Decision-making on the level of trade

It is evident from an analysis of the Company's general policy on its commercial organisation in Asia that this was an area where the discrepancy between the decisions and planning undertaken by the central controllers in London and the actual implementation at the operational end in the East Indies was at its minimum. The Court of Directors was seldom prepared to tolerate for too long flagrant disregard of its orders on the maintenance of unwanted factories and settlements that showed a persistent incapacity to make profits. But this aspect of the Company's decision-making only required action at infrequent intervals. The temporal pattern of the Company's trading organisation in the Indies can be compared to those components which incorporate the trend and regular cycles. When the Committee of Correspondence sat down to consider the merits and demerits of a particular trading region or a settlement, its location, political security, accessibility to markets, transport costs, and so on, they were not thinking in other than static terms. Where the time factor actively entered into their considerations, it was as changes by a series of approximations towards the ideal objectives, the criteria that determined the position and value of a settlement. When conditions at a particular settlement reached near enough to the objectives, a partial equilibrium was achieved. From a theoretical point it was not difficult to lay down precise directives on such matters and the Company's servants had no particular interest in going against the policy of Leadenhall Street.