The Express.
London, England, 1850-01-15 00:00:00

Since Mr. Bass's time the bad revenue bee, it is
true, been settled- in Bengal Oa terms, however, so
high as to beggar the cultintor. Bat in Bombay and
Maness the aseeesrasnt is stall "partial and uncertain ;•'
and of the latter presidency Dr. WIGIIT, the super-
intendent of the comps" s experimental ' farm at
Coimbatoor, when exposing its uncertainty and par-
tiality, remarks :
So nigh rate a nesesement mot, ia the asters of things,
lead to immense tree= of land being allowed to lie tweets,
which, if mom znedirately assessed, would be brought coder
saltivatioe.
The want of profit in the cultivation of cotton in
the Agra presidency struck Mr. Firms, the American
planter before referred to. In his diary he writes :
To advance agriculture here, we must let the people akar*
largely in the profits. Make it their interest and they will
do say thing. • • I would appeal to the common ems
of the isemennity„ and particularly to the rulers of the law,
mad oak why a jadicimis system, pereeveriagly pursued, will
not ensure the production of this met eommercial article la
any quantities. lem convinced of the practicability of the
undertaklag.
This thought, indeed, seems to have pursued the
worthy Yankee wherever he went: for again and
again De writes in a similar strain :
Inspire the people of this omen, with the love of @grind-
tarsi impeovements, and let cation and other important
plants take deep root in their affections, and its wealth Ititt
he sabetuaded. It will not only be =wine the land brood-
eat with gold ; het it will spring • nine of solid gold as in-
esbse es mature itself.
There is in India every natural element for the
profitable cultivation of cotton—cheap labour, prolific
soil, and a congenial climate. The cotton districts, too,
in Bombay and Madras fringe the coasts of those pre-
sidencies; and in Agra they are contiguous to the
Ganges and the Jamas. Improved roads to the
places of shipment would, of course, be beneficial;
bat needful as these artificial elem*nts of profit are,
they are not the elements most needful. Why, then,
has the cultivation of cotton in India become nniver.
sally unprofitable? Why cannot India compete with
the-United States in the markets of London, Liver-
pool, and Glasgow ?
There may, in some districts, be spesial reasons.
Thus, for example, Dr. Winne tells as there are
such reasons in Madras. The coast lands of
that presidency are peculiarly adapted to cot-
ton cultivation, and are unsuitable to the pro-
du:tioa of grain. Yet cotton is not cultivated there,
, and the growth of grain is there Urrocd, because the
Indian government will not allow the people of
Madras to exchange their sterile, salt, for the staple
of the people of Bengal, which is grain. And thus,
under the pretence of revenue. the cotton lands of
Madras are compAled to produce inadequate supplies
of grain, and the people of Bengal are obliged to con-
s same, scantily, an inferior, filthy, and high priced salt.
I But this is a canoe applicable only to the cotton
distticts of Madras. The general reason for the
want of profit in the cultivation of cotton is, that
I practically the assessment of land throughout India,
t is destructive of profit: and this we undertake here-
. after to show.

Bosse ET imagisted that he had put a (samples
trine,ulsher on protestantisra by writing a book,
whit h satisfactoray proved that protestant a differed.
The Quarterly Iter;ene demolishes political economy
and :roe trade with an equally sweeping and effective
-.troke, by proving that their doctors differ. Aft. r
the lapse of three quarters of a century, the followers
of ADAM SMITH would modify some, not of his prin.
cplre, bat their corollaries. Ergo, with the reviewer,
noliiesl economy is no science. LAPLACZ followed
NINTON, and eorreeed some of his details; ergo,
would say the Quarterly, astronomy is no science.
Tiie Quarterly Review, the Morning Post, and
the learned serjeaut who has published his notes on
the protectionists brief, have all got astride of a
sayir gof ADAM Slum's, that foreign trade was not
good as home trade, bec..nee the latter rerlaced
two English capitals, the former bat 0,.e. The truth
is, that there are generally three capitals at work, two
prorluci:4 the distinct articles to be exchanged, at.d a
third engaged in effecting that interchange, with the
aavances and the transport. Each of the twn capitals
first mentioned replace themselves, but as they are
to, retnnte to barter, the third, or trade capital, is

