally very white, clear & glossy, all the bundles appear of the same colour, [...] But all the good silk is certainly the more valuable for being f a clean white yet finess, clearness and eveness are qualities of greater importance than the colour for silk that is fine, clean and even may be very good, though not white, but silk that is not fine clean and even cannot be good, though it should be ever so white. Form and Fashion of the Bundles China Silk is generally made up for Sale in to Bundles for by some called books of which there are three different forms or fashion [...]

Quality Control

How to ensure quality

2) Explain and involve

ex EIC:1730 to Bengal:

“And as we have for your future observation sent you herewith a Printed Sale book, we have therein struck out such Lots as remain unsold, and put the Prices to such others as went off at or near a bare advance, with the invoice Marks and Numbers of respective Bales wrote in the margin against the sale numbers, so that by recourse to them, you may the easer perceive who are the People that have dealt so ill by us.”

Ex French Canton correspondence:

• 1750 Mémoire d’observations de Messieurs les Directeurs députés aux Ventes

• Letter from the Council at Canton on Tea:‘ayant examiné avec attention les bulletins de votre vente’ ‘c’est ce qui a déterminé le Conseil a vous en envoyer une partie de trente mille livres, au lieu de douze mille que vous demandiez’

(Rapport du Conseil a la Compagnie, 1768)

Ex Mémoire instructif pour M. de Langerie, capitaine du navire le Royal-Jaques allant à la Chine' (1700/1701)

• Rhubarb

‘Rhubarb has been imported for the Company as well as fraudulently for several officers. Neither one nor the other has been good, even though the commissioners were moved both by the interest of the company and by their own. The surgeon of the Amphitirite, who is an expert on drugs has been cheated. Canton is at 800 leagues from the region were good rhubarb is to be had, that from the neighbourhood of Canton is inferior. […] Upon these considerations the Company begs Mr. De Langerie not to bring any rhubarb.’

Market awareness

• ex EIC‘All the printed flower'd and painted Goods must have Severall Pieces of the same Pattern because of Lineing beds or other furniture The printing flowering and painting left to the Chinese fancy in generall but avoid buying those pieces which have a great orb or ovall in them and a large space about it all plain take care all the printed and painted goods be well done gett all these if possible of forty to fifty yards’

(1710 to Canton)

Market awareness

French:

Lanterns:‘It has been found that they cannot stand the heat from the candles that were put inside and that hot weather broke the gauze. They take a lot of space and have remained with the merchants who bought them.’

Folding screens‘The small have sold very well in France, but [...] the large ones did not. Mr. Langerie can bring up to one hundred, many small ones, few large ones, but they have to be of a beautiful black lacquer [...] They also need locks which are cheap in China and which, being costly in France, would much reduce the sales of the Company’s folding screens.’

(Memoire pour M. De Langerie)

© V&A

Product transformations

• ‘Cabarets’‘So far three types of cabarets have been brought here, large, medium, and small ones. [...] the medium ones have sold the least well and aren’t of as much use as the other sorts. The large ones serve as tables, and the small ones serve as cabinets instead of escritoires.’ © V&A

• Wig boxes ‘These boxes designed to hold wigs have been of a different usage in

France and one uses them to store tobacco and pipes’(Memoire pour M. De Langerie)

© V&A