required to go between them.
New, 1. these cspitals be all employed for home
consumption, they give rise to aright accumulation of
washi.. They keep certain numbers employed, give
a certain additional value to the raw material that is
manufactured ; but any gain, above that which is
neciessiery to replue capital employed, is taken from
tee pocketof one Englishman to put into that of another.
If the agricultural interest cm get during. one year
more for its produce in home coostunpron : or if
another year the manufacturers of clothing
supply the home market, at a (to them)
mere lucrative price, on either side there are riches
and profit, but it is a profit carved out of English
neeessities. In foreign intercharge it is far different. '
fume every profit is added to the stoek of Er.glish
wealth, and the commercial capital that is employed
in bringing about the interchange is, at least one halt
of it, replaced at the expense of the foreigner.
But foreign trade is far more useful than this.
From it alone can that excitement come and that
impulse be given to manufactures which make their
progress. And it is by foreign trade alone that
nations have been able to take in a few years those
strides, which otherwise would require centuries to I
sompass.
Dees it not appear to have been very hard on the
first spinners and weavers of English wool, that their
wool, by being exported, should have been raised in
price, and by being manufactured in Flanders, and
re-imported, should give the English landlords and
the foreign weavers, increased profit to the detriment
of the English artisan class? But the wealth which
thus accrued to the agriculturists and the competition
which operated on the artisan, soon brought the ma-
nufacture back to England, and enriched both.
Of late years, it is not the agriculturist, but the
manufacturer, that has been enriched by exportation,
and the riches thus amused from the foreigner have
overflowed from the commercial and manufacturing
upon the landed interest, creating a demand for its
produce, supplying it with capital, opening paths
to industry, rimins. the labour market, and lest,
though not least, racing rents.
The fact is, that but for foreign, or for free trade, II
breaking is now upon the agriculturist, now upon
the manufacturer, arousing both to fresh exertions,
the two classes of producers, those of agriculturist and
non-agriculturist values, would but alternately de-
vour and pamper each other, and put their sloth
and self in the way of each other's prosperity,
comfort, and abundance, and to the complete preven-
tion of any wealth being accumulated or perfection
attained.
There have been statesmen and countries, France
for example, that have gone upon the system of
cherishing exclusively a home trade. The result
was, that there was no means of, or incite-
ment to, amassing capital; that the little
capital which did exist lay dormant, and
was frittered away in trifling luxury, and absorbed
by mortgagee.; that every article was rare, dear, and
Imperfect, agriculture on the one side, and manufac-
tures on the other. The preference of home trade to
foreign, on the pretence that the former employs two
capitals for the other's one, is about the most mon-
strous contradiction of truth that was ever made.
Whilst the home trade would peddle on with scarcely
lan addition to capital, the foreign trade not only mul-
tiplies production for itself, bas. literally compels a
hundrel fold production for home. Foreign trade
creates not two capitals but a hundred capitals for
the one which the home trade would vegetate on.
A more gluing and absurd sophism, if possible, is
to make profits unite and multiply them by quick
returns of trade. We suppose that on all capital
employed, the interest or the profit are measured by
time well as quantity. If the interchange be accom-
plished in a mouth, the interest or profit is no doubt
calculated by the month. The ides, that in every
monthly turning of capital on a home trade, the same
per ceetue is kaund as on a year of distant trade, is
an economical sophism that surely none save a merjeasit-
at-law could be guilty of.
The greatest gains in trade are those founded on
the peperior intelligence and calculation of the mer-
Ghent, who can direct the operations of distant int. r-
change. It ie buying in one cluntry or quarter of the
world, and wiling in gaoler, winch requires fore-
sight and sagacity, and which in consequence opens
the greatest chance for gain. England is and has
been the land of the great merchant, as
Vienna and Holland were. What the pro-
tectionists desire is to convert us into a nation
of pedlars. By following their injunctions we should
oat attain even the poor doveieprnent of Francis
ler Austria, for these countries have really regions at
holm with different climes end products, calculated